title
stringlengths 3
84
| link
stringlengths 33
114
| frames_prompt_id
sequencelengths 1
11
| original_link
sequencelengths 1
11
| text
stringlengths 0
134k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
A_Single_Man | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Single_Man | [
604
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Single_Man"
] | A Single Man is a 2009 American period romantic drama film based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood. The directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, the film stars Colin Firth, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of George Falconer, a depressed gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962.
The film premiered on September 11, 2009, at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, and went on the film festival circuit. After it screened at the 34th Toronto International Film Festival, The Weinstein Company picked it up for distribution in the United States and Germany. An initial limited run in the United States commenced on December 11, 2009, to qualify it for the 82nd Academy Awards with a wider release in early 2010.
Plot
On November 30, 1962, a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis, George Falconer is a middle-aged English college professor living in Los Angeles. George dreams that he encounters the body of his longtime partner, Jim, at the scene of the car accident that took Jim's life eight months earlier. He bends down to kiss his dead lover. After awakening, George delivers a voiceover discussing the pain and depression he has endured since Jim's death and his intention to end his life that evening.
George receives a phone call from his dearest friend, Charley, who projects lightheartedness despite her also being miserable. George goes about his day putting his affairs in order and focusing on the beauty of isolated events, believing he is seeing things for the last time. At times, he recalls his sixteen-year-long relationship with Jim.
During the school day, George comes into contact with a student, Kenny Potter, who shows interest in George and disregards conventional boundaries of student–professor discussion. George also forms an unexpected connection with a Spanish male prostitute, Carlos. That evening, George meets Charley for dinner. Though they initially reminisce and amuse themselves by dancing, Charley's desire for a deeper relationship with George and her failure to understand his relationship with Jim angers George.
George goes to a bar and discovers that Kenny has followed him. They get a round of drinks, go skinny dipping, and then return to George's house and continue drinking. George passes out and wakes up in bed with Kenny asleep in another room. While watching Kenny, George discovers that he has fallen asleep holding George's gun to keep George from killing himself. George locks the gun away, burns his suicide notes and in a voiceover explains that he has rediscovered the ability "to feel, rather than think". As he makes peace with his grief, George suffers a heart attack and dies, while envisioning Jim appearing and kissing him.
Cast
Jon Hamm has an uncredited voice cameo as Jim's cousin Harold Ackerly, who calls George to tell him of Jim's death and that the funeral is "just for family."
Production
Fashion designer Tom Ford, as a first-time director, financed the film himself. The film places emphasis on the culture of the 1960s; the production design is by the same team that designed AMC television's Mad Men, which is set in the same era. The actual house where the character George lives in the film was designed in 1948 by John Lautner, his first house after leaving Frank Lloyd Wright. The film was shot in 21 days (from 3 November to 5 December 2008), according to "The Making of A Single Man", a featurette included on the DVD release of the film.
Marketing controversy
An early theatrical poster for A Single Man featured a close-up shot of Colin Firth and Julianne Moore lying side by side, their arms and shoulders touching. This led to speculation that the work's gay content and themes were being deleted or diminished in its marketing materials to improve its chances of success with a wider audience. A new poster with Moore relocated to the background was issued. The film's original trailer placed more emphasis on the relationship between George and Jim but a re-cut trailer omitted a shot of George and Jim kissing while retaining a kiss between George and Charley. Also deleted were shots of George meeting hustler Carlos outside a liquor store, George and Kenny running nude into the ocean, and a shot of George staring into a male student's eyes, while keeping a shot of George staring into the eyes of a female student.
Speaking of the controversy, Moore said that director Tom Ford expressed concern that the original poster made the film appear to be a romantic comedy and that he ordered that the poster be changed. However Ford, noting he does not see the film in terms of gay or straight, said, "I don't think the movie's been de-gayed. I have to say that we live in a society that's pretty weird. For example, you can have full-frontal male nudity on HBO, yet in cinema, you can't have naked male buttocks. You can't have men kissing each other without it being considered adult content. So, in order to cut a trailer that can go into broad distribution in theaters, certain things had to be edited out. But it wasn't an intentional attempt to remove the gayness of the movie." Conversely, Colin Firth said, "[The marketing] is deceptive. I don't think they should do that because there's nothing to sanitize. It's a beautiful story of love between two men and I see no point in hiding that. People should see it for what it is." Harvey Weinstein would only say, when asked about marketing a gay romance, "Brokeback Mountain did pretty well. Midnight Cowboy did pretty well. If you know how to market, you can market. There's an audience for it." When pressed about the poster, Weinstein cut off the interview, saying, "I'm good. You got enough. Thank you." Peter Knegt of IndieWire suggested that The Weinstein Company "de-gayed" the trailer to better the film's chances of receiving Academy Award nominations.
Reception
Critical response
A Single Man has received an overall positive reception from critics, with most reviews singling out Colin Firth's performance. It currently holds an 86% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 192 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10, with the site's consensus being that "Though the costumes are beautiful and the art direction impeccable, what stands out most from this debut by fashion designer Tom Ford is the leading performance by Colin Firth." Metacritic has compiled an average score of 77 (generally favorable reviews) from 35 critic reviews.
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote "Some films aren't revelations, exactly, but they burrow so deeply into old truths about love and loss and the mess and thrill of life, they seem new anyway" Bob Mondello of NPR commented "An exquisite, almost sensual grief suffuses every frame of A Single Man." Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle wrote "Everything fits perfectly, from titles to fin, but most of all Colin Firth, who dons the role of George like a fine bespoke suit."
Critics who liked the film include The A.V. Club film critic Nathan Rabin, who gave the film an A− score, arguing that "A Single Man is a film of tremendous style wedded to real substance, and rooted in "Firth's affecting lead performance as a man trying to keep it together for one last day after his world has fallen apart." Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times also praised Firth, saying that he "plays George superbly, as a man who prepares a face to meet the faces that he meets. He betrays very little emotion, and certainly his thoughts cannot be read in his eyes."
The Times newspaper of London called the film "a thing of heart-stopping beauty . . . There will be critics who will be unable to get past the director's background, but rest assured: Tom Ford is the real deal." Variety's verdict: "Luminous and treasurable, despite its imperfections. An impressive helming debut for fashion designer Tom Ford."
Accolades
The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 66th Venice International Film Festival and won the festival's third annual Queer Lion; Colin Firth was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the film festival for his performance in the film. He also received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Additionally, Firth received nominations at the Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Academy Awards. For her performance, Julianne Moore was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.
Abel Korzeniowski was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Arianne Phillips was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design.
The film received the Grand Prix from the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It also won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release and was named the AFI's Film of the Year.
Soundtrack
The official soundtrack was released by Silva Screen Records on December 22, 2009. The tracklist consisted of original music composed by Abel Korzeniowski, operatic arias by Shigeru Umebayashi, as well as songs featured in the film.
Track listing
"Stillness of the Mind" – Abel Korzeniowski - 3:54
"Drowning" – Abel Korzeniowski - 1:48
"Snow" – Abel Korzeniowski - 1:15
"Becoming George" – Abel Korzeniowski - 3:51
"George's Waltz" – Shigeru Umebayashi - 1:40
"Daydreams" – Abel Korzeniowski - 2:16
"Mescaline" – Abel Korzeniowski - 3:10
"Going Somewhere" – Abel Korzeniowski - 1:59
"(Variation On) Scotty Tails Madeleine" – Shigeru Umebayashi (written by: Bernard Herrmann) - 1:52
"Carlos" – Shigeru Umebayashi (written by: Bernard Herrmann) - 1:01
"La Wally, Act I: Ebben? / Ne Andro Lontana" – Miriam Gauci - 3:29
"Stormy Weather" – Etta James - 3:10
"Green Onions" – Booker T. & the M.G.'s - 2:54
"Blue Moon" – Jo Stafford - 4:39
"Swimming" – Abel Korzeniowski - 1:39
"And Just Like That" – Abel Korzeniowski - 4:53
"George's Waltz" – Shigeru Umebayashi - 3:18
"Sunset" – Abel Korzeniowski - 2:59
"Clock Tick" – Abel Korzeniowski - 2:06
References
Further reading
External links
A Single Man at IMDb
A Single Man at AllMovie
A Single Man at Rotten Tomatoes
A Single Man at Metacritic
A Single Man at Box Office Mojo
2009 interview with director Tom Ford on A Single Man at CharlieRose.com |
Colin_Firth | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Firth | [
604
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Firth"
] | Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. Over his career he has been the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2011, Firth was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to drama. That same year, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2011.
He was identified in the mid-1980s with the "Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a series of challenging roles, including leading roles in A Month in the Country (1987), Tumbledown (1988) and Valmont (1989). His portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice led to widespread attention, and to roles in more prominent films such as The English Patient (1996), Fever Pitch (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), and Love Actually (2003). He is also known for co-starring as Mark Darcy in the romantic comedy films Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), and Bridget Jones's Baby (2016), and Harry Bright in the musical comedy films Mamma Mia! (2008) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again! (2018).
Firth won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of King George VI in the historical drama The King's Speech (2010). He was Oscar-nominated for playing a gay man who lost his long-time partner in the romantic drama A Single Man (2009), a performance which earned him the BAFTA Award and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. He subsequently played secret agent Harry Hart in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), and acted in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), 1917 (2019), Supernova (2020), Operation Mincemeat (2021). For his roles on television, he received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his portrayals of Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart in the BBC film Conspiracy (2001), and Michael Peterson in the HBO limited series The Staircase (2022).
In 2012, he founded the production company Raindog Films, where he served as a producer for Eye in the Sky (2015) and Loving (2016). His films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide. Firth has campaigned for the rights of Indigenous people and is a member of Survival International. He has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers, refugees' rights and the environment. He commissioned and co-authored a scientific paper on a study of the differences in brain structure between people of differing political orientations.
Early life and education
Firth was born in the village of Grayshott, Hampshire, to parents who were academics and teachers. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College (now the University of Winchester); and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer at King Alfred's and education officer for the Nigerian government. Firth is the eldest of three children; his sister Kate is an actress and voice coach, and his brother Jonathan is also an actor. His maternal grandparents were Congregationalist ministers and his paternal grandfather was an Anglican priest. They did overseas missionary work, and both of his parents were born and spent part of their childhoods in India.
As a child, Firth frequently travelled due to his parents' work, spending some years in Nigeria. He also lived in St. Louis, Missouri, when he was 11, which he has described as "a difficult time". On returning to England, he attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School), which at the time was a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire. He was still an outsider and the target of bullying. To counter this, he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent and copied his schoolmates' lack of interest in schoolwork.
Firth began attending drama workshops at age 10, and by 14 had decided to be a professional actor. Until further education, he was not academically inclined, later saying in an interview, "I didn't like school. I just thought it was boring and mediocre and nothing they taught me seemed to be of any interest at all." However, at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, he was imbued with a love of English literature by an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards, and has said that his two years there were among the happiest of his life.
After his sixth form years, Firth moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, where he made many contacts and got a job in the wardrobe department at the National Theatre. He subsequently studied at Drama Centre London.
Career
1983–1995: Early work and breakthrough
Firth played Hamlet in the Drama Centre end-of-year production, and in 1984, Firth made his film debut as Tommy Judd, Guy Bennett's straight, Marxist school friend in the screen adaptation of the play (with Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett). It was the start of a longstanding public feud between Firth and Everett, which was eventually resolved. He starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires (1986), a TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's novel.
In 1987, Firth and other up-and-coming British actors such as Tim Roth, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'. That year, he appeared with Kenneth Branagh in the film version of J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country. Sheila Johnston observed a theme in his early work of playing those traumatised by war. He portrayed real-life British soldier Robert Lawrence MC in the 1988 BBC dramatisation Tumbledown. Lawrence was severely injured at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the Falklands War, and the film details his struggles to adjust to his disability whilst confronted with indifference from the government and public. It attracted controversy at the time, with criticism coming from left and right sides of the political spectrum. Despite this, the performance brought Firth a Royal TV Society Best Actor Award, and a nomination for the 1989 BAFTA Television Award. In 1989, he played the title role in Miloš Forman's Valmont, based on Les Liaisons dangereuses. Released just a year after Dangerous Liaisons, it did not make a big impact in comparison. That year he also played a paranoid, socially awkward character in the Argentinian psychological thriller Apartment Zero.
Firth finally became a British household name through his role as the aloof, haughty aristocrat Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Producer Sue Birtwistle's first choice for the part, he was eventually persuaded to take it despite his unfamiliarity with Austen's writing. He and co-star Jennifer Ehle began a romantic relationship during the filming, which received media attention only after their separation. Sheila Johnston wrote that Firth's approach to the part "lent Darcy complex shades of coldness, even caddishness, in the early episodes". The series was an international success and unexpectedly elevated Firth to stardom—in some part due to a scene not from the novel, where he emerges from a lake swim in a wet shirt. Although he did not mind being recognised as "a romantic idol as a Darcy with smouldering sex appeal" in a role that "officially turned him into a heart-throb", he expressed the wish not to be associated with Pride and Prejudice forever. He was, therefore, reluctant to accept similar roles and risk becoming typecast.
1996–2008: Romance and ensemble films
For a time, it did seem as if Mr. Darcy would overshadow the rest of Firth's career, and there were humorous allusions to the role in his next five movies. The most notable was his casting as the love interest Mark Darcy in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, itself a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Firth accepted the part as he saw it as an opportunity to lampoon his Mr. Darcy character. The film was very successful and critically well-liked. A 2004 sequel was mostly panned by critics but still financially successful.
Prior to this, Firth had a significant supporting role in The English Patient (1996) as the husband of Kristin Scott Thomas's character, whose jealousy of her adultery leads to tragedy. That year he also played the husband of the character of Kristin's sister, Serena Scott Thomas, in the television miniseries Nostromo. Of the two he said "Serena was a much more faithful wife."
He next played the lead role as a school teacher and obsessed Arsenal F.C. football fan in the romantic fictional adaptation Fever Pitch (1997) of Nick Hornby’s million-selling autobiographical essay Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life.
He had parts in light romantic period pieces such as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Relative Values (2000) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002). He appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999), and had a more serious role as Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart in Conspiracy (2001), concerning the Nazi Wannsee Conference, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Firth featured in the ensemble all-star cast of Richard Curtis' Love Actually (2003), another financial success which divided critics. He was also given solo billing as the romantic lead in Hope Springs, but it received very poor reviews and made little box-office impact. He starred as Amanda Bynes' character's father in the 2003 teen comedy What A Girl Wants, which was based on the play The Reluctant Debutante. He played painter Johannes Vermeer opposite Scarlett Johansson in the 2003 release Girl with a Pearl Earring; some critics praised the film's subtlety and sumptuous visuals, whilst others found it almost restrained, tedious and bereft of emotion. Nevertheless, it received mostly favourable reviews, was moderately successful and earned several awards and nominations.
In 2005 Firth appeared in Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson, in which he plays a struggling widowed father, it was a rare venture for him into the fantasy genre. He also appeared in Where the Truth Lies, a return to some of his darker, more intense early roles, that included a notorious scene featuring a bisexual orgy. Sheila Johnston wrote that it "confounded his fans", but nonetheless that his character "draws knowingly on that suave, cultivated persona", which could be traced from Mr. Darcy. Other films from this time included Then She Found Me (2007) with Helen Hunt and The Last Legion (2007) with Aishwarya Rai.
In 2008, he played the adult Blake Morrison reminiscing on his difficult relationship with his ailing father in the film adaptation of Morrison's memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father? It received generally favorable reviews. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it four out of five stars. Manohla Dargis in The New York Times said: "It's a pleasure to watch Mr. Firth–a supremely controlled actor who makes each developing fissure visible–show the adult Blake coming to terms with his contradictory feelings, letting the love and the hurt pour out of him." Philip French of The Observer wrote that Firth "[does] quiet agonising to perfection." However, Derek Elley of Variety called the film "an unashamed tearjerker that's all wrapping and no center." While he conceded that it was "undeniably effective at a gut level despite its dramatic shortcomings", he added, "Things aren't helped any by Firth's dour perf, as his Blake comes across as a self-centered whiner, a latter-day Me Generation figure who's obsessed with finding problems when there really aren't any."
The film adaptation of Mamma Mia! (2008) was Firth's first foray into musicals. He described the experience as "a bit nerve-wracking" but believed he got off lightly by being tasked with one of the less demanding songs, Our Last Summer. Mamma Mia became the highest grossing British-made film of all time, taking in over $600 million worldwide. Like Love Actually, it polarised critics, with supporters such as Empire calling it "cute, clean, camp fun, full of sunshine, and toe tappers", whereas Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian said the film gave him a "need to vomit". Carrie Rickey in The Philadelphia Inquirer described Firth's performance as "the embodiment of forced mirth." That year, Firth also starred in Easy Virtue, which screened at the Rome Film Festival to excellent reviews. He starred in Genova, which premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2009 he appeared in A Christmas Carol, an adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel, using the performance capture procedure, playing Scrooge's optimistic nephew Fred.
2009–2011: Critical success
At the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, Firth received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his role in Tom Ford's directorial debut A Single Man, as a college professor grappling with solitude after the death of his longtime partner. His performance earned him career-best reviews and Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors' Guild, BAFTA, and BFCA nominations; he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in February 2010.
Firth starred in the 2010 film The King's Speech as Prince Albert, Duke of York/King George VI, detailing his efforts to overcome his speech impediment while becoming monarch of the United Kingdom at the end of 1936. At the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the film received a standing ovation. The TIFF release of The King's Speech fell on Firth's 50th birthday and was called the "best 50th birthday gift". On 16 January 2011, he won a Golden Globe for his performance in The King's Speech in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. The Screen Actors Guild recognised him with the award for Best Male Actor on 30 January 2011.
In February 2011, he won his second consecutive best actor award at the 2011 BAFTA awards, and received an Academy Award for Best Actor in on 27 February 2011. The film grossed $414,211,549 worldwide.
Firth appeared as senior British secret agent Bill Haydon in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson and co-starring Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and John Hurt. It gathered mostly excellent reviews. The Independent described Firth's performance as "suavely arrogant" and praised the film. Deborah Young in The Hollywood Reporter thought Firth got "all the best dialogue", which he delivered "sardonically". Leslie Felperin in Variety wrote that all the actors brought their "A game" and Firth was in "particularly choleric, amusing form."
2012–present: Established actor
In May 2011, Firth began filming Gambit—a remake of a 1960s crime caper, in the part originally played by Michael Caine. It was released in the UK in November 2012 and was a financial and critical failure. Empire's Kim Newman wrote, "Firth starts out homaging Caine with his horn-rimmed cool but soon defaults to his usual repressed British cold mode", whilst Time Out London called his a "likeable performance", although criticised the film overall. Stephen Dalton in The Hollywood Reporter said, "To his credit, Firth keeps his performance grounded in downbeat realism while all around are wildly mugging in desperate pursuit of thin, forced laughs. In 2012, Firth co-founded Raindog Films with British music industry executive and entrepreneur Ged Doherty. Its first feature, Eye in the Sky, for which Firth was co-producer, was released in April 2016.
In May 2013, it was announced that Firth had signed to co-star with Emma Stone in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Magic in the Moonlight, set in the 1920s and shot on the French Riviera. In 2014, he did his first turn as Harry Hart / Agent Galahad in the spy action film Kingsman: The Secret Service, which grossed $414.4 million against an $81 million budget. Firth had been announced to voice Paddington Bear for the film Paddington; however, he announced his withdrawal on 17 June 2014, saying: "It's been bittersweet to see this delightful creature take shape and come to the sad realization that he simply doesn't have my voice".
In June 2015, he began filming the story of amateur yachtsman Donald Crowhurst in The Mercy, alongside Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis and Jonathan Bailey. In 2016, Firth reprised his popular role as Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Baby, which fared much better with audiences and critics than the second in the series (Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason). He portrayed American book editor Max Perkins in Genius, co-starring Jude Law as author Thomas Wolfe and based on A. Scott Berg's biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius. In 2016 he began filming for Rupert Everett's directorial debut The Happy Prince, a biopic of Oscar Wilde, playing Wilde's friend Reginald "Reggie" Turner.
In 2017, he reprised his role as Jamie from 2003's Love Actually in the television short film Red Nose Day Actually, by original writer and director Richard Curtis. Also that year, Firth returned as Harry Hart / Agent Galahad in the sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle. In 2018, Firth reprised his role of Harry Bright in the sequel to Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. That year, he also appeared as William Weatherall Wilkins in the musical fantasy film Mary Poppins Returns, starring Emily Blunt in the title role. He also played British naval commander David Russell in Thomas Vinterberg's Kursk, a film about the true story of the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster, in which he starred alongside Matthias Schoenaerts. In 2019, he had a cameo as British General Erinmore in Sam Mendes' World War I film 1917. Set in 1947 England, Firth starred with Julie Walters in The Secret Garden and later in 2020 with Stanley Tucci in Supernova. In 2021, he starred in romantic drama film Mothering Sunday directed by Eva Husson. In December 2021, he was cast in Sam Mendes' drama film Empire of Light, starring Olivia Colman. He was seen as Ewen Montagu in Operation Mincemeat, in April 2022. Firth returned to television in May 2022 starring as Michael Peterson in the HBO production The Staircase.
Writing
Firth's first published work, "The Department of Nothing", appeared in Speaking with the Angel (2000), a collection of short stories edited by Nick Hornby and published to benefit the TreeHouse Trust to aid autistic children. He met Hornby during the filming of the original Fever Pitch. He contributed to the book We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples (2009), which explores the cultures, diversity and challenges of Indigenous peoples around the world. It features contributions from many Western writers, including Laurens van der Post, Noam Chomsky, Claude Lévi-Strauss; and from Indigenous people such as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Roy Sesana. Profits from the book's sale benefit the Indigenous rights organisation Survival International. Firth was an executive producer for the film In Prison My Whole Life, featuring Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis. It was selected to the 2007 London Film Festival and the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
In December 2010, Firth was guest editor on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, where he commissioned research to scan the brains of volunteers (mostly university students) to see if there were structural differences that might account for political leanings. The resulting academic paper listed him as an author, along with two University College London researchers and the science reporter of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. For his contribution, professor John Jost called Firth a 'scientific ambassador' in the field of political neuroscience. The study suggested that conservatives had more development in the amygdala, and liberals in the anterior cingulate cortex.
In 2012, Firth's audiobook recording of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair was released at Audible.com and was declared Audiobook of the Year at the 2013 Audie Awards.
Activism
Firth has been a longstanding supporter of Survival International, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the rights of tribal peoples. Speaking in 2001, he said, "My interest in tribal peoples goes back many years ... and I have supported [Survival] ever since." In 2003, during the promotion of Love Actually, he spoke in defence of the Indigenous people of Botswana, condemning the Botswana government's eviction of the Gana and Gwi people (San) from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. He said of San, "These people are not the remnants of a past era who need to be brought up to date. Those who are able to continue to live on the land that is rightfully theirs are facing the 21st century with a confidence that many of us in the so-called developed world can only envy." He has also backed a Survival International campaign to press the Brazilian government to take more decisive action in defence of Awá-Guajá people, whose land and livelihood is critically threatened by the actions of loggers.
As a supporter of the Refugee Council, Firth was involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a group of 42 Congolese asylum seekers, expressing concerns in open letters to The Independent and The Guardian that they faced being murdered on their return to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Firth said: "To me, it's just basic civilisation to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the Middle-England xenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for." Four of the asylum seekers were given last-minute reprieves from deportation.
Firth, along with other celebrities, has been involved in the Oxfam global campaign Make Trade Fair, focusing on trade practices considered especially unfair to third-world producers, including dumping, high import tariffs, and labour rights. He and some collaborators opened Eco, an eco-friendly shop in West London, which offers fair-trade and eco-friendly goods, and expert advice on making spaces more energy efficient. In October 2009, at the London Film Festival, he launched a film and political activism website, Brightwide (since decommissioned), with his wife Livia.
During the 2010 general election, Firth announced his support for the Liberal Democrats, having previously been a Labour supporter, citing asylum and refugees' rights as key reasons for the change. In December 2010, he publicly dropped his support of the Liberal Democrats, citing their U-turn on tuition fees, and said that he was currently unaffiliated. He appeared in literature supporting changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing members of parliament to the House of Commons, in the unsuccessful Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.
In 2009, Firth joined the 10:10 project, supporting the movement calling for people to reduce their carbon footprints. In 2010, he endorsed "Roots & Shoots", an education programme in the UK run by the Jane Goodall Institute.
Personal life
In 1989, Firth began a relationship with Meg Tilly, his co-star in Valmont. Their son, William Joseph Firth, was born in 1990. William is now also an actor, appearing with his father in Bridget Jones's Baby in 2016. The family moved to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada but Firth and Tilly ultimately broke up in 1994. During the filming of Pride and Prejudice, Firth and co-star Jennifer Ehle began a romantic relationship, which received media attention only after their separation.
In 1997, Firth married Italian activist Livia Giuggioli. They have two sons, Luca and Matteo. Firth speaks fluent Italian. The family divided their time between Wandsworth, in London, and Umbria, Italy. They announced their separation in 2019. They had gone through a private separation several years prior, but had reconciled.
Firth was a vocal opponent of the Brexit initiative for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Following the referendum's passage, and the ensuing uncertainty over rights of non-EU citizens, he applied for "dual citizenship (British and Italian)" in 2017 to "have the same passports as his wife and children". The Italian interior minister, Marco Minniti, announced Firth's application had been approved on 22 September 2017. Firth said, "I will always be extremely British (you only have to look at or listen to me)."
In 2011, after winning the Academy Award for his portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, Firth suggested that he may be a republican (anti-monarchist) in a CNN interview with Piers Morgan, saying that voting was "one of his favourite things" and that unelected institutions were "a problem for him".
Acting credits and awards
Firth has received numerous awards, including an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance as King George VI in Tom Hooper's historical drama The King's Speech (2010).
He received an honorary doctorate on 19 October 2007 from the University of Winchester. On 13 January 2011, he was presented with the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In April 2011, Time included him in its list of the World's 100 Most Influential People. He was made a Freeman of the City of London on 8 March 2012, and was awarded an honorary fellowship by the University of the Arts London in 2012.
Firth was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
References
External links
Colin Firth at IMDb
Colin Firth at the BFI's Screenonline
Colin Firth at AllMovie |
List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Colin_Firth | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Colin_Firth | [
604
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Colin_Firth"
] | The following article is a List of awards and nominations received by Colin Firth.
Colin Firth is an English actor known for his roles in film, television, and theatre. Over his career has received an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Firth received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal as King George VI in Tom Hooper's historical drama The King's Speech (2010). The performance also earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role. He was previously Oscar-nominated for playing a gay man who lost in long-time partner in the romantic drama A Single Man (2009), which also earned him the BAFTA Award and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor.
He also received three British Academy Film Award nominations for his performances in the romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary (2000), the romantic drama A Single Man (2009), and the historical drama The King's Speech (2010), winning for the later two. He received Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture nominations for the romantic epic drama The English Patient (1996), and the romantic period comedy-drama Shakespeare in Love (1998), before winning for the historical drama The King's Speech (2010).
For his work on television, he received two British Academy Television Award nominations for his roles in the BBC projects Tumbledown (1989), and Pride and Prejudice (1996) as well as two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart in the BBC / HBO film Conspiracy (2001), and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for playing Michael Peterson the HBO limited series The Staircase (2022). For the later he also received a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Major associations
Academy Awards
BAFTA Awards
Golden Globe Awards
Emmy Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Critic awards
Critics' Choice Awards
European Film Awards
Other awards
== References == |
Nineteen_Eighty-Four | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four | [
605
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four"
] | Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, it centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours within society. Orwell, a staunch believer in democratic socialism and member of the anti-Stalinist Left, modelled the Britain under authoritarian socialism in the novel on the Soviet Union in the era of Stalinism and on the very similar practices of both censorship and propaganda in Nazi Germany. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated.
The story takes place in an imagined future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.
The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent mid-level worker at the Ministry of Truth who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. Smith keeps a forbidden diary. He begins a relationship with a colleague, Julia, and they learn about a shadowy resistance group called the Brotherhood. However, their contact within the Brotherhood turns out to be a Party agent, and Smith and Julia are arrested. He is subjected to months of psychological manipulation and torture by the Ministry of Love. He ultimately betrays Julia and is released; he finally realises he loves Big Brother.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularised the term "Orwellian" as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including "Big Brother", "doublethink", "Thought Police", "thoughtcrime", "Newspeak", and "2 + 2 = 5". Parallels have been drawn between the novel's subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression, among other themes. Orwell described his book as a "satire", and a display of the "perversions to which a centralised economy is liable," while also stating he believed "that something resembling it could arrive." Time included the novel on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005, and it was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list, reaching number 13 on the editors' list and number 6 on the readers' list. In 2003, it was listed at number eight on The Big Read survey by the BBC. It has been adapted across media since its publication, most notably as a film, released in 1984, starring John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton, and as an audio drama in 2024 starring Andrew Garfield, Andrew Scott, Cynthia Erivo and Tom Hardy.
Writing and publication
Idea
The Orwell Archive at University College London contains undated notes about ideas that evolved into Nineteen Eighty-Four. The notebooks have been deemed "unlikely to have been completed later than January 1944", and "there is a strong suspicion that some of the material in them dates back to the early part of the war".
In one 1948 letter, Orwell claims to have "first thought of [the book] in 1943", while in another he says he thought of it in 1944 and cites 1943's Tehran Conference as inspiration: "What it is really meant to do is to discuss the implications of dividing the world up into 'Zones of Influence' (I thought of it in 1944 as a result of the Tehran Conference), and in addition to indicate by parodying them the intellectual implications of totalitarianism". Orwell had toured Austria in May 1945 and observed manoeuvring he thought would probably lead to separate Soviet and Allied Zones of Occupation.
In January 1944, literature professor Gleb Struve introduced Orwell to Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1924 dystopian novel We. In his response Orwell expressed an interest in the genre, and informed Struve that he had begun writing ideas for one of his own, "that may get written sooner or later." In 1946, Orwell wrote about the 1931 dystopian novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in his article "Freedom and Happiness" for the Tribune, and noted similarities to We. By this time Orwell had scored a critical and commercial hit with his 1945 political satire Animal Farm, which raised his profile. For a follow-up he decided to produce a dystopian work of his own.
Writing
In a June 1944 meeting with Fredric Warburg, co-founder of his British publisher Secker & Warburg, shortly before the release of Animal Farm, Orwell announced that he had written the first 12 pages of his new novel. He could only earn a living from journalism, however, and predicted the book would not see a release before 1947. Progress was slow; by the end of September 1945 Orwell had written some 50 pages. Orwell became disenchanted with the restrictions and pressures involved with journalism and grew to detest city life in London. He suffered from bronchiectasis and a lesion in one lung; the harsh winter worsened his health.
In May 1946, Orwell arrived on the Scottish island of Jura. He had wanted to retreat to a Hebridean island for several years; David Astor recommended he stay at Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the island that his family owned, with no electricity or hot water. Here Orwell intermittently drafted and finished Nineteen Eighty-Four. His first stay lasted until October 1946, during which time he made little progress on the few already completed pages, and at one point did no work on it for three months. After spending the winter in London, Orwell returned to Jura; in May 1947 he reported to Warburg that despite progress being slow and difficult, he was roughly a third of the way through. He sent his "ghastly mess" of a first draft manuscript to London, where Miranda Christen volunteered to type a clean version. Orwell's health worsened further in September, however, and he was confined to bed with inflammation of the lungs. He lost almost two stone (28 pounds or 12.7 kg) in weight and had recurring night sweats, but he decided not to see a doctor and continued writing. On 7 November 1947, he completed the first draft in bed, and subsequently travelled to East Kilbride near Glasgow for medical treatment at Hairmyres Hospital, where a specialist confirmed a chronic and infectious case of tuberculosis.
Orwell was discharged in the summer of 1948, after which he returned to Jura and produced a full second draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he finished in November. He asked Warburg to have someone come to Barnhill and retype the manuscript, which was so untidy that the task was only considered possible if Orwell was present, as only he could understand it. The previous volunteer had left the country and no other could be found at short notice, so an impatient Orwell retyped it himself at a rate of roughly 4,000 words a day during bouts of fever and bloody coughing fits. On 4 December 1948, Orwell sent the finished manuscript to Secker & Warburg and left Barnhill for good in January 1949. He recovered at a sanitarium in the Cotswolds.
Title
Shortly before completion of the second draft, Orwell hesitated between two titles for the novel: The Last Man in Europe, an early title, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Warburg suggested the latter, which he took to be a more commercially viable choice. There has been a theory – doubted by Dorian Lynskey (author of a 2019 book about Nineteen Eighty-Four) – that 1984 was chosen simply as an inversion of the year 1948, the year in which it was being completed. Lynskey says the idea was "first suggested by Orwell's US publisher", and it was also mentioned by Christopher Hitchens in his introduction to the 2003 edition of Animal Farm and 1984, which also notes that the date was meant to give "an immediacy and urgency to the menace of totalitarian rule". However, Lynskey does not believe the inversion theory:
This idea ... seems far too cute for such a serious book. ... Scholars have raised other possibilities. [His wife] Eileen wrote a poem for her old school's centenary called 'End of the Century: 1984.' G. K. Chesterton's 1904 political satire The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which mocks the art of prophecy, opens in 1984. The year is also a significant date in The Iron Heel. But all of these connections are exposed as no more than coincidences by the early drafts of the novel ... First he wrote 1980, then 1982, and only later 1984. The most fateful date in literature was a late amendment.
Publication
In the run up to publication, Orwell called the novel "a beastly book" and expressed some disappointment towards it, thinking it would have been improved had he not been so ill. This was typical of Orwell, who had talked down his other books shortly before their release. Nevertheless, the book was enthusiastically received by Secker & Warburg, who acted quickly; before Orwell had left Jura he rejected their proposed blurb that portrayed it as "a thriller mixed up with a love story." He also refused a proposal from the American Book of the Month Club to release an edition without the appendix and chapter on Goldstein's book, a decision which Warburg claimed cut off about £40,000 in sales.
Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June 1949 in the UK; Orwell predicted earnings of around £500. A first print of 25,575 copies was followed by a further 5,000 copies in March and August 1950. The novel had the most immediate impact in the US, following its release there on 13 June 1949 by Harcourt Brace, & Co. An initial print of 20,000 copies was quickly followed by another 10,000 on 1 July, and again on 7 September. By 1970, over 8 million copies had been sold in the US, and in 1984 it topped the country's all-time best seller list.
In June 1952, Orwell's widow Sonia Bronwell sold the only surviving manuscript at a charity auction for £50. The draft remains the only surviving literary manuscript from Orwell, and is held at the John Hay Library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Variant English language editions
In the original published UK and US editions of 1984 numerous small variations in the text exist, the US edition altering Orwell's agreed edit of the text as was typical of publishing practices of the time in regard to spelling and punctuation, as well as some small edits and phrasings. While Orwell rejected a proposed book club edition which would see substantial sections of the book removed, these minor changes passed somewhat under the radar. Other more significant revisions and variant texts also exist however.
In 1984 Peter Davison edited Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile of the Extant Manuscript, published by Secker and Warburg in the UK and Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich in the US. This reproduced page for page Sonia Bronwell's copy of the original manuscript in facsimiles, as well as a complete typeset versions of that text - complete with Orwell's holograph and typewritten pages, and handwritten amendments and corrections. The book had a preface by Daniel Segal. It has been reprinted in various international editions with translated introductions and notes, and reprinted in English in limited edition formats.
In 1997, Davison produced a definitive text of Nineteen Eighty Four as part of Secker's 20 volume definitive edition of the Complete Works of George Orwell. This edition removed errors, typographic errors, and reversed editorial changes in the original editions made without Orwell's oversight, all based on detailed reference to Orwell's original manuscript and notes. This text has gone on to be reprinted in various subsequent paperback editions, including one with an introduction by Thomas Pynchon, without obvious note that it is a revised text, and has been translated as an unexpurgated version of text.
In 2021 Polygon published Nineteen Eighty Four: The Jura Edition, with an introduction by Alex Massie.
Plot
In an uncertain year, believed to be 1984, civilisation has been ravaged by world war, civil conflict, and revolution. Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain) is a province of Oceania, one of the three totalitarian super-states that rule the world. It is ruled by "The Party" under the ideology of "Ingsoc" (a Newspeak shortening of "English Socialism") and the mysterious leader Big Brother, who has an intense cult of personality. The Party brutally purges out anyone who does not fully conform to their regime, using the Thought Police and constant surveillance through telescreens (two-way televisions), cameras, and hidden microphones. Those who fall out of favour with the Party become "unpersons", disappearing with all evidence of their existence destroyed.
In London, Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, working at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to conform to the state's ever-changing version of history. Winston revises past editions of The Times, while the original documents are destroyed after being dropped into ducts known as memory holes, which lead to an immense furnace. He secretly opposes the Party's rule and dreams of rebellion, despite knowing that he is already a "thought-criminal" and is likely to be caught one day.
While in a prole neighbourhood he meets Mr. Charrington, the owner of an antiques shop, and buys a diary where he writes criticisms of the Party and Big Brother. To his dismay, when he visits a prole quarter he discovers they have no political consciousness. As he works in the Ministry of Truth, he observes Julia, a young woman maintaining the novel-writing machines at the ministry, whom Winston suspects of being a spy, and develops an intense hatred of her. He vaguely suspects that his superior, Inner Party official O'Brien, is part of an enigmatic underground resistance movement known as the Brotherhood, formed by Big Brother's reviled political rival Emmanuel Goldstein.
One day, Julia secretly hands Winston a love note, and the two begin a secret affair. Julia explains that she also loathes the Party, but Winston observes that she is politically apathetic and uninterested in overthrowing the regime. Initially meeting in the country, they later meet in a rented room above Mr. Charrington's shop. During the affair, Winston remembers the disappearance of his family during the civil war of the 1950s and his tense relationship with his estranged wife Katharine. Weeks later, O'Brien invites Winston to his flat, where he introduces himself as a member of the Brotherhood and sends Winston a copy of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Goldstein. Meanwhile, during the nation's Hate Week, Oceania's enemy suddenly changes from Eurasia to Eastasia, which goes mostly unnoticed. Winston is recalled to the Ministry to help make the necessary revisions to the records. Winston and Julia read parts of Goldstein's book, which explains how the Party maintains power, the true meanings of its slogans, and the concept of perpetual war. It argues that the Party can be overthrown if proles rise up against it. However, Winston never gets the opportunity to read the chapter that explains why the Party took power and is motivated to maintain it.
Winston and Julia are captured when Mr. Charrington is revealed to be an undercover Thought Police agent, and they are separated and imprisoned at the Ministry of Love. O'Brien also reveals himself to be a member of the Thought Police and a member of a false flag operation which catches political dissidents of the Party. Over several months, Winston is starved and relentlessly tortured to bring his beliefs in line with the Party. O'Brien tells Winston that he will never know whether the Brotherhood actually exists and that Goldstein's book was written collaboratively by him and other Party members; furthermore, O'Brien reveals to Winston that the Party sees power not as a means but as an end, and the ultimate purpose of the Party is seeking power entirely for its own sake. For the final stage of re-education, O'Brien takes Winston to Room 101, which contains each prisoner's worst fear. When confronted with rats, Winston denounces Julia and pledges allegiance to the Party.
Winston is released into public life and continues to frequent the Chestnut Tree café. He encounters Julia, and both reveal that they have betrayed the other and are no longer in love. Back in the café, a news alert celebrates Oceania's supposed massive victory over Eurasian armies in Africa. Winston finally accepts that he loves Big Brother.
Characters
Main characters
Winston Smith: the 39-year old protagonist who is a phlegmatic everyman harbouring thoughts of rebellion and is curious about the Party's power and the past before the Revolution.
Julia: Winston's lover who publicly espouses Party doctrine as a member of the fanatical Junior Anti-Sex League. Julia enjoys her small acts of rebellion and has no interest in giving up her lifestyle.
O'Brien: A mysterious character, O'Brien is a member of the Inner Party who poses as a member of The Brotherhood, the counter-revolutionary resistance, to catch Winston. He is a spy intending to deceive, trap, and capture Winston and Julia.
Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein never appear but play a big part in the plot and have a significant role in the worldbuilding of 1984.
Big Brother: the leader and figurehead of the Party that rules Oceania. A deep cult of personality is formed around him. It is not revealed whether he actually exists.
Emmanuel Goldstein: ostensibly a former leading figure in the Party who became the counter-revolutionary leader of the Brotherhood, and author of the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Goldstein is the symbolic enemy of the state—the national nemesis who ideologically unites the people of Oceania with the Party, especially during the Two Minutes Hate and other forms of fearmongering. However O'Brien claims that the book was actually written by the Party.
Secondary characters
Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford: former members of the Inner Party whom Winston vaguely remembers as among the original leaders of the Revolution, long before he had heard of Big Brother. They confessed to treasonable conspiracies with foreign powers and were then executed in the political purges of the 1960s. In between their confessions and executions, Winston saw them drinking in the Chestnut Tree Café—with broken noses, suggesting that their confessions had been obtained by torture. Later, in the course of his editorial work, Winston sees newspaper evidence contradicting their confessions, but drops it into a memory hole. Eleven years later, he is confronted with the same photograph during his interrogation.
Ampleforth: Winston's one-time Records Department colleague who was imprisoned for leaving the word "God" in a Kipling poem as he could not find another rhyme for "rod"; Winston encounters him at the Ministry of Love. Ampleforth is a dreamer and intellectual who takes pleasure in his work, and respects poetry and language, traits which cause him disfavour with the Party.
Charrington: an undercover officer of the Thought Police masquerading as a kind and sympathetic antiques dealer amongst the proles.
Katharine Smith: the emotionally indifferent wife whom Winston "can't get rid of". Despite disliking sexual intercourse, Katharine married Winston because it was their "duty to the Party". Although she was a "goodthinkful" ideologue, they separated because the couple could not conceive children. Divorce is not permitted, but couples who cannot have children may live separately. For much of the story Winston lives in vague hope that Katharine may die or could be "got rid of" so that he may marry Julia. He regrets not having killed her by pushing her over the edge of a quarry when he had the chance many years previously.
The Parsons family:
Tom Parsons: Winston's naïve neighbour, and an ideal member of the Outer Party: an uneducated, suggestible man who is utterly loyal to the Party, and fully believes in its perfect image. He is socially active and participates in the Party activities for his social class. He is friendly towards Smith, and despite his political conformity punishes his bullying son for firing a catapult at Winston. Later, as a prisoner, Winston sees Parsons imprisoned in the Ministry of Love, after his young daughter reported him to the Thought Police for speaking against Big Brother in his sleep. Even this does not dampen Parsons's belief in the Party—he says he could do "good work" in the hard labour camps.
Mrs. Parsons: Parsons's wife is a wan and hapless woman who is intimidated by her own children.
The Parsons children: a nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. Both are members of the Spies, a youth organisation that focuses on indoctrinating children with Party ideals and training them to report any suspected incidents of unorthodoxy. They represent the new generation of Oceanian citizens, the model society envisioned by the Inner Party without memory of life before Big Brother, and without family ties or emotional sentiment.
Syme: Winston's colleague at the Ministry of Truth, a lexicographer involved in compiling a new edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Although he is enthusiastic about his work and support for the Party, Winston notes, "He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly." Winston predicts, correctly, that Syme will become an unperson.
Setting
History of the world
The Revolution
Winston Smith's memories and his reading of the proscribed book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein, reveal that after the Second World War, a Third World War broke out in the early 1950s in which nuclear weapons destroyed hundreds of cities in Europe, western Russia and North America (though not stated, it is implied this was a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union). Colchester was destroyed, and London also suffered widespread aerial raids, leading Winston's family to take refuge in a London Underground station.
During the war, the Soviet Union invaded and absorbed all of Continental Europe, while the United States absorbed the British Commonwealth and later Latin America. This formed the basis of Eurasia and Oceania respectively. Due to the instability perpetuated by the nuclear war, these new nations fell into civil war, but who fought whom is left unclear (there is a reference to the child Winston having seen rival militias in the streets, each one having a shirt of a distinct colour for its members). Meanwhile, Eastasia, the last superstate established, emerged only after "a decade of confused fighting". It includes the Asian lands conquered by China and Japan. Although Eastasia is prevented from matching Eurasia's size, its larger populace compensates for that handicap.
However, due to the fact that Winston only barely remembers these events as well as the Party's constant manipulation of historical records, the continuity and accuracy of these events are unknown, and exactly how the superstates' ruling parties managed to gain their power is also left unclear. If the official account was accurate, Smith's strengthening memories and the story of his family's dissolution suggest that the atomic bombings occurred first, followed by civil war featuring "confused street fighting in London itself" and the societal postwar reorganisation, which the Party retrospectively calls "the Revolution". It is very difficult to trace the exact chronology, but most of the global societal reorganisation occurred between 1945 and the early 1960s.
The War
In 1984, there is a perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, the superstates that emerged from the global atomic war. The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, explains that each state is so strong that it cannot be defeated, even with the combined forces of two superstates, despite changing alliances. To hide such contradictions, the superstates' governments rewrite history to explain that the (new) alliance always was so; the populaces are already accustomed to doublethink and accept it. The war is not fought in Oceanian, Eurasian or Eastasian territory but in the Arctic wastes and a disputed zone roughly situated in between Tangiers, Brazzaville, Darwin and Hong Kong. At the start, Oceania and Eastasia are allies fighting Eurasia in northern Africa and the Malabar Coast.
That alliance ends, and Oceania, allied with Eurasia, fights Eastasia, a change occurring on Hate Week, dedicated to creating patriotic fervour for the Party's perpetual war. The public are blind to the change; in mid-sentence, an orator changes the name of the enemy from "Eurasia" to "Eastasia" without pause. When the public are enraged at noticing that the wrong flags and posters are displayed, they tear them down; the Party later claims to have captured the whole of Africa.
Goldstein's book explains that the purpose of the unwinnable, perpetual war is to consume human labour and commodities so that the economy of a superstate cannot support economic equality, with a high standard of life for every citizen. By using up most of the produced goods, the proles are kept poor and uneducated, and the Party hopes that they will neither realise what the government is doing nor rebel. Goldstein also details an Oceanian strategy of attacking enemy cities with atomic rockets before invasion but dismisses it as unfeasible and contrary to the war's purpose; despite the atomic bombing of cities in the 1950s, the superstates stopped it for fear that it would imbalance the powers. The military technology in the novel differs little from that of World War II, but strategic bomber aeroplanes are replaced with rocket bombs, helicopters were heavily used as weapons of war (they were very minor in World War II) and surface combat units have been all but replaced by immense and unsinkable Floating Fortresses (island-like contraptions concentrating the firepower of a whole naval task force in a single, semi-mobile platform; in the novel, one is said to have been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, suggesting a preference for sea lane interdiction and denial).
Political geography
Three perpetually warring totalitarian superstates control the world in the novel:
Oceania (ideology: Ingsoc, known in Oldspeak as English Socialism), whose core territories are "the Americas, the Atlantic Islands, including the British Isles, Australasia and the southern portion of Africa".
Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism), whose core territories are "the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic landmass from Portugal to the Bering Strait".
Eastasia (ideology: Obliteration of the Self, also known as Death-Worship), whose core territories are "China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands, and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet".
The perpetual war is fought for control of the "disputed area" lying between the frontiers of the superstates. The majority of the disputed territories form "a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin and Hong Kong", where ~
1
5
{\textstyle {\frac {1}{5}}}
of the world's population resides. Orwell outlines the highest disputed areas as Equatorial Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. Fighting also takes place along the unstable Eurasian-Eastasian border, over various islands in the Indian and Pacific Ocean, around Floating Fortresses along major "sea lines", as well as around the North Pole.
Ministries of Oceania
In London, the capital city of Airstrip One, Oceania's four government ministries are in pyramids (300 m high), the façades of which display the Party's three slogans – "WAR IS PEACE", "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY", "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH". The ministries are deliberately named after the opposite (doublethink) of their true functions: "The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation." (Part II, chapter IX "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" (by Emmanuel Goldstein)).
While a ministry is supposedly headed by a minister, the ministers heading these four ministries are never mentioned. They seem to be completely out of the public view, Big Brother being the only, ever-present public face of the government. Also, while an army fighting a war is typically headed by generals, none are ever mentioned by name. News reports of the ongoing war assume that Big Brother personally commands Oceania's fighting forces and give him personal credit for victories and successful strategic concepts.
Ministry of Peace
The Ministry of Peace maintains Oceania's perpetual war against either of the two other superstates:
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognised and not recognised by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work.
Ministry of Plenty
The Ministry of Plenty rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production; every fiscal quarter, it claims to have raised the standard of living, even during times when it has, in fact, reduced rations, availability, and production. The Ministry of Truth substantiates the Ministry of Plenty's claims by manipulating historical records to report numbers supporting the claims of "increased rations". The Ministry of Plenty also runs the national lottery as a distraction for the proles; Party members understand it to be a sham in which all the larger prizes are "won" by imaginary people; only small amounts are actually paid out.
Ministry of Truth
The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Records Department, "rectifying" historical records to accord with Big Brother's current pronouncements so that everything the Party says appears to be true.
Ministry of Love
The Ministry of Love identifies, monitors, arrests and converts real and imagined dissidents. This is also the place where the Thought Police beat and torture dissidents, after which they are sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world"—until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension.
Major concepts
Ingsoc (English Socialism) is the predominant ideology and philosophy of Oceania, and Newspeak is the official language of official documents. Orwell depicts the Party's ideology as an oligarchical world view that "rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism."
Big Brother
Big Brother is a fictional character and symbol in the novel. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party Ingsoc wields total power "for its own sake". In the society that Orwell describes, every citizen (except of the proles, who are regarded as little more than animals) is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens . The people are constantly reminded of this by the widely displayed slogan "Big Brother is watching you".
In modern culture, the term "Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to mass surveillance.
Doublethink
The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
Newspeak
The Principles of Newspeak is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, an artificial, minimalistic language designed to ideologically align thought with the principles of Ingsoc by stripping down the English language in order to make "heretical" thoughts (i.e. against Ingsoc's principles) impossible as they cannot be expressed. The idea that a language's structure can be used to influence thought is known as linguistic relativity.
Whether or not the Newspeak appendix implies a hopeful end to Nineteen Eighty-Four remains a critical debate. Many claim that it does, citing the fact that it is in standard English and is written in the past tense: "Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised" (p. 422). Some critics (Atwood, Benstead, Milner, Pynchon) claim that for Orwell, Newspeak and the totalitarian governments are all in the past.
Thoughtcrime
Thoughtcrime describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as unspoken beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania. In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes beliefs that are contrary to accepted norms of society, and is used to describe theological concepts, such as disbelief and idolatry, and the rejection of an ideology.
Themes
Nationalism
Nineteen Eighty-Four expands upon the subjects summarised in Orwell's essay "Notes on Nationalism" about the lack of vocabulary needed to explain the unrecognised phenomena behind certain political forces. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party's artificial, minimalist language 'Newspeak' addresses the matter.
Positive nationalism: For instance, Oceanians' perpetual love for Big Brother. Orwell argues in the essay that ideologies such as Neo-Toryism and Celtic nationalism are defined by their obsessive sense of loyalty to some entity.
Negative nationalism: For instance, Oceanians' perpetual hatred for Emmanuel Goldstein. Orwell argues in the essay that ideologies such as Trotskyism and Antisemitism are defined by their obsessive hatred of some entity.
Transferred nationalism: For instance, when Oceania's enemy changes, an orator makes a change mid-sentence, and the crowd instantly transfers its hatred to the new enemy. Orwell argues that ideologies such as Stalinism and redirected feelings of racial animus and class superiority among wealthy intellectuals exemplify this. Transferred nationalism swiftly redirects emotions from one power unit to another. In the novel, it happens during Hate Week, a Party rally against the original enemy. The crowd goes wild and destroys the posters that are now against their new friend, and many say that they must be the act of an agent of their new enemy and former friend. Many of the crowd must have put up the posters before the rally but think that the state of affairs had always been the case.
O'Brien concludes: "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Futurology
In the book, Inner Party member O'Brien describes the Party's vision of the future:
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.
Censorship
One of the most notable themes in Nineteen Eighty-Four is censorship, especially in the Ministry of Truth, where photographs and public archives are manipulated to rid them of "unpersons" (people who have been erased from history by the Party). On the telescreens, almost all figures of production are grossly exaggerated or simply fabricated to indicate an ever-growing economy, even during times when the reality is the opposite. One small example of the endless censorship is Winston being charged with the task of eliminating a reference to an unperson in a newspaper article. He also proceeds to write an article about Comrade Ogilvy, a made-up party member who allegedly "displayed great heroism by leaping into the sea from a helicopter so that the dispatches he was carrying would not fall into enemy hands."
Surveillance
In Oceania, the upper and middle classes have very little true privacy. All of their houses and apartments are equipped with two-way telescreens so that they may be watched or listened to at any time. Similar telescreens are found at workstations and in public places, along with hidden microphones. Written correspondence is routinely opened and read by the government before it is delivered. The Thought Police employ undercover agents, who pose as normal citizens and report any person with subversive tendencies. Children are encouraged to report suspicious persons to the government, and some denounce their parents. Citizens are controlled, and the smallest sign of rebellion, even something as small as a suspicious facial expression, can result in immediate arrest and imprisonment. Thus, citizens are compelled to obedience.
Poverty and inequality
According to Orwell's book, almost the entire world lives in poverty; hunger, thirst, disease, and filth are the norms. Ruined cities and towns are common: the consequence of perpetual wars and extreme economic inefficiency. Social decay and wrecked buildings surround Winston; aside from the ministries' headquarters, little of London was rebuilt. Middle class citizens and proles consume synthetic foodstuffs and poor-quality "luxuries" such as oily gin and loosely-packed cigarettes, distributed under the "Victory" brand, a parody of the low-quality Indian-made "Victory" cigarettes, which British soldiers commonly smoked during World War II.
Winston describes something as simple as the repair of a broken window as requiring committee approval that can take several years and so most of those living in one of the blocks usually do the repairs themselves (Winston himself is called in by Mrs. Parsons to repair her blocked sink). All upper-class and middle-class residences include telescreens that serve both as outlets for propaganda and surveillance devices that allow the Thought Police to monitor them; they can be turned down, but the ones in middle-class residences cannot be turned off.
In contrast to their subordinates, the upper class of Oceanian society reside in clean and comfortable flats in their own quarters, with pantries well-stocked with foodstuffs such as wine, real coffee, real tea, real milk, and real sugar, all denied to the general populace. Winston is astonished that the lifts in O'Brien's building work, the telescreens can be completely turned off, and O'Brien has an Asian manservant, Martin. All upper class citizens are attended to by slaves captured in the "disputed zone", and "The Book" suggests that many have their own cars or even helicopters.
However, despite their insulation and overt privileges, the upper class are still not exempt from the government's brutal restriction of thought and behaviour, even while lies and propaganda apparently originate from their own ranks. Instead, the Oceanian government offers the upper class their "luxuries" in exchange for them maintaining their loyalty to the state; non-conformant upper-class citizens can still be condemned, tortured, and executed just like any other individual. "The Book" makes clear that the upper class' living conditions are only "relatively" comfortable, and would be regarded as "austere" by those of the pre-revolutionary élite.
The proles live in poverty and are kept sedated with pornography, a national lottery whose big prizes are reported won by non-existent people, and gin, "which the proles were not supposed to drink". At the same time, the proles are freer and less intimidated than the upper classes: they are not expected to be particularly patriotic and the levels of surveillance that they are subjected to are very low; they lack telescreens in their own homes. "The Book" indicates that because the middle class, not the lower class, traditionally starts revolutions, the model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer-Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or "reintegration" by the Ministry of Love, and proles can be allowed intellectual freedom because they are deemed to lack intellect. Winston nonetheless believes that "the future belonged to the proles".
The standard of living of the populace is extremely low overall. Consumer goods are scarce, and those available through official channels are of low quality; for instance, despite the Party regularly reporting increased boot production, more than half of the Oceanian populace goes barefoot. The Party claims that poverty is a necessary sacrifice for the war effort, and "The Book" confirms that to be partially correct since the purpose of perpetual war is to consume surplus industrial production. As "The Book" explains, society is in fact designed to remain on the brink of starvation, as "In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
Sources for literary motifs
Nineteen Eighty-Four uses themes from life in the Soviet Union and wartime life in Great Britain as sources for many of its motifs. Some time at an unspecified date after the first American publication of the book, producer Sidney Sheldon wrote to Orwell interested in adapting the novel to the Broadway stage. Orwell wrote in a letter to Sheldon (to whom he would sell the US stage rights) that his basic goal with Nineteen Eighty-Four was imagining the consequences of Stalinist government ruling British society:
[Nineteen Eighty-Four] was based chiefly on communism, because that is the dominant form of totalitarianism, but I was trying chiefly to imagine what communism would be like if it were firmly rooted in the English speaking countries, and was no longer a mere extension of the Russian Foreign Office.
According to Orwell biographer D. J. Taylor, the author's A Clergyman's Daughter (1935) has "essentially the same plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four ... It's about somebody who is spied upon, and eavesdropped upon, and oppressed by vast exterior forces they can do nothing about. It makes an attempt at rebellion and then has to compromise".
The statement "2 + 2 = 5", used to torment Winston Smith during his interrogation, was a communist party slogan from the second five-year plan, which encouraged fulfilment of the five-year plan in four years. The slogan was seen in electric lights on Moscow house-fronts, billboards and elsewhere.
The switch of Oceania's allegiance from Eastasia to Eurasia and the subsequent rewriting of history ("Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete"; ch 9) is evocative of the Soviet Union's changing relations with Nazi Germany. The two nations were open and frequently vehement critics of each other until the signing of the 1939 Treaty of Non-Aggression. Thereafter, and continuing until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, no criticism of Germany was allowed in the Soviet press, and all references to prior party lines stopped—including in the majority of non-Russian communist parties who tended to follow the Russian line. Orwell had criticised the Communist Party of Great Britain for supporting the Treaty in his essays for Betrayal of the Left (1941). "The Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939 reversed the Soviet Union's stated foreign policy. It was too much for many of the fellow-travellers like Gollancz [Orwell's sometime publisher] who had put their faith in a strategy of construction Popular Front governments and the peace bloc between Russia, Britain and France."
The description of Emmanuel Goldstein, with a "small, goatee beard", evokes the image of Leon Trotsky. The film of Goldstein during the Two Minutes Hate is described as showing him being transformed into a bleating sheep. This image was used in a propaganda film during the Kino-eye period of Soviet film, which showed Trotsky transforming into a goat. Like Goldstein, Trotsky was a formerly high-ranking party official who was ostracized and then wrote a book criticizing party rule, The Revolution Betrayed, published in 1936.
The omnipresent images of Big Brother, a man described as having a moustache, bears resemblance to the cult of personality built up around Joseph Stalin.
The news in Oceania emphasised production figures, just as it did in the Soviet Union, where record-setting in factories (by "Heroes of Socialist Labour") was especially glorified. The best known of these was Alexei Stakhanov, who purportedly set a record for coal mining in 1935.
The tortures of the Ministry of Love evoke the procedures used by the NKVD in their interrogations, including the use of rubber truncheons, being forbidden to put your hands in your pockets, remaining in brightly lit rooms for days, torture through the use of their greatest fear, and the victim being shown a mirror after their physical collapse.
The random bombing of Airstrip One is based on the area bombing of London by Buzz bombs and the V-2 rocket in 1944–1945.
The Thought Police is based on the NKVD, which arrested people for random "anti-soviet" remarks.
The confessions of the "Thought Criminals" Rutherford, Aaronson, and Jones are based on the show trials of the 1930s, which included fabricated confessions by prominent Bolsheviks Nikolai Bukharin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev to the effect that they were being paid by the Nazi government to undermine the Soviet regime under Leon Trotsky's direction.
The song "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree" ("Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you, and you sold me") was based on an old English song called "Go no more a-rushing" ("Under the spreading chestnut tree, Where I knelt upon my knee, We were as happy as could be, 'Neath the spreading chestnut tree."). The song was published as early as 1891. The song was a popular camp song in the 1920s, sung with corresponding movements (like touching one's chest when singing "chest", and touching one's head when singing "nut"). Glenn Miller recorded the song in 1939.
The "Hates" (Two Minutes Hate and Hate Week) were inspired by the constant rallies sponsored by party organs throughout the Stalinist period. These were often short pep-talks given to workers before their shifts began (Two Minutes Hate), but could also last for days, as in the annual celebrations of the anniversary of the October Revolution (Hate Week).
Orwell fictionalised "newspeak", "doublethink", and "Ministry of Truth" based on both the Soviet press, and British wartime usage, such as "Miniform". In particular, he adapted Soviet ideological discourse constructed to ensure that public statements could not be questioned.
Winston Smith's job, "revising history" (and the "unperson" motif) are based on censorship of images in the Soviet Union, which airbrushed images of "fallen" people from group photographs and removed references to them in books and newspapers. In one well-known example, the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia had an article about Lavrentiy Beria. After his fall from power and execution, subscribers received a letter from the editor instructing them to cut out and destroy the three-page article on Beria and paste in its place enclosed replacement pages expanding the adjacent articles on F. W. Bergholz (an 18th-century courtier), the Bering Sea, and Bishop Berkeley.
Big Brother's "Orders of the Day" were inspired by Stalin's regular wartime orders, called by the same name. A small collection of the more political of these have been published (together with his wartime speeches) in English as On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. Like Big Brother's Orders of the day, Stalin's frequently lauded heroic individuals, like Comrade Ogilvy, the fictitious hero Winston Smith invented to "rectify" (fabricate) a Big Brother Order of the day.
The Ingsoc slogan "Our new, happy life", repeated from telescreens, evokes Stalin's 1935 statement, which became a CPSU slogan, "Life has become better, Comrades; life has become more cheerful."
In 1940, Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges published "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", which describes the invention by a "benevolent secret society" of a world that would seek to remake human language and reality along human-invented lines. The story concludes with an appendix describing the success of the project. Borges' story addresses similar themes of epistemology, language and history to 1984.
During World War II, Orwell believed that British democracy as it existed before 1939 would not survive the war. The question being "Would it end via Fascist coup d'état from above or via Socialist revolution from below?" Later, he admitted that events proved him wrong: "What really matters is that I fell into the trap of assuming that 'the war and the revolution are inseparable'."
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Animal Farm (1945) share themes of the betrayed revolution, the individual's subordination to the collective, rigorously enforced class distinctions (Inner Party, Outer Party, proles), the cult of personality, concentration camps, Thought Police, compulsory regimented daily exercise, and youth leagues. Oceania resulted from the US annexation of the British Empire to counter the Asian peril to Australia and New Zealand. It is a naval power whose militarism venerates the sailors of the floating fortresses, from which battle is given to recapturing India, the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire. Much of Oceanic society is based upon the USSR under Joseph Stalin—Big Brother. The televised Two Minutes Hate is ritual demonisation of the enemies of the State, especially Emmanuel Goldstein (viz Leon Trotsky). Altered photographs and newspaper articles create unpersons deleted from the national historical record, including even founding members of the regime (Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford) in the 1960s purges (viz the Soviet Purges of the 1930s, in which leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution were similarly treated). A similar thing also happened during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror in which many of the original leaders of the Revolution were later put to death, for example Danton who was put to death by Robespierre, and then later Robespierre himself met the same fate.
In his 1946 essay "Why I Write", Orwell explains that the serious works he wrote since the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) were "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism". Nineteen Eighty-Four is a cautionary tale about revolution betrayed by totalitarian defenders previously proposed in Homage to Catalonia (1938) and Animal Farm (1945), while Coming Up for Air (1939) celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Biographer Michael Shelden notes Orwell's Edwardian childhood at Henley-on-Thames as the golden country; being bullied at St Cyprian's School as his empathy with victims; his life in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma and the techniques of violence and censorship in the BBC as capricious authority.
Other influences include Darkness at Noon (1940) and The Yogi and the Commissar (1945) by Arthur Koestler; The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London; 1920: Dips into the Near Future by John A. Hobson; Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley; We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin which he reviewed in 1946; and The Managerial Revolution (1940) by James Burnham predicting perpetual war among three totalitarian superstates. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like A Modern Utopia (1905) by H. G. Wells.
Extrapolating from World War II, the novel's pastiche parallels the politics and rhetoric at war's end—the changed alliances at the "Cold War's" (1945–91) beginning; the Ministry of Truth derives from the BBC's overseas service, controlled by the Ministry of Information; Room 101 derives from a conference room at BBC Broadcasting House; the Senate House of the University of London, containing the Ministry of Information is the architectural inspiration for the Minitrue; the post-war decrepitude derives from the socio-political life of the UK and the US, i.e., the impoverished Britain of 1948 losing its Empire despite newspaper-reported imperial triumph; and war ally but peace-time foe, Soviet Russia became Eurasia.
The term "English Socialism" has precedents in Orwell's wartime writings; in the essay "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (1941), he said that "the war and the revolution are inseparable... the fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realisable policy"—because Britain's superannuated social class system hindered the war effort and only a socialist economy would defeat Adolf Hitler. Given the middle class's grasping this, they too would abide socialist revolution and that only reactionary Britons would oppose it, thus limiting the force revolutionaries would need to take power. An English Socialism would come about which "will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief in a law that is above the State. It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word."
In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, "English Socialism" (or "Ingsoc" in Newspeak) is a totalitarian ideology unlike the English revolution he foresaw. Comparison of the wartime essay "The Lion and the Unicorn" with Nineteen Eighty-Four shows that he perceived a Big Brother regime as a perversion of his cherished socialist ideals and English Socialism. Thus Oceania is a corruption of the British Empire he believed would evolve "into a federation of Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics".
Critical reception
When it was first published, Nineteen Eighty-Four received critical acclaim. V. S. Pritchett, reviewing the novel for the New Statesman stated: "I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down." P. H. Newby, reviewing Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Listener magazine, described it as "the most arresting political novel written by an Englishman since Rex Warner's The Aerodrome." Nineteen Eighty-Four was also praised by Bertrand Russell, E. M. Forster and Harold Nicolson. On the other hand, Edward Shanks, reviewing Nineteen Eighty-Four for The Sunday Times, was dismissive; Shanks claimed Nineteen Eighty-Four "breaks all records for gloomy vaticination". C. S. Lewis was also critical of the novel, claiming that the relationship of Julia and Winston, and especially the Party's view on sex, lacked credibility, and that the setting was "odious rather than tragic". Historian Isaac Deutscher was far more critical of Orwell from a Marxist perspective and characterised him as a “simple minded anarchist”. Deutscher argued that Orwell had struggled to comprehend the dialectical philosophy of Marxism, demonstrated personal ambivalence towards other strands of socialism and his work,1984, had been appropriated for the purpose of anti-communist Cold War propaganda.
On its publication, many American reviewers interpreted the book as a statement on British Prime Minister Clement Attlee's socialist policies, or the policies of Joseph Stalin. Serving as prime minister from 1945 to 1951, Attlee implemented wide-ranging social reforms and changes in the British economy following World War II. American trade union leader Francis A. Hanson wanted to recommend the book to his members but was concerned with some of the reviews it had received, so Orwell wrote a letter to him. In his letter, Orwell described his book as a satire, and said:
I do not believe that the kind of society I describe will necessarily arrive, but I believe (allowing, of course, for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive...[it is] a show...[of the] perversions to which a centralised economy is liable and which have already been partly realisable in communism and fascism.
Throughout its publication history, Nineteen Eighty-Four has been either banned or legally challenged as subversive or ideologically corrupting, like the dystopian novels We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley, Darkness at Noon (1940) by Arthur Koestler, Kallocain (1940) by Karin Boye, and Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury.
On 5 November 2019, the BBC named Nineteen Eighty-Four on its list of the 100 most influential novels.
According to Czesław Miłosz, a defector from Stalinist Poland, the book also made an impression behind the Iron Curtain. Writing in The Captive Mind, he stated "[a] few have become acquainted with Orwell's 1984; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well ... Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life." Writer Christopher Hitchens has called this "one of the greatest compliments that one writer has ever bestowed upon another ... Only one or two years after Orwell's death, in other words, his book about a secret book circulated only within the Inner Party was itself a secret book circulated only within the Inner Party.": 54–55
Adaptations in other media
In the same year as the novel's publishing, a one-hour radio adaptation was aired on the United States' NBC radio network as part of the NBC University Theatre series. The first television adaptation appeared as part of CBS's Studio One series in September 1953. BBC Television broadcast an adaptation by Nigel Kneale in December 1954. The first feature film adaptation, 1984, was released in 1956. A second feature-length adaptation, Nineteen Eighty-Four, followed in 1984, a reasonably faithful adaptation of the novel. The story has been adapted several other times to radio, television, and film; other media adaptations include theater (a musical and a play), opera, and ballet.An audio dramatization of the novel was released in 2024 to critical acclaim, starring Andrew Garfield as Winston.
Translations
The novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, when the first publicly available Russian version in the country, translated by Vyacheslav Nedoshivin, was published in Kodry, a literary journal of Soviet Moldavia. In 1989, another Russian version, translated by Viktor Golyshev, was also published. Outside the Soviet Union, the first Russian version was serialised in the emigre magazine Grani in the mid-1950s, then published as a book in 1957 in Frankfurt. Another Russian version, translated by Sergei Tolstoy from French version, was published in Rome in 1966. These translations were smuggled into the Soviet Union, which became quite popular among dissidents. Some underground published translations also appeared in the Soviet Union, for example, Soviet philosopher Evald Ilyenkov translated the novel from German version into a Russian version.
For Soviet elite, as early as 1959, according to the order of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, the Foreign Literature Publishers secretly issued a Russian version of the novel, for the senior officers of the Communist Party.
In the People's Republic of China, the first Simplified Chinese version, translated by Dong Leshan, was serialised in the periodical Selected Translations from Foreign Literature in 1979, for senior officials and intellectuals deemed politically reliable enough. In 1985, the Chinese version was published by Huacheng Publishing House, as a restricted publication. It was first available to the general public in 1988, by the same publisher. Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey Wasserstrom of The Atlantic stated in 2019 that the book is widely available in mainland China for several reasons: the general public by and large no longer reads books; because the elites who do read books feel connected to the ruling party anyway; and because the Communist Party sees being too aggressive in blocking cultural products as a liability. The authors stated "It was—and remains—as easy to buy 1984 and Animal Farm in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los Angeles." They also stated that "The assumption is not that Chinese people can't figure out the meaning of 1984, but that the small number of people who will bother to read it won't pose much of a threat." British journalist Michael Rank argued that it is only because the novel is set in London and written by a foreigner that the Chinese authorities believe it has nothing to do with China.
By 1989, Nineteen Eighty-Four had been translated into 65 languages, more than any other novel in English at that time.
Cultural impact
The effect of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the English language is extensive; the concepts of Big Brother, Room 101, the Thought Police, thoughtcrime, unperson, memory hole (oblivion), doublethink (simultaneously holding and believing contradictory beliefs) and Newspeak (ideological language) have become common phrases for denoting totalitarian authority. Doublespeak and groupthink are both deliberate elaborations of doublethink, and the adjective "Orwellian" means similar to Orwell's writings, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. The practice of ending words with "-speak" (such as mediaspeak) is drawn from the novel. Orwell is perpetually associated with 1984; in July 1984, an asteroid was discovered by Antonín Mrkos and named after Orwell.
References to the themes, concepts and plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four have appeared frequently in other works, especially in popular music and video entertainment. An example is the worldwide hit reality television show Big Brother, in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras.
In November 2012, the United States government argued before the US Supreme Court that it could continue to utilize GPS tracking of individuals without first seeking a warrant. In response, Justice Stephen Breyer questioned what that means for a democratic society by referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, stating "If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States. So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like Nineteen Eighty-Four... "
The book touches on the invasion of privacy and ubiquitous surveillance. From mid-2013 it was publicised that the NSA has been secretly monitoring and storing global internet traffic, including the bulk data collection of email and phone call data. Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four increased by up to seven times within the first week of the 2013 mass surveillance leaks. The book again topped the Amazon.com sales charts in 2017 after a controversy involving Kellyanne Conway using the phrase "alternative facts" to explain discrepancies with the media.
Nineteen Eighty-Four was number three on the list of "Top Check Outs Of All Time" by the New York Public Library.
Nineteen Eighty-Four entered the public domain on 1 January 2021, 70 years after Orwell's death, in most of the world. It is still under copyright in the US until 95 years after publication, or 2044.
Brave New World comparisons
In October 1949, after reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley sent a letter to Orwell in which he argued that it would be more efficient for rulers to stay in power by the softer touch by allowing citizens to seek pleasure to control them rather than use brute force. He wrote:
Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.
...
Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.
In the decades since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, there have been numerous comparisons to Huxley's Brave New World, which had been published 17 years earlier, in 1932. They are both predictions of societies dominated by a central government and are both based on extensions of the trends of their times. However, members of the ruling class of Nineteen Eighty-Four use brutal force, torture and harsh mind control to keep individuals in line, while rulers in Brave New World keep the citizens in line by drugs, hypnosis, genetic conditioning and pleasurable distractions. Regarding censorship, in Nineteen Eighty-Four the government tightly controls information to keep the population in line, but in Huxley's world, so much information is published that readers are easily distracted and overlook the information that is relevant.
Elements of both novels can be seen in modern-day societies, with Huxley's vision being more dominant in the West and Orwell's vision more prevalent with dictatorships, including those in communist countries (such as in modern-day China and North Korea), as is pointed out in essays that compare the two novels, including Huxley's own Brave New World Revisited.
Comparisons with later dystopian novels like The Handmaid's Tale, Virtual Light, The Private Eye and The Children of Men have also been drawn.
In popular culture
In 1955, an episode of BBC's The Goon Show, 1985, was broadcast, written by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes and based on Nigel Kneale's television adaptation. It was re-recorded about a month later with the same script but a slightly different cast. 1985 parodies many of the main scenes in Orwell's novel.
In 1970, the American rock group Spirit released the song "1984" based on Orwell's novel.
In 1973, ex-Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper released an album called 1984 on the Columbia label (UK), consisting of instrumentals with Orwellian titles such as "Miniluv", "Minipax", "Minitrue", and so forth.
In 1974, David Bowie released the album Diamond Dogs, which is thought to be loosely based on the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It includes the tracks "We Are The Dead", "1984" and "Big Brother". Before the album was made, Bowie's management (MainMan) had planned for Bowie and Tony Ingrassia (MainMan's creative consultant) to co-write and direct a musical production of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but Orwell's widow refused to give MainMan the rights.
In 1977, the British rock band The Jam released the album This Is the Modern World, which includes the track "Standards" by Paul Weller. This track concludes with the lyrics "...and ignorance is strength, we have God on our side, look, you know what happened to Winston."
In 1984, Ridley Scott directed a television commercial, "1984", to launch Apple's Macintosh computer. The advert stated, "1984 won't be like 1984", suggesting that the Apple Mac would be freedom from Big Brother, i.e., the IBM PC.
Rage Against The Machine's 2000 single, "Testify", from their album The Battle of Los Angeles, features the use of "The Party" slogan, "Who controls the past(now), controls the future. Who controls the present(now), controls the past."
An episode of Doctor Who, called "The God Complex", depicts an alien ship disguised as a hotel containing Room 101-like spaces, and also, like the novel, quotes the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons".
The two part episode Chain of Command on Star Trek: The Next Generation bears some resemblances to the novel.
Radiohead's 2003 single "2 + 2 = 5", from their album Hail to the Thief, is Orwellian by title and content. Thom Yorke states, "I was listening to a lot of political programs on BBC Radio 4. I found myself writing down little nonsense phrases, those Orwellian euphemisms that [the British and American governments] are so fond of. They became the background of the record."
In September 2009, the English progressive rock band Muse released The Resistance, which included songs influenced by Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In Marilyn Manson's autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, he states: "I was thoroughly terrified by the idea of the end of the world and the Antichrist. So I became obsessed with it... reading prophetic books like... 1984 by George Orwell..."
English band Bastille references the novel in their song "Back to the Future", the fifth track on their 2022 album Give Me the Future, in the opening lyrics: "Feels like we danced into a nightmare/We're living 1984/If doublethink's no longer fiction/We'll dream of Huxley's Island shores."
Released in 2004, KAKU P-Model/Susumu Hirasawa's song Big Brother directly references 1984, and the album itself is about a fictional dystopia in a distant future.
The Used released a song by the same name, "1984", on their 2020 album Heartwork.
See also
References
Citations
Cited references
Further reading
External links
Nineteen Eighty-Four at Curlie
Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Internet Book List
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Archived 8 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine) at the British Library
Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Open Library
Nineteen Eighty-Four title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
1953 Theatre Guild on the Air radio adaptation at the Internet Archive
Historian Sarah Wise on the London of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the London Fictions website
Asimov, Isaac (1980). "Review of 1984". The New Yorker.
Electronic editions
1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) at Faded Page (Canada)
George Orwell—Eric Arthur Blair
Project Gutenberg Australia (e-text)
HTML and EPUB editions from The University of Adelaide Library
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Canadian public domain Ebook – PDF)
Film versions
1984 (50 minutes) on YouTube, adapted by William Templeton, directed by Paul Nickell, with Eddie Albert as Winston, Norma Crane as Julia, and Lorne Greene as O'Brien; Westinghouse Studio One, CBS (1953) |
Google | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google | [
605
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google"
] | Google LLC ( GOO-ghəl) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.
Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together, they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.
The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation and mapping (Waze, Maps and Earth), cloud computing (Cloud), web navigation (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), videotelephony (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch and Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), AI (Google Assistant and Gemini), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail. Google's other ventures outside of internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google DeepMind).
Google Search and YouTube are the two most-visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, online video platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, machine learning framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes and fourth by Interbrand. It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position. On August 5, 2024, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly over Internet search.
History
Early years
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. The project initially involved an unofficial "third founder", Scott Hassan, the original lead programmer who wrote much of the code for the original Google Search engine, but he left before Google was officially founded as a company; Hassan went on to pursue a career in robotics and founded the company Willow Garage in 2006.
While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, they theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites. They called this algorithm PageRank; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site. Page told his ideas to Hassan, who began writing the code to implement Page's ideas. Page and Brin would also use their friend Susan Wojcicki's garage as their office when the search engine was set up in 1998.
Page and Brin originally nicknamed the new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Hassan as well as Alan Steremberg were cited by Page and Brin as being critical to the development of Google. Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd later co-authored with Page and Brin the first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of the Google search engine, published in 1998. Héctor García-Molina and Jeffrey Ullman were also cited as contributors to the project. PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used for RankDex, developed by Robin Li in 1996, with Larry Page's PageRank patent including a citation to Li's earlier RankDex patent; Li later went on to create the Chinese search engine Baidu.
Eventually, they changed the name to Google; the name of the search engine was a misspelling of the word googol, a very large number written 10100 (1 followed by 100 zeros), picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.
Google was initially funded by an August 1998 investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. This initial investment served as a motivation to incorporate the company to be able to use the funds. Page and Brin initially approached David Cheriton for advice because he had a nearby office in Stanford, and they knew he had startup experience, having recently sold the company he co-founded, Granite Systems, to Cisco for $220 million. David arranged a meeting with Page and Brin and his Granite co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. The meeting was set for 8 a.m. at the front porch of David's home in Palo Alto and it had to be brief because Andy had another meeting at Cisco, where he now worked after the acquisition, at 9 a.m. Andy briefly tested a demo of the website, liked what he saw, and then went back to his car to grab the check. David Cheriton later also joined in with a $250,000 investment.
Google received money from two other angel investors in 1998: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and entrepreneur Ram Shriram. Page and Brin had first approached Shriram, who was a venture capitalist, for funding and counsel, and Shriram invested $250,000 in Google in February 1998. Shriram knew Bezos because Amazon had acquired Junglee, at which Shriram was the president. It was Shriram who told Bezos about Google. Bezos asked Shriram to meet Google's founders and they met six months after Shriram had made his investment when Bezos and his wife were on a vacation trip to the Bay Area. Google's initial funding round had already formally closed but Bezos' status as CEO of Amazon was enough to persuade Page and Brin to extend the round and accept his investment.
Between these initial investors, friends, and family Google raised around $1,000,000, which is what allowed them to open up their original shop in Menlo Park, California.
Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.
After some additional, small investments through the end of 1998 to early 1999, a new $25 million round of funding was announced on June 7, 1999, with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. Both firms were initially reticent about investing jointly in Google, as each wanted to retain a larger percentage of control over the company to themselves. Larry and Sergey however insisted on taking investments from both. Both venture companies finally agreed to investing jointly $12.5 million each due to their belief in Google's great potential and through the mediation of earlier angel investors Ron Conway and Ram Shriram who had contacts in the venture companies.
Growth
In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California, which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups. The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine. To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based. In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo!, one of the most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi.
In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics, at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. The complex became known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol of zeroes. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million. By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet". The first use of the verb on television appeared in an October 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Additionally, in 2001 Google's investors felt the need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and CEO of Google. Eric was proposed by John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins. He had been trying to find a CEO that Sergey and Larry would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company. Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital at one point even menaced requesting Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire a chief executive officer, which had been made verbally during investment negotiations. Eric was not initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company's full potential had not yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO. As part of him joining, Eric agreed to buy $1 million of Google preferred stocks as a way to show his commitment and to provide funds Google needed.
Initial public offering
On August 19, 2004, Google became a public company via an initial public offering, listing the company on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol GOOG. At that time Page, Brin and Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024. The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share. Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal. The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.
On November 13, 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, On July 20, 2007, Google bids $4.6 billion for the wireless-spectrum auction by the FCC. On March 11, 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, transferring to Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies. By 2011, Google was handling approximately 3 billion searches per day. To handle this workload, Google built 11 data centers around the world with several thousand servers in each. These data centers allowed Google to handle the ever-changing workload more efficiently.
In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time. In May 2012, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, in its largest acquisition to date. This purchase was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies, to help protect Google in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies, mainly Apple and Microsoft, and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android.
2012 onwards
In June 2013, Google acquired Waze for $966 million. While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google's own mapping service. Google announced the launch of a new company, called Calico, on September 19, 2013, to be led by Apple Inc. chairman Arthur Levinson. In the official public statement, Page explained that the "health and well-being" company would focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated diseases".
On January 26, 2014, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies, a privately held artificial intelligence company from London. Technology news website Recode reported that the company was purchased for $400 million, yet the source of the information was not disclosed. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the price. The purchase of DeepMind aids in Google's recent growth in the artificial intelligence and robotics community. In 2015, DeepMind's AlphaGo became the first computer program to defeat a top human pro at the game of Go.
According to Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report, Google has been the second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple Inc.) in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, with a valuation of $133 billion.
On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate named Alphabet Inc. Google became Alphabet's largest subsidiary and the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructuring, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became CEO of Alphabet.
On August 8, 2017, Google fired employee James Damore after he distributed a memo throughout the company that argued bias and "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber" clouded their thinking about diversity and inclusion, and that it is also biological factors, not discrimination alone, that cause the average woman to be less interested than men in technical positions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore of violating company policy by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace", and he was fired on the same day.
Between 2018 and 2019, tensions between the company's leadership and its workers escalated as staff protested company decisions on internal sexual harassment, Dragonfly, a censored Chinese search engine, and Project Maven, a military drone artificial intelligence, which had been seen as areas of revenue growth for the company. On October 25, 2018, The New York Times published the exposé, "How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the 'Father of Android'". The company subsequently announced that "48 employees have been fired over the last two years" for sexual misconduct. On November 1, 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a global walk-out to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment complaints. CEO Sundar Pichai was reported to be in support of the protests. Later in 2019, some workers accused the company of retaliating against internal activists.
On March 19, 2019, Google announced that it would enter the video game market, launching a cloud gaming platform called Google Stadia.
On June 3, 2019, the United States Department of Justice reported that it would investigate Google for antitrust violations. This led to the filing of an antitrust lawsuit in October 2020, on the grounds the company had abused a monopoly position in the search and search advertising markets.
In December 2019, former PayPal chief operating officer Bill Ready became Google's new commerce chief. Ready's role will not be directly involved with Google Pay.
In April 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google announced several cost-cutting measures. Such measures included slowing down hiring for the remainder of 2020, except for a small number of strategic areas, recalibrating the focus and pace of investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel. Most employees were also working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of it even led to Google announcing that they would be permanently converting some of their jobs to work from home
The 2020 Google services outages disrupted Google services: one in August that affected Google Drive among others, another in November affecting YouTube, and a third in December affecting the entire suite of Google applications. All three outages were resolved within hours.
In 2021, the Alphabet Workers Union was founded, composed mostly of Google employees.
In January 2021, the Australian Government proposed legislation that would require Google and Facebook to pay media companies for the right to use their content. In response, Google threatened to close off access to its search engine in Australia.
In March 2021, Google reportedly paid $20 million for Ubisoft ports on Google Stadia. Google spent "tens of millions of dollars" on getting major publishers such as Ubisoft and Take-Two to bring some of their biggest games to Stadia.
In April 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google ran a years-long program called "Project Bernanke" that used data from past advertising bids to gain an advantage over competing for ad services. This was revealed in documents concerning the antitrust lawsuit filed by ten US states against Google in December.
In September 2021, the Australian government announced plans to curb Google's capability to sell targeted ads, claiming that the company has a monopoly on the market harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers.
In 2022, Google began accepting requests for the removal of phone numbers, physical addresses and email addresses from its search results. It had previously accepted requests for removing confidential data only, such as Social Security numbers, bank account and credit card numbers, personal signatures, and medical records. Even with the new policy, Google may remove information from only certain but not all search queries. It would not remove content that is "broadly useful", such as news articles, or already part of the public record.
In May 2022, Google announced that the company had acquired California based, MicroLED display technology development and manufacturing Start-up Raxium. Raxium is set to join Google's Devices and Services team to aid in the development of micro-optics, monolithic integration, and system integration.
In early 2023, following the success of ChatGPT and concerns that Google was falling behind in the AI race, Google's senior management issued a "code red" and a "directive that all of its most important products—those with more than a billion users—must incorporate generative AI within months".
In early May 2023, Google announced its plans to build two additional data centers in Ohio. These centers, which will be built in Columbus and Lancaster, will power up the company's tools, including AI technology. The said data hub will add to the already operational center near Columbus, bringing Google's total investment in Ohio to over $2 billion.
In August 2024, Google would lose a lawsuit which started in 2020 in lower court, as it was found that the company had an illegal monopoly over Internet search. D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit Mehta held that this monopoly was in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. In September 2024, the EU Court of Justice, based in Europe, would also find that Google held an illegal monopoly, in this case with regards to its shopping search, and could not avoid paying a €2.4 billion fine. The EU Court of Justice found that Google's treatment of rival shopping searches, which the court referred to as "discriminatory," was in violation of the Digital Markets Act.
Products and services
Search engine
Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators. According to comScore market research from November 2009, Google Search is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%. In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos.
Google launched its Google News service in 2002, an automated service which summarizes news articles from various websites. Google also hosts Google Books, a service which searches the text found in books in its database and shows limited previews or and the full book where allowed.
Google expanded its search services to include shopping (launched originally as Froogle in 2002), finance (launched 2006), and flights (launched 2011).
Advertising
Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. Forty-six percent of this profit was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob, AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange. In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from its acquisition of DoubleClick, to project user interest and target advertising to the search context and the user history. In 2007, Google launched "AdSense for Mobile", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market.
Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google Ads allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked. One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud, which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing the advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid. Google Search Console (rebranded from Google Webmaster Tools in May 2015) allows webmasters to check the sitemap, crawl rate, and for security issues of their websites, as well as optimize their website's visibility.
Artificial intelligence
Google had previously used virtual assistants and chatbots, such as Google Bard, prior to the announcement of Gemini in March 2024. None of them, however, had been seen as legitimate competitors to ChatGPT, unlike Gemini. An artificial intelligence training program for Google employees was also introduced in April 2024.
Google has also created the text-to-image model Imagen, and the text-to-video model Veo.
In 2023, Google released NotebookLM, an online tool for synthesizing documents using Gemini. In September 2024, it gained attention for its "Audio Overview" feature, which generates podcast-like summaries of documents.
Consumer services
Web-based services
Google offers Gmail for email, Google Calendar for time-management and scheduling, Google Maps and Google Earth for mapping, navigation and satellite imagery, Google Drive for cloud storage of files, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for productivity, Google Photos for photo storage and sharing, Google Keep for note-taking, Google Translate for language translation, YouTube for video viewing and sharing, Google My Business for managing public business information, and Duo for social interaction. In March 2019, Google unveiled a cloud gaming service named Stadia. A job search product has also existed since before 2017, Google for Jobs is an enhanced search feature that aggregates listings from job boards and career sites. Google Earth, launched in 2005, allows users to see high-definition satellite pictures from all over the world for free through a client software downloaded to their computers.
Software
Google develops the Android mobile operating system, as well as its smartwatch, television, car, and Internet of things-enabled smart devices variations. It also develops the Google Chrome web browser, and ChromeOS, an operating system based on Chrome.
Hardware
In January 2010, Google released Nexus One, the first Android phone under its own brand. It spawned a number of phones and tablets under the "Nexus" branding until its eventual discontinuation in 2016, replaced by a new brand called Pixel.
In 2011, the Chromebook was introduced, which runs on ChromeOS.
In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, which allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions.
In June 2014, Google announced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that lets the user place their smartphone in a special front compartment to view virtual reality (VR) media.
In October 2016, Google announced Daydream View, a lightweight VR viewer which lets the user place their smartphone in the front hinge to view VR media.
Other hardware products include:
Nest, a series of voice assistant smart speakers that can answer voice queries, play music, find information from apps (calendar, weather etc.), and control third-party smart home appliances (users can tell it to turn on the lights, for example). The Google Nest line includes the original Google Home (later succeeded by the Nest Audio), the Google Home Mini (later succeeded by the Nest Mini), the Google Home Max, the Google Home Hub (later rebranded as the Nest Hub), and the Nest Hub Max.
Nest Wifi (originally Google Wifi), a connected set of Wi-Fi routers to simplify and extend coverage of home Wi-Fi.
Enterprise services
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite until October 2020) is a monthly subscription offering for organizations and businesses to get access to a collection of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides, with additional administrative tools, unique domain names, and 24/7 support.
On September 24, 2012, Google launched Google for Entrepreneurs, a largely not-for-profit business incubator providing startups with co-working spaces known as Campuses, with assistance to startup founders that may include workshops, conferences, and mentorships. Presently, there are seven Campus locations: Berlin, London, Madrid, Seoul, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw.
On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, "a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers" which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform. Among other things, the suite is designed to help "enterprise class marketers" "see the complete customer journey", generate "useful insights", and "deliver engaging experiences to the right people". Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the suite competes with existing marketing cloud offerings by companies including Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM.
Internet services
In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities. Following Google's corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet's Access division.
In April 2015, Google announced Project Fi, a mobile virtual network operator, that combines Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different telecommunication providers in an effort to enable seamless connectivity and fast Internet signal.
Financial services
In August 2023, Google became the first major tech company to join the OpenWallet Foundation, launched earlier in the year, whose goal was creating open-source software for interoperable digital wallets.
Corporate affairs
Stock price performance and quarterly earnings
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004. At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share. The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion. The stock performed well after the IPO, with shares hitting $350 for the first time on October 31, 2007, primarily because of strong sales and earnings in the online advertising market. The surge in stock price was fueled mainly by individual investors, as opposed to large institutional investors and mutual funds. GOOG shares split into GOOG class C shares and GOOGL class A shares. The company is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbols GOOGL and GOOG, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GGQ1. These ticker symbols now refer to Alphabet Inc., Google's holding company, since the fourth quarter of 2015.
In the third quarter of 2005, Google reported a 700% increase in profit, largely due to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.
For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs.
Google generated $50 billion in annual revenue for the first time in 2012, generating $38 billion the previous year. In January 2013, then-CEO Larry Page commented, "We ended 2012 with a strong quarter ... Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half."
Google's consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2013 was reported in mid-October 2013 as $14.89 billion, a 12 percent increase compared to the previous quarter. Google's Internet business was responsible for $10.8 billion of this total, with an increase in the number of users' clicks on advertisements. By January 2014, Google's market capitalization had grown to $397 billion.
Tax avoidance strategies
Google uses various tax avoidance strategies. On the list of largest technology companies by revenue, it pays the lowest taxes to the countries of origin of its revenues. Google between 2007 and 2010 saved $3.1 billion in taxes by shuttling non-U.S. profits through Ireland and the Netherlands and then to Bermuda. Such techniques lower its non-U.S. tax rate to 2.3 per cent, while normally the corporate tax rate in, for instance, the UK is 28 per cent. This reportedly sparked a French investigation into Google's transfer pricing practices in 2012.
In 2020, Google said it had overhauled its controversial global tax structure and consolidated all of its intellectual property holdings back to the U.S.
Google Vice-president Matt Brittin testified to the Public Accounts Committee of the UK House of Commons that his UK sales team made no sales and hence owed no sales taxes to the UK. In January 2016, Google reached a settlement with the UK to pay £130m in back taxes plus higher taxes in future. In 2017, Google channeled $22.7 billion from the Netherlands to Bermuda to reduce its tax bill.
In 2013, Google ranked 5th in lobbying spending, up from 213th in 2003. In 2012, the company ranked 2nd in campaign donations of technology and Internet sections.
Corporate identity
The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol", which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Page and Brin write in their original paper on PageRank: "We chose our system name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10100[,] and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines." Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google" was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet." Google's mission statement, from the outset, was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and its unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil". In October 2015, a related motto was adopted in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase: "Do the right thing". The original motto was retained in the code of conduct of Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet.
The original Google logo was designed by Sergey Brin. Since 1998, Google has been designing special, temporary alternate logos to place on their homepage intended to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people. The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998. The doodle was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, until Larry and Sergey asked then-intern Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day in 2000. From that point onward, Doodles have been organized and created by a team of employees termed "Doodlers".
Google has a tradition of creating April Fools' Day jokes. Its first on April 1, 2000, was Google MentalPlex which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web. In 2007, Google announced a free Internet service called TiSP, or Toilet Internet Service Provider, where one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet.
Google's services contain easter eggs, such as the Swedish Chef's "Bork bork bork," Pig Latin, "Hacker" or leetspeak, Elmer Fudd, Pirate, and Klingon as language selections for its search engine. When searching for the word "anagram", meaning a rearrangement of letters from one word to form other valid words, Google's suggestion feature displays "Did you mean: nag a ram?" Since 2019, Google runs free online courses to help engineers learn how to plan and author technical documentation better.
Workplace culture
On Fortune magazine's list of the best companies to work for, Google ranked first in 2007, 2008 and 2012, and fourth in 2009 and 2010. Google was also nominated in 2010 to be the world's most attractive employer to graduating students in the Universum Communications talent attraction index. Google's corporate philosophy includes principles such as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun."
As of September 30, 2020, Alphabet Inc. had 132,121 employees, of which more than 100,000 worked for Google. Google's 2020 diversity report states that 32 percent of its workforce are women and 68 percent are men, with the ethnicity of its workforce being predominantly white (51.7%) and Asian (41.9%). Within tech roles, 23.6 percent were women; and 26.7 percent of leadership roles were held by women. In addition to its 100,000+ full-time employees, Google used about 121,000 temporary workers and contractors, as of March 2019.
Google's employees are hired based on a hierarchical system. Employees are split into six hierarchies based on experience and can range "from entry-level data center workers at level one to managers and experienced engineers at level six." As a motivation technique, Google uses a policy known as Innovation Time Off, where Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time on projects that interest them. Some of Google's services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense, originated from these independent endeavors. In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's vice-president of Search Products and User Experience until July 2012, showed that half of all new product launches in the second half of 2005 had originated from the Innovation Time Off.
In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other sources began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy. In an effort to maintain the company's unique culture, Google designated a Chief Culture Officer whose purpose was to develop and maintain the culture and work on ways to keep true to the core values that the company was founded on. Google has also faced allegations of sexism and ageism from former employees. In 2013, a class action against several Silicon Valley companies, including Google, was filed for alleged "no cold call" agreements which restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees. In a lawsuit filed January 8, 2018, multiple employees and job applicants alleged Google discriminated against a class defined by their "conservative political views[,] male gender[,] and/or [...] Caucasian or Asian race".
On January 25, 2020, the formation of an international workers union of Google employees, Alpha Global, was announced. The coalition is made up of "13 different unions representing workers in 10 countries, including the United States, [the] United Kingdom, and Switzerland." The group is affiliated with the UNI Global Union, which represents nearly 20 million international workers from various unions and federations. The formation of the union is in response to persistent allegations of mistreatment of Google employees and a toxic workplace culture. Google had previously been accused of surveilling and firing employees who were suspected of organizing a workers union. In 2021, court documents revealed that between 2018 and 2020, Google ran an anti-union campaign called Project Vivian to "convince them (employees) that unions suck".
Office locations
Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California is referred to as "the Googleplex", a play on words on the number googolplex and the headquarters itself being a complex of buildings. Internationally, Google has over 78 offices in more than 50 countries.
In 2006, Google moved into about 300,000 square feet (27,900 m2) of office space at 111 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. The office houses its largest advertising sales team. In 2010, Google bought the building housing the headquarter, in a deal that valued the property at around $1.9 billion. In March 2018, Google's parent company Alphabet bought the nearby Chelsea Market building for $2.4 billion. The sale is touted as one of the most expensive real estate transactions for a single building in the history of New York. In November 2018, Google announced its plan to expand its New York City office to a capacity of 12,000 employees. The same December, it was announced that a $1 billion, 1,700,000-square-foot (160,000 m2) headquarters for Google would be built in Manhattan's Hudson Square neighborhood. Called Google Hudson Square, the new campus is projected to more than double the number of Google employees working in New York City.
By late 2006, Google established a new headquarters for its AdWords division in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon's campus in Pittsburgh, focusing on shopping-related advertisement coding and smartphone applications and programs. Other office locations in the U.S. include Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Kirkland, Washington; Birmingham, Michigan; Reston, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin.
It also has product research and development operations in cities around the world, namely Sydney (birthplace location of Google Maps) and London (part of Android development). In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new London headquarter, a 1 million square foot office able to accommodate 4,500 employees. Recognized as one of the biggest ever commercial property acquisitions at the time of the deal's announcement in January, Google submitted plans for the new headquarter to the Camden Council in June 2017. In May 2015, Google announced its intention to create its own campus in Hyderabad, India. The new campus, reported to be the company's largest outside the United States, will accommodate 13,000 employees.
Google's Global Offices sum a total of 85 Locations worldwide, with 32 offices in North America, 3 of them in Canada and 29 in United States Territory, California being the state with the most Google's offices with 9 in total including the Googleplex. In the Latin America Region Google counts with 6 offices, in Europe 24 (3 of them in UK), the Asia Pacific region counts with 18 offices principally 4 in India and 3 in China, and the Africa Middle East region counts 5 offices.
North America
Latin America
Europe
Asia–Pacific
Africa and the Middle East
Infrastructure
Google has data centers in North and South America, Asia, and Europe. There is no official data on the number of servers in Google data centers; however, research and advisory firm Gartner estimated in a July 2016 report that Google at the time had 2.5 million servers. Traditionally, Google relied on parallel computing on commodity hardware like mainstream x86 computers (similar to home PCs) to keep costs per query low. In 2005, it started developing its own designs, which were only revealed in 2009.
Google has built its own private submarine communications cables. The first cable, named Curie, connects California with Chile and was completed on November 15, 2019. The second fully Google-owned undersea cable, named Dunant, connects the United States with France and is planned to begin operation in 2020. Google's third subsea cable, Equiano, will connect Lisbon, Portugal with Lagos, Nigeria and Cape Town, South Africa. The company's fourth cable, named Grace Hopper, connects landing points in New York, US, Bude, UK and Bilbao, Spain, and is expected to become operational in 2022.
Environment
In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels to provide up to 1.6 Megawatt of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus' energy needs. The system is the largest rooftop photovoltaic power station constructed on a U.S. corporate campus and one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. Since 2007, Google has aimed for carbon neutrality in regard to its operations.
In Spring 2009, Google hired a herd of 200 goats for a week from California Grazing to mow their lawn. It was apparently more eco-friendly.
Google disclosed in September 2011 that it "continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes", almost 260 million watts or about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant. Total carbon emissions for 2010 were just under 1.5 million metric tons, mostly due to fossil fuels that provide electricity for the data centers. Google said that 25 percent of its energy was supplied by renewable fuels in 2010. An average search uses only 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, so all global searches are only 12.5 million watts or 5% of the total electricity consumption by Google.
In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes. In February 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted Google an authorization to buy and sell energy at market rates. The corporation exercised this authorization in September 2013 when it announced it would purchase all the electricity produced by the not-yet-built 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm.
In July 2010, Google signed an agreement with an Iowa wind farm to buy 114 megawatts of power for 20 years.
In December 2016, Google announced that—starting in 2017—it would purchase enough renewable energy to match 100% of the energy usage of its data centers and offices. The commitment will make Google "the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable power, with commitments reaching 2.6 gigawatts (2,600 megawatts) of wind and solar energy".
In November 2017, Google bought 536 megawatts of wind power. The purchase made the firm reach 100% renewable energy. The wind energy comes from two power plants in South Dakota, one in Iowa and one in Oklahoma. In September 2019, Google's chief executive announced plans for a $2 billion wind and solar investment, the biggest renewable energy deal in corporate history. This will grow their green energy profile by 40%, giving them an extra 1.6 gigawatt of clean energy, the company said.
In September 2020, Google announced it had retroactively offset all of its carbon emissions since the company's foundation in 1998. It also stated that it is committed to operating its data centers and offices using only carbon-free energy by 2030. In October 2020, the company pledged to make the packaging for its hardware products 100% plastic-free and 100% recyclable by 2025. It also said that all its final assembly manufacturing sites will achieve a UL 2799 Zero Waste to Landfill certification by 2022 by ensuring that the vast majority of waste from the manufacturing process is recycled instead of ending up in a landfill.
In 2023 Google consumed 24 TWh of electricity, more than countries such as Iceland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, or Tunisia.
Climate change denial and misinformation
Google donates to climate change denial political groups including the State Policy Network and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The company also actively funds and profits from climate disinformation by monetizing ad spaces on most of the largest climate disinformation sites. Google continued to monetize and profit from sites propagating climate disinformation even after the company updated their policy to prohibit placing their ads on similar sites.
Philanthropy
In 2004, Google formed the not-for-profit philanthropic Google.org, with a start-up fund of $1 billion. The mission of the organization is to create awareness about climate change, global public health, and global poverty. One of its first projects was to develop a viable plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that can attain 100 miles per gallon. Google hired Larry Brilliant as the program's executive director in 2004 and Megan Smith has since replaced him as director.
In March 2007, in partnership with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Google hosted the first Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival at its headquarters in Mountain View. In 2011, Google donated 1 million euros to International Mathematical Olympiad to support the next five annual International Mathematical Olympiads (2011–2015). In July 2012, Google launched a "Legalize Love" campaign in support of gay rights.
In 2008, Google announced its "project 10100", which accepted ideas for how to help the community and then allowed Google users to vote on their favorites. After two years of no update, during which many wondered what had happened to the program, Google revealed the winners of the project, giving a total of ten million dollars to various ideas ranging from non-profit organizations that promote education to a website that intends to make all legal documents public and online.
Responding to the humanitarian crisis after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google announced a $15 million donation to support Ukrainian citizens. The company also decided to transform its office in Warsaw into a help center for refugees.
Also in February 2022, Google announced a $100 million fund to expand skills training and job placement for low-income Americans, in conjunction with non-profits Year Up, Social Finance, and Merit America.
Criticism and controversies
Google has had criticism over issues such as aggressive tax avoidance, search neutrality, copyright, censorship of search results and content, and privacy.
Other criticisms are alleged misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of other people's intellectual property, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy, and the energy consumption of its servers, as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as monopoly, restraint of trade, anti-competitive practices, and patent infringement.
Google formerly complied with Internet censorship policies of the People's Republic of China, enforced by means of filters colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China", but no longer does so. As a result, all Google services except for Chinese Google Maps are blocked from access within mainland China without the aid of virtual private networks, proxy servers, or other similar technologies.
2018
In July 2018, Mozilla program manager Chris Peterson accused Google of intentionally slowing down YouTube performance on Firefox.
In August 2018, The Intercept reported that Google is developing for the People's Republic of China a censored version of its search engine (known as Dragonfly) "that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest". However, the project had been withheld due to privacy concerns.
2019
In 2019, a hub for critics of Google dedicated to abstaining from using Google products coalesced in the Reddit online community /r/degoogle. The DeGoogle grassroots campaign continues to grow as privacy activists highlight information about Google products, and the associated incursion on personal privacy rights by the company.
In April 2019, former Mozilla executive Jonathan Nightingale accused Google of intentionally and systematically sabotaging the Firefox browser over the past decade in order to boost adoption of Google Chrome.
In November 2019, the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health and Human Services began investigation into Project Nightingale, to assess whether the "mass collection of individuals' medical records" complied with HIPAA. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google secretively began the project in 2018, with St. Louis-based healthcare company Ascension.
2022
In a 2022 National Labor Relations Board ruling, court documents suggested that Google sponsored a secretive project—Project Vivian—to counsel its employees and to discourage them from forming unions.
Google reportedly paid Apple $22 billion in 2022 to maintain its position as the default search engine on Safari. This deal underscores the intense competition in the tech industry for dominance in the search market. It marks one of the largest payments between two tech giants in recent years.
2023
On May 1, 2023, Google placed an ad against anti-disinformation Brazilian Congressional Bill No. 2630, which was about to be approved, on its search homepage in Brazil, calling on its users to ask congressional representatives to oppose the legislation. The country's government and judiciary accused the company of undue interference in the congressional debate, saying it could amount to abuse of economic power and ordering the company to change the ad within two hours of notification or face fines of R$1 million (2023) (US$185,528.76) per non-compliance hour. The company then promptly removed the ad.
2024
In March 2024, a former Google software engineer and Chinese national, Linwei Ding, was accused of stealing confidential artificial intelligence information from the company and handing it to Chinese corporations. Ding had allegedly stolen over 500 files from the company over the course of 5 years, having been hired in 2019. Upon discovering Ding had been in contact with Chinese state-owned companies, Google notified the FBI, who carried on the investigation.
In May 2024, a misconfiguration in Google Cloud led to the accidental deletion of UniSuper's $135 billion Australian pension fund account, affecting over half a million members who were unable to access their accounts for a week. The outage, attributed to a cloud service error and not a cyberattack, prompted a joint apology from UniSuper and Google Cloud executives, who assured members that no personal data was compromised and restoration efforts were underway.
In August 2024, Google sent an email to users informing them of its legal obligation to disclose certain confidential information to U.S. government authorities. The company stated that when it receives valid requests from government agencies to produce documents without redacting confidential customer information, it may produce such documents even if they are confidential to users. However, it will request confidential treatment of such information from the government.
In September 2024, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found that Google engaged in anti-competitive practices in the online advertising technology market, potentially harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers. The investigation claimed Google used its market power to prevent rivals from competing fairly, affecting billions spent on digital ads. Google rejected the findings as flawed, stating its ad tech benefits businesses. If found guilty, Google could face penalties of up to 10% of its global turnover. Similar investigations are ongoing in the U.S. and EU, where regulators have suggested that Google may need to sell part of its ad-tech business.
Palestine
Google is also part of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal in which the technology companies Google and Amazon will provide Israel and its military with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other cloud computing services, including building local cloud sites that will "keep information within Israel's borders under strict security guidelines." The contract has been criticized by shareholders and employees over concerns that the project could lead to human rights abuses against Palestinians, in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the disputed status of Palestinian territories. Ariel Koren, a former marketing manager for Google's educational products and an outspoken critic of the project, wrote that Google "systematically silences Palestinian, Jewish, Arab and Muslim voices concerned about Google's complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights—to the point of formally retaliating against workers and creating an environment of fear", and said she was retaliated against for organizing against the project.
In March 2024, The New York Times reported that Google Photos was being used in a facial recognition program by Unit 8200, a surveillance unit of the Israeli Defense Forces, to surveil Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid the Israel-Hamas War. A Google spokesman commented that the service is free and "does not provide identities for unknown people in photographs."
On April 18, 2024, Google dismissed 28 employees who participated in protests against the company's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud computing and AI infrastructure, which the employees argued should not be used for military or intelligence services. The protesting employees, part of the group No Tech For Apartheid, staged sit-ins at Google's offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, leading to disruptions and blockages within the company facilities. This had followed reports of Israeli forces killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians while using own Lavender AI system to identify targets.
Anti-trust, privacy, and other litigation
Fines and lawsuits
European Union
On June 27, 2017, the company received a record fine of €2.42 billion from the European Union for "promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results."
On July 18, 2018, the European Commission fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules. The abuse of dominants position has been referred to as Google's constraint applied to Android device manufacturers and network operators to ensure that traffic on Android devices goes to the Google search engine. On October 9, 2018, Google confirmed that it had appealed the fine to the General Court of the European Union.
On October 8, 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google and Alphabet due to "non-public" Google+ account data being exposed as a result of a bug that allowed app developers to gain access to the private information of users. The litigation was settled in July 2020 for $7.5 million with a payout to claimants of at least $5 each, with a maximum of $12 each.
On March 20, 2019, the European Commission imposed a €1.49 billion ($1.69 billion) fine on Google for preventing rivals from being able to "compete and innovate fairly" in the online advertising market. European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google had violated EU antitrust rules by "imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites" that required them to exclude search results from Google's rivals.
On September 14, 2022, Google lost the appeal of a €4.125 billion (£3.5 billion) fine, which was ruled to be paid after it was proved by the European Commission that Google forced Android phone-makers to carry Google's search and web browser apps. Since the initial accusations, Google has changed its policy.
On 10 September 2024, Europe's top court imposed a €2.4 billion fine on Google for abusing its dominance in the shopping comparison market, marking the conclusion of a case that began in 2009 with a complaint from British firm Foundem.
On 18 September 2024, Alphabet's Google won a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) antitrust fine from the European Union, while Qualcomm's efforts to repeal a penalty were unsuccessful. The General Court agreed with many of the European Commission's findings but annulled the Google fine, stating that the Commission failed to consider all relevant factors and did not demonstrate harm to innovation or consumers. Google noted that it had already changed its contract practices in 2016. Meanwhile, Qualcomm saw its fine reduced slightly but failed to overturn the ruling regarding its predatory pricing against Icera. Both companies have options to appeal further.
France
On January 21, 2019, French data regulator CNIL imposed a record €50 million fine on Google for breaching the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. The judgment claimed Google had failed to sufficiently inform users of its methods for collecting data to personalize advertising. Google issued a statement saying it was "deeply committed" to transparency and was "studying the decision" before determining its response.
On January 6, 2022, France's data privacy regulatory body CNIL fined Alphabet's Google 150 million euros (US$169 million) for not allowing its Internet users an easy refusal of Cookies along with Facebook.
On March 20, 2024, Google was fined approximately $270 million by French regulators for using content from news outlets in France without proper disclosure to train its AI, Bard, now renamed Gemini, violating a previous commitment to negotiate content use transparently and fairly.
United States
After U.S. Congressional hearings in July 2020, and a report from the U.S. House of Representatives' Antitrust Subcommittee released in early October, the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on October 20, 2020, asserting that it has illegally maintained its monopoly position in web search and search advertising. The lawsuit alleged that Google engaged in anticompetitive behavior by paying Apple between $8 billion and $12 billion to be the default search engine on iPhones. Later that month, both Facebook and Alphabet agreed to "cooperate and assist one another" in the face of investigation into their online advertising practices. Another suit was brought against Google in 2023 for illegally monopolizing the advertising technology market.
On October 8, 2024, The U.S. government suggested it could request Google to divest parts of its business, such as the Chrome browser and Android, due to its alleged monopoly in online search. The Justice Department aimed to limit Google's growing dominance in areas like AI. Google, which intended to appeal, argued that the proposals were too extreme, while also dealing with other antitrust cases involving its app store and advertising operations.
Geolocation
Google has been criticized for continuing to collect location data from users who had turned off location-sharing settings. In 2020, the FBI used a geofence warrant to request data from Google about Android devices near the Seattle Police Officers Guild building following an arson attempt during Black Lives Matter protests. Google provided anonymized location data from devices in the area, which raised privacy concerns due to the potential inclusion of unrelated protesters.
Private browsing lawsuit
In early June 2020, a $5 billion class-action lawsuit was filed against Google by a group of consumers, alleging that Chrome's Incognito browsing mode still collects their user history. The lawsuit became known in March 2021 when a federal judge denied Google's request to dismiss the case, ruling that they must face the group's charges. Reuters reported that the lawsuit alleged that Google's CEO Sundar Pichai sought to keep the users unaware of this issue.
In April 2024, it was announced that Google agreed to settle this lawsuit. Under the terms of the settlement Google agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately.
Gender discrimination lawsuit
In 2017, three women sued Google, accusing the company of violating California's Equal Pay Act by underpaying its female employees. The lawsuit cited the wage gap was around $17,000 and that Google locked women into lower career tracks, leading to smaller salaries and bonuses. In June 2022, Google agreed to pay a $118 million settlement to 15,550 female employees working in California since 2013. As a part of the settlement, Google also agreed to hire a third party to analyze its hiring and compensation practices.
U.S. government contracts
Following media reports about PRISM, the NSA's massive electronic surveillance program, in June 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including Google. According to unnamed sources, Google joined the PRISM program in 2009, as YouTube in 2010.
Google has worked with the United States Department of Defense on drone software through the 2017 Project Maven that could be used to improve the accuracy of drone strikes. In April 2018, thousands of Google employees, including senior engineers, signed a letter urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to end this controversial contract with the Pentagon. Google ultimately decided not to renew this DoD contract, which was set to expire in 2019.
In 2022 Google shared a $9 billion contract from the Pentagon for cloud computing with Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle.
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
Marcum, Deanna, and Roger C. Schonfeld. Along Came Google: A History of Library Digitization (Princeton University Press, 2023) online book review
Saylor, Michael (2012). The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything. Perseus Books/Vanguard Press. ISBN 978-1-59315-720-3.
Vaidhyanathan, Siya (2011). The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) (Updated ed.). Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-94869-3. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1pn9z8. OCLC 779828585.
Yeo, ShinJoung. Behind the Search Box: Google and the Global Internet Industry (U of Illinois Press, 2023) ISBN 10:0252087127 online
External links
Official website
Official blog
Business data for Google, Inc.: |
Muhammad_Ali | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali | [
606
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali"
] | Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "the Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century and is often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970. He was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978 and the WBA and Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979. In 1999, he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.
Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, he began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. At 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics and turned professional later that year. He converted to Islam after 1961. He won the world heavyweight championship, defeating Sonny Liston in a major upset on February 25, 1964, at age 22. During that year, he denounced his birth name as a "slave name" and formally changed his name to Muhammad Ali. In 1967, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, owing to his religious beliefs and ethical opposition to the Vietnam War, and was found guilty of draft evasion and stripped of his boxing titles. He stayed out of prison while appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, where his conviction was overturned in 1971. He did not fight for nearly four years and lost a period of peak performance as an athlete. Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War made him an icon for the larger counterculture of the 1960s generation, and he was a very high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement and throughout his career. As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI). He later disavowed the NOI, adhering to Sunni Islam.
He fought in several historic boxing matches, including his highly publicized fights with Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier (including the Fight of the Century, the biggest boxing event up until then), the Thrilla in Manila, and his fight with George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle. Ali thrived in the spotlight at a time when many boxers let their managers do the talking, and he became renowned for his provocative and outlandish persona. He was famous for trash-talking, often free-styled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, and has been recognized as a pioneer in hip hop. He often predicted in which round he would knock out his opponent. As a boxer, Ali was known for his unorthodox movement, fancy footwork, head movement, and rope-a-dope technique, among others.
Outside boxing, Ali attained success as a spoken word artist, releasing two studio albums: I Am the Greatest! (1963) and The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay (1976). Both albums received Grammy Award nominations. He also featured as an actor and writer, releasing two autobiographies. Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and focused on religion, philanthropy, and activism. In 1984, he made public his diagnosis of Parkinson's syndrome, which some reports attributed to boxing-related injuries, though he and his specialist physicians disputed this. He remained an active public figure globally, but in his later years made fewer public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by his family.
Early life
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. () was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. He had one brother. He was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. (1912–1990), who had a sister and four brothers and who himself was named in honor of the 19th-century Republican politician and staunch abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, also from the state of Kentucky. Clay's father's paternal grandparents were John Clay and Sallie Anne Clay; Clay's sister Eva claimed that Sallie was a native of Madagascar. He was a descendant of slaves of the antebellum South, and was predominantly of African descent, with Irish and English family heritage. His maternal great-grandfather, Abe Grady, emigrated from Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. DNA testing performed in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Clay was a descendant of the former slave Archer Alexander, who had been chosen from the building crew as the model of a freed man for the Emancipation Memorial, and was the subject of abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot's book, The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom.
His father was a sign and billboard painter, and his mother, Odessa O'Grady Clay (1917–1994), was a domestic helper. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius Jr. and his younger brother, Rudolph "Rudy" Clay (later renamed Rahaman Ali), as Baptists. Cassius Jr. attended Central High School in Louisville. He was dyslexic, which led to difficulties in reading and writing, at school and for much of his life.
He grew up amid racial segregation. His mother recalled one occasion when he was denied a drink of water at a store: "They wouldn't give him one because of his color. That really affected him." He was also strongly affected by the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, which led to young Clay and a friend taking out their frustration by vandalizing a local rail yard. He once told his daughter Hana, "Nothing would ever shake me up (more) than the story of Emmett Till."
Amateur career
Clay was first directed toward boxing by Louisville police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin, who encountered the 12-year-old fuming over a thief having taken his bicycle. He told the officer he was going to "whup" the thief. The officer told Clay he had better learn how to box first. Initially, Clay did not take up Martin's offer, but after seeing amateur boxers on a local television boxing program called Tomorrow's Champions, Clay was interested in the prospect of fighting. He then began to work with trainer Fred Stoner, whom he credits with giving him the "real training", eventually molding "my style, my stamina and my system". For the last four years of Clay's amateur career he was trained by boxing cutman Chuck Bodak.
Clay made his amateur boxing debut in 1954 against local amateur boxer Ronnie O'Keefe. He won by split decision. He went on to win six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union national title, and the light heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Clay's amateur record was 100 wins with five losses. In his 1975 autobiography he recalled that shortly after his return from the Rome Olympics, he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River after he and a friend were refused service at a "whites-only" restaurant and fought with a white gang. The story was later disputed, and several of his friends, including Bundini Brown and photographer Howard Bingham, denied it. Brown told Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram, "Honkies sure bought into that one!" Thomas Hauser's biography of Ali stated that Ali was refused service at the diner but that he lost his medal a year after he won it. Ali received a replacement medal at the Georgia Dome during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the Games.
Professional career
Early career
Clay made his professional debut on October 29, 1960, winning a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker. From then until the end of 1963, Clay amassed a record of 19–0 with 15 wins by knockout. He defeated boxers including Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, LaMar Clark, Doug Jones, and Henry Cooper. Clay also beat his former trainer and veteran boxer Archie Moore in a 1962 match.
These early fights were not without trials. Clay was knocked down by both Sonny Banks and Cooper. In the Cooper fight, Clay was floored by a left hook at the end of round four and was saved by the bell, going on to win in the predicted fifth round due to Cooper's severely cut eye. The fight with Doug Jones on March 13, 1963, was Clay's toughest fight during this stretch. The number two and three heavyweight contenders respectively, Clay and Jones fought on Jones' home turf at New York's Madison Square Garden. Jones staggered Clay in the first round, and the unanimous decision for Clay was greeted by boos and a rain of debris thrown into the ring. Watching on closed-circuit TV, heavyweight champ Sonny Liston quipped that if he fought Clay he (Liston) might get locked up for murder. The fight was later named "Fight of the Year" by The Ring magazine.
In each of these fights, Clay vocally belittled his opponents and vaunted his abilities. He called Jones "an ugly little man" and Cooper a "bum". He said he was embarrassed to get in the ring with Alex Miteff and claimed that Madison Square Garden was "too small for me". Ali's trash talk was inspired by professional wrestler "Gorgeous George" Wagner's, after he saw George's talking ability attract huge crowds to events. In a 1969 interview he stated that he met with George in Las Vegas in 1961, that George told him that talking a big game would earn paying fans who either wanted to see him win or wanted to see him lose, thus Clay transformed himself into a self-described "big-mouth and a bragger".
In 1960, Clay left Moore's camp, partially due to Clay's refusal to do chores such as washing dishes and sweeping. To replace Moore, Clay hired Angelo Dundee to be his trainer. Clay had met Dundee in February 1957 during Clay's amateur career. Around this time, Clay sought longtime idol Sugar Ray Robinson to be his manager, but was rebuffed.
World heavyweight champion
Fights against Liston
By late 1963, Clay had become the top contender for Sonny Liston's title. The fight was set for February 25, 1964, in Miami Beach. Liston was an intimidating personality, a dominating fighter with a criminal past and ties to the mob. Based on Clay's uninspired performance against Jones and Cooper in his previous two fights, and Liston's destruction of former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson in two first-round knockouts, Clay was an 8:1 underdog. Despite this, Clay taunted Liston during the pre-fight buildup, dubbing him "the big ugly bear", claiming "Liston even smells like a bear" and "I'm gonna give him to the local zoo after I whup him." Clay turned the pre-fight weigh-in into a circus, shouting at Liston that "someone is going to die at ringside tonight." Clay's pulse rate was measured at 120, more than double his normal 54. Many of those in attendance thought Clay's behavior stemmed from fear, and some commentators wondered if he would show up for the bout.
The outcome of the fight was a major upset. At the opening bell, Liston rushed at Clay, seemingly angry and looking for a quick knockout. However, Clay's superior speed and mobility enabled him to elude Liston, making the champion miss and look awkward. At the end of the first round, Clay opened up his attack and hit Liston repeatedly with jabs. Liston fought better in round two, but at the beginning of the third round Clay hit Liston with a combination that buckled his knees and opened a cut under his left eye. This was the first time Liston had ever been cut. At the end of round four, Clay was returning to his corner when he began experiencing blinding pain in his eyes and asked his trainer, Angelo Dundee, to cut off his gloves. Dundee refused. It has been speculated that the problem was due to ointment used to seal Liston's cuts, perhaps deliberately applied by his corner to his gloves. Though unconfirmed, boxing historian Bert Sugar said that two of Liston's opponents also complained about their eyes "burning".
Despite Liston's attempts to knock out a blinded Clay, Clay was able to survive the fifth round until sweat and tears rinsed the irritation from his eyes. In the sixth, Clay dominated, hitting Liston repeatedly. Liston did not answer the bell for the seventh round, and Clay was declared the winner by TKO. Liston stated that the reason he quit was an injured shoulder. Following the win, a triumphant Clay rushed to the edge of the ring and, pointing to the ringside press, shouted: "Eat your words!" He added, "I am the greatest! I shook up the world. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived."
At ringside post fight, Clay appeared unconvinced that the fight was stopped due to a Liston shoulder injury, saying that the only injury Liston had was "an open eye, a big cut eye!" When told by Joe Louis that the injury was a "left arm thrown out of its socket," Clay quipped, "Yeah, swinging at nothing, who wouldn't?"
In winning this fight at the age of 22, Clay became the youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning heavyweight champion. However, Floyd Patterson remained the youngest to win the heavyweight championship, doing so at the age 21 during an elimination bout following Rocky Marciano's retirement. Mike Tyson broke both records in 1986 when he defeated Trevor Berbick to win the heavyweight title at age 20. The feat also made Clay the fastest boxer to win the championship (non-vacant) in the modern era, doing so in 20 bouts.
Soon after the Liston fight, Clay changed his name to Cassius X, and then later to Muhammad Ali upon converting to the Nation of Islam. Ali then faced a rematch with Liston scheduled for May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine. It had been scheduled for Boston the previous November, but was postponed for six months due to Ali's emergency surgery for a hernia three days before. The fight was controversial. Midway through the first round, Liston was knocked down by a difficult-to-see blow the press dubbed a "phantom punch". Referee Jersey Joe Walcott did not begin the count immediately after the knockdown, as Ali refused to retreat to a neutral corner. Liston rose after he had been down for about 20 seconds, and the fight momentarily continued. However a few seconds later Walcott, having been informed by the timekeepers that Liston had been down for a count of 10, stopped the match and declared Ali the winner by knockout. The entire fight lasted less than two minutes.
It has since been speculated that Liston purposely dropped to the ground. Proposed motivations include threats on his life from the Nation of Islam, that he had bet against himself and that he "took a dive" to pay off debts. Slow-motion replays show that Liston was jarred by a chopping right from Ali, although it is unclear whether the blow was a genuine knockout punch.
Fight against Patterson
Ali defended his title against former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson on November 22, 1965. Before the match, Ali mocked Patterson, who was widely known to call him by his former name Cassius Clay, as an "Uncle Tom", calling him "The Rabbit". Although Ali had the better of Patterson, who appeared injured during the fight, the match lasted 12 rounds before being called on a technical knockout. Patterson later said he had strained his sacroiliac. Ali was criticized in the sports media for appearing to have toyed with Patterson during the fight. Patterson biographer W. K. Stratton claims that the conflict between Ali and Patterson was not genuine but was staged to increase ticket sales and the closed-circuit viewing audience, with both men complicit in the theatrics. Stratton also cites an interview by Howard Cosell in which Ali explained that rather than toying with Patterson, he refrained from knocking him out after it became apparent Patterson was injured. Patterson later said that he had never been hit by punches as soft as Ali's. Stratton states that Ali arranged the second fight, in 1972, with the financially struggling Patterson to help the former champion earn enough money to pay a debt to the IRS.
Main Bout
After the Patterson fight, Ali founded his own promotion company, Main Bout. The company mainly handled Ali's boxing promotions and pay-per-view closed-circuit television broadcasts. The company's stockholders were mainly fellow Nation of Islam members, along with several others, including Bob Arum.
Ali and then-WBA heavyweight champion boxer Ernie Terrell had agreed to meet for a bout in Chicago on March 29, 1966 (the WBA, one of two boxing associations, had stripped Ali of his title following his joining the Nation of Islam). But in February Ali was reclassified by the Louisville draft board as 1-A from 1-Y, and he indicated that he would refuse to serve, commenting to the press, "I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong; no Viet Cong never called me nigger.", although the second part is probably apocryphal. Amidst the media and public outcry over Ali's stance, the Illinois Athletic Commission refused to sanction the fight, citing technicalities.
Instead, Ali traveled to Canada and Europe and won championship bouts against George Chuvalo, Henry Cooper, Brian London, and Karl Mildenberger.
Ali returned to the United States to fight Cleveland Williams at the Astrodome in Houston on November 14, 1966. The bout drew a record-breaking indoor crowd of 35,460 people. Williams had once been considered among the hardest punchers in the heavyweight division, but in 1964 he had been shot at point-blank range by a Texas policeman, resulting in the loss of one kidney and 3.0 metres (10 ft) of his small intestine. Ali dominated Williams, winning a third-round technical knockout in what some consider the finest performance of his career.
Ali fought Terrell in Houston on February 6, 1967. Terrell, who was unbeaten in five years and had defeated many of the boxers Ali had faced, was billed as Ali's toughest opponent since Liston; he was big, strong and had a three-inch reach advantage over Ali. During the lead up to the bout, Terrell repeatedly called Ali "Clay", much to Ali's annoyance. The two almost came to blows over the name issue in a pre-fight interview with Howard Cosell. Ali seemed intent on humiliating Terrell. "I want to torture him", he said. "A clean knockout is too good for him." The fight was close until the seventh round, when Ali bloodied Terrell and almost knocked him out. In the eighth round, Ali taunted Terrell, hitting him with jabs and shouting between punches, "What's my name, Uncle Tom ... what's my name?" Ali won a unanimous 15-round decision. Terrell claimed that early in the fight Ali deliberately thumbed him in the eye, forcing him to fight half-blind, and then, in a clinch, rubbed the wounded eye against the ropes. Because of Ali's apparent intent to prolong the fight to inflict maximum punishment, critics described the bout as "one of the ugliest boxing fights". Tex Maule later wrote: "It was a wonderful demonstration of boxing skill and a barbarous display of cruelty." Ali denied the accusations of cruelty but, for Ali's critics, the fight provided more evidence of his arrogance.
After Ali's title defense against Zora Folley on March 22, he was stripped of his title due to his refusal to be drafted to army service. His boxing license was also suspended by the state of New York. He was convicted of draft evasion on June 20 and sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He paid a bond and remained free while the verdict was being appealed.
Draft resistance
Ali registered for conscription in the United States military on his 18th birthday and was listed as 1-A in 1962. In 1964, he was reclassified as Class 1-Y (fit for service only in times of national emergency) after he failed the U.S. Armed Forces qualifying test because his writing and spelling skills were sub-standard, due to his dyslexia. (He was quoted as saying, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest!") By early 1966, the army lowered its standards to permit soldiers above the 15th percentile and Ali was again classified as 1-A. This classification meant he was now eligible for the draft and induction into the U.S. Army at a time when the U.S. was involved in the Vietnam War, a war which put him further at odds with the white establishment.
When notified of this status, Ali declared that he would refuse to serve in the army and publicly considered himself a conscientious objector. Ali stated: "War is against the teachings of the Qur'an. I'm not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger. We don't take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers". He also said, "We are not to be the aggressor but we will defend ourselves if attacked." He stated: "Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong." Ali elaborated: "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" Ali antagonized the white establishment in 1966 by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.
On April 28, 1967, Ali appeared in Houston for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces, but he refused three times to step forward when his name was called. An officer warned him that he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called, and he was arrested. Later that same day, the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title. Other boxing commissions followed suit. Ali remained unable to obtain a license to box in any state for over three years. On June 4, 1967, in a first for sports professionals, a group of high-profile African-American athletes including Jim Brown, Bill Russell, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as well as one political leader, Carl Stokes, assembled with Ali at the Negro Industrial Economic Union in Cleveland for what became known as the "Cleveland Summit" or the "Muhammad Ali Summit". The meeting was organized by Brown for his peers to question Ali about the seriousness of his convictions, and to decide whether to support him, which they ultimately did.
At the trial on June 20, 1967, the jury found Ali guilty after only 21 minutes of deliberation of the criminal offense of violating the Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. After a Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, the case was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971.
Ali remained free in the years between the Appellate Court decision and the Supreme Court ruling. As public opinion began turning against the war and the Civil Rights Movement continued to gather momentum, Ali became a popular speaker at colleges and universities across the country; this itinerary was rare if not unprecedented for a prizefighter. At Howard University, for example, he gave his popular "Black Is Best" speech to 4,000 cheering students and community intellectuals, after he was invited to speak by sociology professor Nathan Hare on behalf of the Black Power Committee, a student protest group.
On June 28, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States in Clay v. United States overturned Ali's conviction by a unanimous 8–0 decision (Justice Thurgood Marshall recused himself, as he had been the U.S. Solicitor General at the time of Ali's conviction). The decision was not based on, nor did it address, the merits of Ali's claims per se. Rather, the Court held that since the appeal board gave no reason for the denial of a conscientious objector exemption to Ali, that it was therefore impossible to determine which of the three basic tests for conscientious objector status (offered in the Justice Department's brief) the appeal board relied on, and Ali's conviction must be reversed.
In a 1974 interview, Ali said, "If they say stand and salute the flag I do that out of respect, because I'm in the country". Ali would later say, "If America was in trouble and real war came, I'd be on the front line if we had been attacked. But I could see that [the Vietnam War] wasn't right." He also said, "Black men would go over there and fight, but when they came home, they couldn't even be served a hamburger."
Impact of Ali's draft refusal
Ali's example inspired many black Americans and others. However, initially when he refused induction, he became arguably the most hated man in the country and received many death threats. People who supported Ali during this time were also threatened, including sports journalist Jerry Izenberg, whose columns defended Ali's decision not to serve. He wrote, "Bomb threats emptied our office, making the staff stand out in the snow. My car windshield was smashed with a sledgehammer." The New York Times columnist William Rhoden wrote, "Ali's actions changed my standard of what constituted an athlete's greatness. Possessing a killer jump shot or the ability to stop on a dime was no longer enough. What were you doing for the liberation of your people? What were you doing to help your country live up to the covenant of its founding principles?"
Recalling Ali's anti-war position, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said: "I remember the teachers at my high school didn't like Ali because he was so anti-establishment and he kind of thumbed his nose at authority and got away with it. The fact that he was proud to be a black man and that he had so much talent ... made some people think that he was dangerous. But for those very reasons I enjoyed him."
Civil rights figures came to believe that Ali had an energizing effect on the freedom movement as a whole. Al Sharpton spoke of his bravery at a time when there was still widespread support for the Vietnam War:
For the heavyweight champion of the world, who had achieved the highest level of athletic celebrity, to put all of that on the line—the money, the ability to get endorsements—to sacrifice all of that for a cause, gave a whole sense of legitimacy to the movement and the causes with young people that nothing else could have done. Even those who were assassinated, certainly lost their lives, but they didn't voluntarily do that. He knew he was going to jail and did it anyway. That's another level of leadership and sacrifice.
Ali was honored with the annual Martin Luther King Award in 1970 by civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy, who called him "a living example of soul power, the March on Washington in two fists". Coretta Scott King added that Ali was "a champion of justice and peace and unity".
In speaking of the cost on Ali's career of his refusal to be drafted, his trainer Angelo Dundee said, "One thing must be taken into account when talking about Ali: He was robbed of his best years, his prime years." Ali's promoter Bob Arum did not support Ali's choice at the time, but in 2016 Arum stated: "when I look back at his life, and I was blessed to call him a friend and spent a lot of time with him, it's hard for me to talk about his exploits in boxing because as great as they were they paled in comparison to the impact that he had on the world. ... He did what he thought was right. And it turned out he was right, and I was wrong."
Ali's resistance to the draft was covered in the 2013 documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali.
NSA and FBI monitoring of Ali's communications
In a secret operation code-named "Minaret", the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the communications of leading Americans, including Ali, Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., prominent U.S. journalists, and others who criticized the U.S. war in Vietnam. A review by the NSA of the Minaret program concluded that it was "disreputable if not outright illegal".
In 1971, Ali's Fight of the Century with Frazier was used by an activist group, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, to pull off a burglary at an FBI office in Pennsylvania; the anticipation for the fight was unlike anything else, so they believed the security would also be focused on the fight. This raid exposed the COINTELPRO operations that included illegal spying on activists involved with the civil rights and anti-war movements. One of the COINTELPRO targets was Ali, and their activities included the FBI gaining access to his records as far back as elementary school; one such record mentioned him loving art as a child.
Exile and comeback
In March 1966, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces. He was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970—from ages 25 to almost 29—as his case worked its way through the appeals process before his conviction was overturned in 1971.
Protesting while exiled
During this time of inactivity, as opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow and Ali's stance gained sympathy, he spoke at colleges across the nation, criticizing the Vietnam War and advocating African American pride and racial justice. Ali based himself in Chicago. According to most close to him, his Chicago years were formative.
At the time, Ali was widely condemned by the American media, with fears that his actions could potentially lead to mass civil disobedience. Despite this, Ebony magazine noted in the late 1960s that Ali's popularity had increased during this time, especially among black people.
The Super Fight
While banned from sanctioned bouts, Ali settled a $1 million lawsuit against radio producer Murray Woroner by accepting $10,000 to appear in a privately staged fantasy fight against retired champion Rocky Marciano. In 1969 the boxers were filmed sparring for about 75 one-minute rounds; they produced several potential outcomes. A computer program purportedly determined the winner, based on data about the fighters, along with the opinions of approximately 250 boxing experts. Edited versions of the bout were shown in movie theaters in 1970. In the U.S. version Ali lost in a simulated 13th-round knockout, but in the European version Marciano lost due to cuts, also simulated.
Ali suggested that prejudice determined his defeat in the U.S. version; he was reported to have jokingly said, "That computer was made in Alabama."
Return
On August 11, 1970, with his case still in appeal, Ali was granted a license to box by the City of Atlanta Athletic Commission. Leroy Johnson, Jesse Hill Jr. and Harry Pett had used their local political influence and set up the company House of Sports to organize the fight, underlining the influential power of Georgia's black politics in Ali's comeback. Ali's first return bout was against Jerry Quarry on October 26, resulting in a win after three rounds after Quarry was cut.
A month earlier, a victory in federal court forced the New York State Boxing Commission to reinstate Ali's license. He fought Oscar Bonavena at Madison Square Garden in December, an uninspired performance that ended in a dramatic technical knockout of Bonavena in the 15th round. The win left Ali as a top contender against heavyweight champion Joe Frazier.
Fight against Joe Frazier
Ali and Frazier's first fight, held at the Garden on March 8, 1971, was nicknamed the "Fight of the Century", due to the tremendous excitement surrounding a bout between two undefeated fighters, each with a legitimate claim to be heavyweight champion. Veteran US boxing writer John Condon called it "the greatest event I've ever worked on in my life". The bout was broadcast to 36 countries; promoters granted 760 press passes.
Adding to the atmosphere were the considerable pre-fight theatrics and name calling. Before the fight Frazier called Ali, "Cassius Clay", this angered Ali and he portrayed Frazier as a "dumb tool of the white establishment". "Frazier is too ugly to be champ", Ali said. "Frazier is too dumb to be champ." Ali also frequently called Frazier an "Uncle Tom". Dave Wolf, who worked in Frazier's camp, recalled that, "Ali was saying 'the only people rooting for Joe Frazier are white people in suits, Alabama sheriffs, and members of the Ku Klux Klan. I'm fighting for the little man in the ghetto.' Joe was sitting there, smashing his fist into the palm of his hand, saying, 'What the fuck does he know about the ghetto?'"
Ali began training at a farm near Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1971 and, finding the country setting to his liking, sought to develop a real training camp in the countryside. He found a five-acre site on a Pennsylvania country road in the village of Deer Lake, Pennsylvania. On this site, Ali carved out what was to become his training camp, where he trained for all his fights from 1972 to the end of his career in 1981.
The Monday night fight lived up to its billing. In a preview of their two other fights, a crouching, bobbing and weaving Frazier constantly pressured Ali, getting hit regularly by Ali jabs and combinations, but relentlessly attacking and scoring repeatedly, especially to Ali's body. The fight was even in the early rounds, but Ali was taking more punishment than ever in his career up until that point. On several occasions in the early rounds, he played to the crowd and shook his head "no" after he was hit. In the later rounds—in what was the first appearance of the "rope-a-dope strategy"—Ali leaned against the ropes and absorbed punishment from Frazier, hoping to tire him. In the 11th round, Frazier connected with a left hook that wobbled Ali, but because it appeared that Ali might be clowning as he staggered backwards across the ring, Frazier hesitated to press his advantage, fearing an Ali counterattack. In the final round, Frazier knocked Ali down with a vicious left hook, which referee Arthur Mercante said was as hard as a man can be hit. Ali was back on his feet in three seconds. Nevertheless, Ali lost by unanimous decision, his first professional defeat.
After his loss
Chamberlain challenge and Ellis fight
In 1971, basketball star Wilt Chamberlain challenged Ali to a fight, and a bout was scheduled for July 26. Although the seven-foot-two-inch-tall Chamberlain had formidable physical advantages over Ali—weighing 60 pounds more and able to reach 14 inches further—Ali was able to influence Chamberlain into calling off the bout by taunting him with calls of "Timber!" and "The tree will fall" during a shared interview. These statements of confidence unsettled his taller opponent, whom Los Angeles Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke had offered a record-setting contract, conditional on Chamberlain agreeing to abandon what Cooke termed "this boxing foolishness", and he did exactly that. To replace Ali's opponent, promoter Bob Arum quickly booked a former sparring partner of Ali's, Jimmy Ellis, who was a childhood friend from Louisville, Kentucky, to fight him. Ali won the bout through a technical knockout when the referee stopped the fight in the twelfth round.
Fights against Quarry, Patterson, Foster, Bugner and Norton
After the loss to Frazier, Ali fought Jerry Quarry, had a second bout with Floyd Patterson and faced Bob Foster in 1972, winning a total of six fights that year. During two bouts he had in 1973 with Joe Bugner and Ken Norton, he wore a "People's Choice" robe which was given to him by Elvis Presley. In 1973 before his fight with Norton, Tom Cushman said Ali was "gloriously overconfident. He didn't consider this guy a threat at all." But during the fight, either in the 2nd round according to most press reports, or the final round according to Norton, Norton broke Ali's jaw and inflicted by decision the second loss of his career. After considering retirement, Ali won a controversial decision against Norton in their second bout. This led to a rematch with Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden on January 28, 1974; Frazier had recently lost his title to George Foreman.
Second fight against Joe Frazier
Ali was strong in the early rounds of the fight, and staggered Frazier in the second round. Referee Tony Perez mistakenly thought he heard the bell ending the round and stepped between the two fighters as Ali was pressing his attack, giving Frazier time to recover. However, Frazier came on in the middle rounds, snapping Ali's head in round seven and driving him to the ropes at the end of round eight. The last four rounds saw round-to-round shifts in momentum between the two fighters. Throughout most of the bout, however, Ali was able to circle away from Frazier's dangerous left hook and to tie Frazier up when he was cornered, the latter a tactic that Frazier's camp complained of bitterly. Judges awarded Ali a unanimous decision.
World heavyweight champion (second reign)
The Rumble in the Jungle
The defeat of Frazier set the stage for a title fight against heavyweight champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1974—a bout nicknamed The Rumble in the Jungle. Foreman was considered one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight history. In assessing the fight, analysts pointed out that Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, who had given Ali four tough battles and won two of them, had both been devastated by Foreman in second-round knockouts. Ali was 32 years old and had lost speed and reflexes since his twenties. Contrary to his later persona, Foreman was at the time a brooding and intimidating presence. Almost no one associated with the sport, not even Ali's long-time supporter Howard Cosell, gave the former champion a chance of winning.
As usual, Ali was confident and colorful before the fight. He told interviewer David Frost, "If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whup Foreman's behind!" He told the press, "I've done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick." Ali was wildly popular in Zaire, with crowds chanting "Ali, bomaye" ("Ali, kill him") wherever he went.
Ali opened the fight moving and scoring with right crosses to Foreman's head. Then, beginning in the second round, and to the consternation of his corner, Ali retreated to the ropes and invited Foreman to hit him while covering up, clinching and counterpunching, all while verbally taunting Foreman. The move, which would later become known as the "Rope-a-dope", so violated conventional boxing wisdom—letting one of the hardest hitters in boxing strike at will—that at ringside writer George Plimpton thought the fight had to be fixed. Foreman, increasingly angered, threw punches that were deflected and did not land squarely. Midway through the fight, as Foreman began tiring, Ali countered more frequently and effectively with punches and flurries, which electrified the pro-Ali crowd. In the eighth round, Ali dropped an exhausted Foreman with a combination at center ring; Foreman failed to make the count. Against the odds, and amidst pandemonium in the ring, Ali had regained the title by knockout. Reflecting on the fight, George Foreman later said: "I thought Ali was just one more knockout victim until, about the seventh round, I hit him hard to the jaw and he held me and whispered in my ear: 'That all you got, George?' I realized that this ain't what I thought it was."
It was a major upset victory, after Ali came in as a 4–1 underdog against the previously unbeaten, heavy-hitting Foreman. The fight became famous for Ali's introduction of the rope-a-dope tactic. The fight was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers worldwide. It was the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time.
Fights against Wepner, Lyle and Bugner
Ali's next opponents included Chuck Wepner, Ron Lyle, and Joe Bugner. Wepner, a journeyman known as "The Bayonne Bleeder", stunned Ali with a knockdown in the ninth round; Ali would later say he tripped on Wepner's foot. The fight inspired Sylvester Stallone to create the acclaimed film Rocky.
Third fight against Joe Frazier
Ali then agreed to a third match with Joe Frazier in Manila. The bout, known as the "Thrilla in Manila", was held on October 1, 1975, in temperatures approaching 100 °F (38 °C). In the first rounds, Ali was aggressive, moving and exchanging blows with Frazier. However, Ali soon appeared to tire and adopted the "rope-a-dope" strategy, frequently resorting to clinches. During this part of the bout Ali did some effective counterpunching, but for the most part absorbed punishment from a relentlessly attacking Frazier. In the 12th round, Frazier began to tire, and Ali scored several sharp blows that closed Frazier's left eye and opened a cut over his right eye. With Frazier's vision now diminished, Ali dominated the 13th and 14th rounds, at times conducting what boxing historian Mike Silver called "target practice" on Frazier's head. The fight was stopped when Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, refused to allow Frazier to answer the bell for the 15th and final round, despite Frazier's protests. Frazier's eyes were both swollen shut. Ali, in his corner, winner by TKO, slumped on his stool, spent.
An ailing Ali said afterwards that the fight "was the closest thing to dying that I know", and, when later asked if he had viewed the fight on videotape, reportedly said, "Why would I want to go back and see Hell?" After the fight he cited Frazier as "the greatest fighter of all times next to me".
After the third fight with Frazier, Ali considered retirement. He said, "I'm sore all over. My arms, my face, my sides all ache. I'm so, so tired. There is a great possibility that I will retire. You might have seen the last of me. I want to sit back and count my money, live in my house and my farm, work for my people and concentrate on my family."
Later career
On February 2, 1976, Ali defeated Jean-Pierre Coopman by 5th round knockout. The WBC Heavyweight title was not on the line for this fight. On April 30, 1976, Ali would fight Jimmy Young and win a controversial unanimous decision. Howard Cosell would remark that he had "never seen Ali so off in his timing" and when asked on his performance against Young in the post-fight interview, Ali stated that he was "getting old" and that he was "preserving his energy" for Ken Norton. On May 24, 1976, Ali defeated Richard Dunn, winning by 5th round technical knockout. The punch used to knock Dunn out was taught to Ali by Taekwondo Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee. Rhee called that punch the "Accupunch"; he learned it from Bruce Lee. The Dunn fight was the last time Ali would knock an opponent out in his boxing career.
Ali fought Ken Norton for the third time in September 1976. The bout, which was held at Yankee Stadium, resulted in Ali winning a controversial decision that ringside commentators had scored in favor of Norton. Afterwards, he announced he was retiring from boxing to practice his faith, having converted to Sunni Islam after falling out with the Nation of Islam the previous year.
After returning to beat Alfredo Evangelista in May 1977, Ali struggled in his next fight against Earnie Shavers that September, getting pummeled a few times by punches to the head. Ali won the fight by another unanimous decision, but the bout caused his longtime doctor Ferdie Pacheco to quit after he was rebuffed for telling Ali he should retire. Pacheco was quoted as saying, "the New York State Athletic Commission gave me a report that showed Ali's kidneys were falling apart. I wrote to Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, his wife and Ali himself. I got nothing back in response. That's when I decided enough is enough."
In February 1978, Ali faced Leon Spinks at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. At the time, Spinks had only seven professional fights to his credit, and had recently fought a draw with journeyman Scott LeDoux. Ali sparred less than two dozen rounds in preparation for the fight and was seriously out of shape by the opening bell. He lost the title by split decision. A rematch occurred in September at the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. 70,000 people attended the bout and paid a total of $6 million admission, making it the largest live gate in boxing history at that time. Ali won a unanimous decision in an uninspiring fight, with referee Lucien Joubert scoring rounds 10–4, judge Ernie Cojoe 10–4, and judge Herman Preis 11–4. This made Ali the first heavyweight champion to win the belt three times.
Following this win, on July 27, 1979, Ali announced his retirement from boxing. His retirement was short-lived, however; Ali announced his comeback to face Larry Holmes for the WBC belt in an attempt to win the heavyweight championship an unprecedented fourth time. The fight was largely motivated by Ali's need for money. Boxing writer Richie Giachetti said, "Larry didn't want to fight Ali. He knew Ali had nothing left; he knew it would be a horror."
It was around this time that Ali started struggling with vocal stutters and trembling hands. The Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) ordered that he undergo a complete physical in Las Vegas before being allowed to fight again. Ali chose instead to check into the Mayo Clinic, who declared him fit to fight. Their opinion was accepted by the NAC on July 31, 1980, paving the way for Ali's return to the ring.
Fight stoppage vs. Larry Holmes
On October 2, 1980, Ali returned to the ring to fight Holmes at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Holmes, who fought under the nickname "The Easton Assassin", easily dominated Ali. After the tenth round, Angelo Dundee stepped into the ring and instructed the referee to stop the fight. It was the only time Ali ever lost by stoppage.
Immediately after the fight, Ali was given painkillers and antidepressants, in violation of World Boxing Council rules prohibiting the administration of any drug before the postfight urinalysis.
Giachetti called the fight "awful...the worst sports event I ever had to cover". Actor Sylvester Stallone was ringside for the fight and said that it was like watching an autopsy on a man who is still alive. The Holmes fight is said to have contributed to Ali's Parkinson's syndrome. Despite pleas to definitively retire, Ali fought one last time on December 11, 1981, in Nassau, Bahamas, against Trevor Berbick, losing a ten-round decision.
Exhibition bouts
Ali boxed both well-known boxers and celebrities from other walks of life, including Antonio Inoki, Michael Dokes, Sammy Davis Jr., Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Burt Young, Lyle Alzado, Dave Semenko, and Puerto Rican comedian Jose Miguel Agrelot (with Iris Chacon acting as Agrelot's corner-woman).
Ali vs Inoki
On June 26, 1976, Ali participated in an exhibition bout in Tokyo against Japanese professional wrestler and martial artist Antonio Inoki. Ali was only able to land two jabs while Inoki's kicks caused two blood clots and an infection that almost resulted in Ali's leg being amputated, as a result of Ali's team insisting on rules restricting Inoki's ability to wrestle. Because of this, the fight has been criticized for causing Ali trouble healthwise, mostly in terms of movement, later down the line; Ferdie Pacheco stated "Ali was still feeling the effects of his leg injury, and his mobility was not what it had been". The match was not scripted and ultimately declared a draw. After Ali's death, The New York Times declared it his least memorable fight. Most boxing commentators at the time viewed the fight negatively and hoped it would be forgotten as some considered it a "15-round farce". Today it is considered by some to be one of Ali's most influential fights and CBS Sports said the attention the mixed-style bout received "foretold the arrival of standardized MMA years later". Ali and Inoki began a friendship after the fight.
Ali vs Alzado
In 1979, Ali fought an exhibition match against NFL player Lyle Alzado. The fight went 8 rounds and was declared a draw.
Ali vs Semenko
Ali fought NHL player, Dave Semenko in an exhibition on June 12, 1983. The match was officially a draw after going three rounds, but the Canadian Press reported Ali was not seriously trying for most of the bout, instead just toying with Semenko.
Personal life
Marriages and children
Ali was married four times and had seven daughters and two sons. Ali was introduced to cocktail waitress Sonji Roi by Herbert Muhammad, who was to become Ali's long-time manager, and asked her to marry him after their first date. They married approximately one month later on August 14, 1964. They quarreled over Sonji's refusal to join the Nation of Islam. According to Ali, "She wouldn't do what she was supposed to do. She wore lipstick; she went into bars; she dressed in clothes that were revealing and didn't look right." The marriage was childless and they divorced on January 10, 1966. Just before the divorce was finalized, Ali sent Sonji a note: "You traded heaven for hell, baby." Ali's brother Rahaman said that she was Ali's only true love and the Nation of Islam made Ali divorce her and Ali never got over it.
On August 17, 1967, Ali married Belinda Boyd. In an interview with NBC 6, Boyd recounted meeting Ali when she was 10 years old at her hometown mosque. "He said, 'Listen here little girl. This is my name. Imma be famous. You need to keep that 'cause it's gone be worth a lot of money,'" Boyd said, mimicking Ali. "You'll never be famous with that name. And, I walked away," Boyd said. Born into a Chicago family that had converted to the Nation Of Islam, she later changed her name to Khalilah Ali, though she was still called Belinda by old friends and family. They had four children: author and rapper Maryum "May May" (born 1968); twins Jamillah and Rasheda (born 1970); and Muhammad Ali Jr. (born 1972). Rasheda married Robert Walsh and has two sons: Biaggio Ali (born 1998), who is an amateur MMA fighter, and Nico Ali (born 2000), who is a professional boxer.
Ali was a resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey in suburban Philadelphia in the early 1970s. At age 32 in 1974, Ali began an extramarital relationship with 16-year-old Wanda Bolton (who subsequently changed her name to Aaisha Ali) with whom he fathered another daughter, Khaliah (born June 1974). While still married to Belinda, Ali married Aaisha a year later in an Islamic ceremony that was not legally recognized. According to Khaliah, Aaisha and her mother lived at Ali's Deer Lake training camp alongside Belinda and her children. In January 1985, Aaisha sued Ali for unpaid palimony. The case was settled when Ali agreed to set up a $200,000 trust fund for Khaliah. In 2001 Khaliah was quoted as saying she believed her father viewed her as "a mistake". He had another daughter, Miya (born 1972), from an extramarital relationship with Patricia Harvell.
By the summer of 1977, his second marriage ended due to Ali's repeated infidelity, and he had married actress and model Veronica Porché. At the time of their marriage, they had a daughter, Hana, and Veronica was pregnant with their second child. Their second daughter, Laila Ali, was born in December 1977, and went on to become a professional boxer. By 1986, Ali and Porché were divorced due to Ali's continuous infidelity. Porché said of Ali's infidelity, "It was too much temptation for him, with women who threw themselves at him. It didn't mean anything. He didn't have affairs – he had one-night stands. I knew beyond a doubt there were no feelings involved. It was so obvious, It was easy to forgive him."
On November 19, 1986, Ali married Yolanda "Lonnie" Williams. Lonnie first met Ali at the age of 6 when her family moved to Louisville in 1963. In 1982, she became Ali's primary caregiver and in return, he paid for her to attend graduate school at UCLA. Together they adopted a son, Asaad Amin (born 1986), when Asaad was five months old. In 1992, Lonnie incorporated Greatest of All Time, Inc. (G.O.A.T. Inc) to consolidate and license his intellectual properties for commercial purposes. She served as the vice president and treasurer until the sale of the company in 2006.
Ali then lived in Scottsdale, Arizona with Lonnie. In January 2007, it was reported that they had put their home in Berrien Springs, Michigan, which they had bought in 1975, up for sale and had purchased a home in eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky for $1,875,000. Both homes were subsequently sold after Ali's death with Lonnie living in their remaining home in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Lonnie converted to Islam from Catholicism in her late twenties.
Ali's daughter Laila was a professional boxer from 1999 until 2007, despite her father's previous opposition to women's boxing. In 1978, he said "Women are not made to be hit in the breast, and face like that." Ali still attended a number of his daughter's fights and later admitted to Laila he was wrong. Ali's daughter Hana is married to Bellator middleweight fighter Kevin Casey. Hana wrote about her father, "His love for people was extraordinary. I would get home from school to find homeless families sleeping in our guest room. He'd see them on the street, pile them into his Rolls-Royce and bring them home. He'd buy them clothes, take them to hotels and pay the bills for months in advance." She also said celebrities like Michael Jackson and Clint Eastwood would often visit Ali.
Paternity claims
Kiiursti Mensah-Ali claims she is Ali's biological daughter with Barbara Mensah, with whom he allegedly had a 20-year relationship, citing photographs and a paternity test conducted in 1988. She said he accepted responsibility and took care of her, but all contacts with him were cut off after he married his fourth wife Lonnie. Kiiursti says she has a relationship with his other children. After his death she again made passionate appeals to be allowed to mourn at his funeral.
In 2010, Osmon Williams came forward claiming to be Ali's biological son. His mother Temica Williams (also known as Rebecca Holloway) launched a $3 million lawsuit against Ali in 1981 for sexual assault, claiming that she had started a sexual relationship with him when she was 12, and that her son Osmon (born 1977) was fathered by Ali when she was 17. She further alleged that Ali had originally supported her and her son financially, but stopped doing so after four years. The case went on until 1986 and was eventually thrown out as her allegations were deemed to be barred by the statute of limitations. According to Veronica, Ali admitted to the affair with Williams, but did not believe Osmon was his son which Veronica supported by saying "Everybody in the camp was going with that girl." Ali's biographer and friend Thomas Hauser has said this claim was of "questionable veracity".
Religion and beliefs
Affiliation with the Nation of Islam
Ali said that he first heard of the Nation of Islam when he was fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago in 1959 and attended his first Nation of Islam meeting in 1961. He continued to attend meetings, although keeping his involvement hidden from the public. In 1962, Clay met Malcolm X, who soon became his spiritual and political mentor. By the time of the first Liston fight, Nation of Islam members, including Malcolm X, were visible in his entourage. This led to a story in The Miami Herald just before the fight disclosing that Clay had joined the Nation of Islam, which nearly caused the bout to be canceled. The article quoted Cassius Clay Sr. as saying that his son had joined the Black Muslims when he was 18.
In fact, Clay was initially refused entry to the Nation of Islam (often called the Black Muslims at the time) due to his boxing career. However, after he won the championship from Liston in 1964, the Nation of Islam was more receptive and agreed to publicize his membership. Shortly afterwards on March 6, Elijah Muhammad gave a radio address that Clay would be renamed Muhammad (one who is worthy of praise) Ali (most high). Around that time Ali moved to the south side of Chicago and lived in a series of houses, always near the Nation of Islam's Mosque Maryam or Elijah Muhammad's residence. He stayed in Chicago for about 12 years.
Only a few journalists, most notably Howard Cosell, accepted the new name at that time. Ali stated that his earlier name was a "slave name" and a "white man's name" and added that "I didn't choose it and I don't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name". The person he was formerly named after was a white slave owner turned abolitionist. Ali explained in his autobiography after studying his works, "he may have gotten rid of his slaves, but (he) held on to white supremacy." Ali concluded: "Why should I keep my white slavemaster's name visible and my black ancestors invisible, unknown, unhonored?"
Not afraid to antagonize the white establishment, Ali stated, "I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me." Ali's friendship with Malcolm X ended as Malcolm split with the Nation of Islam a couple of weeks after Ali joined, and Ali remained with the Nation of Islam. Ali later said that turning his back on Malcolm was one of the mistakes he regretted most in his life.
Aligning himself with the Nation of Islam, its leader Elijah Muhammad, and a narrative that labeled the white race as the perpetrator of genocide against African Americans made Ali a target of public condemnation. The Nation of Islam was widely viewed by whites and some African Americans as a black separatist "hate religion" with a propensity toward violence; Ali had few qualms about using his influential voice to speak Nation of Islam doctrine. In a press conference articulating his opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali stated, "My enemy is the white people, not Vietcong or Chinese or Japanese." In relation to integration, he said: "We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don't want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don't want to live with the white man; that's all."
Writer Jerry Izenberg once noted that, "the Nation became Ali's family and Elijah Muhammad became his father. But there is an irony to the fact that while the Nation branded white people as devils, Ali had more white colleagues than most African American people did at that time in America, and continued to have them throughout his career."
Conversion to Sunni/Sufi Islam
In Hauser's biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, Ali stated that he was not a Christian as he thought the idea of God having a son sounded wrong and did not make sense to him, stating, "God don't beget; man begets". However, he still believed that even good Christians or good Jews could receive God's blessing and enter heaven as he stated, "God created all people, no matter what their religion". He also stated, "If you're against someone because he's a Muslim that's wrong. If you're against someone because he's a Christian or a Jew, that's wrong".
In a 2004 autobiography, Ali attributed his conversion to mainstream Sunni Islam to Warith Deen Muhammad, who assumed leadership of the Nation of Islam upon the death of his father Elijah Muhammad and persuaded the Nation's followers to become adherents of Sunni Islam. He said some people did not like the change and stuck to Elijah's teachings, but he admired it, and so left Elijah's teachings and became a follower of Sunni Islam.
Ali had gone on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 1972, which inspired him in a similar manner to Malcolm X, meeting people of different colors from all over the world giving him a different outlook and greater spiritual awareness. In 1977, he said that, after he retired, he would dedicate the rest of his life to getting "ready to meet God" by helping people, charitable causes, uniting people and helping to make peace. He went on another Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 1988.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, he stated that "Islam is a religion of peace" and "does not promote terrorism or killing people", and that he was "angry that the world sees a certain group of Islam followers who caused this destruction, but they are not real Muslims. They are racist fanatics who call themselves Muslims." In December 2015, after the November 2015 Paris attacks, he stated that "True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion", that "We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda", and that "political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam, and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is."
He also developed an interest in Sufism, which he referenced in his autobiography, The Soul of a Butterfly. According to Ali's daughter, Hana Yasmeen Ali, who co-authored The Soul of a Butterfly with him, Ali was attracted to Sufism after reading the books of Inayat Khan, which contain Sufi teachings.
Muhammad Ali received guidance from Islamic scholars such as Grand Mufti of Syria Al Marhum Al Sheikh Ahmed Kuftaro, Hisham Kabbani, Imam Zaid Shakir, Hamza Yusuf, and Timothy J. Gianotti, who was at Ali's bedside during his last days and ensured that although his funeral was interfaith, it was still in accordance with Islamic rites and rituals.
Health
During his amateur career, Ali refrained from smoking, drugs, and drinking alcohol and soda pop, and adopted an idiosyncratic diet. Upon his acceptance of the dietary restrictions of Islam, the Nation of Islam recruited cooks to prepare his meals.
Entertainment career
Acting
Ali had a cameo role in the 1962 film version of Requiem for a Heavyweight, and during his exile from boxing, he starred in the short-lived 1969 Broadway musical, Buck White. He also appeared in the documentary film Black Rodeo (1972) riding both a horse and a bull.
His autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story, written with Richard Durham, was published in 1975. In 1977 the book was adapted into a film called The Greatest, in which Ali played himself and Ernest Borgnine played Angelo Dundee.
The film Freedom Road, made in 1978, features Ali in a rare acting role as Gideon Jackson, a former slave and Union (American Civil War) soldier in 1870s Virginia, who gets elected to the U.S. Senate and battles alongside former slaves and white sharecroppers to keep the land they have tended all their lives.
Spoken word poetry
In 1963, Ali released an album of spoken word music on Columbia Records titled, I Am the Greatest, and in 1964, he recorded a cover version of the rhythm and blues song "Stand by Me". I Am the Greatest sold 500,000 copies, and has been identified as an early example of rap music and a precursor to hip hop. It reached number 61 on the album chart and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album at the 6th Annual Grammy Awards in 1964. He later received a second Grammy nomination, for "Best Recording for Children", with his 1976 spoken word novelty record, The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay.
Professional wrestling
Ali was involved with professional wrestling at different times in his career.
On June 1, 1976, as Ali was preparing for his bout with Inoki, he attended a match featuring Gorilla Monsoon. After the match was over, Ali removed his shirt and jacket and confronted professional wrestler Gorilla Monsoon in the ring after his match at a World Wide Wrestling Federation show in Philadelphia Arena. After dodging a few punches, Monsoon put Ali in an airplane spin and dumped him to the mat. Ali stumbled to the corner, where his associate Butch Lewis convinced him to walk away.
On March 31, 1985, Ali was the special guest referee for the main event of the inaugural WrestleMania event.
In 1995, Ali led a group of Japanese and American professional wrestlers, including his 1976 opponent Antonio Inoki and Ric Flair, on a sports diplomacy mission to North Korea. Ali was guest of honor at the record-breaking Collision in Korea, a wrestling event with the largest attendance of all time.
Ali was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by The Undertaker at the 2024 ceremony.
Television appearances
Muhammad Ali's fights were some of the world's most-watched television broadcasts, setting television viewership records. His most-watched fights drew an estimated 1–2 billion viewers worldwide between 1974 and 1980, and were the world's most-watched live television broadcasts at the time. Outside of fights, he made many other television appearances. The following table lists known viewership figures of his non-fight television appearances. For television viewership figures of his fights, see Boxing career of Muhammad Ali: Television viewership.
Art
Ali was also an amateur artist and made dozens of drawings and paintings in the 1970s. In 1977, Rodney Hilton Brown, who owned an art gallery in NYC, asked Ali if he was interested in painting. Ali took him up on the offer and produced several paintings for him to sell. Brown is the author of "Muhammad Ali: The Untold Story: Painter, Poet and Prophet". In October 2021, 26 of his drawings and arts were placed on auction and sold for close to US$1 Million.
Later life
By the end of his boxing career Ali had absorbed an estimated 200,000 hits.
In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome, which sometimes results from head trauma from violent physical activities such as boxing. Ali still remained active during this time, later participating as a guest referee at WrestleMania I.
Philanthropy, humanitarianism and politics
Ali was known for being a humanitarian and philanthropist. He focused on practicing his Islamic duty of charity and good deeds, donating millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people of all religious backgrounds. It is estimated that Ali helped to feed more than 22 million people afflicted by hunger across the world. Early in his career, one of his main focuses was youth education. He spoke at several historically black colleges and universities about the importance of education and became the largest single black donor to the United Negro College Fund in 1967 by way of a $10,000 donation ($78,000 in 2020 USD). In late 1966, he also pledged to donate a total of $100,000 to the UNCF (specifically promising to donate much of the proceeds of his title defense against Cleveland Williams) and paid $4,500 per closed circuit installation at six HBCUs so they could watch his fights.
Ali began visiting Africa, starting in 1964 when he visited Nigeria and Ghana. In 1974, he visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, where Ali declared "support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland". During that visit Ali also declared that the "United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism." In 1978, following his loss to Spinks and before winning the rematch, Ali visited Bangladesh and received honorary citizenship there. The same year, he participated in The Longest Walk, a protest march in the United States in support of Native American rights, along with singer Stevie Wonder and actor Marlon Brando.
In early 1980, Ali was recruited by President Jimmy Carter for a diplomatic mission to Africa, in an effort to persuade a number of African governments to join the US-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Having arrived in Tanzania, Ali told cameras, "Russia is invading a Muslim country, Asiatic country," and that its probable intention to head to oil-rich Persia to take wells and ports "could lead to nuclear war. My purpose in coming here was to try to stop that." However, according to Ali biographer Thomas Hauser, "at best, it was ill-conceived; at worst, a diplomatic disaster." The Tanzanian government was insulted that Carter had sent an athlete to discuss a serious political issue. One official asked whether the United States would "send Chris Evert to negotiate with London". Consequently, Ali was only received by the youth and culture minister, rather than President Julius Nyerere. Ali was unable to explain why the African countries should join the US boycott when it had failed to support the African boycott of the 1976 Olympics (in protest of Apartheid in South Africa), although neither did the Soviet Union, and was unaware of the sentiment that the Soviet Union had backed some popular revolutions on the continent, although none of the countries on the itinerary were Soviet allies. The Nigerian government also rebuffed him and confirmed that they would be participating in the Moscow Games. Ali did, however, convince the government of Kenya to boycott the Soviet Olympics.
On January 19, 1981, in Los Angeles, Ali talked a suicidal man down from jumping off a ninth-floor ledge, an event that made national news.
In 1984, Ali announced his support for the re-election of United States President Ronald Reagan. When asked to elaborate on his endorsement of Reagan, Ali told reporters, "He's keeping God in schools and that's enough." In 1985, he visited Israel to request the release of Muslim prisoners at Atlit detainee camp, which Israel declined.
Around 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday commemoration. In 1988, during the First Intifada, Ali participated in a Chicago rally in support of Palestine. The same year, he visited Sudan to raise awareness about the plight of famine victims. According to Politico, Ali supported Orrin Hatch politically. In 1989, he participated in an Indian charity event with the Muslim Educational Society in Kozhikode, Kerala, along with Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar.
In 1990, Ali traveled to Iraq prior to the Gulf War and met with president Saddam Hussein in an attempt to negotiate the release of American hostages. Ali secured the release of the hostages, in exchange for promising Hussein that he would bring America "an honest account" of Iraq. Despite arranging the hostages' release, he received criticism from president George H. W. Bush, and Joseph C. Wilson, the highest-ranking American diplomat in Baghdad.
In 1994, Ali campaigned to the United States government to come to the aid of refugees afflicted by the Rwandan genocide, and to donate to organizations helping Rwandan refugees.
In 1996, he lit the flame at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. It was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion viewers worldwide.
After Ali met a lesbian couple who were fans of his in 1997, he smiled and said to friend and biographer Thomas Hauser, "They look like they're happy together." Hauser wrote about the story, "The thought that Liz and Roz (the lesbian couple he met) were happy pleased Muhammad. Ali wanted people to be happy."
On November 17, 2002, Ali went to Afghanistan as the "U.N. Messenger of Peace". He was in Kabul for a three-day goodwill mission as a special guest of the UN.
On September 1, 2009, Ali visited Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, the home of his great-grandfather, Abe Grady, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1860s, eventually settling in Kentucky.
On July 27, 2012, Ali was a titular bearer of the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He was helped to his feet by his wife Lonnie to stand before the flag due to his Parkinson's syndrome rendering him unable to carry it into the stadium. The same year, he was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in recognition of his lifelong efforts in activism, philanthropy and humanitarianism.
Earnings
By 1978, Ali's total fight purse earnings were estimated to be nearly $60 million (inflation-adjusted $379 million), including an estimated $47.45 million grossed between 1970 and 1978. By 1980, his total fight purse earnings were estimated to be up to $70 million (inflation-adjusted $338 million).
In 1978, Ali revealed that he was "broke" and several news outlets reported his net worth to be an estimated $3.5 million (inflation-adjusted $16 million). The press attributed his decline in wealth to several factors, including taxes consuming at least half of his income, management taking a third of his income, his lifestyle, and spending on family, charity and religious causes.
In 2006, Ali sold his name and image for $50 million, after which Forbes estimated his net worth to be $55 million in 2006. Following his death in 2016, his fortune was estimated to be between $50 million and $80 million.
Declining health
Ali's Parkinson's syndrome led to a gradual decline in his health, though he was still active into the early 2000s, promoting his own biopic, Ali, in 2001. That year he also contributed an on-camera segment to the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert.
In 1998, Ali began working with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, to raise awareness and fund research for a cure. They made a joint appearance before Congress to push the case in 2002. In 2000, Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to raise awareness and encourage donations for research.
In February 2013, Ali's brother Rahaman Ali said Muhammad could no longer speak and could be dead within days. Ali's daughter May May Ali responded to the rumors, stating that she had talked to him on the phone the morning of February 3 and he was fine. On December 20, 2014, Ali was hospitalized for a mild case of pneumonia. Ali was once again hospitalized on January 15, 2015, for a urinary tract infection after being found unresponsive at a guest house in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was released the next day.
Death
Ali was hospitalized in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 2, 2016, with a respiratory illness. Though his condition was initially described as fair, it worsened, and he died the following day at the age of 74 from septic shock.
News coverage and tributes
Following Ali's death, he was the number-one trending topic on Twitter for over 12 hours and on Facebook for several days. BET played their documentary Muhammad Ali: Made In Miami. ESPN played four hours of non-stop commercial-free coverage of Ali. News networks, such as ABC News, BBC, CNN, and Fox News, also covered him extensively.
He was mourned globally, and a family spokesman said the family "certainly believes that Muhammad was a citizen of the world ... and they know that the world grieves with him". Politicians such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, David Cameron and more paid tribute to Ali. Ali also received numerous tributes from the world of sports including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, the Miami Marlins, LeBron James, Steph Curry and more. Then-Louisville mayor Greg Fischer stated, "Muhammad Ali belongs to the world. But he only has one hometown."
The day after Ali's death, the UFC paid tribute to Ali at their UFC 199 event in a lengthy video tribute package, crediting Ali for his accomplishments and inspiring multiple UFC champions.
Memorial
Ali's funeral had been pre-planned by himself and others for several years prior to his actual death. The services began in Louisville on June 9, 2016, with an Islamic Janazah prayer service at Freedom Hall on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center. The Janazah prayer was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On June 10, 2016, the funeral procession passed through the streets of Louisville ending at Cave Hill Cemetery, where his body was interred during a private ceremony. A public memorial service for Ali at downtown Louisville's KFC Yum! Center was held during the afternoon of June 10. Billy Crystal, his wife Lonnie Ali, sports journalist Bryant Gumbel and former President Bill Clinton all gave the eulogies. The pallbearers included Will Smith, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, with honorary pallbearers including George Chuvalo, Larry Holmes and George Foreman. Ali's memorial was watched by an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide.
If the measure of greatness is to gladden the heart of every human being on the face of the earth, then he truly was the greatest. In every way he was the bravest, the kindest and the most excellent of men.
Legacy
In boxing
Ali remains the only three-time lineal heavyweight champion. He is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times and was involved in more Ring "Fight of the Year" bouts than any other fighter. He was one of only three boxers to be named "Sportsman of the Year" by Sports Illustrated. He was also named BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year three times.
Ali was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in its first year and held wins over seven other Hall of Fame inductees during an era that has been called the golden age of heavyweight boxing. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years.
In hip-hop
Ali often used rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry when trash talking in boxing, and also delivered political poetry in his activism outside of boxing. He played a role in the shaping of the black poetic tradition, paving the way for The Last Poets in 1968, Gil Scott-Heron in 1970, and the emergence of rap music in the 1970s. Ali has been referred to as "the first rapper". As a "rhyming trickster", he was noted for his boasts, "funky delivery", "comical trash talk", and "endless quotables". Rolling Stone notes his "freestyle skills" and his "rhymes, flow, and braggadocio" would "one day become typical of old school MCs like Run DMC and LL Cool J", and his "outsized ego foreshadowed the vainglorious excesses of Kanye West, while his Afrocentric consciousness and cutting honesty pointed forward to modern bards like Rakim, Nas, Jay-Z, and Kendrick Lamar."
In 2006, the documentary Ali Rap was produced by ESPN, with Chuck D of Public Enemy as the host. Other rappers narrated the documentary as well, including Doug E Fresh, Ludacris and Rakim who all spoke on Ali's behalf in the film.
Ali has been cited as an inspiration by rappers such as LL Cool J, Chuck D, Jay-Z, Eminem, Sean Combs, Slick Rick, Nas and MC Lyte. Ali has been referenced in a number of hip hop songs, including Migos' "Fight Night", Nas's "The Message", The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", the Fugees' "Ready or Not", EPMD's "You're a Customer" and Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy wit It".
In Ali's hometown
In 1978, shortly after becoming heavyweight champion of the world for the third time, and three years before his permanent retirement, Ali received a round of accolades in his hometown of Louisville. In September, at a tribute ceremony held at Fairgrounds Stadium, then-Governor of Kentucky Julian Carroll proclaimed 1978 the "Year of Ali" and presented to Ali the Governor's Distinguished Service Award. Carroll said he signed the proclamation because "no single day or week – or even month – ever could contain the deeds of this man." In November, the Louisville Board of Aldermen voted 6–5 to rename downtown thoroughfare Walnut Street to Muhammad Ali Boulevard, via an ordinance shortly signed into law by then-Mayor William B. Stansbury. This was controversial at the time, as within a week 12 of the 70 street signs were stolen.
As the street renaming was under consideration, a committee of the Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky) considered renaming Ali's alma mater, Central High School, in his honor. Despite an initial endorsement by then-Jefferson County Judge/Executive and current U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and an affirmative vote by the Jefferson County Fiscal Court, the committee decided not to proceed, citing long-time school tradition and alumni disagreement, even though they urged other ways to honor Ali in the community. In time, Muhammad Ali Boulevard—and Ali himself—came to be well accepted in his hometown.
In November 2005, Ali and his wife Lonnie Ali opened the $54 million, 93,000 ft2, non-profit Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville. In addition to displaying his boxing memorabilia, the center focuses on core themes of peace, social responsibility, respect, and personal growth.
On January 16, 2019, the Louisville Regional Airport Authority voted to change the name of the city's main airport to "Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport" in honor of Ali. Then-Louisville mayor Greg Fischer upon the occasion said:Muhammad Ali belonged to the world, but he only had one hometown, and fortunately, that is our great city of Louisville. Muhammad became one of the most well-known people to ever walk the Earth and has left a legacy of humanitarianism and athleticism that has inspired billions of people. It [is] important that we, as a city, further champion The Champ's legacy, and the airport renaming is a wonderful next step. On June 6, 2019, the airport unveiled its new logo, featuring "Ali's silhouette, arms up and victorious, against the background of a butterfly."
Around the US and world
Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee was influenced by Ali, whose footwork he studied and incorporated into his own style while developing Jeet Kune Do in the 1960s.
Opened in 1976, Ali Mall, located in Araneta Center, Quezon City, Philippines, is named after Ali. Construction of the mall, the first of its kind in the Philippines, began shortly after his victory in a match with Joe Frazier in nearby Araneta Coliseum in 1975. Ali attended its opening. The Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki fight the same year played an important role in the history of mixed martial arts. In Japan, the match inspired Inoki's students Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki to found Pancrase in 1993, which in turn inspired the foundation of Pride Fighting Championships in 1997. Pride was acquired by its rival, Ultimate Fighting Championship, in 2007.
Ali was the recipient of the 1997 Arthur Ashe Courage Award. He was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton in January 2001 and with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in November 2005. For his work with the civil rights movement and the United Nations, he received the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold from the UN Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin in December 2005.
The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was introduced in 1999 and passed in 2000, to protect the rights and welfare of boxers in the United States. In May 2016, a bill was introduced to United States Congress by Markwayne Mullin, a politician and former MMA fighter, to extend the Ali Act to mixed martial arts. In June 2016, US senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment to the US draft laws named after Ali, a proposal to eliminate the Selective Service System.
In June 2007, Ali received an honorary doctorate of humanities at Princeton University's 260th graduation ceremony.
In 2015, Sports Illustrated renamed its Sportsman Legacy Award to the Sports Illustrated's Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. The annual award was originally created in 2008 and honors former "sports figures who embody the ideals of sportsmanship, leadership and philanthropy as vehicles for changing the world". Ali first appeared on the magazine's cover in 1963 and went on to be featured on numerous covers during his storied career.
The Society of Voice Arts and Sciences created the Muhammad Ali Voice of Humanity Honor in 2016, which is presented at its annual Voice Arts Awards. The award was created in collaboration with the Muhammad Ali Center and is presented to "an individual whose voice, through humanitarianism, activism or personal sacrifice, has made a decidedly positive impact on our national or global condition as a society". Sculptor Marc Mellon created the bronze sculpture for the award, which depicts Ali mid-speech. Recipients of the honor include Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Ken Burns, Vance Jones, Lonnie Ali, Stacey Abrams, Wes Studi, and Manuela Testolini.
In January 2017, the Muhammad Ali Commemorative Coin Act was introduced into the 115th Congress but was not enacted.
20th-century superlatives
By the end of the 20th century, Ali had made it onto several superlatives lists or otherwise was mentioned in superlative terms covering the century or a large portion thereof.
Ali was ranked at or near the top of most lists of the 20th century's greatest boxers. He was crowned Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated. Named BBC's Sports Personality of the Century, he received more votes than the other five candidates combined. The Associated Press ranked him as the second best boxer and best heavyweight of the 20th century. He was named Athlete of the Century by USA Today, and ranked as the third greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. Ali was named "Kentucky Athlete of the Century" by the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the Galt House East.
Ali was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine in 1990. In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete, out of over 800 dead or living athletes, in America. The study found that over 97% of Americans over 12 years of age identified both Ali and Ruth. In 1999, he was one of three athletes, alongside Pelé and Jackie Robinson, named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.
In media and popular culture
As a world champion boxer, social activist, sex symbol and pop culture icon, Ali was the subject of numerous creative works including books, films, music, video games, TV shows, and other. Muhammad Ali was often dubbed the world's "most famous" person in the media. Several of his fights were watched by an estimated 1–2 billion viewers between 1974 and 1980, and his lighting of the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion viewers.
Ali appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on 38 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan's 50. He also appeared on the cover of Time magazine 5 times. In 2015, Harris Poll found that Ali was one of the three most recognizable athletes in the United States, along with Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth.
On the set of Freedom Road Ali met Canadian singer-songwriter Michel, and subsequently helped create Michel's album The First Flight of the Gizzelda Dragon and an unaired television special featuring them both.
Ali was the subject of the British television program This Is Your Life in 1978 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. Ali was featured in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, a 1978 DC Comics comic book pitting the champ against the superhero. In 1979, Ali guest starred as himself in an episode of the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The show's title itself was inspired by the quote "Different strokes for different folks" popularized in 1966 by Ali, who also inspired the title of the 1967 Syl Johnson song "Different Strokes", one of the most sampled songs in pop music history.
He also wrote several bestselling books about his career, including The Greatest: My Own Story and The Soul of a Butterfly. The Muhammad Ali effect, named after Ali, is a term that came into use in psychology in the 1980s, as he stated in The Greatest: My Own Story: "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest." According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others. Ali cooperated with Thomas Hauser on a biography, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. The oral history was released in 1991.
When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The 2001 biopic Ali garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Will Smith for his portrayal of Ali. Prior to making the film, Smith rejected the role until Ali requested that he accept it. Smith said the first thing Ali told him was: "Man, you're almost pretty enough to play me."
In 2002, Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the entertainment industry. His star is the only one to be mounted on a vertical surface, out of deference to his request that the name Muhammad—a name he shares with the Islamic prophet—not be walked upon.
His 1966 fight against George Chuvalo was the subject of the 2003 documentary film The Last Round: Chuvalo vs. Ali. A decade later, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, a documentary directed by Bill Siegel that focuses on Ali's refusal of the draft during the Vietnam War, opened in Manhattan in August 2013. A 2013 made-for-TV movie titled Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight dramatized the same aspect of Ali's life.
Antoine Fuqua's documentary What's My Name: Muhammad Ali was released in 2019. Then in September 2021, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns released the four-part docuseries Muhammad Ali, spanning over eight hours on Ali's life. The series, which Burns began developing in early 2016, was broadcast on PBS. Dave Zirin, who watched an 8-hour rough cut of this documentary, called it "utterly outstanding" and said "the footage they found will blow minds".
In spring 2025, the officially authorized musical Ali, based on Ali's life, will be debuting. Originally expected to debut at The Kentucky Center in Ali's hometown of Louisville, it will instead have its premiere at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, before later moving on to Broadway. The musical is being directed and written by Clint Dyer, deputy artistic director of London's National Theatre, and scored by Louisville Orchestra's music director and conductor Teddy Abrams. Rapper and record producer Q-Tip has joined the production as music director and co-lyricist, along with Rich + Tone Talauega as choreographers.
Professional boxing record
Discography
I Am the Greatest (1963)
The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay (1976)
See also
List of world heavyweight boxing champions
List of WBA world champions
List of WBC world champions
List of The Ring world champions
List of undisputed world boxing champions
List of converts to Islam
List of boxing families
List of people from the Louisville metropolitan area
List of American Muslims
1981 MAPS Wells Fargo embezzlement scandal
Notes
References
Further reading
Hauser, Thomas (2004). Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. London: Robson Books. ISBN 978-1-86105-738-9. OCLC 56645513.
Online
Muhammad Ali: American boxer, in Encyclopædia Britannica Online, by Thomas Hauser, Adam Augustyn, Piyush Bhathya, Yamini Chauhan, John M. Cunningham, Richard Pallardy, Michael Ray, Emily Rodriguez, Surabhi Sinha, Amy Tikkanen, Grace Young and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
External links
Official website (November 2018 archive)
Boxing record for Muhammad Ali from BoxRec (registration required)
Muhammad Ali at IMDb
William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services: Ancestry of Muhammad Ali
FBI Records: The Vault – Muhammad Ali at the FBI
Cassius Clay Guilty (1967), Texas Archive of the Moving Image
Muhammad Ali at the Team USA Hall of Fame (archive April 6, 2023)
Muhammad Ali at Olympics.com
Muhammad Ali at Olympedia
Photo essays
"Cassius Clay: Before He Was Ali". Life. Archived from the original on October 21, 2009.
Berman, Eliza; Ronk, Liz (June 4, 2016). "Muhammad Ali's Life in Photos; From his time in the ring to his more playful side". Life. Archived from the original on June 4, 2016. |
Joe_Louis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis | [
606
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis"
] | Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed "the Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses, a record for all weight classes. Louis had the longest single reign as champion of any boxer in history.
Louis's cultural impact was felt well outside the ring. He is widely regarded as the first African-American to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II because of his historic rematch with German boxer Max Schmeling in 1938. He was instrumental in integrating the game of golf, helping break the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952.
Early life
Born on May 13, 1914, in rural Chambers County, Alabama—in a ramshackle dwelling on Bell Chapel Road, located about 1 mile (2 kilometres) off State Route 50 and roughly 6 miles (10 kilometres) from LaFayette—Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie (Reese) Barrow. He weighed 11 pounds (5 kg) at birth. Both of his parents were children of former slaves, alternating between sharecropping and rental farming.
Louis suffered from a speech impediment and spoke very little until about the age of six. Munroe Barrow was committed to a mental institution in 1916 and, as a result, Joe knew very little of his biological father. Around 1920, Louis's mother married Pat Brooks, a local construction contractor, having received word that Munroe Barrow had died while institutionalized (in reality, Munroe Barrow lived until 1938, unaware of his son's fame).
In 1926, shaken by a gang of white men in the Ku Klux Klan, Louis's family moved to Detroit, Michigan, forming part of the post-World War I Great Migration. Joe's brother worked for Ford Motor Company (where Joe would himself work for a time at the River Rouge Plant) and the family settled into a home at 2700 Catherine (now Madison) Street in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood.
Louis attended Bronson Vocational School for a time to learn cabinet-making.
Amateur career
The Great Depression severely affected the Barrow family, but Joe still made time to work out at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit. His mother attempted to get him interested in playing the violin. He is rumoured to have tried to hide his pugilistic ambitions from his mother by carrying his boxing gloves inside his violin case.
Louis made his debut in early 1932 at the age of 17. Legend has it that before the fight, the barely literate Louis wrote his name so large that there was no room for his last name, and thus became known as "Joe Louis" for the remainder of his boxing career (more likely, Louis simply omitted his last name to keep his boxing a secret from his mother). After this debut—a loss to future Olympian Johnny Miler—Louis compiled numerous amateur victories, eventually winning the club championship of his Brewster Street recreation center, the home of many aspiring Golden Gloves fighters.
In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division championship against Joe Biskey for the light heavyweight classification. He later lost in the Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. The next year, competing in the Golden Gloves' Open Division, he won the light heavyweight classification, this time also winning the Chicago Tournament of Champions against Joe Bauer. However, a hand injury forced Louis to miss the New York/Chicago Champions' cross-town bout for the ultimate Golden Gloves championship. In April 1934, he followed up his Chicago performance by winning the light heavyweight United States Amateur Champion National AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri.
By the end of his amateur career, Louis's record was 50–4, with 43 knockouts.
Professional career
Joe Louis had only three losses in his 69 professional fights. He tallied 52 knockouts and held the championship from 1937 to 1949, the longest span of any heavyweight titleholder. After returning from retirement, Louis failed to regain the championship in 1950, and his career ended after he was knocked out by Rocky Marciano in 1951.
Early years
Louis's amateur performances attracted the interest of professional promoters, and he was soon represented by a black Detroit-area bookmaker named John Roxborough. As Louis explained in his autobiography, Roxborough convinced the young fighter that white managers would have no real interest in seeing a black boxer work his way up to title contention:
[Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black fighters, ones with white managers, who wound up burned-out and broke before they reached their prime. The white managers were not interested in the men they were handling but in the money they could make from them. They didn't take the proper time to see that their fighters had a proper training, that they lived comfortably, or ate well, or had some pocket change. Mr. Roxborough was talking about Black Power before it became popular.
Roxborough knew a Chicago area boxing promoter named Julian Black who already had a stable of mediocre boxers against which Louis could hone his craft, this time in the heavyweight division. After becoming part of the management team, Black hired fellow Chicago native Jack "Chappy" Blackburn as Louis's trainer. Louis's initial professional fights were all in the Chicago area, his professional debut coming on July 4, 1934, against Jack Kracken in the Bacon Casino on Chicago's south side. Louis earned $59 for knocking out Kracken in the first round. $59 in 1934 is equivalent to $1,148.60 in 2020 dollars. Louis won all 12 of his professional fights that year, 10 by knockout.
In September 1934, while promoting a Detroit-area "coming home" bout for Louis against Canadian Alex Borchuk, Roxborough was pressured by members of the Michigan State Boxing Commission to have Louis sign with white management. Roxborough refused and continued advancing Louis's career with bouts against heavyweight contenders Art Sykes and Stanley Poreda.
While training for a fight against Lee Ramage, Louis noticed a young female secretary for the black newspaper at the gym. After Ramage was defeated, the secretary, Marva Trotter, was invited to the celebration party at Chicago's Grand Hotel. Trotter later became Louis's first wife in 1935.
During this time, Louis also met Truman Gibson, the man who would become his personal lawyer. As a young associate at a law firm hired by Julian Black, Gibson was charged with personally entertaining Louis during the pendency of business deals.
Title contention
Although Louis's management was finding him bouts against legitimate heavyweight contenders, no path to the title was forthcoming. While professional boxing was not officially segregated, many white Americans did not like the prospect of a black champion. In 1908, during an era of severe anti-black repression, Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion. Johnson's flamboyant lifestyle and marriage to a white woman engendered an enormous backlash that greatly limited opportunities of black fighters in the heavyweight division. Black boxers were denied championship bouts, and there were few heavyweight black contenders at the time, though there were African Americans who fought for titles in other weight divisions, and a few notable black champions, such as Tiger Flowers. Louis and his handlers would counter the legacy of Johnson by emphasizing the Brown Bomber's modesty and sportsmanship. Biographer Gerald Astor stated that "Joe Louis' early boxing career was stalked by the specter of Jack Johnson".
If Louis were to rise to national prominence among such cultural attitudes, a change in management would be necessary. In 1935, boxing promoter Mike Jacobs sought out Louis's handlers. After Louis's narrow defeat of Natie Brown on March 29, 1935, Jacobs and the Louis team met at the Frog Club, a black nightclub, and negotiated a three-year exclusive boxing promotion deal. The contract, however, did not keep Roxborough and Black from attempting to cash in as Louis's managers; when Louis turned 21 on May 13, 1935, Roxborough and Black each signed Louis to an onerous long-term contract that collectively dedicated half of Louis's future income to the pair.
Black and Roxborough continued to carefully and deliberately shape Louis's media image. Mindful of the tremendous public backlash Johnson had suffered for his unapologetic attitude and flamboyant lifestyle, they drafted "Seven Commandments" for Louis's personal conduct. These included:
Never have his picture taken with a white woman
Never gloat over a fallen opponent
Never engage in fixed fights
Live and fight clean
As a result, Louis was generally portrayed in the white media as a modest, clean-living person, which facilitated his burgeoning celebrity status.
With the backing of a major promotion, Louis fought thirteen times in 1935. The bout that helped put him in the media spotlight occurred on June 25, when Louis knocked out 6'6", 265-pound former world heavyweight champion Primo Carnera in six rounds. Foreshadowing the Louis–Schmeling rivalry to come, the Carnera bout featured a political dimension. Louis's victory over Carnera, who symbolized Benito Mussolini's regime in the popular eye, was seen as a victory for the international community, particularly among African Americans, who were sympathetic to Ethiopia, which was attempting to maintain its independence by fending off an invasion by fascist Italy. America's white press began promoting Louis's image in the context of the era's racism; nicknames they created included the "Mahogany Mauler", "Chocolate Chopper", "Coffee-Colored KO King", "Safari Sandman", and one that stuck: "The Brown Bomber".
Helping the white press to overcome its reluctance to feature a black contender was that in the mid-1930s boxing desperately needed a marketable hero. Since the retirement of Jack Dempsey in 1929, the sport had devolved into a sordid mixture of poor athletes, gambling, fixed fights, thrown matches, and control of the sport by organized crime. New York Times Columnist Edward Van Ness wrote, "Louis ... is a boon to boxing. Just as Dempsey led the sport out of the doldrums ... so is Louis leading the boxing game out of a slump". Likewise, biographer Bill Libby asserted that "The sports world was hungry for a great champion when Louis arrived in New York in 1935".
While the mainstream press was beginning to embrace Louis, many still opposed the prospect of another black heavyweight champion. In September 1935, on the eve of Louis's fight with former titleholder Max Baer, Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich wrote about some Americans' hopes for the white contender, "They say Baer will surpass himself in the knowledge that he is the lone white hope for the defense of Nordic superiority in the prize ring". However, the hopes of white supremacists would soon be dashed.
Although Baer had been knocked down only once before in his professional career (by Frankie Campbell), Louis dominated the former champion, knocking him out in the fourth round. Unknowingly, Baer suffered from a unique disadvantage in the fight: earlier that evening, Louis had married Marva Trotter at a friend's apartment and was eager to end the fight in order to consummate the relationship. Later that year, Louis also knocked out Paulino Uzcudun, who had never been knocked down before.
Louis vs. Schmeling
By this time, Louis was ranked as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division and had won the Associated Press' "Athlete of the Year" award for 1935. What was considered to be a final tune-up bout before an eventual title shot was scheduled for June 1936 against Max Schmeling. Although a former world heavyweight champion, Schmeling, who had been knocked out by the same Max Baer Louis had handily beaten, was not considered a threat to Louis, then with a professional record of 27–0. Schmeling had won his title on a technicality when Jack Sharkey was disqualified after giving Schmeling a low blow in 1930. Schmeling was also 30 years old at the time of the Louis bout and allegedly past his prime. Louis's training retreat was located at Lakewood, New Jersey, where he was first able to practice the game of golf, later to become a lifelong passion. Noted entertainer Ed Sullivan had initially sparked Louis's interest in the sport by giving an instructional book to Joe's wife Marva. Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training for the match.
Conversely, Schmeling prepared intently for the bout. He had thoroughly studied Louis's style and believed he had found a weakness. By exploiting Louis's habit of dropping his left hand after a jab, Schmeling handed Louis his first professional loss by knocking him out in round 12 at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936. The event would lead to the historic rematch of the two, in one of the world's most famous sporting events.
World championship
After defeating Louis, Schmeling expected a title shot against James J. Braddock, who had unexpectedly defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title the previous June. Madison Square Garden (MSG) had a contract with Braddock for the title defense and also sought a Braddock–Schmeling title bout. But Jacobs and Braddock's manager Joe Gould had been planning a Braddock–Louis matchup for months.
Schmeling's victory gave Gould tremendous leverage, however. If he were to offer Schmeling the title chance instead of Louis, there was a very real possibility that Nazi authorities would never allow Louis a shot at the title. Gould's demands were therefore onerous: Jacobs would have to pay 10% of all future boxing promotion profits (including any future profits from Louis's future bouts) for ten years. Braddock and Gould would eventually receive more than $150,000 from this arrangement. Well before the actual fight, Jacobs and Gould publicly announced that their fighters would fight for the heavyweight title on June 22, 1937. Figuring that the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction the fight in deference to MSG and Schmeling, Jacobs scheduled the fight for Chicago.
Each of the parties involved worked to facilitate the controversial Braddock–Louis matchup. Louis did his part by knocking out former champion Jack Sharkey on August 18, 1936. Meanwhile, Gould trumped up anti-Nazi sentiment against Schmeling, and Jacobs defended a lawsuit by MSG to halt the Braddock–Louis fight. A federal court in Newark, New Jersey, eventually ruled that Braddock's contractual obligation to stage his title defense at MSG was unenforceable for lack of mutual consideration.
The stage was set for Louis's title shot. On the night of the fight, June 22, 1937, Braddock was able to knock Louis down in round one, but afterward could accomplish little. After inflicting constant punishment, Louis defeated Braddock in round eight, knocking him out cold with a strong right hand that busted James' teeth through his gum shield and lip and sent him to the ground for a few minutes. It was the first and only time that Braddock was knocked out (the one other stoppage of Braddock's career was a TKO due to a cut). Louis's ascent to the world heavyweight championship was complete.
Louis's victory was a seminal moment in African American history. Thousands of African Americans stayed up all night across the country in celebration. Noted author and member of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes described Louis's effect in these terms:
Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of black Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions—or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.
Initial title defenses
Despite his championship, Louis was haunted by the earlier defeat to Schmeling. Shortly after winning the title, he was quoted as saying, "I don't want to be called champ until I whip Max Schmeling". Louis's manager Mike Jacobs attempted to arrange a rematch in 1937, but negotiations broke down when Schmeling demanded 30% of the gate. When Schmeling instead attempted to arrange for a fight against British Empire champion Tommy Farr, known as the "Tonypandy Terror"—ostensibly for a world championship to rival the claims of American boxing authorities—Jacobs outmaneuvered him, offering Farr a guaranteed $60,000 to fight Louis instead. The offer was too lucrative for Farr to turn down.
On August 30, 1937, after a postponement of four days due to rain, Louis and Farr finally touched gloves at New York's Yankee Stadium before a crowd of approximately 32,000. Louis fought one of the hardest battles of his life. The bout was closely contested and went the entire 15 rounds, with Louis being unable to knock Farr down. Referee Arthur Donovan was even seen shaking Farr's hand after the bout, in apparent congratulation. Nevertheless, after the score was announced, Louis had won a controversial unanimous decision. Time described the scene thus: "After collecting the judges' votes, referee Arthur Donovan announced that Louis had won the fight on points. The crowd of 50,000 ... amazed that Farr had not been knocked out or even knocked down, booed the decision".
It seems the crowd believed that referee Arthur Donovan Sr. had raised Farr's glove in victory. Seven years later, in his published account of the fight, Donovan spoke of the "mistake" that may have led to this confusion. He wrote:
As Tommy walked back to his corner after shaking Louis' hand, I followed him and seized his glove. "Tommy, a wonderful perform—" I began ... Then I dropped his hand like a red-hot coal! He had started to raise his arm. He thought I had given him the fight and the world championship! I literally ran away, shaking my head and shouting. "No! No! No!" realising how I had raised his hopes for a few seconds only to dash them to the ground ... That's the last time my emotions will get the better of me in a prize fight! There was much booing at the announced result, but, as I say it, it was all emotional. I gave Tommy two rounds and one even—and both his winning rounds were close.
Speaking over the radio after the fight, Louis admitted that he had been hurt twice.
In preparation for the inevitable rematch with Schmeling, Louis tuned up with bouts against Nathan Mann and Harry Thomas.
Louis vs. Schmeling II
The rematch between Louis and Schmeling would become one of the most famous boxing matches of all time and is remembered as one of the major sports events of the 20th century. Following his defeat of Louis in 1936, Schmeling had become a national hero in Germany. Schmeling's victory over an African American was touted by Nazi officials as proof of their doctrine of Aryan superiority. When the rematch was scheduled, Louis retreated to his boxing camp in New Jersey and trained incessantly for the fight. A few weeks before the bout, Louis visited the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt told him, "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany". Louis later admitted: "I knew I had to get Schmeling good. I had my own personal reasons and the whole damned country was depending on me".
When Schmeling arrived in New York City in June 1938 for the rematch, he was accompanied by a Nazi party publicist who issued statements that a black man could not defeat Schmeling and that when Schmeling won, his prize money would be used to build tanks in Germany. Schmeling's hotel was picketed by anti-Nazi protesters in the days before the fight.
On the night of June 22, 1938, Louis and Schmeling met for the second time in the boxing ring. The fight was held in Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 70,043. It was broadcast by radio to millions of listeners throughout the world (including 58% of radio-equipped U.S. households), with radio announcers reporting on the fight in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Before the bout, Schmeling weighed in at 193 pounds; Louis weighed in at 198¾ pounds.
The fight lasted two minutes and four seconds. Louis battered Schmeling with a series of swift attacks, forcing him against the ropes and giving him a paralyzing body blow (Schmeling afterward claimed it was an illegal kidney punch). Schmeling was knocked down three times and only managed to throw two punches in the entire bout. On the third knockdown, Schmeling's trainer threw in the towel and referee Arthur Donovan stopped the fight.
Well-established as one of the most significant boxing matches in history,
the fight has been widely regarded as among the most important or historic sports events of all time. It was the first time that many white Americans openly cheered for a black man against a white opponent.
"Bum of the Month Club"
In the 29 months from January 1939 through May 1941, Louis defended his title thirteen times, a frequency unmatched by any heavyweight champion since the end of the bare-knuckle era. The pace of his title defenses, combined with his convincing wins, earned Louis's opponents from this era the collective nickname "Bum of the Month Club". Notables of this lambasted pantheon include:
World light heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis who, attempting to move up a weight class, was knocked out in the first round by Louis on January 25, 1939.
"Two Ton" Tony Galento, who was able to knock Louis to the canvas with a left hook in the third round of their bout on June 28, 1939, before letting his guard down and being knocked out in the fourth.
Chilean Arturo Godoy, whom Louis fought twice in 1940, on February 9 and June 20. Louis won the first bout by a split-decision, and the rematch by a knockout in the eighth round.
Al McCoy, putative New England heavyweight champion, whose fight against Louis is probably best known for being the first heavyweight title bout held in Boston, Massachusetts, (at the Boston Garden on December 16, 1940). The popular local challenger dodged his way around Louis before being unable to respond to the sixth-round bell.
Clarence "Red" Burman, who pressed Louis for nearly five rounds at Madison Square Garden on January 31, 1941, before succumbing to a series of body blows.
Gus Dorazio, of whom Louis remarked, "At least he tried", after being leveled by a short right hand in the second round at Philadelphia's Convention Hall on February 17.
Abe Simon, who endured thirteen rounds of punishment before 18,908 at Olympia Stadium in Detroit on March 21 before referee Sam Hennessy declared a TKO.
Tony Musto, who, at 5'7½" and 198 pounds, was known as "Baby Tank". Despite a unique crouching style, Musto was slowly worn down over eight and a half rounds in St. Louis on April 8, and the fight was called a TKO because of a severe cut over Musto's eye.
Buddy Baer (brother of former champion Max), who was leading the May 23, 1941, bout in Washington, D.C., until an eventual barrage by Louis, capped by a hit at the sixth round bell. Referee Arthur Donovan disqualified Baer before the beginning of the seventh round as a result of stalling by Baer's manager.
Despite its derogatory nickname, most of the group were top-ten heavyweights. Of the 12 fighters Louis faced during this period, five were rated by The Ring as top-10 heavyweights in the year they fought Louis: Galento (overall #2 heavyweight in 1939), Bob Pastor (#3, 1939), Godoy (#3, 1940), Simon (#6, 1941) and Baer (#8, 1941). Four others (Musto, Dorazio, Burman and Johnny Paychek) were ranked in the top 10 in a different year.
Louis vs. Conn
Louis's string of lightly regarded competition ended with his bout against Billy Conn, the light heavyweight champion and a highly regarded contender. The fighters met on June 18, 1941, in front of a crowd of 54,487 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fight turned out to be what is commonly considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxing fights of all time.
Conn would not gain weight for the challenge against Louis, saying instead that he would rely on a "hit and run" strategy. This prompted Louis's famous response: "He can run, but he can't hide".
However, Louis had clearly underestimated Conn's threat. In his autobiography, Joe Louis said:
I made a mistake going into that fight. I knew Conn was kinda small and I didn't want them to say in the papers that I beat up on some little guy so the day before the fight I did a little roadwork to break a sweat and drank as little water as possible so I could weigh in under 200 pounds. Chappie was as mad as hell. But Conn was a clever fighter, he was like a mosquito, he'd sting and move.
Conn had the better of the fight through 12 rounds, although Louis was able to stun Conn with a left hook in the fifth, cutting his eye and nose. By the eighth round, Louis began suffering from dehydration. By the twelfth round, Louis was exhausted, with Conn ahead on two of three boxing scorecards. But against the advice of his corner, Conn continued to closely engage Louis in the later stages of the fight. Louis made the most of the opportunity, knocking Conn out with two seconds left in the thirteenth round.
The contest created an instant rivalry that Louis's career had lacked since the Schmeling era, and a rematch with Conn was planned for late 1942. The rematch had to be abruptly canceled, however, after Conn broke his hand in a much-publicized fight with his father-in-law, Major League ballplayer Jimmy "Greenfield" Smith. By the time Conn was ready for the rematch, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place.
World War II
Louis fought a charity bout for the Navy Relief Society against his former opponent Buddy Baer on January 9, 1942, which raised $47,000 for the fund. The next day, he volunteered to enlist as a private in the United States Army at Camp Upton, Long Island. Newsreel cameras recorded his induction, including a staged scene in which a soldier-clerk asked, "What's your occupation?", to which Louis replied, "Fighting and let us at them Japs".
Another military charity bout on March 27, 1942, (against another former opponent, Abe Simon) netted $36,146. Before the fight, Louis had spoken at a Relief Fund dinner, saying of the war effort, "We'll win, 'cause we're on God's side". The media widely reported the comment, instigating a surge of popularity for Louis. Slowly, the press began to eliminate its stereotypical racial references when covering Louis and instead treated him as a sports hero. Despite the public relations boon, Louis's charitable fights proved financially costly. Although he saw none of the roughly $90,000 raised by these and other charitable fights, the IRS later credited these amounts as taxable income paid to Louis. After the war, the IRS pursued the issue.
For basic training, Louis was assigned to a segregated cavalry unit based in Fort Riley, Kansas. The assignment was at the suggestion of his friend and lawyer Truman Gibson, who knew of Louis's love for horsemanship. Gibson had previously become a civilian advisor to the War Department, in charge of investigating claims of harassment against black soldiers. Accordingly, Louis used this personal connection to help the cause of various black soldiers with whom he came into contact. In one noted episode, Louis contacted Gibson in order to facilitate the Officer Candidate School (OCS) applications of a group of black recruits at Fort Riley, which had been inexplicably delayed for several months. Among the OCS applications Louis facilitated was that of young UCLA athletic legend Jackie Robinson, later to break the baseball color barrier. The episode spawned a personal friendship between the two men.
Realizing Louis's potential for raising esprit de corps among the troops, the Army placed him in its Special Services Division rather than sending him into combat. Louis went on a celebrity tour with other notables, including fellow boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. He traveled more than 35,000 km (22,000 mi) and staged 96 boxing exhibitions before two million soldiers. In England during 1944, he was reported to have signed as a player for Liverpool Football Club as a publicity stunt.
In addition to his travels, Louis was the focus of a media recruitment campaign encouraging African-American men to enlist in the Armed Services, despite the military's racial segregation. When he was asked about his decision to enter the racially segregated U.S. Army, he said: "Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain't going to fix them". In 1943, Louis made an appearance in the wartime Hollywood musical This Is the Army, directed by Michael Curtiz. He appeared as himself in a musical number, "The Well-Dressed Man in Harlem," which emphasized the importance of African-American soldiers and promoted their enlistment.
Louis's celebrity power was not directed solely toward African Americans. In a famous wartime recruitment slogan, he echoed his prior comments of 1942: "We'll win, because we're on God's side". The publicity of the campaign made Louis widely popular stateside, even outside the world of sports. Never before had white Americans embraced a black man as their representative to the world.
Although Louis never saw combat, his military service saw challenges of its own. During his travels, he often experienced blatant racism. On one occasion, a military policeman (MP) ordered Louis and Ray Robinson to move to a bench in the rear of an Alabama Army camp bus depot. "We ain't moving", said Louis. The MP tried to arrest them, but Louis forcefully argued the pair out of the situation. In another incident, Louis exerted his influence to persuade a commanding officer to drop charges against now Lt. Jackie Robinson, who had resisted being told to move his seat on a southern bus, and retaliated against a Captain who had called Robinson a "nigger".
Louis was eventually promoted to the rank of technical sergeant on April 9, 1945. On September 23 of the same year, he was awarded the Legion of Merit (a military decoration rarely awarded to enlisted soldiers) for "incalculable contribution to the general morale". Receipt of the honor qualified him for immediate release from military service on October 1, 1945.
Later career and retirement
Louis emerged from his wartime service significantly in debt. In addition to his looming tax bill—which had not been finally determined at the time, but was estimated at greater than $100,000—Jacobs claimed that Louis owed him $250,000.
Despite the financial pressure on Louis to resume boxing, his long-awaited rematch against Billy Conn had to be postponed to the summer of 1946, when weather conditions could accommodate a large outdoor audience. On June 19, a disappointing 40,000 saw the rematch at Yankee Stadium, in which Louis was not seriously tested. Conn, whose skills had deteriorated during the long layoff, largely avoided contact until being dispatched by knockout in the eighth round. Although the attendance did not meet expectations, the fight was still the most profitable of Louis's career to date. His share of the purse was $600,000, of which Louis's managers got $140,000, his ex-wife $66,000 and the U.S. state of New York $30,000.
After trouble finding another suitable opponent, on December 5, 1947, Louis met Jersey Joe Walcott, a 33-year-old veteran with a 44–11–2 record. Walcott entered the fight as a 10-to-1 underdog. Nevertheless, Walcott knocked down Louis twice in the first four rounds. Most observers in Madison Square Garden felt Walcott dominated the 15-round fight. When Louis was declared the winner in a split decision, the crowd booed.
Louis was under no illusion about the state of his boxing skills, yet he was too embarrassed to quit after the Walcott fight. Determined to win and retire with his title intact, Louis signed on for a rematch. On June 25, 1948, about 42,000 people came to Yankee Stadium to see the aging champion, who weighed 213½ pounds, the heaviest of his career to date. Walcott knocked Louis down in the third round, but Louis survived to knock out Walcott in the eleventh.
Louis would not defend his title again before announcing his retirement from boxing on March 1, 1949. In his bouts with Conn and Walcott, it had become apparent that Louis was no longer the fighter he had once been. As he had done earlier in his career, however, Louis would continue to appear in numerous exhibition matches worldwide. In August 1949 Cab Calloway rendered homage to the “king of the ring” with his song Ol’ Joe Louis.
Comeback
At the time of Louis's initial retirement, the IRS was still completing its investigation of his prior tax returns, which had always been handled by Mike Jacobs's personal accountant. In May 1950, the IRS finished a full audit of Louis's past returns and announced that, with interest and penalties, he owed the government more than $500,000. Louis had no choice but to return to the ring.
After asking Gibson to take over his personal finances and switching his management from Jacobs and Roxborough to Marshall Miles, the Louis camp negotiated a deal with the IRS under which Louis would come out of retirement, with all Louis's net proceeds going to the IRS. A match with Ezzard Charles—who had acquired the vacant heavyweight title in June 1949 by outpointing Walcott—was set for September 27, 1950. By then, Louis was 36 years old and had been away from competitive boxing for two years. Weighing in at 218 pounds, Louis was still strong, but his reflexes were gone and Charles repeatedly beat him to the punch. By the end of the fight, Louis was cut above both eyes, one of which was shut tight by swelling. He knew he had lost even before Charles was declared the winner. The result was not the only disappointing aspect of the fight for Louis; only 22,357 spectators paid to witness the event at Yankee Stadium, and his share of the purse was a mere $100,458. Louis had to continue fighting.
After facing several club-level opponents and scoring a knockout victory over EBU heavyweight champion Lee Savold, the International Boxing Club guaranteed Louis $300,000 to face undefeated heavyweight contender Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951. Despite his being a 6-to-5 favorite, few boxing insiders believed Louis had a chance. Marciano himself was reluctant to participate in the bout, but was understanding of Louis's position: "This is the last guy on earth I want to fight". It was feared, particularly among those who had witnessed Marciano's punching power first-hand, that Louis's unwillingness to quit would result in serious injury. Fighting back tears, Ferdie Pacheco said in the SportsCentury documentary about Louis's bout with Marciano, "He [Louis] wasn't just going to lose. He was going to take a vicious, savage beating. Before the eyes of the nation, Joe Louis, an American hero if ever there was one, was going to get beaten up". Louis was dropped in the eighth round by a Marciano left and knocked through the ropes and out of the ring less than thirty seconds later.
In the dressing room after the fight, Louis's Army touring companion, Sugar Ray Robinson, wept. Marciano also attempted to console Louis, saying, "I'm sorry, Joe". "What's the use of crying?" Louis said. "The better man won. I guess everything happens for the best".
After facing Marciano, with the prospect of another significant payday all but gone, Louis retired for good from professional boxing. He would, as before, continue to tour on the exhibition circuit, with his last contest taking place on December 16, 1951, in Taipei, Taiwan, against Corporal Buford J. deCordova.
Taxes and financial troubles
Despite Louis's lucrative purses over the years, most of the proceeds went to his handlers. Of the over $4.6 million earned during his boxing career, Louis himself received only about $800,000. Louis was nevertheless extremely generous to his family, paying for homes, cars and education for his parents and siblings, often with money fronted by Jacobs. He invested in a number of businesses, all of which eventually failed, including the Joe Louis Restaurant, the Joe Louis Insurance Company, a softball team called the Brown Bombers, the Joe Louis Milk Company, Joe Louis pomade (hair product), Joe Louis Punch (a drink), the Louis-Rower P.R. firm, a horse farm and the Rhumboogie Café in Chicago. He gave liberally to the government as well, paying back the city of Detroit for any welfare money his family had received.
A combination of this largesse and government intervention eventually put Louis in severe financial straits. His entrusting of his finances to former manager Mike Jacobs haunted him. After the $500,000 IRS tax bill was assessed, with interest accumulating every year, the need for cash precipitated Louis's post-retirement comeback. Even though his comeback earned him significant purses, the incremental tax rate in place at the time (90%) meant that these boxing proceeds did not even keep pace with interest on Louis's tax debt. As a result, by the end of the 1950s, he owed over $1 million in taxes and interest. In 1953, when Louis's mother died, the IRS appropriated the $667 she had willed to Louis. To bring in money, Louis engaged in numerous activities outside the ring. He appeared on various quiz shows, and an old Army friend, Ash Resnick, gave Louis a job greeting tourists to the Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where Resnick was an executive. For income, Louis even became a professional wrestler. He made his professional wrestling debut on March 16, 1956, in Washington, D.C. at the Uline Arena, defeating Cowboy Rocky Lee. After defeating Lee in a few matches, Louis discovered he had a heart ailment and retired from wrestling competition. However, he continued as a wrestling referee until 1972.
Louis remained a popular celebrity in his twilight years. His friends included former rival Max Schmeling, who provided Louis with financial assistance during his retirement—and mobster Frank Lucas, who, disgusted with the government's treatment of Louis, once paid off a $50,000 tax lien held against him. These payments, along with an eventual agreement in the early 1960s by the IRS to limit its collections to an amount based on Louis's current income, allowed Louis to live comfortably toward the end of his life.
After the Louis-Schmeling fight, Jack Dempsey expressed the opinion that he was glad he never had to face Joe Louis in the ring. When Louis fell on hard financial times, Dempsey served as honorary chairman of a fund to assist Louis.
Professional wrestling career
In an effort to improve his financial situation, Joe Louis got involved with professional wrestling in 1954. His first recorded match was on August 6, 1954, in a victory over Bobby Nelson.
In 1956, Louis went on a short-lived wrestling tour arranged by promoter Ray Fabiani. This was cut short after a match against Cowboy Rocky Lee on May 31, 1956, when Louis' ribs were cracked, and he subsequently lost his wrestling license.
Louis returned to the wrestling ring on March 15, 1959, where he lost to Buddy Rogers in Columbus, Ohio. This led to a hiatus until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he engaged in several wrestling matches. His last match was in 1973 but he continued as a referee.
Professional golf
One of Louis' other passions was the game of golf, in which he also played a historic role. He was a long-time devotee of the sport since being introduced to the game before the first Schmeling fight in 1936. In 1952, Louis was invited to play as an amateur in the San Diego Open on a sponsor's exemption, which was announced at the time as the first instance of an African-American to play in a PGA Tour event (in fact, professional Howard Wheeler was one of seven African-Americans to compete in the Tam O'Shanter Open in Niles, Illinois in 1942, and Wheeler appeared in subsequent PGA-sanctioned events in Philadelphia in the 1940s, qualifying for the 1950 and 1951 U.S. Open).
Initially, the PGA of America was reluctant to allow Louis to enter the event, having a bylaw at the time limiting PGA membership to white Americans. Louis's celebrity status eventually pushed the PGA toward removing the bylaw, although the "Caucasian only" clause in the PGA of America's constitution was not formally amended until November 1961. The change, however, paved the way for the first generation of African-American professional golfers such as Calvin Peete.
Two weeks after the 1952 San Diego Open, Louis was invited to play in the 1952 Tucson Open. Louis shot a 69 in the opening round and a 72 in the 2nd round. His 2-round total of 141 enabled him to make the cut. Joe Louis is the only champion athlete from another sport ever to make the cut in a PGA event.
Louis himself financially supported the careers of several other early black professional golfers, such as Bill Spiller, Ted Rhodes, Howard Wheeler, James Black, Clyde Martin and Charlie Sifford. He was also instrumental in founding The First Tee, a charity helping underprivileged children become acquainted with the game of golf. His son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., served as CEO of the organization until 2017.
In 2009, the PGA of America granted posthumous membership to Ted Rhodes, John Shippen and Bill Spiller, who were denied the opportunity to become PGA members during their professional careers. The PGA also has granted posthumous honorary membership to Louis. A public golf course in Riverdale, Illinois, just south of Chicago, is named for him.
Personal life
“I did the best I could with what I had”.
Louis had two children by wife Marva Trotter (daughter Jacqueline in 1943 and son Joseph Louis Barrow Jr. in 1947). They divorced in March 1945 only to remarry a year later, but were again divorced in February 1949. Marva moved on to an acting and modeling career. On Christmas Day 1955, Louis married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958. Louis's final marriage—to Martha Jefferson, a lawyer from Los Angeles, on St. Patrick's Day 1959—lasted until his death. They had four children: another son named Joseph Louis Barrow Jr, John Louis Barrow, Joyce Louis Barrow, and Janet Louis Barrow. The younger Joe Louis Barrow Jr. lives in New York City and is involved in boxing. Though married four times, Louis discreetly enjoyed the company of other women like Lena Horne and Edna Mae Harris.
Joe and Marva Louis endorsed and campaigned for liberal, anti-segregation Republican candidate Wendell Willkie in the 1940 United States presidential election. Louis said:
This country has been good to me. It gave me everything I have. I have never come out for any candidate before but I think Wendell L. Willkie will give us a square deal. So I am for Willkie because I think he will help my people, and I figure my people should be for him, too.
Drugs took a toll on Louis in his later years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown," underlying problems would soon surface. In 1970, he spent five months at the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver, hospitalized by his wife, Martha, and his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., for paranoia. In a 1971 book, Brown Bomber, by Barney Nagler, Louis disclosed the truth about these incidents, stating that his collapse in 1969 had been caused by cocaine, and that his subsequent hospitalization had been prompted by his fear of a plot to destroy him. Strokes and heart ailments caused Louis's condition to deteriorate further later in the decade. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm in 1977 and thereafter used a POV/scooter for a mobility aid.
Death
Louis died of cardiac arrest in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas on April 12, 1981, just hours after his last public appearance viewing the Larry Holmes–Trevor Berbick heavyweight championship fight. President Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981. His funeral was paid for in part by former competitor and friend, Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.
Film and television
Louis appeared in six full-length films and two short films.
Louis had a starring role in the 1938 race film Spirit of Youth, in which he played a boxer with many similarities to himself.
In 1943, he was featured in the full-length movie This is the Army, which starred Ronald Reagan, with appearances by Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" and Irving Berlin, and which was directed by Michael Curtiz.
In 1946 he played himself in Joe Palooka, Champ, a movie based on the comic strip Joe Palooka created by Ham Fisher.
Louis once again played himself in the short film Johnny At The Fair in 1947. The short film takes place at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) where a boy becomes separated from his parents and meets a host of celebrities including former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King and champion figure skater Barbara Ann Scott.
In 1948 Louis starred as himself in Joseph Lerner's The Fight Never Ends.
In 1955 Louis was once again cast as himself in a small role in The Square Jungle written by George Zuckerman and starring Tony Curtis.
Louis's last feature-length movie role took place in the 1970 comedy The Phynx in which a rock band goes on tour in Albania in order to save Americans being held hostage.
He was a guest on the television show You Bet Your Life in 1955. In 1977, Louis made a small cameo appearance on the TV series "Quincy M.E."
In 1953, Robert Gordon directed a movie about Louis's life, The Joe Louis Story. Filmed in Hollywood, it starred Golden Gloves fighter and Louis lookalike Coley Wallace in the title role. The film suffered from low budget and production values, sluggishly intercutting clips from Louis's actual bouts with indifferent audio sync.
Legacy
Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, during which he participated in 26 championship fights, defeated 21 fighters, made 25 defenses and was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months. The latter two are still records in the heavyweight division, the former in any division. Louis has won the most world heavyweight title fights in history, at 26. In addition to his accomplishments inside the ring, Louis uttered two of boxing's most famous observations: "He can run, but he can't hide" and "Everyone has a plan until they've been hit".
Louis was named fighter of the year four times by The Ring magazine in 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1941. His fights with Max Baer, Max Schmeling, Tommy Farr, Bob Pastor and Billy Conn were named fight of the year by that same magazine. Louis won the Sugar Ray Robinson Award in 1941. In 2005, Louis was ranked as the best heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on The Ring magazine's list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time". In a 1978 poll conducted by HBO, the Boxing Writers of America voted Louis the greatest heavyweight of all time. Hank Kaplan, Bert Sugar, Teddy Atlas, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, and Sugar Ray Robinson named Louis as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.
Louis is also remembered in sports outside of boxing. A former indoor sports venue was named after him in Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings played their NHL games from 1979 to 2017. In 1936, Vince Leah, then a writer for The Winnipeg Tribune used Joe Louis's nickname to refer to the Winnipeg Football Club after a game. From that point, the team became known popularly as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
His recognition also transcends the sporting world. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Joe Louis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. On August 26, 1982, Louis was posthumously approved for the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given to civilians by the U.S. legislative branch. Congress stated that he "did so much to bolster the spirit of the American people during one of the most crucial times in American history and which have endured throughout the years as a symbol of strength for the nation". Following Louis's death, President Ronald Reagan said, "Joe Louis was more than a sports legend—his career was an indictment of racial bigotry and a source of pride and inspiration to millions of white and black people around the world".
A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at Jefferson Avenue and Woodward) on October 16, 1986. The sculpture, commissioned by Time, Inc. and executed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) pyramidal framework. It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring.
In an interview with Arsenio Hall in the late 1980s, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali stated that his two biggest influences in boxing were Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis. After Joe Louis died, Ali stated, "Whatever I said before, I don't mean it, 'cause Joe Louis was the greatest." Ali then told the Washington Post:
Look at Joe's life. Everybody loved Joe. He would have been marked as evil if he was evil, but everybody loved Joe. From black folks to red-neck Mississippi crackers, they loved him. They're all crying. That shows you. Howard Hughes dies, with all his billions, not a tear. Joe Louis, everybody cried. On February 27, 2010, an 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statue of Louis was unveiled in his Alabama hometown. The statue, by sculptor Casey Downing Jr., sits on a base of red granite outside the Chambers County Courthouse.
In 1993, he became the first boxer to be honored on a postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
Various other facilities have been named after Joe Louis. In 1984, the four streets surrounding Madison Square Garden were named Joe Louis Plaza in his honor. The former Pipe O' Peace Golf Course in Riverdale, Illinois (a Chicago suburb), was in 1986 renamed "Joe Louis The Champ Golf Course". American Legion Post 375 in Detroit is also named after Joe Louis. Completed in 1979 at a cost of $4 million, Joe Louis Arena, nicknamed The Joe, was a hockey arena located in downtown Detroit. It was the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League from 1979 until 2017. The planned demolition of the Arena prompted the City of Detroit in 2017 to rename the Inner Circle Greenway as the Joe Louis Greenway. The 39-mile (63 km) biking and walking trail passes through the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and Dearborn.
In one of the most widely quoted tributes to Louis, New York Post sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, when responding to another person's characterization of Louis as "a credit to his race", stated, "Yes, Joe Louis is a credit to his race—the human race".
Joe Louis trained at the site of the Pompton Lakes (NJ) Elks Club. When he won one of his fights, he donated the first ambulance to the Pompton Lakes First Aid Squad.
Cultural references
In his heyday, Louis was the subject of many musical tributes, including a number of blues songs.
Kurt Vonnegut's short story "D.P." (originally published in Ladies Home Journal in August 1953) is about a black orphan boy living in post-World War II Germany who is nicknamed "Joe Louis" (after the boxer) by US soldiers stationed in the American Zone of Occupation. "D.P." was included in Vonnegut's short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) and filmed as "Displaced Person" for television's American Playhouse in 1985.
Louis was portrayed by actor Bari K. Willerford in the film American Gangster.
In 2009, the Brooklyn band Yeasayer debuted the single "Ambling Alp" from their forthcoming album Odd Blood, which imagines what advice Joe Louis's father might have given him prior to becoming a prizefighter. The song makes reference to Louis's boxing career and his famous rivalry with Schmeling in the first person, with the lyrics such as "Oh, Max Schmeling was a formidable foe / The Ambling Alp was too, at least that's what I'm told / But if you learn one thing, you've learned it well / In June, you must give fascists hell".
An opera based on his life, Shadowboxer, premiered on April 17, 2010.
The aforementioned sculpture of Louis's fist (see Legacy above) was one of several Detroit landmarks depicted in 'Imported from Detroit', a two-minute commercial for the Chrysler 200 featuring Eminem that aired during Super Bowl XLV in 2011.
Louis is the inspiration behind Jesse Jagz's eponymous song from the album Jagz Nation, Vol. 2: Royal Niger Company (2014).
The first track from John Squire's 2002 debut LP Time Changes Everything is titled "Joe Louis", and the lyrics include references to his boxing and army career.
Louis' life is retold in the 1948 old-time radio drama "Little David", a presentation from Destination Freedom.
Professional boxing record
See also
List of world heavyweight boxing champions
Footnotes
Citations
References
This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Joe Louis", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL.
External links
Boxing record for Joe Louis from BoxRec (registration required)
The Joe Louis Story (1953) - Biographical movie about boxing champion of the world - Full Movie YouTube
NBA World Heavyweight Title Fights
NYSAC World Heavyweight Title Fights
Boxing Hall of Fame
ESPN.com
ESPN.com -- additional information
FBI file on Joe Louis
Joe Louis profile at Cyber Boxing Zone
The Fight of the Century NPR special on the selection of the radio broadcast to the National Recording Registry
Joe Louis at IMDb
"Remembering Joe Louis", WTVM
Louis to train in Thomas bout old newspaper clipping |
Walt_Disney_Imagineering | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Imagineering | [
607
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Imagineering"
] | Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attractions worldwide. The company also operates Disney Live Entertainment and The Muppets Studio and manages Disney's properties, from Walt Disney Studios in Burbank to New Amsterdam Theatre and Times Square Studios Ltd. in New York City. Founded by Walt Disney to oversee the production of Disneyland, it was originally known as Walt Disney, Inc., then WED Enterprises, from the initials meaning "Walter Elias Disney", the company co-founder's full name. Headquartered in Glendale, California, Imagineering is composed of "Imagineers", who are illustrators, architects, engineers, lighting designers, show writers and graphic designers.
The term "Imagineering", a portmanteau, was introduced in the 1940s by Alcoa to describe its blending of imagination and engineering, and used by Union Carbide in an in-house magazine in 1957, with an article by Richard F. Sailer called "BRAINSTORMING IS IMAGination engINEERING". Disney filed for a trademark for the term in 1989, claiming first use of the term in 1962. Imagineering is a registered trademark of Disney Enterprises, Inc.
History
WED Enterprises
Walt Disney, Inc. (WDI) was formed by Walt Disney on December 16, 1952, with an engineering division tasked with designing Disneyland. In light of objections from his brother Roy as well as those of potential stockholders, WDI was renamed WED Enterprises in 1953 based on Disney's initials. In 1961, WED moved into the Grand Central Business Park. WED Enterprises's theme park design and architectural group became so integral to the Disney studio's operations that Walt Disney Productions bought it on February 5, 1965, along with the WED Enterprises name.
Imagineering
The unit was renamed as of January 1986 to Walt Disney Imagineering. In 1996, Disney Development Company, the Disney conglomerate's real estate development subsidiary, merged into Imagineering.
Imagineering created Disney Fair, a U.S. traveling attraction, which premiered in September 1996. With poor attendance, the fair was pulled after a few stops. Disney Entertainment Projects (Asia Pacific), Inc., a new Disney Asian Pacific subsidiary, selected a renamed fair called DisneyFest as its first project, taking it to Singapore to open there on October 30, 1997.
By 1997, Imagineers were in several buildings in Grand Central Business Park when Disney purchased the park. In September 1999, Disney Imagineering announced the Grand Central Creative Campus redesign of the industrial park with a new office-studio complex anchored by Disney Imagineering. Some of the buildings were demolished to make way for new buildings. The additional space would be for sound stages, production facilities and offices.
As part of The Walt Disney Company's March 2018 strategic reorganization, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts merged with Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media segments into Disney Parks, Experiences and Products (DPEP), giving Disney Imagineering oversight of merchandise, games and publishing development.
In July 2021, DPEP chairman Josh D'Amaro announced that approximately 2,000 DPEP positions would be transferred over the next couple of years to the Lake Nona area of Orlando, Florida. In November 2021, it was reported that as many as 90% of the positions to be transferred are Walt Disney Imagineering positions, as DPEP relocates Imagineering's headquarters from Glendale to a new 60-acre corporate campus in Lake Nona. The only Imagineering positions reportedly exempt from relocation were those dedicated to Disneyland or certain international parks. The relocation was reportedly motivated in part by $570 million in tax breaks from the state of Florida, as well as Florida's business-friendly climate, lower cost of living, and lack of a state income tax. This relocation was cancelled in May 2023 amidst a feud with Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
Principles
New concepts and improvements are often created to fulfill specific needs. For instance, the Soarin' Over California ride system was designed to help guests experience the sensation of flight. During development, Imagineer Mark Sumner found an erector set in his attic, which quickly inspired the solution to create this experience. The ride effectively simulates hang gliding. One of Imagineering's techniques, "blue sky speculation", is a process in which ideas are generated without limitations. Imagineers may develop a bold idea in extreme detail, initially disregarding budgetary or physical constraints. It can take up to five years for an idea to turn into a finished attraction. The company considers this the beginning of a design process, believing, "if it can be dreamt, it can be built".
WDI partnered with the Khan Academy to create a series of online video classes called Imagineering in a Box, to allow students to "explore different aspects of theme park design, from characters to ride development..." The classes, which are organized into three main categories (Creating Worlds, Designing Attractions, and Bringing Characters to Life), are presented by WDI employees using multimedia lessons and exercises.
The Imagineering Pyramid
Past Disney Imagineers have shared 15 principles of Disney Imagineering, divided into five tiers. These are:
It All Begins with a Story
Creative Intent
Attention to Detail
Theming
Long, Medium, and Close Shots
Wienies
Transitions
Storyboards
Pre-Shows and Post-Shows
Forced Perspective
"Read"-ability
Kinetics
The "It's a Small World" Effect
Hidden Mickeys
Plussing
Walt Disney coined the term "plussing" for the process of constantly striving to perfect Imagineering work. Disney believed that there is always room for innovation and improvement, stating, "Disneyland will never be completed as long as there's imagination left in the world." This sometimes takes the form of returning to previously abandoned ideas, such as the rework of the Museum of the Weird wax museum concept into the present The Haunted Mansion.
The Art of the Show
Disney theme parks are storytelling and visual experiences, also known as “The Art of the Show.” The use of theming, atmosphere, and attention to detail are essential in the Disney experience. Creative director John Hench noted the similarities between theme park design and film making, such as the use of techniques, including forced perspective. One notable example of forced perspective is Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The scale of architectural elements is much smaller in the upper reaches of the castle compared to the foundation, making it seem significantly taller than its actual height of 189 feet.
The attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean, evokes a “rollicking buccaneer adventure,” according to Hench. In contrast, the Disney Cruise Line ships create an elegant seafaring atmosphere. Minor details in theme park shops and restaurants are crucial; these include the menus, names of the dishes and the Cast Members’ costumes. When guests walk down the area of Main Street, U.S.A., they are likely to notice a bakery fragrance, reminiscent of suburban America in the 1900s. In addition to theme parks, Imagineering has devised retail stores, galleries, and hotels which have "stories" and create a specific mood. For instance, the Disney's Contemporary Resort features an A-frame structure, modern décor and futuristic features including a quiet monorail in the lobby. These details reinforce the hotel's contemporary nature.
In 2010, Disney Educational Products produced a series of videos called The Science of Disney Imagineering. Each video was presented by Imagineer Asa Kalama and focused on a different science subject. Each video featured at least one Disney attraction, to show how science was used in them. These science subjects include Gravity, Trajectory, Levers & Pulleys, Fluids, Energy, Design & Models, Magnetism, Motion, Animal Adaptations: Communication, Friction, and Electricity.
Mickey's Ten Commandments
In 1991, Marty Sklar (then-president of Imagineering) presented ten commandments attributed to Mickey Steinberg (the vice president of Imagineering). They are:
Know your audience
Wear your guest's shoes (don't forget the human factors; try to experience the parks from the guests' point of view)
Organize the flow of people and ideas (ensure experiences tell a story that is organized and logically laid out)
Create a "Wienie" (Walt Disney's term for a "visual magnet")
Communicate with visual literacy (use a dominant color or shape or building to reinforce a theme)
Avoid overload—create turn-ons (do not offer too much detailed information)
Tell one story at a time (put one 'big idea' in each show so guests leave with a clear understanding of the theme)
Avoid contradictions—maintain identity (avoid irrelevant or contradicting elements; make sure the audience has a clear idea of what is being said)
For every ounce of treatment, provide a ton of treat (take advantage of the distinction of the theme park, which is that it encourages active participation, compared to passive entertainment)
Keep it up (do not become complacent or allow things to run down)
Innovation
Imagineering has been granted over 300 patents in areas such as advanced audio systems, fiber optics, interactive technology, live entertainment, ride systems and special effects. Imagineering pioneered technological advances such as the Circle-Vision 360° film technique and the FastPass virtual queuing system.
Audio-Animatronics
Imagineering is known for its development of Audio-Animatronics, a form of robotics, used in shows and theme park attractions that animate objects in three dimension (3D). The idea originated from Walt Disney's fascination with a mechanical bird that he purchased in New Orleans, which later led to the development of the attraction, The Enchanted Tiki Room. The attraction, which featured singing Audio-Animatronic birds, was the first to use this technology. In the 1964 World's Fair, a 3D figure of Abraham Lincoln was represented. The animated Lincoln delivered part of the Gettysburg Address for the "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" exhibit, the first human Audio-Animatronic figure.
Today, Audio-Animatronics are featured in many attractions, including Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Hall of Presidents, Country Bear Jamboree, Star Tours—The Adventures Continue, and Muppet*Vision 3D. Guests have also had the opportunity to interact with Audio-Animatronic characters, such as Lucky the Dinosaur, WALL·E, and Remy from Ratatouille. The next wave of Audio-Animatronic development focuses on completely independent figures, also known as "Autonomatronics". Otto, the first Autonomatronic figure, debuted at the 2009 D23 Expo and can see, hear, sense a person's presence and emotions, and have a conversation.
WEDway
WEDway is a people mover system using linear induction motor (LIM) technology to propel vehicles along a pair of steel rails. This system was developed in the company's early years. The system is in operation at Walt Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, United States. From 1967 to 1995, Disneyland utilized a version of this system which had rubber wheels placed every 9 feet along the guide-way.
Theme park projects
Since 1952, Imagineering has created twelve theme parks, a town, five cruise ships, dozens of resort hotels, water parks, shopping centers, sports complexes and various entertainment venues.
Current Imagineering projects
Other projects
Former creative director John Hench designed the "Tower of Nations" for the opening and closing ceremony of the 1960 Winter Olympics, whilst Walt Disney served as Pageantry Committee chairman.
Imagineering has collaborated with Disney Consumer Products on a number of projects for Disney Stores. The first store, in Glendale, was designed and constructed by a group of architectural Imagineers. Imagineering developed the now-defunct Walt Disney Gallery at the Main Place Mall in Santa Ana, California, and a Roman themed Disney Store at The Forum Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas. After the purchase of the Disney Stores by The Children's Place in 2004, Imagineering helped design an exclusive chain of flagship stores, called World of Disney. These are located in resorts, Lake Buena Vista, Florida and Anaheim, California, as well as New York City. Another flagship store arrived at Disneyland Paris in 2012. An overhaul of Disney Stores was planned in 2009 with the help of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Disney hoped to transition from a traditional retail model to an interactive entertainment hub.
In the 1990s, Imagineering designed the 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) Club Disney interactive family fun center in Thousand Oaks, California. Although now closed, it was the first of several location-based entertainment (LBE) venues. In 1998, DisneyQuest, an 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) high-tech, virtual reality arcade was launched at Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Another DisneyQuest in Chicago was launched a year later. In 2007, Imagineering oversaw design and construction of ships, Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy. They also helped design exhibitions for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles and developed the Encounter Restaurant, which is located at the top of Theme Building in Los Angeles International Airport. Moreover, they provided exhibits for the Port Discovery children's museum at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland, as well as the "Below Deck" sound show depicting Blackbeard's final battle as part of the Pirate and Treasure Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.
From 1995 to 1997, Imagineering oversaw the renovation of the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City. Imagineering also remodeled the Times Square Studios in New York City in 1996, following the acquisition of ABC. In 1997, Disney purchased the California Angels and renamed the team to Anaheim Angels. Shortly after, Imagineering renovated the Anaheim Stadium. Imagineering worked with a charity, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, to create the teaser video and the story, as well as the theming of the 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Stronghold.
Corporate locations
Since the 1960s, Imagineering's headquarters have been located in nondescript office buildings on the site of the former Grand Central Airport in Glendale, California, about two miles (3.2 km) east of Disney's corporate headquarters in Burbank. Many of these employees were set to be relocated to a new facility in Lake Nona, Orlando, Florida. There are field offices at Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort. There are also offices located at:
Walt Disney Imagineering Disneyland Field Office, Disneyland Resort
Tokyo Disney Resort Administration Building, Tokyo Disney Resort
Walt Disney Imagineering Hong Kong Site Office, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
Walt Disney Imagineering Germany GmbH, Meyer Werft Papenburg, Germany
Bibliography
See also
List of Disney Imagineers
List of female Disney Imagineers
Disney Live Entertainment
Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media
Disneyland
Disney Research
The Imagineering Story
The Muppets Studio
Retlaw Enterprises
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Pixar
Marvel Studios
Lucasfilm
20th Century Studios
References
Further reading
Rebuilding Tomorrowland, Scott Kirsner, Wired Magazine. Volume 10,12. September 2002.
Harriet Burns, who help create Disney rides, dies, Associated Press, Sfgate (San Francisco Chronicle), July 29, 2008.
The Way We Do Business. Walt Disney Imagineering Workshop 1991. Walt Disney Imagineering, The Disney Development Company. April 25–26, 1991. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
External links
Official website |
Glendale_Galleria | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendale_Galleria | [
607
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendale_Galleria"
] | The Glendale Galleria is a large three-story regional shopping center and office complex located in downtown Glendale, California, United States. Opened in 1976 with 1,600,000-square-foot (150,000 m2) of retail space, it is the third-largest mall in Los Angeles County after Lakewood Center and Del Amo Fashion Center.
The mall is owned and managed by Brookfield Properties since 2002. It has been consistently ranked as one of the highest-grossing shopping centers in the United States.
The mall features the traditional retailers Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Macy's, and Bloomingdale's.
History
The Glendale Galleria was developed by Glendale Associates, a partnership between J.S. Griffiths Co, Broadway Hale Stores and M.J. Brock & Sons. Construction of the mall started in 1973 as agreements were negotiated with Glendale's Redevelopment Agency. The mall cost US$75 million. The architect was Jon Jerde, who credited his design to a Ray Bradbury essay on reviving retail districts. The first shops to open in the mall were the Buffums and The Broadway department stores, both in August 1976, a few months prior to the mall's formal opening. The Galleria officially opened on October 14, 1976. Ohrbach's and JCPenney opened locations in October and November 1976, respectively.
The Galleria's first expansion, Galleria II, was completed in 1983. It expanded a wing of the mall and added another anchor store, Nordstrom along with Mervyn's. The first Panda Express restaurant opened in Galleria II in the same year, on level 3 near Bloomingdale's.
The first Disney Store opened in the Glendale Galleria on March 28, 1987. By 1990, the mall was 1.6 million square feet (150,000 m2) in size, and had annual revenues of $350 million. In 1990, the Buffums store closed, which was demolished and replaced by a three-story Robinsons-May store in 1993. In 1996, The Broadway closed, and was replaced by a Macy's.
Glendale Galleria was selected by Apple Inc. as the location of one of the first two Apple Stores in the world (along with Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Virginia); both officially opened on May 19, 2001.
On September 4, 2002, the Galleria's three owners at the time; J.S. Griffiths, Cigna, and the New York State Teachers' Retirement System, put the mall up for sale "for reasons unrelated to the mall's performance". On October 28, 2002, it was announced that General Growth Properties (now Brookfield Properties) would buy the Glendale Galleria for $415 million. The acquisition was completed on December 6, 2002.
The Galleria includes the world's first three-story Target store, which opened to the public on July 29, 2007 replacing the former Robinsons-May store, which closed in 2006. Mervyn's filed for bankruptcy and closed in 2009, and Bloomingdale's replaced it in 2013. In 2014, Nordstrom moved next door to the Americana, and in 2016, Dick's Sporting Goods reconstructed a portion of the previous Nordstrom. In 2019, Gold's Gym opened in the other half.
In 2016, it was reported that 30 million people have visited the Galleria throughout the year, making it one of the top 100 shopping centers according to Green Street Advisors. As of 2017, over 200 stores operate in the Galleria, with 6 of them acting as anchor stores.
Architecture
Originally, the Galleria was covered in a windowless, unadorned brick finish. This type of architecture reflected the style of other shopping malls built across the country between the 1960s and 1970s.
Renovation
Starting April 25, 2012, the Galleria underwent an extensive renovation. Designed by Kevin Kennon, objectives of the renovation included a modernized look, improved signage, and enhanced circulation and access. Various metal panels and meshes, most made out of white marble and black granite, were added to the building's facades. The renovation cost $57.5 million and was completed on November 9, 2013.
In popular culture
In 2020, American pop singer Billie Eilish used Glendale Galleria as the setting for her "Therefore I Am" music video.
References
External links
Glendale Galleria official website |
Ren%C4%8De | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C4%8De | [
608
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C4%8De"
] | Renče (pronounced [ˈɾeːntʃɛ]; Italian: Ranziano) is a settlement in the lower Vipava Valley in the Municipality of Renče–Vogrsko in the Littoral region of Slovenia.
The hamlets of Arčoni, Lukežiči, Martinuči, Mohorini, Merljaki (Mrljaki until 1993), Renški Podkraj, and Žigoni were independent settlements until 2000, when they were incorporated into Renče.
The parish church in the settlement is dedicated to Saints Hermagoras and Fortunatus and belongs to the Diocese of Koper.
References
External links
Renče on Geopedia |
Hermagoras_of_Aquileia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermagoras_of_Aquileia | [
608
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermagoras_of_Aquileia"
] | Hermagoras of Aquileia (also spelled Hermenagoras, Hermogenes, Ermacoras) (Italian: Sant'Ermagora, Friulian: Sant Macôr or Sant Ramacul, Slovene: sveti Mohor; fl. 3rd century – c. 305) is considered the first bishop of Aquileia, northern Italy. Christian tradition states that he was chosen by Mark to serve as the leader of the nascent Christian community in Aquileia, and that he was consecrated bishop by Peter. Hermagoras and his deacon Fortunatus (Italian: San Fortunato, Friulian: San Fortunât, Slovene: sveti Fortunat) evangelized the area but were eventually arrested by Sebastius, a representative of Nero. They were tortured and beheaded.
Veneration
"Hermagoras" was listed as the name of the first bishop of Aquileia. He was probably a bishop or lector living in the second half of the 3rd century or at the beginning of the fourth. However, because the name or origins of the very first bishop was unknown, Aquileian traditions arising in the 8th century made Hermagoras a bishop of the apostolic age, who had been consecrated by Peter himself. As Hippolyte Delehaye writes, "To have lived among the Savior's immediate following was...honorable...and accordingly old patrons of churches were identified with certain persons in the gospels or who were supposed to have had some part of Christ's life on earth."[1] Thus, false apostolic origins were ascribed to Hermagoras and the church at Aquileia. The tradition that Fortunatus was Hermagoras' deacon is also probably apocryphal, but a Christian named Fortunatus may have been a separate martyr at Aquileia.
Hermagoras and Fortunatus may have been martyrs killed in Singidunum (today's Belgrade). There, around 304 during the religious persecutions led by Emperor Diocletian, Hermagoras, or Hermogenes, was a lector and Fortunatus a deacon. Their relics may have been brought to Aquileia a century later, and that city became the center of their cult as it was at Aquileia that the belief in their apostolic origin arose. Aquileia was one of the first cities in which Christianity could be practised unhindered; the Patriarch of Aquileia was the second most important person of the Western Church after the bishop of Rome.
Their feast day was recorded as 12 July, which was further recorded in the Roman Martyrology, the Church of Aquileia, and in various other Churches. However, Venantius Fortunatus did not mention Hermagoras in his works, but mentioned the name of Fortunatus twice: once in a life of Martin of Tours: Ac Fortunati benedictam urnam, and the second time in his Miscellanea: Et Fortunatum fert Aquileiam suum. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum mentions Hermagoras, but in a corrupted form: Armageri, Armagri, Armigeri. There is some confusion, as the Martyrologium Hieronymianum also lists "sanctorum Fortunate Hermogenis" under 22 or 23 August. The Bollandists considered this simply a repetition of the same saints. However, the cult of Saint Felix and Saint Fortunatus of Aquileia was also mentioned in calendars for 14 August.
Hermagoras' name survives in the Carinthian city of Hermagor, in the modern state of Austria. His cult was also popular in Udine, Gorizia and Gurk. The basilica of Aquileia today contains 12th-century frescoes, one of which depicts Hermagoras and Peter.
Hermagoras and Fortunatus have been particularly venerated among the Slovenes because they were Christianised by missionaries from Aquileia. Since 1961, St. Hermagoras and St. Fortunatus have been the secondary patrons of the Archdiocese of Ljubljana, re-established that year; previously, from 1461 until 1961, they were the main patrons of the diocese. In Slovenia, there are altogether seven parish churches and 25 branch churches dedicated to St. Hermagoras and/or St. Fortunatus. The oldest Slovene publishing house, established in 1851, is named the Hermagoras Society (Mohorjeva družba). The village of Šmohor in eastern Slovenia (the Municipality of Laško) is named after St. Hermagoras.
References
External links
Media related to Hermagoras of Aquileia at Wikimedia Commons |
Zodiac | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac | [
608
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac"
] | The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Also within this zodiac belt appear the Moon and the brightest planets, along their orbital planes. The zodiac is divided along the ecliptic into 12 equal parts ("signs"), each occupying 30° of celestial longitude. These signs roughly correspond to the astronomical constellations with the following modern names: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
The signs have been used to determine the time of the year by identifying each sign with the days of the year the Sun is in the respective sign. In Western astrology, and formerly astronomy, the time of each sign is associated with different attributes.
Though the zodiacal system and its angular measurement in 360 sexagesimal degree (°) originated with Babylonian astronomy during the 1st millennium BC. It was only then communicated into Greek astronomy by the 2nd century BC, as well as into developing the Hindu zodiac. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the time of year that the Sun is in a given constellation has changed since Babylonian times, and the point of March equinox has moved from Aries into Pisces.
The zodiac forms a celestial coordinate system, or more specifically an ecliptic coordinate system, which takes the ecliptic as the origin of latitude and the Sun's position at vernal equinox as the origin of longitude. In modern astronomy, the ecliptic coordinate system is still used for tracking Solar System objects.
Name
The English word zodiac derives from zōdiacus, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek zōdiakòs kýklos (ζῳδιακός κύκλος), meaning "cycle or circle of little animals". Zōdion (ζῴδιον) is the diminutive of zōon (ζῷον, "animal"). The name reflects the prominence of animals (and mythological hybrids) among the twelve signs.
Usage
The zodiac was in use by the Roman era, based on concepts inherited by Hellenistic astronomy from Babylonian astronomy of the Chaldean period (mid-1st millennium BC), which, in turn, derived from an earlier system of lists of stars along the ecliptic. The construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemy's comprehensive 2nd century AD work, the Almagest.
Although the zodiac remains the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system in use in astronomy besides the equatorial one, the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with horoscopic astrology. The term "zodiac" may also refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about 8 arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. The zodiac of a given planet is the band that contains the path of that particular body; e.g., the "zodiac of the Moon" is the band of 5° above and below the ecliptic. By extension, the "zodiac of the comets" may refer to the band encompassing most short-period comets.
History
Early history
As early as the 14th century BC a complete list of the 36 Egyptian decans was placed among the hieroglyphs adorning the tomb of Seti I; they figured again in the temple of Ramesses II, and characterize every Egyptian astrological monument. Both the famous zodiacs of Dendera display their symbols, identified by Karl Richard Lepsius.
The division of the ecliptic into the zodiacal signs originates in Babylonian astronomy during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. The zodiac draws on stars in earlier Babylonian star catalogues, such as the MUL.APIN catalogue, which was compiled around 1000 BC. Some constellations can be traced even further back, to Bronze Age (Old Babylonian Empire) sources, including Gemini "The Twins", from Sumerian: 𒀯𒈦𒋰𒁀𒃲𒃲, romanized: MULMAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL "The Great Twins"; Cancer "The Crab", from Sumerian: 𒀯𒀠𒇻, romanized: MULAL.LUL "The Crayfish", among others.
Around the end of the fifth century BC, Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into 12 equal "signs", by analogy to 12 schematic months of 30 days each. Each sign contained 30° of celestial longitude, thus creating the first known celestial coordinate system. According to calculations by modern astrophysics, the zodiac was introduced between 409 and 398 BC, during Persian rule, and probably within a very few years of 401 BC. Unlike modern astrologers, who place the beginning of the sign of Aries at the position of the Sun at the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere (March equinox), Babylonian astronomers fixed the zodiac in relation to stars, placing the beginning of Cancer at the "Rear Twin Star" (β Geminorum) and the beginning of Aquarius at the "Rear Star of the Goat-Fish" (δ Capricorni).
Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the time of year the Sun is in a given constellation has changed since Babylonian times, as the point of March equinox has moved from Aries into Pisces.
Because the divisions were made into equal arcs of 30° each, they constituted an ideal system of reference for making predictions about a planet's longitude. However, Babylonian techniques of observational measurements were in a rudimentary stage of evolution. They measured the position of a planet in reference to a set of "normal stars" close to the ecliptic (±9° of latitude). The normal stars were used as observational reference points to help position a planet within this ecliptic coordinate system.
In Babylonian astronomical diaries, a planet position was generally given with respect to a zodiacal sign alone, though less often in specific degrees within a sign. When the degrees of longitude were given, they were expressed with reference to the 30° of the zodiacal sign, i.e., not with a reference to the continuous 360° ecliptic. In astronomical ephemerides, the positions of significant astronomical phenomena were computed in sexagesimal fractions of a degree (equivalent to minutes and seconds of arc). For daily ephemerides, the daily positions of a planet were not as important as the astrologically significant dates when the planet crossed from one zodiacal sign to the next.
Hebrew astronomy and astrology
Knowledge of the Babylonian zodiac is said to be reflected in the Hebrew Bible; E. W. Bullinger interpreted the creatures that appear in the book of Ezekiel (1:10) as the middle signs of the four quarters of the zodiac, with the Lion as Leo, the Bull as Taurus, the Man as Aquarius and the Eagle as a higher aspect of Scorpio. Some authors have linked the signs of the zodiac with the twelve tribes of Israel, and with the lunar Hebrew calendar, which has twelve lunar months in a lunar year. Martin and others have argued that the arrangement of the tribes around the Tabernacle (reported in the Book of Numbers) corresponded to the order of the zodiac, with Judah, Reuben, Ephraim, and Dan representing the middle signs of Leo, Aquarius, Taurus, and Scorpio, respectively. Such connections were taken up by Thomas Mann, who in his novel Joseph and His Brothers, attributes characteristics of a sign of the zodiac to each tribe, in his rendition of the Blessing of Jacob.
Hellenistic and Roman era
The Babylonian star catalogs entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, via Eudoxus of Cnidus.
Babylonia or Chaldea in the Hellenistic world came to be so identified with astrology that "Chaldean wisdom" became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets and stars. Hellenistic astrology derived in part from Babylonian and Egyptian astrology. Horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt (305 BC–30 BC). The Dendera zodiac, a relief dating to c. 50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs.
The earliest extant Greek text using the Babylonian division of the zodiac into 12 signs of 30 equal degrees each is the Anaphoricus of Hypsicles of Alexandria (fl. 190 BC). Particularly important in the development of Western horoscopic astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy, whose work Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition. Under the Greeks, and Ptolemy in particular, the planets, Houses, and signs of the zodiac were rationalized and their function set down in a way that has changed little to the present day. Ptolemy lived in the 2nd century AD, three centuries after the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus around 130 BC. Hipparchus' lost work on precession never circulated very widely until it was brought to prominence by Ptolemy, and there are few explanations of precession outside the work of Ptolemy until late Antiquity, by which time Ptolemy's influence was widely established. Ptolemy clearly explained the theoretical basis of the western zodiac as being a tropical coordinate system, by which the zodiac is aligned to the equinoxes and solstices, rather than the visible constellations that bear the same names as the zodiac signs.
Hindu zodiac
According to mathematician-historian Montucla, the Hindu zodiac was adopted from the Greek zodiac through communications between ancient India and the Greek empire of Bactria. The Hindu zodiac uses the sidereal coordinate system, which makes reference to the fixed stars. The tropical zodiac (of Mesopotamian origin) is divided by the intersections of the ecliptic and equator, which shifts in relation to the backdrop of fixed stars at a rate of 1° every 72 years, creating the phenomenon known as precession of the equinoxes. The Hindu zodiac, being sidereal, does not maintain this seasonal alignment, but there are still similarities between the two systems. The Hindu zodiac signs and corresponding Greek signs sound very different, being in Sanskrit and Greek respectively, but their symbols are nearly identical. For example, dhanu means "bow" and corresponds to Sagittarius, the "archer", and kumbha means "water-pitcher" and corresponds to Aquarius, the "water-carrier".
Middle Ages
During the Abbasid era, Greek reference books were translated into Arabic, and Islamic astronomers then did their own observations, correcting Ptolemy's Almagest. One such book was Al-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars, which has pictorial depictions of 48 constellations. The book was divided into three sections: constellations of the zodiac, constellations north of the zodiac, and southern constellations. When Al-Sufi's book, and other works, were translated in the 11th century, there were mistakes made in the translations. As a result, some stars ended up with the names of the constellation they belong to (e.g. Hamal in Aries).
The High Middle Ages saw a revival of interest in Greco-Roman magic, first in Kabbalism and later continued in Renaissance magic. This included magical uses of the zodiac, as found, e.g., in the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh.
The zodiac is found in medieval stained glass as at Angers Cathedral, where the master glass maker, André Robin, made the ornate rosettes for the North and South transepts after the fire there in 1451.
Medieval Islamic era
Astrology emerged in the 8th century AD as a distinct discipline in Islam,: 64 with a mix of Indian, Hellenistic Iranian and other traditions blended with Greek and Islamic astronomical knowledge, for example Ptolemy's work and Al-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars. A knowledge of the influence that the stars have on events on the earth was important in Islamic civilization. As a rule, it was believed that the signs of the zodiac and the planets control the destiny not only of people but also of nations, and that the zodiac has the ability to determine a person's physical characteristics as well as intelligence and personal traits.
The practice of astrology at this time could be divided into 4 broader categories: Genethlialogy, Catarchic Astrology, Interrogational Astrology and General Astrology.: 65 However the most common type of astrology was Genethlialogy, which examined all aspects of a person's life in relation to the planetary positions at their birth; more commonly known as our horoscope.: 65
Astrology services were offered widely across the empire, mainly in bazaars, where people could pay for a reading. Astrology was valued in the royal courts, for example, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur used astrology to determine the best date for founding the new capital of Baghdad.: 66 Whilst horoscopes were generally widely accepted by society, many scholars condemned the use of astrology and divination, linking it to occult influences. Many theologians and scholars thought that it went against the tenets of Islam; as only God should be able to determine events rather than astrologers looking at the positions of the planets.
In order to calculate someone's horoscope, an astrologer would use 3 tools: an astrolabe, ephemeris and a takht. First, the astrologer would use an astrolabe to find the position of the sun, align the rule with the persons time of birth and then align the rete to establish the altitude of the sun on that date. Next, the astrologer would use an Ephemeris, a table denoting the mean position of the planets and stars within the sky at any given time. Finally, the astrologer would add the altitude of the sun taken from the astrolabe, with the mean position of the planets on the person's birthday, and add them together on the takht (also known as the dustboard). The dust board was merely a tablet covered in sand; on which the calculations could be made and erased easily. Once this had been calculated, the astrologer was then able to interpret the horoscope. Most of these interpretations were based on the zodiac in literature. For example, there were several manuals on how to interpret each zodiac sign, the treatise relating to each individual sign and what the characteristics of these zodiacs were.
Early modern
An example of the use of signs as astronomical coordinates may be found in the Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris for the year 1767. The "Longitude of the Sun" columns show the sign (represented as a digit from 0 to and including 11), degrees from 0 to 29, minutes, and seconds.
Mughal king Jahangir issued an attractive series of coins in gold and silver depicting the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Twelve signs
What follows is a list of the signs of the modern zodiac (with the ecliptic longitudes of their first points), where 0° Aries is understood as the vernal equinox, with their Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Babylonian names. But the Sanskrit and the name equivalents (after c.500 BC) denote the constellations only, not the tropical zodiac signs. The "English translation" is not usually used by English speakers. The Latin names are standard English usage (except that "Capricorn" is used rather than "Capricornus").
These twelve signs have been arranged into a nursery rhyme as a mnemonic device:
The following table compares the Gregorian dates on which the Sun enters a sign in the Ptolemaic tropical zodiac, and a sign in the sidereal system proposed by Cyril Fagan.
The beginning of Aries is defined as the moment of vernal equinox, and all other dates shift accordingly.
The precise Gregorian times and dates vary slightly from year to year as the Gregorian calendar shifts relative to the tropical year. These variations remain within less than two days' difference in the recent past and the near-future, vernal equinox in UT always falling either on 20 or 21 March in the period of 1797 to 2043, falling on 19 March in 1796 the last time and in 2044 the next. The vernal equinox has fallen on 20 March UT since 2008, and will continue to do so until 2043.
As each sign takes up exactly 30 degrees of the zodiac, the average duration of the solar stay in each sign is one twelfth of a sidereal year, or 30.43 standard days. Due to Earth's slight orbital eccentricity, the duration of each sign varies appreciably, between about 29.4 days for Capricorn and about 31.4 days for Cancer (see Equation of time). In addition, because the Earth's axis is at an angle, some signs take longer to rise than others, and the farther away from the equator the observer is situated, the greater the difference. Thus, signs are spoken of as "long" or "short" ascension.
Constellations
In tropical astrology, the zodiacal signs are distinct from the constellations associated with them, not only because of their drifting apart due to the precession of equinoxes but because the physical constellations take up varying widths of the ecliptic, so the Sun is not in each constellation for the same amount of time.: 25 Thus, Virgo takes up 5 times as much ecliptic longitude as Scorpius. The zodiacal signs are an abstraction from the physical constellations, and each represent exactly 1⁄12th of the full circle, but the time spent by the Sun in each sign varies slightly due to the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit.
Sidereal astrology remedies this by assigning the zodiac sign approximately to the corresponding constellation. This alignment needs re calibrating every so often to keep the alignment in place.
The ecliptic intersects with 13 constellations of Ptolemy's Almagest, as well as of the more precisely delineated IAU designated constellations. In addition to the twelve constellations after which the twelve zodiac signs are named, the ecliptic intersects Ophiuchus, the bottom part of which interjects between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
Occasionally this difference between the astronomical constellations and the astrological signs is mistakenly reported in the popular press as a "change" to the list of traditional signs by some astronomical body like the IAU, NASA, or the Royal Astronomical Society. This happened in a 1995 report of the BBC Nine O'Clock News and various reports in 2011 and 2016.
Some "parazodiacal" constellations are touched by the paths of the planets, leading to counts of up to 25 "constellations of the zodiac". The ancient Babylonian MUL.APIN catalog lists Orion, Perseus, Auriga, and Andromeda. Modern astronomers have noted that planets pass through Crater, Sextans, Cetus, Pegasus, Corvus, Hydra, and Scutum, with Venus very rarely passing through Aquila, Canis Minor, Auriga, and Serpens.
Some other constellations are mythologically associated with the zodiacal ones: Piscis Austrinus, The Southern Fish, is attached to Aquarius. In classical maps, it swallows the stream poured out of Aquarius' pitcher, but perhaps it formerly just swam in it. Aquila, The Eagle, was possibly associated with the zodiac by virtue of its main star, Altair. Hydra in the Early Bronze Age marked the celestial equator and was associated with Leo, which is shown standing on the serpent on the Dendera zodiac.
Precession of the equinoxes
The zodiac system was developed in Babylonia, some 2,500 years ago, during the "Age of Aries". At the time, it is assumed, the precession of the equinoxes was unknown. Contemporary use of the coordinate system is presented with the choice of interpreting the system either as sidereal, with the signs fixed to the stellar background, or as tropical, with the signs fixed to the point (vector of the Sun) at the March equinox.
Western astrology takes the tropical approach, whereas Hindu astrology takes the sidereal one. This results in the originally unified zodiacal coordinate system drifting apart gradually, with a clockwise (westward) precession of 1.4 degrees per century.
For the tropical zodiac used in Western astronomy and astrology, this means that the tropical sign of Aries currently lies somewhere within the constellation Pisces ("Age of Pisces").
The sidereal coordinate system takes into account the ayanamsa, ayan meaning "transit' or 'movement', and amsa meaning 'small part', i.e. movement of equinoxes in small parts. It is unclear when Indians became aware of the precession of the equinoxes, but Bhāskara II's 12th-century treatise Siddhanta Shiromani gives equations for measurement of precession of equinoxes, and says his equations are based on some lost equations of Suryasiddhanta plus the equation of Munjaala.
The discovery of precession is attributed to Hipparchus around 130 BC. Ptolemy quotes from Hipparchus' now-lost work entitled "On the Displacement of the Solstitial and Equinoctial Points" in the seventh book of his 2nd century astronomical text, Almagest, where he describes the phenomenon of precession and estimates its value. Ptolemy clarified that the convention of Greek mathematical astronomy was to commence the zodiac from the point of the vernal equinox and to always refer to this point as "the first degree" of Aries. This is known as the "tropical zodiac" (from the Greek word trópos, turn) because its starting point revolves through the circle of background constellations over time.
The principle of the vernal point acting as the first degree of the zodiac for Greek astronomers is described in the 1st century BC astronomical text of Geminus of Rhodes. Geminus explains that Greek astronomers of his era associate the first degrees of the zodiac signs with the two solstices and the two equinoxes, in contrast to the older Chaldean (Babylonian) system, which placed these points within the zodiac signs. This illustrates that Ptolemy merely clarified the convention of Greek astronomers and did not originate the principle of the tropical zodiac, as is sometimes assumed.
Ptolemy demonstrates that the principle of the tropical zodiac was well known to his predecessors within his astrological text, the Tetrabiblos, where he explains why it would be an error to associate the regularly spaced signs of the seasonally aligned zodiac with the irregular boundaries of the visible constellations:
The beginnings of the signs, and likewise those of the terms, are to be taken from the equinoctial and tropical points. This rule is not only clearly stated by writers on the subject, but is especially evident by the demonstration constantly afforded, that their natures, influences and familiarities have no other origin than from the tropics and equinoxes, as has been already plainly shown. And, if other beginnings were allowed, it would either be necessary to exclude the natures of the signs from the theory of prognostication, or impossible to avoid error in then retaining and making use of them; as the regularity of their spaces and distances, upon which their influence depends, would then be invaded and broken in upon.
In modern astronomy
Astronomically, the zodiac defines a belt of space extending 8° or 9° in celestial latitude to the north and south of the ecliptic, within which the orbits of the Moon and the principal planets remain. It is a feature of the ecliptic coordinate system – a celestial coordinate system centered upon the ecliptic (the plane of the Earth's orbit and the Sun's apparent path), by which celestial longitude is measured in degrees east of the vernal equinox (the ascending intersection of the ecliptic and equator). The zodiac is narrow in angular terms because most of the Sun's planets have orbits that have only a slight inclination to the orbital plane of the Earth. Stars within the zodiac are subject to occultations by the Moon and other solar system bodies. These events can be useful, for example, to estimate the cross-sectional dimensions of a minor planet, or check a star for a close companion.
The Sun's placement upon the vernal equinox, which occurs annually around 21 March, defines the starting point for measurement, the first degree of which is historically known as the "first point of Aries". The first 30° along the ecliptic is nominally designated as the zodiac sign Aries, which no longer falls within the proximity of the constellation Aries since the effect of precession is to move the vernal point through the backdrop of visible constellations. It is currently located near the end of the constellation Pisces, having been within that constellation since the 2nd century AD. The subsequent 30° of the ecliptic is nominally designated the zodiac sign Taurus, and so on through the twelve signs of the zodiac so that each occupies 1⁄12th (30°) of the zodiac's great circle. Zodiac signs have never been used to determine the boundaries of astronomical constellations that lie in the vicinity of the zodiac, which are, and always have been, irregular in their size and shape.
The convention of measuring celestial longitude within individual signs was still being used in the mid-19th century, but modern astronomy now numbers degrees of celestial longitude continuously from 0° to 360°, rather than 0° to 30° within each sign. This coordinate system is primary used by astronomers for observations of solar system objects.
The use of the zodiac as a means to determine astronomical measurement remained the main method for defining celestial positions by Western astronomers until the Renaissance, at which time preference moved to the equatorial coordinate system, which measures astronomical positions by right ascension and declination rather than the ecliptic-based definitions of celestial longitude and celestial latitude. The orientation of equatorial coordinates are aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation, rather than the plane of the planet's orbit around the Sun.
The word "zodiac" is used in reference to the zodiacal cloud of dust grains that move among the planets, and the zodiacal light that originates from their scattering of sunlight. While its name is derived from the zodiac, the zodiacal light covers the entire night sky, with enhancements in certain directions.
Unicode characters
In Unicode, the symbols of zodiac signs are encoded in block "Miscellaneous Symbols". They can be forced to look like text by appending U+FE0E, or like emojis by appending U+FE0F:
See also
References
External links
"A Treatise on Zodiacal Signs and Constellations: Unique Jewels on the Benefits of Keeping Time" – a manuscript that dates back to 1831 with a focus on Arabic, Coptic and Syriac calendars. |
IKEA | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA | [
609
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA"
] | Inter IKEA Systems B.V., trading as IKEA ( eye-KEE-ə, Swedish: [ɪˈkêːa]), is a multinational conglomerate, founded in Sweden but now headquartered in the Netherlands, that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been the world's largest furniture retailer since 2008. The brand name is an acronym of founder Ingvar Kamprad's initials; Elmtaryd, the family farm where Kamprad was born; and the nearby village of Agunnaryd, Kamprad's hometown in Småland.
The group is primarily known for its modernist furniture designs, simple approach to interior design, and its immersive shopping concept, based around decorated room settings within big-box stores, where customers can interact with products onsite. In addition, the firm is known for its attention to cost control and continuous product development, notably, the ready-to-assemble model of furniture sales, and other elements which have allowed IKEA to establish lower prices than its competitors.
As of September 2023, there are 482 IKEA stores operating in 63 countries and in fiscal year 2018, €38.8 billion (US$45.82 billion) worth of IKEA goods were sold. For multiple reasons, including lowering taxes payable, IKEA uses a complicated corporate structure. Within this structure, all IKEA stores are operated under franchise from Inter IKEA Systems B.V. which handles branding, design, manufacturing, and supply. Another part of the IKEA group, Ingka Group, operates the majority of IKEA stores as a franchisee and pays royalties to Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Some IKEA stores are also operated by independent franchises. The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and there were over 2.1 billion visitors to IKEA's websites in the year from September 2015 to August 2016.
History
In 1943, then-17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA as a mail-order sales business, and began to sell furniture five years later. The first store was opened in Älmhult, Småland, in 1958, under the name Möbel-IKÉA (Möbel means "furniture" in Swedish). The first stores outside Sweden were opened in Norway (1963) and Denmark (1969). The stores spread to other parts of Europe in the 1970s, with the first store outside Scandinavia opening in Switzerland (1973), followed by West Germany (1974), Japan (1974), Australia, Hong Kong (1975), Canada (1976), Singapore and the Netherlands (1978). IKEA further expanded in the 1980s, opening stores in countries such as France and Spain (1981), Belgium (1984), the United States (1985), the United Kingdom (1987), and Italy (1989). Germany, with 55 stores, is IKEA's biggest market, followed by the United States, with 55 stores (three in Puerto Rico)
IKEA entered Latin America in February 2010, opening in the Dominican Republic. As for the region's largest markets, on 8 April 2021, a store was opened in Mexico City.
In August 2018, IKEA opened its first store in India, in Hyderabad. There are now stores in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
In November 2021, IKEA opened its largest store in the world, measuring 65,000 square metres (700,000 sq ft), in the Philippines at the Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.
In March 2022, IKEA announced the closing of all 17 stores in Russia, resulting from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because of the ongoing war and unimproved situation in Russia, IKEA said on 15 June that it would sell factories, close offices and reduce its workforce. Later it became known that IKEA does not plan to sell its business, but expected to return to Russia within two years. By October 2022, IKEA laid off about 10,000 Russian employees.
In September 2023, the MEGA chain of 14 supermarkets, then owned by Ingka, was bought by the Russian Gazprombank.
IKEA was hit hard by COVID-19 because of lockdowns in various countries, like in the UK and Canada. Because demand had fallen, its annual catalogue ceased publication after 70 years in print. The prices of their products have risen significantly in 2022 because of rising costs and inflation. In April 2022, IKEA has shut down one of its stores in Guiyang when sales took a significant hit from the pandemic. Because of strict COVID-19 lockdowns in China, IKEA has closed another store in Shanghai by July 2022.
On 10 August 2022, IKEA opened its first store in Chile, the first store in South America. Another store opened in Colombia in September 2023 in Bogotá, soon to be followed by a store in Peru.
First store opening in each location
Store layout
Traditional store layout
IKEA stores are typically blue buildings with yellow accents — Sweden's national colours). They are often designed in a one-way layout, leading customers counter-clockwise along what IKEA calls "the long natural way" designed to encourage the customer to see the store in its entirety (as opposed to a traditional retail store, which allows a customer to go directly to the section where the desired goods and services are displayed). There are often shortcuts to other parts of the showroom.
The sequence first involves going through the furniture showrooms making note of selected items. The showroom usually consists of simulated room settings where customers can see the actual furniture in use, e.g.: a living-room with a sofa, a TV set, a bookcase and a dining table, accessorized with plants, cushions, rugs, lamps, plates, glasses and cutlery. Showroom sections are usually displayed in the order of the rooms of a house: living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, kids' rooms. The customer then collects a shopping cart and proceeds to an open-shelf "Market Hall" warehouse for smaller items. Lastly, the self-service furniture warehouse stores the showroom products in flat pack form for the customer to collect the ones previously noted. Sometimes, they are directed to collect products from an external warehouse on the same site or at a site nearby after purchase. Finally, customers pay for their products at a cash register. Not all furniture is stocked at the store level, such as particular sofa colours needing to be shipped from a warehouse to the customer's home or the store.
Most stores follow the layout of having the showroom upstairs with the marketplace and self-service warehouse downstairs. Some stores are single level, while others have separate warehouses to allow more stock to be kept on-site. Single-level stores are found predominantly in areas where the cost of land would be less than the cost of building a 2-level store. Some stores have dual-level warehouses with machine-controlled silos to allow large quantities of stock to be accessed throughout the selling day.
Most IKEA stores offer an "as-is" or "bargain corner" (recently rebranded as "re-shop and re-use") area at the end of the warehouse, just before the cash registers. Returned, damaged, and formerly showcased products are displayed here and sold with a significant discount.
In March 2022, IKEA swiftly exited the Russian market, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, leading to a surplus of items that were earmarked for the Russian market in IKEA's warehouses. To get rid of these items quickly, IKEA has been reselling these in a number of non-Russian IKEA stores near the bargain corner at a discount.
Alternative smaller store formats
The majority of IKEA stores are located outside of city centres, primarily because of land cost and traffic access. Smaller store formats have been unsuccessfully tested in the past (the "midi" concept in the early 1990s, which was tested in Ottawa and Heerlen with 9,300 m2 (100,000 sq ft), or a "boutique" shop in Manhattan).
New formats for full-size stores
A new format for a full-size, city centre store was introduced with the opening of the Manchester store, situated in Ashton-under-Lyne in 2006. Another store, in Coventry, opened in December 2007. The store had seven floors and a different flow from other IKEA stores; however, it closed down in 2020 due to the site being deemed unsuitable for future business. IKEA's Southampton store that opened in February 2009 is also in the city centre and built in an urban style similar to the Coventry store. IKEA built these stores in response to UK government restrictions on large retail establishment outside city centres.
Adaptation to Japanese market
Japan was another market where IKEA performed badly, exited the market completely and then re-entered with an alternative store design and layout with which it finally found success. IKEA entered the Japanese market in 1974 through a franchise arrangement with a local partner, only to withdraw in failure in 1986. Japan was one of the first markets outside its original core European market. Despite Japan being the then second largest economy in the world, IKEA did not adapt its store layout strategy to the Japanese consumer. Japanese consumers did not have a culture of DIY furniture assembly, and many in the early days had no way to haul flat-packs home to their small apartments. Nor did the store layouts familiar to European customers initially make sense to Japanese consumers, so prior to re-entering the Japanese market in 2006, IKEA management did extensive local market research in more effective store layouts. One area of local adaptation was the room displays common to every IKEA store worldwide. Rather than just replicate a European room layout, the Japan management was careful to set up room displays more closely resembling Japanese apartment rooms, such as one for "a typical Japanese teenage boy who likes baseball and computer games".
Inner-city stores
IKEA adapted its store location and services to the 'inner-city' format for expansion in China, unlike other countries where IKEA stores for economic and planning restriction reasons tends to be just outside city centres due to planning restrictions. In China, planning restrictions are less of an issue due to the lack of cars for much of its customer base. Accordingly, in store design alternatives, IKEA has had to offer store locations and formats closer to public transportation. The store design alternative thinking and strategy in China has been to locate stores to facilitate access for non-car owning customers. In some locations in China, IKEA stores can be found not in the usual suburban or near airport locations like other countries, but rather places such as downtown shopping centres with a 'mini-IKEA' store to attract shoppers. One store design alternative trend IKEA has implemented has been 'pop-up' stores along social media platforms in their advertising strategy, for the first-time as a company, to reach new customers demographics while still reinforcing its global brand locally in China.
Small sized stores
In Hong Kong, where shop space is limited and costly, IKEA has opened 4 stores, all in multi-storey commercial buildings. They are smaller than other IKEA stores but large by Hong Kong standards. In addition to tailoring store sizes for specific countries, IKEA alters the sizes of products to accommodate cultural differences. In 2015, IKEA announced it would attempt smaller store design at locations in Canada. IKEA claimed this new model would allow them to expand quickly into new markets rather than spending years opening a full-size store.
In 2020, IKEA opened at Al Wahda Mall in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which, at 2,137 m2 (23,002 sq ft), was one of the smallest IKEA stores to-date. The company also opened at 360 Mall in Kuwait and in Harajuku, a trendy part of Tokyo, that same year. The size of the Kuwaiti 360 Mall store was slightly larger than Al Wahda's (despite bringing a similar concept), at 3,000 m2 (32,000 sq ft), built as an extension of the mall. As for IKEA Harajuku, the 2,500 m2 (26,910 sq ft), 7-storey store houses the chain's first and only konbini concept. In 2021, IKEA opened another one of its smallest stores, located at the JEM Mall in Jurong East, Singapore. Replacing liquidated department store Robinsons, IKEA Jurong is only 6,500 m2 (70,000 sq ft), encompassing three levels; it was the first location in Southeast Asia that did not provide the "Market Hall" warehouse in its store. Also during 2021, IKEA opened a small-store-format location on Bali, Indonesia, replacing the liquidated former Giant hypermarket. IKEA Bali is dubbed "Customer Meeting Point", and is the smallest store to open thus far, at 1,200 m2 (13,000 sq ft).
In 2022, another smaller store was opened inside Livat Hammersmith, London, at 4,600 m2 (50,000 sq ft), followed by a 9,400 m2 (101,000 sq ft) store inside Mall Taman Anggrek, Jakarta, which was opened on 7 April 2022.
Products and services
Furniture and homeware
Rather than being sold pre-assembled, much of IKEA's furniture is designed to be assembled by the customer. The company claims that this helps reduce costs and use of packaging by not shipping air; the volume of a bookcase, for example, is considerably less if it is shipped unassembled rather than assembled. This is also more practical for European customers using public transport, because flat packs can be more easily carried.
IKEA contends that it has been a pioneering force in sustainable approaches to mass consumer culture. Kamprad calls this "democratic design", meaning that the company applies an integrated approach to manufacturing and design (see also environmental design). In response to the explosion of human population and material expectations in the 20th and 21st centuries, the company implements economies of scale, capturing material streams and creating manufacturing processes that hold costs and resource use down, such as the extensive use of medium-density fibreboard ("MDF"), also called "particle board".
Notable items of IKEA furniture include the Poäng armchair, the Billy bookcase and the Klippan sofa, all of which have sold by the tens of millions since the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The IKEA and LEGO brands teamed up to create a range of simple storage solutions for children and adults.
In June 2021, IKEA Canada unveiled a series of 10 "Love Seats" inspired by different Pride flags, created by four LGBTQ designers.
Furniture and product naming
IKEA products are identified by one-word (occasionally, two-word) names, predominantly in the Swedish language (or otherwise Scandinavian in origin). With few exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by the company. The company founder Kamprad was dyslexic, and found that naming the furniture with proper names and words, rather than a long product code, made the products easier to identify and remember. Products are usually named after locations in Scandinavian countries, using names of places in Sweden for sofas and coffee tables, Denmark for textiles, and Norway for beds. Lamps get their names from seas and lakes, while outdoor furniture is named after islands.
A number of IKEA's products bearing Swedish names have (or have had) pronunciations that are humorous to some and offensive to others (but no less "lost-in-translation"), by not only English-speakers but speakers of many different languages. At times, this product-identification has resulted in certain names being changed, or withdrawn completely from certain markets. More often than not, this confusion is simply a result of the Swedish language not being executed correctly, let alone understood, by the reader; nonetheless, this has resulted in potentially "naughty"—or even gravely offensive—connotations, depending on the area in question. Notable examples (for English-speakers) include a since-discontinued (2013) computer desk called jerker (referring to "the jerks" or "jerks"), a foliar plant spray called fukta ("moisten"), a workbench called fartfull ("speedy", "quick"), and a table called lyckhem (pronounced roughly as "look-em"), meaning "bliss" or a "happy home".
Due to several products being named after real places, some locales have ended-up sharing names with objects considered generally unpleasant, such as a toilet brush being named after the lake of Bolmen, or a rubbish bin named after the Norwegian village of Tofte. In November 2021, VisitSweden.com launched a jocular campaign named "Discover the Originals", which invited tourists to visit the physical locations which have received such unfortunate associations with IKEA products.
Design services
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, to facilitate social distancing between customers and accommodate the increased volume of customers who were booking IKEA design consultation services, IKEA stores in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain improved their design consulting process by piloting Ombori's paperless queue management system for the brand.
In March 2021, IKEA launched IKEA Studio in partnership with Apple Inc., an app enabling customers to design full-scale rooms with IKEA furniture using augmented reality on an iPhone.
Smart home
In 2016, IKEA started a move into the smart home business. The IKEA TRÅDFRI smart lighting kit was one of the first ranges signalling this change. IKEA's media team has confirmed that smart home project will be a big move. They have also started a partnership with Philips Hue. The wireless charging furniture, integrating wireless Qi charging into everyday furniture, is another strategy for the smart home business.
A collaboration to build Sonos smart speaker technology into furniture sold by IKEA was announced in December 2017. The first products resulting from the collaboration launched in August 2019.
Under the product name SYMFONISK, IKEA and Sonos have made two distinct wireless speakers that integrate with existing Sonos households or can be used to start with the Sonos-ecosystem, one that's also a lamp and another that's a more traditional looking bookshelf speaker. Both products as well as accessories for the purpose of mounting the bookshelf speakers have gone on sale worldwide on 1 August.
From the start, IKEA SYMFONISK can only be controlled from the Sonos app, but IKEA added support for the speakers in their own Home Smart app to be paired with scenes that control both the lights, air purifiers, smart plugs and smart blinds together with the speakers.
Houses and flats
IKEA has also expanded its product base to include flat-pack houses and apartments, in an effort to cut prices involved in a first-time buyer's home. The IKEA product, named BoKlok was launched in Sweden in 1996 in a joint venture with Skanska. Now working in the Nordic countries and in the UK, sites confirmed in England include London, Ashton-under-Lyne, Leeds, Gateshead, Warrington, Bristol and Liverpool.
Solar PV systems
At the end of September 2013, the company announced that solar panel packages, so-called "residential kits", for houses will be sold at 17 UK stores by mid-2014. The decision followed a successful pilot project at the Lakeside IKEA store, whereby one photovoltaic system was sold almost every day. The solar CIGS panels are manufactured by Solibro, a German-based subsidiary of the Chinese company Hanergy. By the end of 2014, IKEA began to sell Solibro's solar residential kits in the Netherlands and in Switzerland. In November 2015, IKEA ended its contract with Hanergy and in April 2016 started working with Solarcentury to sell solar panels in the United Kingdom. The deal would allow customers to be able to order panels online and at three stores before being expanded to all United Kingdom stores by the end of summer.
Furniture rental
In April 2019, the company announced that it would begin test marketing a new concept, renting furniture to customers. One of the motivating factors was that inexpensive IKEA products were viewed as "disposable" and often ended up being scrapped after a few years of use. This was at a time when especially younger buyers said they wanted to minimize their impact on the environment. The company understood this view. In an interview, Jesper Brodin, the chief executive of Ingka Group (the largest franchisee of IKEA stores), commented that "climate change and unsustainable consumption are among the biggest challenges we face in society". The other strategic objectives of the plan were to be more affordable and more convenient. The company said it would test the rental concept in all 30 markets by 2020, expecting it to increase the number of times a piece of furniture would be used before recycling.
Restaurant and food markets
The first IKEA store opened in 1958 with a small cafe that transitioned into a full-blown restaurant in 1960 that, until 2011, sold branded Swedish prepared specialist foods, such as meatballs, packages of gravy, lingonberry jam, various biscuits and crackers, and salmon and fish roe spread. The new label has a variety of items including chocolates, meatballs, jams, pancakes, salmon and various drinks.
Although the cafes primarily serve Swedish food, the menu varies based on the culture, food and location of each store. With restaurants in 38 countries, the menu often incorporates local dishes, including shawarma in Saudi Arabia, poutine in Canada, macarons in France, and gelato in Italy. In Indonesia, the Swedish meatballs recipe is changed to accommodate the country's halal requirements. Stores in Israel sell kosher food under rabbinical supervision. The kosher restaurants are separated into dairy and meat areas.
In many locations, the IKEA restaurants open daily before the rest of the store and serve breakfast. All food products are based on Swedish recipes and traditions. Food accounted for 5% of IKEA's sales by 2019.
IKEA sells plant-based meatballs made from potatoes, apples, pea protein, and oats in all of its stores. According to United States journalist Avery Yale Kamila, IKEA began testing its plant-based meatballs in 2014, then launched the plant-based meatballs in 2015 and began testing vegan hot dogs in 2018. In 2019, journalist James Hansen reported in Eater London that IKEA would only sell vegetarian food at Christmas time.
Småland
Every store has a children's play area, named Småland (Swedish for small lands; it is also the Swedish province of Småland where founder Kamprad was born). Parents drop off their children at a gate to the playground, and pick them up after they arrive at another entrance. In some stores, parents are given free pagers by the on-site staff, which the staff can use to summon parents whose children need them earlier than expected; in others, staff summon parents through announcements over the in-store public address system or by calling them on their mobile phones. The largest Småland play area is located at the IKEA store in Navi Mumbai, India. Some of these were closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
IKEA Preowned
In August 2024, Ikea announced it would be trialing an on-line marketplace where customers can connect to buy and sell pre-owned items made by Ikea.
The marketplace, called Ikea Preowned, would run from August until December 2024 and be centred on the cities of Oslo, Norway and Madrid, Spain.
Other ventures
Until 28 September 2023, IKEA owned & operated the MEGA Family Shopping Centre chain in Russia. Its operations have since been sold to Gazprombank.
On 8 August 2008, IKEA UK launched a virtual mobile phone network called IKEA Family Mobile, which ran on T-Mobile. At launch it was the cheapest pay-as-you-go network in the UK. In June 2015 the network announced that its services would cease to operate from 31 August 2015.
As of 2012, IKEA has a joint venture with TCL to provide Uppleva integrated HDTV and entertainment system products.
In mid-August 2012, the company announced that it would establish a chain of 100 economy hotels in Europe but, unlike its few existing hotels in Scandinavia, they would not carry the IKEA name, nor would they use IKEA furniture and furnishings – they would be operated by an unnamed international group of hoteliers. As of 30 April 2018, however, the company owned only a single hotel, the IKEA Hotell in Älmhult, Sweden.
It was previously planning to open another one, in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, after converting the historic Pirelli Building. The company received approval for the concept from the city's planning commission in mid-November 2018; the building was to include 165 rooms and the property would offer 129 dedicated parking spaces. Research in April 2019 provided no indication that the hotel had been completed as of that time. The building was then sold to Connecticut architect and developer Becker + Becker for $1.2 million. Opening in 2022 under Hotel Marcel, it is managed by Charlestowne Hotels and became part of Hilton's Tapestry Collection.
From 2016 to 2018, IKEA sold a commuter belt-driven bicycle, the Sladda.
In September 2017, IKEA announced they would be acquiring the UD company TaskRabbit. The deal, completed later that year, has TaskRabbit operating as an independent company.
In March 2020, IKEA announced that it had partnered with Pizza Hut Hong Kong on a joint venture. IKEA launched a new side table called SÄVA. The table, designed to resemble a pizza saver, would be boxed in packaging resembling a pizza box, and the building instructions included a suggestion to order a Swedish meatball pizza from Pizza Hut, which would contain the same meatballs served in IKEA restaurants.
In April 2020, IKEA acquired AI imaging startup Geomagical Labs.
In July 2020, IKEA opened a concept store in the Harajuku district of Tokyo, Japan, where it launched its first ever apparel line.
Ingka Centres, IKEA's malls division, announced in December 2021 that it would open two malls, anchored by IKEA stores, in Gurugram and Noida in India at a cost of around ₹9,000 crore (US$1.1 billion). Both malls are expected to open by 2025.
In 2016, IKEA Canada partnered with the Setsuné Indigenous Fashion Incubator, co-founded by Sage Paul, to design and produce the collection ÅTERSTÄLLA, which means to restore, heal, or redecorate, and it was made entirely from salvaged Ikea textiles, reflecting the traditional Indigenous value to "use everything."
Corporate structure
IKEA is owned and operated by a series of not-for-profit and for-profit corporations. The corporate structure is divided into two main parts: operations and franchising.
INGKA Holding B.V., based in the Netherlands, owns the Ingka Group, which takes care of the centres, retails, customer fulfillment, and all the other services related to IKEA products. The IKEA brand is owned and managed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V., based in the Netherlands, owned by Inter IKEA Holding B.V. Inter IKEA Holding is also in charge of design, manufacturing and supply of IKEA products.
Inter IKEA Systems is owned by Inter IKEA Holding BV, a company registered in the Netherlands, formerly registered in Luxembourg (under the name Inter IKEA Holding SA). Inter IKEA Holding, in turn, is owned by the Interogo Foundation, based in Liechtenstein. In 2016, the INGKA Holding sold its design, manufacturing and logistics subsidiaries to Inter IKEA Holding.
In June 2013, Ingvar Kamprad resigned from the board of Inter IKEA Holding SA and his youngest son Mathias Kamprad replaced Per Ludvigsson as the chairman of the holding company. Following his decision to step down, the 87-year-old founder explained, "I see this as a good time for me to leave the board of Inter IKEA Group. By that we are also taking another step in the generation shift that has been ongoing for some years." After the 2016 company restructure, Inter IKEA Holding SA no longer exists, having reincorporated in the Netherlands. Mathias Kamprad became a board member of the Inter IKEA Group and the Interogo Foundation. Mathias and his two older brothers, who also have leadership roles at IKEA, work on the corporation's overall vision and long-term strategy.
Control by Kamprad
Along with helping IKEA make a non-taxable profit, IKEA's complicated corporate structure allowed Kamprad to maintain tight control over the operations of INGKA Holding, and thus the operation of most IKEA stores. The INGKA Foundation's five-person executive committee was chaired by Kamprad. It appoints a board of INGKA Holding, approves any changes to INGKA Holding's bylaws, and has the right to preempt new share issues. If a member of the executive committee quits or dies, the other four members appoint their replacement.
In Kamprad's absence, the foundation's bylaws include specific provisions requiring it to continue operating the INGKA Holding group and specifying that shares can be sold only to another foundation with the same objectives as the INGKA Foundation.
Financial information
The net profit of IKEA Group (which does not include Inter IKEA systems) in fiscal year 2009 (after paying franchise fees to Inter IKEA systems) was €2.538 billion on sales of €21.846 billion. Because INGKA Holding is owned by the non-profit INGKA Foundation, none of this profit is taxed. The foundation's nonprofit status also means that the Kamprad family cannot reap these profits directly, but the Kamprads do collect a portion of IKEA sales profits through the franchising relationship between INGKA Holding and Inter IKEA Systems.
As a franchisee, the Ingka Group pays 3% of royalties to Inter IKEA Systems. Inter IKEA Systems collected €631 million of franchise fees in 2004 but reported pre-tax profits of only €225 million in 2004. One of the major pre-tax expenses that Inter IKEA systems reported was €590 million of "other operating charges". IKEA has refused to explain these charges, but Inter IKEA Systems appears to make large payments to I.I. Holding, another Luxembourg-registered group that, according to The Economist, "is almost certain to be controlled by the Kamprad family". I.I. Holding made a profit of €328 million in 2004.
In 2004, the Inter IKEA group of companies and I.I. Holding reported combined profits of €553m and paid €19m in taxes, or approximately 3.5 percent.
IKEA has avoided millions of euros in taxes performing some intricate mechanisms and it was noted by the EU back in 2017. The main countries where they operated their business using tax loopholes were the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.
Public Eye, a non-profit organisation in Switzerland that promotes corporate responsibility, has formally criticised IKEA for its tax avoidance strategies. In 2007, the organisation nominated IKEA for one of its Public Eye "awards", which highlight corporate irresponsibility.
In February 2016, the Greens / EFA group in the European Parliament issued a report entitled IKEA: Flat Pack Tax Avoidance on the tax planning strategies of IKEA and their possible use to avoid tax in several European countries. The report was sent to Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, and Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, expressing the hope that it would be of use to them in their respective roles "to advance the fight for tax justice in Europe".
Manufacturing, logistics, and labour
Although IKEA originated in Sweden, their household products and furniture products are manufactured in many different countries, in order to achieve cost efficiency. For most of its products, the final assembly is performed by the end-user (consumer).
Swedwood, an IKEA subsidiary, produces all of the company's wood-based products, with the largest Swedwood factory located in Southern Poland. According to the subsidiary, over 16,000 employees across 50 sites in 10 countries manufacture the 100 million pieces of furniture that IKEA sells annually. IKEA furniture uses the hardwood alternative particle board. Hultsfred, a factory in southern Sweden, is the company's sole supplier.
Distribution centre efficiency and flexibility have been one of IKEA's ongoing priorities and thus it has implemented automated, robotic warehouse systems and warehouse management systems (WMS). Such systems facilitate a merger of the traditional retail and mail order sales channels into an omni-channel fulfillment model. In 2020, Ikea was noted by Supply Chain magazine as having one of the most automated warehouse systems in the world.
In the 1980s under the rule of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania's secret police, the Securitate, received six-figure payments from IKEA. According to declassified files at the National College for Studying the Securitate Archives, IKEA agreed to overcharge for products made in Romania and some of the overpayment funds were deposited into an account controlled by the Securitate.
2021 supply chain problems
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IKEA has been facing major supply chain issues since 2021, which could extend into 2022. Jon Abrahamsson, the chief executive of Inter IKEA has stated that the main issue is shipping products from China, as a "quarter" of IKEA products are made there. A variety of reasons led to supply shortages, including consumption shocks. In addition, factories were unable to produce raw materials and workers even after they began receiving orders.
Labour practices
During the 1980s, IKEA kept its costs down by using production facilities in East Germany. A portion of the workforce at those factories consisted of political prisoners. This fact, revealed in a report by Ernst & Young commissioned by the company, resulted from the intermingling of criminals and political dissidents in the state-owned production facilities IKEA contracted with, a practice which was generally known in West Germany. IKEA was one of a number of companies, including West German firms, which benefited from this practice. The investigation resulted from attempts by former political prisoners to obtain compensation. In November 2012, IKEA admitted being aware at the time of the possibility of use of forced labour and failing to exercise sufficient control to identify and avoid it. A summary of the Ernst & Young report was released on 16 November 2012.
In 2018, Ikea was accused of union busting when employees sought to organize, using such tactics as captive audience meetings.
IKEA was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 and 2005 by Working Mothers magazine. It ranked 80 in Fortune's 200 Best Companies to Work For in 2006 and in October 2008, IKEA Canada LP was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc.
Environmental initiatives
Umbrella initiatives
After initial environmental issues like the highly publicized formaldehyde scandals in the early 1980s and 1992, IKEA took a proactive stance on environmental issues and tried to prevent future incidents through a variety of measures. In 1990, IKEA invited Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of the Natural Step, to address its board of directors. Robert's system conditions for sustainability provided a strategic approach to improving the company's environmental performance. In 1990, IKEA adopted the Natural Step framework as the basis for its environmental plan. This led to the development of an Environmental Action Plan, which was adopted in 1992. The plan focused on structural change, allowing IKEA to "maximize the impact of resources invested and reduce the energy necessary to address isolated issues." The environmental measures taken include the following:
Replacing polyvinylchloride (PVC) in wallpapers, home textiles, shower curtains, lampshades and furniture—PVC has been eliminated from packaging and is being phased out in electric cables;
Minimizing the use of formaldehyde in its products, including textiles;
Eliminating acid-curing lacquers;
Producing a model of chair (OGLA) made from 100% post-consumer plastic waste;
Introducing a series of air-inflatable furniture products into the product line. Such products reduce the use of raw materials for framing and stuffing and reduce transportation weight and volume to about 15% of that of conventional furniture;
Reducing the use of chromium for metal surface treatment;
Limiting the use of substances such as cadmium, lead, PCB, PCP, and Azo pigments;
Using wood from responsibly managed forests that replant and maintain biological diversity;
Using only recyclable materials for flat packaging and "pure" (non-mixed) materials for packaging to assist in recycling.
Introducing rental bicycles with trailers for customers in Denmark.
In 2000, IKEA introduced its code of conduct for suppliers that covers social, safety, and environmental questions. Today IKEA has around 60 auditors who perform hundreds of supplier audits every year. The main purpose of these audits is to make sure that the IKEA suppliers follow the law in each country where they are based. Most IKEA suppliers fulfil the law today with exceptions for some special issues, one being excessive working hours in Asia, in countries such as China and India.
As of March 2018, IKEA has signed on with 25 other companies to participate in the British Retail Consortium's Better Retail Better World initiative, which challenges companies to meet objectives outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Product life cycle
To make IKEA a more sustainable company, a product life cycle was created. For the idea stage, products should be flat-packed so that more items can be shipped at once; products should also be easier to dismantle and recycle. Raw materials are used, and since wood and cotton are two of IKEA's most important manufacturing products, the company works with environmentally friendly forests and cotton, whereby the excessive use of chemicals and water is avoided.
IKEA stores recycle waste and many run on renewable energy. All employees are trained in environmental and social responsibility, while public transit is one of the priorities when the location of stores is considered. Also, the coffee and chocolate served at IKEA stores is UTZ Certified.
The last stage of the life cycle is the end of life. Most IKEA stores recycle light bulbs and drained batteries, and the company is also exploring the recycling of sofas and other home furnishing products.
Energy sources
In August 2008, IKEA announced that it had created IKEA GreenTech, a €50 million venture capital fund. Located in Lund (a university town in Sweden), it will invest in 8–10 companies in the coming five years with focus on solar panels, alternative light sources, product materials, energy efficiency and water saving and purification. The aim is to commercialise green technologies for sale in IKEA stores within 3–4 years.
On 17 February 2011, IKEA announced its plans to develop a wind farm in Dalarna County, Sweden, furthering its goal of using only renewable energy to fuel its operations. As of June 2012, 17 United States IKEA stores are powered by solar panels, with 22 additional installations in progress, and IKEA owns the 165 MW Cameron Wind farm in Cameron County on the South Texas coast and a 42 MW coastal wind farm in Finland.
In September 2019, IKEA announced that they would be investing $2.8 billion in renewable energy infrastructure. The company is targeting making their entire supply chain climate positive by 2030.
Sourcing of wood
The group is responsible for approximately 1% of world commercial-product wood consumption, making it the largest individual user of wood in the world. IKEA claims to use 99.5% recycled or FSC-certified wood. However, IKEA has been shown to be involved in unsustainable and most likely illegal logging of old-growth and protected forests in multiple Eastern European countries in recent years.
IKEA is the world's largest buyer and retailer of wood. In 2015, IKEA claimed to use 1% of the world's supply of timber.
According to IKEA's 2021 Sustainability Report, 99.5% of all wood that the company uses is either recycled or meets the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council. IKEA states that "[a]ll wood used for IKEA products must meet our critical requirements that ensure it's not (e.g.) sourced from illegally harvested forests [...]". However, despite these claims, IKEA has been involved in unsustainable and most likely illegal logging of wood in multiple Eastern European countries in recent years; see Criticism of IKEA.
IKEA owns about 136,000 acres of forest in the US and about 450,000 acres in Europe.
On 14 January 2021, IKEA announced that Ingka Investments had acquired approximately 10,840 acres (4,386 hectares) near the Altamaha River Basin in the U.S. state of Georgia from The Conservation Fund. The acquisition comes with the agreement "to protect the land from fragmentation, restore the longleaf pine forest, and safe-guard the habitat of the gopher tortoise."
IKEA is reported to be the largest private landowner in Romania since 2015.
Use of wood
In 2011, the company examined its wood consumption and noticed that almost half of its global pine and spruce consumption was for the fabrication of pallets. The company consequently started a transition to the use of paper pallets and the "Optiledge system". The OptiLedge product is totally recyclable, made from 100% virgin high-impact copolymer polypropylene (PP) plastic. The system is a "unit load alternative to the use of a pallet. The system consists of the OptiLedge (usually used in pairs), aligned and strapped to the bottom carton to form a base layer upon which to stack more products. Corner boards are used when strapping to minimize the potential for package compression." The conversion began in Germany and Japan, before its introduction into the rest of Europe and North America. The system has been marketed to other companies, and IKEA has formed the OptiLedge company to manage and sell the product.
Packaging and bags
Since March 2013, IKEA has stopped providing plastic bags to customers, but offers reusable bags for sale. The IKEA restaurants also only offer reusable plates, knives, forks, spoons, etc. Toilets in some IKEA WC-rooms have been outfitted with dual-function flushers. IKEA has recycling bins for compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), energy-saving bulbs, and batteries.
In 2001, IKEA was one of the first companies to operate its own cross-border goods trains through several countries in Europe.
Electric vehicles
IKEA has expanded its sustainability plan in the UK to include electric car charge points for customers at all locations by the end of 2013. The effort will include Nissan and Ecotricity and promise to deliver an 80% charge in 30 minutes.
From 2016, IKEA has only sold energy-efficient LED lightbulbs, lamps and light fixtures. LED lightbulbs use as little as 15% of the power of a regular incandescent light bulb.
Donations made by IKEA
The INGKA Foundation is officially dedicated to promoting "innovations in architecture and interior design". The net worth of the foundation exceeded the net worth of the much better known Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now the largest private foundation in the world) for a period. However, most of the Group's profit is spent on investment.
IKEA is involved in several international charitable causes, particularly in partnership with UNICEF, including:
In the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, IKEA Australia agreed to match dollar for dollar co-workers' donations and donated all sales of the IKEA Blue Bag to the cause.
After the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, IKEA gave 500,000 blankets to the relief effort in the region.
IKEA has provided furniture for over 100 "bridge schools" in Liberia.
Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China, IKEA Beijing sold an alligator toy for 40 yuan (US$5.83, €3.70) with all income going to the children in the earthquake struck area.
In 2013, IKEA donated more than $2.6 million to UNICEF to help children and families affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
IKEA also supports American Forests to restore forests and reduce pollution.
On 3 March 2022, IKEA announced €20 million donation to UNHCR for relief support of Ukrainians who suffer from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
IKEA donated €10 million to Doctors Without Borders for its work in Syria in response to the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake.
IKEA Social Initiative
In September 2005, IKEA Social Initiative was formed to manage the company's social involvement on a global level. IKEA Social Initiative is headed by Marianne Barner.
The main partners of IKEA Social Initiative are UNICEF and Save the Children.
On 23 February 2009, at the ECOSOC event in New York, UNICEF announced that IKEA Social Initiative has become the agency's largest corporate partner, with total commitments of more than US$180 million (£281,079,000).
Examples of involvements:
The IKEA Social Initiative contributes €1 (£1.73) to UNICEF and Save the Children from each soft toy sold during the holiday seasons, raising a total of €16.7 million (£28.91 million) so far. In 2013, an IKEA soft toy, Lufsig, created a storm and sold out in Hong Kong and in Southern China because it had been misnamed in Chinese.
The IKEA Social Initiative provided soft toys to children in Burma after Cyclone Nargis.
Starting in June 2009, for every Sunnan solar-powered lamp sold in IKEA stores worldwide, IKEA Social Initiative will donate one Sunnan with the help of UNICEF.
In September 2011, the IKEA Foundation pledged to donate $62 million to help Somali refugees in Kenya.
According to The Economist, however, IKEA's charitable giving is meager, "barely a rounding error in the foundation's assets".
In 2009, Sweden's largest television station, SVT, revealed that IKEA's money—the three per cent collection from each store—does not actually go to a charitable foundation in the Netherlands, as IKEA has said. Inter IKEA is owned by a foundation in Liechtenstein, called Interogo, which has amassed $12 billion (£18 billion), and is controlled by the Kamprad family.
Marketing
Catalogue
IKEA used to publish an annual catalogue, first published in Swedish in 1951. It is considered to be the main marketing tool of the company, consuming 70% of its annual marketing budget. The catalogue is distributed both in stores and by mail, with most of it being produced by IKEA Communications AB in IKEA's hometown of Älmhult, Sweden. At its peak in 2016, 200 million copies of the catalogue were distributed in 32 languages to more than 50 markets. In December 2020, IKEA announced that they would cease publication of both the print and digital versions of the catalogue, with the 2021 edition (released in 2020) being the final edition.
IKEA Family
In common with some other retailers, IKEA launched a loyalty card called "IKEA Family". The card is free of charge and can be used to obtain discounts on certain products found in-store. It is available worldwide. In conjunction with the card, IKEA also publishes and sells a printed quarterly magazine titled IKEA Family Live which supplements the card and catalogue. The magazine is already printed in thirteen languages and an English edition for the United Kingdom was launched in February 2007. It is expected to have a subscription of over 500,000.
IKEA Place app
On 12 September 2017, IKEA announced the augmented reality app, IKEA Place, following by Apple's release of its ARkit technology and iOS 11. IKEA Place helps consumers to visualize true to scale IKEA products into real environment.
Advertising
In 1994, IKEA ran a commercial in the United States, titled Dining Room, widely thought to be the first to feature a homosexual couple; it aired for several weeks before being withdrawn after calls for a boycott and a bomb threat directed at IKEA stores. Other IKEA commercials appeal to the wider LGBTQ community, one featuring a transgender woman.
In 2002, the inaugural television component of the "Unböring" campaign, titled Lamp, went on to win several awards, including a Grand Clio, Golds at the London International Awards and the ANDY Awards, and the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the most prestigious awards ceremony in the advertising community.
A debate ensued between Fraser Patterson, Chief Executive of Onis, and Andrew McGuinness, partner at Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB), the advertising and PR agency that was awarded the £12 million IKEA account. The essence of the debate was that BMB claimed to be unaware of Onis's campaign as Onis was not an advertising agency. Onis's argument was that its advertising could be seen in prominent landmarks throughout London, having been already accredited, showing concern about the impact IKEA's campaign would have on the originality of its own. BMB and IKEA subsequently agreed to provide Onis with a feature page on the IKEA campaign site linking through to Onis's website for a period of one year.
In 2008, IKEA paired up with the makers of video game The Sims 2 to make a stuff pack called IKEA Home Stuff, featuring many IKEA products. It was released on 24 June 2008 in North America and 26 June 2008 in Europe. It is the second stuff pack with a major brand, the first being The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff.
IKEA took over the title sponsorship of Philadelphia's annual Thanksgiving Day parade in 2008, replacing Boscov's, which filed for bankruptcy in August 2008.
In November 2008, a subway train decorated in IKEA style was introduced in Novosibirsk, Russia. Four cars were turned into a mobile showroom of the Swedish design. The redesigned train, which features colourful seats and fancy curtains, carried passengers until 6 June 2009.
In March 2010, IKEA developed an event in four important Métro stations in Paris, in which furniture collections are displayed in high-traffic spots, giving potential customers a chance to check out the brand's products. The Métro walls were also filled with prints that showcase IKEA interiors.
In September 2017, IKEA launched the "IKEA Human Catalogue" campaign, in which memory champion Yanjaa Wintersoul memorized all 328 pages of the catalogue in minute detail in just a week before its launch. To prove the legitimacy and accuracy of the campaign, live demonstrations were held at press conferences in IKEA stores across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand as well as a Facebook Live event held at the Facebook Singapore headquarters and talk show demonstrations in the US with Steve Harvey among others. The advertising campaign was hugely successful winning numerous industry awards including the Webby award 2018 for best social media campaign, an Ogilvy award and is currently a contender for the Cannes Lions 2018.
In 2020, IKEA conducted a "Buy Back Friday" campaign with a message to present a new life to old furniture instead of offering customers to buy new items for Black Friday.
In June 2021, IKEA said it had suspended adverts on GB News because of concerns the channel's content would go against their aim to be inclusive. In a statement IKEA said: "We have safeguards in place to prevent our advertising from appearing on platforms that are not in line with our humanistic values. We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won't happen again in future, and have suspended paid display advertising in the meantime."
In popular culture
In 2018, the company's plush toy shark "Blåhaj" was widely used in an internet meme, with social media users posting humorous photos of it in their homes.
IKEA has been referenced a number of times in novelty music. In 2003, American musician Jonathan Coulton released the song "IKEA" on the album Smoking Monkey. In 2005, British musician Mitch Benn with the band The Distractions penned the novelty song "Ikea". In December 2019, comedy metal band Nanowar of Steel released the song Valhallelujah which is dedicated to Odin and IKEA. The music video features a longship with the sail adorned with the IKEA logo, and a fictional IKEA catalogue written in Old Norse runes. The lyrics include references to various IKEA products, namely BEDDINGE, KIVIK, VITTSJÖ, KNOPPARP, BESTÅ and SLATTUM.
1999 American movie Fight Club references to IKEA furnitures to show the consumerist culture of modern times.
IKEA stores have been featured in many works of fiction. Some examples include:
The 1986 Swedish crime comedy film Jönssonligan dyker upp igen features a failed robbery of the IKEA store at Kungens Kurva by the eponymous gang.
The 2009 American film 500 Days of Summer features the main characters flirting around the showroom of an IKEA store. It was filmed on-location at an IKEA store. One of the tracks from the film's score is entitled "Ikea" to reflect the scene.
IKEA Heights, a 2009 comedic melodrama web series, was filmed without permission in an IKEA store.
The 2014 novel The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe by French author Romain Puertolas features a trip to an IKEA store in Paris, France.
The 2014 horror comedy novel Horrorstör is set in a haunted store called ORSK, modelled on IKEA, and the novel is designed to look like the IKEA catalogue.
The SCP Foundation, an online collaborative writing project documenting fictional anomalies features an entry (numbered SCP-3008) originating in 2017 about an IKEA store which is notably bigger on the inside than its exterior implies, and from which escaping is difficult. The interior of this store is populated by entities dressed in IKEA staff attire, resembling highly deformed, faceless humanoids, which are normally passive during the "day" (when the lights are switched on) but become aggressive during the "night" (when the lights are switched off).
A number of survival horror video games have been created based on SCP-3008.
The 2021 children's picture book Bears Out of The Box features IKEA's Fabler Bjorn doll, who is trying to venture outside the store.
See also
Criticism of IKEA
Notes
References
External links
Official website
IKEA companies grouped at OpenCorporates
Business data for IKEA International A/S: |
Leiden | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden | [
609
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden"
] | Leiden ( LY-dən, Dutch pronunciation: [ˈlɛidə(n)] ; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 127,046 (31 January 2023), but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration with its suburbs Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten and Zoeterwoude with 215,602 inhabitants. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) further includes Katwijk in the agglomeration which makes the total population of the Leiden urban agglomeration 282,207 and in the larger Leiden urban area also Teylingen, Noordwijk, and Noordwijkerhout are included with in total 365,913 inhabitants. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 km (12 mi) from The Hague to its south and some 40 km (25 mi) from Amsterdam to its north. The recreational area of the Kaag Lakes (Kagerplassen) lies just to the northeast of Leiden.
A university city since 1575, Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. Leiden is a typical university city, university buildings are scattered throughout the city and the many students from all over the world give the city a bustling, vivid and international atmosphere. Many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden's motto: 'City of Discoveries'. The city houses Leiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, and Leiden University Medical Center. Leiden University is one of Europe's top universities, with thirteen Nobel Prize winners. It is a member of the League of European Research Universities and positioned highly in all international academic rankings. It is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdom's oldest university. Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences (Leidse Hogeschool) together have around 35,000 students. Modern scientific medical research and teaching started in the early 18th century in Leiden with Boerhaave.
Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. One of the world's most famous painters, Rembrandt, was born and educated in Leiden. Other Leiden painters include Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Goyen and Jan Steen.
History
Leiden was formed on an artificial hill (today called the Burcht van Leiden) at the confluence of the rivers Oude and Nieuwe Rijn (Old and New Rhine). The settlement was called Leithon. The name is from Germanic *leitha (canal).
Leiden has erroneously been associated with the Roman outpost Lugdunum Batavorum. This was thought to be located at the Burcht of Leiden, and the city's name was thought to be derived from the Latin name Lugdunum. However, the castellum was in fact closer to the town of Katwijk, whereas the Roman settlement near Leiden was called Matilo.
Siege of 1420
In 1420, during the Hook and Cod wars, Duke John III of Bavaria along with his army marched from Gouda in the direction of Leiden in order to conquer the city since Leiden did not pay the new Count of Holland Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, his niece and only daughter of Count William VI of Holland.
Burgrave Filips of Wassenaar and the other local noblemen of the Hook faction assumed that the duke would besiege Leiden first and send small units out to conquer the surrounding citadels. But John of Bavaria chose to attack the citadels first.
He rolled the cannons along with his army but one which was too heavy went by ship. By firing at the walls and gates with iron balls the citadels fell one by one. Within a week John of Bavaria conquered the castles of Poelgeest, Ter Does, Hoichmade, de Zijl, ter Waerd, Warmond and de Paddenpoel.
On 24 June the army appeared before the walls of Leiden. On 17 August 1420, after a two-month siege, the city surrendered to John of Bavaria. The burgrave Filips of Wassenaar was stripped of his offices and rights and lived out his last years in captivity.
16th to 18th centuries
Leiden flourished in the 16th and 17th century. At the close of the 15th century, the weaving establishments of Leiden (mainly broadcloth) were very important. In the same period, Leiden developed an important printing and publishing industry. Printers Lucas van Leyden and Otto van Veen lived here, and so did Christoffel Plantijn. One of Christoffel's pupils was Lodewijk Elzevir (1547–1617), who established the largest bookshop and printing works in Leiden, a business continued by his descendants through 1712.
In 1572, the city sided with the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule and played an important role in the Eighty Years' War. It was besieged from May to October 1574 by the Spanish but was relieved by the cutting of the dikes, thus enabling ships to carry provisions to the inhabitants. William I of Orange founded the University of Leiden in 1575 as a reward for their heroic defense. The end of the siege is still celebrated in Leiden on October 3 each year. According to tradition, the citizens of Leiden were offered the choice between a university and a certain exemption from taxes and chose the university. The siege is notable also for being the first instance in Europe of the issuance of paper money, with paper taken from prayer books being stamped using coin dies when silver ran out.
Leiden is known as the place where the Pilgrims and some of the settlers of New Amsterdam lived, operating a printing press for a time in the early 17th century before their departure to Massachusetts and New Amsterdam in the New World.
Leiden prospered in the 17th century, in part because of the impetus to the textile industry by refugees from Flanders. The city had lost about a third of its 15,000 citizens during the siege of 1574, but it quickly recovered to 45,000 in 1622 and may have come near to 70,000 c. 1670. During the Dutch Golden Era, Leiden was the second largest city of Holland after Amsterdam. It played a crucial role in the establishment of modern chemistry and medicine due to the work by Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738).
Leiden slumped from the late 17th century on, mainly due to the decline of the textile industries. The baize manufacture was given up at the beginning of the 19th century, although industry remained central to Leiden economy. This decline can be seen in the fall in population, which had sunk to 30,000 between 1796 and 1811, and in 1904 was 56,044.
Leiden was the publishing place from the 17th to the early 19th century of the important journal Nouvelles Extraordinaires de Divers Endroits, known also as Gazette de Leyde.
19th and 20th centuries
On 12 January 1807, a catastrophe struck the city when a boat loaded with 17,400 kg (38,360 lb) of gunpowder blew up in the middle of Leiden. 151 people were killed, over 2,000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed. King Louis Bonaparte personally visited the city to provide assistance to the victims. Although located in the centre of the city, the area destroyed remained empty for many years. In 1886 the space was turned into a public park, the Van der Werff park.
In 1842, the railroad from Leiden to Haarlem was inaugurated and one year later the railway to The Hague (Den Haag) was completed, resulting in some social and economic improvement. Perhaps the most important piece of Dutch history contributed by Leiden was the Constitution of the Netherlands. Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) wrote the Dutch Constitution in April 1848 in his house at Garenmarkt 9 in Leiden.
Leiden's reputation as the "city of books" continued through the 19th century with the establishment of publishing dynasties by Evert Jan Brill and Albertus Willem Sijthoff. Sijthoff, who rose to prominence in the trade of translated books, wrote a letter in 1899 to Queen Wilhelmina regarding his opposition to becoming a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. He felt that international copyright restrictions would stifle the Dutch publishing industry.
Leiden began to expand beyond its 17th-century moats around 1896 and the number of citizens surpassed 50,000 in 1900. After 1920, new industries were established in the city, such as the canning and metal industries. During World War II, Leiden was hit hard by Allied bombardments. The areas surrounding the railway station and Marewijk were almost completely destroyed.
The University of Leiden is famous for its many discoveries including Snell's law (by Willebrord Snellius) and
the famous Leyden jar, a capacitor made from a glass jar, invented in Leiden by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1746. Another development was in cryogenics: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913 Nobel prize winner in physics) liquefied helium for the first time (1908) and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree above the absolute minimum. Albert Einstein also spent some time at Leiden University during his early to middle career.
Leiden today
The city's biggest and most popular annual festival is celebrated on 3 October and is called simply 3 Oktober. The people of Leiden celebrate the end of the Spanish siege of 1574. It typically takes place over the course of two to three days and includes parades, a hutspot feast, historical reenactments, a funfair and other events. Since 2006, the city has also hosted the annual Leiden International Film Festival.
Leiden has important functions as a shopping and trade centre for communities around the city.
The city also houses the Eurotransplant, the international organization responsible for the mediation and allocation of organ donation procedures in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Leiden also houses the headquarters of Airbus, a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide. The group includes Airbus, the leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft worldwide.
Rivers, canals and parks
The two branches of the Oude Rijn, which enter Leiden on the east, unite in the centre of the city. The city is further intersected by numerous small canals with tree-bordered quays. On the west side of the city, the Hortus Botanicus and other gardens extend along the old Singel, or outer canal. The Leidse Hout park, which contains a small deer park, lies on the northwest border with Oegstgeest. The Van der Werf Park is named after the mayor Pieter Adriaansz. van der Werff, who defended the city against the Spaniards in 1574. The city was beleaguered for months and many died from famine. The open space for the park was formed by the accidental explosion of a ship loaded with gunpowder in 1807, which destroyed hundreds of houses, including that of the Elsevier family of printers.
Buildings of interest
Because of the economic decline from the end of the 17th until the middle of the 19th century, much of the 16th- and 17th-century city centre is still intact. It is the second largest 17th-century town centre in the Netherlands, the largest being Amsterdam's city centre.
A hundred buildings in the centre are decorated with large murals of poetry, part of a wall poem project active from 1992, and still ongoing.
Fortifications
At the strategically important junction of the two arms of the Oude Rijn stands the old castle de Burcht, a circular tower built on an earthen mound. The mound probably was a refuge against high water before a small wooden fortress was built on top of it in the 11th century. The citadel is a so-called motte-and-bailey castle. Of Leiden's old city gates only two are left, the Zijlpoort and the Morspoort, both dating from the end of the 17th century. Apart from one small watch tower on the Singel nothing is left of the town's city walls. Another former fortification is the Gravensteen. Built as a fortress in the 13th century it has since served as house, library and prison. Presently it is one of the university's buildings.
Churches
The chief of Leiden's numerous churches are the Hooglandse Kerk (or the church of St Pancras, built in the 15th century and containing a monument to Pieter Adriaansz. van der Werff) and the Pieterskerk (church of St Peter (1315)) with monuments to Scaliger, Boerhaave and other famous scholars. From a historical perspective the Marekerk is interesting too. Arent van 's Gravesande designed that church in 1639. Other fine examples of his work in Leiden are in the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal (the municipal museum of fine arts), and the Bibliotheca Thysiana. The growing city needed another church and the Marekerk was the first Protestant church to be built in Leiden (and in Holland) after the Reformation. It is an example of Dutch Classicism. In the drawings by Van 's Gravesande the pulpit is the centrepiece of the church. The pulpit is modelled after the one in the Nieuwe Kerk at Haarlem (designed by Jacob van Campen). The building was first used in 1650, and is still in use. The Heilige Lodewijkkerk is first catholic church in Leiden that was built after the Reformation. This church was given to the Catholics after the gunpowder explosion in 1807, which killed 150 inhabitants and destroyed a large part of the city centre. The 'Waalse Kerk' (Breestraat 63) was originally part of the Katharina Hospital. In 1584 it became the church of Protestant refugees from the Southern Netherlands (Brugge) and France. Later churches in the centre include the St. Joseph in expressionistic style.
University buildings
The city centre contains many buildings that are in use by the University of Leiden. The Academy Building is housed in a former 16th-century convent. Among the institutions connected with the university are the national institution for East Indian languages, ethnology and geography; the botanical gardens, founded in 1587; the observatory (1860); the museum of antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden); and the ethnographical museum, of which P. F. von Siebold's Japanese collection was the nucleus (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde). This collection is now housed in a separate museum called the SieboldHuis. The Bibliotheca Thysiana occupies an old Renaissance building of the year 1655. It is especially rich in legal works and vernacular chronicles. Noteworthy are also the many special collections at Leiden University Library among which those of the Society of Dutch Literature (1766) and the collection of casts and engravings. In recent years the university has built the Leiden Bio Science Park at the city's outskirts to accommodate the Science departments.
Other buildings
Stadhuis (City Hall), a 16th-century building that was badly damaged by a fire in 1929 but has its Renaissance façade designed by Lieven de Key still standing
Gemeenlandshuis van Rijnland (1596, restored in 1878)
De Waag (English: weigh house), built by Pieter Post
Gravensteen – a former 15th century jail at the Gerecht square (former court-house)
Stedelijk Gymnasium (aka Latijnse School) – the old gymnasium (1599)
Heilige Geest Weeshuis (a former Holy Spirit Orphanage) – a complex of 16th century buildings.
Molen de Valk – a corn-grinding windmill, now home to a museum (1743)
Pesthuis, which was built during 1657–1661 at that time just outside the city for curing patients suffering the bubonic plague. However, after it was built the feared disease did not occur in the Netherlands anymore so it was never used for its original purpose. The building has been used as a military hospital, prison, national asylum and army museum. Until 2019, it served as the entrance of Naturalis. This museum, one of the largest natural history museums in the world, was recently renovated and is a building of interest in itself.
Stadstimmerwerf – the city carpenter's yard or construction yard (1612), built by Lieven de Key (c. 1560–1627). The former residence of the city's master carpenter is open to the public and is in use as an art gallery of a local visual artists collective.
Culture
Museums
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities)
Museum Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology)
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal
Japan Museum Sieboldhuis
Museum de Valk
Leiden American Pilgrim Museum
Corpus (in Oegstgeest, but almost directly next to the border with Leiden)
Hortus Botanicus Leiden
Museum Het Leids Weverhuis
Young Rembrandt Studio
Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken
Anatomisch Museum Leiden
Public transport
Bus transport in Leiden is provided by Arriva.
Railway stations within the municipality of Leiden are:
Leiden Centraal
Leiden Lammenschans
De Vink
Notable people
The following is a selection of important Leidenaren throughout history:
Public officials and scholars
William II, Count of Holland (1228–1256) Count of Holland 1234-1256
Floris V, Count of Holland (1254–1296) Count of Holland and Zeeland 1256–1296
John of Leiden (1509–1536) leader of the Anabaptist Münster Rebellion
William Brewster (1568–1644) pilgrim, Mayflower passenger in 1620
Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655) famous scholar of the Dutch Renaissance
William Bradford (1590–1657) pilgrim, leader of the American Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts
Franciscus Junius (1591–1677) pioneer of Germanic philology
Isaac Elzevir (1596–1651) Dutch publisher and printer, co-founder of House of Elzevir
Love Brewster (1611–1650/1) pilgrim and founder of Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Isaac Vossius (1618–1689) scholar, manuscript collector and Canon at Windsor Castle
Nicolaas Heinsius the Elder (1620–1681) Dutch classical scholar and poet
Johann Bachstrom (1688–1742) writer, scientist and Lutheran theologian
Gottfried, Freiherr van Swieten (1733–1803) diplomat, friend and patron of several great composers
Jan Bake (1787–1864) Dutch philologist and critic
Reinhart Dozy (1820–1883) Dutch scholar of Arabic of Huguenot origin
Cornelis Tiele (1830–1902) Dutch theologian and scholar
J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (1886–1964) museum curator, founding father of modern Dutch anthropology and structural anthropology
Hans de Koster (1914–1992) Dutch politician, diplomat and businessman
twins Alfred Kossmann (1922–1998) poet and prose writer & Ernst Kossmann (1922–2003) historian
Leendert Ginjaar (1928–2003) Dutch politician and chemist
Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (born 1937) retired Dutch politician and diplomat
Ankie Broekers-Knol (born 1946) Dutch politician, jurist and Minister
Carel Stolker (born 1954), rector magnificus and president of Leiden University from 2013 until 2021
Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands (born 1966) wife of Prince Constantijn
Kajsa Ollongren (born 1967) Dutch-Swedish politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands
Julius Terpstra (born 1989) Dutch politician
The arts
Cornelis Engebrechtsz. (ca.1462–1527) early Dutch painter
Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut
Jan van Goyen (1596–1656) Dutch landscape painter
Justus van Egmont (1601–1674) painter and tapestry designer
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606– 1669) Dutch draughtsman, painter and printmaker
Willem van de Velde the Elder (1610/11–1693) Dutch Golden Age seascape painter
Frans Post (1612–1680) Dutch Golden Age painter
Gerard Dou (1613–1675) Dutch Golden Age painter
Jan Steen (ca.1626–1679) Dutch Golden Age genre painter
Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667) painter of history paintings, still life, portraits and genre works
Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707) Dutch marine painter
Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681) Dutch Golden Age genre and portrait painter
Jan Gaykema Jacobsz. (1798–1875) Dutch painter, draughtsman and botanical illustrator
Jan Elias Kikkert (1843–1925) Dutch lithographer and watercolorist of street scenes of Leiden
Coenraad V. Bos (1875–1955) Dutch pianist, an accompanist to singers of lieder
Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch artist, founder and leader of De Stijl
Ernst Winar (1894–1978) Dutch actor and film director
Nina Foch (1924–2008) Dutch American actress and drama teacher
Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008) Dutch composer, performer, inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments and artistic director of STEIM 1981-2008
Leoni Jansen (born 1955) TV personality and anchor-woman, singer and stage-director
Daniel Reuss (born 1961) Dutch conductor, primarily a choral conductor
Isa Hoes (born 1967) Dutch actress and voice actress
Eva Dorrepaal (born 1970) Dutch actress
Armin van Buuren (born 1976) Dutch DJ, record producer and remixer
Carice van Houten (born 1976) Dutch actress and singer
Dyro (born 1992) Dutch DJ and Electronic dance music producer
Science
Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585) botanist, died in Leiden
Charles de L'Écluse (1526–1609) botanist, horticulturist and director of Hortus Botanicus Leiden
Ludolph van Ceulen (1540–1610) mathematician, computed the number π, pi
Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626) Dutch astronomer and mathematician
Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770) a German-born Dutch anatomist
Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772) Dutch physician, personal physician of Maria Theresa
Petrus Camper FRS (1722–1789) Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist
Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) German physician and botanist, studied Japanese flora and fauna
Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–1923) Dutch theoretical physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel prize in Physics
Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926) Dutch physicist and winner of the 1913 Nobel prize in Physics
Willem Einthoven (1860–1927) Dutch physician and physiologist
Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943) Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) lecturer/researcher at Leiden University, variously between 1916 and 1930
Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933) Austrian/Dutch theoretical physicist, contributed to statistical mechanics
Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz (1885–1973) female Dutch physicist, worked on Brownian motion and electrical noise theory
Jan Oort (1900–1992) Dutch astronomer, pioneer in radio astronomy
Hendrik Casimir (1909–2000) Dutch physicist
Ewine van Dishoeck (born 1955) Dutch astronomer, chemist, molecular astrophysicist
Sport
Willem Slijkhuis (1923–2003) Dutch middle-distance runner, won two bronze medals in the 1948 Summer Olympics
Sandra Le Poole (born 1959) retired field hockey player, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Ronald Florijn (born 1961) former rower, twice team gold medallist, at the 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics
Carina Benninga (born 1962) & Taco van den Honert (born 1966) former Dutch field hockey players, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics and team bronze medallist at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Alfons Groenendijk (born 1964) former footballer with 413 club caps and current manager
Gerritjan Eggenkamp (born 1975) Dutch rower, team silver medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Rodney Glunder (born 1975) retired kickboxer, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and boxer
Tim de Cler (born 1978) Dutch former footballer with 361 club caps
Erik van den Doel (born 1979) Dutch chess Grandmaster
Merel Witteveen (born 1985) sailor, team silver medallist at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Biurakn Hakhverdian (born 1985) & Iefke van Belkum (born 1986) Dutch water polo players, team gold medallist at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Gegard Mousasi (born 1985) Dutch mixed martial artist and former kickboxer
Laurine van Riessen (born 1987) long track speed skater and track cyclist, bronze medallist at the 2010 Winter Olympics
Kjeld Nuis (born 1989) Dutch speed skater, world record holder and gold medallist at the 2018 Winter Olympics over 1000 metre and 1500 metre
Chantal de Ridder (born 1989) Dutch football striker, 46 caps with the Netherlands women's national football team
Esmee Visser (born 1996) long-distance speed skater, gold medallist in the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's 5000 metres
Others
Maria Swanenburg (1839–1915) Dutch serial killer, murdered at least 27 people and suspected of killing more than 90
Aemilianus van Heel (1907–1938) Franciscan friar who served as a missionary in China
Marinus van der Lubbe (1909–1934) executed for the Reichstag fire in Berlin in 1933
Buurtpoes Bledder (2011–2013) male domestic cat, media star for his exploits in the city
Kirtie Ramdas (born 1980), Dutch television presenter and actress
International relations
Twin cities – sister cities
Leiden is twinned with:
Miscellaneous
The coat of arms of Leiden is two red keys, crossed in an X-shape on a white background. These keys are the Keys of Heaven held by St. Peter, for whom a large church in the city centre is named. Because of this coat of arms, Leiden is referred to as the "Sleutelstad" ("the key city").
For a time Leiden held the title "The Coldest Place on Earth" because of the developments in cryogenics in a laboratory there. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913 Nobel prize winner in physics) liquefied helium for the first time (1908), and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree above Absolute zero.
The Norwegian cheese "nøkkelost" ("key cheese") is named after the keys in coat of arms of Leyden, as it is a variation of Leyden cheese.
The following places and things are named after this city:
Leyden, New York, USA
Leyden, Massachusetts, USA
Leyden Township, Cook County, Illinois, USA
Leiden scale, for measuring extreme low temperatures.
Factor V Leiden is named after the city of Leiden where it was discovered in 1994.
The Leyden jar, a capacitor made from a glass jar, was invented here by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1746. It was actually first invented by Ewald Georg von Kleist the year before, but the name "Leyden jar" stuck.
Leiden's Stadhuis (Town Hall) has a poem in the form of a cryptogram on its façade that records the date 1574 in Roman numerals, the year of the "Black Famine" or Spanish siege (W equals two Vs):
(Dutch: "When the Black Famine had brought to the death nearly six thousand persons, then God the Lord repented, and gave bread again as much as we could wish".)
Sports
Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden is the basketball club of Leiden. In 2011, 2013 and 2021 they won the National Title, in 2010 and 2012 the National Cup and in 2011 and 2012 the National Super Cup. The club also played in the FIBA EuroChallenge and reached the Second Round (Best 16) in 2011/2012.
See also
De Zandbak, a hacklab in Leiden
Leiden Classical A distributed computing project
Oudt Leyden, former Michelin starred restaurant
Wireless Leiden
Zijl
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Cruz Laura. 2009. The Paradox of Prosperity : The Leiden Booksellers' Guild and the Distribution of Books in Early Modern Europe. 1st ed. New Castle DE: Oak Knoll Press.
External links
Official website
"Leiden" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). 1911. |
Jake_Gyllenhaal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Gyllenhaal | [
610
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Gyllenhaal"
] | Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal ( JIL-ən-hawl, Swedish: [ˈjʏ̂lːɛnˌhɑːl]; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor who has worked prolifically on screen and stage in a career spanning over thirty years. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in the biographical drama film October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in the thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal expanded to big-budget films with a starring role in the 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
Gyllenhaal played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which he won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller Zodiac (2007), the romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs (2010), and the science fiction film Source Code (2011). Further acclaim came with his roles in Denis Villeneuve's thrillers Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2013), and he received nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler (2014) and a troubled writer in Nocturnal Animals (2016). His highest-grossing release came with the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), in which he portrayed Mysterio. After playing a supporting role in the drama Wildlife (2018), Gyllenhaal starred in action or thriller projects, including the films The Guilty (2021), Ambulance (2022) and Road House (2024), as well as the series Presumed Innocent (2024).
Gyllenhaal has performed on stage, starring in a West End production of the play This Is Our Youth (2002) and Broadway productions of the musical Sunday in the Park with George (2017) as well as the plays Constellations (2014) and Sea Wall/A Life (2019), the lattermost of which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Aside from acting, he is vocal about political and social issues.
Life and career
1980–2000: Early life and career beginnings
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, United States, to screenwriter Naomi Foner (née Achs) and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his older sister, appeared with him in the science fiction psychological thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal's father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Gyllenhaal family. His last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal's mother is Jewish, and was born in New York City into an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Russia and Poland. Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. On his 13th birthday, Gyllenhaal performed a "Bar Mitzvah-like act, without the typical trappings", volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle.
As a child, Gyllenhaal was regularly exposed to filmmaking due to his family's ties to the industry. He made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in The Mighty Ducks (1992) because it would have required him to leave home for two months. In subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for roles but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his father's films several times. Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993's A Dangerous Woman (along with sister Maggie), in "Bop Gun", a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his senior year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform was the 1993 film Josh and S.A.M., a little-known children's adventure.
His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself, and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend. Gyllenhaal said his parents encouraged artistic expression: "I do have parents who constantly supported me in certain ways. In other ways, they were lacking. Definitely, it's in expression and creativity where my family has always been best at." Gyllenhaal graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles in 1998, then attended Columbia University, where his sister was a senior and from which his mother had graduated, to study Eastern religions and philosophy. At Columbia, he was a resident of John Jay Hall. Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. Gyllenhaal's first lead role was in October Sky, Joe Johnston's 1999 adaptation of the Homer Hickam autobiography Rocket Boys, in which he portrayed a young man from West Virginia striving to win a science scholarship to avoid becoming a coal miner. The film was positively received and earned $32 million; it was described in the Sacramento News and Review as Gyllenhaal's "breakout performance".
2001–2004: Donnie Darko to the London stage
Donnie Darko, in which Gyllenhaal played his second lead role on film, was not a box office success on its initial 2001 release; eventually, the film became a cult favorite. Directed by Richard Kelly, the film is set in 1988 and stars Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who experiences visions of a 6-foot (1.8 m) tall rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is coming to an end. Gyllenhaal's performance was well received by critics; Gary Mairs of Culture Vulture wrote that he "manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene."
Gyllenhaal's next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002's Highway alongside Jared Leto. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, clichéd and straight to video". Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in Lovely and Amazing with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable character who begins a reckless affair with an older woman. Gyllenhaal later described these as "teenager in transition" roles. Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter. The film portrays the title character's adventures as he pursues the love of his life before she marries the wrong man. The film was panned by critics, with one calling it "stupid and devoid of any redeeming features".
Following Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal starred opposite Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Pompeo in Moonlight Mile (2002), as a young man coping with the death of his fiancée and the grief of her parents. The story, which received mixed reviews, is loosely based on writer-director Brad Silberling's personal experiences following the murder of his girlfriend, Rebecca Schaeffer. In his theatrical debut, Gyllenhaal starred on the London stage in Kenneth Lonergan's revival of This Is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre in 2002. Gyllenhaal said, "Every actor I look up to has done theatre work, so I knew I had to give it a try." The play ran for eight weeks in London's West End; Gyllenhaal received favorable reviews and an Evening Standard Theatre Award in the Outstanding Newcomer category.
Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for 2004's Spider-Man 2, due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's health. Maguire recovered, however, and the sequel was shot without Gyllenhaal. The actors later starred together in Brothers (2009), and resemble each other enough that Gyllenhaal has jokingly complained about cab drivers often calling him "Spider-Man." In 2003, he also auditioned for the role of Batman in the superhero film Batman Begins and came close being offered the part, but it was given to Christian Bale. Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in the science fiction blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father.
2005–2011: Brokeback Mountain and leading roles
In 2005, Gyllenhaal was cast in the drama Proof, with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, where he played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community. The film received a generally positive response. He also starred in Sam Mendes's Jarhead, where Gyllenhaal played a U.S. Marine during the first Gulf War. The film garnered a favorable response; Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post praises Gyllenhaal's performance, writing, "He makes us see his character's intelligence", adding "he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others".
In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a sexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and lasts for 20 years. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase "the gay cowboy movie", although there was differing opinion on the sexual orientation of the characters. The film won numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film won three Academy Awards, and earned Gyllenhaal a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to George Clooney for Syriana. The film also won four Golden Globes, and four British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), in which Gyllenhaal won for Best Supporting Actor. He and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in 2006. Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career.
Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain but generally had more praise than criticism for his directorial style. While critical of the way Lee tended to disconnect from his actors once filming began, Gyllenhaal praised his encouraging direction of the actors and sensitive approach to the material. At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28, 2006, Gyllenhaal also praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him". When asked about his kissing scenes with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal said, "As an actor, I think we need to embrace the times we feel most uncomfortable." When asked about the more intimate scenes with Ledger, Gyllenhaal likened them to "doing a sex scene with a woman I'm not particularly attracted to". Following the release of Brokeback Mountain, rumors circulated regarding the actor's sexual orientation. When asked about such gossip during an interview, Gyllenhaal said: You know it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened.
Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt. In January 2007, as host of Saturday Night Live, he put on a sparkly evening dress and sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls for his opening monologue, dedicating the song to his "unique fan base... the fans of Brokeback". Later, Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac (2007), based on the Zodiac Killer. He played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist. In preparation for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior. The film received a positive response; writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Byrnes opined that it was "poignant, provocative and haunting", and called Gyllenhaal "terrific". He next starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Reese Witherspoon in 2007's Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition. Although it garnered a mixed response, New York magazine's David Edelstein called Gyllenhaal "compelling ... he's a reticent actor. But he builds that limitation into the character". Two years later, he co-starred with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers, a 2009 remake of Susanne Bier's Danish film of the same name. It was met with mixed reviews and moderate box office returns, but Anthony Quinn of The Independent thought Gyllenhaal and Maguire gave "honest performances". Gyllenhaal has also claimed that Maguire's performance in the film influenced his acting throughout his career.
The following year, Gyllenhaal played the lead role in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and released by Disney. He starred opposite Anne Hathaway in the romantic-comedy Love & Other Drugs, released on November 24, 2010, which gained him a Golden Globe Award nomination. The Guardian's Philip French welcomed Gyllenhaal's choice of a comic role, in contrast to his previous film roles, but thought the film "stumbles badly". For his sole project in 2011, he portrayed Colter Stevens, a U.S. Army Aviation captain, in the 2011 time-travel thriller Source Code. Despite noting the film's unrealistic plot, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star praised the prime performances of the cast.
2012–2018: Critical acclaim and Broadway debut
Gyllenhaal starred alongside Michael Peña in David Ayer's action thriller End of Watch, about two Los Angeles street cops. The film, for which Gyllenhaal was also an executive producer, was released in September 2012 and received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert deeming it "one of the best police movies in recent years, a virtuoso fusion of performances and often startling action" and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir stating that the film was "at least the best cop movie since James Gray's We Own the Night, and very likely since Antoine Fuqua's memorable Training Day (which, not coincidentally, was written by Ayer)". To prepare for the role, Gyllenhaal took tactical training and participated in actual police ride-alongs with co-star Peña to help establish the language of the characters.
He served as a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival that was held in February 2012. Also in 2012, Gyllenhaal made his Off-Broadway debut in Nick Payne's play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. 2013 saw Gyllenhaal appear in two films directed by Denis Villeneuve, whom Gyllenhaal describes as "an older brother". The first, the thriller Prisoners, starred Gyllenhaal as a detective named Loki in search of the abductor of two young girls. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers praised Gyllenhaal's "exceptional" performance in the film. In their second collaboration, Gyllenhaal portrayed the dual role of a history teacher and his doppelgänger in the thriller Enemy. The following year, he produced and starred in the crime thriller Nightcrawler, earning Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance. Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader called Gyllenhaal's performance "attention-grabbing" and said that he "creates a memorable screen presence".
Gyllenhaal debuted on Broadway in Payne's Constellations at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre opposite Ruth Wilson, also in her Broadway debut. The production opened in January 2015 and closed in March of the same year. That same year, he starred in the comedy Accidental Love, which was filmed in South Carolina with Jessica Biel, as well as Antoine Fuqua's sports drama Southpaw. Writing for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab called his portrayal of a boxer in Southpaw "plausible" and complimented his "emotional vulnerability", despite an unoriginal plot. He then portrayed Scott Fischer in Baltasar Kormákur's Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster; the film was a commercial success, grossing $203 million worldwide. Finally, he appeared in Jean-Marc Vallée's comedy-drama Demolition, playing an investment banker Davis Mitchell, who rebuilds his life after losing his wife. The Village Voice's Bilge Ebiri praised his performance, writing, "He nails Davis's boyish curiosity, the quiet, wide-eyed uncertainty of someone discovering the world for the first time." He also served as a jury member for the main competition of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2016, he starred in Tom Ford's neo-noir thriller Nocturnal Animals, based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. The film received positive reviews. The Sydney Morning Herald's Sandra Hall praised Gyllenhaal's brilliant portrayal of his two roles, while Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that his performance contained "rich emotional shadings" and escalating intensity that becomes overwhelming. In October 2016, he appeared in four benefit concert performances of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George at the New York City Center as the titular character. Alexis Soloski of The Guardian gave the performance a perfect five-star review and hailed Gyllenhaal's superb singing. Starting in February 2017, Gyllenhaal reprised the role at the reopened Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised his "searing theatrical presence, in which his eyes are his center of gravity." He was scheduled to appear in Lanford Wilson's Burn This on Broadway under the direction of Michael Mayer in 2017. However, a new production of Burn This took place in 2019 with Adam Driver appearing, with Gyllenhaal's production having reportedly been abandoned.
In 2017, Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film Life; Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson stated that Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene". He also had a supporting role in the action-adventure film Okja and starred in the drama Stronger, based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. In his review of the latter, The Independent's Geoffrey Macnab complimented Gyllenhaal's versatility and "outstanding" portrayal of Bauman. The following year, he co-starred in the drama Wildlife opposite Carey Mulligan, in which he plays a father who temporarily abandons his family to take a dangerous job. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Richard Ford. Ella Kemp, writing for Sight & Sound magazine, praised the chemistry of the lead actors which "fizzes with an effortless dynamism". He also had a role in the Western drama The Sisters Brothers (2018).
2019–present: Action and thriller films
Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw, in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Netflix. Variety's Peter Debrudge opined that Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances". That same year, Gyllenhaal played comic book villain Mysterio / Quentin Beck in the superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home, a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. He appeared alongside Tom Sturridge in Sea Wall/A Life, a double bill of monologues by Nick Payne and Simon Stephens, at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 2019. He garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. Gyllenhaal also lent his voice for the animation Spirit Untamed (2021). That same year, he played detective Joe Baylor in the crime thriller The Guilty, a remake of the Danish film of the same name.
In 2022, he starred as a criminal in Michael Bay's action thriller Ambulance; the film received mixed reviews from critics. Gyllenhaal also voiced a farmer in the Disney animation Strange World. He appeared in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023) and Doug Liman's action film Road House (2024). Following the success of Road House, his production company, Nine Stories, signed a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios.
In 2024 it was announced that Gyllenhaal would return to Broadway playing Iago in the 2025 revival of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello starring opposite Denzel Washington. In June 2024, he joined the cast of the upcoming science fiction monster film The Bride! in an undisclosed role.
Public image
Gyllenhaal was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In April 2012, Shalom Life ranked him number six on its list of "the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world". He was ranked number 35 in Empire's poll of The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. In another poll conducted by Glamour, Gyllenhaal was selected as one of the Sexiest Men of The Year 2018.
Personal life
Family and relationships
Gyllenhaal's sister Maggie is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal's co-star in Jarhead and Rendition. In December 2006, Gyllenhaal and his sister escaped a fire that destroyed Manka's Inverness Lodge, a famed lodge and restaurant in Inverness, California, at which they were vacationing. The two were among a dozen or so guests who fled after the fire, sparked by a falling tree, broke out at about 3 a.m. Co-owner and celebrity chef Daniel DeLong said the pair were supportive despite having to brave the wind and cold. "Jake was helping me pull things out of the fire," DeLong said.
Gyllenhaal has godparents whom he describes as "celebrity godparents." Actor and director Paul Newman was his godfather, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. Other godparents of unknown status include a gay couple and cinematographer Robert Elswit. Gyllenhaal is the godfather of Matilda Rose Ledger (born October 28, 2005), daughter of his Brokeback Mountain co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams.
Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile, introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms. He dated his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009. He dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013. Gyllenhaal has been in a relationship with French model Jeanne Cadieu since late 2018.
Political views and other interests
Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He also campaigned for Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry. He has said that "it frustrates me when actors talk politics; I'm political and I make choices in my movies that I think are political. I try and say things with what I do. Rightly or wrongly, young actors have all the power." In an interview, he remarked that "it's a sad time when actors are politicians and politicians are actors". In the 2018 midterm elections, Gyllenhaal endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. His endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and a caption that also endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections.
Gyllenhaal recycles regularly, and said in an interview that he spends $400 a year to have trees planted in a Mozambique forest, partly to promote the Future Forests program. After filming The Day After Tomorrow, he flew to the Arctic to promote awareness of climate change. He has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure.
In 2003, Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer. Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick. In 2014, Gyllenhaal attended an event that benefited the Headstrong Project, an organization that provides treatment to military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, during which he read a poem by a veteran, and in 2017 he participated in a fundraiser to help survivors who lost limbs during the September 11 attacks in 2001. Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day.
Acting credits and awards
Gyllenhaal's most acclaimed films, according to the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include October Sky (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Lovely & Amazing (2002), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Zodiac (2007), Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Nightcrawler (2014), and Stronger (2017). He has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Film Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and nominations for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and three Tony Awards.
References
External links
Jake Gyllenhaal at IMDb
Jake Gyllenhaal at the Internet Broadway Database
Jake Gyllenhaal at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Jake Gyllenhaal at the TCM Movie Database
Media related to Jake Gyllenhaal at Wikimedia Commons |
Donnie_Darko | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko | [
610
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko"
] | Donnie Darko is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly, and produced by Flower Films. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze and Noah Wyle. Set in October 1988, the film follows Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), an emotionally troubled teenager who inadvertently escapes a bizarre accident by sleepwalking. He has visions of Frank, a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume who informs him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds.
Development began in late 1997 when Kelly had graduated from film school and started writing scripts. He took an early idea of a jet engine falling onto a house with no one knowing its origin and built the story around it. Kelly insisted on directing the film himself and struggled to secure backing from producers until 2000, when Pandora Cinema and Barrymore's Flower Films agreed to produce it on a $4.5 million budget. Filming took 28 days in the summer of 2000, mostly in California. The soundtrack features a cover of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears by American musicians Gary Jules and Michael Andrews, which went to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks.
Donnie Darko premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2001, followed by a limited theatrical release on October 26. Because the film's advertising featured a crashing plane and the September 11 attacks had occurred a month and a half before, it was scarcely advertised. This affected its box office performance and it grossed just $517,375 in its initial run. However, the film gained a cult following, and after reissues, it went on to gross $7.5 million worldwide, and earned more than $10 million in US home video sales. It was listed No. 2 in Empire's "50 Greatest Independent Films of All Time", and No. 53 in Empire's "500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Kelly released Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut in 2004. The film was adapted into a stage production in 2007 and a sequel, S. Darko, followed in 2009 without Kelly's involvement. In 2021, he announced that work on a new sequel is in progress.
Plot
On October 2, 1988, troubled teenager Donald "Donnie" Darko sleepwalks outside, led by a mysterious voice. Once outside, he meets a figure named Frank in a monstrous rabbit costume. Frank tells Donnie that the world will end in precisely 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on the green of a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin.
Over the next several days, Donnie continues to have visions of Frank, and his parents, Eddie and Rose, send him to psychotherapist Dr. Thurman. Thurman believes Donnie is detached from reality and that his visions of Frank are "daylight hallucinations," symptomatic of paranoid schizophrenia. Frank asks Donnie if he believes in time travel, and Donnie in turn asks his science teacher, Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff. Monnitoff gives Donnie The Philosophy of Time Travel, a book written by Roberta Sparrow, a former science teacher at the school who is now a seemingly senile old woman living outside of town, known to the local teenagers as Grandma Death. Donnie also starts dating Gretchen Ross, who has recently moved into town with her mother under a new identity to escape her violent stepfather.
Frank begins to influence Donnie's actions through his sleepwalking episodes, including causing him to flood his high school by breaking a water main. Gym teacher Kitty Farmer attributes the act of vandalism to the influence of the short story "The Destructors," assigned by dedicated English teacher Karen Pomeroy. Kitty begins teaching "attitude lessons" taken from local motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, but Donnie rebels against these, leading to friction between Kitty and Rose. Kitty arranges for Cunningham to speak at a school assembly, where Donnie insults him. He later finds Cunningham's wallet and address, and Frank suggests setting his house on fire. Firefighters discover a hoard of child pornography there. Cunningham is arrested, and Kitty, who wishes to testify in his defense, asks Rose to chaperone their daughters' dance troupe on its trip to Los Angeles.
With Rose in Los Angeles and Eddie away for business, Donnie and Elizabeth hold a Halloween costume party to celebrate Elizabeth's acceptance to Harvard. At the party, Gretchen arrives distraught as her mother has gone missing, and she and Donnie make love for the first time. When Donnie realizes that Frank's prophesied end of the world is only hours away, he takes Gretchen and two other friends to see Sparrow. Instead of Sparrow, they find two high school bullies, Seth and Ricky, who are trying to rob Sparrow's home. Donnie, Seth, and Ricky fight in the road in front of her house just as Sparrow returns home. An oncoming car swerves to avoid Sparrow and runs over Gretchen, killing her. The driver turns out to be Elizabeth's boyfriend, Frank Anderson, wearing the same rabbit costume from Donnie's visions. Donnie shoots Frank in the eye with his father's gun and walks home carrying Gretchen's body.
Donnie returns home as a vortex forms over his house. He borrows one of his parents' cars, loads Gretchen's body into it, and drives to a nearby ridge that overlooks the town. There, he watches as the plane carrying Rose and the dance troupe home from Los Angeles gets caught in the vortex's wake, violently ripping off one of its engines and sending it back in time. Events of the previous 28 days unwind. Donnie wakes up in his bedroom, recognizes the date is October 2, and laughs as the jet engine falls into his bedroom, crushing him. Around town, those whose lives Donnie would have touched wake up from troubled dreams. Gretchen rides by the Darko home the following day and learns of Donnie's death. Gretchen asks the neighbor, "What was his name?" Gretchen and Rose exchange glances and wave as if they know each other but cannot remember from where.
Cast
Production
Writing
The film originated in late 1997 when Kelly, aged 22, had graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. While earning money as a client's assistant at a post-production house, he thought about his future and decided to write his first feature-length script. The task frightened Kelly at first because he did not want to produce something that was poor in quality. It was not until October 1998 when Kelly felt the time was right to write a script and wrote Donnie Darko in 28 days, the same time period as the film. The time of year influenced Kelly to set the film around Halloween.
Kelly set out to write something "ambitious, personal, and nostalgic" about the 1980s which "pushed the envelope by combining science fiction with a coming-of-age tale". The New York Times honed in on the 1980s coming-of-age story aspect by observing the influence of John Hughes, noting the "ineffectual" adults and the fact that Donnie's "suffering is a way to make him more sensitive". Kelly summarized the script was to be "an amusing and poignant recollection of suburban America in the Reagan era". He recalled a news story that he had read as a child, which he later called an urban legend, about a large piece of ice falling from the wing of a plane and crashing through a boy's bedroom, who was not there at the time and thus escaped death. Kelly used this to develop an initial idea of a jet engine falling onto a house and no one could determine its origin. He then built the rest of the script with the aim of resolving the mystery at the end while taking a "most interesting voyage" to get there, although at this point he knew the plane was to be one that Donnie's mother was on and was from a different dimension. At one point Kelly considered replacing the jet engine with a piece of ice, like he had read. He based the film's concept of time travel and alternate universes from reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Kelly was adamant to set the film in 1988, thinking it would be fresh to explore the era and depict a society that he had not seen in a film before. Later he admitted that he felt pressured to make the setting more contemporary. However, he could not figure out how to make the story work in such a setting and retained the original setting. The first draft had Donnie originally wake up at a shopping mall, rather than a golf course. Kelly got ideas for Donnie's experiences of paranoid schizophrenia from researching the topic online. He considered such a broad disorder that is difficult to define was "a great way to ground a supernatural story" in a scientific sense. The first draft was between 145–150 pages; Kelly did not change what he had initially written as he was aware that stopping to review it would have caused him to second guess himself. He presented it to producer Sean McKittrick, who recalled "had never read anything like this before", and helped refine the script while making the story understandable enough. After two more drafts were written, the pair finalised a 128-page script. Kelly felt that had he clarified the film's ending any further, "the film would collapse under its own pretension", and credited McKittrick, Juvonen, and Gyllenhaal, who he said were "aggressive" and "vocal" in not letting there be one simple answer to the plot.
There are some autobiographical links with Kelly and the film; he said there is "plenty of me" in Donnie's character. Kelly grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, also a suburban town, where a local woman called Grandma Death would stand by the road and constantly open and close her mailbox. Kelly also incorporated the moment he almost ran over a homeless person while driving, arguments with his school teachers over the curriculum, and his personal experiences with sleepwalking into the narrative. The word "fuck-ass", used in the Darko family dinner scene, was something that two of Kelly's film school friends used during their occasional exchange of insults. Frank was to be a rabbit since the beginning, but Kelly was unsure whether the character originated from a dream or his longtime interest in the animal novel Watership Down by Richard Adams. The novel was to be taught in Karen's English class after the school had censored Graham Greene from her curriculum; it was a subplot that was abandoned in the theatrical version but included in the director's cut.
Development
Kelly knew that the film's complicated story would be difficult to pitch to producers without a script, so he had producers read it first before discussing it with them further. While pitching the script, Kelly and McKittrick insisted that Kelly direct the film, which hindered its chances at being picked up. Kelly recalled 1999 being a year of "meeting after meeting", all of which ended in rejection, and at this point declared the film "dead". McKittrick said Donnie Darko was "the challenging script in town that everybody wanted to make, but was too afraid".
A turning point arrived when agents John Campisi and Rob Paris at the Creative Artists Agency took an interest in the script and signed Kelly on. Kelly said his "jaw was on the floor" at the unexpected offer, which greatly boosted the chances of having the film made with the agency's stamp on the script. This led to further meetings with several prominent individuals, including Francis Ford Coppola, Ben Stiller, William Horberg, and Betty Thomas. Kelly's meeting with Coppola was particularly influential, as Coppola drew his attention to one of Karen's lines after she is fired—"The kids have to figure it all out these days, because the parents, they don't have a clue"—and Kelly recalled: "He slid the binder down the big table and very dramatically said: 'That's what your whole movie's about right there.'" Early on Vince Vaughn was offered the role of Donnie, but he turned it down as he felt he was too old for the part. Mark Wahlberg was also approached, but he insisted that he should play Donnie with a lisp.
Development progressed in early 2000, when actor Jason Schwartzman expressed an interest in the script and agreed to play as Donnie. Kelly said this moment "legitimized me as a director" and recalled "all of a sudden people came out of the woodwork, it was alive again". Around this time Pandora Cinema offered a $2.5 million production budget, and Schwartzman's agent sent the script to Nancy Juvonen, who co-owned Flower Films with actress Drew Barrymore. The pair liked the script and wanted to get involved, which led Kelly and McKittrick to a meeting with the pair in March 2000 on the set of Charlie's Angels (2000), where Barrymore was filming. Barrymore agreed to play as Karen, and Flower Films agreed to increase the budget to $4.5 million. Kelly later called the sum the "bare minimum" to make the film.
After securing enough financial backing, pre-production accelerated and filming was booked for the summer of 2000 and scheduled to accommodate Barrymore, who had just one week's availability. However, by July, Schwartzman had withdrawn due to scheduling conflicts. This led to an "exciting" period for Kelly who met several hopefuls, including Patrick Fugit and Lucas Black. Gyllenhaal, who was in Los Angeles auditioning for parts, was "mesmerised" by the script and recalled pulling over the side of the road to finish reading it. Filming was scheduled to start in one month, during which Kelly worked with Gyllenhaal to amend parts of his dialogue. Gyllenhaal was given "a lot of room" to incorporate his own ideas, including making his voice sound like "a child talking to its blanket" when he talks to Frank as he is a source of comfort for Donnie. Gyllenhaal also had the idea to have his real-life sister Maggie star as Elizabeth Darko. Jolene Purdy's audition for Cherita was the first of her career. Kelly credits Juvonen for being instrumental for getting Wyle and Swayze on board.
Design
Kelly recalled several people showing him drawings of what they thought Frank should look like, describing them like an Easter bunny. He wanted Frank to be "disturbing and animalistic". He produced initial sketches of Frank's face and presented them to production designer Alex Hammond, who then made front and side drawings of the mask and sketches of the full suit. Kelly also said that the 1972 novel Watership Down was also the inspiration for Frank. The design was given to costume designer April Ferry who built the costume from scratch and hired a sculptor to create Frank's altered grin. Kelly insisted that Frank's face had to disturb people and create an intense response with the audience. The costume was first presented to the cast and crew at Loyola High School, shortly after filming began. Although Duval wore the suit for almost every scene, a director stepped in for the initial shoot. Kelly recalled, "Everyone just got quiet [...] like, this is really intense. So I knew it was working, and I felt the sense of relief." Kelly wanted Frank's voice to sound as if he was speaking through liquid and "has the power of the ocean", and recalled spending a considerable amount of time with the sound designer to achieve the effect on Duval's voice.
There was not enough money in the budget for Ferry to dress everyone in 1980s clothing, so she suggested to Kelly that the pupils should wear school uniforms. Kelly agreed, feeling that it would help to portray the idea of Donnie challenging conformity and the educational system.
Kelly chose Steven Poster as cinematographer from going through a stack of resumes and noted Poster had shot Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) for director Ridley Scott; to Kelly, this meant "you can retire, you made it." Poster had not shot a feature film in two years, and Kelly had to persuade him to accept the job for a reduced fee. Poster had Kelly dissect the script for him at their initial meeting: "We read every word, every sentence, every page, every scene in the movie. I made him justify to me why he wanted that in the movie. I wanted him to be able to tell me what each scene was going to tell the audience." Although the task created arguments between them, once complete the pair knew exactly what was needed to make the film. Poster's reputation and connections with Panavision allowed Kelly to shoot with "an unprecedented amount" of filming equipment from them at a reduced price. For night time shots, Kelly showed the crew scenes from Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) for its "idealised ... burnished nostalgia". The polished cinematography in Donnie Darko "creates a feeling of hyper-reality, suggesting that all is not what it seems."
The film was publicized at the Sundance Film Festival as being the first to feature significant digital effects. Kelly wanted to use them only "when absolutely necessary" and have them relate to the story, such as the water barrier seen between Donnie and Frank in his bathroom. The liquid spears that emerge from people's torsos are reminiscent of the water tentacle in The Abyss (1989), and can be seen as a representation of a character's psyche. Alternatively, they demonstrate the "metaphysical idea of predestination", suggesting Donnie is being guided, perhaps by God. Kelly got the idea from the on-screen chalkboard that American football commentator John Madden used to illustrate the movements of the players during a replay. Incidentally, the spears first appear when Donnie is watching a football game on television. The school flooding was inspired by a surreal photomontage by Scott Mutter, in which a giant escalator descends into a rough sea.
Filming
Filming was completed in 28 days, the same length of time as the film's events, in July and August 2000. Most of the film was shot in Long Beach, California; Kelly was uninterested to shoot elsewhere because he wanted to portray a strong suburban feel. The ongoing commercial actors strike had created a shortage of work, so additional actors and crew members willing to work for scale were hired for the film. The golf course scenes were filmed at Virginia Country Club and the school scenes were shot at Loyola High School. The opening scene with Donnie waking up was the first to be filmed; it was shot at sunrise on the Angeles Crest Highway. The theatre marquee was shot at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Kelly lost 20 lbs from the stress of filming to a tight schedule, plus the pressure of justifying himself to others that he could direct the film. He openly stated to the actors that he was inexperienced and had no idea how to address them properly, so he talked to them like they were his friends.
Production designer Alex Hammond bought the jet engine used in the film for $10,000. The scene where it falls onto Donnie's bedroom was done in one shot. The shell of it was rigged above the set and sent through using an air pressure gun. Poster remembered people telling Kelly that jet engines do not fall off planes, but during production a "dishwasher-sized engine part" fell from the engine of a Boeing 747 and landed on a beach. Swayze frosted his hair specifically for his part and the infomercial clips were filmed at his ranch.
Kelly's goal was to "seduce the audience" from the film's opening shot. He was attentive to details and spoke to his transportation coordinator to ensure all cars in the film were era-specific. He wanted to avoid going "too kitsch" with the style and costumes and retain a conservative style of the Virginia suburb. The long shots at the school with "Head Over Heels" playing angered the production and line managers at first, who thought it was "an indulgent music video" that lacked dialogue and did nothing to advance the story. Upon viewing the finished sequence, they had changed their minds. Kelly choreographed the scene's action to the song before the rights to use it had been acquired. Sparkle Motion's performance scene was one of the more difficult shots for Poster, who used smoke to give the appearance that light is there and to achieve silhouettes of the girls on stage.
The film was shot with a Panavision Panastar camera and in anamorphic format, which involves filming in widescreen onto standard 35 mm film. Despite its setbacks and the need to have twice as much light, Kelly was adamant. Poster suggested using Kodak 800 ASA film stock, which people said looked "terrible and grainy", but he convinced the producers that anamorphic would reduce the amount of work with low ceiling lights that were common in the locations used for filming as they would be cut from the shot. The anamorphic process required Swayze to kneel down for some scenes so he could fit in the image. Early on Kelly made a promise to Sam Bauer that he would edit his first feature film when he had the opportunity, but Pandora Cinema disagreed with the choice initially. Kelly recalled he and McKittrick had to "fight like hell" to get Bauer onboard, and eventually Pandora agreed. The water barrier effects were produced by Kelly Carlton for $5,000.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack was composed by San Diego musician and songwriter Michael Andrews. Kelly knew that the film's limited budget prevented him from hiring either "Thomas Newman or Danny Elfman" to compose the score for the film, so he decided to look for a composer who happens to be someone "very young, hungry, and really talented". Andrews was recommended by Juvonen's brother, Jim.
The film's opening sequence is set to "The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen. The continuous shot of introduction of Donnie's high school prominently features the song "Head over Heels" by Tears for Fears. Samantha's dance group "Sparkle Motion" performs to "Notorious" by Duran Duran. When the scene was originally shot, the group danced to "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys. However, the rights to the song could not be obtained for the final release. "Under the Milky Way" by The Church is played after Donnie and Gretchen emerge from his bedroom during the party. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division also appears in the film diegetically during the party and shots of Donnie and Gretchen upstairs. Despite the film being set in 1988, the version played was not released until 1995. In the director's cut, the music in the opening sequence is replaced by "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS; "Under the Milky Way" is moved to the scene of Donnie and Eddie driving home from Donnie's meeting with his therapist; and "The Killing Moon" is played as Gretchen and Donnie return to the party from Donnie's parents' room.
The film's end sequence features a piano-driven cover of "Mad World" by English new wave group Tears for Fears, sung by American musician Gary Jules, a schoolfriend of Andrews. In 2003, the cover of "Mad World" was released as a single that was No. 1 in the United Kingdom for three weeks, during which it was the country's Christmas No. 1 of that year.
Release
Theatrical release
Donnie Darko premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on January 19, 2001. Kelly said it took around six months to secure a theatrical release; at one point, he was close to having it on the premium cable and satellite television network Starz. Donnie firing a gun became one of Kelly's biggest problems while finding a distributor, as the Columbine High School massacre from 1999 raised concerns of the film promoting teenage suicide. The licensed songs in the film also presented problems as they had yet to be paid for, causing a risk of them being removed for a wide release. Kelly was also advised to cut 30 minutes from the film. Despite the problems, Newmarket Films agreed to buy the film and organise a theatrical release in a service deal with IFC Films. Kelly involved Barrymore in the negotiations and recalled getting her to "beg" Newmarket for a deal, who had initially considered a straight-to-video release for it. Kelly credits Christopher Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas in securing the deal, after Memento producer Aaron Ryder arranged a private screening of Donnie Darko for Newmarket executives Chris Ball and Will Tyrer and encouraged the pair to distribute it.
With a deal secured, the crew spent the summer of 2001 revisiting the film; Ryder said it was to get the film "in the best possible shape we could", but recalled the difficulty in the task. This involved an additional day of shooting to clarify some plot holes, such as Ryder's suggestion of including shots of Frank in the "Mad World" sequence. Nolan and Thomas had advised Kelly to insert title cards throughout the film to break down the events leading up to October 30, 1988, which he did.
Donnie Darko was theatrically released from October 26, 2001, to its peak of 58 theaters across the United States; its premiere was held at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The film grossed $110,494 on its opening weekend, ranking No. 34 on the box office. The film was released six weeks after the September 11 attacks and its trailer featured an accident involving an aircraft, which affected its chances of box office success. Kelly said the film was not "attractive to people in that emotional, very deeply traumatizing chapter in our history". Newmarket president Bob Berney said "the bleak mood and the timing" was the cause of the film's failure at the box office, and that critics failed to understand or accept the film for what it is. "The mood filtered through everything." When its theatrical run ended on April 11, 2002, the film had grossed $517,375. After reissues, it went on to gross $7.6 million worldwide, recouping its budget. Despite its initial poor box office showing, the film attracted a devoted fan base and gained a cult following. Following its release on home video in March 2002, the Pioneer Theatre in New York City began midnight screenings of Donnie Darko that ran for 28 consecutive months.
UK release
In October 2002, the film was released in the UK, which generated renewed critical and commercial interest in the film. It sold 300,000 tickets within the first six weeks of its release, based mostly on word-of-mouth marketing, and grossed the equivalent of $2.5 million in its theatrical run. Its UK distributor Metrodome Distribution organised They Made Me Do It, an art exhibition that ran for 28 days at cafe bar Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes in Shoreditch, London. The project involved several graffiti artists given 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds to complete a work inspired by the film.
Book
Kelly published The Donnie Darko Book in October 2003. Jake Gyllenhaal wrote the foreword, in which he comments on the confusing nature of the film. The book includes an interview with Kelly who discusses the process of making and marketing the film, and questions about his personal life. The full shooting script of the film is included, plus several pages from The Philosophy of Time Travel and photographs and concept sketches such as Frank's mask and slides from Cunningham's school presentation.
Promotion
The official Donnie Darko website, donniedarko.com, which can still be found at http://archive.hi-res.net/donniedarko/ Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine is an interactive experience and marketing tool for the film made by Hi-ReS!, a digital marketing firm. The website is riddled with puzzles and secrets and contains never-before-seen information about the universe of the film, including information about the fate of many of the characters after the film ends. James Beck has commented on the website's validity as a narrative in and of itself due to the website's introduction of new content while reinforcing themes from the movie like fluidity of time, exemplified by the website's lack of concern for the chronology of the movie. Beck further argues that the Donnie Darko website differs from most other promotional websites in that it treats the user not as an outside viewer, but rather as someone within the universe of the film, creating an experience rather than an advertisement.
Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film for home video several times. The first was in March 2002 on VHS and DVD formats, of which the latter included bonus material, including audio commentaries, trailers and TV spots, concept art, galleries, and a virtual guide through The Philosophy of Time. Berney declared the film "a runaway hit" on DVD, the sales in the US alone brought in over $10 million.
In 2009, the film was released on Blu-ray, containing the theatrical and director's cuts. This was released in the UK in 2010. A four-disc set was released in 2011 to commemorate its tenth anniversary. In December 2016, Arrow Films released a limited edition Blu-ray and DVD set in the UK, taken from a new 4K scan of the original print, and supervised and approved by Kelly. It was released in the US in 2017.
In April 2021, Arrow Films released a two-disc Ultra HD Blu-ray box set containing both cuts in 4K resolution restorations from the original negatives, supervised by Kelly and Poster. This set includes a poster, postcards, and a 100-page book.
Director's cut
The idea to produce a director's cut of the film originated in late 2003, when Kelly and Berney attended the first-anniversary screening at the Pioneer Theatre in New York City. Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut premiered on May 29, 2004, at the Seattle International Film Festival, followed by screenings in New York City and Los Angeles on July 23. The tickets sold out within the day for the Seattle International Film Festival premiere, grossing nearly $33,000 over a five-day period. This cut includes 20 minutes of extra footage and an altered soundtrack.
The director's cut DVD was released on February 15, 2005, in single- and double-disc versions, the latter being available in a standard DVD case or in a limited edition that also features a lenticular slipcase, whose central image alternates between Donnie and Frank depending on the viewing angle. Most additional features are exclusive to the two-DVD set: the director's commentary assisted by Kevin Smith, excerpts from the storyboard, a 52-minute production diary, "#1 fan video", a "cult following" video interviewing English fans, and the new director's cut trailer. The single-DVD edition was also released as a giveaway with copies of the British Sunday Times newspaper on February 19, 2006.
The DVD of the Director's Cut includes text of the in-universe book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, written by Roberta Sparrow, which Donnie is given and reads in the film. The text expands on the philosophical and scientific concepts much of the film's plot revolves around, and has been seen as a way to understand the film better than from its theatrical release. As outlined by Salon's Dan Kois from the book's text, much of the film takes place in an unstable Tangent Universe that is physically connected to the Primary Universe by a wormhole (the entrance to which is the Vortex seen at the end of the film) and which is an exact duplicate of it, except for an extra metal object known as an Artifact — which in this case is the jet engine. If the Artifact is not sent to the Primary Universe by the chosen Living Receiver (Donnie) within 28 days, the Primary Universe will be destroyed upon the collapse of the Tangent in a black hole. To aid in this task, the Living Receiver is given super-human abilities such as foresight, physical strength and elemental powers, but at the cost of troubling visions and paranoia, while the Manipulated Living (all who live around the Receiver) support him in unnatural ways, setting up a domino-like chain of events encouraging him to return the Artifact. The Manipulated Dead (those who die within the Tangent Universe, like Frank and Gretchen) are more aware than the Living, having the power to travel through time, and will set an Ensurance Trap, a scenario which leaves the Receiver no choice but to save the Primary Universe.
Reception
Critical reception
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Richard Kelly's debut feature Donnie Darko is a daring, original vision, packed with jarring ideas and intelligence and featuring a remarkable performance from Jake Gyllenhaal as the troubled title character." Metacritic gives the theatrical version of the film a weighted average score of 71 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".
Andrew Johnson cited the film in Us Weekly, as one of the outstanding films at Sundance in 2001, describing it as "a heady blend of science fiction, spirituality, and teen angst". Jean Oppenheimer of New Times (LA) praised the film, saying, "Like gathering storm clouds, Donnie Darko creates an atmosphere of eerie calm and mounting menace—[and] stands as one of the most exceptional movies of 2001." Writing for ABC Australia, Megan Spencer called the movie "menacing, dreamy and exciting" and noted "it could take you to a deeply emotional place lying dormant in your soul". Roger Ebert gave the theatrical version of the film two and a half stars out of four, but later gave the director's cut three stars out of four.
Other critics like Sam Adams called the movie an apparent "big mess", citing incoherent plot, sloppy writing, and an uneven tone. Adams also took issue with the "seemingly irrelevant" but oft-referenced setting in a suburban America in the 1980s, claiming that it "serves as another example of the movie's struggle to find identity". Another review from the San Antonio Current lauds the build-up, citing vast build of mysteries with compelling characters, but claims the movie's ending "leaves much to be desired", calling it cheap and anti-climactic.
Accolades
2001: Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko script won "Best Screenplay" at the San Diego Film Critics Society. Donnie Darko also won the "Audience Award" for Best Feature at the Sweden Fantastic Film Festival. The film was nominated for "Best Film" at the Sitges Film Festival and for the "Grand Jury Prize" at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards including Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay and Best Male Lead for Gyllenhaal.
2002: Donnie Darko won the "Special Award" at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films's 28th Saturn Awards. The movie also won the "Silver Scream Award" at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the "Best Breakthrough Filmmaker" at the Online Film Critics Society Awards.
2005: Donnie Darko ranked in the top five on My Favourite Film, an Australian poll conducted by the ABC.
2006: Donnie Darko ranks #9 in FilmFour's 50 Films to See Before You Die.
Other awards
#14 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.
#2 in Empire's "50 Greatest Independent Films of All Time" list.
#53 in Empire's "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" 2008 poll.
Sequels
S. Darko
A 2009 sequel, S. Darko, set seven years afterwards, centers on the now 18-year-old Sam, Donnie's younger sister. Sam is troubled by her brother's death and begins to have problems with sleepwalking, along with strange dreams that hint at an impending major catastrophe. The sequel received extremely negative reviews. Kelly said he had no involvement in the sequel as he no longer owns the rights to the original. In 2017, Kelly said that he resents being asked about the sequel and that he had never seen it. Actress Daveigh Chase and producer Adam Fields were the only creative links between S. Darko and the original film.
New sequel
In 2017, Kelly revealed that he had ideas for a new sequel that is "much bigger and more ambitious" than the original. In January 2021, he announced that "an enormous amount of work" had been done on the script. He was inspired to do so after a 2010 meeting with James Cameron, who found the film “disturbing” and had Kelly explain what happened to Donnie at the end of the film. Cameron suggested to Kelly that he continue working on the project, which made Kelly realize that "there was really something big, something epic that could be done."
In other media
Marcus Stern, associate director of the American Repertory Theater, directed a stage adaptation of Donnie Darko at the Zero Arrow Theatre, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 2007. It ran from October 27 until November 18, 2007, with opening night scheduled near Halloween.
An article written by the production drama team says the director and production team planned to "embrace the challenge to make the fantastical elements come alive on stage". In 2004, Stern adapted and directed Kelly's screenplay for a graduate student production at the American Repertory Theater's Institute for Advanced Theater Training (I.A.T.T./M.X.A.T.).
References
Sources
Kelly, Richard (2003). The Donnie Darko Book. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-22124-0.
Wharton, David; Grant, Jeremy (2005). Teaching Analysis of Film Language. British Film Institute Education. ISBN 978-0-851-70981-9.
Further reading
King, Geoff (2007). Donnie Darko. London: Wallflower Press. ISBN 978-1-905674-51-0. OCLC 154711385.
Siegel, Alan (January 19, 2021). "It's a Mad World: The 'Donnie Darko' Oral History". The Ringer. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
External links
Media related to Donnie Darko at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Donnie Darko at Wikiquote
Official website
Booth, Paul (2008). "Intermediality in Film and Internet: Donnie Darko and Issues of Narrative Substantiality". Journal of Narrative Theory. 38 (3): 398–415. doi:10.1353/jnt.0.0016. JSTOR 41304894. S2CID 161655194.
Donnie Darko at IMDb
Donnie Darko at Rotten Tomatoes
Donnie Darko at Metacritic
Donnie Darko at AllMovie
Donnie Darko at Box Office Mojo
About the film
Dan Kois (July 23, 2004). "Everything you were afraid to ask about "Donnie Darko"". Salon.com.
DonnieDarko.org.uk (theory, script, Philosophy of Time Travel)
Theory based on Philosophy of Time Travel at This Is Barry |
Saltburn_(film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltburn_(film) | [
611
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltburn_(film)"
] | Saltburn is a 2023 black comedy psychological thriller film written, directed, and co-produced by Emerald Fennell, starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe and Carey Mulligan. Set in Oxford and Northamptonshire, it focuses on a student at Oxford who becomes fixated with a popular, aristocratic fellow student, who later invites him to spend the summer at his eccentric family's estate.
Saltburn premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on 31 August 2023. It was released in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 17 November 2023 and in select cinemas in the United States on the same day. The film had its US wide release on 22 November before its streaming release by Amazon Prime Video on 22 December, on which it became one of the most-streamed films. The film received generally positive reviews, and was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and five BAFTA Film Awards.
Plot
In late 2006, scholarship student Oliver Quick struggles to fit in at the University of Oxford because of his inexperience with upper-class manners. He befriends Felix Catton, an affluent and popular student who is sympathetic to Oliver's stories of his parents' substance abuse and mental health issues. When Oliver becomes distraught over his father's sudden death, Felix comforts him and invites him to spend the summer at his family's country house, Saltburn.
At Saltburn, Oliver meets Felix's parents Sir James and Lady Elspeth, his sister Venetia, and Elspeth's friend Pamela, and he reunites with Felix's American cousin Farleigh, with whom Oliver has had a tense relationship as Oxford classmates. Oliver quickly wins over Felix's family except for Farleigh, and his obsession with Felix grows. One night, after watching Felix masturbate in a bathtub, he lustfully drinks the semen-laced bathwater. Later, having seen Venetia waiting outside his bedroom window, he performs oral sex on her while she is on her period. Farleigh witnesses this and informs Felix, but Oliver claims nothing happened when Felix confronts him. At night, Oliver initiates sexual advances on Farleigh, threatening him in the process. The next morning, James evicts Farleigh after receiving a report from Sotheby's about his intention to sell some of James's valuables.
As the summer ends, Elspeth and James plan a party for Oliver's birthday. Felix surprises Oliver with a trip to see his estranged mother, causing Oliver to panic. Upon arriving at the family's house in Prescot, Felix realises Oliver had lied to him about his upbringing. His father is still alive, neither of his parents have substance abuse or mental health troubles, and they live in a respectable middle class suburb. Horrified and hurt by Oliver's deception, Felix decides not to tell anyone to spare his own family the humiliation but orders Oliver to leave Saltburn after the party. During the extravagant celebrations, Oliver seeks to make amends with Felix by expressing his adoration for him, but Felix rejects him and suggests he seek help.
The next morning, Felix is found dead in Saltburn's hedge maze. Oliver implies Felix's death was connected to Farleigh supplying drugs during the party, and James withdraws financial support from Farleigh and bans him from ever returning. Oliver mourns Felix and visits his grave alone, where he lies naked on the grave soil and masturbates on it. After Felix's funeral, Elspeth insists Oliver extend his stay at Saltburn. Venetia, increasingly distraught and disturbed, accuses Oliver of destroying her family. He attempts to seduce her, but she eventually rebuffs him. The next day, Venetia is found dead, having slit her wrists in the bathtub. Despondent over Oliver's continuing presence at Saltburn and Elspeth's closeness to him, James bribes him to leave, which Oliver accepts.
In 2022, Oliver reads about James's death in a newspaper. He subsequently has what seems to be a chance encounter with Elspeth at a café. She is delighted to see him again, insisting he return with her to Saltburn. After spending several months with Oliver, Elspeth becomes terminally ill. On her deathbed, Oliver confides in Elspeth that he is responsible for all of the tragic and horrifying events at Saltburn. He orchestrated his initial meeting with Felix at Oxford and poisoned Felix's drink in the maze, resulting in his death. He also placed razor blades beside Venetia while she was bathing, encouraging her suicide. He even planned his encounter with Elspeth at the café, after which she bequeathed all her assets, including Saltburn, to him. He then removes her life support, killing her. Having now assumed ownership of Saltburn and the Catton family fortune, Oliver happily dances naked around the mansion.
Cast
Production
Development and casting
Saltburn is the second film written and directed by Emerald Fennell, after Promising Young Woman (2020). By January 2022, Tom Ackerley and Margot Robbie's LuckyChap Entertainment was in talks to produce, after collaborating with Fennell on her previous film. In May 2022, Ackerley, Robbie, and Josey McNamara were confirmed as producers, while Rosamund Pike, Jacob Elordi, and Barry Keoghan joined the cast. Fennell said that Australian actor Elordi "...did the most exceptional audition... He did such a genius, genius bit of observational comedy. He really really understood that for all of [Felix's] beauty and charisma, he's just sort of a spoiled little boy. He came in and just absolutely blew us all away".
Carey Mulligan, star of Promising Young Woman, was revealed to be part of the cast in December 2022.
In writing the film, Fennell wanted to sympathise with unlikeable people, saying "the sorts of people that we can't stand, the sorts of people who are abhorrent—if we can love them, if we can fall in love with these people, if we can understand why this is so alluring, in spite of its palpable cruelty and unfairness and sort of strangeness, if we all want to be there too, I think that's just such an interesting dynamic." She had long wanted to make her own version of films and books set in a country house, and set the film in 2006 to "really [knock] the fucking glamour off things" by setting it in the recent past.
Filming
Filming began on 16 July 2022, with Linus Sandgren serving as cinematographer. The film is shown in a 4:3 aspect ratio, with Fennell saying it gives the impression of "peeping in."
Fennell was determined not to film in an estate familiar to viewers, and wanted to set the movie in one location, so aligning the filming with the film's plot, saying, "It was important to me that we were all in there together, that the making of the film in some way had that feeling of a summer where everyone loses their mind together...I didn't want to be constantly picking up and moving." and avoiding the need for post-production adjustments due to multiple locations. Fennell was successful, with filming occurring at the University of Oxford at Magdalen College, St Hugh's College and Brasenose College and in Drayton House, Northamptonshire, which had never been used for a film before. As part of the contract, no one was allowed to reveal the location of the house or the identity of its owners. Despite the house's opulence, the actors ultimately became familiar with Drayton's interiors over the course of filming and comfortable working in it, in order to convey the idea that this grand location was for their characters completely normal and simply their home.
Costumes were designed with 2000s fashion displayed in the form of ostentatious jackets, rugby shirts, and loud jewellery.
Music
The film is scored by Anthony Willis, who previously scored Fennell's Promising Young Woman. The soundtrack was released by Milan Records on 17 November 2023.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 2001 song "Murder on the Dancefloor" was featured in the last scene of the film. As a result, the song received 1.5 million streams on New Year's Eve on Spotify and subsequently re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number eight on 5 January 2024 with 2.2 million streams, marking the song's best-ever streaming week. The film also features Ladytron's 2005 track "Destroy Everything You Touch", Mason and Princess Superstar's 2006 track "Perfect (Exceeder)" and Tomcraft's 2002 track "Loneliness" which, in addition to "Murder on the Dancefloor", became trending songs, particularly on TikTok.
Themes and influences
The film focuses on excess and obsession. Fennell stated "I drew from my own experience of being a human person, who has felt that thing we all feel at that time in our life which is that absolute insane grip of obsessive love...But obviously I didn't quite go to the lengths that some of the people [in the film] do".
Discussing the film's influences, Fennell has cited A Clockwork Orange (1971), Cruel Intentions (1999), Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1938), and the novel The Go-Between (1953) by L.P. Hartley and its 1971 film adaptation. She commented, "I think that I was sort of looking more at that British Country House tradition of The Go-Between and that sort of very specific British... sort of Joseph Losey world, where class and power and sex all kind of collide in one specific place". Fennell cited Losey's The Servant (1963) as an influence because of its "undeniable erotic power" that "relies entirely on the threat of violence — not just literal violence, but a complete chaotic upending of the status quo".
Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) and its film adaptation (1999) have often been cited as an influence by critics due to the common themes of social class and the similarities between Oliver and Tom Ripley, though Fennell herself has downplayed these comparisons. Richard Brody of The New Yorker also found similarities to Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Although Farrago called the film as "the lovechild of Call Me by Your Name (2017) and Parasite (2019)".
Some critics also pointed out that rich stylisation and visual influences in the film hold some aesthetic influences from Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). According to these critics Fennell's Gothic visual style in general mirrors the mythical elements of Coppola's 1992 Dracula film about otherworldly seduction: the Saltburn garden scene especially parallels the carnal possessions of Lucy (Sadie Frost) and Mina (Winona Ryder), who are cosmically drawn to Gary Oldman's Count Dracula; he inevitably sucks their energies away in a slow sapping of desire after luring each into the garden not of Eden but sin.Saltburn has been billed as a sort of "vampire movie" by filmmaker Fennell herself.
Other critics have found similarities to Pier Paolo Pasolini's film Theorem (1968) and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), which also addressed themes of class, power, desire, and seduction. Fennell described her satire of the British class system as "Barry Lyndon meets indie sleaze".
Release
Saltburn had its world premiere at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on 31 August 2023. It premiered in the United Kingdom (UK) as the opening film of the 67th BFI London Film Festival on 4 October 2023. It also premiered in Australia at SXSW Sydney on 20 October 2023.
Amazon spent $75 million to acquire distribution rights. In the United States, Saltburn was given a limited release on 17 November 2023, followed by a wide release on 22 November. It was originally scheduled to be released a week earlier but was moved to take advantage of the initial positive response it received at its Telluride premiere. Warner Bros. Pictures handled the UK and Ireland release of Saltburn, with a 16 November release in Australia and a 17 November release in the UK.
The film became available to stream worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on 22 December 2023. The film was highly popular on Amazon Prime, becoming one of its top 10 worldwide film debuts, as viewership quadrupled two weeks after its launch. Deadline Hollywood credited the success to the film's viral marketing and word-of-mouth. Saltburn-themed videos amassed nearly 4 billion views on TikTok, with three million influencers and content creators engaging with the film across all platforms and the official Saltburn socials obtaining 153 million views.
Reception
Box office
Saltburn grossed $11.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $9.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $21.1 million.
In its limited opening weekend, the film made $322,651 from seven theatres. Expanding to 1,566 theatres the following Wednesday, the wide expansion of the film was released alongside Napoleon and Wish, and made $684,000 on its first day of wide release and then $301,000 on Thanksgiving Day. Its debut made $1.8 million on the weekend (and a total of $2.9 million over the five-day frame), finishing in ninth. The film dropped just 16% the following weekend, grossing $1.6 million.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 295 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Emerald Fennell's candy-coated and incisive Saltburn is a debauched jolt to the senses that will be invigorating for most." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an "A+" to "F" scale, and those polled by PostTrak gave it a 75% overall positive score, and 42% said they would definitely recommend it.
The Guardian reviewed the film after its August premiere. Its critic Peter Bradshaw gave it three out of five. He noted that it "boasts dazzling turns from Rosamund Pike and Carey Mulligan" but that "the heavily drawn-out ending feels uncertain". Writing in the Observer, Wendy Ide wrote that it "stars a miscast Barry Keoghan (he's way too old for the role)" but that "Rosamund Pike, as Felix's mother Elspeth, is gloriously rude; Archie Madekwe, as poor relation Farleigh, is a malicious delight". She awarded it two out of five.
Nicholas Barber, reviewing for the BBC, enjoyed the "outrageous, laugh-out-loud punchlines" but felt that "Fennell is prone to fumble" plot twists. Barber praised the "superb ensemble cast", especially Keoghan ("magnetic"), Pike ("steals the show"), and Elordi ("a revelation"). He concluded that "if you see it as a lurid pulp fantasy rather than a penetrating satire, then Saltburn is deliriously enjoyable" and awarded it four out of five. Empire also praised the charismatic ensemble cast and gave the film three out of five. In her review, Sophie Butcher reported that "Saltburn looks divine. Fennell's eye is extraordinary, and alongside cinematographer Linus Sandgren, she captures the grand beauty of her architectural locations impeccably" but was disappointed that "scenes often build to reach the cusp of something truly electric, but are let down by clunky dialogue".
Writing in Sight and Sound, Sophie Monks Kaufman found that "the story's superficial treatment of its characters ... becomes increasingly ruinous" and that "the most menacing thing anyone can muster here is a passive-aggressive karaoke choice". She was also underwhelmed by the film's "ostentatious visual language". However, Entertainment Weekly columnist Maureen Lee Lenker gave Saltburn an "A", saying the film is a "Gothic thriller dusted with poisonous candy-pop glitter…Its endless visual and literary layers will bring its ardent admirers back to it again and again, because it is a triumph of the cinema of excess, in all its orgiastic, unapologetic glory."
Accolades
References
External links
Official website
Saltburn at IMDb |
The_Eras_Tour | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eras_Tour | [
611
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eras_Tour"
] | The Eras Tour is the ongoing sixth concert tour by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It commenced on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, and is set to conclude on December 8, 2024, in Vancouver, consisting of 149 shows that span five continents. With a cultural and economic impact across the globe, the Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time and the first tour in history to surpass US$1 billion and US$2 billion in revenue.
Swift announced the Eras Tour in November 2022, following the release of her tenth studio album Midnights (2022), as her second all-stadium tour after the 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour. Running over 3.5 hours, the set list of the Eras Tour consists of over 40 songs grouped into 10 distinct acts that portray all of Swift's studio albums conceptually; the show was revamped in May 2024 to incorporate her then-new eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024). The tour also featured 19 opening acts—two per concert, such as Paramore, Phoebe Bridgers, Raye, Sabrina Carpenter, Benson Boone and Gracie Abrams.
The tour received praise from critics, who emphasized the concept, production, aesthetics and immersive ambience, as well as Swift's vocals, stage presence, and versatile showmanship. It recorded unprecedented public demand, ticket sales and attendances, bolstering economies, businesses, and tourism worldwide, dominating social media and news cycles, and garnering tributes and accolades from governments and organizations. On the other hand, the tour was met with multifarious obstacles, including ticketing issues that inspired a string of anti-scalping laws and price regulation policies. Ticketmaster, an official ticketing partner of the tour, was scrutinized and sued by US authorities for ineffective sales and monopoly, whereas the exclusive Singapore dates caused diplomatic tensions in Southeast Asia. Poor venue management in Rio de Janeiro resulted in a death, and an ISIS plot to attack the tour in Vienna was thwarted.
Swift disclosed and released various works throughout the tour: the re-recorded albums Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and 1989 (Taylor's Version); editions of Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department; the music videos of "Karma", "I Can See You", and "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart"; and "Cruel Summer" as a single. An accompanying concert film, documenting the Los Angeles shows, was released to theaters worldwide on October 13, 2023, in an uncommon distribution deal circumventing major film studios. Met with critical acclaim, the film became the highest-grossing concert film in history.
Background
Taylor Swift embarked on the Reputation Stadium Tour, her fifth concert tour, in 2018, in support of her sixth studio album, Reputation (2017). It broke the record for the highest-grossing US tour in history. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced Swift to cancel what would have been her sixth tour, Lover Fest, in support of her seventh studio album, Lover (2019). In the time since, she released three studio albums, Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), and Midnights (2022); and two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version) in 2021.
US dates
During her promotion of Midnights on talk shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Graham Norton Show in October 2022, Swift hinted at an upcoming tour. On November 1, she announced on Good Morning America and through her social media accounts her sixth concert tour, the Eras Tour, describing it as "a journey through the musical eras of [her] career". She first announced 27 shows across 20 US cities, beginning in March 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, and ending in August 2023 in Inglewood, California. The opening acts were Paramore, Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Beabadoobee, Girl in Red, Muna, Gayle, Gracie Abrams, and Owenn, each two of whom shared a tour date. Messina Touring Group, an Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) partner, served as the tour's promoter.
Popular demand led Swift to add eight shows at some US cities on November 4, and 17 more the following week, making the Eras Tour the most extensive US tour of Swift's career (52 shows), surpassing the Reputation Stadium Tour (38). Billboard described the tour's announcement as "the most chaos-inducing tour announcement of the decade." Among the tour's prospective partners were the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange company FTX; a US$100 million sponsorship deal with Swift was in talks but did not materialize. On January 31, tour merchandise inspired by all of Swift's ten album "eras" were made available for purchase on her website. On August 3, 2023, Swift announced a second US leg, featuring three more cities in October and November 2024, with Abrams as the opener.
International dates
On June 2, 2023, Swift announced the Latin American shows of the Eras Tour, with Sabrina Carpenter as opening act. A third show in Buenos Aires was announced on June 6, hours after the public sale commenced, due to high demand. Argentine singer Louta was announced as an additional opening act. Additional shows in Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo were announced on June 12. Shows in Asia, Australia, and Europe were announced on June 20.
From June to November 2023, new shows were added to the tour. In the Asia-Pacific, the total number of Singapore shows were increased to six, and two extra shows were announced in Australia. In Europe, eight shows were added initially, followed by fourteen more, then two in London; Paramore was announced as the leg's opening act. Nine shows were also announced in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), with Abrams as the opening act. In February 2024, a second show was added in Madrid after the venue's football club, Real Madrid, asked La Liga to reschedule their match to cover the "extraordinary demand".
Several politicians and government officials demanded the tour be brought to their country or city. Places such as Canada and Chile were expected to be part of the tour but were absent in Swift's announcement on June 20, drawing dismay and demands from fans and officials. Across Southeast Asia, fans decried the lack of shows in countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong and demanded the tour be brought to there. In particular, her return to the Philippines had been highly anticipated. Some journalists and fans opined that unlike venues in Japan and Singapore—the only Asian countries that are a part of the Eras Tour—those in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Thailand might not have the proper infrastructure that is required to host the tour. In addition, Hong Kong and mainland China reopened to foreigners much later than most other places following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, which may have affected touring plans, as per South China Morning Post. In Malaysia, legal opposition to LGBT rights and the ban on pop concerts during Ramadan were cited as potential reasons.
Ticket sales
Ticket sales for the Eras Tour were handled by various ticketing agencies around the world, such as Ticketmaster, over several dates. Met with unprecedented, record-setting demand, tickets at every venue sold out in hours. Sales faced technical malfunctions in many countries; bulk purchases of tickets by scalpers and bots were reported at numerous venues, resulting in tickets being listed on resale platforms for exorbitant prices. StubHub noted that the Eras Tour ticket sales were "tracking to be the best-selling of any artist [they've] seen".
US and Canada
The first US leg was set to go on sale to the general public on November 18, 2022. Due to Swift's multi-year partnership with Capital One, cardholders had presale access, which was set to begin on November 15. Fans registered for the Ticketmaster Verified Fan program from November 1 through 9 to receive a presale code that granted exclusive access to the TaylorSwiftTix Presale on November 15; those who purchased merchandise from Swift's website received "boosts", and previous Lover Fest ticket holders also received preferred access to the presale if they registered using the same Ticketmaster account. Swift confirmed ticket prices in advance, abandoning the "platinum ticket" model; they ranged from US$49 to $449, while VIP packages ranged from $199 to $899. According to Ticketmaster, the TaylorSwiftTix Presale provided "the best opportunity to get more tickets into the hands of fans who want to attend the show" by evading bots and scalpers. It also noted that if demand from the program "exceeds supply", it is possible that "verified fans may be selected at random to participate in the presale." It later reported that it received a record 3.5 million verified fan registrations for the Eras Tour. Ahead of the second leg's presale on August 11, Ticketmaster estimated that 14 million users were vying for roughly 625,000 tickets.
Ticketmaster handled the Canadian sales as well, using the Verified Fan program. Members of the Royal Bank of Canada's Avion Rewards program received exclusive access to a separate presale. An estimated 31 million people registered for the Toronto Verified Fan presale, equal to over 77 percent of Canada's population.
Latin America
Latin American tickets went on sale in early June 2023. Presale access was granted to Banco Patagonia clients in Argentina on June 5; around one million customers were reported to have queued for the 24,000 available presale tickets for the Buenos Aires shows, and over three million during the general sale. DF Entertainment served as Swift's tour promotion partner in Argentina; CEO Diego Finkelstein called the demand "unprecedented", based on which Perfil opined that Swift could fill the stadium 36 times if she wanted to. On the day of the show, more than 1 million users tried to get last-minute seats.
In Mexico, ticket presale was handled by Ticketmaster's Verified Fan program; registrations ran from June 2 through June 7, followed by a general public on-sale. In Brazil, previous Lover Fest ticket holders and C6 Bank Mastercard holders gained access to presales on June 6 and 10, respectively. Instantly after the announcement of the shows on June 2, people camped outside Allianz Parque to purchase physical tickets to the São Paulo shows that would not go on sale to the general public until June 12. The Mastercard presale tickets sold out in 30 minutes, with over one million customers queueing. On June 12, over two million users queued for the general sale online.
Asia-Pacific
Tickets in Japan were sold by Lawson under their Loppi ticket system. Unlike other countries, all Japanese tickets were only sold as lottery tickets. The pre-sale for American Express card holders began from June 23 to 26, 2023, and pre-sale for Lawson began from June 27 to July 10. Due to the high demand, Lawson announced the second lottery pre-sale, which began from July 28 to August 3. The additional general sale took place on August 22, 2023, and immediately sold out.
In Australia, tickets were only available via Ticketek. Guardian Australia reported that the Australian leg was met with unprecedented demand as well. Within 12 hours, over one million people signed up for presale codes. American Express cardholders purchased VIP packages from June 26 to 28; the website crashed within half an hour, and all packages sold out on June 26. Following the scalping highlighted by Australian consumer organization Choice, the Victoria State Government declared the Eras Tour in Melbourne a "major event", a legal provision penalizing scalping and misleading advertisement in Victoria. Because reselling a ticket for more than 10% above the original price had already been illegal in New South Wales, the government investigated the ticket resale platform Viagogo after the scalping reports. On June 28, those registered with Frontier Touring Company gained access to a presale for which over four million users queued, setting a national record; tickets sold out within three hours. Ticketek stated it neutralized over 500 million bot purchase attempts during the presale. The public on-sale began on June 30, with tickets selling out that day. A second sale on November 10 sold out within two hours for Sydney and under one hour for Melbourne. A third sale for a limited number of tickets, including restricted view seats, occurred on February 13, 2024.
For the Singaporean shows, United Overseas Bank (UOB) cardholders in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam had presale access on July 5, 2023, with over one million users in the virtual queue. The Straits Times reported that Swift's fans in Singapore and other eligible Southeast Asian countries began "scrambling" to sign up for UOB cards. Around 22 million users registered for access to the 330,000 available tickets during the July 7 general sale, which happened both virtually and via Singapore Post offices; tickets sold out immediately despite website crashes. Klook, an official experience partner for the Singapore leg, sold travel packages along with tickets, which were purchased by dozens of Filipino fans and instantly sold out. Marina Bay Sands sold tickets coupled with hotel stays and other experiences.
Europe
The Lisbon shows went on sale on July 12 and 27, 2023, via See Tickets, with transferrable access codes mailed to registered users, who were limited to four tickets per code. Standard tickets for both shows sold out within 2.5 hours. Following popular demand for an additional show in Madrid, Spain, La Liga approved football club Real Madrid's request to move their match from May 26 to May 25, 2024, to make way for a second Eras Tour show at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on May 29.
Three million people queued for tickets in Germany, and 600,000 registered for the Warsaw shows. All 170,000 tickets for the three Vienna shows sold out within the first few hours, marking the largest and fastest ticket sale ever in Austria. All 95,000 Zürich tickets sold out within 30 minutes. In Italy, two million people tried to access tickets for the two shows in Milan, per Italian organizers D'Alessandro & Galli.
In France, TF1 reported the highest demand ever for a presale. Angelo Gopee, head of Live Nation France, stated, "the demand is such that many have found themselves in a virtual queue just to subscribe to the mailing list which, potentially, will open access to the ticket office. From memory, we had never seen that in France". The Paris presale opened on June 11, 2023, to over one million queued users. Ticketmaster suspended both Paris and Lyon presales within an hour after reports of login glitches; they were rescheduled to July 17 to 21. Over 250,000 tickets were sold for the six French dates, with AEG France executive Arnaud Meersseman estimating Swift could have done twelve shows due to the overwhelming demand. According to RMC, the capacity for the four shows at Paris La Défense Arena was also increased from 41,500 to 45,000; meaning Swift will perform for 180,000 attendees in Paris alone.
Ticketmaster and AXS handled the United Kingdom sale. Those who had previously pre-ordered Midnights were able to access presales from July 10 to 12. London's Wembley Stadium officials described the demand for tickets as "unprecedented" and noted that waiting times were "longer than usual". Cardiff's Principality Stadium tickets were pre-sold on July 14. In addition to website malfunctions, Forbes reported widespread scalping of the tour's UK tickets, with immediate re-listing on sites like StubHub and Viagogo for extortionate prices. Viagogo responded that the demand of the tour's European leg is something the company had not seen "since the Beatles". The UK general sale took place from July 17 to 19. In Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Council granted organizers permission to increase Murrayfield Stadium's capacity from 67,130 to 72,990 for Swift's three shows. In Ireland, around 500,000 people registered for the Dublin shows. On account of the website crashes during the UK sale, Ticketmaster announced staggered on-sale times for Dublin on July 20, 2023; tickets sold out in minutes. The Irish Times highlighted that, unlike the UK, "the practice of reselling tickets above face value has been illegal in Ireland since 2021", so no scalping was reported.
Production
The Eras Tour was produced by Swift's in-house tour production company, Taylor Swift Touring. The company hired around 90 trucks to haul staging, costumes and other equipment for the shows. Canadian production designer Ethan Tobman served as the tour's creative director. The Wall Street Journal stated, the tour is one of the most expensive and "technically ambitious" productions of the 21st century. Interior design magazine Architectural Digest named the tour Swift's "most ambitious" set design and praised its worldbuilding.
Stage and lighting
The Eras Tour staging is expansive, made of digital displays. It consists of three separate stages connected by a broad ramp: a main stage with a giant, curved widescreen; a rhombic middle stage; and a rectangular stage that along with the ramp forms a T-shape at the middle of the floor. The stages feature various visuals and effects throughout the show. The tour's concept centers on worldbuilding, featuring a diverse set of props and performing styles to convey the varying moods and aesthetics of Swift's albums.
The staging is equipped with a "hyperactive" hydraulic platform, with the main and middle stages having mobile blocks that rise from the center to form platforms of different shapes. The tour's "massive" production is heavily inspired by Broadway theatre. It was described as a 4D cognitive experience, featuring pyrotechnics, laser lights, smoke machines, fire cannons, indoor fireworks, PixMob LED bracelets, and image projection technology, such as projection mapping.
Music and performance
Designed as a tribute to Swift's discography across her 17-year career, the Eras Tour covers all styles of music from her 10 studio albums, ranging from country and pop to folk and alternative rock genres. Some media outlets dubbed the Eras Tour the "greatest hits" tour of an artist still in her commercial prime. The set list placed a somewhat greater focus on albums Swift had not previously toured, including first-ever live performances of several tracks. According to the music journalist Alexis Petridis, the Eras Tour is a musically eclectic production, consisting of "dubstep-inspired, dark-hued pop; tweedy folk; monster-chorus-sporting anthems and acoustic guitar-driven songs that show her Nashville grounding".
The concert ensemble included 15 backup dancers, choreographed by Mandy Moore, and Swift's live band of six instrumentalists who have been touring with her since 2007 and four female backing vocalists. Moore was recommended by Swift's friend, American actress Emma Stone, who had worked with Moore on the musical film La La Land (2016). To prepare for the tour physically, Swift trained using a custom workout routine designed by personal trainer Kirk Myers; Swift sang the entire set list daily while running on a treadmill, trained in dance for three months leading up to the first show, and forwent the consumption of alcohol.
Fashion
Swift's wardrobe at the Eras Tour was a subject of widespread media coverage. Her costumes and those of her accompanying dancers, as well as her microphones and guitars, paid homage to her 10 albums. They were inspired by previous performances, music videos, and public appearances, intended to align with the overarching themes and palette of the era Swift referenced in an act, showcasing the various sonic and visual aesthetics she had adopted in her career. However, crystals were a unifying fashion choice; costumes of every act were adorned with them.
Attire and accessories were mostly custom-made by fashion houses Swift had worked with before, such as Atelier Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Etro, Nicole + Felicia Couture, Zuhair Murad, Elie Saab, Ashish, Alberta Ferretti, Jessica Jones, and Oscar de la Renta. Swift wore variations of some costumes at different shows, usually paired with Christian Louboutin shoes. Swift's black fedora from "22" was designed by Gladys Tamez. Fausto Puglisi, a designer for Roberto Cavalli, stated that he took an "artisanal approach to craftsmanship" while customizing the outfits, claiming "everything must be eye-catching" when designing for concerts. He incorporated Swarovski crystals in the costumes Swift wore during the Fearless, 1989, and Reputation acts, which required over 170 hours of meticulous "hand-craftsmanship by skilled artisans" to make. The sequined tulle ball gown that Murad designed for the Speak Now act required "over 350 hours of atelier handwork". Ferretti used chiffon and micro-beading for the Folklore era dresses, while the Midnights Oscar de la Renta fringed bodysuit was hand-adorned with more than 5,300 beads and crystals.
StyleCaster regarded the Eras Tour wardrobe as Swift's best fashion collection for a tour. The New York Times' chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman considered the Eras Tour a fashion show beyond merely live music and praised Swift's "fabulous" but purposeful wardrobe choices for setting the bar high for future concerts by other artists.
Concert synopsis
An Eras Tour show is over three hours and 15 minutes long, by far the longest of Swift's career. It consists of between 44 and 46 songs, grouped into 10 acts, representing each "musical era" of her discography. Each act is characterized by a specific color scheme, while transitions between acts are facilitated by on-screen interlude visuals and marked by costume changes with negligible intermissions. Swift addresses the crowd throughout the show.
March 2023 to March 2024
The show commences with the Lover act. A clock on-screen counts down to show time as Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Own Me" (1964) plays. Surrounded by dancers in pastel-colored, fan-like tapestry, Swift emerges from the platform at mid-stage in a bodysuit and boots. She opens the show with the chorus of "Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince" leading into "Cruel Summer". Accompanied by dancers, Swift performs "The Man" and "You Need to Calm Down" in a sequined blazer, through a set emulating office cubicles. She then delivers the welcome note with the dollhouse from the "Lover" music video on-screen, depicting her various album eras. She plays an acoustic version of "Lover" on the guitar with her band, backup singers, and dancers, followed by a stripped-down rendition of "The Archer" alone on the ramp. The second act, Fearless, begins with the screen showing gold electric sparks raining down. Swift reappears in a metallic fringed dress and country boots characteristic of her early style. She performs "Fearless" on the main stage, "You Belong with Me" at mid-stage, and "Love Story" on the T-stage, all alongside her band and backup singers.
The third act, Evermore, adopts a forest aesthetic. Swift begins singing "'Tis the Damn Season" in a long gown, followed by a dark theme that leads to "Willow" in a "witchy" séance; she wears a dark green cape and performs with dancers holding luminescent orange orbs. She continues with "Marjorie", then "Champagne Problems" on a moss-covered piano beneath an oak tree, concluding the act with Swift introducing her pianist Karina DePiano followed by "Tolerate It" with a male dancer at a dinner table reminiscent of Citizen Kane (1941). Snakes visuals and dimming lights start the Reputation act. Swift reemerges in a black-red asymmetrical catsuit with snake motifs. She delivers a high-energy performance of "...Ready for It?" with female dancers wearing black-dark red gothic leotards, "Delicate", and "Don't Blame Me" features light beams and Swift on an elevated platform. She transitions to "Look What You Made Me Do", which features on-screen visuals of Swift from all of her eras trapped in glass boxes and dancers dressed in some of Swift's older looks. The act concludes with a snake slithering away on-screen.
The fifth act, Speak Now, begins with an abstract mosaic of purple lights on the stage. Swift, in a ball gown, walks in from the screen and performs "Enchanted" with female dancers; since July 7, 2023, she also performed "Long Live" with her band. The color scheme changes to match the next act, Red; a female dancer opens a box that plays snippets of "Red", "Everything Has Changed" or "Holy Ground", and "State of Grace". Red balloons emerge, and Swift performs "22" wearing a version of the white T-shirt and black hat from the song's music video. Near the end of the song, she greets a fan pre-selected from the audience, giving them the hat. Swift sings "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" with male dancers next, dressed in a red-black romper. She dons a red-black ombre coat next, and performs "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" on a guitar, backed by the band. The act concludes with artificial snow falling.
Cottagecore dominates the seventh act, Folklore, introduced with a spoken-word interlude of "Seven". Onstage is a bucolic, A-frame cabin setup, similar to the one from Swift's performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards (2021), on an elevated platform with a staircase. Swift performs "Invisible String" or "The 1" on the cabin's roof, "Betty" with her band, and "The Last Great American Dynasty" with dancers dressed in period clothing. She then sings "August", which transitions to the bridge of a rock-tinged "Illicit Affairs", followed by "My Tears Ricochet" with female dancers wearing sparkly black long sleeved dresses and choreography resembling a funeral procession. Swift returns to the cabin to perform "Cardigan", ending the act with fireflies as the cabin retreats.
1989, the eighth act, commences with the screen showing a neon-lit city skyline. Swift, wearing a crop top and skirt, sings "Style" with dancers dressed in black-and-white outfits. Moving to mid-stage, female dancers ride neon bicycles for "Blank Space" and use blue golf clubs to smash an animated Shelby Cobra car. She follows with "Shake It Off", performed as a robust dance party; "Wildest Dreams", backed with clips of a couple in bed; and "Bad Blood", with female dancers and accentuated by intense pyrotechnics. It is followed by the acoustic set, where Swift performs two surprise songs on guitar and piano. In an optical illusion, a body of water develops around the piano and envelops the stage; Swift then dives into the stage and appears to swim underwater, along the ramp and toward the main stage.
The final act, Midnights, begins with a wave from the illusion crashing against the screen; Swift wakes up from a bed and climbs a ladder into a cloud. The lower screen splits, and dancers carry out clouds as Swift reemerges in a purple faux fur coat, a glittery oversized shirt and dark blue boots to sing "Lavender Haze". She removes the coat and performs "Anti-Hero" alongside a video of herself as a creature terrorizing a city. Dancers perform with umbrellas as Swift sings "Midnight Rain" and undergoes an onstage costume change, reappearing in a rhinestone-adorned midnight blue bodysuit. She then performs a "chair dance" choreographed for "Vigilante Shit", influenced by "sultry" burlesque and the 1975 musical Chicago. Swift follows with "Bejeweled", featuring moves inspired by the song's viral TikTok dance, and "Mastermind" with the entire dance crew wearing black robes. "Karma" is performed last, with Swift, backup singers, and dancers in tinsel-fringed jackets, closing the show with fireworks, colorful visuals, and confetti.
May 2024 onwards
Starting from May 2024, Swift revamped the set list to include a new act with songs from her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, released on April 19, 2024. "The Archer", "Long Live", "The 1", "The Last Great American Dynasty", "'Tis the Damn Season", and "Tolerate It" were removed from their respective acts to accommodate the album. The Speak Now and Red acts were brought forward as the fourth and third acts, while the acts for Folklore and Evermore, which are considered "sister albums", merged into one. The Tortured Poets Department act was placed between the 1989 act and acoustic set.
The Tortured Poets Department act features predominantly black-and-white graphics, drawing from dark academia. It begins with the screen showing pieces of furniture descending from the sky alongside paper pieces, which then transform into a deserted road and the furniture crash down. Swift appears onstage in a white corset dress and sings "But Daddy I Love Him" and parts of "So High School", alongside dancers dressed in white. She performs "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" on a moving glass-plated block and appears to levitate in an illusion, which ends with the screen depicting an evil-possessed Swift. An unidentified flying object (UFO) then appears on screen and attempts to abduct Swift, who starts singing "Down Bad" on the moving block that hovers over a digital galaxy. Transitioning to "Fortnight", the stage features a "TTPD"-emblazoned bed and two female dancers dressed as nurses. Swift sings the song as she sits on a typewriter, across from a male dancer. She proceeds with "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived", for which she puts on a white marching band jacket as dancers march beside her with drums. The act ends with a silent skit with two male dancers accompanied by enthusiastic jazz music, where Swift removes her dress to reveal a two-piece bodysuit, leading up to "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart".
Critical reception
It's easy to compare one of Swift's stadium shows to something you'd see on Broadway—never has that been more true than for The Eras Tour. The setlist is cut up into acts, grouped by eras for each of Swift's ten studio albums. For each era/act, Swift went full-send into that album's look, feel, costume, color blocking, and more.
The tour received "overwhelmingly positive" reviews from music and entertainment critics, who praised both the high-end spectacle and "polished artistry" of the tour. Billboard described the Eras Tour as "the must-see blockbuster of the year". Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph, Keiran Southern of The Times, Adrian Horton of The Guardian, Kelsey Barnes of The Independent, Ilana Kaplan of i, and Erica Campbell of NME gave the Eras Tour total five-star ratings. McCormick called the show "one of the most ambitious, spectacular, and charming stadium pop shows ever seen", lauding Swift's musicianship, vocals, and energy. Southern declared the Eras Tour "a pop genius at the top of her game". Horton praised the "rapturous" music selection, concept, "extravagant" staging, and Swift's stamina and vocals. Barnes noted the tour as "a career-defining spectacle" with acts marking the shifts in Swift's artistry, while Kaplan commended the "unparalleled" showmanship, "spicier" choreography, camp styles, and "seamless" transitions between acts. Campbell praised the storytelling aspect of the show that ties all the 10 acts together, enhanced by staging, cinematic ambience and fashion. Australian Financial Review's James Thomson opined, "Swift works the massive stage like a master, cycling through countless costume changes and several elaborate sets, all while belting out 44 songs over three-and-a-half hours."
The versatility of the show's music, visuals, and performance art was often a point of praise in its reviews. Journalists Rebecca Lewis and Carson Mlnarik of Hello! and MTV, respectively, commended Swift's stage presence and commitment to her artistry; Lewis described Swift's alter egos during the tour as shifting from "country ingénue to pop princess and folklore witch", whereas Mlnarik affirmed that the on-screen visuals stayed true to every album's aesthetic. The Week and Dallas Observer critics agreed, highlighting the "jaw-dropping" visuals and "bedazzled" fashion. Billboard editor Jason Lipshutz underscored Swift's "powerhouse" vocals, engaging artistic personas, and skill set. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times highlighted the tour's scale, ambition, and portrayal of all the musical pivots of Swift's career, whereas The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber complimented the show's art direction, suspense, and the sequencing of the acts. Mikael Wood of Los Angeles Times described the show as a "masterclass in pop ambition", showcasing Swift's range. According to The New Yorker senior editor Tyler Foggatt, the Eras Tour is a product of Swift's understanding of herself, building a tour "solely devoted to the idea of a trajectory—that of a career, of a musical identity, of a life—that can be traced cleanly from one era to the next."
Critics also appreciated the tour's production value and artistic direction. Philip Cosores of Uproxx dubbed it the "most impressive stadium show ever conceived". Spin critic Jonathan Cohen admired the rich stage design, usage of "state-of-the-art" technology, and immersive experience into Swift's "increasingly accomplished musical world-building". Variety journalist Chris Willman felt that the "epic" show demonstrated that "the person who has come up with the single greatest body of pop songwriting in the 21st century is also its most popular performer". Pollstar's Christina Fuoco and Andy Gensler praised the production as "stunning and tastefully rendered" and "live music at its highest spectacle". Rolling Stone's Waiss David Aramesh opined that it is "a production spectacle of the highest echelon". Melinda Sheckels of Consequence praised the tour's "nuanced and interpretive" approach in depicting Swift's albums and the "sheer magnitude, artistry, and technical prowess" of the production.
The revamped tour, following the release of The Tortured Poets Department, continued to receive rave reviews. Annabel Nugent of The Independent and Fiona Sheperd of The Scotsman praised the tour's choreography, state-of-the-art production, song selection, and Swift's consistent energy. McCormick declared, "there's no doubt that Taylor Swift is the best in the world right now." Critics Mark Sutherland and Anna Leszkiewicz opined that the tour's scale and performances continued to impress despite crossing 100 shows and being available as a film on streaming; Leszkiewicz, in New Statesman, described Swift as "a talented actress" with a "high camp" stage presence—"whether flashing faux-coy smiles, luxuriating in overdramatic eyerolls, or throwing herself into theatrical Wicked Witch of the West arm movements." Petridis described the tour in The Guardian as "an astonishing, risk-taking, strangely intimate extravaganza", adding it is pointless to review the tour anymore as "every conceivable detail has already been dissected and discussed in depth." Reviews published in the Berliner Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung praised Swift for what they considered as a commanding stage presence and charisma that is rare in her peers.
Commercial performance
Boxscore
Although Swift's team has withheld the gross data from publications, the Eras Tour has been reported to have broken a string of ticket sales records worldwide. In the first day of the US presale alone, the tour sold over 2.4 million tickets, the most sold by an artist in a single day, surpassing Robbie Williams, who had sold 1.6 million tickets for his Close Encounters Tour in 2005. Billboard reported on December 15 that the Eras Tour had already grossed an estimated US$554 million, and projected the US leg to finish with $591 million, surpassing the former all-time female record set by Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour ($407 million) in 2008–2009. Following the tour's launch, Swift rose to number one on Pollstar's Artist Power Index chart. MetLife Stadium named her their "#1 best-selling artist" of all time after the tour's third East Rutherford show, which was the 100th concert in the stadium's history.
In June 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Eras Tour "on track to become the biggest in concert history, with the potential to gross over $1 billion"; conservative Pollstar estimates projected a $1.4 billion gross. Bloomberg News reported that the average gross per show on the US leg is $13 million. Variety claimed the tour had grossed $2 billion as of October 2023. According to Forbes, the Eras Tour has grossed $780 million from 56 shows as of August 2023, making it the highest-grossing tour by a woman in history based on its first North American leg alone, surpassing Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour. In November 2023, Billboard estimated a gross of over $900 million from the tour thus far and that the total could nearly double after the 2024 shows. Swift's team stated they do not intend to announce the boxscore, but Pollstar reported in December 2023 an estimated gross of $1,039,263,762 from 60 shows that year, making the Eras Tour the highest-grossing concert tour ever and the first to reach the $1 billion mark. In June 2024, the BBC estimated 11 million tickets sold across the entire tour. In October 2024, Forbes reported that the tour had grossed an additional $1.15 billion from 65 shows in 2024, bringing the tour's reported gross up to $2.89 billion and making it the first tour to surpass $2 billion in revenue.
Venue records
Music releases
Swift unveiled various musical works during the tour. On the day of the opening show, she released four songs to celebrate the tour's launch: the re-recordings of "Eyes Open" and "Safe & Sound", both originally from the 2012 soundtrack The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond; a re-recording of "If This Was a Movie", one of the deluxe tracks from Speak Now (2010); and "All of the Girls You Loved Before", a previously unreleased outtake of Lover.
A special CD edition of Midnights, subtitled The Late Night Edition, was released during the Eras Tour. It was only purchasable in-person at merchandise stands at certain shows, beginning in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on May 26, 2023. It exclusively contained the new bonus track "You're Losing Me", which became a "ravenously anticipated" song; Variety reported that "fans were so eager to get their hands" on the CD, causing queues at the stadium the day before the merchandise store opened.
On May 5, 2023, at the first Nashville show of the tour, Swift announced her third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor's Version), and its release date as July 7. She also premiered two music videos, both of which she wrote and directed, during the tour. She premiered the videos for "Karma" featuring American rapper Ice Spice and "I Can See You" before the acoustic set at the first East Rutherford show and first Kansas City show, respectively. On August 9, at the final Los Angeles show, Swift announced 1989 (Taylor's Version) as her fourth re-recorded album, which was released on October 27, exactly nine years after the release of the original 1989 album. On November 3, Hits reported that a live album of the tour has been in talks.
On February 16, 2024, at the first Melbourne show, Swift announced a second variant of The Tortured Poets Department, with a bonus track titled "The Bolter". She announced another variant of the album, with the bonus track "The Albatross" on February 23, at the first Sydney show. The fourth variant of the album, containing the bonus track "The Black Dog", was announced on March 3, at the second Singapore show of the tour. On August 20, Swift premiered the music video for "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" after leaving the stage at the end of the eighth show in London. The video features footage of tour performances, rehearsals, audiences, and backstage moments.
Film
On October 13, 2023, Swift released the self-produced concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, directed by Sam Wrench, to theaters worldwide. It was produced from the footage recorded at the tour's Los Angeles shows. The film, in an unprecedented move, had Swift partnering directly with the theaters to both distribute and exhibit the film instead of a major film studio. It became the highest-grossing concert film of all time.
Accolades
Impact
The Eras Tour had an impact on the music industry, entertainment and beyond. It was described as one of the most prominent cultural phenomena of the 21st century, generating a level of attention similar to the 1960s' Beatlemania. The tour elevated the economy of its stops by revitalizing local businesses and tourism, attracted large crowds of spectators outside stadiums, dominated news cycles and social media, inspired tributes from governments and organizations. Critics often described the Eras Tour as a monocultural event demonstrating Swift's impact on popular culture. The tour fueled an increase in public consumption of her discography as well. Swift's net worth, which was $740 million before the tour began, was updated to $1.1 billion after the first 57 shows of the tour; Swift became the first billionaire in history with music as the main source of income.
Issues and controversy
Ticket sales crash in the U.S.
On November 15, the day of the first US presale, Ticketmaster's website crashed following what Variety called "historically unprecedented demand". Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, said they prepared for 1.5 million verified fans, but 14 million turned up; published a statement saying they had been "unprepared" to accommodate them; and cancelled any further sales, citing inability to meet demand. The fiasco was the subject of public criticism and political scrutiny. Customers and fans criticized Ticketmaster for its allegedly flawed systems and inefficient technical resolutions. US lawmakers, including attorneys general and members of Congress, took notice of the issue, which became the focus of multiple state, federal and congressional inquiries.
Venue management in Brazil
Unrest was reported on June 11, 2023, outside the Brazilian venues' box offices, as scalpers attempted to cut in line, including some armed scalpers who threatened violence, until the police intervened. The agency responsible for the tour in Brazil, T4F – Time For Fun (T4F), was reported over 100 times to authorities for their inaction. On June 20, federal lawmakers in Brazil filed the "Taylor Swift Law", which would penalize scalpers with up to four years in prison and a fine of up to 100 times the value of the ticket.
On November 17, 2023, before the start of the first Rio de Janeiro show, T4F reportedly prohibited concertgoers from bringing their own water bottles inside the venue. It was one of the hottest days in the city, with a heat index of 59.3 °C (138.74 °F), as part of a heat wave in the country. Videos posted to social media by fans showed thousands of queued concertgoers waiting for hours in the sun before entry into the stadium; Swift and her team arranged and distributed water bottles to the crowd. A concert attendee, Ana Clara Benevides, died while being taken to a hospital after she fainted during the first few minutes of the show. T4F attracted widespread criticism from fans and politicians. Several claimed that stadium organizers "refused" to provide concertgoers water; a criminal investigation was opened. Benevides' cause of death was forensically determined to be cardiac arrest caused by heat exhaustion. Swift grieved Benevides' death on social media. She postponed the show that had been scheduled for November 18 to November 20, citing "extreme temperatures".
Diplomacy in Asia
Srettha Thavisin, Prime Minister of Thailand, claimed that the government of Singapore offered subsidies of $2 million–$3 million per show of the Eras Tour in exchange for making Singapore the exclusive venue in Southeast Asia. He criticized Singapore for excluding other member countries of the ASEAN from witnessing Swift. The Singapore Tourism Board responded that they did provide a "grant" to bring the Eras Tour to Singapore, and that the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth worked with the tour's promoter, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), but did not reveal the size of the grant or attached conditions due to "business confidentiality". Minister Edwin Tong commented, the alleged sum of the grant was "nowhere as high as what is being speculated". Joey Salceda, member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, criticized Singapore and demanded that the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs seek an explanation from the Embassy of Singapore, Manila. Sandiaga Uno, Indonesian minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, also expressed his disappointment, stating "Indonesia was eager to replicate the success of Swiftonomics". Subsequently, Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004, assured that the exclusivity grant did not have an hostile intention.
Swift included neither the People's Republic of China nor the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Eras Tour. The tour skipping Taiwan was a topic of political debate during the campaigns preceding the 2024 Taiwanese presidential and legislative body elections. Jaw Shaw-kong, vice-presidential candidate of the opposition (Kuomintang party), claimed he invited Swift to perform at the Taipei Dome and that she initially agreed to perform but later declined due to "geopolitical risks" of the sensitive Cross-Strait relations. The Taiwanese Ministry of Culture commented on the issue but neither denied nor confirmed Jaw's claims. Kaohsiung mayor Chen Chi-mai described Jaw's claims about Swift as an attempt at manipulating the voters.
Security threats in Europe
On July 18, 2024, a suspected stalker of Swift, who was accused of threatening her and her boyfriend, American football player Travis Kelce, on social media was detained and arrested as he attempted to enter the second of Swift's shows in Gelsenkirchen.
On August 7, authorities thwarted an Islamic State (ISIS) plot to attack Swift's three shows in Vienna. Police arrested three men—a 17 year-old, 18-year-old and 19-year-old who were "radicalized on the Internet"—with connections to ISIS. The men were plotting to kill "tens of thousands" at the concerts, according to the CIA. Initially, Austrian public security director Franz Ruf stated that the shows would take place as scheduled, with additional security measures in place to deter remaining threats. However, later that day, event organizer Barracuda Music announced that all three shows would be canceled with tickets refunded after receiving confirmation from the Government of Austria of an elaborate terrorist plan. On August 8, large groups of fans who had travelled to Vienna for the concerts gathered in public spaces to sing and celebrate Swift's music as an alternative to the canceled shows. With permission from Swift, Austrian public broadcaster ORF aired the tour's accompanying concert film on August 10 for free. The following shows in London also had tightened security.
Philanthropy
Swift donated to food bank units at every stop of the Eras Tour, as reported by the respective organizations, and exclusively employed various local businesses to fulfill her crew's daily requirements. At the conclusion of the first US leg, Swift gave "unprecedented" bonus payments totaling over $55 million to her entire touring crew, including $100,000 to each of the 50 truck drivers involved in transporting the stage setup and production equipment. She also reportedly purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset emissions generated by her travel throughout the tour. In October 2023, Swift donated Eras Tour tickets to the Rare Impact Fund, a charity and mental health awareness initiative by American singer Selena Gomez's cosmetic company, Rare Beauty. The auctioned tickets sold for $15,000 and were the "biggest ticket item of the event". On April 27, 2024, four Eras Tour tickets raised $80,000 at auction in a gala benefiting the 15 and The Mahomies Foundation, a charity by the American football player Patrick Mahomes.
Set list
March 2023 to March 2024
This set list was taken from the show in Glendale on March 17, 2023. It does not represent all shows throughout the tour.
Alterations
"The 1" replaced "Invisible String" starting from the Arlington shows, except at the second Nashville show, where Swift performed "Invisible String" in honor of the bench at Centennial Park dedicated to her.
"Nothing New" was added before "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" at shows opened by Phoebe Bridgers, who performed the song with Swift.
"Long Live" was added after "Enchanted" as part of the Speak Now act after the release of Speak Now (Taylor's Version), starting with the Kansas City shows.
"No Body, No Crime" replaced "'Tis the Damn Season" at shows opened by Haim, who performed the song with Swift.
May 2024 onwards
This set list was taken from the show in Nanterre on May 9, 2024.
Surprise songs
Swift performed two tracks from her discography at each show as "surprise songs" in the ninth act—the first on acoustic guitar and the second on piano.
2023
2024
Notes
At the third Tampa show and the second Pittsburgh show, Swift reversed the order of the instruments she used to perform the surprise songs, playing the first on piano with Aaron Dessner and the second on acoustic guitar.
At the third Foxborough show, Swift performed both surprise songs on acoustic guitar due to technical difficulties with the piano caused by the previous night's rain.
At the three East Rutherford shows, Swift performed the remix of "Karma" with Ice Spice.
At the second Cincinnati show, Swift performed "I Miss You, I'm Sorry" on acoustic guitar with Gracie Abrams on piano between the first and second surprise songs.
At the eighth London show, Swift performed "Florida!!!" with Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine after "So High School".
Tour dates
Cancelled shows
Personnel
Adapted from the credits of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film.
Taylor Swift – lead vocals, guitar, piano
Band
Max Bernstein – co-band leader, guitar, keyboard, pedal steel
Matt Billingslea – drums
Karina DePiano – piano
Amos Heller – bass, keyboard bass
Mike Meadows – co-band leader, guitar, keyboard, harmonica, cello, mandolin, backing vocals
Paul Sidoti – guitar
Jeslyn Gorman – backing vocals (except the Seattle, Latin American, Tokyo, and Melbourne shows)
Kamilah Marshall – background vocalist dance captain, backing vocals
Melanie Nyema – background vocalist section leader, backing vocals, tambourine
Eliotte Woodford – backing vocals (except the Hamburg, Munich, Warsaw, and London shows)
Dancers
Amanda Balen – dance captain and associate choreographer
Taylor Banks
Karen Chuang
Audrey Douglass
Tori Evans
Natalie Lecznar
Tamiya Lewis
Sam McWilliams
Sydney Moss
Natalie Peterson
Jan Ravnik
Kameron Saunders
Kevin Scheitzbach
Raphael Thomas
Whyley Yoshimura
See also
List of highest-grossing concert tours
List of fastest-selling concert tours
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music industry
Footnotes
Cities
Others
References
External links
The Eras Tour official website |
Please_Please_Please_(Sabrina_Carpenter_song) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Please_Please_(Sabrina_Carpenter_song) | [
611
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Please_Please_(Sabrina_Carpenter_song)"
] | "Please Please Please" is a song by American singer Sabrina Carpenter from her sixth studio album Short n' Sweet (2024). It was released through Island Records on June 6, 2024, as the second single from the album. Produced by Jack Antonoff, it is written by Antonoff, Carpenter, and Amy Allen. It is a country pop and yacht rock song with disco-pop influences.
The song received acclaim from music critics upon release. "Please Please Please" peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first number-one single on the chart. Outside of the United States, "Please Please Please" topped the charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom. It peaked within the top ten in 18 other countries, including Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden.
Background and release
Following the commercial success of "Espresso", Carpenter announced her upcoming sixth studio album Short n' Sweet on June 3, 2024. She simultaneously promised an upcoming surprise for her fans, which would turn out to be the single. Only two days later, Carpenter took to social media to announce the song release and share a teaser of the accompanying music video featuring cinematic visuals set to showcase her acting skills. The clip shows her wearing a lacy red outfit in a robbery-like setting, as well as engaging in a romance with a criminal played by her real-life boyfriend Barry Keoghan. "Please Please Please" has been labeled as a country pop and yacht rock song with disco-pop influences.
Music video
The music video for "Please Please Please" serves as a sequel to the "Espresso" music video released earlier in 2024. In the music video for "Espresso", Carpenter gets arrested at the end. "I ended the last video getting arrested, so naturally I thought it would be satisfying to start the 'Please Please Please' video in jail", said the singer. "I liked the idea of falling in love with a convict and being shocked and embarrassed every time he commits crimes. I was sooo lucky to get Barry Keoghan in the video 'cause he is just magic on screen", said the singer after the music video was released. The Irish actor is rumored to be Carpenter's off-screen boyfriend after they started being seen together in December 2023 and throughout 2024.
"The concept was pretty collaborative. I had a brief from Sabrina's team — they wanted it to pick up from where 'Espresso' left off and they wanted it to be about this person that Sabrina's character keeps falling for, that has this chaotic behavior. So I just elaborated on that and started to think a bit more about specifically what happens. I liked this idea of there being a role reversal and an exchange of power towards the end. And things that were recurring, like her picking him up in the same place, same location, different day, different time", said the director, Bardia Zeinali, to GQ. "Pam and Tommy. Madonna and Dennis Rodman. Tarantino was a big reference point. Natural Born Killers (1994). Bonnie and Clyde, obviously. Even Thelma & Louise (1991). We were really looking at film references more than anything else and pop culture references in terms of what we wanted the spirit of this moment to be. Even J.Lo and Ben Affleck not to reference, but to capture that spirit. It's similar in the sense that they're this really exciting young couple, both having big moments in their respective careers, coming together and making a piece of art. But this is very much not real life — it's a story", said the director.
Commercial performance
On June 17, "Espresso" reached number one on the Billboard Global 200. On June 22, 2024, the song debuted at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Carpenter's highest debut on the chart and highest-charting single then. The following week, it reached the top spot of the chart, making it her first chart-topper in the US.
In the United Kingdom, with "Please Please Please" at number one and her previous song "Espresso" at number two on the UK Singles Chart, Carpenter became the first female artist to hold the top two positions of the chart for five weeks in a row and matched Ed Sheeran as the only artist to hold this feat in general. On July 12, 2024 – for the week ending date July 18, 2024 – "Please Please Please" was dethroned from the top of the UK Singles Chart with "Espresso" returning to the summit. On July 26, 2024 – for the week ending date August 1, 2024 – "Please Please Please" dethroned "Espresso" from the top of the UK Singles Chart to return to the summit for a second time, with the former song being replaced at number two by "Birds of a Feather" by Billie Eilish, and the latter song falling to number nine on the chart.
Track listing
Digital maxi single
"Please Please Please" – 3:06
"Please Please Please" (acoustic) – 3:01
"Please Please Please" (clean) – 3:06
"Please Please Please" (sped up) – 2:32
"Please Please Please" (slowed down) – 3:30
"Please Please Please" (a cappella) – 3:06
"Please Please Please" (instrumental) – 3:06
7-inch
"Please Please Please" – 3:06
"Please Please Please" (acoustic) – 3:01
Accolades
Credits and personnel
Recording and management
Recorded at Electric Lady Studios (New York City)
Evan Smith's Performance Recorded at Pleasure Hill Recording (Portland, Maine)
Mixed at MixStar Studios (Virginia Beach)
Mastered at Nomograph Mastering (Los Angeles)
Sabalicious Songs (BMI) administered by Songs Of Universal, Inc., Songs Of Universal, Inc./Ducky Donath Music (BMI), Kenny + Betty Tunes (ASCAP) administered by WC Music Corp.
Personnel
Credits adapted from Short n' Sweet liner notes.
Charts
Certifications
Release history
Notes
== References == |
Selatan | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selatan | [
612
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selatan"
] | Selatan is the Malay and Indonesian word for south and can be found in topography.
E.g.
Sulawesi Selatan -> South Sulawesi
Sumatera Selatan -> South Sumatra
South Cape (Indonesia)
Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan -> North–South Expressway (Malaysia) |
South_Sulawesi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sulawesi | [
612
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sulawesi"
] | South Sulawesi (Indonesian: Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest city is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south.
The 2010 census estimated the population as 8,032,551, which makes South Sulawesi the most populous province on the island (46% of the population of Sulawesi is in South Sulawesi), and the sixth most populous province in Indonesia. At the 2020 Census, this had risen to 9,073,509, and the official estimate as of mid-2023 was 9,362,290 (comprising 4,651,180 males and 4,711,110 females). The main ethnic groups in South Sulawesi are the Buginese, Makassarese and Torajan. The economy of the province is based on agriculture, fishing, and the mining of gold, magnesium, iron, and other metals. The pinisi, a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing ship, is still used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo, and fishing purposes within the Indonesian archipelago.
During the golden era of the spice trade, from the 15th to 19th centuries, South Sulawesi served as the gateway to the Maluku Islands. There were several small kingdoms, including two prominent ones, the kingdom of Makassar and the Bugis kingdom Bone. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) began operating in the region in the 17th century. VOC later allied with the Bugis prince, Arung Palakka, and they defeated the kingdom of Makassar. The king of Makassar, Sultan Hasanuddin was forced to sign a treaty that greatly reduced the power of Bungaya Gowa.
History
Sulawesi was first inhabited by humans around 30,000 years ago. The archaeological remains of the earliest inhabitants were discovered in caves near limestone hills around Maros, about 30 km northeast of Makassar. Pebble and flake stone tools have been collected from the river terraces in the valley of Walanae, among Soppeng and Sengkang, including the bones from giant pig and elephant species that are now extinct. Handprint paintings, estimated to be around 35,000 to 40,000 years old, have been found in the Pettakere cave, located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the town of Maros and 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Makassar.
The increase in commerce due to the rise of external demand for South Sulawesi rice encouraged major agricultural expansion and political centralization in the early 14th century. Swidden agriculture was increasingly replaced with intensive wet rice cultivation, leading to a rise in population density. New settlements were founded in the interior part of the peninsula as pristine forests were cleared. These changes accompanied the rise of new interior agricultural policies, such as the Bugis chiefdoms of Boné and Wajoq, as well as the Makassar polity of Gowa.
By the early 16th century, Boné had assumed a paramount position in the eastern part of the peninsula, while the Makassar twin kingdoms of Gowa and Talloq started to expand their influence throughout the western part. Their competition for hegemony over South Sulawesi caused Gowa-Talloq and Boné to clash in the 1560s.
In 1582, Boné, Soppéng, and Wajoq signed a mutual defense pact known as the Treaty of Timurung. The alliance also referred to as the Tellumpocco ("Three Powers", lit. "Three Peaks"), sought to stop Gowa's expansionism and to reclaim the autonomy of the Bugis polities under Gowa's vassalage. Gowa's campaigns against the alliance in 1582, 1585, and 1588 were all successfully repulsed, with another one in 1590 abandoned following the death of Gowa's ruler. By the early 17th century, however, Gowa and Talloq had become the dominant powers in South Sulawesi as they supported international commerce and embraced Islam. Gowa waged successful campaigns against the Bugis kingdoms, defeating Soppéng in 1609, Wajoq in 1610, and Boné in 1611.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) began operating in the region in the 17th century and saw the Kingdom of Gowa as an obstacle to its desire to control the spice trade in this area. VOC later allied with the Bugis prince, Arung Palakka, who was living in exile after the fall of the Bugis. After a year-long battle, they defeated the kingdom of Gowa. And the king of Gowa, Sultan Hasanuddin was forced to sign a treaty greatly reducing the power of Bungaya Gowa. Furthermore, Palakka became ruler in South Sulawesi.
A Bugis queen later emerged to lead the resistance against the Dutch, who were busy dealing with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, but after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch returned to South Sulawesi and eradicated the queen's rebellion. However resistance of the Bugis people against colonial rule continued until 1905. In 1905, the Dutch also managed to conquer Tana Toraja.
Before the proclamation of the Republic of Indonesia, South Sulawesi consisted of several independent kingdoms territory and was inhabited by four ethnic groups namely the Buginese, Makassarese, Mandarese, and Torajan.
On June 16, 2022, a tornado struck the province, damaging 63 homes. One man died of a stress-induced medical issue during the tornado, but was not a direct tornado-related fatality.
Geography
South Sulawesi is located at 4°20'S 120°15'E and covers a land area of 45,330.55 square kilometres. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south.
Government and administrative divisions
Five years after independence, the government issued Law No. 21 of 1950, which became the basis of the legal establishment of what was then the Sulawesi province. Ten years later, the government passed Law No. 47 of 1960 which endorsed the formation of the South/Southeast Sulawesi province. Four years after that, with Act No. 13 of 1964, the provinces of South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi were separated. Forty years later, the South Sulawesi government was split into two, with the regencies of Majene, Mamasa, Mamuju, Pasangkayu, and Polewali Mandar being separated off into a new West Sulawesi province on 5 October 2004 under Act No. 26 of 2004.
The remaining South Sulawesi Province is divided into 21 regencies and three independent cities.
The province comprises three of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi I Electoral District consists of 5 regencies (Bantaeng, Jeneponto, Takalar, Gowa, and Selayar Islands), together with the city of Makassar, and elects 8 members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi II Electoral District consists of 8 regencies (Bulukumba, Sinjai, Maros, Pangkajene and Islands, Barru, Bone, Soppeng, and Wajo), together with the city of Parepare, and elects 9 members to the People's Representative Council. The South Sulawesi III Electoral District consists of 8 regencies (Sidenrang Rappang, Pinrang, Enrekang, Luwu, Tana Toraja, North Toraja, North Luwu, and East Luwu), together with the city of Palopo, and elects 7 members to the People's Representative Council.
Demographics
Ethnic groups
South Sulawesi has a diverse range of ethnic groups. The main three are:
The Buginese (Suku Bugis) are the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, comprising almost 4 million people. These people inhabit the middle of the southern peninsula of South Sulawesi. Many of these people have migrated to the outer islands around Sulawesi, even as far as Malaysia.
The Makassarese (Suku Makassar) are the second largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi. Their language is Makassar. Makassar people inhabit the southern part of the southern peninsula of South Sulawesi including the Jeneponto, Takalar, Bulukumba, Bantaeng, Gowa and Maros Regencies, Pangkajene and Islands, and Makassar city. The total population is over 2 million people.
The Torajan (Suku Toraja) are the indigenous ethnic group that inhabits the mountainous northern region of the province, comprising Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja") and North Toraja Regencies.
Language
There are various languages and dialects spoken in South Sulawesi. The majority of them belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian languages. Below is the list of major languages spoken in the province.
Makassarese is spoken in the southwestern part of the province, including the city of Makassar. It has a total of 2.1 million speakers.
Buginese is spoken in an area stretching from Pinrang in the northwest to Bulukumba in the southeast. This language is the predominant language used by many communities in South Sulawesi. It is natively spoken by around 5 million people as a first language, plus 500,000 as second language speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in both South Sulawesi and the island of Sulawesi.
The Tae' language is mostly spoken in Tana Luwu, the region in the northeast of the province comprising the Luwu, North Luwu, and East Luwu Regencies, together with Palopo city. It had approximately 400,000 native speakers in 2020.
The Toraja language is the native language of Tana Toraja, comprising Tana Toraja Regency and Toraja Utara Regency. It has a total of over 800,000 speakers.
Mandar, Mamuju, and Pattae' are the languages spoken by the Mandar people in the province of West Sulawesi, especially in Mamuju, Polewali Mandar, Majene, and Pasangkayu Regencies. In addition to the core in the tribal areas, they are also scattered in coastal parts of South Sulawesi. It is spoken by around 400,000 people.
The Duri language is a language spoken in the north of Mount Bambapuang, Enrekang, and into the border of Tana Toraja. There are an estimated around 130,000 native speakers. It is the prestige variety of the Massenrempulu languages.
The Konjo language is divided into two groups: the Coastal Konjo language and the Highland Konjo language. The Coastal Konjo live in coastal areas, notably the Bulukumba area, in the southeastern corner of the southern part of the island of Sulawesi. The Mountain Konjo lives in the mountains of southeastern Sulawesi, around Bawakaraeng. It has a total of almost 300,000 native speakers.
In 2010 there were 3,921,543 males and 4,111,008 females with 1,848,132 housing units, with an average of 4.34 people per unit versus the national average of 3.86. Some 13.3 percent of the population was under the national poverty line.
The Human Development Index (HDI) for South Sulawesi in 2008 reached 70.22.
Life expectancy was 69.60 in 2008.
The poor population was at 12.31 percent in 2009, amounting to 963.6 thousand persons.
There was an unemployment rate of 8.90 percent in 2009, amounting to 296,559 people.
Religion
The main religion in South Sulawesi is Islam at 89.62% (7,200,938). Other major religions include Protestantism 7.62% (612,751), Roman Catholicism 1.54% (124,255), Buddhism 0.24% (19,867), Hinduism 0.72% (58,393), and Confucianism 0.004% (367).
Economy
The Sulawesi economy grew by 7.78 percent in 2008 and grew by 6.20 percent in 2009. Economic Growth in the First Quarter of 2010 reached 7.77 percent. The GDP in 2009 (ADHK) amounted to Rp 47.31 trillion and 99.90 Trillion (ADHB).
Natural resources
As one of the national rice granaries, South Sulawesi annually produces 2,305,469 tons of rice. Of that amount, rice designated for local consumption is around 884,375 tons and 1,421,094 tons of reserves remain for distribution to other eastern areas. Rice is even exported to Malaysia, to the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. The locations of the largest rice production are in the Bone regency, in Soppeng, in Wajo, in Sidrap, in Pinrang, and Luwu (Bodowasipilu Area).
Food
In addition to corn, the South Sulawesi region also produces cassava, sweet potatoes, green beans, peanuts, and soybeans. Some luxuries such as hybrid coconuts, cocoa, coffee, pepper, vanilla, tea, cashews, and cotton are also produced. The Tata Guna Horan Agreement (TGHK) of 2004 protects a lot of the forest in South Sulawesi creating a limited output of timber-related products.
Tuna and snapper-grouper are caught in large proportions and seaweed is grown to eat. Farms also have all of the typical animals such as chickens, cows, pigs, goats, etc.
Mining
One of the factors that contributes to the high GRDP of South Sulawesi is the mining sector. Nickel, gold, magnesium, iron, granite, lead, and stone products are mined.
Transportation
Trans-Sulawesi Railway is being constructed. It will connect Makassar and Parepare. 44 km of the railway, connecting Barru to Palanro is targeted to operate in the end of 2018. The entire Makassar-Parepare railway, with a length of 150 km, will be completed in 2019.
Airports in South Sulawesi include Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport (Makassar), Palopo Lagaligo Airport (Palopo), Pongtiku Airport (Tana Toraja), and Haji Aroepala Airport (Selayar), Andi Jemma Airport (Masamba), Soroako Airport (Soroako).
Ports include Soekarno-Hatta (Makassar), Tanjung Ringgit (Palopo), Nusantara, (Pare-Pare) and Pattumbukang (Selayar).
Culture
Philosophy
Siriʼ Na Pacce (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨊ ᨄᨌᨙ) is one cultural philosophy of the Bugis-Makassar Society which must be upheld. If one is a siri' na pacce (not a person), then that person does not exceed the behavior of animals, because it has no sense of shame, self-esteem, and social concerns. The people of Bugis-Makassar teach morality in the form of advice about decency, prohibition, and the rights and obligations that dominate human action to preserve and defend himself and his honor. They have a very strong relationship with the view of Islam in terms of spirituality, where the strength of the soul can conquer the body. The core concept of siri' na pacce covers all aspects of community life and is the identity of the Bugis-Makassar.
Siriʼ Nipakasiriʼ (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨊᨗᨄᨀᨔᨗᨑᨗ) occurs when someone insulted or treated someone outside the boundaries of reasonableness. Then he or his family had to enforce siri' (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ) to restore the honour that has been deprived of, if not it would be called "mate siri' (ᨆᨈᨙ ᨔᨗᨑᨗ)" or dead status and dignity as a human being. The Bugis-Makassar would rather die than live without siri'.
Siriʼ Masiriʼ (ᨔᨗᨑᨗ ᨆᨔᨗᨑᨗ) is a way of life that intends to maintain, improve, or achieve a feat performed by earnest and hard.
Traditional costume
Baju Bodo (ᨅᨍᨘ ᨅᨚᨉᨚ)[Mks] or Waju Tokko (ᨓᨍᨘ ᨈᨚᨀᨚ)[Bug] is the traditional costume of the women. Baju Bodo is rectangular and is usually short sleeved. According to customs, every color of the clothes worn by women shows the age or the dignity of the wearer. Clothing is often used for ceremonies such as weddings. But now, Baju Bodo is worn in other events such as dance competitions or to welcome guests.
Traditional dance
The traditional dance in South Sulawesi is a combination of dance elements in the form of movement, music, lighting and fashion used by dancers. The combination tells the message about the story of the habits of the community in the past. Like there is a dance that tells about the war, an expression of community excitement and welcoming guests.
In this case, the Bugis-Makassar tribe, whose numbers dominate in representing dance styles in South Sulawesi. However, the Toraja also have many traditional dances that are ritualistic. Some Mandar tribes also inhabit this province and have their own uniqueness in the arts. The rest are tribes of Duri, Pattinjo, Maiwa, Endekan, Pattae, and Ammatoa Kajang, who also paint the distinctive art of South Sulawesi.
Traditional ship
The pinisiʼ or phinisi (ᨄᨗᨊᨗᨔᨗ) is a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing ship. It was mainly built by the Konjo tribe, a sub-ethnic group but was, and still is used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo, and fishing purposes within the Indonesian archipelago.
The hull of the ships looks similar to that of a dhow while the fore-and-aft rigging is similar to that of western schooners, although it might be more correctly termed to resemble a ketch, as the front mast is the larger.
The large mainsails differ from western style gaff rigs though, as they often do not have a boom and the sail is not lowered with the gaff. Instead it is reefed towards the mast, much like a curtain, thus allowing the gaff to be used as deck crane in the harbor. The lower part of the mast itself may resemble a tripod or is made of two poles. Pinisi may be 20 to 35 meters long and can weigh up to 350 tons. The masts may be as high as 30 meters above the deck.
Traditional houses
South Sulawesi has three types of traditional houses. The most known are the Rumah Panggung (Ballaʼ/Bola) from Bugis Makassar and the Tongkonan from Toraja.
Rumah Panggung ( Ballaʼ ᨅᨒ[Mks] / Bola ᨅᨚᨒ[Bug] ) Some of the considerations for the building of the house are should it face the sunrise, overlook a plateau, or overlook a cardinal direction.
Usually a good day or a month to build the house is determined by those who have the skill in that regard. Building the house is preceded by a ritual ceremony.
Tongkonan is the traditional ancestral house, or rumah adat of the Torajan people. Tongkonan have a distinguishing boat-shaped and oversized saddleback roof. Like most of Indonesia's Austronesian-based traditional architecture, tongkonan are built on piles. The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and it is usually built with the help of all of one's family members. In the original Toraja society, only nobles had the right to build tongkonan while commoners lived in smaller and less decorated homes called banua.
Traditional food
Rice and other crops such as bananas are abundant so almost all dishes are, like the Bugis Makassar cake, made from rice and bananas. Coastal areas of South Sulawesi eat Bolu (milkfish), Shrimp, Sunu (grouper), and Crab.
In South Sulawesi, the traditional food is diverse, ranging from soup to traditional cakes.
Traditional game
Mallogo is a traditional game similar to golf, played with a coconut shell and bamboo.
Traditional weapons
Badik (ᨅᨉᨗ)[Mks] or Kawali (ᨀᨓᨒᨗ)[Bug] A badik is a knife with a specific form developed by the Bugis and Makassar. The Badik is sharp, single or double sided, and has a length of about half a meter. Like with a kris, the blade shape is asymmetric and often decorated with prestige. However, different from the kris, the badik never had a ganja (buffer strip). Some versions from Sulawesi are decorated with inlaid gold figure on the blade called jeko. The handle is made of wood, horn or ivory in a shape of a pistol grip at a 45° to 90° angle and is often decorated with carvings. From Sulawesi, the badik soon spread to neighbouring islands like Java, Borneo, Sumatra, and as far as the Malay Peninsula, creating a wide variety of badik according to each region and ethnic group.
As with other blades in the Malay Archipelago, traditionally-made badik are believed to be imbued with a supernatural force during the time of their forging. The pamor in particular is said to affect its owner, bringing either well-being and prosperity or misfortune and poverty. Aside from being used as a weapon and hunting tool, the badik is a symbol of cultural identity in Sulawesi. The Bugis and Makassar people still carry badik as part of their daily attire. The badik is worn on the right side, with the butt end of the handle pointing to the rear.
See also
Ma'jonga
Polewali-Mamasa
References
Notes
Bibliography
Ananta, Aris; Arifin, Evi Nurvidya; Hasbullah, M Sairi; Handayani, Nur Budi; Pramono, Agus (2015). Demography of Indonesia's Ethnicity. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 978-981-4519-87-8.
Andaya, Leonard Y. (1981). The Heritage of Arung Palakka: A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. ISBN 978-9024724635.
Bulbeck, Francis David (1993). "New Perspectives on early South Sulawesi History". Baruga: Sulawesi Research Bulletin. 9. Leiden: KITLV Press: 10–18. OCLC 72765814.
Druce, Stephen C. (2009). The Lands West of the Lakes: A History of the Ajattappareng Kingdoms of South Sulawesi, 1200 to 1600 CE. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004253827.
Pelras, Christian (1996). The Bugis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 9780631172314.
Reid, Helen and Anthony (1988). South Sulawesi. Berkeley, California: Periplus Press. |
Selayar_Islands | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selayar_Islands | [
612
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selayar_Islands"
] | Selayar or Saleyer (Indonesian: Kabupaten Selayar, Dutch: Saleijer), is an archipelago of South Sulawesi province, Indonesia. It lies in the Flores Sea, between Sulawesi and Flores, around 150 km southeast of the major city of Makassar. Kabupaten Selayar is the Regency, covering 1,357 km2 with a population of about 139,145 in mid 2022. There are 73 islands, the main one being Selayar Island. To the east lies Pulau (Island) Kalaotoa and Pulau Karompa Lompo (in Sulawesi Tenggara province), and to the west lies Kepulauan Sabalana (the Sabalana Islands). It is a biodiverse diving site.
Islands
Selayar Island
Pulau Pulasi
Pulau Tambalongang
Pulau Tanahjampea
Pulau Batu
Pulau Kayuadi
Pulau Panjang
Macan Islands Islands include Latondu, Rajuni, Timabo, Pasi Tallu, and Taka Lamungan.
Pulau Kalao
Pulau Bonerate
Bahuluang
The Selayar Strait (Selat Selayar) is more than 100 fathoms deep and, with a strong current, is dangerous for native ships to navigate. The strata of Selayar Island are all sedimentary rocks: coraline limestone, occasionally sandstone; everywhere, except in the north and north-west, covered by a fertile soil. The watershed is a chain running throughout the island from N. to S., reaching in Bontona Haru 5840 ft.,\ and sloping steeply to the east coast.
People
The population, mainly a mixture of Makasars, Bugis and the natives of Luvu and Buton, is estimated in mid 2021 at 89,147 on the main island and 48,827 on the islands to the southeast of it. They speak the Makassar language and are for the most part nominally Muslims (though many non-Muslim customs survive) and support themselves by agriculture, fishing, seafaring, trade, the preparation of salt (on the south coast) and weaving. Raw and prepared cotton, tobacco, trepang, tortoise-shell, coconuts and coconut oil, and salt are exported. There is frequent movement between the area and other parts of Sulawesi as well as to other parts Indonesia. For that reason, and also because of its excellent horses and numerous water buffaloes, the Saleyar Islands are often compared with Madura, being of the same importance to Sulawesi as is Madura to Java.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Saleyer". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 67.
See also
Wonderful Selayar - Tourism ' |
Makassarese_language | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassarese_language | [
612
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassarese_language"
] | Makassarese (basa Mangkasaraʼ, pronounced [basa maŋˈkasaraʔ]), sometimes called Makasar, Makassar, or Macassar, is a language of the Makassarese people, spoken in South Sulawesi province of Indonesia. It is a member of the South Sulawesi group of the Austronesian language family, and thus closely related to, among others, Buginese, also known as Bugis. The areas where Makassarese is spoken include the Gowa, Sinjai, Maros, Takalar, Jeneponto, Bantaeng, Pangkajene and Islands, Bulukumba, and Selayar Islands Regencies, and Makassar. Within the Austronesian language family, Makassarese is part of the South Sulawesi language group, although its vocabulary is considered divergent compared to its closest relatives. In 2000, Makassarese had approximately 2.1 million native speakers.
Classification
Makassarese is an Austronesian language from the South Sulawesi branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subfamily, specifically the Makassaric group, which also includes the Konjo language (both Highland and Coastal varieties) and the Selayar language. The Konjo and Selayar language varieties are sometimes considered dialects of Makassarese. As part of the South Sulawesi language family, Makassarese is also closely related to the Bugis, Mandar, and Toraja-Saʼdan languages.
In terms of vocabulary, Makassarese is considered the most distinct among the South Sulawesi languages. The average percentage of vocabulary similarity between Makassarese and other South Sulawesi languages is only 43%. Specifically, the Gowa or Lakiung dialect is the most divergent; the vocabulary similarity of this dialect with other South Sulawesi languages is about 5–10 percentage points lower compared to the vocabulary similarity of Konjo and Selayar with other South Sulawesi languages. However, etymostatistical analysis and functor statistics conducted by linguist Ülo Sirk shows a higher vocabulary similarity percentage (≥ 60%) between Makassarese and other South Sulawesi languages. These quantitative findings support qualitative analyses that place Makassarese as part of the South Sulawesi language family.
Dialect
The language varieties within the Makassaric group form a dialect continuum. A language survey in South Sulawesi conducted by linguists and anthropologists Charles and Barbara Grimes separated the Konjo and Selayar languages from Makassarese. Meanwhile, a subsequent survey by linguists Timothy Friberg and Thomas Laskowske divided the Konjo language into three varieties: Coastal Konjo, Highland Konjo, and Bentong/Dentong. However, in a book on Makassarese grammar published by the Center for Language Development and Cultivation, local linguist Abdul Kadir Manyambeang and his team include the Konjo and Selayar varieties as dialects of Makassarese.
Excluding the Konjo and Selayar varieties, Makassarese can be divided into at least three dialects: the Gowa or Lakiung dialect, the Jeneponto or Turatea dialect, and the Bantaeng dialect. The main differences among these varieties within the Makassar group lie in vocabulary; their grammatical structures are generally quite similar. Speakers of the Gowa dialect tend to switch to Indonesian when communicating with speakers of the Bantaeng dialect or with speakers of the Konjo and Selayar languages, and vice versa. The Gowa dialect is generally considered the prestige variety of Makassarese. As the dialect spoken in the central region, the Gowa dialect is also commonly used by speakers of other varieties within the Makassaric group.
Distribution
According to a demographic study based on the 2010 census data, about 1.87 million Indonesians over the age of five speak Makassarese as their mother tongue. Nationally, Makassarese ranks 16th among the 20 languages with the most speakers. Makassar is also the second most-spoken language in Sulawesi after Bugis, which has over 3.5 million speakers.
The Makassarese language is primarily spoken by the Makassar people, although a small percentage (1.89%) of the Bugis people also use it as their mother tongue. Makassarese speakers are concentrated in the southwestern peninsula of South Sulawesi, particularly in the fertile coastal areas around Makassar, Gowa Regency, and Takalar Regency. The language is also spoken by some residents of Maros Regency and Pangkajene and Islands Regency to the north, alongside Bugis. Residents of Jeneponto and Bantaeng Regencies generally identify themselves as part of the Makassarese-speaking community, although the varieties they speak (the Jeneponto or Turatea dialect and the Bantaeng dialect) differ significantly from the dialects used in Gowa and Takalar. The closely-related Konjo language is spoken in the mountainous areas of Gowa and along the coast of Bulukumba Regency, while the Selayar language is spoken on Selayar Island, to the south of the peninsula.
Due to Makassarese contact with Aboriginal peoples in Northern Australia, a pidgin of Makassarese was used as lingua franca across the region between different Aboriginal groups, though its use declined starting in the early 20th century due to Australian restrictions against Makassarese fishermen in the region and was supplanted by English as a lingua franca.
Current status
Makassarese is one of the relatively well-developed regional languages in Indonesia. It is still widely used in rural areas and parts of Makassar. Makassarese is also considered important as a marker of ethnic identity. However, in urban communities, code-switching or code-mixing between Makassar and Indonesian is common. Some urban Makassar residents, especially those from the middle class or with multiethnic backgrounds, also use Indonesian as the primary language in their households. Ethnologue classifies Makassar as a 6b (Threatened) language on the EGIDS scale, indicating that although the language is still commonly used in face-to-face conversations, the natural intergenerational transmission or teaching of the language is beginning to be disrupted.
Phonology
The following description of Makassarese phonology is based on Jukes (2005).
Vowels
Makassarese has five vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. The mid vowels are lowered to [ɛ] and [ɔ] in absolute final position and in the vowel sequences /ea/ and /oa/.
The vowel phoneme /e/ tends to be realized as the open-mid vowel [ɛ] when it is at the end of a word or before a syllable containing the sound [ɛ]. Compare, for instance, the pronunciation of /e/ in the word leʼbaʼ [ˈleʔ.baʔ] 'already' with mange [ˈma.ŋɛ] 'go to'. The phoneme /o/ also has an open-mid allophone [ɔ] when it is at the end of a word or precedes a syllable containing the sound [ɔ], as seen in the word lompo [ˈlɔ̃m.pɔ] 'big' (compare with órasaʼ [ˈo.ra.saʔ] 'heavy'). Regardless of their position within a word, some speakers tend to pronounce these two vowels with a higher (closer) tongue position, making their pronunciation approach that of the phonemes /i/ and /u/.
Vowels can be pronounced nasally when they are around nasal consonants within the same syllable. There are two levels of nasalization intensity for vowels: strong nasalization and weak nasalization. Weak nasalization can be found on vowels before nasal consonants that are not at the end of a word. Strong nasalization can be found on vowels before final nasal consonants or generally after nasal consonants. Nasalization can spread to vowels in syllables after nasal vowels if there are no consonants blocking it. However, the intensity of nasalization in vowels like this is not as strong as in the vowels before them, as in the pronunciation of the word niaʼ [ni͌.ãʔ] 'there is'.
Consonants
There are 17 consonants in Makassarese, as outlined in the following table.
Makassarese consonants except the glottal stop and voiced plosives can be geminated. Some instances of these might result from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian schwa phoneme *ə (now merged into a), which geminated the following consonant (*bəli > *bəlli > balli 'to buy, price' (compare Indonesian beli), contrasting with bali 'to oppose').
The phoneme /t/ is the only consonant with a dental pronunciation, unlike the phonemes /n d s l r/, which are alveolar consonants. The voiceless plosive phonemes /p t k/ are generally pronounced with slight aspiration (a flow of air), as in the words katte [ˈkat̪.t̪ʰɛ] 'we', lampa [ˈlam.pʰa] 'go', and kana [ˈkʰa.nã] 'say'. The phonemes /b/ and /d/ have implosive allophones [ɓ] and [ɗ], especially in word-initial positions, such as in balu [ˈɓa.lu] 'widow', and after the sound [ʔ], as in aʼdoleng [aʔ.ˈɗo.lẽŋ] 'to let hang'. These two consonants, especially /b/ in word-initial positions, can also be realized as voiceless consonants without aspiration. The palatal phoneme /c/ can be realized as an affricate (a stop sound with a release of fricative) [cç] or even [tʃ]. The phoneme /ɟ/ can also be pronounced as an affricate [ɟʝ]. Jukes analyzes both of these consonants as stop consonants because they have palatal nasal counterparts /ɲ/, just as other oral stop consonants have their own nasal counterparts.
Phonotactics
The basic structure of syllables in Makassarese is (C1)V(C2). The position of C1 can be filled by almost any consonant, while the position of C2 has some limitations. In syllables located at the end of a morpheme, C2 can be filled by a stop (T) or a nasal (N), the pronunciation of which is determined by assimilation rules. The sound T assimilates with (is pronounced the same as) voiceless consonants except [h], and is realized as [ʔ] in other contexts. The sound N is realized as a homorganic nasal (pronounced at the same articulation place) before a stop or nasal consonant, assimilates with the consonant's /l/ and /s/, and is realized as [ŋ] in other contexts. On the other hand, in syllables within root forms, Makassarese contrasts an additional sound in the C2 position besides K and N, which is /r/. This analysis is based on the fact that Makassarese distinguishes between the sequences [nr], [ʔr], and [rr] across syllables. However, [rr] can also be considered as the realization of a geminate segment rather than a sequence across syllables.
The sounds /s l r/ can be categorized as non-nasal continuous (sounds produced without fully obstructing the flow of air through the mouth) consonants, and none of them can occupy the final position of a syllable except as part of a geminate consonant sequence. Basic words that actually end with these consonants will be appended with an epenthetic vowel identical to the vowel in the preceding syllable, and closed with a glottal stop [ʔ], as in the words ótereʼ /oter/ 'rope', bótoloʼ /botol/ 'bottle', and rántasaʼ /rantas/ 'mess, untidy'. This additional element is also referred to as the "VC-geminate" (echo-VC) sequence, and it can affect the position of stress within a word.
Generally, base words in Makassarese consist of two or three syllables. However, longer words can be formed due to the agglutinative nature of Makassarese and the highly productive reduplication process. According to Jukes, words with six or seven syllables are commonly found in Makassarese, while base words with just one syllable (that are not borrowed from other languages) are very rare, although there are some interjections and particles consisting of only one syllable.
All consonants except for /ʔ/ can appear in initial position. In final position, only /ŋ/ and /ʔ/ are found.
Consonant clusters only occur medially and (with one exception) can be analyzed as clusters of /ŋ/ or /ʔ/ + consonant. These clusters also arise through sandhi across morpheme boundaries.
The geminate cluster /rr/ is only found in root-internal position and cannot be accounted for by the above rules.
Sequences of like vowels are contracted to a single vowel; e.g., sassa 'to wash' + -ang 'nominalizing suffix' > sassáng 'laundry', caʼdi 'small' + -i 'third person' > caʼdi 'it is small'.
Stress
The stress is generally placed on the penultimate (second-last) syllable of a base word. In reduplicated words, secondary stress will be placed on the first element, as in the word ammèkang-mékang /amˌmekaŋˈmekaŋ/ 'to fish (casually)'. Suffixes are generally counted as part of the phonological unit receiving stress, while enclitics are not counted (extrametrical). For example, the word gássing 'strong', if the benefactive suffix -ang is added, becomes gassíngang 'stronger than' with stress on the penultimate syllable, but if given the first-person marker enclitic =aʼ, it becomes gássingaʼ 'I am strong', with stress on the antepenultimate syllable (third-last).
Other morphemes counted as part of the stress-bearing unit include the affixal clitic, marking possession, as in the word tedóng=ku (buffalo=1.POSS) 'my buffalo'. Particularly for the definite marker ≡a, this morpheme is counted as part of the stress-bearing unit only if the base word it attaches to ends in a vowel, as in the word batúa 'the stone'—compare with the stress pattern in kóngkonga 'the dog', where the base word ends in a consonant. A word can have stress on the preantepenultimate (fourth-last) syllable if a two-syllable enclitic combination such as =mako (PFV =ma, 2 =ko) is appended; e.g., náiʼmako 'go up!' The stress position can also be influenced by the process of vocalic degemination, where identical vowels across morphemes merge into one. For example, the word jappa 'walk', when the suffix -ang is added, becomes jappáng 'to walk with', with stress on the ultimate (last) syllable.
The stress on base words with VC-geminate always falls on the antepenultimate syllable; for example, lápisiʼ 'layer', bótoloʼ 'bottle', pásaraʼ 'market', and Mangkásaraʼ 'Makassar', because syllables with VK-geminate are extrametrical. However, the addition of suffixes -ang and -i will remove this epenthetic syllable and move the stress to the penultimate position, as in the word lapísi 'to layer'. Adding the possessive clitic suffix also shifts the stress to the penultimate position but does not remove this epenthetic syllable, as in the word botolóʼna 'its bottle'. Meanwhile, the addition of the definite marker and enclitics neither remove nor alter the stress position of this syllable, as in the words pásaraka 'that market' and appásarakaʼ 'I'm going to the market'.
Grammar
Pronouns
Personal pronouns in the Makassar language have three forms, namely:
free forms;
proclitics that cross-reference S and P arguments ('absolutive');
and enclitics that cross-reference A arguments ('ergative').
The following table shows these three forms of pronouns along with possessive markers for each series.
The first person plural inclusive pronouns are also used to refer to the second person plural and serve as a form of respect for the second person singular. The first person plural pronoun series ku= is commonly used to refer to the first person plural in modern Makassar; pronouns kambe and possessive marker =mang are considered archaic, while the enclitic =kang can only appear in combination with clitic markers of modality and aspect, such as =pakang (IPFV =pa, 1PL.EXCL =kang). The plural meaning can be expressed more clearly by adding the word ngaseng 'all' after the free form, as in ia–ngaseng 'they all' and ikau–ngaseng 'you all', or before the enclitic, as in ngaseng=i 'they all'. However, ngaseng cannot be paired with proclitics.
Proclitic and enclitic forms are the most common pronominal forms used to refer to the person or object being addressed (see the #Basic Clauses section for examples of their use). Free forms are less frequently used; their use is generally limited to presentative clauses (clauses that state or introduce something, see example 1), for emphasis (2), in prepositional phrases functioning as arguments or adjuncts (3), and as predicates (4).
Nouns and noun phrases
Characteristics and types of nouns
Nouns in Makassarese are a class of words that can function as arguments for a predicate, allowing them to be cross-referenced by pronominal clitics. Nouns can also serve as the head of a noun phrase (including relative clauses). In possessive constructions, nouns can act as either the possessor or the possessed; an affixal clitic will be attached to the possessed noun phrase. The indefiniteness of a noun can be expressed by the affixal clitic ≡a. Uninflected nouns can also function as predicates in a sentence. All of these main points are illustrated in the following example:
In addition, nouns can also be specified by demonstratives, modified by adjectives, quantified by numerals, become complements in prepositional phrases, and become verbs meaning 'wear/use [the noun in question]' when affixed with the prefix aK-.
Nouns that are usually affixed with the definite clitic ≡a and possessive markers are common nouns. On the other hand, proper nouns such as place names, personal names, and titles (excluding kinship terms) are usually not affixed with definiteness and possessive markers but can be paired with the personal prefix i- like pronouns.
Some common nouns are generic nouns that often become the core of a compound word, such as the words jeʼneʼ 'water', tai 'excrement', and anaʼ 'child'. Examples of compound words derived from these generic nouns are jeʼneʼ inung 'drinking water', tai bani 'wax, beeswax' (literal meaning: 'bee excrement'), and anaʼ baine 'daughter'. Kinship terms that are commonly used as greetings are also classified as common nouns, such as the words mangge 'father', anrong 'mother', and sariʼbattang 'sibling'. Another example is the word daeng which is used as a polite greeting in general, or by a wife to her husband.
The other main noun group is temporal nouns, which usually appear after prepositions in adjunct constructions to express time. Examples of temporal nouns are clock times (such as tetteʼ lima '5.00 [five o'clock]'), estimated times based on divisions of the day (such as bariʼbasaʼ 'morning'), days of the week, as well as dates, months, and seasons.
Derived noun
Derived nouns in Makassarese are formed through several productive morphological processes, such as reduplication and affixation with pa-, ka-, and -ang, either individually or in combination. The following table illustrates some common noun formation processes in Makassarese:
There are some exceptions to the general patterns described above. For example, reduplication of the word oloʼ 'worm' to oloʼ-oloʼ results in a broadening of meaning to 'animal'. The affixation of pa- to a verb base does not always indicate an instrument or tool, for example paʼmaiʼ 'breath, character, heart' (as in the phrase lompo paʼmaiʼ 'big-hearted') which is derived from the word aʼmaiʼ 'to breathe'. The affixation of pa>...<ang to the verb base ammanaʼ 'to give birth' results in the word pammanakang meaning 'family', although it is possible that this word was originally a metaphor ('place to have children').
Noun phrase
The components of noun phrases in the Makassarese can be categorized into three groups, namely 1) head, 2) specifier, and 3) modifier.
Modifying elements always follow the head noun-they may be of various types:
modifying nouns, such as bawi romang 'wild boar' (lit. pig forest)
adjectives, such as jukuʼ lompo 'big fish'
modifying verbs, such as kappalaʼ anriʼbaʼ 'airplane' (lit. flying ship)
possesors, such as tedonna i Ali 'Ali's buffalo'
relative clauses
In Makassarese, relative clauses are placed directly after the head noun without any special marker (unlike Indonesian, which requires a word like 'yang' before the relative clause). The verb within the relative clause is marked with the definite marker ≡a.
Verb
Basic clause
Intransitive clauses
In Makassarese intransitive clauses, the 'absolutive' enclitic (=ABS) is used to cross-reference the sole argument in the clause (S) if that argument is definite or salient according to the conversational context. This enclitic tends to be attached to the first constituent in a clause. The aK- prefix is commonly used to form intransitive verbs, although some verbs like tinro 'sleep' do not require this prefix.
Many other types of phrases may head intransitive clauses, for example nominals (13) and pronoun (example (4) above), adjectives (14), or a prepositional phrase (15):
Transitive clauses
Verbs in transitive clauses are not affixed, but instead are marked with a pronominal proclitic indicating the A or actor and a pronominal enclitic indicating the P or undergoer.
Writing systems
Although Makassarese is now often written in Latin script, Makassarese has been traditionally written with Lontara script and Makasar script, which once was used also to write important documents in Bugis and Mandar, two related languages from Sulawesi. Further, Makassarese was written in the Serang script, a variant of the Arabic-derived Jawi script. Texts written in the Serang script are relatively rare, and mostly appear in connection with Islam-related topics. Parts of the Makassar Annals, the chronicles of the Gowa and Tallo' kingdoms, were also written using the Serang script.
Latin based system
The current Latin-based forms:
Old Makassar and Lontara script
Makassarese was historically written using Makasar script (also known as "Old Makassarese" or "Makassarese bird script" in English-language scholarly works).
In Makassarese the script is known as ukiriʼ jangang-jangang or huruf jangang-jangang ('bird letters'). It was used for official purposes in the kingdoms of Makasar in the 17th century but ceased to be used by the 19th century, being replaced by Lontara script.
In spite of their quite distinctive appearance, both the Makasar and Lontara scripts are derived from the ancient Brahmi script of India. Like other descendants of that script, each consonant has an inherent vowel "a", which is not marked. Other vowels can be indicated by adding diacritics above, below, or on either side of each consonant.
Ambiguity
Both scripts do not have a virama or other ways to write syllable codas in a consistent manner, even though codas occur regularly in Makassar. For example, in Makassar is baba ᨅᨅ which can correspond to six possible words: baba, babaʼ, baʼba, baʼbaʼ, bamba, and bambang.
Given that Lontara script is also traditionally written without word breaks, a typical text often has many ambiguous portions which can often only be disambiguated through context. This ambiguity is analogous to the use of Arabic letters without vowel markers; readers whose native language use Arabic characters intuitively understand which vowels are appropriate in a given sentence so that vowel markers are not needed in standard everyday texts.
Even so, sometimes even context is not sufficient. In order to read a text fluently, readers may need substantial prior knowledge of the language and contents of the text in question. As an illustration, Cummings and Jukes provide the following example to illustrate how the Lontara script can produce different meanings depending on how the reader cuts and fills in the ambiguous part:
Without knowing the actual event to which the text may be referring, it can be impossible for first time readers to determine the "correct" reading of the above examples. Even the most proficient readers may need to pause and re-interpret what they have read as new context is revealed in later portions of the same text. Due to this ambiguity, some writers such as Noorduyn labelled Lontara as a defective script.
Serang script
After Islam arrived in 1605, and with Malay traders using the Arabic-based Jawi script, Makassarese could also be written using Arabic letters. This was called 'serang' and was better at capturing the spoken language than the original Makassarese scripts because it could show consonants at the ends of syllables. But it wasn't widely used, with only a few surviving manuscripts. One key example is the diary of the Gowa and Tallo' courts, translated from serang into Dutch. However, Arabic script is commonly found in manuscripts to write Islamic names, dates, and religious ideas
Sample text
Some common words and phrases in the Makassarese language, transcribed in the Latin script, are as follows (⟨ʼ⟩ represents the glottal stop).
See also
Makassan contact with Australia
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Lontara Alphabet in Unicode |
Grover_Cleveland | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland | [
613
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland#:~:text=Stephen%20Grover%20Cleveland%20(March%2018,serve%20non%2Dconsecutive%20presidential%20terms."
] | Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War and was one of two Democratic presidents, followed by Woodrow Wilson, in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1869 and 1933. Cleveland won the popular vote in three presidential elections—1884, 1888, and 1892—and is the only U.S. president to serve non-consecutive presidential terms.
Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention. He led the Bourbon Democrats, a pro-business movement opposed to high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to businesses, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the time. Cleveland also won praise for honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. His fight against political corruption, patronage, and bossism convinced many like-minded Republicans, called "Mugwumps", to cross party lines and support him in the 1884 election. After losing the 1888 election to Harrison, he moved to New York City and joined a law firm. The 1892 election restored him to the White House. As his second administration began, the Panic of 1893 sparked a severe national depression. Many voters blamed the Democrats, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896. An anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed the push to annex Hawaii, launched an investigation into the 1893 coup against Queen Liliʻuokalani, and called for her to be restored.
Cleveland was a formidable policymaker, but also garnered criticism. He intervened in the 1894 Pullman Strike to keep the railroads moving, angering Illinois Democrats and labor unions nationwide; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. Even so, his reputation for probity and good character survived the troubles of his second term. Biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "[I]n Grover Cleveland, the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not." By the end of his second term, he was severely unpopular, even among Democrats.
After leaving the White House, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University. He continued to voice his political views, but fell seriously ill in 1907, dying in 1908. Today, Cleveland is praised for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals, defying party boundaries, and effective leadership and is typically ranked in the middle to upper tier of U.S. presidents.
Early life
Childhood and family history
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, to Ann (née Neal) and Richard Falley Cleveland. Cleveland's father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister who was originally from Connecticut. His mother was from Baltimore and was the daughter of a bookseller. On his father's side, Cleveland was descended from English ancestors, the first of the family having emigrated to Massachusetts from Cleveland, England, in 1635.
His father's maternal grandfather, Richard Falley Jr., fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey. On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia. Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named.
Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time. He became known as Grover in his adult life. In 1841, the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, where Grover spent much of his childhood. Neighbors later described him as "full of fun and inclined to play pranks", and fond of outdoor sports.
In 1850, Cleveland's father Richard moved his family to Clinton, New York, accepting a job there as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society. Despite his father's dedication to his missionary work, his income was insufficient for the large family. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville. The experience was valuable and brief, and the living conditions quite austere. Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract. In 1853, missionary work began to take a toll on Richard's health. He took a new work assignment in Holland Patent, New York (near Utica) and moved his family once again. Shortly after, Richard Cleveland died from a gastric ulcer. Grover was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers.
Education and moving west
Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Grammar School (not the Clinton Liberal Institute). After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family. Later that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher. Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854, where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he promised to become a minister. Cleveland declined, and in 1855 he decided to move west.
He stopped first in Buffalo, New York, where his uncle-in-law Lewis F. Allen, gave him a clerical job. Allen was an important man in Buffalo, and he introduced his nephew-in-law to influential men there, including the partners in the law firm of Rogers, Bowen, and Rogers. Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, had previously worked for the partnership. Cleveland later took a clerkship with the firm, began to read the law with them, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1859.
Early career and the Civil War
Cleveland worked for the Rogers firm for three years before leaving in 1862 to start his own practice. In January 1863, he was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County. With the American Civil War raging, Congress passed the Conscription Act of 1863, requiring able-bodied men to serve in the army if called upon, or else to hire a substitute. Cleveland chose the latter course, paying $150, equivalent to $3,712 in 2023, to George Benninsky, a thirty-two-year-old Polish immigrant, to serve in his place. Benninsky survived the war.
As a lawyer, Cleveland became known for his single-minded concentration and dedication to hard work. In 1866, he successfully defended some participants in the Fenian raid, working on a pro bono basis (free of charge). In 1868, Cleveland attracted professional attention for his winning defense of a libel suit against the editor of Buffalo's Commercial Advertiser. During this time, Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity, taking residence in a plain boarding house. He devoted his growing income to the support of his mother and younger sisters. While his personal quarters were austere, Cleveland enjoyed an active social life and "the easy-going sociability of hotel-lobbies and saloons". He shunned the circles of higher society of Buffalo in which his uncle-in-law's family traveled.
Political career in New York
Sheriff of Erie County
From his earliest involvement in politics, Cleveland aligned with the Democratic Party. He had a decided aversion to Republicans John Fremont and Abraham Lincoln, and the heads of the Rogers law firm were solid Democrats. In 1865, he ran for District Attorney, losing narrowly to his friend and roommate, Lyman K. Bass, the Republican nominee.
In 1870, with the help of friend Oscar Folsom, Cleveland secured the Democratic nomination for sheriff of Erie County, New York. He won the election by a 303-vote margin and took office on January 1, 1871, at age 33. While this new career took him away from the practice of law, it was rewarding in other ways: the fees were said to yield up to $40,000, equivalent to $1,017,333 in 2023, over the two-year term.
Cleveland's service as sheriff was unremarkable. Biographer Rexford Tugwell described the time in office as a waste for Cleveland politically. Cleveland was aware of graft in the sheriff's office during his tenure and chose not to confront it. A notable incident of his term took place on September 6, 1872, when Patrick Morrissey was executed. He had been convicted of murdering his mother. As sheriff, Cleveland was responsible for either personally carrying out the execution or paying a deputy $10 to perform the task. In spite of reservations about the hanging, Cleveland executed Morrissey himself. He hanged another murderer, John Gaffney, on February 14, 1873.
After his term as sheriff ended, Cleveland returned to his law practice, opening a firm with his friends Lyman K. Bass and Wilson S. Bissell. Bass was later replaced by George J. Sicard. Elected to Congress in 1872, Bass did not spend much time at the firm, but Cleveland and Bissell soon rose to the top of Buffalo's legal community. Up to that point, Cleveland's political career had been honorable and unexceptional. As biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "Probably no man in the country, on March 4, 1881, had less thought than this limited, simple, sturdy attorney of Buffalo that four years later he would be standing in Washington and taking the oath as President of the United States."
It was during this period that Cleveland began courting a widow, Maria Halpin. She later accused him of raping her. It is unclear if Halpin was actually raped by Cleveland as some early reports stated or if their relationship was consensual. In March 1876, Cleveland accused Halpin of being an alcoholic and had her child removed from her custody. The child was taken to the Protestant Orphan Asylum, and Cleveland paid for his stay there. Cleveland had Halpin admitted to the Providence Asylum. Halpin was only kept at the asylum for five days because she was deemed to not be insane. Cleveland later provided financial support for her to begin her own business outside of Buffalo. Although lacking irrefutable evidence that Cleveland was the father, the illegitimate child became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in Cleveland's first presidential campaign, where they smeared him by claiming that he was "immoral" and for allegedly acting cruelly by not raising the child himself.
Mayor of Buffalo
In the 1870s, the municipal government in Buffalo had grown increasingly corrupt, with Democratic and Republican political machines cooperating to share the spoils of political office. When the Republicans nominated a slate of particularly disreputable machine politicians for the 1881 election, Democrats saw an opportunity to gain the votes of disaffected Republicans by nominating a more honest candidate. Party leaders approached Cleveland, who agreed to run for Mayor of Buffalo provided the party's slate of candidates for other offices was to his liking. More notorious politicians were left off the Democratic ticket and he accepted the nomination. Cleveland was elected mayor that November with 15,120 votes, while his Republican opponent Milton Earl Beebe received 11,528 votes. He took office on January 2, 1882.
Cleveland's term as mayor was spent fighting the entrenched interests of the party machines. Among the acts that established his reputation was a veto of the street-cleaning bill passed by the Common Council. The street-cleaning contract had been the subject of competitive bidding, and the Council selected the highest bidder at $422,000, rather than the lowest at $100,000 less, because of the political connections of the bidder. While this sort of bipartisan graft had previously been tolerated in Buffalo, Mayor Cleveland would have none of it. His veto message said, "I regard it as the culmination of a most bare-faced, impudent, and shameless scheme to betray the interests of the people, and to worse than squander the public money." The Council reversed itself and awarded the contract to the lowest bidder. Cleveland also asked the state legislature to form a Commission to develop a plan to improve the sewer system in Buffalo at a much lower cost than previously proposed locally; this plan was successfully adopted. For this, and other actions safeguarding public funds, Cleveland began to gain a reputation beyond Erie County as a leader willing to purge government corruption.
Governor of New York
New York Democratic party officials started to consider Cleveland a possible nominee for governor. Daniel Manning, a party insider who admired Cleveland's record, was instrumental in his candidacy. With a split in the state Republican party in 1882, the Democratic party was considered to be at an advantage; several men contended for that party's nomination. The two leading Democratic candidates were Roswell P. Flower and Henry W. Slocum. Their factions deadlocked and the convention could not agree on a nominee. Cleveland, who came in third place on the first ballot, picked up support in subsequent votes and emerged as the compromise choice. With Republicans still divided heading into the general election, Cleveland emerged the victor, receiving 535,318 votes to Republican nominee Charles J. Folger's 342,464. Cleveland's margin of victory was, at the time, the largest in a contested New York election. The Democrats also picked up seats in both houses of the New York State Legislature.
Cleveland brought his opposition to needless spending to the governor's office. He promptly sent the legislature eight vetoes in his first two months in office. The first to attract attention was his veto of a bill to reduce the fares on New York City elevated trains to five cents. The bill had broad support because the trains' owner, Jay Gould, was unpopular, and his fare increases were widely denounced. Cleveland saw the bill as unjust—Gould had taken over the railroads when they were failing and had made the system solvent again. Cleveland believed that altering Gould's franchise would violate the Contract Clause of the federal Constitution. Despite the initial popularity of the fare-reduction bill, the newspapers praised Cleveland's veto. Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of the Assembly, had reluctantly voted for the bill with the intention of holding railroad barons accountable. After the veto, Roosevelt and other legislators reversed their position, and Cleveland's veto was sustained.
Cleveland's defiance of political corruption won him popular acclaim. Yet it also brought the enmity of New York City's influential Tammany Hall organization and its boss, John Kelly. Tammany Hall and Kelly had disapproved of Cleveland's nomination for governor, and their resistance intensified after Cleveland openly opposed and prevented the re-election of Thomas F. Grady, their point man in the State Senate. Cleveland also steadfastly opposed other Tammany nominees, as well as bills passed as a result of their deal-making. The loss of Tammany's support was offset by the support of Theodore Roosevelt and other reform-minded Republicans, who helped Cleveland pass several laws to reform municipal governments. Cleveland closely worked with Roosevelt, who served as assembly minority leader in 1883; the municipal legislation they cooperated on gained Cleveland national recognition.
Election of 1884
Nomination for president
In June 1884, the Republican Party convened their national convention in Chicago, selecting former U.S. House Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine as their nominee for president. Blaine's nomination alienated many Republicans, including the Mugwumps, who viewed Blaine as ambitious and immoral. The Republican standard-bearer was further weakened when the Conkling faction and President Chester Arthur refused to give Blaine their strong support. Democratic party leaders believed the Republicans' choice gave them an opportunity to win the White House for the first time since 1856 if the right candidate could be found.
Among the Democrats, Samuel J. Tilden was the initial front-runner, having been the party's nominee in the contested election of 1876. After Tilden declined a nomination due to his poor health, his supporters shifted to several other contenders. Cleveland was among the leaders in early support, and Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa, and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts also had considerable followings, along with various favorite sons. Each of the other candidates had hindrances to his nomination: Bayard had spoken in favor of secession in 1861, making him unacceptable to Northerners; Butler, conversely, was reviled throughout the Southern United States for his actions during the Civil War; Thurman was generally well-liked, but was growing old and infirm, and his views on the silver question were uncertain.
Cleveland, too, had detractors—Tammany remained opposed to him—but the nature of his enemies made him still more friends. Cleveland led on the first ballot, with 392 votes out of 820. On the second ballot, Tammany threw its support behind Butler, but the rest of the delegates shifted to Cleveland, who won. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana was selected as his running mate.
Campaign against Blaine
Corruption in politics was the central issue in 1884; Blaine had over the span of his career been involved in several questionable deals. Cleveland's reputation as an opponent of corruption proved the Democrats' strongest asset. William C. Hudson created Cleveland's contextual campaign slogan "A public office is a public trust." Reform-minded Republicans called "Mugwumps" denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland. The Mugwumps, including such men as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, were more concerned with morality than with party, and felt Cleveland was a kindred soul who would promote civil service reform and fight for efficiency in government. At the same time that the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps, they lost some blue-collar workers to the Greenback-Labor party, led by ex-Democrat Benjamin Butler. In general, Cleveland abided by the precedent of minimizing presidential campaign travel and speechmaking; Blaine became one of the first to break with that tradition.
The campaign focused on the candidates' moral standards, as each side cast aspersions on their opponents. Cleveland's supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad and the Union Pacific Railway, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies. Although the stories of Blaine's favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time Blaine's correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible. On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written "Burn this letter", giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, 'Burn this letter!'"Regarding Cleveland, commentator Jeff Jacoby notes that, "Not since George Washington had a candidate for President been so renowned for his rectitude." But the Republicans found a refutation buried in Cleveland's past. Aided by the sermons of Reverend George H. Ball, a minister from Buffalo, they made public the allegation that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer there, and their rallies soon included the chant "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?". When confronted with the scandal, Cleveland immediately instructed his supporters to "Above all, tell the truth." Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who asserted he had fathered her son Oscar Folsom Cleveland and he assumed responsibility. Shortly before the 1884 election, the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland, her "life was pure and spotless", and "there is not, and never was, a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland, or his friends, to couple the name of Oscar Folsom, or any one else, with that boy, for that purpose is simply infamous and false."
The electoral votes of closely contested New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut would determine the election. In New York, the Tammany Democrats decided that they would gain more from supporting a Democrat they disliked than a Republican who would do nothing for them. Blaine hoped that he would have more support from Irish Americans than Republicans typically did; while the Irish were mainly a Democratic constituency in the 19th century, Blaine's mother was Irish Catholic, and he had been supportive of the Irish National Land League while he was Secretary of State. The Irish, a significant group in three of the swing states, did appear inclined to support Blaine until a Republican, Samuel D. Burchard, gave a speech pivotal for the Democrats, denouncing them as the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion". The Democrats spread the word of this implied anti-Catholic insult on the eve of the election. They also blistered Blaine for attending a banquet with some of New York City's wealthiest men.
After the votes were counted, Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states, including New York by 1,200 votes. While the popular vote total was close, with Cleveland winning by just one-quarter of a percent, the electoral votes gave Cleveland a majority of 219–182. Following the electoral victory, the "Ma, Ma ..." attack phrase gained a classic riposte: "Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
First presidency (1885–1889)
Reform
Soon after taking office, Cleveland was faced with the task of filling all the government jobs for which the president had the power of appointment. These jobs were typically filled under the spoils system, but Cleveland announced that he would not fire any Republican who was doing his job well, and would not appoint anyone solely on the basis of party service. He also used his appointment powers to reduce the number of federal employees, as many departments had become bloated with political time-servers. Later in his term, as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the spoils, Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats; this was especially the case with policymaking positions. While some of his decisions were influenced by party concerns, more of Cleveland's appointments were decided by merit alone than was the case in his predecessors' administrations.
Cleveland also reformed other parts of the government. In 1887, he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission. He and Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney undertook to modernize the Navy and canceled construction contracts that had resulted in inferior ships. Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of Western lands they held by government grant. Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements. The lands were forfeited, resulting in the return of approximately 81,000,000 acres (330,000 km2).
Cleveland was the first Democratic president subject to the Tenure of Office Act which originated in 1867; the act purported to require the Senate to approve the dismissal of any presidential appointee who was originally subject to its advice and consent. Cleveland objected to the act in principle and his steadfast refusal to abide by it prompted its fall into disfavor and led to its ultimate repeal in 1887.
Vetoes
As Congress and its Republican-led Senate sent Cleveland legislation he opposed, he often resorted to using his veto power. He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pensions requests had already been rejected by the Pension Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that. In his first term alone, Cleveland used the veto 414 times, which was more than four times more often than any previous president had used it. In 1887, Cleveland issued his most well-known veto, that of the Texas Seed Bill. After a drought had ruined crops in several Texas counties, Congress appropriated $100,000 (equivalent to $3,391,111 in 2023) to purchase seed grain for farmers there. Cleveland vetoed the expenditure. In his veto message, he espoused a theory of limited government:
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
Silver
One of the most volatile issues of the 1880s was whether the currency should be backed by gold and silver, or by gold alone. The issue cut across party lines, with Western Republicans and Southern Democrats joining in the call for the free coinage of silver, and both parties' representatives in the northeast holding firm for the gold standard. Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold, taxpayers paid their government bills in silver, while international creditors demanded payment in gold, resulting in a depletion of the nation's gold supply.
Cleveland and Treasury Secretary Daniel Manning stood firmly on the side of the gold standard, and tried to reduce the amount of silver that the government was required to coin under the Bland–Allison Act of 1878. Cleveland unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to repeal this law before he was inaugurated. Angered Westerners and Southerners advocated for cheap money to help their poorer constituents. In reply, one of the foremost silverites, Richard P. Bland, introduced a bill in 1886 that would require the government to coin unlimited amounts of silver, inflating the then-deflating currency. While Bland's bill was defeated, so was a bill the administration favored that would repeal any silver coinage requirement. The result was a retention of the status quo, and a postponement of the resolution of the free-silver issue.
Tariffs
Another contentious financial issue at the time was the protective tariff. These tariffs had been implemented as a temporary measure during the civil war to protect American industrial interests but remained in place after the war. While it had not been a central point in his campaign, Cleveland's opinion on the tariff was that of most Democrats: that the tariff ought to be reduced. Republicans generally favored a high tariff to protect American industries. American tariffs had been high since the Civil War, and by the 1880s the tariff brought in so much revenue that the government was running a surplus.
In 1886, a bill to reduce the tariff was narrowly defeated in the House. The tariff issue was emphasized in the Congressional elections that year, and the forces of protectionism increased their numbers in the Congress, but Cleveland continued to advocate tariff reform. As the surplus grew, Cleveland and the reformers called for a tariff for revenue only. His message to Congress in 1887 (quoted at right) highlighted the injustice of taking more money from the people than the government needed to pay its operating expenses. Republicans, as well as protectionist northern Democrats like Samuel J. Randall, believed that American industries would fail without high tariffs, and they continued to fight reform efforts. Roger Q. Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, proposed a bill to reduce the tariff from about 47% to about 40%. After significant exertions by Cleveland and his allies, the bill passed the House. The Republican Senate failed to come to an agreement with the Democratic House, and the bill died in the conference committee. Dispute over the tariff persisted into the 1888 presidential election.
Foreign policy, 1885–1889
Cleveland was a committed non-interventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism. He refused to promote the previous administration's Nicaragua canal treaty, and generally was less of an expansionist in foreign relations. Cleveland's Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, negotiated with Joseph Chamberlain of the United Kingdom over fishing rights in the waters off Canada, and struck a conciliatory note, despite the opposition of New England's Republican Senators. Cleveland also withdrew from Senate consideration of the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S. interests in the Congo.
Military policy, 1885–1889
Cleveland's military policy emphasized self-defense and modernization. In 1885 Cleveland appointed the Board of Fortifications under Secretary of War William C. Endicott to recommend a new coastal fortification system for the United States. No improvements to U.S. coastal defenses had been made since the late 1870s. The Board's 1886 report recommended a massive $127 million construction program (equivalent to $4.3 billion in 2023) at 29 harbors and river estuaries, to include new breech-loading rifled guns, mortars, and naval minefields. The Board and the program are usually called the Endicott Board and the Endicott Program. Most of the Board's recommendations were implemented, and by 1910, 27 locations were defended by over 70 forts. Many of the weapons remained in place until scrapped in World War II as they were replaced with new defenses. Endicott also proposed to Congress a system of examinations for Army officer promotions. For the Navy, the Cleveland administration, spearheaded by Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney, moved towards modernization, although no ships were constructed that could match the best European warships. Although completion of the four steel-hulled warships begun under the previous administration was delayed due to a corruption investigation and subsequent bankruptcy of their building yard, these ships were completed in a timely manner in naval shipyards once the investigation was over. Sixteen additional steel-hulled warships were ordered by the end of 1888; these ships later proved vital in the Spanish–American War of 1898, and many served in World War I. These ships included the "second-class battleships" Maine and Texas, designed to match modern armored ships recently acquired by South American countries from Europe, such as the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo. Eleven protected cruisers (including the famous Olympia), one armored cruiser, and one monitor were also ordered, along with the experimental cruiser Vesuvius.
Civil rights and immigration
Under Cleveland, gains in civil rights for African Americans were limited. Cleveland, like a growing number of Northerners and nearly all white Southerners, saw Reconstruction as a failed experiment, and was reluctant to use federal power to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed voting rights to African Americans. Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs, he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C., and appointed another black man (James Campbell Matthews, a former New York judge) to replace Douglass upon his resignation. His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage, but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally.
Although Cleveland had condemned the "outrages" against Chinese immigrants, he believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into white society. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act, written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States. The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress, and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1, 1888.
Native American policy
Cleveland viewed Native Americans as wards of the state, saying in his first inaugural address that "[t]his guardianship involves, on our part, efforts for the improvement of their condition and enforcement of their rights." He encouraged the idea of cultural assimilation, pushing for the passage of the Dawes Act, which would allow lands held in trust by the federal government for the tribes to instead be distributed to individual tribe members. While a conference of Native leaders endorsed the act, in practice the majority of Native Americans disapproved of it. Cleveland believed the Dawes Act would lift Native Americans out of poverty and encourage their assimilation into white society. It ultimately weakened the tribal governments and allowed individual Indians to sell land and keep the money.
In the month before Cleveland's 1885 inauguration, President Arthur opened four million acres of Winnebago and Crow Creek Indian lands in the Dakota Territory to white settlement by executive order. Tens of thousands of settlers gathered at the border of these lands and prepared to take possession of them. Cleveland believed Arthur's order to be in violation of treaties with the tribes, and rescinded it on April 17 of that year, ordering the settlers out of the territory. Cleveland sent in eighteen companies of Army troops to enforce the treaties and ordered General Philip Sheridan, at the time Commanding General of the U.S. Army, to investigate the matter.
Marriage and children
Cleveland was 47 years old when he entered the White House as a bachelor. His sister Rose Cleveland joined him, acting as hostess for the first 15 months of his administration. Unlike the previous bachelor president James Buchanan, Cleveland did not remain a bachelor for long. In 1885, the daughter of Cleveland's friend Oscar Folsom visited him in Washington. Frances Folsom was a student at Wells College. When she returned to school, President Cleveland received her mother's permission to correspond with her, and they were soon engaged to be married. The wedding occurred on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room at the White House. Cleveland was 49 years old at the time; Frances was 21. He was the second president to wed while in office and remains the only president to marry in the White House. This marriage was unusual because Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom's estate and had supervised Frances's upbringing after her father's death; nevertheless, the public took no exception to the match. At 21 years, Frances Folsom Cleveland was and remains the youngest First Lady in history, and soon became popular for her warm personality.
The Clevelands had five children: Ruth (1891–1904), Esther (1893–1980), Marion (1895–1977), Richard (1897–1974), and Francis (1903–1995). British philosopher Philippa Foot (1920–2010) was their granddaughter. Ruth contracted diphtheria on January 2, 1904, and died five days after her diagnosis. The Curtiss Candy Company would later assert that the "Baby Ruth" candy bar was named after her.
Cleveland also claimed paternity of a child with Maria Crofts Halpin, Oscar Folsom Cleveland, who was born in 1874.
Administration and Cabinet
Judicial appointments
During his first term, Cleveland successfully nominated two justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, was a former Mississippi senator who served in Cleveland's Cabinet as Interior Secretary. When William Burnham Woods died, Cleveland nominated Lamar to his seat in late 1887. Lamar's nomination was confirmed by the narrow margin of 32 to 28.
Chief Justice Morrison Waite died a few months later, and Cleveland nominated Melville Fuller to fill his seat on April 30, 1888. Fuller accepted. The Senate Judiciary Committee spent several months examining the little-known nominee, before the Senate confirmed the nomination 41 to 20.
Cleveland nominated 41 lower federal court judges in addition to his four Supreme Court justices. These included two judges to the United States circuit courts, nine judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 30 judges to the United States district courts.
Election of 1888 and return to private life (1889–1893)
Defeated by Harrison
The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison, the former U.S. Senator from Indiana for president and Levi P. Morton of New York for vice president. Cleveland was renominated at the Democratic convention in St. Louis. Following Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks' death in 1885, the Democrats chose Allen G. Thurman of Ohio to be Cleveland's new running mate.
The Republicans gained the upper hand in the campaign, as Cleveland's campaign was poorly managed by Calvin S. Brice and William H. Barnum, whereas Harrison had engaged more aggressive fundraisers and tacticians in Matt Quay and John Wanamaker.
The Republicans campaigned heavily on the tariff issue, turning out protectionist voters in the important industrial states of the North. Further, the Democrats in New York were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of David B. Hill, weakening Cleveland's support in that swing state. A letter from the British ambassador supporting Cleveland caused a scandal that cost Cleveland votes in New York.
As in 1884, the election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But unlike that year, when Cleveland had triumphed in all four, in 1888 he won only two, losing his home state of New York by 14,373 votes. Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote – 48.6 percent vs. 47.8 percent for Harrison – but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily, 233–168. The Republicans won Indiana, largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five. Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life.
Private citizen for four years
As Frances Cleveland left the White House, she told a staff member, "Now, Jerry, I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." When asked when she would return, she responded, "We are coming back four years from today." In the meantime, the Clevelands moved to New York City, where Cleveland took a position with the law firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeigh. This affiliation was more of an office-sharing arrangement, though quite compatible. Cleveland's law practice brought only a moderate income, perhaps because Cleveland spent considerable time at the couple's vacation home Gray Gables at Buzzard Bay, where fishing became his obsession. While they lived in New York, the Clevelands' first child, Ruth, was born in 1891.
The Harrison administration worked with Congress to pass the McKinley Tariff, an aggressively protectionist measure, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased money backed by silver; these were among policies Cleveland deplored as dangerous to the nation's financial health. At first he refrained from criticizing his successor, but by 1891 Cleveland felt compelled to speak out, addressing his concerns in an open letter to a meeting of reformers in New York. The "silver letter" thrust Cleveland's name back into the spotlight just as the 1892 election was approaching.
Election of 1892
Nomination for president
Cleveland's enduring reputation as chief executive and his recent pronouncements on the monetary issues made him a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. His leading opponent was David B. Hill, a Senator for New York. Hill united the anti-Cleveland elements of the Democratic party—silverites, protectionists, and Tammany Hall—but was unable to create a coalition large enough to deny Cleveland the nomination. Despite some desperate maneuvering by Hill, Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot at the party convention in Chicago.
For vice president, the Democrats chose to balance the ticket with Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, a silverite. Although the Cleveland forces preferred Isaac P. Gray of Indiana for vice president, they accepted the convention favorite. As a supporter of greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts, Stevenson balanced the otherwise hard-money, gold-standard ticket headed by Cleveland.
Campaign against Harrison
The Republicans re-nominated President Harrison, making the 1892 election a rematch of the one four years earlier. Unlike the turbulent and controversial elections of 1876, 1884, and 1888, the 1892 election was, according to Cleveland biographer Allan Nevins, "the cleanest, quietest, and most creditable in the memory of the post-war generation", in part because Harrison's wife, Caroline, was dying of tuberculosis. Harrison did not personally campaign at all. Following Caroline Harrison's death on October 25, two weeks before the national election, Cleveland and all of the other candidates stopped campaigning, thus making Election Day a somber and quiet event for the whole country as well as the candidates.
The issue of the tariff had worked to the Republicans' advantage in 1888. Now, however, the legislative revisions of the past four years had made imported goods so expensive that by 1892, many voters favored tariff reform and were skeptical of big business. Many Westerners (traditionally Republican voters), defected to James B. Weaver, the candidate of the new Populist Party. Weaver promised free silver, generous veterans' pensions, and an eight-hour work day. The Tammany Hall Democrats adhered to the national ticket, allowing a united Democratic party to carry New York. At the campaign's end, many Populists and labor supporters endorsed Cleveland following an attempt by the Carnegie Corporation to break the union during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and after a similar conflict between big business and labor at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co. The final result was a victory for Cleveland by wide margins in both the popular and electoral votes, and it was Cleveland's third consecutive popular vote plurality.
Second presidency (1893–1897)
Economic panic and the silver issue
Shortly after Cleveland's second term began, the Panic of 1893 struck the stock market, leaving Cleveland and the nation to face an economic depression. The panic was worsened by the acute shortage of gold that resulted from the increased coinage of silver, and Cleveland called Congress into special session to deal with the problem. The debate over the coinage was as heated as ever, and the effects of the panic had driven more moderates to support repealing the coinage provisions of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Even so, the silverites rallied their following at a convention in Chicago, and the House of Representatives debated for fifteen weeks before passing the repeal by a considerable margin. In the Senate, the repeal of silver coinage was equally contentious. Cleveland, forced against his better judgment to lobby the Congress for repeal, convinced enough Democrats—and along with eastern Republicans, they formed a 48–37 majority for repeal. Depletion of the Treasury's gold reserves continued, at a lesser rate, and subsequent bond issues replenished supplies of gold. At the time the repeal seemed a minor setback to silverites, but it marked the beginning of the end of silver as a basis for American currency.
Tariff reform
Having succeeded in reversing the Harrison administration's silver policy, Cleveland sought next to reverse the effects of the McKinley Tariff. The Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act was introduced by West Virginian Representative William L. Wilson in December 1893. After lengthy debate, the bill passed the House by a considerable margin. The bill proposed moderate downward revisions in the tariff, especially on raw materials. The shortfall in revenue was to be made up by an income tax of two percent on income above $4,000 (equivalent to $135,644 in 2023).
The bill was next considered in the Senate, where it faced stronger opposition from key Democrats, led by Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, who insisted that more protection for their states' industries be added. The bill passed the Senate with more than 600 amendments attached that nullified most of the reforms. The Sugar Trust in particular lobbied for changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer. Cleveland was outraged with the final bill, and denounced it as a disgraceful product of the control of the Senate by trusts and business interests. Even so, he believed it was an improvement over the McKinley tariff and allowed it to become law without his signature.
Voting rights
In 1892, Cleveland had campaigned against the Lodge Bill, which would have strengthened voting rights protections through the appointing of federal supervisors of congressional elections upon a petition from the citizens of any district. The Enforcement Act of 1871 had provided for a detailed federal overseeing of the electoral process, from registration to the certification of returns. Cleveland succeeded in ushering in the 1894 repeal of this law (ch. 25, 28 Stat. 36). The pendulum thus swung from stronger attempts to protect voting rights to the repealing of voting rights protections; this in turn led to unsuccessful attempts to have the federal courts protect voting rights in Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903), and Giles v. Teasley, 193 U.S. 146 (1904).
Labor unrest
The Panic of 1893 had damaged labor conditions across the United States, and the victory of anti-silver legislation worsened the mood of western laborers. A group of workingmen led by Jacob S. Coxey began to march east toward Washington, D.C., to protest Cleveland's policies. This group, known as Coxey's Army, agitated in favor of a national roads program to give jobs to workingmen, and a weakened currency to help farmers pay their debts. By the time they reached Washington, only a few hundred remained, and when Coxey and other protest leaders were arrested the next day for walking on the lawn of the United States Capitol, the group scattered. Even though Coxey's Army may not have been a threat to the government, it signaled a growing dissatisfaction in the West with Eastern monetary policies.
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike had a significantly greater impact than Coxey's Army. A strike began against the Pullman Company over low wages and twelve-hour workdays, and sympathy strikes, led by American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs, soon followed. By June 1894, 125,000 railroad workers were on strike, paralyzing the nation's commerce. Because the railroads carried the mail, and because several of the affected lines were in federal receivership, Cleveland believed a federal solution was appropriate. Cleveland obtained an injunction in federal court, and when the strikers refused to obey it, he sent federal troops into Chicago and 20 other rail centers. "If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago", he proclaimed, "that card will be delivered." Most governors supported Cleveland except Democrat John P. Altgeld of Illinois, who became his bitter foe in 1896. Leading newspapers of both parties applauded Cleveland's actions, but the use of troops hardened the attitude of organized labor toward his administration.
Just before the 1894 election, Cleveland was warned by Francis Lynde Stetson, an advisor: "We are on the eve of [a] very dark night, unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe [is] Democratic incompetence to make laws, and consequently [discontent] with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere." The warning was appropriate, for in the Congressional elections, Republicans won their biggest landslide in decades, taking full control of the House, while the Populists lost most of their support. Cleveland's factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state, including full control in Illinois and Michigan, and made major gains in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and other states. Wisconsin and Massachusetts were two of the few states that remained under the control of Cleveland's allies. The Democratic opposition were close to controlling two-thirds of the vote at the 1896 national convention, which they needed to nominate their own candidate. They failed for lack of unity and a national leader, as Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld had been born in Germany and was ineligible to be nominated for president.
Foreign policy, 1893–1897
When Cleveland took office, he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation. In his first term, he had supported free trade with the Hawaiian Kingdom and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor. A treaty of peace and friendship existed between the United States and Hawai'i. In the intervening four years, however, Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen Liliuokalani as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government. In January 1893 they overthrew her, set up a provisional government under Sanford B. Dole, and sought to join the United States.
The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval. However, the presence in Honolulu of U.S. Marines from the USS Boston while the coup unfolded, deployed at the request of U.S. Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens, caused serious controversy. Five days after taking office on March 9, 1893, Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawai'i to investigate the situation.
Cleveland agreed with Blount's report, which found the native Hawaiians to be opposed to annexation; the report also found U.S. diplomatic and military involvement in the coup. It included over a thousand pages of documents. A firm anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed American actions in Hawaii and called for the queen to be restored; he disapproved of the new provisional government under Dole. But matters stalled when Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition for regaining her throne, saying she would either execute or banish the new leadership in Honolulu. Dole's government was in full control and rejected her demands. By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress. Cleveland delivered a message to Congress dated December 18, 1893, rejecting annexation and encouraging Congress to continue the American tradition of non-intervention (see excerpt at right). He expressed himself in forceful terms, saying the presence of U.S. forces near the Hawaiian government building and royal palace during the coup was a "substantial wrong" and an "act of war," and lambasted the actions of minister Stevens. Cleveland described the incident as the "subversion of the constitutional Government of Hawaii," and argued "it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves."
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution against annexation and voted to censure the U.S. minister. However the Senate, under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland, commissioned and produced the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair. Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, oversaw the report. It declared that the "action of the Queen in an effort to overturn the constitution of 1887...amounted to an act of abdication on her part." The "constitution of 1887" mentioned in the report was the so-called Bayonet Constitution, which King Kalakaua had signed under pressure that year. The Morgan Report said that the troops landed on Oahu from the USS Boston gave "no demonstration of actual hostilities," and described their conduct as "quiet" and "respectful." The United States already had a presence in the region, and acquired exclusive rights to enter and establish a naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1887, when the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 was renewed during Cleveland's first term. Cleveland dropped his push to restore the queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii under President Dole, who took office in July 1894.
Closer to home, Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that not only prohibited new European colonies, but also declared an American national interest in any matter of substance within the hemisphere. When Britain and Venezuela disagreed over the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana, Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney protested. British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the British ambassador to Washington, Julian Pauncefote, misjudged how important the dispute was to Washington, and to the anti-British Irish Catholic element in Cleveland's Democratic Party. They prolonged the crisis before accepting the American demand for arbitration. An international tribunal in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana. But by standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power, Cleveland improved relations with Latin America. The cordial manner in which the arbitration was conducted also strengthened relations with Britain and encouraged the major powers to consider arbitration as a way to settle their disputes.
Military policy, 1893–1897
The second Cleveland administration was as committed to military modernization as the first, and ordered the first ships of a navy capable of offensive action. Construction continued on the Endicott program of coastal fortifications begun under Cleveland's first administration. The adoption of the Krag–Jørgensen rifle, the U.S. Army's first bolt-action repeating rifle, was finalized. In 1895–1896 Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, having recently adopted the aggressive naval strategy advocated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, successfully proposed ordering five battleships (the Kearsarge and Illinois classes) and sixteen torpedo boats. Completion of these ships nearly doubled the Navy's battleships and created a new torpedo boat force, which previously had only two boats. The battleships and seven of the torpedo boats were not completed until 1899–1901, after the Spanish–American War.
Cancer
In the midst of the fight for repeal of free-silver coinage in 1893, Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor, Robert O'Reilly, about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater-like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland's hard palate. Clinical samples were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum; the diagnosis was an epithelioma, rather than a malignant cancer.
Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly, to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression. The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session. Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by Cleveland's friend E. C. Benedict, as it sailed off Long Island. The surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether, successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth disfigured. During another surgery, Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance. A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated. Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation. In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida, Dr. William W. Keen, wrote an article detailing the operation.
Cleveland enjoyed many years of life after the tumor was removed, and there was some debate as to whether it was actually malignant. Several doctors, including Dr. Keen, stated after Cleveland's death that the tumor was a carcinoma.
Other suggestions included ameloblastoma or a benign salivary mixed tumor (also known as a pleomorphic adenoma).
In the 1980s, analysis of the specimen finally confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma, a low-grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis.
Administration and cabinet
Judicial appointments
Cleveland's trouble with the Senate hindered the success of his nominations to the Supreme Court in his second term. In 1893, after the death of Samuel Blatchford, Cleveland nominated William B. Hornblower to the Court. Hornblower, the head of a New York City law firm, was thought to be a qualified appointee, but his campaign against a New York machine politician had made Senator David B. Hill his enemy. Further, Cleveland had not consulted the Senators before naming his appointee, leaving many who were already opposed to Cleveland on other grounds even more aggrieved. The Senate rejected Hornblower's nomination on January 15, 1894, by a vote of 24 to 30.
Cleveland continued to defy the Senate by next appointing Wheeler Hazard Peckham another New York attorney who had opposed Hill's machine in that state. Hill used all of his influence to block Peckham's confirmation, and on February 16, 1894, the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 32 to 41. Reformers urged Cleveland to continue the fight against Hill and to nominate Frederic R. Coudert, but Cleveland acquiesced in an inoffensive choice, that of Senator Edward Douglass White of Louisiana, whose nomination was accepted unanimously. Later, in 1895, another vacancy on the Court led Cleveland to consider Hornblower again, but he declined to be nominated. Instead, Cleveland nominated Rufus Wheeler Peckham, the brother of Wheeler Hazard Peckham, and the Senate confirmed the second Peckham easily.
States admitted to the Union
No new states were admitted to the Union during Cleveland's first term. On February 22, 1889, 10 days before leaving office, the 50th Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1889, authorizing North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form state governments and to gain admission to the Union. All four officially became states in November 1889, during the first year of the Benjamin Harrison administration. During Cleveland's second term, the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act that permitted Utah to apply for statehood. Cleveland signed it on July 16, 1894. Utah joined the Union as the 45th state on January 4, 1896.
1896 election and retirement (1897–1908)
Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies took control of state Democratic parties over the course of his second term, such that Cleveland's pro-gold ideology was marginalized outside of urban areas in solidly Democratic states such as Arkansas. They gained control of the national Democratic Party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a free-silver platform. Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats' third-party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government, and oppose high tariffs, but he declined their nomination for a third term. The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election, and William McKinley, the Republican nominee, triumphed easily over Bryan. Agrarians nominated Bryan again in 1900. In 1904, the conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.
After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897. For a time, he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred the dean Andrew Fleming West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university. Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902. Cleveland still made his views known in political matters. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."
In 1906, a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate. The incumbent, John F. Dryden, was not seeking re-election, and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland's statesmanship and conservatism.
Death
Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907, he fell seriously ill. In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried at Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.
Honors and memorials
In his first term in office, Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington, D.C. He secretly bought a farmhouse, Oak View (or Oak Hill), in a rural upland part of the District of Columbia, in 1886, and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate. He sold Oak View upon losing his bid for re-election in 1888. Not long thereafter, suburban residential development reached the area, which came to be known as Oak View, and then Cleveland Heights, and eventually Cleveland Park. The Clevelands are depicted in local murals.
Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State College in New York is named after Cleveland. Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School. Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace, Caldwell, New Jersey, was named for him, as is Grover Cleveland High School (Buffalo, New York), the town of Cleveland, Mississippi, and Mount Cleveland in Alaska.
In 1895, he became the first U.S. president who was filmed.
The first U.S. postage stamp to honor Cleveland appeared in 1923. Cleveland's only two subsequent stamp appearances have been in issues devoted to the full roster of U.S. Presidents, released, respectively, in 1938 and 1986.
Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934. He also appeared on the first few issues of the $20 Federal Reserve Notes from 1914. Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president, he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.
In 2013, Cleveland was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
See also
Grover Cleveland Birthplace
Presidencies of Grover Cleveland
Child with Maria Halpin
Children with Frances Cleveland
References
Informational notes
Citations
Further reading
Primary sources
External links
Letters and speeches
Text of a number of Cleveland's speeches at the Miller Center of Public Affairs
Finding Aid to the Grover Cleveland Manuscripts, 1867–1908 at the New York State Library. Retrieved May 11, 2016
10 letters written by Grover Cleveland in 1884–86
Grover Cleveland Personal Manuscripts
Media coverage
Grover Cleveland collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Other
Grover Cleveland: A Resource Guide, Library of Congress
Grover Cleveland: A bibliography by the Buffalo History Museum
Grover Cleveland Sites in Buffalo, NY: A Google Map developed by The Buffalo History Museum
Top Five Urban Legends About Grover Cleveland in Buffalo: A slide deck by the Buffalo History Museum.
Index to the Grover Cleveland Papers at the Library of Congress
Essay on Cleveland and each member of his cabinet and First Lady, Miller Center of Public Affairs
"Life Portrait of Grover Cleveland", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, August 13, 1999
Interview with H. Paul Jeffers on An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland, Booknotes (2000)
Works by Grover Cleveland at Project Gutenberg
Works by Grover Cleveland at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Works by or about Grover Cleveland at the Internet Archive
Grover Cleveland at IMDb |
List_of_Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame_inductees | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame_inductees | [
614
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame_inductees"
] | The Pro Football Hall of Fame includes players, coaches, and contributors (e.g., owners, general managers and team or league officials or other non-players) who have "made outstanding contributions to professional football". The charter class of seventeen was selected in 1963.
Enshrinees are selected by a 48-person selection committee which meets each year at the time and location of the Super Bowl. Current rules of the committee stipulate that between four and eight individuals are selected each year. Any person may nominate an individual to the hall, provided the nominee has been retired for at least five years. Not including the charter class, 76 players have been inducted in their first year of eligibility.
In addition to the regular selection committee, which primarily focuses on contributions made over the past approximately thirty seasons, a nine-member seniors committee (which is a subset of the larger committee) submits two nominees each year whose contributions came prior to 1985. These nominees are referred as "seniors nominees" (formerly "old-timer" nominees).
In 2020, a special Blue-Ribbon Panel selected an additional 15 new members, known as the "Centennial Slate", to be inducted into the Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Football League (NFL).
Inductees
All 32 active NFL teams have at least one player in the Hall of Fame who played for their team at some point in that player's career, with the Houston Texans (Ed Reed, class of 2019) and Jacksonville Jaguars (Tony Boselli, class of 2022) being the last two teams to gain representation. Ray Guy was the first full-time punter inducted (class of 2014), while Devin Hester was the first primary return specialist (class of 2024). As of 2024, they both are the only ones honorees at their respective positions.
The hall is not officially affiliated with the National Football League (NFL), although, as of 2022, all but one enshrinee participated in the NFL for at least a portion of his career; the single exception being Billy Shaw. Along with Shaw, there are 37 other inductees into the hall who spent all or part of their careers in the American Football League that merged with the NFL. Shaw was the only player not to make the formal transition to the NFL, as he had retired the year before the merger. Three players, Red Grange, Ray Flaherty, Mike Michalske, played a portion of their career in the first American Football League from 1926. The second American Football League from 1936 only has one Hall of Fame member who has played in this league, Ken Strong; Strong is also one of two Hall of Famers (the other being Sid Luckman) to play in the American Association. Fifteen inductees spent some of their playing career in the All-America Football Conference during the late 1940s. Five players played some at least one year in the Ohio League, the predecessor to the NFL. Six players or coaches who spent part of their careers in the original incarnation of the United States Football League (USFL) have been inducted. Two coaches (Marv Levy, Bud Grant), one administrator (Jim Finks), and five players (Warren Moon, Fred Biletnikoff, John Henry Johnson, Don Maynard, Arnie Weinmeister) who spent part of their careers in the Canadian Football League (CFL) have been inducted; three of which have been or are scheduled to be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame: Marv Levy, Warren Moon and Bud Grant. Four players, Larry Csonka, Leroy Kelly, Don Maynard, and Paul Warfield, played a portion of their career in the short-lived World Football League. Fritz Pollard is the only player to play in the Anthracite League's only season. One player (Kurt Warner) and one owner (Pat Bowlen) made significant contributions in the Arena Football League; Warner and Art McNally are also the only NFL Europe/World League alumni in the Hall. Terrell Owens played one season of professional football in the Indoor Football League and, after his induction, played in Fan Controlled Football. Bill Walsh and Ken Stabler each had one season of experience in the Continental Football League.
Each entry includes the year of induction (i.e., "class"), position(s) played, team(s) each was associated with, and tenures with each team. As some inductees were both players and coaches, the position indicated here is the position indicated on the Hall of Fame website. The Pro Football Hall of Fame website does not include CFL, USFL, WFL, indoor football leagues, and other lesser known league teams. The Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League both have their own halls of fame. NFL, American Football League, All-America Football Conference, and Ohio League (listed as pre-NFL) teams are recognized in the Hall of Fame. The list is complete through the Class of 2024.
Sorting tips:
Sorting by position will line up players by the year they were inducted
Sorting by position also groups all similar positions together
Running backs, halfbacks, fullbacks are grouped together
Linebackers, middle linebackers, outside linebackers are grouped together
Ends and flankers are grouped with wide receivers
General managers and team administrators are grouped together
Sorting by teams groups all names of a franchise together, i.e., all Cardinal teams listed under Arizona Cardinals
When sorting, a person has a row for every team he has been with
Notes:
1 Selected in first year of eligibility
2 Charter member
3 Senior nominee
4 Heisman Trophy Winner
5 As head coach of the Akron Pros in 1921, Fritz Pollard became the first African American coach in NFL history.
Inductees who have played for non-NFL teams
Through 2021, Billy Shaw is the only player in the Hall of Fame who has never played in the NFL; he played the entirety of his career with the Buffalo Bills in the AFL. While the hall recognizes NFL teams which had previously been in the AFL, AAFC, or been independent/Ohio League, other professional football league's franchises are not considered primary teams to the individuals who have contributed to them. Here is a list of individuals who have contributed to other professional leagues at some point in their career. As of 2022, four players have contributed to AFL I, one to AFL II, one to AFL III, three to the American Association, three to the Arena Football League, one to the Indoor Football League, eleven to the Canadian Football League, four to the World Football League, seven to the United States Football League, two to the Continental Football League, two for NFL Europe, one for the 1960s United Football League, one for Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit, and eleven played for independent teams (several of which played in the NFL at some point). The Ohio League had five individuals contribute, the All-America Football Conference had fifteen, and the American Football League which merged with the NFL had thirty-nine Hall of Famers play for the league. Bill Polian founded the Alliance of American Football, but he was inducted into the hall in 2015 and the league started in 2019. As previously stated, for CFL stars, there is a corresponding Canadian Football Hall of Fame; only one player, Warren Moon, and two coaches, Bud Grant and Marv Levy, are enshrined in both halls. Again for the Arena Football League, there is also a corresponding Arena Football Hall of Fame; similarly, one player, Kurt Warner, has been enshrined into both halls. The Indoor Football League has also established a Hall of Fame, of which Terrell Owens played one season, thus no players have been inducted into both halls. Owens has also played in the Fan Controlled Football since 2022, five years after his enshrinement into the Hall.
(Note that this list only includes contributors in the same field for which they were inducted; thus, though Doak Walker and Steve Van Buren were inducted to the Hall of Fame as players, their coaching work in the Continental Football League is not counted here.)
"*" indicates that a team had at one point in their existence participated in the NFL.
The following are current and defunct professional football leagues which as of 2020 have had no Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductees play for:
New York Pro Football League—Leo Lyons has been nominated several times but never inducted
XFL, nor its short lived predecessor
Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional
United Football League (2009–2012)
Alliance of American Football (Although the league was founded by Bill Polian, he was inducted in 2015 and the league only lasted in 2019)
Legends Football League
American Arena League
American West Football Conference
Champions Indoor Football
National Arena League
Notes
References
External links
Official website |
Pro_Bowl | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Bowl | [
614
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Bowl#Players_with_most_invitations"
] | The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (since 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed throughout the years. Between 1939 and 1942, the NFL experimented with all-star games pitting the league's champion against a team of all-stars. The first official Pro Bowl was played in January 1951, matching the top players in the American/Eastern Conference against those in the National/Western Conference. From the merger with the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1970 up through 2013 and also in 2017, it was officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference (AFC) against those in the National Football Conference (NFC). From 2014 through 2016, the NFL experimented with an unconferenced format, where the teams were selected by two honorary team captains (who are each in the Hall of Fame), instead of selecting players from each conference. The players were picked in a televised "schoolyard pick" prior to the game.
For years, the game suffered from lack of interest for its perceived low quality, with observers and commentators expressing their disfavor with it. It drew lower television ratings than regular season NFL games, although the game drew similar ratings to the all-star games of the other major North American sports leagues, such as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. However, the biggest concern was to avoid injuries to the star players. The Associated Press wrote that players in the 2012 game were "hitting each other as though they were having a pillow fight". Despite these criticisms, however, players who were selected to the Pro Bowl were nonetheless honored in a similar standing to their counterparts in the other leagues, and being named to it is considered to be a significant accomplishment for any player. In September 2022, the NFL announced that the Pro Bowl game would switch to a non-contact flag football game in 2023, as well as a partnership with Peyton Manning's Omaha Productions to revamp Pro Bowl week as the "Pro Bowl Games".
Unlike the other major North American sports leagues, which hold their all star weekends roughly midway through their regular seasons, the NFL has held theirs at or near the end of NFL season. Before the merger, the game was played annually after the NFL Championship Game. Between 1970 and 2009, the Pro Bowl was usually held the weekend after the Super Bowl. From 2010 to 2022, it was played on the Sunday before the Super Bowl and since 2023, it was played on the first Thursday and first Sunday of February; as a result, players from the two teams competing in the Super Bowl will not participate.
History of the Pro Bowl
The first "Pro All-Star Game", featuring the all-stars of the 1938 season (as well as three players from the Los Angeles Bulldogs and Hollywood Bears, who were not members of the league), was played on January 15, 1939, at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The NFL All-Star Game was played again in Los Angeles in 1940 and then in New York and Philadelphia in 1941 and 1942 respectively. Although originally planned as an annual contest, the all-star game was discontinued after 1942 because of travel restrictions put in place during World War II. During the first five all-star games, an all-star team would face that year's league champion. The league champion won the first four games before the all-stars were victorious in the final game of this early series.
The concept of an all-star game was not revived until June 1950, when the newly christened "Pro Bowl" was approved. The game was sponsored by the Los Angeles Publishers Association. It was decided that the game would feature all-star teams from each of the league's two conferences rather than the league champion versus all-star format which had been used previously. This was done to avoid confusion with the Chicago College All-Star Game, an annual game which featured the league champion against a collegiate all-star team. The teams would be led by the coach of each of the conference champions. Immediately prior to the Pro Bowl, following the 1949 season, the All-America Football Conference, which contributed three teams to the NFL in a partial merger in 1950, held its own all-star game, the Shamrock Bowl.
The first 21 games of the series (1951–1972) were played in Los Angeles. The site of the game was changed annually for each of the next seven years before the game was moved to Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, for 30 straight seasons from 1980 through 2009. The 2010 Pro Bowl was played at Sun Life Stadium, the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins and host site of Super Bowl XLIV, on January 31, the first time ever that the Pro Bowl was held before the championship game (a decision probably due to increasingly low Nielsen ratings from being regarded as an anti-climax to the Super Bowl). With the new rule being that the conference teams do not include players from the teams that will be playing in the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl then returned to Hawaii in 2011 but was again held during the week before the Super Bowl, where it remained for three more years.
The 2012 game was met with criticism from fans and sports writers for the lack of quality play by the players. On October 24, 2012, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had second thoughts about the Pro Bowl, telling a Sirius XM show that if the players did not play more competitively [in the 2013 Pro Bowl], he was "not inclined to play it anymore". During the ensuing off-season, the NFL Players Association lobbied to keep the Pro Bowl, and negotiated several rule changes to be implemented for the 2014 game. Among them, the teams would no longer be AFC vs. NFC, and instead be selected by captains in a fantasy draft. For the 2014 game, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders were chosen as alumni captains, while their captains were Drew Brees and Robert Quinn (Rice), along with Jamaal Charles and J. J. Watt (Sanders).
On April 9, 2014, the NFL announced that the 2015 Pro Bowl would be played the week before the Super Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on January 25, 2015. The game returned to Hawaii in 2016, and the "unconferenced" format was its last.
For 2017, the league considered hosting the game at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which would have been the first time the game had been hosted outside the United States. The NFL was also considering future Pro Bowls in Mexico and Germany to leverage international markets. A report released May 19, 2016, indicated that the 2017 Pro Bowl would instead be hosted at a newly renovated Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida; Orlando beat out Brazil (which apparently did not make the final round of voting), Honolulu, Super Bowl host site Houston, and a bid from Sydney, Australia, for the hosting rights. On June 1, 2016, the league announced that it was restoring the old conference format.
Since the 2017 Pro Bowl, the NFL has also hosted a series of side events leading up to the game called the Pro Bowl Skills Showdown, which includes competitions like passing contests and dodgeball among the players.
The 2021 Pro Bowl game was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, and new host Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was held over to the 2022 Pro Bowl. The roster was still voted on and named, and alternative broadcast and streaming events were held during the week of the game.
In May 2022, Commissioner Roger Goodell questioned the future of the Pro Bowl, arguing that it "doesn't work", and that "another way to celebrate the players" was needed. On September 26, 2022, it was announced that the NFL would host the 2023 event as "The Pro Bowl Games"—in partnership with Peyton Manning's Omaha Productions—which will replace the culminating event with a flag football game.
Player selection
Players are voted into the Pro Bowl by the coaches, the players themselves, and the fans. Each group's ballots count for ⅓, or 33.3%, of the votes. Fans vote on their preferred players at NFL.com. Replacements are selected should any selected player be unable to play for injuries, self-withdrawal, or Super Bowl contention. Prior to 1995, only the coaches and the players made Pro Bowl selections.
In order to be considered a Pro Bowler for a given year, a player must either have been one of the initial players selected to the team, or a player who accepts an invitation to the Pro Bowl as an alternate; invited alternates who decline to attend are not considered Pro Bowlers. Since 2010, players of the two teams that advance to the Super Bowl will not play in the Pro Bowl, and they are replaced by alternate players. Players who would have been invited as an alternate but could not play because they were slated to play in that season's Super Bowl are also considered Pro Bowlers (for example, Tom Brady in 2016).
From 2014 to 2016, players did not play according to conference; instead, they were placed in a draft pool and chosen by team captains.
Coaching staff
When the Pro Bowl was held after the Super Bowl, the head coaches were traditionally the head coaches of the teams that lost in the AFC and NFC championship games for the same season of the Pro Bowl in question. From 1978 through 1982, the head coaches of the highest ranked divisional champion that lost in the Divisional Playoff Round were chosen. For the 1983 Pro Bowl, the NFL resumed selecting the losing head coaches in the conference championship games. In the 1999 Pro Bowl, New York Jets head coach Bill Parcells, after his team lost to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game, had to decline for health reasons and Jets assistant head coach Bill Belichick took his place.
When the Pro Bowl was moved to the weekend between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl in 2009, the team that lost in the Divisional Playoff Round with the best regular season record would have their coaching staffs lead their respective conference Pro Bowl team returning to the format used from 1978 to 1982. It remained that way through 2013; it resumed in 2017. If the losing teams of each conference had the same regular season record the coaches from the higher-seeded team will get the Pro Bowl honor. From 2014 to 2016, the Pro Bowl coaches came from the two teams with the best records that lost in the Divisional Playoffs. (In the 2015 Pro Bowl, when John Fox left his coaching job with Denver after his playoff loss to Indianapolis that year, John Harbaugh of Baltimore took over. The next year saw Green Bay's assistant coach Winston Moss took over as Mike McCarthy resigned from coaching for illness.)
After changing to the Pro Bowl Games format in 2022, Manningcast hosts Peyton Manning and Eli Manning served as the "honorary" coaches for the AFC and NFC respectively. Peyton spent his entire playing career exclusively in the AFC with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, while Eli played his whole career with the New York Giants in the NFC.
Game honors
A Player of the Game was honored 1951–1956. 1957–1971, awards were presented to both an Outstanding Back and an Outstanding Lineman. In 1972 and since 2014, there are awards for both an Outstanding Offensive Player and an Outstanding Defensive Player. 1973–2007, only one Player of the Game award was honored (though thrice this award has been presented to multiple players in a single game). In 2008 the award was changed to Most Valuable Player (MVP).
Players are paid for participating in the game with the winning team receiving a larger payout. The chart below shows how much the players of their respective teams earn:
Rule differences
Although there is no official rule against tackling, the players in the Pro Bowl have come to a gentlemen's agreement to do little if any tackling. On the vast majority of plays, the ball carrier either gives up as soon as a defensive player grabs him, or goes out of bounds to avoid contact. In that sense it is essentially a two-hand touch football game. A future ban on tackling and contact is being considered.
In addition to the above, the Pro Bowl does have different rules from regular NFL games to make the game safer with a view towards incorporating some of these rules to future NFL regular season games.
No motion or shifting by the offense
Offense must have a running back and tight end in all formations
Offense may have up to three receivers on the same side
Intentional grounding is legal
No rushing the passer
More than one forward pass thrown on the same play is allowed
Defense must run a 4–3 at all times, though the Cover 2 and press coverage is allowed
No blitz; DEs and tackles can rush on passing plays, provided they are on same side of ball
No blindside or below the waist blocks
No rushing the punter
No rushing the kicker
No rushing the holder
Coin toss determines who receives first; loser receives to start third period. Procedure repeats at the start of first overtime.
Kickoffs are eliminated (including free kicks)
Punt returns are eliminated by the automatic fair catch
Teams will start on their own 25-yard line after any score or at the start of each half/odd overtime
If a team that would otherwise be kicking off wants to attempt to retain possession (situations where an onside kick would be attempted if there were kickoffs), they may run a single scrimmage play from their own 25-yard line; should the ball be advanced 15 yards forward, the team retains possession
Receivers may flinch or raise either foot without incurring penalty
35-second play clock to run plays
Deep middle safety must be aligned within hash marks
Replay reviews are allowed
44-player roster per team
Two-minute warning in effect for all quarters, plus overtime
Game clock runs on incompletions except at two minutes left in half or overtime period
Very limited contact is allowed much like touch football, provided the ball carrier is surrounded by opponents
In case of a tie after regulation, multiple 15-minute OT periods will be played (with each team receiving two time outs per period), and in the first overtime teams receive one possession to score unless one of them scores a safety on its first possession. True sudden death rules apply thereafter if both teams have had their initial possession and the game remains tied. The Pro Bowl is not allowed to end in a tie, unlike preseason and regular season games. (In general, beyond the first overtime, whoever scores first wins. The first overtime starts as if the game had started over, like the NFL Playoffs.)
2023 and hereafter has a flag football game which is a 50-yard by 28-yard field (like arena football), seven players on field per team, two 10-minute halves, 15-minute halftime, plus multiple best-of-three round plays from the 5-yard line for 1 point or 10-yard line for two points, from double overtime hereafter, championship game only. In overtime, no matter if a touchdown is scored or not, teams get one possession. If the teams are tied after one possession, true sudden death rules apply hereafter. No punts due to short field.
Pro Bowl uniforms
The teams are made of players from different NFL teams, so using their own uniforms would be too confusing. However, the players do wear the helmet of their respective team, but the home jerseys and pants are either a solid blue for the NFC or solid red for the AFC, with white jerseys with blue or red accents, respectively, for the away team.
The early Pro Bowl, contested by the National Football League's Eastern and Western Division stars and played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, featured the same uniforms from the 1950s to mid-1960s; the Eastern team wore scarlet jerseys with white numerals and a white crescent shoulder stripe, white pants with red stripe, red socks, and a plain red helmet. The Western team wore white jerseys with royal-blue numerals and a Northwestern University-style Ukon triple stripe on the sleeves, white pants with blue stripe and socks and a plain blue helmet. Perhaps oddly, the Eastern team wore home dark jerseys, although the host city team, the Los Angeles Rams, were members of the Western Conference. From January 1967 to January 1970 both teams wore gold helmets with the NFL logo on the sides; the Eastern helmets featured a red-white-red tri-stripe and the Western a similar blue-white-blue tri-stripe. In fact, the players brought their own game helmets to Los Angeles, which were then spray-painted and decorated for the contest. For the 1970 game the helmets featured the '50 NFL' logo, commemorating the league's half-century anniversary.
In the earliest years of the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, the players did not wear their unique helmets. The AFC All-Stars wore a solid red helmet with a white A on it, while the NFC players wore a solid white helmet with a blue N on it. The AFC's red helmets were paired with white jerseys and red pants, while the NFC's white helmets were paired with blue jerseys and white pants. Beginning with the 1979 game, players wore the helmets of their respective teams.
Two players with the same number who were elected to the Pro Bowl could wear the same number for that game, which was not always the case in the past.
The 2008 Pro Bowl included a unique example of several players from the same team wearing the same number in a Pro Bowl. For the game, Washington Redskins players T Chris Samuels, TE Chris Cooley, and LS Ethan Albright all wore the number 21 (a number normally inappropriate for their positions) in memory of their teammate Sean Taylor, who had been murdered during the 2007 season.
On October 7, 2013, Nike unveiled the uniforms for the 2014 Pro Bowl, which revealed that the red, white and blue colors that the game uniforms bore throughout its entire history would not be used for the game. As the NFC–AFC format was not used between 2014 through 2016, team 1 sported a white uniform with bright orange and team 2 sported a gray uniform with volt green. The new uniforms received mixed reviews from fans and sports columnists alike, one even mentioning that the game would look like an "Oregon vs. Oklahoma State" game.
Since 2017, when the conference format was restored, the league took an approach similar to the NFL Color Rush initiative, in which jerseys, pants, and socks were all a uniform color (red for the AFC, blue for the NFC).
With the switch to the Pro Bowl Games format in 2023, players are no longer required to wear standard football uniforms, helmets and pads. Instead they wore red (for AFC) or blue (for NFC) shirts and either gray shorts or pants. Some players would also wear caps as headgear and compression tights.
Game results
NFL All-Star Games (1938–1942)
No Most Valuable Player awards were presented during these games.
NFL Pro Bowls (1950–1969)
AFC–NFC Pro Bowls (1970–2012)
Unconferenced Pro Bowls (2013–2015)
AFC–NFC Pro Bowls (2016–2022)
Pro Bowl Games (2023–present)
Stadiums that have hosted the Pro Bowl
Wrigley Field (1939)
Gilmore Stadium (January and December 1940)
Polo Grounds (January 1942)
Shibe Park (December 1942)
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1951–1972, 1979)
Texas Stadium (1973)
Arrowhead Stadium (1974)
Miami Orange Bowl (1975)
Louisiana Superdome (1976)
Kingdome (1977)
Tampa Stadium (1978)
Aloha Stadium (1980–2009, 2011–2014, 2016)
Sun Life Stadium (2010)
University of Phoenix Stadium (2015)
Camping World Stadium (2017–2020, 2024)
Allegiant Stadium (2022–2023)
Records
Players with most invitations
As of the 2024 Pro Bowl, 29 players have been invited to at least 11 Pro Bowls in their careers. Except for those that are current active or not yet eligible, each of these players have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. With his selection in the 2022 Pro Bowl, quarterback Tom Brady has the all-time invitations record at 15. Of currently active players, offensive lineman Trent Williams has the most Pro Bowl invitations with 11.
Television
The Pro Bowl was originally broadcast on an alternative basis by CBS and NBC from 1971 to 1974, while the other network broadcast the Super Bowl. The game was then broadcast as part of the Monday Night Football package on ABC from 1975 to 1987. Sister network ESPN took it over as part of the ESPN Sunday Night Football package from 1988 to 1994. The game then returned to ABC for the 1995 through 2003 games. In the early 2000s, after suffering through several years of dwindling ratings ABC considered moving the game to Monday night, but the network instead decided to sell off the rights for the 2004–2006 games to ESPN.
For the 2007 to 2014 Pro Bowls, the network which aired the Super Bowl that season also aired the Pro Bowl. The 2007 game on CBS was held on the Saturday after Super Bowl XLI because of the 49th Grammy Awards. The 2008 game was on Fox, broadcaster of Super Bowl XLII. Likewise, the 2009 game was on NBC, broadcaster of Super Bowl XLIII. CBS sold off their rights to the 2010 game to ESPN, which was played a week before the Super Bowl at the Super Bowl site, Sun Life Stadium. CBS also declined to broadcast the 2013 game, which was instead shown on NBC. The 2014 game, also shown on NBC, was the final Pro Bowl on network television for four years.
ESPN then began holding exclusive rights to the Pro Bowl starting in 2015. In 2018, the Pro Bowl returned to network television for the first time in four years as part of a joint ABC/ESPN simulcast (both sister networks are owned by The Walt Disney Company). Disney XD was added to the simulcast for 2019. The ESPN/ABC simulcasts of the game continued through 2022.
Throughout his broadcasting career, the late John Madden declined to be part of the announcing crew when his network carried the Pro Bowl for his aviatophobia and claustrophobia (a joke referencing both is made in the Madden NFL '97 video game before the beginning of the Pro Bowl in season mode, where Madden quips that he drove his "Madden Bus" to Hawaii, rather than flying). Until Madden's retirement from broadcasting after the 2009 Pro Bowl, it had only occurred twice: Former San Diego Chargers quarterback and MNF personality Dan Fouts, whom Madden had replaced, took his place on ABC in 2003, and Cris Collinsworth took his place on NBC in 2009 (Collinsworth ended up replacing Madden permanently upon the latter's retirement).
In conjunction with the Professional Bowlers Association, the Pro Bowl also sponsors a charity bowling tournament the occurs during the weekend leading up to the game. The tournament is open to all NFL players regardless of whether they have been selected to play in the Pro Bowl. Winners are announced at halftime, and are presented with a check in their name payable to their favorite charity.
Most watched Pro Bowls
Since 2000
Blackout policy
Prior to 2015, the Pro Bowl was still subject to the NFL's blackout policies, requiring the game to be blacked out within 75 miles (121 km) of the stadium site if the game does not sell out all of the stadium's seats. However, with the lifting of the NFL's blackout rules in 2015, the game can be shown within the host stadium regardless of attendance.
Criticism
Quality
For decades, the Pro Bowl has been criticized as a glamor event more than a football game. This is due to the voluntary nature of the game, the arbitrary voting process, and the fear of player injury.
While players are financially compensated for participating in the Pro Bowl, for a star player, the pay can be less than 1% of their salary. Many star players have excused themselves from participation over the years, meaning that the very best players are not necessarily featured. Not having the best players in the Pro Bowl was exacerbated by the introduction of fan voting (see section below).
Another criticism of the game is that the players—particularly on defense—are not competing at the same level of intensity as they would during the regular season or the playoffs. This is because player injury plays a much greater part in a team's success in the NFL as compared to the other major American sports. For this reason, unlike the NBA, NHL, and MLB (which host their all-star events as a mid-season break), the Pro Bowl was historically held after the completion of the season and playoffs. This means that a player injured in the Pro Bowl would have at least six months to rehab before the next season begins. However, starting in 2010, the Pro Bowl was moved from the week after the Super Bowl to the week before it. Because of the above-noted fear of injury, players from the two teams participating in the Super Bowl were banned from participation, thus increasing the absence of star players.
In the 2012 game, the lack of defensive effort was apparent, not only to anyone watching, but additionally evidenced by the combined score of 100 points. Brett Keisel, an NFL player watching the game said, "They probably should have just put flags on them," indicating that the quality was about on the level of flag football. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the game needed to improve, otherwise it would be eliminated. It is worth noting that entire teams have declined to participate after losing the conference championship, like the 2015 New England Patriots, which had seven starters on the Pro Bowl roster. This, among other factors, caused the 2016 Pro Bowl to be more of a game featuring emerging players, with a record of 133 players selected overall (including those who were absent), and ended up including rookie quarterback Jameis Winston instead of recognized veterans Tom Brady and Carson Palmer, who were both in the conversation for the 2015 NFL season MVP before losing in their respective conference finals. In 2022 and 2023, Josh Allen turned down invitations to the Pro Bowl in favor of playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament, decisions that he stated were to allow himself to recover from several minor injuries. In 2023, Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs called the event "stupid" and stated that he would prefer to go on vacation rather than play in the game. The event was set to be hosted in Las Vegas that year.
Selection process
Voting by fans makes up 1/3 of the vote for Pro Bowl players. Some teams earn more selections of their players because fans often vote for their favorite team and not necessarily the best player. In the 2008 Pro Bowl, the Dallas Cowboys had thirteen players on the NFC roster, an NFL record. "If you're in a small market, no one really gets to see you play", said Minnesota Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield, who spent much of his early career with the small-market Buffalo Bills. "If you're a quiet guy, it's hard to get the attention. You just have to work hard and play." Winfield made the Pro Bowl in 2008 after ten seasons of being shut out.
The player voting has also been subject to significant criticism. It is not uncommon for players to pick the same players over and over again; former offensive lineman (and Sports Illustrated analyst) Ross Tucker has cited politics, incumbency, personal vendettas, and compensation for injury in previous years as primary factors in players' choices. Thus, players who have seen their play decline with age can still be perennially elected to the Pro Bowl for their popularity among other players, something particularly common among positions such as the offensive line, where few statistics are available. For example, in 2010, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs admitted voting for Ryan Fitzpatrick (then the backup quarterback of the Buffalo Bills) over eventual league most valuable player Tom Brady not because he thought Fitzpatrick was the better player but as a vote of disrespect toward Brady's team, the New England Patriots.
Some players have had a surprisingly small number of Pro Bowl selections despite distinguished careers. Hall of Fame fullback John Riggins was selected only once in his career from 1971 to 1985. He was not selected in the year after which he set the record for rushing touchdowns in a season and his team made it to the Super Bowl (although he did make the All-Pro team). Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke only made the Pro Bowl once, despite being named All-Pro seven times and being the MVP of the 1962 NFL Championship Game. Defensive back Ken Riley never made the Pro Bowl in his 15 seasons, even though he recorded 65 interceptions, the fourth-highest total in NFL history at the time of his retirement. Former Jacksonville Jaguars halfback Fred Taylor, who is 15th in all-time rushing yards, was elected to his only Pro Bowl in 2007, despite averaging 4.6 yards per carry for his career, better than all but five running backs ranked in the top 30 in all-time rushing. Aaron Smith made it to the Pro Bowl once in 13 years (2004) despite winning two Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers and being named to the Sports Illustrated 2000s All Decade Team and defensive teammates such as Troy Polamalu, Casey Hampton, and James Harrison being named to multiple Pro Bowls during his career; Smith would often be ranked as one of the NFL's most underrated players during his career.
See also
American Football League All-Star games
All-America Football Conference All-Star Game
Chicago College All-Star Game – a series played between an NFL team and a collegiate all-star team
NFL Pro Bowl records
References
External links
Official site
The Complete History of the Pro Bowl
The NFL's official website
Online Fan Voting Ballot Archived 2008-09-17 at the Wayback Machine
"Pro Bowl Game Books 1971–2011". NFL Game Statistics & Information System. National Football League. Archived from the original on November 15, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2012. |
Baltimore_Ravens | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Ravens | [
614
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Ravens"
] | The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its home games at M&T Bank Stadium and is headquartered in Owings Mills, Maryland.
The Baltimore Ravens were established in 1996 after Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns, announced plans in 1995 to relocate the franchise from Cleveland to Baltimore. As part of a settlement between the league and the city of Cleveland, Modell was required to leave the Browns' history, team colors, and records in Cleveland for a replacement team and replacement personnel that would resume play in 1999. In return, he was allowed to take his own personnel and team to Baltimore, where such personnel would form an expansion team. The team is owned by Steve Bisciotti and was valued at $4.63 billion in 2023, making them the 28th-most valuable sports franchise globally.
The Ravens have been one of the most successful NFL franchises since their inception, compiling a regular season record of 256–194–1 (.569), the third-highest among active franchises. They also own the fourth-highest playoff winning percentage at 17–13 (.567). The team has qualified for the NFL playoffs 15 times since 2000 with two Super Bowl titles (Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII), two AFC Championship titles (2000 and 2012), five AFC Championship game appearances (2000, 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2023), and seven AFC North division titles (2003, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, and 2023). They are one of two teams to be undefeated in multiple Super Bowl appearances, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Ravens organization was led by general manager Ozzie Newsome from 1996 until his retirement following the 2018 season, and has had three head coaches: Ted Marchibroda, Brian Billick, and since 2008, John Harbaugh. Starting with a record-breaking defensive performance in their 2000 season, the Ravens have established a reputation for strong defensive play throughout team history. Former players such as middle linebacker Ray Lewis, safety Ed Reed, and offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden have been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
History
Team name
The name "Ravens" was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven. Chosen in a fan contest that drew 33,288 voters, the allusion honors Poe who spent the early part of his career in Baltimore and is buried there. Other names polled included "Marauders", "Americans", and "Bombers", among others. As The Baltimore Sun reported at the time, fans also "liked the tie-in with the other birds in town, the Orioles, and found it easy to visualize a tough, menacing black bird". Edgar Allan Poe also had distant relatives who played football for the Princeton Tigers in the 1880s through the early 1900s. These brothers were famous players in the early days of American football.
Before the football team, there was the Baltimore Ravens wheelchair basketball team — the original Baltimore Ravens. In 1972, the Ravens wheelchair basketball team was founded by Ralph Smith, long-term resident of Baltimore, second Vice President of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) and Member of the NWBA Hall of Fame. The name "Ravens" was inspired by Bob Ardinger, a member of the Ravens wheelchair basketball team. In the 1990s, the naming rights were later sold to the football team when they came to the city and the wheelchair basketball team became known as the Maryland Ravens.
Background
After the controversial 1984 relocation of the Colts to Indianapolis, several attempts were made to bring an NFL team back to Baltimore. In 1993, ahead of the 1995 league expansion, the city was considered a favorite, behind only St. Louis, to be granted one of two new franchises. League officials and team owners feared litigation due to conflicts between rival bidding groups if St. Louis was awarded a franchise. In October Charlotte, North Carolina was the first city chosen. Several weeks later, Baltimore's bid for a franchise—dubbed the Baltimore Bombers, in honor of the locally produced Martin B-26 Marauder bomber—had three ownership groups in place and a state financial package which included a proposed $200 million, rent-free stadium and permission to charge up to $80 million in personal seat license fees. Baltimore, however, was unexpectedly passed over in favor of Jacksonville, Florida, despite Jacksonville's minor TV market status and that the city had withdrawn from contention in the summer, only to return with then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's urging. Although league officials denied that any city had been favored, it was reported that Tagliabue and his longtime friend Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke had lobbied against Baltimore due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., and that Tagliabue had used the initial committee voting system to prevent the entire league ownership from voting on Baltimore's bid. This led to public outrage and The Baltimore Sun describing Tagliabue as having an "Anybody But Baltimore" policy. Maryland governor William Donald Schaefer said afterward that Tagliabue had led him on, praising Baltimore and the proposed owners while working behind-the-scenes to oppose Baltimore's bid.
By May 1994, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos had gathered a new group of investors, including author Tom Clancy, to bid on teams whose owners had expressed interest in relocating. Angelos found a potential partner in Georgia Frontiere, who was open to moving the Los Angeles Rams to Baltimore. Jack Kent Cooke opposed the move, intending to build the Redskins' new stadium in Laurel, Maryland, close enough to Baltimore to cool outside interest in bringing in a new franchise. This led to heated arguments between Cooke and Angelos, who accused Cooke of being a "carpetbagger." The league eventually persuaded Rams team president John Shaw to relocate to St. Louis instead, leading to a league-wide rumor that Tagliabue was again steering interest away from Baltimore, a claim which Tagliabue denied. In response to anger in Baltimore, including Governor Schaefer's threat to announce over the loudspeakers Tagliabue's exact location in Camden Yards any time he attended a Baltimore Orioles game, Tagliabue remarked of Baltimore's financial package: "Maybe (Baltimore) can open another museum with that money." Following this, Angelos made an unsuccessful $200 million bid to bring the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to Baltimore.
Having failed to obtain a franchise via the expansion, the city, despite having "misgivings," turned to the possibility of obtaining the Cleveland Browns, whose owner Art Modell was financially struggling and at odds with the city of Cleveland over needed improvements to the team's stadium.
Return of American football in Baltimore
Enticed by Baltimore's available funds for a first-class stadium and a promised yearly operating subsidy of $25 million, Modell announced on November 6, 1995, his intention to relocate the team from Cleveland to Baltimore the following year. The resulting controversy ended when representatives of Cleveland and the NFL reached a settlement on February 8, 1996. Tagliabue promised the city of Cleveland that an NFL team would be located in Cleveland, either through relocation or expansion, "no later than 1999". Additionally, the agreement stipulated that the Browns' name, colors, uniform design and franchise records would remain in Cleveland. The franchise history includes Browns club records and connections with Pro Football Hall of Fame players. Modell's Baltimore team, while retaining all current player contracts, would, for purposes of team history, appear as an expansion team, a new franchise. Not all players, staff or front office would make the move to Baltimore, however.
After relocation, Modell hired Ted Marchibroda as the head coach for his new team in Baltimore. Marchibroda was already well known because of his work as head coach of the Baltimore Colts during the 1970s and the Indianapolis Colts during the early 1990s. Ozzie Newsome, the Browns' tight end for many seasons, joined Modell in Baltimore as director of football operations. He was later promoted to vice-president/general manager.
The home stadium for the Ravens first two seasons was Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, previously home to the Baltimore Colts, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Canadian Football League’s Baltimore Stallions. The Ravens moved to their own new stadium, now known as M&T Bank Stadium, next to Camden Yards in 1998.
The early years and Ted Marchibroda era (1996–1998)
In the 1996 NFL draft, the Ravens, with two picks in the first round, drafted offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden at No. 4 overall and linebacker Ray Lewis at No. 26 overall. Both Ogden and Lewis went on to play for the Ravens for their entire professional careers and were both inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The 1996 Ravens won their opening game against the Oakland Raiders, but finished the season 4–12 despite receiver Michael Jackson leading the league with 14 touchdown catches. The 1997 Ravens started 3–1. Peter Boulware, a rookie defender from Florida State, recorded 11.5 sacks and was named AFC Defensive Rookie of the Year. The team finished 6–9–1. On October 26, the team made its first trip to Landover, Maryland to play their new regional rivals, the Washington Redskins. The Ravens won the game 20–17. On December 14, 1997, the Ravens played the final professional sporting event at Baltimore’s historic Memorial Stadium, winning 21–19 over the Tennessee Oilers.
1998 marked the opening of a new stadium for the Ravens, currently known as M&T Bank Stadium, but originally named “PSINet Stadium” after the now-defunct internet service provider which purchased the original naming rights. Quarterback Vinny Testaverde left for the New York Jets before the season, and was replaced by former Indianapolis Colt Jim Harbaugh, and later Eric Zeier. Cornerback Rod Woodson joined the team after a successful stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Priest Holmes started getting the first playing time of his career and ran for 1,000 yards. The Ravens finished 1998 with a 6–10 record. On November 29, the Ravens welcomed the Colts back to Baltimore for the first time in 15 years. Amidst a shower of negative cheers towards the Colts, the Ravens won 38–31.
Brian Billick era (1999–2007)
Three consecutive losing seasons under Marchibroda led to a change in the head coach. Brian Billick took over as head coach in 1999. Billick had been offensive coordinator for the record-setting Minnesota Vikings the season before. Quarterback Tony Banks came to Baltimore from the St. Louis Rams and had the best season of his career with 17 touchdown passes and an 81.2 pass rating. He was joined by receiver Qadry Ismail, who posted a 1,000-yard season. The Ravens initially struggled with a record of 4–7 but managed to finish with an 8–8 record.
Due to continual financial hardships for the organization, the NFL took an unusual move and directed Modell to initiate the sale of his franchise. On March 27, 2000, NFL owners approved the sale of 49% of the Ravens to Steve Bisciotti. In the deal, Bisciotti had an option to purchase the remaining 51% for $325 million in 2004 from Art Modell. On April 9, 2004, the NFL approved Steve Bisciotti's purchase of the majority stake in the club.
2000: Super Bowl XXXV champions
Banks shared playing time in the 2000 regular season with Trent Dilfer. Both players put up decent numbers (and a 1,364-yard rushing season by rookie Jamal Lewis helped too) but the defense became the team's hallmark and bailed a struggling offense out in many instances through the season. Ray Lewis was named Defensive Player of the Year. Two of his defensive teammates, Sam Adams and Rod Woodson, made the Pro Bowl. Baltimore's season started strong with a 5–1 record. But the team struggled through mid-season, at one point going five games without scoring an offensive touchdown. The team regrouped and won each of their last seven games, finishing 12–4 and making the playoffs for the first time.
During the 2000 season, the Ravens' dominating defense broke a notable NFL record. They held opposing teams to 165 total points, surpassing the 1986 Chicago Bears mark of 187 points for a 16-game season, which at that time was the current NFL record. That record still stands, and the 2000 Ravens remain in the discussion as one of the greatest NFL defenses of all time, most notably alongside the 1985 Chicago Bears defense.
Since the divisional rival Tennessee Titans had a record of 13–3, the Ravens had to play in the wild card round. They dominated the Denver Broncos 21–3 in their first game. In the divisional playoff, they went on the road to Tennessee. With the score tied 10–10 in the fourth quarter, an Al Del Greco field goal attempt was blocked and returned for a touchdown by Anthony Mitchell, and a Ray Lewis interception return for a score put the game squarely in Baltimore's favor. The 24–10 win put the Ravens in the AFC Championship against the Oakland Raiders. The game was rarely in doubt. Shannon Sharpe's 96-yard touchdown catch early in the second quarter followed by an injury to Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon were crucial as the Ravens won easily, 16–3.
Baltimore then went to Tampa for Super Bowl XXXV against the New York Giants. The Ravens’ defense carried them to a win. They recorded four sacks and forced five turnovers, one of which was a Kerry Collins interception returned for a touchdown by Duane Starks. The Giants' only score was a Ron Dixon kickoff return for a touchdown; however, the Ravens immediately countered with a touchdown return on the ensuing kickoff by Jermaine Lewis. The Ravens became champions with a 34–7 win.
2001–2007
In 2001, the Ravens attempted to defend their title with Elvis Grbac as their new starting quarterback, but a season-ending injury to Jamal Lewis on the first day of training camp and poor offensive performances stymied the team. After a 3–3 start, the Ravens defeated the Minnesota Vikings in the final week to clinch a wild card berth at 10–6. In the first round the Ravens showed flashes of their previous year with a 20–3 win over the Miami Dolphins, in which the team forced three turnovers and out-gained the Dolphins 347 yards to 151. In the divisional playoff the Ravens played the Pittsburgh Steelers. Three interceptions by Grbac ended the Ravens' season, as they lost 27–10.
Baltimore ran into salary cap problems entering the 2002 season and was forced to part with a number of impact players. In the NFL Draft, the team selected Ed Reed with the 24th overall pick. Reed would go on to become one of the best safeties in NFL history, making nine Pro Bowls until leaving the Ravens for the Houston Texans in 2013. Despite low expectations, the Ravens stayed somewhat competitive in 2002 until a losing streak in December eliminated any chances of a postseason berth and a 7–9 finish.
In 2003, the Ravens drafted their new quarterback, Kyle Boller, but he was injured midway through the season and was replaced by Anthony Wright. Jamal Lewis ran for 2,066 yards (including a then-NFL record 295 yards in one game against the Cleveland Browns on September 14). With a 10–6 record, Baltimore won their first AFC North division title. Their first playoff game, at home against the Tennessee Titans, went back and forth, with the Ravens being held to only 54 yards total rushing. The Titans won 20–17 on a late field goal, and Baltimore's season ended early.
Ray Lewis was also named Defensive Player of the year for the second time in his career.
In April 2003, Art Modell sold 49% of the team to Steve Bisciotti, a local businessman who had made his fortune in the temporary staffing field. After the season, Art Modell sold his remaining 51% ownership to Bisciotti, ending over 40 years of tenure as an NFL franchise owner.
The Ravens did not make the playoffs in 2004 and finished the season with a record of 9–7 with Boller spending the season at QB. They did get good play from veteran corner Deion Sanders and third-year safety Ed Reed, who won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award. They were also the only team to defeat the 15–1 Pittsburgh Steelers in the regular season.
The next off-season, the Ravens looked to augment their receiving corps (which was second-worst in the NFL in 2004) by signing Derrick Mason from the Titans and drafting Oklahoma wide receiver Mark Clayton in the first round of the 2005 NFL draft. However, the Ravens ended their season 6–10.
The 2006 Baltimore Ravens season began with the team trying to improve on their 6–10 record of 2005. The Ravens, for the first time in franchise history, started 4–0, under the leadership of former Titans quarterback Steve McNair.
In 2006, The Ravens lost two straight games mid-season on offensive troubles, prompting coach Billick to drop their offensive coordinator Jim Fassel in their week seven bye. After the bye, and with Billick calling the offense, Baltimore would record a five-game win streak before losing to the Cincinnati Bengals in week 13. Still ranked second overall to first-place San Diego Chargers, the Ravens continued on. They defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, and held the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers to only one touchdown at Heinz Field, allowing the Ravens to clinch the AFC North.
The Ravens ended the regular season with a franchise-best 13–3 record. Baltimore had secured the AFC North title, the No. 2 AFC playoff seed, and clinched a 1st-round bye by season's end. The Ravens were slated to face the Indianapolis Colts in the second round of the playoffs, in the first meeting of the two teams in the playoffs. Many Baltimore and Indianapolis fans saw this historic meeting as a sort of "Judgment Day" with the new team of Baltimore facing the old team of Baltimore (the former Baltimore Colts having left Baltimore under questionable circumstances in 1984). Both Indianapolis and Baltimore were held to scoring only field goals as the two defenses slugged it out all over M&T Bank Stadium. McNair threw two costly interceptions, including one at the 1-yard line. The eventual Super Bowl champion Colts won 15–6, ending Baltimore's season.
The Ravens hoped to improve upon their 13–3 record but injuries and poor play plagued the team. The Ravens finished the 2007 season in the AFC North cellar with a disappointing 5–11 record. A humiliating 22–16 overtime loss to the previously winless Miami Dolphins on December 16 ultimately led to Billick's dismissal after the end of the regular season. He was replaced by John Harbaugh, the special teams coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and the older brother of former Ravens quarterback Jim Harbaugh (1998).
John Harbaugh/Joe Flacco era (2008–2018)
2008: Arrival of Harbaugh and Flacco
With rookies at head coach (John Harbaugh) and quarterback (Joe Flacco), the Ravens entered the 2008 campaign with much uncertainty. Baltimore smartly recovered in 2008, winning eleven games and achieving a wild card spot in the postseason. On the strength of four interceptions, one resulting in an Ed Reed touchdown, the Ravens began its postseason run by winning a rematch over Miami 27–9 at Dolphin Stadium on January 4, 2009, in a wild-card game. Six days later, they advanced to the AFC Championship Game by avenging a Week 5 loss to the Titans 13–10 at LP Field on a Matt Stover field goal with 53 seconds left in regulation time. The Ravens fell one victory short of Super Bowl XLIII by losing to the Steelers 23–14 at Heinz Field on January 18, 2009.
2009–2011
In 2009, the Ravens won their first three games, then lost the next three, including a close match in Minnesota. The rest of the season was an uneven string of wins and losses, which included a home victory over Pittsburgh in overtime followed by a Monday Night loss in Green Bay. That game was notable for the number of penalties committed, costing a total of 310 yards, and almost tying with the record set by Tampa Bay and Seattle in 1976. Afterwards, the Ravens easily crushed the Lions and Bears, giving up less than ten points in both games. The next match was against the Steelers, where Baltimore lost a close one before beating the Raiders to end the season. With a record of 9–7, the team finished second in the division and gained another wild card. Moving into the playoffs, they overwhelmed the Patriots 33–14; nevertheless they did not reach the AFC Championship because they were routed 20–3 by the Colts in the Divisional Round a week later.
Baltimore managed to beat the Jets 10–9 on the 2010 opener, but then lost a poorly played game against Cincinnati the following week. The Ravens rebounded against the other two division teams, beating Cleveland 24–17 in Week 3 and then. The Ravens scored a fine win (31–17) at home against Denver in Week 5. The Ravens finished the season 12–4, second in the division due to a tiebreaker with Pittsburgh, and earning a wild card spot. Baltimore headed to Kansas City and defeated the Chiefs 30–7, but once again were knocked from the playoffs by Pittsburgh in a hard-fought game 31–24.
The Ravens hosted their arch-enemy in Week 1 of the 2011 season. On a hot, humid day in M&T Bank Stadium, crowd noise and multiple Steelers mistakes allowed Baltimore to crush them with three touchdowns 35–7. The frustrated Pittsburgh players also committed several costly penalties. Thus, the Ravens had gained their first-ever victory over the Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger playing and avenged themselves of repeated regular and postseason losses in the series.
But in Week 2, the Ravens collapsed in Tennessee and lost 26–13. They rebounded by routing the Rams in Week 3 and then overpowering the Jets 34–17 in Week 4.
Week 5, the Ravens had a bye week, following a game against the Texans. But in Week 7, Baltimore had a stunning MNF upset loss in Jacksonville as they were held to one touchdown in a 12–7 loss. Their final scoring drive failed as Joe Flacco threw an interception in the closing seconds of the game.
After beating the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17 of the regular season, the Ravens advanced to the playoffs as the Number 2 seed in the AFC with a record of 12–4. They gained the distinction of AFC North Champions over Pittsburgh (12–4) due to a tie-breaker.
Ravens' Lee Evans was stripped of a 14-yard touchdown pass by the Patriots Sterling Moore with 22 seconds left and Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff pushed a 32-yard field goal attempt wide left on fourth down as the Patriots held on to beat the Ravens 23–20 during the AFC championship game and advance to Super Bowl XLVI.
2012: Ray Lewis' final season and second Super Bowl victory
The Ravens' attempt to convert Joe Flacco into a pocket passer remained a work in progress as the 2012 season began. Terrell Suggs suffered a tendon injury during an off-season basketball game and was unable to play for at least several weeks. In the opener on September 10, Baltimore routed Cincinnati 44–13. After this easy win, the team headed to Philadelphia, but lost 24–23.
Returning home for a primetime rematch of the AFC Championship, another bizarre game ensued. New England picked apart the Baltimore defense (which was considerably weakened without Terrell Suggs and some other players lost over the off-season) for the first half. Trouble began early in the game when a streaker ran out onto the field and had to be tackled by security, and accelerated when, at 2:18 in the 4th quarter, the referees made a holding call on RG Marshal Yanda. Enraged fans repeatedly chanted an obscenity at this penalty. The Ravens finally drove downfield and on the last play of the game, Justin Tucker kicked a 27-yard field goal to win the game 31–30, capping off a second intense and controversially officiated game in a row for the Ravens.
The Ravens would win the AFC North with a 10–6 record, but finished 4th in the AFC playoff seeding, and thus had to play a wild-card game. After defeating the Indianapolis Colts 24–9 at home (the final home game of Ray Lewis), the Ravens traveled to Denver to play against the top-seeded Broncos. In a very back-and-forth contest, the Ravens pulled out a 38–35 victory in two overtimes. They then won their 2nd AFC championship by coming back from a 13–7 halftime deficit to defeat the Patriots once again, 28–13.
The Ravens played the Super Bowl XLVII against the San Francisco 49ers. Baltimore built a 28–6 lead early in the third quarter before a partial power outage in the Superdome suspended play for 34 minutes (earning the game the added nickname of the Blackout Bowl). After play resumed, San Francisco scored 17 unanswered third-quarter points to cut the Ravens' lead, 28–23, and continued to chip away in the fourth quarter. With the Ravens leading late in the game, 34–29, the 49ers advanced to the Baltimore 7-yard line just before the two-minute warning but turned the ball over on downs. The Ravens then took an intentional safety in the waning moments of the game to preserve the victory. Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, who completed 22 of 33 passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns, was named Super Bowl MVP.
2013–2018
Coming off as the defending Super Bowl champions, this was the first year in franchise history for the team without Ray Lewis. The Ravens started out 3–2, and started the 2–0 Houston Texans 14-loss streak by shutting them 30–9 in Week 3. However, the Ravens lost their next 3 games, losing to the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers in last-minute field goals and were shut out in an attempt to tie the game against the Cleveland Browns 24–18.
After winning and losing their next game, the Ravens came out 4–6, but managed winning their next four games in dominating the Jets 19–3, a Steelers win 22–20 during Thanksgiving, a booming ending in Baltimore against the Vikings 29–26, and an 18–16 win at Detroit, including Justin Tucker's 61-yard game-winning field goal. The Ravens were 8–6, with the 6th seed, but after losing their next two games, and the San Diego Chargers winning their next two to clinch the 6th seed, the Ravens finished 8–8 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
On January 27, 2014, the Ravens hired former Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak to be their new offensive coordinator after Jim Caldwell accepted the new available head coaching job with the Detroit Lions. On February 15, 2014, star running back Ray Rice and his fiancée Janay Palmer were arrested and charged with assault after a physical altercation at Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Celebrity news website TMZ posted a video of Rice dragging Palmer's body out of an elevator after apparently knocking her out. For the incident, Rice was initially suspended for the first two games of the 2014 NFL season on July 25, 2014, which led to widespread criticism of the NFL.
In Week 1, on September 7, the Baltimore Ravens lost to the Cincinnati Bengals, 23–16. The next day, on September 8, 2014, TMZ released additional footage from an elevator camera showing Rice punching Palmer. The Baltimore Ravens terminated Rice's contract as a result, and was later indefinitely suspended by the NFL, although a judge later vacated this indefinite suspension. In Week 12, the Ravens traveled down for an interconference battle with the New Orleans Saints, which the Ravens won. In Week 16, the Ravens traveled to Houston to take on the Texans. In one of Flacco's worst performances, the offense sputtered against the Houston defense and Flacco threw three interceptions, falling to the Texans 25–13. With their playoff chances and season hanging in the balance, the Ravens took on the Browns in Week 17 at home. After three quarters had gone by and down 10–3, Joe Flacco led the Ravens on a comeback scoring 17 unanswered points, winning 20–10. With the win, and the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Diego Chargers, the Ravens clinched their sixth playoff berth in seven seasons.
In the wild card round, the Ravens won 30–17 against their divisional rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, at Heinz Field. In the next game in the Divisional round, the Ravens faced the New England Patriots. Despite a strong offensive effort and having a 14-point lead twice in the game, the Ravens were defeated by the Patriots 35–31, ending their season.
The 2015 season marked 20 seasons of the franchise's existence competing in the NFL, which the franchise recognized with a special badge being worn on their uniforms during the 2015 NFL season. The Ravens lost key players such as Joe Flacco, Justin Forsett, Terrell Suggs, Steve Smith Sr., and Eugene Monroe to season-ending injuries. Injuries and their inability to win close games early in the season led to the first losing season in the Harbaugh-Flacco era with a 5–11 mark. The 2016 Ravens finished 8–8, but failed to qualify the playoffs for the second straight year. They were eliminated from playoff contention after their Week 16 loss to their division rivals, the Steelers. This was the first time the Ravens missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since 2004–2005, as well as the first in the Harbaugh/Flacco era.
During the 2017 season, the Ravens improved upon their 8–8 record from 2016 by one win, finishing the season 9–7 and missing the playoffs for the third year in a row. This marked the first time the Ravens failed to make the playoffs in three straight seasons since the team's first three years of existence (1996–1998). The Ravens suffered a loss at home to the Cincinnati Bengals in the final game of the season that prevented them from earning a playoff berth.
Lamar Jackson era (2018–present)
The Ravens drafted quarterback Lamar Jackson with the 32nd pick in the 2018 draft. After the team started the season with a 4–5 record, Jackson took over as the starting QB in Week 11 when Joe Flacco was sidelined with a hip injury. The team won six of its next seven games, finishing the 2018 season with a 10–6 record and winning the AFC North, giving them their first playoff appearance since 2014 and their first division title since 2012. The Ravens lost to the Los Angeles Chargers in the Wild Card round with Jackson at quarterback, making him the youngest QB in NFL history to start a playoff game. At the conclusion of the season, Ozzie Newsome stepped down as the team's general manager. He was replaced by longtime assistant Eric DeCosta.
On March 13, 2019, the Ravens traded Joe Flacco to the Denver Broncos in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2019 NFL draft. That season, Lamar Jackson led the Ravens to a franchise-best 14–2 record, including a 12-game winning streak to finish the regular season. On December 22, they clinched home-field advantage for the first time in franchise history following a win over the Cleveland Browns. On December 8, Jackson became only the second player in NFL history to rush for over 1,000 yards from the quarterback position. Four days later, Jackson broke Michael Vick's single-season quarterback rushing record of 1,037 yards. Thirteen Ravens were selected to the 2019 Pro Bowl, matching the all-time NFL record.
The Ravens finished the 2019 regular season with 3,296 rushing yards, the most rushing yards by any team in NFL history during a season and they became the first team in NFL history to average at least 200 passing yards and 200 rushing yards per game in the same season.
Despite earning the number-one seed in the playoffs, the Ravens were eliminated by the sixth-seeded Tennessee Titans in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, 28–12. Lamar Jackson was unanimously voted AP NFL MVP, becoming only the second player in NFL history to do so, after Tom Brady in 2010.
In 2020, the Ravens went 6–5 in their first 11 games, but rebounded and finished the season 11–5, taking second place in the AFC North and earning a Wild Card playoff berth with the fifth seed. They also led the NFL in rushing yards for the second year in a row during the regular season, with 3,071 yards. In the Wild Card round, they defeated the fourth-seeded Tennessee Titans in Nashville, 20–13. In the Divisional Round, they fell to the second-seeded Buffalo Bills, 17–3.
In 2021, the Ravens claimed the record of consecutive preseason wins with 20, overtaking Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers record. In Week 3 of the 2021 season against the Detroit Lions, Justin Tucker put his name in the NFL record books by kicking the longest field goal in the history of the National Football League, 66 yards, which also was the field goal that won the game and 5 yards longer than his previous career long of 61 yards that was also kicked in Detroit. The following week, the Ravens tied the NFL record of consecutive 100 yard rushing games by a team with 43 in a win over the Denver Broncos, equaling the 1974 to ‘77 Pittsburgh Steelers record. The team reached an 8–3 record by Week 12, but ended the season on a six-game losing streak to finish 8–9, missing the playoffs and coming in last in the AFC North. Jackson sustained an ankle injury during the Week 14 loss to the Browns and did not appear in any subsequent games. In the 2022 season, the Ravens finished with a 10–7 record, which finished second in the AFC North. They lost in the Wild Card Round 24–17 to the Cincinnati Bengals. In the 2023 season, the Ravens finished with a 13–4 record, which earned them the AFC North title and the #1 overall seed for the AFC playoffs. In the Divisional Round, they defeated the Houston Texans 34–10. In the AFC Championship, they lost the Kansas City Chiefs 17–10.
Rivalries
Divisional
Pittsburgh Steelers
By far the team's biggest rival is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh and Baltimore are separated by a less-than-5-hour drive along Interstate 70. Both teams are known for their hard-hitting physical style of play. They play twice a year in the AFC North, and have met four times in the playoffs. Pittsburgh leads the all-time series, 30–24, and holds a 3–1 advantage in the four matchups in the postseason. Games between these two teams usually come down to the wire as most within the last 5 years have come down to under 4 points.
The rivalry is considered one of the most significant and intense in the NFL today.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Ravens' rivalry with the Cincinnati Bengals began when the original Browns franchise relocated to Baltimore to become the Ravens. Since then, the rivalry heated up when longtime Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis was hired as the head coach of the Bengals. The Ravens lead the all-time series 30–27 as of the 2023 season. The Bengals won the only playoff meeting in the 2022 AFC Wild Card round.
Cleveland Browns
The Browns–Ravens rivalry in the AFC North began when the Cleveland Browns resumed operations in 1999, after suspending operations for three seasons after the original Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens. The rivalry between the Browns and Ravens was more directed at former Browns owner Art Modell, who orchestrated the move, than the team itself, and has, by most Ravens fans, been simply considered a divisional game. The rivalry has been largely one-sided, as the Ravens hold a 36–14 series lead as of the end of the 2023 season. The two teams have not met in the playoffs.
Conference
New England Patriots
The Ravens first met the New England Patriots in 1996, but the rivalry truly started in 2007 when the Ravens suffered a bitter 27–24 loss in the Patriots' quest for perfection. The rivalry began to escalate in 2009 when the Patriots beat the Ravens 27–21 in a game that involved a confrontation between Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs. Both players would go on to take verbal shots at each other through the media after the game.
While the Patriots lead the overall series, 11–4, the teams have split four postseason meetings, 2–2. The Ravens won the 2009 Wild Card Round, 33–14, and the 2012 AFC Championship game, 28–13. The Patriots won the 2011 AFC Championship Game 23–20 and the 2014 Divisional Round, 35–31.
Tennessee Titans
Reemerging in the late 2010s, the rivalry between the Ravens and Tennessee Titans actually started in the early 2000s when both teams were in the AFC Central, with both teams having tough and bitter games, Ravens gave the Titans their first ever loss at the new Adelphia Coliseum in the 2000 season and the Ravens eliminated Tennessee during the playoffs later on. Fans and analysts have noted an emerging rivalry between the Baltimore Ravens and the Tennessee Titans of the AFC South. While there is no known animosity between the cities of Baltimore and Nashville, games between their respective teams have become heated and included fiery verbal exchanges between coaches and players. As of the 2023 season, the Ravens lead the all-time series 14–13.
Instate
Beltway Bowl: Washington Commanders
Though the two teams only play each other every 4 years, the Ravens have taken part in a minor geographic rivalry with the Washington Commanders as both stadiums are approximately 40 miles apart. The Commanders particularly had long blocked the return of an NFL team to Baltimore since the Colts franchise relocated to Indianapolis in 1984. Former owner Jack Kent Cooke had been accused in multiple instances of orchestrating any means to prevent the city from receiving a new franchise until the Cleveland Browns relocated to Baltimore in 1996, prompting Cooke to put the Redskins' then-new stadium in Landover, Maryland. The two teams play each other annually during the preseason. The Ravens currently lead the all-time series 4–3.
Overall head-to-head record vs. NFL teams
Below is table of the Baltimore Ravens head-to-head franchise record as of October 7, 2024.
Logo controversy
The team's first helmet logo, used from 1996 through the 1999 Pro Bowl, featured raven wings outspread from a shield displaying a letter B framed by the word Ravens overhead and a cross bottony underneath. The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict that the logo infringed on a copyright retained by Frederick E. Bouchat, an amateur artist and security guard in Maryland, though he was not awarded a dollar amount for his claim.
Bouchat had submitted his design to the Maryland Stadium Authority by fax after learning that Baltimore was to acquire an NFL team. He was not credited for the design when the logo was announced. Bouchat sued the team, claiming to be the designer of the emblem; representatives of the team asserted that the image had been designed independently. The court ruled in favor of Bouchat, noting that team owner Modell had access to Bouchat's work. Bouchat's fax had gone to John Moag, the Maryland Stadium Authority chairman, whose office was located in the same building as Modell's. Bouchat ultimately was not awarded monetary compensation in the damages phase of the case.
The Baltimore Sun ran a poll showing three designs for new helmet logos. Fans participating in the poll expressed a preference for a raven's head in profile over other designs. Art Modell announced that he would honor this preference but still wanted a letter B to appear somewhere in the design. The new Ravens logo, introduced in 1999, featured a raven's head in profile with the letter B superimposed. The secondary logo is a shield that honors Baltimore's history of heraldry. Alternating Calvert and Crossland emblems (seen also in the flag of Maryland and the flag of Baltimore) are interlocked with stylized letters B and R.
Uniforms
The design of the Ravens uniform has remained essentially unchanged since the team's inaugural season in 1996. Art Modell admitted to ESPN's Roy Firestone that the Ravens' colors, introduced in early 1996, were inspired by the Northwestern Wildcats 1995 dream season. Helmets are black with purple "talon" stripes rising from the facemask to the crown. Players normally wear purple jerseys at home and white jerseys on the road. In 1996 the team wore black pants with a single large white stripe for all games.
In 1997 the Ravens opted for a more classic NFL look with white pants sporting stripes in purple and black, along with the jerseys sporting a different font for the uniform numbers. The white pants were worn with both home and road jerseys. The road uniform (white pants with white jerseys) was worn by the Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV, at the end of the 2000 NFL season. This all-white combination was originally worn with black socks, but starting in 2021, the Ravens began wearing white hosiery with the all-white uniform.
In the 2002 season the Ravens began the practice of wearing white jerseys for the home opener that has a 1:00 kickoff. In recent seasons, the practice has come when the home game is played in week one. Since John Harbaugh became the head coach in 2008, the Ravens have also worn their white jerseys at home for preseason games.
In November 2004 the team introduced an alternate uniform design featuring black jerseys and solid black pants with black socks. The all-black uniform was first worn for a home game against the Cleveland Browns, entitled "Pitch Black" night, that resulted in a Ravens win. The uniform has since been worn for select prime-time national game broadcasts and other games of significance.
The Ravens began wearing black pants again with the white jersey in 2008. On December 7, 2008, during a Sunday Night Football game against the Washington Redskins, the Ravens introduced a new combination of black jersey with white pants. It was believed to be due to the fact that John Harbaugh doesn't like the "blackout" look. However, on December 19, 2010, the Ravens wore their black jerseys and black pants in a 30–24 victory over the New Orleans Saints.
Since 2010, the Ravens have worn their black jerseys at least twice each season. From 2011 to 2013 and again in 2015, they wore the all blacks once and the black on white once. In 2014 and 2016, they wore all black both times they wore alternate uniforms. In 2017, they wore all black twice and black on white once (although the league is supposed to limit teams to wearing alternate jerseys a maximum of two times a season).
On December 5, 2010, the Ravens reverted to the black pants with the purple jerseys versus the Pittsburgh Steelers during NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast. The Ravens lost to the Steelers 13–10. They wore the same look again for their game against the Cleveland Browns on December 24, 2011, and they won, 20–14. They wore this combination a third time against the Houston Texans on January 15, 2012, in the AFC Divisional playoff. They won 20–13. They would again wear this combination on January 6, 2013, during the AFC Wild Card playoff and what turned out to be Ray Lewis' final home game, where they defeated the Indianapolis Colts 24–9.
From their inaugural season until 2006, the Ravens wore white cleats with their uniforms; they switched to black cleats in 2007. From the mid-2010s onward, the NFL relaxed its rules regarding primary cleat colors, and Ravens players began wearing customized cleats in either purple, black, gold or white.
On December 20, 2015, the team unexpectedly debuted gold pants for the first time, wearing them with their regular purple jerseys against the Kansas City Chiefs. Although gold is an official accent color of the Ravens, the pants got an overwhelmingly negative response on social media by both Ravens fans and fans of other NFL teams, with some comparisons being made to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers' pants, and mustard.
During the 2015 season, the NFL announced a jersey promotion called Color Rush in which teams would wear uniforms typically of one color head-to-toe during select prime-time games. The promotion was used three times that season; all the games that featured them were on Thursday Night and had both teams wear them in each. The following season, the league released uniforms for all 32 teams and announced they would be worn during all Thursday Night games that year, as well as on Christmas. The Ravens had one Thursday Night game in 2016; they wore their all-purple Color Rush uniforms and won 28–7 over the division rival Cleveland Browns. They had one other Thursday night game the following season, in which they again wore the jerseys and won 40–0 over the Miami Dolphins. In their Christmas 2016 game against the Steelers, the Ravens wore their regular all-white uniforms while their rivals wore their Color Rush uniforms. Starting in 2024, the Ravens would wear alternate purple helmets with the Color Rush uniform, featuring a new front-facing Ravens logo as the helmet decals. The full set was rebranded as the "Purple Rising" uniforms.
On September 13, 2018, the Ravens debuted a new combination in a road game against the Cincinnati Bengals, wearing white jerseys with purple pants. The purple pants are similar to the ones used for Color Rush except that it has side stripes of black and white; the Color Rush purple pants have gold and white stripes. Then on October 21 against the New Orleans Saints, the Ravens paired their new purple pants with their regular purple uniforms. Black socks were originally worn with this combination, but on January 2, 2022, the Ravens wore purple socks with the regular all-purple combination against the Los Angeles Rams, essentially replicating their Color Rush uniforms but with minimal gold elements.
For the regular season finale against the Browns on December 30, the Ravens wore their black uniforms with purple pants. The Ravens wore this combination again October 11, 2021, against the Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football in a 31–25 overtime win.
Marching band
The team marching band is called Baltimore's Marching Ravens. They began as the Colts' marching band and have operated continuously from September 7, 1947, to the present. They helped campaign for football to return to Baltimore after the Colts moved. Because they stayed in Baltimore after the Colts left, the band is nicknamed "the band that would not die" and were the subject of an episode of ESPN's 30 for 30. The Washington Commanders are the only other NFL team that currently has a marching band.
Players of note
Current roster
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Note: The following lists players who officially played for the Ravens. For other Hall of Famers, players whose numbers were retired, and players who played for the Baltimore Colts, see Indianapolis Colts. Bold number notes player inducted as a member of the Ravens. For Cleveland Browns players, including those in the Hall of Fame and those whose numbers were retired, see Cleveland Browns.
Retired numbers
The Ravens do not have officially retired numbers. However, the number 19 has not been issued out of respect for Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, except for quarterback Scott Mitchell in his lone season in Baltimore in 1999. In addition, numbers 75, 52, 20, 55, and 73 in honor of Jonathan Ogden, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs, and Marshal Yanda respectively, have not been issued since those players' retirements from football.
Ring of Honor
The Ravens have a "Ring of Honor" which is on permanent display encircling the field of M&T Bank Stadium. The ring currently honors 20 members, including eight former members of the Baltimore Colts.
Key/Legend
First-round draft picks
The team's first draft was the 1996 NFL draft, where they selected UCLA offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden fourth overall and University of Miami linebacker Ray Lewis 24th overall. Both players won a Super Bowl with the team, earned numerous Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections, and are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Along with their pick in the next year's draft, this was the highest first-round draft pick that the Ravens have had. In 1996, 2000, 2003, 2018, and 2021, the Ravens had two first-round draft picks. In 2004, 2010, and 2012, they had none. Two of their first round picks have made at least ten Pro Bowls.
Team records
Passing
+ = min. 500 attempts, # = min. 100 attempts, ∗ = minimum 15 attempts,
Rushing
∗ = minimum 15 attempts, # = min. 100 attempts, + = min. 500 attempts
Receiving
∗ = minimum 4 receptions, # = min. 20 receptions, + = min. 200 receptions
Other
Returns
Kicking
Defense
Exceptional performances
Other career records
Most Tackles: Ray Lewis, ILB, 1,573 (1996–2012)
Most Forced Fumbles: Terrell Suggs, EDGE, 28 (2003–2018)
Longest Field Goal Made: Justin Tucker, 66 yards (2012–present)
Longest Fumble Recovery: Marlon Humphrey, CB, 70 yards (November 3, 2019)
All records as of December 18, 2019, per Pro-Football Reference.com
Staff
Head coaches
Ted Marchibroda (1996–1998)
Brian Billick (1999–2007)
John Harbaugh (2008–present)
Current staff
Broadcast media
References
Further reading
Smith, Dean Bartoli (2013). Never Easy, Never Pretty: A Fan, A City, A Championship City. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1439911068. (available online)
External links
Official website
Baltimore Ravens at the National Football League official website
Franchise Encyclopedia at Pro Football Reference |
Ray_Lewis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Lewis | [
614
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Lewis"
] | Raymond Anthony Lewis Jr. (born May 15, 1975) is an American former professional football linebacker who played his entire 17-year career for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, where he earned All-America honors. He is considered one of the greatest linebackers of all time.
Lewis was selected by the Ravens in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft, and upon his retirement following the 2012 season, was the last remaining active player from the team's inaugural season. Lewis immediately became a leader on defense and led the team in tackles as a rookie, the first of 14 times he led the Ravens in tackles.
In 2000, Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the stabbing deaths of two men; he testified as a key witness at the trial, and a jury determined the killings were acts of self-defense. The following season, he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year and led the Ravens' record-setting defense, which established a 16-game single-season record for the fewest points allowed (165) and the fewest rushing yards allowed (970), to victory in Super Bowl XXXV. Lewis also became the second linebacker to win the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award, and the first to win the award on the winning Super Bowl team. Lewis won his second Defensive Player of the Year award in 2003, becoming the sixth player to win the award multiple times. After a triceps tear that sidelined him for most of the 2012 regular season, Lewis returned for the Ravens' playoff run and earned his second Super Bowl victory in his final NFL game. On February 3, 2018, the fifth anniversary of his final game, Lewis was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
During his tenure with the Ravens, he accumulated 2,059 career combined tackles, including 1,568 solo tackles, both of which are NFL records. Due to his numerous accolades and prodigious football play, Lewis is widely considered to be the greatest middle linebacker in NFL history. He was a 13-time Pro Bowler, a 10-time All-Pro, and one of the few players in NFL history to play in a Pro Bowl in three decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). He is also considered to be the greatest Baltimore Raven of all time, as well as one of the greatest defensive players of all time.
Early life
Raymond Anthony Lewis Jr. was born in Bartow, Florida in Central Florida, the oldest of five siblings. His mother was just 16 at the time of his birth, while his father was absent for most of his life. Not much was known about his father's life other that he was a record-setting high school wrestler before he was incarcerated for drug-related offenses. As a boy, and the eventual older brother to four younger siblings, Lewis quickly became the man of the house. He helped his sisters with their hair and made sure his younger brother arrived at daycare on time. When his father's contact became less frequent, he abandoned his last name and changed it to the last name of his mother's boyfriend, Ray Lewis, when he entered Kathleen High School in Lakeland, Florida.
In addition to being a great high school football player, Lewis was a prolific wrestler, winning a Florida wrestling state title. He later revealed that his stepfather was extremely abusive towards his mother, and got a deck of 52 playing cards to start his push-up regimen, so he could get stronger to protect her. This also was the reason behind choosing the #52 jersey in his professional career. He is the older brother of former University of Maryland running back Keon Lattimore. Lewis was an All-American linebacker for the football team at Kathleen, overcoming his smaller size at the time with his intensity and instincts.
College career
Lewis enrolled in the University of Miami, where he was a member of the Miami Hurricanes football team. As a freshman, he was an immediate contributor and became a starter for the Hurricanes' final five games. He compiled 81 tackles, two sacks, two tackles for loss, and four pass deflections en route to being named to the freshman All-American team.
In his sophomore season, Lewis earned first-team All-American and All-Big East honors. Lewis led the Big East with 153 tackles and also contributed nine tackles for a loss, two sacks, and an interception for a Hurricanes team that had the nation's top-ranked defense and finished No. 6 in both the writers' and coaches' polls.
Lewis's junior campaign was even more successful, as he was again named to the All-American and All-Big East teams, and finished as runner-up for the Butkus Award, given to the top linebacker in college football. Lewis finished his junior season with 160 tackles, the second highest in University of Miami team history after Ed Weisacosky's 164 in 1965.
Lewis led the Big East in tackles his last two seasons and accumulated the fifth most in Miami history despite playing only three seasons.
After the 1995 season, Lewis decided to forgo his final year of college eligibility and enter the NFL draft. The Baltimore Ravens, who were entering their inaugural season, selected Lewis 26th overall in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft. Lewis was the Ravens' second ever draft pick behind offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden who was selected #4 overall the same year. Lewis eventually earned his undergraduate degree in Arts and Science in 2004 at the University of Maryland University College.
Professional career
1996 season: Rookie season
Lewis was the top-rated inside linebacker heading into the 1996 NFL Draft, in which Kevin Hardy was considered the draft's only outstanding linebacker prospect. Taken as the fifth linebacker in the draft, Lewis was seen by scouts as possessing speed, tackling ability, and intensity, as well as being praised for his ability to go into pass coverage. But many considered his lack of size a potential liability. In his first career game, a week 1 19–14 victory over the Oakland Raiders, Lewis earned AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his seven-tackle performance, along with an unusual interception. Lewis earned USA Today's All-Rookie team honors after his 15 tackles for loss led the NFL and 110 tackles led the Ravens in the 1996 season. He finished his rookie season with two and a half sacks, six pass deflections, and an interception on the season as the Ravens finished with a 4–12 record.
1997 season
In week 9, against the Washington Redskins, Lewis earned his second AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor. Lewis recorded an NFL-best and career high 184 tackles in 1997, which also included 156 solo tackles, the most ever in single season, and earned his first Pro Bowl berth at the end of that season. In addition, Lewis totaled four sacks, an interception, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and 11 pass deflections in the Ravens' 6–9–1 season.
1998 season
In Week 12 of the 1998 season, Lewis recorded two interceptions and a sack against the Bengals in a 20–13 win. Lewis made his second trip to the Pro Bowl after recording 120 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions, a forced fumble, and seven pass deflections. He led the 6–10 Ravens in tackles for the third consecutive season. He was also named to The Sporting News All-Pro Team. In what would prove to be Hall of Fame Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders's final game, Lewis and the rest of the Ravens defense held him to just 41 rushing yards on 19 attempts.
1999 season
In 1999, during the first game of the regular season against the St. Louis Rams, Lewis had 14 solo tackles, four tackles for loss, an interception, and a sack in the 27–10 loss. In week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he finished with a team leading 13 combined tackles in the 23–20 loss. In week 3 against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis had ten combined tackles and a sack in the 17–10 win. In week 4 against the Atlanta Falcons, Lewis finished with 12 combined tackles in the 19–13 overtime win. During week 5 against the Tennessee Titans, Lewis had 13 tackles and the only scored safety of his career in the 14–11 loss. In week 8 against the Buffalo Bills, Lewis had 14 tackles and a sack in the 13–10 loss. Despite the Ravens having an 8–8 regular season record, Lewis led the NFL in tackles with 165. He was named to a third-straight Pro Bowl and the All-Pro first team. In addition, he totaled three and a half sacks, three interceptions, eight pass deflections, a safety, and a forced fumble. Lewis won the 1999 NFL Alumni Linebacker Of The Year chosen by past NFL players voting according to the position they played.
2000: Record-setting defense and Super Bowl XXXV MVP
In 2000, Lewis led a defense which many call the greatest in NFL history for a single season. In week 2 of the regular season against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Lewis led the team in tackles with 11 tackles in the 39–36 win. In week 3 against the Miami Dolphins, Lewis had 11 tackles in the 19–6 loss. In week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he finished 13 tackles and a fumble recovery in the 15–10 win. In week 13 against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis had five tackles and two sacks in the 44–7 blowout win. Lewis finished the regular season with a franchise leading 137 tackles, as well as two interceptions, six pass deflections, and three fumble recoveries. The team set a 16-game single-season record for fewest points allowed (165) and fewest rushing yards allowed (970). The team recorded four shutouts, one shy of the single-season record. The unit finished first league-wide in six key defensive categories. Including the postseason, and excluding three combined touchdowns that were given up by the Ravens offense and special teams, Baltimore's defense allowed only 184 points in 20 games. After the regular season, he earned a unanimous All-Pro selection, and was once again named to start in the Pro Bowl. In the Wild Card Round against the Denver Broncos, Lewis had seven tackles and an interception in the 21–3 win. In the Divisional Round against the Tennessee Titans, Lewis had 12 combined tackles and an interception returned 50 yards for the clinching touchdown in the 24–10 win. In the AFC Championship against the Oakland Raiders, he had seven combined tackles and a fumble recovery in the 16–3 win. Lewis was named NFL Defensive Player of The Year for the 2000 season. The Ravens became only the second team to ever record a defensive shutout in a Super Bowl, as they dominated the New York Giants 34–7 to win the franchise's first ever Super Bowl championship. Lewis's five combined tackles and four passes defended earned him Super Bowl XXXV MVP honors. He also added 31 tackles, two interceptions, 9 pass deflections, one fumble recovery, and a touchdown in the four-game playoff run.
2001 season
In 2001, Lewis earned his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl selection, when he led the NFL in tackles with 162 and earned first-team All-Pro honors. In week 12, he had a career-high 18 total tackles and one sack in the 39–27 victory over the Colts. In week 15, he earned his third AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor in a 15–0 shutout of the Cincinnati Bengals. He had two interceptions and 11 total tackles in the win. The Ravens earned a playoff berth with a 10–6 record. In the Ravens' two playoff games, he totaled 17 tackles, three forced fumbles, and one pass deflection as the team's season ended in the divisional round.
2002 season
In 2002, Lewis was limited to only five games due to a shoulder injury. He still managed to rank fifth on the team with 58 tackles. In addition, Lewis compiled two interceptions, two pass deflections, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Lewis earned AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors in week 4 against the Denver Broncos after posting and tying his career-high with 18 tackles (11 solo), two pass deflections, and an interception. After having been selected to the Pro Bowl for five consecutive seasons (1997–2001), Lewis's streak was stopped by his season-ending injury. In his absence, the Baltimore Ravens defense finished ranked 19th in points allowed the team as a whole finished with a 7–9 record.
2003 season
Lewis was the leading vote recipient for the 2003 AP All-Pro team, earning 49 of 50 votes. He also won the annual AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year with 43 votes out of 50. He was named to his sixth career Pro Bowl for the 2003 season. Additionally, Lewis earned Pro Football Weekly, PFWA, and Football Digest Defensive MVP honors and was named to Dr. Z's Sports Illustrated All-Pro team, Pro Football Weekly's All-NFL team, Pro Football Weekly's All-AFC team, Football Digest's All-Pro first team, and The Sporting News' All-Pro team. Lewis also earned the KC 101 AFC Defensive Player of the Year award for the 3rd time in four years, the 2003 NFL Alumni Linebacker Of The Year, and finished with 161 tackles, one and a half sacks, six interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, 14 pass deflections, and one touchdown. He was named NFL Defensive Player of the Month for November and AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his 15-tackle, one-interception performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 17. In the Wild Card Round loss to the Tennessee Titans, Lewis totaled 17 tackles.
2004 season
In 2004, Lewis was named first-team All-Pro by the AP, second-team "All Pro" by College and Pro Football Weekly and Football Digest, and "All Pro" by The Sporting News. He finished the 2004 season playing 15 games while recording 146 total tackles, one sack, two fumble recoveries, one fumble forced, and six pass deflections as the Ravens went 9–7. He earned a seventh Pro Bowl nomination.
2005 season
Lewis's 2005 season was cut short by an injury in week 6. He was placed on injured reserve in week 8, having amassed 46 tackles, a sack, an interception, two pass deflections, and a fumble recovery in the season's first six games. The Ravens struggled to a final record of 6–10.
2006 season
In 2006, Lewis led the Ravens defense to an NFL-best ranking in 14 major defensive categories, including total yards allowed, points per game allowed, and interceptions. The Ravens also finished second in sacks, take-aways, and rushing yards allowed. Lewis missed two games due to an injury, but still recorded 103 tackles, a personal best of five sacks, two interceptions, and eight pass deflections in 14 games. He also forced a fumble and recovered one. The Ravens allowed just one 100-yard rushing performance in the 14 games Lewis played. Lewis was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week following his seven-tackle, one-sack, and three-pass-deflection performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the season opener. He was also selected to the Pro Bowl, but withdrew because of a hand injury, ceding his spot to fellow Ravens linebacker Bart Scott. Lewis finished fifth in voting for Defensive Player of the Year. Lewis totaled 15 tackles and a pass deflection in the Divisional Round loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
2007 season
Despite the Ravens' mediocre 5–11 season, Lewis was the team's leading tackler. Against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis recorded 16 tackles, recovered a fumble, and returned an interception for a touchdown. He earned his ninth career Pro Bowl nomination. He finished the season with 120 total tackles, two sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, ten passes deflected, two interceptions, and one touchdown.
2008 season
In 2008, Lewis helped lead the Ravens to the AFC Championship while totaling 117 tackles, three and a half sacks, three interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and nine passes deflected. He was named a starter to the Pro Bowl, his tenth such nomination, and was named an Associated Press first-team All-Pro for the sixth time. In addition, he was named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week following his eight tackles, two interception, and two pass deflections against the Houston Texans in week 10. In the three playoff games against the Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, and Pittsburgh Steelers, Lewis totaled 29 tackles, two forced fumbles, and one pass deflection in three games. After the season, he became an unrestricted free agent, but agreed to return to the Baltimore Ravens to complete his career. The contract, which would have run through 2015 (including two option years), was said to be worth $10 million the first year, but was highly incentivized.
2009 season
In 2009, Lewis was named first-team All-Pro by the Associated Press for the seventh time (ninth selection overall) and named to his 11th Pro Bowl. He accumulated an AFC-leading 134 tackles on the season. He also added three sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, and seven passes deflected. Lewis added 21 tackles, one sack, and one pass deflection in two playoff games. In the September 2009 issue of Sporting News' Magazine, Lewis was selected to their Team of the Decade (2000s). In week 2 against the San Diego Chargers, Lewis made the game-saving tackle on running back Darren Sproles on a fourth-down play. After the game, Lewis said it was one of the best tackles he has made in his career. Lewis was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 1st team All-2000s Team.
2010 season
In 2010, Lewis was named second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press for the third time (10th All-Pro selection overall) and named to his 12th Pro Bowl. He totaled 139 tackles, two sacks, two interceptions, two forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, four pass deflections, and one defensive touchdown, which came on a 24-yard pick six against the Panthers in Week 11. Lewis added 13 tackles, one sack, and a forced fumble in two playoff games. On Sunday, November 21, 2010, Lewis became only the second player in NFL history to record at least 30 interceptions and 30 sacks for their career. He was the fastest player (204 games) to achieve that feat. He was ranked fourth by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2011. He earned the highest ranking for a defensive player on the initial ranking by the NFL players.
2011 season
In week 3, Lewis was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against the St. Louis Rams. In the 37–7 victory, Lewis had one sack, one forced fumble, and ten solo tackles. In the 2011 season, Lewis was named to his 13th and what proved to be his final Pro Bowl, and led the Ravens with 95 tackles despite missing four games with an injury. Lewis also collected two sacks, one interception, two forced fumbles, and seven pass deflections. Lewis totaled 20 tackles and one pass deflection in two playoff games. On Sunday, October 16, 2011, against the Houston Texans, Lewis became the first player in NFL history with at least 40 sacks and 30 interceptions in his career. He was ranked 20th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2012.
2012: Final year and second Super Bowl
Lewis suffered torn triceps on October 14, 2012, during a game against the Dallas Cowboys, and had them surgically repaired three days later. Several sources had reported he was expected to return to action December 16 in the game against the Denver Broncos, much earlier than his expected return in January, but he was inactive for the game. On January 2, 2013, Lewis announced he would retire after his team finished the 2012–13 NFL playoffs.
He returned to action for Baltimore's Wild Card Round game against the Colts and led the defense to a 24–9 win. On the game's last play, Lewis lined up on offense at fullback. The Ravens were not slated to play another home playoff game (since they were the number-four seed, and the day before, the Houston Texans beat the number-six seed Cincinnati Bengals), so they wanted Lewis to be on the field for the final play. Next, the Ravens defeated the Denver Broncos in the Divisional Round, 38–35 in double overtime, and then defeated the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship, 28–13.
Lewis's final career NFL game was Super Bowl XLVII, where the Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 34–31. Lewis finished the regular season with 57 tackles, one sack, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, and one deflection in six games. In the postseason, Lewis led the NFL with 51 tackles. He contributed two tackles for loss and one pass deflection in the Ravens' Super Bowl XLVII run.
NFL career statistics
Regular season
Playoffs
Murder trial
Following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta on January 31, 2000, a fight broke out between Lewis' entourage and another group of people, resulting in the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and two companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were questioned by Atlanta police, and 11 days later the three men were indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges. The fight occurred about 200 yards (180 m) from the Cobalt Lounge at 265 East Paces Ferry Road in the Buckhead Village neighborhood about two miles north of downtown Atlanta where Lewis had been celebrating.
The white suit Lewis was wearing the night of the killings was never found. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard alleged the blood-stained suit was dumped in a garbage bin outside a fast food restaurant. A knife found at the scene did not have any fingerprints or DNA. Lewis subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier in the week before the Super Bowl from a Sports Authority where Lewis had been signing autographs. Baker's blood was found inside of Lewis's limousine.
Two weeks into the trial, Lewis's attorneys, Don Samuel and Ed Garland, negotiated a plea agreement with the District Attorney in which the murder charges against Lewis were dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Oakley and Sweeting, and his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice. Lewis admitted he gave a misleading statement to police on the morning after the killings (initially telling them that he was not at the scene). Superior Court Judge Alice D. Bonner sentenced Lewis to 12 months' probation. One year in prison is the maximum sentence for a first-time offender, and the immediate probation was the judge's decision. He was also fined $250,000 by the NFL, which was believed to be the highest fine levied against an NFL player for an infraction not involving substance abuse. Under the terms of the sentence, Lewis could not use drugs or alcohol during the duration of the probation.
Outcome
Oakley and Sweeting maintained that they had acted in self-defense, and after five hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted them of all charges in June 2000. The following year, Lewis was named Super Bowl XXXV MVP. However, the signature phrase "I'm going to Disney World!" was given instead to quarterback Trent Dilfer.
On April 29, 2004, Lewis reached an out-of-court settlement with four-year-old India Lollar, born months after the death of her father Richard, pre-empting a scheduled civil proceeding. Lewis also reached an undisclosed settlement with Baker's family.
During a taped pre-game interview with Shannon Sharpe that aired on CBS before Super Bowl XLVII, Sharpe told Lewis that the families of the slain men find it difficult to see Lewis idolized by millions of fans, believing he knows more about the killings than he shared, and asked what he had to say to those families. Lewis responded, "God has never made a mistake. That's just who He is, you see.... To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He don't use people who commits anything like that for His glory."
The Ravens' crisis management around Lewis's murder trial was revisited by former head coach Brian Billick, by then a media analyst, after the 2013 arrest of Aaron Hernandez and his swift release by the New England Patriots.
Legacy
Throughout his career, Lewis built a reputation as a leader and intimidating force at middle linebacker. He has led his team in tackles in 12 of his 14 seasons. The Ravens did not allow a single 100-yard rusher in 51 consecutive games from the 1998 through 2001 seasons. In addition to his run defense, Lewis has also gained a reputation as a complete defender. His 31 interceptions rank fifth all-time among NFL linebackers, and just six short of the top spot. Since the murder allegations, Lewis's image has recovered, and today he is considered one of the most dominant linebackers in the history of the NFL. Lewis was also selected as the third-best linebacker of all time on the show The Sports List. A poll of NFL coaches selected him as the most dominant player in the NFL before the 2003 season by being mentioned on 10 ballots, while no other player was mentioned more than twice. Team owner Steve Bisciotti stated his intention to erect a statue of Lewis outside M&T Bank Stadium. On September 4, 2014, days before the Ravens season opener, a statue of Lewis was unveiled in front of M&T Bank Stadium.
Lewis has been referenced in television shows such as The Wire, films such as The Rundown (by that movie's star and Lewis's friend & former teammate at Miami, Dwayne Johnson), and in music videos, such as in Mario's "Just a Friend 2002" and Nelly's "Heart of a Champion". Lewis has appeared in television ads for NFL Network, Reebok, Under Armour, Old Spice, and Eastern Motors. He was the featured athlete on the cover of Madden NFL 2005. That season, he missed a number of games to an injury, adding to the "Madden Curse". He was documented in NFL Network's documentary series A Football Life. He was named to the NFL 100 All Time Team.
Other work
Lewis opened the Ray Lewis Full Moon Bar-B-Que, which operated in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood from February 2005 until 2008. He has also gained several national corporate endorsements, some of which draw upon his tough image. In 2004, Lewis was placed on the cover of the highly popular Madden NFL 2005 video game published by EA Sports, and is also a very avid player of the same series. In 2006, it was announced that Lewis, Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers, and entrepreneur Mark Bloomquist would form S&L Racing, intending to race both cars and trucks from a North Carolina headquarters. Lewis's attempt to join NASCAR racing failed.
On March 13, 2013, it was announced that Lewis would join ESPN as a contributor for their NFL coverage. Lewis was let go by ESPN in 2016. On June 20, 2017, it was announced Lewis had been hired by cable sports network Fox Sports 1.
Lewis competed against tight end Tony Gonzalez in an episode of Spike (now Paramount Network)'s Lip Sync Battle, which aired on February 2, 2017. He emerged victorious with performances of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and "Hot in Herre" by Nelly, who joined him for the performance.
In August 2019, Lewis was announced as one of the celebrities to compete on season 28 of Dancing with the Stars. He later withdrew from the competition due to a tendon injury in his foot, requiring surgery.
Charitable activities
Lewis has been heavily involved in charitable activities throughout his professional career. He started the Ray Lewis 52 Foundation which is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to provide personal and economic assistance to disadvantaged youth. The foundation has funded such events as adopting 10 families in Baltimore community for the holidays, an annual celebrity auction and bowling tournament, the Great Maryland Duck Derby, Thanksgiving food drives on North Avenue in Baltimore, and Ray's Summer Days. All proceeds have helped fund the Ray Lewis Foundation.
Lewis has since been involved in pressing political, business, and philanthropic leaders for a stronger commitment to disability sports both here and in the developing world. Lewis was also honored with a JB award (named in honor of CBS broadcaster James Brown) during the 2006 off-season and received the "Act of Kindness" Award for his work in the community.
Awards and accolades
Since his rookie year in 1996, Lewis has won numerous NFL awards, including being named Defensive Player of the Year twice (2000 and 2003), as well as Super Bowl MVP after winning Super Bowl XXXV after the 2000 season. He is also a 13-time Pro Bowler and seven-time AP First Team All-Pro player, a three-time AP Second Team All-Pro Selection, and was also a two-time All-American in college (1994 and 1995).
On May 11, 2010, a portion of Baltimore's North Avenue was renamed "Ray Lewis Way" in honor of the linebacker and his charitable work.
Lewis had career totals of 2,059 total tackles (1,568 solo), 19 forced fumbles, 117 passes defended, 102.5 stuffs for a loss, 41.5 sacks, 20 fumble recoveries, 31 interceptions for 503 yards, one safety, and three touchdowns in 228 games. He has been selected to 13 NFL Pro Bowl games, a record for an inside/middle linebacker, in his 17 seasons, and led the NFL in tackles five times (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2004). In 2003, Lewis led all linebackers with six interceptions, a total matching the post-merger all-time record for a middle linebacker in a single season. Lewis was named first-team Associated Press All-Pro in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009 and second-team All-Pro in 1997, 1998, and 2010. His 10 total All-Pro selections is a record for an inside/middle linebacker and ties the record for a linebacker (Lawrence Taylor also has 10 selections). In 21 career playoff games, Lewis has totaled 214 tackles (135 solo), two sacks, six forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, two interceptions for 54 yards, 15 pass deflections, 10.5 stuffs for a loss, and one touchdown.
Lewis was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018, his first year of eligibility. Lewis joined teammate Jonathan Ogden in Canton; the two were the Ravens' first two draft picks after the team relocated to Baltimore.
Personal life
Lewis is a Christian, and his commitment to his faith was featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story in 2006. He has a total of six children, four boys, and two girls.
His son Ray III played college football at the University of Miami, and later Coastal Carolina. Ray III would later play indoor football for the Wyoming Mustangs in 2021. Ray III died at the age of 28 on June 15, 2023, of an accidental overdose.
His son Rayshad played at Utah State and University of Maryland.
Michael Phelps, a Baltimore native and Ravens fan, stated that he found his life purpose and desire to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics after seeking Lewis's advice.
In 2015, Lewis' autobiography, I Feel Like Going On: Life, Game, and Glory, was published.
References
Notes
Further reading
External links
Ray Lewis on Instagram
Ray Lewis on X (Twitter)
Ray Lewis at IMDb
Ray Lewis at the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Career statistics and player information from NFL.com · ESPN · Yahoo! Sports · Pro Football Reference |
Kathleen_Senior_High_School | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Senior_High_School | [
614
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Senior_High_School"
] | Kathleen Senior High School is the second oldest of four high schools in Lakeland, Florida, United States. It was originally housed north of its present location, at the site of the current Kathleen Middle School.
Notable alumni
Desmond Clark, former National Football League (NFL) tight end
Dominique Davis, NFL quarterback (Atlanta Falcons)
Paul Edinger, former American football kicker in the National Football League (NFL)
Kenneth Gant, former NFL safety and special teams player for the Dallas Cowboys
Ray Lewis, former NFL linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens
Albert McClellan, former NFL linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, New England Patriots, and New York Jets
Alan Mills, Major League Baseball pitcher (1990–2001)
Freddie Mitchell, former NFL wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles
Chris Richard, professional basketball forward
Forrest Sawyer, Emmy Award-winning journalist
Donnell Smith, former NFL player for the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots
Ronnie Smith, former wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles
== References == |
List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films"
] | This is a list of films produced by and released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner (known as that since 1983, with Never Cry Wolf as its first release) and films released before that under the former name of the parent company, Walt Disney Productions (1929–1983). Most films listed here were distributed theatrically in the United States by the company's distribution division, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, formerly known as Buena Vista Film Distribution Company (1953–1960), Buena Vista Distribution Company (1960–1987) and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution (1987–2007). The Disney features produced before The Living Desert (1953) were originally distributed by United Artists and RKO Radio Pictures, and are now distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Some films produced by Walt Disney Pictures are also released through the parent company's streaming service, Disney+.
This list is organized by release date and includes live-action feature films (including theatrical, direct-to-video and streaming releases), animated feature films (including films developed and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios) and documentary films (including titles from the True-Life Adventures series and films produced by the Disneynature label). For an exclusive list of animated films released by Walt Disney Pictures and its previous entities see List of Disney theatrical animated feature films and List of Disney feature-length home entertainment releases § Animated films.
This list is only for films released under the main Disney banner. It does not include films produced or released by other existing, defunct or divested labels or subsidiaries owned by Walt Disney Studios (i.e. Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, National Geographic Documentary Films, Miramax Films, Dimension Films, ESPN Films, etc.) unless they are credited as co-production partners, nor any direct-to-video releases unless they were produced under the main Disney banner, TV films, theatrical re-releases or films originally released by other non-Disney studios.
All films listed are theatrical releases and/or American-based films unless specified.
A ‡ symbol signifies a direct-to-video or streaming release exclusively through Disney+.
A † symbol signifies a premium video on demand release through Disney+.
A § symbol signifies a simultaneous release to theatres and on premium video on demand.
A * symbol signifies a film not produced in the United States, but rather in another country.
Released
1930s–1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Upcoming
Undated films
In development
See also
In-depth lists by other types
List of Disney feature-length home entertainment releases
List of Disney television films
List of Disney theatrical animated feature films
List of Disney live-action adaptations and remakes of Disney animated films
List of film adaptations of Disney attractions
Disney-branded labels
Lists of Walt Disney Studios films
Operating:
Walt Disney Animation Studios (list)
Disney Channel Original Movies (list)
Pixar Animation Studios (list)
Disneynature
Defunct:
ImageMovers Digital
Skellington Productions
Disneytoon Studios
Other film labels and/or subsidiaries
Operating:
Marvel Studios (list)
Marvel Cinematic Universe (list)
Marvel Television
Lucasfilm Ltd. (list)
20th Century Studios (list)
Searchlight Pictures (list)
20th Century Animation
Star Studios
ESPN Films
Star Studios
Defunct:
Hollywood Pictures
Touchstone Pictures (list)
ABC Motion Pictures (list)
ABC Family (list)
Fox 2000 Pictures
Blue Sky Studios (list)
UTV Motion Pictures
Divested (once owned by Disney):
Miramax (list)
Dimension Films (list)
Related lists
List of Walt Disney Animation Studios short films
List of Disney television series
Notes
References
Further reading
Maltin, Leonard (2000). The Disney Films. New York: Disney Editions. ISBN 978-0-7868-8527-5.
Smith, Dave (2006). Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). New York: Disney Editions. ISBN 978-0-7868-4919-2.
"A Complete List of Disney Films". The Walt Disney Company. Archived from the original on August 25, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2003.
List of all films released by Disney regardless of label—Disney
List of Pre-1980 Live Action Disney Movies and DVD Status Archived February 3, 2023, at the Wayback Machine—UltimateDisney.com
List of 1980–Present Live Action Disney Movies and DVD Status—UltimateDisney.com
External links
Official list of Walt Disney Pictures films |
One_Hundred_and_One_Dalmatians | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_and_One_Dalmatians | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_and_One_Dalmatians"
] | One Hundred and One Dalmatians (also known as 101 Dalmatians) is a 1961 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions with distribution by Buena Vista Distribution. Adapted from Dodie Smith's 1956 novel of the same name, the film was directed by Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wolfgang Reitherman from a script by Bill Peet. It features the voice talents of Rod Taylor, J. Pat O'Malley, Betty Lou Gerson, Martha Wentworth, Ben Wright, Cate Bauer, Dave Frankham, and Fred Worlock.
The film's plot follows a litter of fifteen Dalmatian puppies, who are kidnapped by the obsessive socialite Cruella De Vil, wanting to make their fur into coats. Pongo and Perdita set out on a cross-country rescue mission to save the litter from the maniacal Cruella, in the process rescuing 84 additional ones, bringing the total of Dalmatians to 101.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians was released in theaters on January 25, 1961, to critical acclaim and was a box-office success, grossing $14 million domestically in its original theatrical run. It became the first animated feature to earn over $10 million during its initial release, and became the eighth-highest-grossing film of the year in the North American box office and the highest-grossing animated film when reissues of films are not counted. Aside from its box-office revenue, the employment of inexpensive animation techniques, such as using xerography during the process of inking and painting traditional animation cels, kept production costs down. Counting reissues, the film grossed $303 million worldwide, and when adjusted for inflation, is the twelfth-highest-grossing film in the North American box office and the second-highest-grossing animated film globally.
The success of the film made Disney expand it into a media franchise, with a live-action remake released in 1996, followed by a sequel in 2000. A direct-to-video animated sequel to the 1961 film, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, was released in 2003. Two animated television series based on the franchise were also produced, with 101 Dalmatians: The Series in 1997 and 101 Dalmatian Street in 2019. A live-action reboot, Cruella, was released in 2021.
Plot
In 1958, aspiring songwriter Roger Radcliffe lives in a bachelor flat near Regent's Park in London with his pet Dalmatian, Pongo. Deciding both of them need a "mate", Pongo watches women and their dogs in the street. Noticing a young woman named Anita and her Dalmatian Perdita, he drags Roger to the park to arrange a meeting. Roger and Anita fall in love, and soon marry, with Pongo and Perdita attending.
The Radcliffes hire a nanny and move into a small townhouse near Regent's Park. After Perdita becomes pregnant with a litter of 15 puppies, Anita's fur-obsessed former schoolmate, Cruella De Vil, arrives and demands to know when the puppies will arrive; Roger responds by writing a jazzy song mocking her. A heartbroken Perdita confesses to Pongo that she now regrets the idea of having puppies due to Cruella wanting them. When the puppies are born, Cruella returns, demanding to buy them. Roger firmly denies her offer; Cruella, refusing to take no for an answer, swears revenge and storms out.
Several weeks later, Cruella makes good on her threat and secretly hires brothers Jasper and Horace Badun, two burglars, to steal the puppies. When Scotland Yard is unable to find the puppies or prove Cruella was involved, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", a canine gossip line, to solicit help from the other dogs in London, and eventually all of England.
Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog, along with his feline compatriot Sergeant Tibbs, investigate the nearby "Old De Vil Place", where puppies had been heard barking two nights earlier. Tibbs finds the puppies in the hall and learns that Cruella intends to make them into dog-skin fur coats. After Colonel sends word back to London, Pongo and Perdita leave through a back window and begin a long cross-country journey, crossing an icy river and running through the snow toward Suffolk.
Meanwhile, Tibbs overhears Cruella ordering the Baduns to kill the puppies that night out of fear the police will soon find them. In response, Tibbs helps the puppies escape through a hole in the wall, but the Baduns notice and give chase. Pongo and Perdita break into the house and confront the Baduns just as they are about to kill the puppies. While the adult dogs fight the two men, Colonel and Tibbs guide the puppies from the house. Following a happy reunion with their own puppies, Pongo and Perdita discover there are 84 more puppies with them. Shocked at Cruella's plans, they decide to adopt all the puppies, certain that Roger and Anita would never reject them.
The Dalmatians start their homeward trek, pursued by the Baduns. They take shelter from a blizzard in a dairy farm with a friendly collie and three cows, then make their way to Dinsford, where they meet a Black Labrador waiting for them in a blacksmith's shop. Cruella and the Baduns arrive, prompting Pongo to have his entire family roll in a sooty fireplace to disguise themselves as other Labradors. The Labrador helps them board a moving van bound for London, but melting snow falls on Lucky and clears the soot off of him, blowing the dogs' cover. Enraged, Cruella pursues the van in her car and tries to ram it off the road, but the Baduns, attempting to do the same with their lorry, end up colliding with her, resulting in Cruella and the Baduns getting stranded in a ditch with their vehicles destroyed as the van drives off.
In London, a depressed Nanny and the Radcliffes try to enjoy Christmas and the wealth they have acquired from the song about Cruella, which has become a big radio hit. The soot-covered Dalmatians suddenly flood the house. Upon removing the soot and counting the massive family of dogs, Roger chooses to use his songwriting royalties to buy a big house in the country so they can keep all 101 Dalmatians.
Voice cast
Rod Taylor as Pongo, Roger's urbane and dashing pet Dalmatian, Perdita's mate, the father of fifteen, and adoptive father of the eighty-four orphaned puppies. He also serves as the film's narrator.
Cate Bauer and Lisa Daniels as Perdita, Anita's quiet and refined pet Dalmatian, Pongo's mate, the mother of fifteen, and adopted mother of the eighty-four orphaned puppies. She is an amalgamation of the characters "Perdita" and "Missis" from the original novel.
Betty Lou Gerson as Cruella De Vil, an erratic and ruthless aristocrat and Anita's schoolmate who adores fur and wants to turn Dalmatian puppies into a coat.
Gerson also voiced Miss Birdwell, a panelist on What's My Crime? TV show.
Ben Wright as Roger Radcliffe, Pongo's absent-minded owner and Anita's husband who works as a songwriter.
Bill Lee provided Roger's singing voice.
Lisa Davis as Anita Radcliffe, Perdita's reserved and polite owner, Roger's wife, and Cruella's schoolmate.
J. Pat O'Malley and Fred Worlock as Jasper and Horace Badun, mean and argumentative small-time crooks whom Cruella hires to steal Dalmatian puppies.
O'Malley also voiced Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog of military bearing who aids in the search for puppies; Mr. Simpkins, a panelist on What's My Crime? TV show; and the Mechanic.
Worlock also voiced Inspector Graves, a panelist on What's My Crime? TV show.
Martha Wentworth as Nanny, the Radcliffes' warm and motherly cook and housekeeper. She is an amalgamation of the characters "Nanny Cook" and "Nanny Butler" from the original novel.
Wentworth also voiced Lucy, the white goose; and Queenie, one of the cows that the Dalmatians encounter during their escape from Cruella.
Dave Frankham as Sergeant Tibbs, a scrawny tabby cat who aids the puppies in their escape from Cruella and Baduns.
Frankham also voiced Scottie, the Skye Terrier.
Thurl Ravenscroft as Captain, a gray horse and aide of Colonel and Sergeant Tibbs.
Tudor Owen as Old Towser, a Bloodhound.
Owen also voiced the Truck Driver.
George Pelling as Danny, a Great Dane of Hampstead.
Ramsay Hill as the Labrador Retriever who helps the Dalmatians escape from Cruella and Baduns.
Hill also voiced the TV Announcer.
Queenie Leonard and Marjorie Bennett as Princess and Duchess, cows from a country barn where Dalmatians take shelter during their escape.
Sylvia Marriott voiced the fourth unnamed cow.
Mickey Maga, Barbara Beaird, Mimi Gibson, and Sandra Abbott as Patch, Rolly, Lucky, and Penny, Dalmatian puppies from Pongo and Perdita's litter.
Tom Conway as the Collie who offers Dalmatians shelter for the night during their trek.
Conway also voiced the Quizmaster, a loquacious moderator of What's My Crime? TV show.
Max Smith, Bob Stevens, Clarence Nash, and Dal McKennon provided the sounds of dog barks. Barbara Luddy and Rickie Sorensen voiced Rover and Spotty, two of the eighty-four Dalmatian puppies that were bought by Cruella. Jeanne Gayle (the wife of the film's composer George Bruns) performed the radio version of "Cruella De Vil" song in the film's final scene. Paul Frees voiced Dirty Dawson, the villain in the Thunderbolt TV show. Lucille Bliss performed the "Kanine Krunchies" jingle in a TV commercial.
Production
Story development
The children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith had been published on November 19, 1956, to an immediate success. By February 1957, screenwriter Charles Brackett brought it to the attention of Walt Disney, who acquired the film rights to the novel on November 26 of that year (after lengthy negotiations) for $25,000. The project was set to be Disney's next animated feature after Sleeping Beauty (which was still in production at the time) and was originally expected to be finished within two years. Story artist Bill Peet was assigned to single-handedly develop the story, marking the first time a Disney animated film was written by one person. Disney also tasked Peet to write a detailed screenplay first before storyboarding; since Peet never learned to use a typewriter, he wrote the initial draft by hand on legal paper. The manuscript was completed and typed up within two months, after which, having received Disney's approval, Peet began storyboarding and was charged with recording the voice-over process.
Peet closely followed the plot of Smith's novel, but condensed some of its characters, which included Cruella's husband and cat, as well as Cadpig, the female runt of Pongo and Missis' puppies, whose traits were transferred to Lucky in the final film. He also merged two Dalmatian mothers, birth mother Missis and adopted mother Perdita, into one, naming her after the latter; likewise, Nanny Cook and Nanny Butler from the novel were amalgamated into one character, simply named Nanny. The Colonel's cat assistant was re-gendered from the female Pussy Willow into the male Sergeant Tibbs, and Horace Badun was renamed from Saul. Among other things, Peet retained a scene from the original book in which Pongo and Perdita exchange wedding vows in unison with their owners, who were also renamed from Mr. and Mrs. Dearly to Roger and Anita Radcliffe. However, after the censor board warned that it might offend certain religious audiences if the animals repeated the exact words of a solemn religious ceremony, it was reworked to be less religious, down to having Roger and Anita dressed in formal clothes. Also, the film's original ending involved the newly rich Roger selling his song about Cruella and buying the Hell Hall to turn it into a Dalmatian Plantation, with Pongo and Perdita expecting another litter of puppies. It was ultimately cut short and rewritten to have Dalmatians reunite with their owners after they escape from Cruella.
Although Disney had not been as involved in the production of the animated films as frequently as in previous years, he was always present at story meetings. When Peet sent Dodie Smith some drawings of the characters, she wrote back saying that he had improved her story and that the designs looked better than the illustrations in the book.
Casting
The filmmakers deliberately cast actors with deeper voices for the roles of dogs, so they would have more power than those of the human characters. Rod Taylor, who had extensive radio experience, was one of the first actors cast in the film; he got the role of Pongo. Lisa Daniels was originally cast as Perdita and recorded about the third of her lines but then got married and moved to New York; Cate Bauer replaced her for the rest of the film. J. Pat O'Malley, who was a regular voice actor for the studio and one of Disney's personal favorites, got the roles of Jasper and Colonel, and also voiced several minor characters in the film. David Frankham was cast as Sergeant Tibbs in the spring of 1959 and finished his recording within three sessions from May 1959 to January 1960; he was also asked to record the part of Scottie, the Skye Terrier who appears early in the "Twilight Bark" sequence.
Disney originally had Lisa Davis read for the role of Cruella De Vil, but she did not think that she was right for the part, and wanted to try reading the role of Anita instead. Disney agreed, and, after they read the script for a second time, she landed the part. Davis also provided live-action reference for the character. Betty Lou Gerson, who was previously the narrator for Cinderella (1950), auditioned for the role of Cruella De Vil in front of Marc Davis, the character's supervising animator, and sequence director Wolfgang Reitherman, and immediately landed it. While searching for the right accent of the character, she landed on a "phony theatrical voice, someone who's set sail from New York but hasn't quite reached England." During the recording process, Gerson was thought to be imitating Tallulah Bankhead, but she later disputed that she "didn't intentionally imitate her ... We both had phony English accents on top of our Southern accents and a great deal of flair. So our voices came out that way." Gerson finished her recording sessions in fourteen days.
Animation
Art direction
After Sleeping Beauty (1959) disappointed at the box office, Disney was losing money and there were discussions about closing down the animation department. During the film's production, Disney told animator Eric Larson: "I don't think we can continue; it's too expensive." Despite this, he still had deep feelings towards animation because he had built the company upon it.
Ub Iwerks, in charge of special processes at the studio, had been experimenting with Xerox photography to aid in animation. By 1959, he used a Xerox camera to transfer drawings by animators directly to animation cels, eliminating the inking process, thus saving time and money while preserving the spontaneity of the penciled elements. However, because of its limitations, the camera was unable to deviate from a black scratchy outline and lacked the fine lavish quality of hand inking. Disney would first use the Xerox process for a thorn forest in Sleeping Beauty, and the first production to make full use of the process was Goliath II (1960). For One Hundred and One Dalmatians, one of the benefits of the process was that it was a great help towards animating the spotted dogs. According to Chuck Jones, Disney was able to complete the film for about half of what it would have cost if they had had to animate all the dogs and spots.
Meanwhile, Ken Anderson, the studio's art director, learned a television production studio—Hurrell Productions—was using Xerography to produce television commercials featuring Disney characters. Inspired by the aesthetic, Anderson experimented with a Xerox copier to directly transfer the animators' drawings onto transparent cels, thereby eliminating the inking process. Anderson screened an animation test to Disney and the animators; although Disney expressed concern at the graphic style, he gave his approval stating: "Ah, yeah, yeah, you can fool around all you want to." For the stylized art direction, Anderson took inspiration from British cartoonist Ronald Searle, who once advised him to use a Mont Blanc pen and India ink for his artwork.
In addition to the character animation, Anderson also sought to use Xerography on "the background painting because I was going to apply the same technique to the whole picture." Along with color stylist Walt Peregoy, the two had the line drawings be printed on a separate animation cel before being laid over the background, which gave the appearance similar to the Xeroxed animation. Disney disliked the artistic look of the film and felt he was losing the "fantasy" element of his animated films. In a meeting with the animation staff concerning future films, Disney angrily said, "We're never gonna have one of those goddamned things", referring to the film's art direction; he also stated, "Ken's never going to be an art director again."
Anderson took this to heart, but Disney eventually forgave him on his final trip to the studio in late 1966. As Anderson recalled in an interview:
He looked very sick. I said, "Gee, it's great to see you, Walt," and he said, "You know that thing you did on Dalmatians." He didn't say anything else, but he just gave me this look, and I knew that all was forgiven and in his opinion, maybe what I did on Dalmatians wasn't so bad. That was the last time I ever saw him. Then, a few weeks later, I learned he was gone.
Character animation
Marc Davis was the sole animator on Cruella De Vil. During production, Davis claimed her character was partly inspired by Bette Davis (no relation), Rosalind Russell, and Tallulah Bankhead. He took further influence from her voice actress, Betty Lou Gerson, whose cheekbones he added to the character. He later complimented, "[t]hat [her] voice was the greatest thing I've ever had a chance to work with. A voice like Betty Lou's gives you something to do. You get a performance going there, and if you don't take advantage of it, you're off your rocker". While her hair coloring originated from the illustrations in the novel, Davis found its disheveled style by looking "through old magazines for hairdos from 1940 till now". Her coat was exaggerated to match her oversized personality, and the lining was red because "there's a devil image involved".
As with the previous Disney films, the actors provided live-action reference as an aid to the animators before the animation process begun. By January 1959, Mary Wickes, who had played the maid Katie in The Mickey Mouse Club serial Annette, was hired as a model for Cruella De Vil. The live-action reference for Nanny was provided by both Don Barclay and Barbara Luddy, who had voiced Lady in Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Merryweather in Sleeping Beauty (1959). Helene Stanley – who had been a model for the titular character in Cinderella (1950) and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1959) – performed the live-action reference for Anita.
Music
To have music involved in the narrative, Peet used an old theater trick by which the protagonist is a down-and-out songwriter. However, unlike the previous animated Disney films at the time, the songs were not composed by a team, but by Mel Leven who composed both lyrics and music. Previously, Leven had composed songs for the UPA animation studio in which animators, who transferred to work at the Disney studios, had recommended him to Walt Disney. His first assignment was to compose "Cruella De Vil," of which Leven composed three versions. The final version used in the film was composed as a "bluesy number" before a meeting with Walt in forty-five minutes.
The other two songs included in the film are "Kanine Krunchies Jingle" (sung by Lucille Bliss, who voiced Anastasia Tremaine in Disney's 1950 film Cinderella), and "Dalmatian Plantation" in which Roger sings only two lines at its closure. Leven had also written additional songs that were not included in the film. The first song, "Don't Buy a Parrot from a Sailor," a cockney chant, was meant to be sung by Jasper and Horace at the De Vil Mansion. A second song, "Cheerio, Good-Bye, Toodle-oo, Hip Hip!" was to be sung by the dalmatian puppies as they make their way into London. A third song titled "March of the One Hundred and One" was meant for the dogs to sing after escaping Cruella by van. Different, longer versions of "Kanine Krunchies Jingle" and "Dalmatian Plantation" appear on the Disneyland Records read-along album based on the film.
The Sherman Brothers wrote a title song, "One Hundred and One Dalmatians", but it was not used in the film. The song has been released on other Disney recordings, however.
Release
Original theatrical run
One Hundred and One Dalmatians premiered and was released in theaters on January 25, 1961, accompanied by the documentary The Horse with the Flying Tail (1960). To promote the film, an updated version of the 1957 Disneyland episode "The Best Doggoned Dog in the World" was aired on ABC on February 12, 1961, featuring the footage from One Hundred and One Dalmatians instead of scenes from Old Yeller (1957).
During its initial theatrical run, the film grossed $14 million in the United States and Canada, which generated $6.2 million in distributor rentals. It was the first animated feature to earn more than $10 million on its initial release, as well as the most popular film of the year in France, with admissions of 14.7 million ranking tenth on their all-time list. The box-office success of One Hundred and One Dalmatians allowed to pull the studio's animation department out of the financial slump caused by the underperformance of Sleeping Beauty two years prior; despite this, it did nothing to rekindle Disney's fading interest in animation, with him being more focused on working on Disneyland and producing live-action films by then.
Re-releases
One Hundred and One Dalmatians was re-released theatrically in the United States in 1969, 1979, 1985, and 1991. During its first re-release in 1969, it earned $15 million. In 1979, it grossed $19 million while playing on a double bill with another Disney film The Last Flight of Noah's Ark, and in its 1985 theatrical re-release, the film earned $32 million. During its fourth re-release in 1991, it grossed $60.8 million, becoming the 17th highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. In 1980, the film earned rentals of $8 million in France, Belgium and Switzerland. By 1995, the film had grossed $86 million internationally, and in the same year it grossed $71 million overseas, bringing its international total to $157 million. The film's total domestic lifetime gross is $145 million, and its total worldwide gross is $303 million. Adjusted for inflation, and incorporating subsequent releases, the film has a lifetime gross of $936.2 million.
Home media
One Hundred and One Dalmatians was first released on VHS on April 10, 1992, as part of the Walt Disney Classics video series; 11.1 million copies had been sold by June of that year. At the time of its release, it was the sixth best-selling video of all time. The film was re-released on VHS and LaserDisc on March 9, 1999, as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection for a limited 101-day time period. The DVD edition was originally scheduled for release in the spring of that year, but was delayed until November 11; it was released as a Walt Disney Limited Issue for a limited 60-day time period before going into moratorium.
By 2007, One Hundred and One Dalmatians underwent a digital restoration and was released as a two-disc Platinum Edition DVD on March 4, 2008. The set included a behind-the-scenes documentary Redefining the Line: The Making of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two additional featurettes – Cruella de Vil: Drawn to Be Bad (dedicated to the talents behind the creation of the eponymous character) and Sincerely Yours, Walt Disney (covering Disney's correspondence with Dodie Smith), deleted songs, a virtual gallery of concept art and other production photos, theatrical trailers, radio and TV spots. It returned to the Disney Vault on January 30, 2010.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians was released for the first time on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2012. In North America, it was released on Diamond Edition Blu-ray and Digital HD on February 10, 2015, featuring a new making-of featurette Lucky Dogs, the animated short The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt (based on the Thunderbolt TV show in the film), a 1961 version of the Disneyland episode "The Best Doggoned Dog in the World", and several bonus features from the previous DVD release. The set was re-released as a limited Blu-ray/DVD combo pack for the Disney Movie Club on November 6, 2018. On September 24, 2019, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was re-released for HD digital download and on Blu-ray as part of the Walt Disney Signature Collection.
Reception
Critical response
In its initial release, One Hundred and One Dalmatians received acclaim from critics, many of whom hailed it as the studio's best release since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the closest to a real "Disney" film in many years. Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote, "While the story moves steadily toward a stark, melodramatic "chase" climax, it remains enclosed in a typical Disney frame of warm family love, human and canine." However, he later opined that the "[s]ongs are scarce, too. A few more would have braced the final starkness." Variety claimed that "While not as indelibly enchanting or inspired as some of the studio's most unforgettable animated endeavors, this is nonetheless a painstaking creative effort." A review in Time magazine praised the film as "the wittiest, most charming, least pretentious cartoon feature Walt Disney has ever made." Harrison's Reports felt all children and adults will be "highly entertained by Walt Disney's latest, a semi-sophisticated, laugh-provoking, all cartoon, feature-lengther in Technicolor." Dodie Smith also enjoyed the film where she particularly praised the animation and backgrounds of the film.
Contemporary reviews have remained positive. Reviewing the film during its 1991 re-release, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, while giving the film three stars out of four, asserted that "it's an uneven film, with moments of inspiration in a fairly conventional tale of kidnapping and rescue. This is not one of the great Disney classics - it's not in the same league with Snow White or Pinocchio - but it's passable fun, and will entertain its target family audiences." Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel, in his 1991 review, also gave the film three stars out of four. Ralph Novak of People wrote "What it lacks in romantic extravagance and plush spectacle, this 1961 Disney film makes up for in quiet charm and subtlety. In fact, if any movie with dogs, cats, and horses who talk can be said to belong in the realm of realistic drama, this is it." However, the film did receive a few negative reviews. In 2011, Craig Berman of MSNBC ranked it and its 1996 remake as two of the worst children's films of all time, saying that, "The plot itself is a bit nutty. Making a coat out of dogs? Who does that? But worse than Cruella de Vil's fashion sense is the fact that your children will definitely start asking for a Dalmatian of their own for their next birthday."
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 53 reviews, with an average score of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With plenty of pooches and a memorable villain (Cruella De Vil), this is one of Disney's most enduring, entertaining animated films."
Cruella De Vil ranked 39th on AFI's list of "100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains".
Legacy
Since the original release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians in 1961, Disney has taken the property in various directions.
Television series
In 1996, it was announced that an animated television series based on the film would be created through a partnership between Disney and Kellogg’s. Co-produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Jumbo Pictures, 101 Dalmatians: The Series aired in syndication and on ABC from 1997 to 1998.
101 Dalmatian Street is the second TV series with a plot in the 21st century, with a new art style and a concept loosely based on the source material. Set 60 years after the original film, the show mostly focuses on a completely new family of Dalmatians, (who are descendants of Pongo and Perdita) who all live without a human in Camden Town.
Sequel
A direct-to-video sequel to the original animated film, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, was released in 2003. The main focus of the sequel is Patch, the loneliest of puppies, feeling "lost in a sea of spots". After he gets left behind during the Radcliffe's moving day, he encounters his TV hero, Thunderbolt, who enlists him on a publicity campaign.
Live-action adaptations
A live-action remake of the 1961 film, 101 Dalmatians, was released in 1996; unlike the animated film, none of the animals had speaking voices in this version. It was followed by a sequel, 102 Dalmatians, in 2000. A live-action version of Cruella De Vil is featured as one of the main antagonists in the fourth season of the fantasy television series, Once Upon a Time (produced by Disney-owned ABC Studios). Cruella is one of the four main villains in the 2015 television film Descendants, which follows the teenage children of Disney's iconic heroes and villains (including Cruella's son, Carlos). A 2021 live-action reboot, Cruella, focuses on the origin of the eponymous character. A sequel to this film is currently in development.
Other media
The characters from One Hundred and One Dalmatians make cameo appearances in the television series House of Mouse, with Cruella De Vil featured as one of the main villains in the stand-alone feature Mickey's House of Villains (2002). Like other Walt Disney Animation Studios characters, the film's characters have cameo appearances in the short film Once Upon a Studio (2023).
See also
List of highest-grossing animated films
List of highest-grossing films in France
List of American films of 1961
List of animated feature films of the 1960s
List of Walt Disney Pictures films
List of Disney theatrical animated feature films
Second weekend in box office performance § Second-weekend increase
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at IMDb
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at AllMovie
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at Box Office Mojo
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at Rotten Tomatoes
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
One Hundred and One Dalmatians at the TCM Movie Database |
The_Absent-Minded_Professor | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absent-Minded_Professor | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absent-Minded_Professor"
] | The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 American science fiction comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is based on the 1943 short story "A Situation of Gravity" (May 22, 1943 Liberty) by Samuel W. Taylor. The title character was based in part on Hubert Alyea, a professor emeritus of chemistry at Princeton University, who was known as "Dr. Boom" for his explosive demonstrations. The film stars Fred MacMurray as Professor Ned Brainard, alongside Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, Elliott Reid, and Edward Andrews. The plot follows Brainard as he invents a substance that defies gravity, which he later exploits through various means.
Released on March 16, 1961, the film was a box office success, and two years later became the first Disney film to have a sequel, Son of Flubber (1963). It was one of the first Disney films to be colorized (for the 1986 VHS release), and, along with The Shaggy Dog (1959) and Son of Flubber, is one of Disney's few black-and-white films to be produced after 1941. A remake titled Flubber with Robin Williams was released in 1997.
Plot
Professor Ned Brainard is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Ned names his discovery Flubber, a portmanteau of "flying rubber". In the excitement of his discovery, he misses his own wedding to Betsy Carlisle, not for the first time, but his third. Subplots include Shelby Ashton, another professor, wooing the disappointed Betsy, Biff Hawk, Medfield's best basketball player, is ineligible to play in the game against archrival Rutland due to failing Professor Brainard's class, Biff's father, businessman Alonzo P. Hawk's schemes to gain wealth by means of Flubber, the school's financial difficulties and debt to Alonzo, and Ned's attempts to interest the government and military in uses for Flubber. Shelby is given his revenge by Ned, who keeps on jumping on the top of Shelby's car, until it crashes into a police car, where a now-manic Shelby is given a field sobriety test.
Looking for backers, Ned bounces his Flubber ball for an audience, but his investment pitch proves so long-winded that most of the crowd has left before they notice that the ball bounced higher on its second bounce than on its first. For a more successful demonstration, he makes his Model T fly by bombarding Flubber with radioactive particles. After Medfield trails Rutland at the half by a large margin, Ned puts Flubber on the soles of the Medfield team's shoes, giving them tremendous jumping ability which causes them to make a furious comeback, winning by a buzzer beater; he also uses the substance on his own shoe soles to augment his skills during a school dance.
Alonzo becomes aware of Ned's flying car and, at Biff's suggestion, switches it for a fake Model T with squirrels and pigeons under the hood. Ned's debut turns into a mockery when he finds himself with Alonzo's fake car, and plays on Alonzo's greed by pointing out that, in the 1960s, only 8% of the world's population uses cars, but nearly everyone wears shoes. Ned gives Hawk a pair of Flubber shoes to cause Alonzo to bounce endlessly and become blackmailed into revealing where he hid the real car. Alonzo soon attracts everyone's attention, even a news crew, who interviews a physicist who remarks "by 7 tonight, he's going to be in serious trouble!". The police escort the Medfield football team to tackle Alonzo on his way down, stopping his bounces.
Alonzo and Biff then chase after Ned, who by then has recovered his car from Alonzo's warehouse. Alonzo crashes into the same squad car Shelby did, and gets arrested for illegal firearms possession. Ned convinces Betsy to accompany him to Washington, D.C. Having never seen a flying car, the military considers it an attack and is ready to open fire until one junior officer recommends against it, as Ned is atop the United States Capitol building. Now able to convince the government of the merits of Flubber, Ned finally marries Betsy. The two fly away from a cheering crowd in Ned's Model T.
Cast
Production notes
The aforementioned Prof. Hubert Alyea (1903–1996), professor of chemistry at Princeton University, earned the nickname "Dr. Boom" from Russian observers of his demonstrations at the International Science Pavilion of the Brussels World's Fair in the 1950s, which had Walt Disney in attendance. Disney told Alyea that he had given him an idea for a film, and invited Alyea to California to give a demonstration for actor Fred MacMurray, who later mimicked Alyea's mannerisms for the film. MacMurray would later state that he had never understood chemistry until his meeting with Alyea.
The special effects were created by Robert A. Mattey and Eustace Lycett, who were nominated for an Academy Award, and included the sodium screen matte process, as well as miniatures and wire-supported mockups. The film's "Medfield Fight Song" was written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, their first song for a Disney feature.
Keenan Wynn and his father Ed Wynn appear together in this film. Keenan also played Alonzo Hawk in Son of Flubber (1963) and for a third time in Herbie Rides Again (1974). Keenan plays a similar character in the 1976 sequel to The Shaggy Dog (starring McMurray), The Shaggy D.A. centered in the town of Medfield. Keenan's son Ned also appears uncredited in a bit part. Ed Wynn also appeared in Son of Flubber. At this stage of his life, Ed Wynn's memory was fading and he couldn't remember his lines, but he retained his innate wit and invention, so he improvised much of his dialogue, while director Stephenson instructed his crew to "just let him go on and on. You see, he had the most wonderful imagination".
Medfield College of Technology was used again as the setting for the sequel, Son of Flubber, as well as a later trilogy of films based around the character Dexter Riley — The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975), each starring Kurt Russell and Cesar Romero.
Awards
At the 34th Academy Awards on April 9, 1962, The Absent-Minded Professor had nominations for three Academy Awards.
Art Direction (Black and White) (Carroll Clark, Emile Kuri, Hal Gausman).
Cinematography (Black and White) (Edward Colman)
Special Effects (Robert A. Mattey, Eustace Lycett)
Releases
The film was reissued to theaters in 1967 and 1975, and released to video in 1981, 1986, and 1993. It was released as a pan and scan print on VHS in black and white in 1981 and 1993, and in a colorized version in 1986 and 1997 (to commemorate the release of the new remake Flubber). In 2003, the film was released to DVD in widescreen. In 2008, the film was re-packaged as a two-disc set with its sequel, Son of Flubber.
Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "remarkably bouncy entertainment ... the grown-ups should find it entertaining for the silly shenanigans it contains and for the simple satisfaction of noting the pleasure it gives the kids". Variety described it as "a comedy-fantasy of infectious absurdity" with MacMurray "ideally cast". Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film, "for all that it happens to be a one-joke picture, is good and funny ... while its satire should be at least as sharp as its slapstick, but isn't, the novelty of the gimmick will carry the picture to popularity". Edith Oliver of The New Yorker called it "a funny and unpretentious piece of slapstick that cannot fail to please children and all the rest of us who are fans of the Keystone Cops". The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "agreeable and entertaining", but "the comedy doesn't bounce enough. It is really a one-joke story, and could have done with more invention, more unpredictability; the humorous possibilities of the admirable flubber are not explored sufficiently".
Despite the number of positive reviews, some critics disparaged the film on its release, causing considerable pain to Walt Disney, who couldn't understand why anyone would dislike such a light-hearted picture, leading composer Richard Sherman to comment: "Don't let anybody ever tell you Walt was immune to a bad review. It bothered him! The good reviews never went to his head, but the bad reviews went to his heart".
In an interview, Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader commented that this was the first film he had ever seen. In his own words, he was "very unimpressed" by it.
The film holds a rating of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10.
1943 short story version
The short story is told by William Crawford as a letter to FDR in the White House in 1943 wartime America. He tells him that the "transportation problem" has been solved. Gasoline and rubber are obsolete because of Professor Rhoades' new invention. Rhoades is an absent-minded professor who ties strings to his fingers so he will remember. He had earlier invented artificial rubber.
Ed Barnes, the garbage collector of Prairie Center, comes into Crawford's office during a scrap drive to tell him that Rhoades had taken out the engine of his Model T with the apparent intention to donate it. But then they both see Rhoades drive up outside his office in the Model T. Ed is puzzled because he believes it has no engine. The professor is silent. He takes them for a ride in the car. They drive to the bank and to the grocery store. On the way, they find themselves in the path of two trucks about to collide with them. The car escapes by flying up over the road.
Rhoades explains that the car is able to fly because of his new invention, an electrical device that taps into the electricity of power lines.
They then drive to his laboratory. They encounter Kurt Miller, an officer of the power company. Rhoades tells him that the new invention will enable dentures to stay in people's mouths. Miller wants the blueprints. Rhoades refuses. Miller then pulls out a gun. He is apparently a German spy working for the Nazis. He orders them to fly the car to the state capital, which they are forced to do.
Spotted as an unidentified aircraft, a twin-tailed Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter is scrambled to go after them. Wing approached fender. The perplexed pilot ordered them to take the car down. Miller told them to refuse. He then shot at the plane. The plane shot tracers at the car.
The car suddenly went into a free fall as the professor worked with the control box in the back seat. They escaped from the P-38, landing safely in a field. Miller was choking in the back seat and was subdued and taken to the police.
Crawford concludes the letter by emphasizing to the President the benefits the "dingus" contraption that enables the car to fly will have for transportation, cars, trucks, and ever airplanes. He makes a request for funds to allow the professor to build another Model T model and that Congress repeal a law of gravity.
Comic book adaptation
Dell Four Color #1199 (April 1961)
Gold Key Comics Shaggy Dog/The Absent-Minded Professor Double Feature #1 (August 1967)
Legacy
Sequels
MacMurray, Olson, Reid, and Kirk reprised their roles in Son of Flubber, a sequel released less than two years later in 1963. Hewitt also returns (now as District Attorney), as well as the two Wynns (Keenan reprising his Alonzo P. Hawk role).
Wynn appeared in Herbie Rides Again (1974), the second film in Disney's Love Bug franchise, playing Alonzo A. Hawk rather than Alonzo P. Hawk. As the name is slightly changed, it is unclear whether the two series are meant to share a precise universe, but the Alonzo Hawk character is still a comic villain with the same modus operandi.
In 1988, the Disney Channel produced a film with the same name, which was not a remake in as much a spiritual sequel. The film takes place again at Medfield College, where Professor Brainard is now deceased and his work has been lost to the ages. Brainard's successor as the chemistry teacher is Professor Henry Crawford, played by Harry Anderson and his girlfriend is Ellen Whitney, played by Mary Page Keller, who is the English teacher. Professor Crawford has much of the same absent-minded attitude as Brainard, although he invented a computer program named "Albert", an avatar of Albert Einstein, to help him stay on top of his responsibilities and remember appointments. Through happenstance, Crawford rediscovers the formula for flubber. Albert warns that flubber will react to dihydrogen monoxide, then accesses Brainard's files and recommends Henry recreate the famous flying Model T. One scene that was a tribute to the original film was Henry's use of the flying car to fly atop the car of a rival suitor for Ellen, then bumping his roof.
In 1989, The Absent-Minded Professor: Trading Places, was made where Henry has now married Ellen, and was offered a job by his college friend (played by Ed Begley Jr.), at a defense firm. Henry realizes a sinister purpose and must work with his friend to thwart it. It is also shown that Henry did further experiments on flubber: should it be baked in a kiln for 24 hours, it would solidify and become impervious to liquids, and christens this upgrade "flass" (flying glass).
Remake
The Absent-Minded Professor has been remade as a 1997 theatrical film titled Flubber, with Robin Williams as the renamed Prof. Philip Brainard, with Marcia Gay Harden as his love interest, Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds (Nancy Olson appears in a cameo). Though neither the Anderson film nor the 1997 remake were as highly regarded as the original, the Robin Williams version was still a considerable success. Both remakes were made in color.
Chemistry
Several rubbery chemical compounds are named Flubber in honor of The Absent-Minded Professor's substance.
See also
List of basketball films
Super Ball, the bouncy toy-ball invented in 1964 that is made from a synthetic rubber
References
Wingrove, David. The Science Fiction Film Source Book (Longman Group Limited, 1985)
UltimateDisney.com DVD Review
TVGuide.com Movies page
External links
Official website
The Absent-Minded Professor at IMDb
The Absent-Minded Professor at the TCM Movie Database
The Absent-Minded Professor at AllMovie
The Absent-Minded Professor at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
Review at Variety |
The_Parent_Trap_(1961_film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parent_Trap_(1961_film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parent_Trap_(1961_film)"
] | The Parent Trap is a 1961 American romantic comedy film written and directed by David Swift. It stars Hayley Mills (in a dual role) as a pair of teenage twins plotting to reunite their divorced parents by switching places with each other. Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith play the parents. Although the plot is very close to that of the 1945 film Twice Blessed, The Parent Trap is based on the 1949 German children's novel Das doppelte Lottchen by Erich Kästner.
Produced by Walt Disney Productions, The Parent Trap was released on June 21, 1961, by Buena Vista Distribution. It grossed $25.1 million at the box office and was nominated for two Academy Awards. It was broadcast on television, and three television sequels followed the later adventures of the twins. The film was remade in 1998 with Lindsay Lohan. It was released on VHS, in digital stereo LaserDisc format (1986), and on DVD (2002). The Parent Trap was the second of six films Mills made for Disney.
Plot
Teenagers Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers meet at a girls summer camp. Their identical appearance causes jealousy, resentment, and a rivalry in which they continually get each other into trouble and disrupt camp activities. As punishment, they must spend the remainder of the camp season rooming and dining together in isolation. They overcome their mutual dislike when they realize that they are identical twin sisters, whom their parents, Mitch and Maggie, separated upon divorcing shortly after their birth. Eager to meet the parents from whom they were separated, they decide to cut their hair identically, coach each other on their lives, and switch places.
In Boston with their mother and grandparents, Susan poses as Sharon, while Sharon goes to Mitch's California ranch as Susan. Sharon learns that Mitch is engaged to a beautiful and much younger woman, Vicky, who is interested only in Mitch’s money and intends to send Susan to boarding school after the wedding. The girls communicate by phone at night. Susan tells Sharon to break up the couple, but when that fails, Susan decides to end the charade. After a happy reunion, Maggie brings her to California. Mitch is upset by Maggie's unexpected arrival, until he learns the truth and is reunited with both daughters. Vicky is jealous of Maggie, who is staying at the ranch.
The girls scheme to reunite their parents by recreating Maggie and Mitch's first date. At first, the ex-spouses are drawn together, but then they argue over why they divorced. They make up before Maggie and Sharon are to leave the next morning, and Maggie wishes Mitch well with Vicky. To delay the return to Boston, the twins dress and act alike, so their parents cannot tell them apart. They refuse to reveal their identities unless the family takes a camping trip. Mitch and Maggie reluctantly agree, and Vicky, who loathes the outdoors, is furious. Maggie cajoles Vicky into taking her place "so that Vicky can become better acquainted with the twins."
The twins take every opportunity to exploit Vicky's hatred of camping, pulling a series of pranks on her. That night, the twins sneak into her tent and pour honey over Vicky's feet and leave a small honey trail outside the tent. Vicki awakens the following morning to find two bear cubs licking the honey off her feet to which she has a tantrum over her hatred of the outdoors and the twins. She further says all the trouble she's been through does not make marrying Mitch for his money worth it and storms off.
Back at the house, the twins apologize for their actions; Mitch accepts their apology and says they don't have to discuss the situation anymore. Maggie and Sharon prepare to return to Boston the next day, with the twins now resigned to seeing each other only during visits and shuttling back and forth between parents. Later, Mitch tells Maggie everything he misses about her and their marriage. They realize that they still love each other. The film ends with their second wedding, with Susan and Sharon as bridesmaids.
Cast
Hayley Mills as Susan Evers and Sharon McKendrick.
Susan Henning (uncredited) as Mills' body double
Brian Keith as Mitchell "Mitch" Evers
Maureen O'Hara as Margaret "Maggie" McKendrick
Joanna Barnes as Vicky Robinson
Charlie Ruggles as Charles McKendrick, Susan and Sharon's maternal grandfather.
Cathleen Nesbitt as Louise McKendrick, Susan and Sharon's maternal grandmother.
Una Merkel as Verbena, the Evers family's housekeeper.
Leo G. Carroll as Reverend Dr. Mosby
Linda Watkins as Edna Robinson, Vicky's mother.
Ruth McDevitt as Miss Abbey Inch
Crahan Denton as Hecky, the Evers family's ranch foreman.
Nancy Kulp as Miss Grunecker
Frank De Vol as Mr. Eaglewood.
Production
The source material, Das doppelte Lottchen, was discovered by Disney's story editor Bill Dover, who recommended the studio buy it.
In March 1960 Disney announced that Hayley Mills would star in His and Hers to be written and directed by David Swift. Swift and Mills had just made Pollyanna for Disney. It was also known as Petticoats and Blue Jeans and was the first in a five-film contract Mills signed with Disney, to make one each summer.
Maureen O'Hara signed in June. She wrote in her memoirs that Disney offered her a third of her normal fee of $75,000 but that she held out for her quote and got it. O'Hara said her contract gave her top billing but that Disney decided to give that to Mills; she says this caused tension with the studio and was why she never worked with Disney again.
Production started in July under the title of We Belong Together and went until September.
The film was shot mostly at various locales in California. The summer camp scenes were filmed at Bluff Lake Camp (then owned by the Pasadena YMCA, now by Habonim Dror's Camp Gilboa) and the family camping scenes later in the movie at Cedar Lake Camp, both in the San Bernardino Mountains near the city of Big Bear Lake in Southern California. The Monterey scenes were filmed in various California locations, including millionaire Stuyvesant Fish's 5,200 acres (21 km2) ranch in Carmel and Monterey's Pebble Beach golf course. The scenes at the Monterey house were shot at the studio's Golden Oak Ranch in Placerita Canyon, where Mitch's ranch was built. It was the design of this set that proved the most popular, and to this day the Walt Disney Archives receives requests for plans of the home's interior design. In fact, there never was such a house; the set was simply various rooms built on a sound stage. Camp Inch was based on a real girls' camp called Camp Crestridge for Girls at the Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center near Asheville, North Carolina.
In 1962, a year after Disney adapted Das doppelte Lottchen into The Parent Trap, Cyrus Brooks translated the German book into English as Lisa and Lottie, an edition still published in the United States and Canada.
In 2014, Das doppelte Lottchen was faithfully retranslated into English by Anthea Bell and republished in the United Kingdom and Australia by Pushkin Press as The Parent Trap, after the hit Disney film. Then in 2020, Australian actress Ruby Rees recorded an unabridged narration of Bell's translation for Bolinda.
Musical numbers
Richard and Robert Sherman provided the songs, which, besides the title song "The Parent Trap", includes "For Now, For Always", and "Let's Get Together". "Let's Get Together" (sung by Annette Funicello) is heard playing from a record player at the summer camp; the tune is reprised by the twins when they restage their parents' first date and that version is sung double-tracked by Hayley Mills (Hayley's own single of the song, credited to "Hayley Mills and Hayley Mills", reached #8 on the US charts). The film's title song was performed by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello, who were both on the studio lot shooting Babes in Toyland at the time. The campers whistle the 1914 marching song, "Colonel Bogey March", as they march through camp, mirroring the scene from The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Reception
Critical
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "it should be most appealing to adults, as well as to children, because of the cheerfully persuasive dual performance of Hayley Mills". Variety stated that the film was "absolutely predictable from the outset", but was still "a winner" thanks to the performance of Mills, who "seems to have an instinctive sense of comedy and an uncanny ability to react in just the right manner. Her contribution to the picture is virtually infinite". Charles Stinson of the Los Angeles Times declared it "a comedy unusually well designed for the entire family — enough sight gags to keep the children screaming and enough clever dialogue to amuse their parents". Harrison's Reports graded the film as "Very Good" and Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "charmingly lively" even though "the terrain is familiar".
The film holds a score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews.
Box office
The film was a huge success at the box office. It grossed an estimated $9.3 million in the US.
Accolades
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: one for Sound by Robert O. Cook, and the other for Film Editing by Philip W. Anderson. The film and its editor, Philip W. Anderson, won the inaugural 1962 Eddie Award of the American Cinema Editors.
Subsequent developments
In 1961, a comic book version of the film was published, adapted, and illustrated by Dan Spiegle.
The film was theatrically re-released in 1968 and earned $1.8 million in rentals.
The Disney Studios produced three television sequels The Parent Trap II (1986), Parent Trap III (1989) and Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989). The original was remade in 1998 starring Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, and Natasha Richardson. Joanna Barnes also made an appearance as Vicki Blake, the mother of Dennis Quaid's character's fiancée, Meredith.
In 2018, a potential remake of The Parent Trap was considered for Walt Disney Studios' streaming service Disney+.
In India, there have been several films inspired by The Parent Trap. In 1965, a Tamil language version of the story called Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum, starring Kutty Padmini was released. The following year, it was remade into Telugu as Leta Manasulu also starring Kutty Padmini. A Hindi version Do Kaliyaan starring Neetu Singh in the double role was made in 1968. The 1987 film Pyar Ke Kabil also has a similar storyline, as does the 2001 film Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi which has Kajol playing the double role of 23-year-old twins.
Home media
The Parent Trap was initially released by Walt Disney Home Video through VHS on April 7, 1984, and on May 28, 1986, as part of Disney's "Wonderland Campaign".
The film was released on a 2-disc special edition DVD in May 2002, as part of the Vault Disney collection, with a new digital remaster by THX.
In 2005, the film was once again released in a 2-Movie Collection, which also contained the made-for-television sequel, The Parent Trap II (1986), plus the original film trailer and other bonus features.
The film was released for the first time on Blu-ray, but as a Disney Movie Club exclusive on April 24, 2018. The 1998 remake was also released on Blu-ray the same day.
See also
List of American films of 1961
Lost Treasures: "Who's the Twin?". Interview with Actress Susan Henning Schutte. Parent Trap (1961).
References
Notes
O'Hara, Maureen; Nicoletti, John (2004). 'Tis Herself: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0743246934.
External links
Official website
The Parent Trap at IMDb
The Parent Trap at the TCM Movie Database
The Parent Trap at AllMovie
The Parent Trap at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films |
Nikki:_Wild_Dog_of_the_North | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki:_Wild_Dog_of_the_North | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki:_Wild_Dog_of_the_North"
] | Nikki: Wild Dog of the North is a 1961 adventure film directed by Jack Couffer and Don Haldane. The plot, based on the novel Nomads of the North by James Oliver Curwood, centers around the adventures of a malamute dog named Nikki.
Plot
In 1899, Nikki and his kind master, Andre Dupas (Jean Coutu), are traveling via canoe through the Canadian Rockies. When Nikki encounters Neewa, a black bear cub whose mother was killed by a grizzly bear named Makoos, Andre ties the two animals together, plops them in the canoe, and heads for the rapids. When the two animals become separated from Andre, the unlikely pair must learn to survive in the wilderness. When they reach land, they are forced to overcome the instinct that makes them natural enemies and join together in a search for food and shelter. Despite many fights, they eventually become friends and remain together even after their leash breaks.
With the coming of winter Neewa goes into hibernation and Nikki wanders off alone. He steals the bait from traps until he is captured by a vicious trapper named Jacques Lebeau (Émile Genest) and his reluctant Indian companion, Makoki (Uriel Luft). After watching the now full-grown dog kill a wolf in spite of the trap, Lebeau decides to train Nikki as a fighting dog although pit-fighting is illegal. When André, the new factor, challenges Lebeau for breaking the law, he is pushed into the pit with the brutalized killer dog. Nikki recognizes his old master, however, and joins André in fighting Lebeau, who is accidentally killed with his own knife. Later, while on a trip to André's trap line, Nikki spots his old friend, Neewa, but the dog realizes that the full-grown bear is happier roaming the wilds, and he chooses to remain by André's side.
Cast
Jean Coutu as Andre Dupas
Émile Genest as Jacques Lebeau (as Emile Genest)
Uriel Luft as Makoki
Robert Rivard as Durante
Nikki as Self
Jacques Fauteux as Narrator
Reception
The film won the 1962 Eddie from the American Cinema Editors for Best Edited Special (Documentary).
See also
List of American films of 1961
References
External links
Official website
Nikki, Wild Dog of the North @ IMDb.com
Nikki, Wild Dog of the North at the TCM Movie Database
synopsis at AllMovie |
Greyfriars_Bobby_(film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby_(film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby_(film)"
] | Greyfriars Bobby is a 1961 American drama film starring Donald Crisp and Laurence Naismith in a story about two Scottish men who compete for the affection of a Skye Terrier named Bobby. The screenplay by Robert Westerby was based upon the 1912 novel Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson which was based, in turn, upon an incident in 19th century Edinburgh involving a dog that came to be known as Greyfriars Bobby. It was the second film based upon Atkinson's novel, the first being Challenge to Lassie in which Crisp also starred. The film was directed by Don Chaffey and shot at Shepperton Studios and on location in Scotland. The film has been released to DVD and Disney+.
Plot
A little Skye Terrier named Bobby is the pet of a Scottish farmer and his wife but the dog loves an old shepherd hired on the farm called Auld Jock. When money grows scarce on the farm, Auld Jock is fired. He travels to Edinburgh, and Bobby follows him. Auld Jock dies in poverty in an inn and is buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard. Bobby returns to Auld Jock's grave every night to sleep.
Against the wishes of his wife, the graveyard caretaker James Brown tries to shoo Bobby away, but Bobby always finds his way back to the grave. Bobby endears himself to all, especially the neighborhood children. Brown and a restaurant owner, Mr. Traill, compete for the affections of the dog. Brown alleges Traill should pay Bobby's license fee, which he refuses on principle, not being Bobby's master.
Mr. Traill is summoned to the court for a hearing, where he pleads not guilty. Mr. Brown is also present in the court, but he tells Mr. Traill he is sick, and can't get out of bed. Mr. Traill is told to come back the next day, with Bobby as well.
Bobby's fate rests with the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and, without a license and someone to take responsibility for Bobby, he may be destroyed. The children of Edinburgh contribute their pennies for Bobby's license. Bobby is declared a Freeman of the City and adopted by the populace of Edinburgh.
Cast
Donald Crisp as James Brown
Laurence Naismith as Mr. Traill
Alex Mackenzie as Auld Jock
Duncan Macrae as Sgt. Davie Maclean
Andrew Cruickshank as Lord Provost
Gordon Jackson as Farmer
Rosalie Crutchley as Farmer's Wife
Freda Jackson as Old Woman Caretaker
Moultrie Kelsall as Magistrate
Joyce Carey as First Lady
Vincent Winter as Tammy
Jameson Clark as Constable
Jack Lambert as Doctor
Bruce Seton as Prosecutor
Joan Juliet Buck as Ailie
Hamish Wilson as Hamish
Kay Walsh as Mrs. Brown
Reception
Variety commented: "Greyfriars Bobby sets out to melt the heart and does it skillfully. Central character is a little Skye terrier, and this engaging little animal is quite irresistible...Patiently and brilliantly trained, Bobby wraps up the stellar honors for himself and the humans, knowing they don't stand a chance, wisely are content to play chorus. Nevertheless, there are some very effective pieces of thesping, largely by Scottish actors. Laurence Naismith gives a strong, likeable performance as the kindly eating-house owner who takes Bobby under his wing."
Comic book adaptation
Dell Four Color #1189 (November 1961)
See also
Greyfriars Bobby, cultural reference
The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby (2005 film)
References
External links
Official website
Greyfriars Bobby at IMDb
Greyfriars Bobby at the TCM Movie Database |
Babes_in_Toyland_(1961_film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_Toyland_(1961_film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_Toyland_(1961_film)"
] | Babes in Toyland is a 1961 American Christmas musical film directed by Jack Donohue and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It stars Ray Bolger as Barnaby, Tommy Sands as Tom Piper, Annette Funicello as Mary Contrary, and Ed Wynn as the Toymaker.
The film is based upon Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland. There had been a 1934 film also titled Babes in Toyland starring Laurel and Hardy, and three television adaptations prior to the Disney film, but Disney's was only the second film version of the operetta released to movie theatres and the first in Technicolor. The plot, and in some cases the music, bear little resemblance to the original, as Disney had most of the lyrics rewritten and some of the song tempos drastically changed, including the memorable song "Toyland", a slow ballad, which was sped up with only the chorus sung in a march-like rhythm.
The toy soldiers later appeared in Christmas parades at the Disney theme parks around the world.
Funicello said it was her favorite filmmaking experience.
Plot
A stage play begins, presented by Mother Goose and her talking goose, Sylvester, about Mary Contrary and Tom Piper, who are about to be married. The miserly and villainous Barnaby hires two crooks, dimwitted Gonzorgo and silent Roderigo. They are to throw Tom into the sea and steal Mary's sheep, depriving her of her means of support, to force her to marry Barnaby. Mary is unaware that she is the heiress to a fortune, but Barnaby is aware and wants it all for himself. Gonzorgo and Roderigo decide to sell Tom to the Gypsies instead of drowning him, in order to collect a double payment.
Gonzorgo and Roderigo return and tell Mary, Barnaby, and the citizens of Mother Goose Land that Tom has accidentally drowned. They show Mary a forged letter in which Tom tells Mary he is abandoning her, and she would be better off marrying Barnaby. Mary, believing she is destitute, reluctantly accepts the proposal from Barnaby. Barnaby unknowingly arranges for the same Gypsies who have Tom to provide entertainment for the wedding. Tom, disguised as the Gypsy Floretta, reveals himself, and Barnaby pursues the frightened Gonzorgo and Roderigo, furious at their deception.
One of the children who lives with Mary informs her of some sheep tracks leading into the Forest of No Return. The children sneak away into the forest to search for the missing sheep. The trees of the forest awaken and capture them. Tom and Mary follow and find the children in the forest, where they tell stories about the live trees. The trees seem just like ordinary trees to Tom and Mary. Tom, Mary, and the children camp for the night. In the morning, the trees once again come to life and explain that they are now in custody of the Toymaker in Toyland (who is also the Mayor and Chief of Police). Tom, Mary, and the children happily continue on, escorted part of the way by the trees.
Through the windows of the Toymaker's house they watch the Toymaker's brilliant apprentice, Grumio, present a new machine that makes toys without any manual labor. Overjoyed, the Toymaker speeds up the machine to such a high rate that it explodes, destroying every toy in the factory. Tom, Mary, and the children offer to help make more toys in time for Christmas.
Grumio presents another invention, a shrinking "gun" that reduces everyday objects to toy size. He warns that if it is used on anything more than once, the shrunken object disappears completely. The Toymaker is at first delighted at the idea of producing toys by shrinking life-sized objects, but then Tom points out the impossibility of finding enough everyday objects to shrink down into the large quantity of toys needed for Christmas. The Toymaker berates Grumio for his stupidity and throws the shrinking gun out the window in disgust.
Barnaby, who has been spying on them, takes the discarded shrinking gun and uses it to shrink the Toymaker and Tom. When Barnaby's henchmen see him threatening to shoot Tom a second time, they abandon Barnaby. They try to flee, but Barnaby shoots them and locks them up with Tom in a birdcage.
Barnaby forces Mary to marry him by threatening to destroy Tom, and he threatens to destroy the Toymaker if he refuses to preside over the wedding ceremony. While the Toymaker draws out the ceremony, Gonzorgo and Roderigo rescue Tom, and the three of them sneak away and return with an army of toy soldiers to fight Barnaby. Barnaby easily demolishes the toy soldiers with a toy cannon. He is about to obliterate Tom with another dose from the shrinking gun, but Mary destroys it with the toy cannon. The liquid splatters all over Barnaby and shrinks him to toy size. Tom, after challenging Barnaby to a duel with swords, stabs Barnaby, who falls from a great height into an empty toybox.
During the battle with Barnaby, Grumio creates and presents another new invention, one that returns miniaturized people and items to their original size. He immediately uses it on the Toymaker, Gonzorgo, and Roderigo, but not on Barnaby. Grumio is about to use it on Tom, but after reminding Grumio that he is the head toymaker and that Grumio is just his assistant, the Toymaker uses the invention on himself to return Tom to his natural size.
A few days later, Tom and Mary are married attended by all of Mother Goose Village including Gonzorgo and Roderigo as well as the trees from the Forest of No Return, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Cast
Production
Development
In May 1955, Walt Disney announced that he would produce Babes in Toyland as an animated feature. By October 1956, Disney had assigned Bill Walsh to produce and Sidney Miller to direct the project. However, filming was delayed, and by August 1959, the project was retooled as a live-action television movie, making it Disney's first live-action musical. Ward Kimball had been tapped to produce and direct the project, while Mel Leven would write new lyrics.
With Kimball in charge, he reviewed the three scripts that had been written, all of which he found to be "terrible, absolutely nothing." Kimball had found the 1903 operetta script to be too complicated. In his script, he excised the orphans subplot and focused the story on a love triangle between Tom, Mary Contrary, and Barnaby. In the following months, Kimball worked alongside story artist Joe Rinaldi and effects animator Joshua Meador to ensure the film would be visually interesting. In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times: "We're updating the lyrics; the music, of course, is Victor Herbert's. March of the Toys will be done in animation. I'll be using fantasy with 'live' more and more. I've decided people should play people and shouldn't be animated – only the effects should."
While Disney was vacationing in Europe, Kimball was finalizing set designs and casting decisions, the latter of which required Disney's approval. "We decided on Ray Bolger, things like that, and [such decisions usually] were the provinces of Walt," Kimball later explained. Furthermore, with the studio's option on the film rights set to expire within a year, a studio publicist placed trade advertisements that promoted Kimball's work on the film, leading to Disney deciding that Kimball had got above himself. Kimball was also traveling to New York to scout for Broadway actors to cast in the film. According to Joe Hale, Kimball had wanted one actress for Mary, but Disney had insisted on Annette Funicello. Further casting disagreements led to Kimball being kicked off the film.
In January 1961, Jack Donohue was signed to direct, following his success on Broadway directing Top Banana and Mr. Wonderful, and for his work on TV specials for Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. While Kimball would still be credited as the screenwriter, he was relegated to directing the 15-minute toy soldier sequence. In March 1961, Disney said he wanted to create a film of the standard of The Wizard of Oz (1939). "It's like a Disney cartoon only with live actors", said one Disney executive.
Casting
In September 1960, it was reported that Disney had wanted to discuss Dean Jones for the lead role as Tom. By January 1961, Ray Bolger was cast as a villain for the first time in his career. Gene Sheldon, best known for his role of Bernardo in the Spanish Western television series Zorro, appeared alongside his Zorro co-star, Henry Calvin. Tommy Kirk played a supporting role. According to Annette Funicello, Tommy Sands beat out Michael Callan and James Darren to play the male lead.
Filming
Principal photography started on March 13, 1961, and was scheduled for three months. Preparation, rehearsing and pre-recording took three months. Tommy Kirk said he enjoyed making the film because of the opportunity to work with Ed Wynn:
I thought he was delightful and so did everyone else. You couldn't not like him. He was completely crazy and he was just as crazy offscreen as he was on. But it was all, of course, an act. He was a very serious, religious man in his own way, but he loved playing Ed Wynn, the perfect fool, the complete nut. And he was good at it. Actually I think the movie is sort of a klunker, especially when I compare it to the Laurel and Hardy Babes in Toyland. It's not a great film but it has a few cute moments. It's an oddity. But I'm not embarrassed about it like I am about some other movies I've made.
Funicello had a bad experience with William Fairchild, who had directed her in The Horsemasters (1961), but found Jack Donahue to be "simply wonderful." She also enjoyed the fact "it was the first, and unfortunately, I think, the last time I made a movie in which I actually danced something besides the Watusi or the swim."
Songs
Release
In conjunction with the film's release, Babes in Toyland was prominently featured on The Wonderful World of Color television program, with an episode titled "Backstage Party" airing on December 17, 1961. It was presented in two parts on The Wonderful World of Disney on December 21 and December 27, 1969. The film was released on DVD on September 3, 2002, by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. It was released on Blu-ray on December 11, 2012. It was added to the Disney+ subscription service.
Reception
Box office
Babes in Toyland earned $4.6 million in rentals from the United States and Canada.
Critical response
A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote in his review: "Let us say that Walt Disney's packaging of Victor Herbert's indestructible operetta is a glittering color and song and dance-filled bauble artfully designed for the tastes of the sub-teen set. Adults would have to be awfully young in mind to accept these picture-book caperings of the Mother Goose coterie as stirring stuff. This Toyland is closer to Disneyland, but who ever heard of an adult winning an argument on that issue?" Variety described the film as "an expensive gift, brightly-wrapped and intricately-packaged and is certain to be a fast-selling item in the Yuletide marketplace. A choice attraction for the pre-teen set, it will be an especially big draw among those in the five-to-ten age bracket." However, the review cautioned that older audiences "may be distressed to discover that quaint, charming 'Toyland' has been transformed into a rather gaudy and mechanical 'Fantasyland.' What actually emerged is 'Babes in Disneyland.'"
John L. Scott, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, felt the film was "considerably more showy than either Herbert's stage original or the first film version done in the middle 30's; and older patrons may resent a loss of quaintness and a surplus of fantasy-whimsy. Nevertheless, the lavish, tinseled picture is a fine, appropriate holiday attraction for all but the sophisticated moviegoer." Harrison's Reports praised the film as "VERY GOOD", and further acknowledged Walt Disney for having "wrapped this one up in gay silk ribbons, beautiful costumes and brilliant splashes of color the envy of the rainbow rangers. Like a tender father, Disney has put this together with the soft sensitivity of a man in whose trust has been placed the dream world of trusting youngsters everywhere." Time wrote Babes in Toyland was "a wonderful piece of entertainment for children under five, but children over five who plan to see it will be well advised to take some Berlitz brushup lessons in baby talk." Additionally, the review was also critical for the modernized music, but praised the March of the Toys sequence.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36% based on 11 reviews with an average rating of 4.74/10.
Disney's "Babes in Toyland Soldiers"
Among the most significant legacies of the film has been its influence on Disney's theme parks worldwide. The Babes in Toyland sets were showcased in Disneyland Park as an attraction following the film's release and the Toy Soldiers became an iconic symbol of the holidays at Disneyland, Walt Disney World Resort and other Disney Parks around the world, considered a "draw" and featured heavily in television, online and print advertising rivaling the castles and the famous Disney characters in appearances. Disney's Babes in Toyland Soldiers are the equivalent of the Rockettes' appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in that park guests and TV viewers expect to see them every year.
The soldiers also appear in the stop-motion nursery sequence in Walt Disney's 1964 musical fantasy Mary Poppins. They were designed by Disney animator and Imagineer Bill Justice, who with fellow Imagineer X Atencio, created the sequence in the film. Justice designed the park soldiers to match the Babes in Toyland movie soldiers exactly as they appeared in the 1961 film. They made their television debut on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color when Walt Disney presented the Disneyland Christmas parade in the episode, "Holiday Time at Disneyland."
See also
List of Christmas films
References
Citations
Bibliography
Funicello, Annette; Romanowski, Patricia (1994). A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: My Story. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-786-88092-8.
Pierce, Todd James (2019). The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-496-82096-9.
External links
Official website
Babes in Toyland at IMDb
Babes in Toyland at the TCM Movie Database
Babes in Toyland at Rotten Tomatoes
Babies in Toyland at Disney A to Z
"A Very Merry Musical: Walt Disney's Babes in Toyland". The History of Disney. December 2011. |
Son_of_Flubber | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Flubber | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Flubber"
] | Son of Flubber is a 1963 American science fiction comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is the sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and the first sequel to a Disney film. Fred MacMurray reprises his role from the previous film as Ned Brainard, a scientist who has perfected a high-bouncing substance, Flubber ("flying rubber"), that can levitate an automobile and cause athletes to bounce into the sky. In addition to MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Ed Wynn, Elliott Reid, and Tommy Kirk also co-star, reprising their roles from the previous film.
Released on January 16, 1963, the film was shot in black and white, but a colorized version was released on VHS in 1997.
Plot
Professor Ned Brainard's discovery of Flubber has not quite brought him or his college the riches he thought.
The Pentagon has declared his discovery "top secret" and the IRS has slapped him with a huge tax bill, even though he has yet to receive any money from his invention. Ned thinks he may have found the solution in the form of "Flubbergas", or the "son of Flubber", which can actually change the weather. His wife Betsy becomes fed up with all the stress and files for divorce; the professor's old rival, Professor Shelby, starts trying to woo her again.
Brainard's experiments with a ray projector device are making it rain inside people's houses all over town. When Brainard feels threatened by Professor Shelby's attentions towards his wife, Brainard uses it to make it rain insides Shelby's car, complete with thunder and lightning, to frighten the man, causing his car to crash right into the same police car that he wrecked in the Absent-Minded Professor.
The Flubbergas also helps Medfield College's football team win an important game, but it has one unfortunate side effect: Flubbergas only works on makeshift clouds, but when it comes to real clouds, there is no rain at all, instead, it shatters the glass all over town. This places Brainard on the lam from Alonzo P. Hawk, who is planning to close Medfield College, and whose insurance company must pay the claims for the broken glass. Mr. Hawk traces the damage to Ned, and threatens legal action after Ned rejects his offer to become partners in a glass company scam.
At home, Ned's wife Betsy is jealous of the attentions lavished on him by an old high school girlfriend Shelby brings around to help him win Betsy's affections. She dumps Shelby after Ned is arrested.
On trial, Ned's future seems hopeless as he is faced with the various property damage lawsuit. A prosecutor urges Ned to return to his classroom and give up his science experiments. However, the county agricultural extension agent shows the court that crops all around the town have experienced accelerated growth because of Ned's experiments, because of what the agent names "Dry Rain".
The professor is acquitted and he and Betsy are reunited.
Driving home in their flying car, Betsy tells Ned she is now crazy about his science experiments, and soon they share a kiss. In the last scene, the football filled with Flubbergas flies into outer space.
Cast
Production notes
This is a film in which Ed Wynn and his son Keenan Wynn appear together. They also each appeared in The Absent Minded Professor.
Plans to make a sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor were announced in November 1961. According to Walt Disney's daughter, her father (who abhorred sequels) made the film only because there were unused gags from The Absent-Minded Professor.
The scene, where the Professor makes it rain into Shelby's car, causing the accident with a police car, is very similar to the scene in The Absent-Minded Professor, where the Professor repeatedly jumps on top of Shelby's car, honking his Model T horn, causing an accident with the same police car.
The football game was filmed on a field constructed in a studio, with players suspended by wires.
Medfield College, which was also the setting for the earlier film The Absent-Minded Professor, was later used for Disney's Dexter Riley trilogy: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975), with all three starring Kurt Russell and Cesar Romero.
Keenan Wynn would play a version of Alonzo Hawk once more, in Herbie Rides Again (1974), where his middle initial inexplicably changes from P to A.
Reception
Son of Flubber was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $22,129,412 at the box office, earning $7.1 million in theatrical rentals, making it the 6th highest-grossing film of 1963. The film holds an 88% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. It was less well-received critically than the original.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "It is crazy, of course, in the spirit of old-fashioned sight-gag slapstick farce, but it is fun—and, indeed, a bit of a satire on the weird inventions of the new atomic age." Variety opined that the film "doesn't fill its father's footprints" and "lacks the ingenuity, clarity and neatness of its memorable progenitor. Fortunately, though, individual scenes within the less effective whole have the same uproarious, bellylaugh quality that characterized the original." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Since I had no laugh-o-meter handy I was unable to clock the yocks but I am sure 'Son of Flubber' will hold its own against The Absent-Minded Professor and Bon Voyage." The Monthly Film Bulletin thought that the film "strains too hard to repeat the success of its predecessor, The Absent-Minded Professor, and is further weighed down by some unnecessary complications presented with little wit or sparkle. But the slapstick is generally as inventive as before, taking in a delightful spoof commercial for flubber and some excellent special effects when Professor Brainard launches his home-made clouds and his flubberised football player."
See also
List of American films of 1963
Flubber, a remake of the original film
References
External links
Official website
Son of Flubber at IMDb
Son of Flubber at the TCM Movie Database
Son of Flubber at AllMovie |
Miracle_of_the_White_Stallions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_White_Stallions | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_White_Stallions"
] | Miracle of the White Stallions is a 1963 American adventure war film released by Walt Disney starring Robert Taylor (playing Alois Podhajsky), Lilli Palmer, and Eddie Albert. It is based on the story of Operation Cowboy which was the evacuation of 70 Lipizzaner horses from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and retrieval of 300 Lipizzaner horses from a breeding farm in Czechoslovakia. The prized Lipizzaner horses were Austrian national treasures in danger of being used for food supply by the advancing Soviet Army during World War II. To gain Patton's aid, Podhajsky and his team from the Spanish Riding School of Vienna perform for Patton with their Lipizzaner stallions a precision dressage exhibition and the individual "Airs Above the Ground" with the hope Patton will see the value of horses and help rescue the mares and foals in Czechoslovakia.
Major parts of the movie were shot at the Hermesvilla palace in the Lainzer Tiergarten of Vienna, a former hunting area for the Habsburg nobility. The music for the soundtrack was based on the first movement of Franz Schubert's Marche Militaire no 1, D733.
The film states that The Spanish Riding School performed under the direction of Colonel Alois Podhajsky.
The film credits state that the film is based on the book The Dancing White Horses of Vienna by Colonel Alois Podhajsky.
Plot
Lipizzaner horses, a breed since 1580, and the Spanish Riding School, founded in 1735, remain living Austrian treasures, though both are nearly lost during WWII. During the German occupation, Colonel Alois Podhajsky, who performed in dressage events in the 1936 Olympics and is the Riding School’s Director, becomes attached to the German Army. German headquarters replaces the Riding School’s civilian staff with military personnel. Defying orders to keep the horses at the school, Podhajsky sends 300 Lipizzaners, including breeding mares, to Hostau, Czechoslovakia, for safety, but retains 70 stallions in Vienna.
During the final desperate days of the war, German General Stryker orders the Riding School staff to return to active military service to replace heavy troop losses, although Podhajsky is ordered to keep the school operating as normal with minimal staff. Podhajsky renews his request to evacuate from Vienna the Lipizzaner stallions, threatened by bombing. General Stryker denies the request, reasoning that evacuating the school will signal to the Viennese that the situation is hopeless and the city doomed. Podhajsky leaves without returning the “Heil Hitler” salute. Appealing to General Tellheim, who is realistic about impending defeat, Podhajsky is told to stretch the interpretation of permission to “evacuate treasures” such as paintings and statues to include horses.
At the train station Podhajsky has difficulty requisitioning six railcars until he arouses the dispatcher’s sentimentality and patriotism. The train is strafed by Allied planes, and the engine is ordered off without a load. Upon learning that the stallions are on the unattached cars, however, the engineer defies orders and attaches the cars with the horses.
The Castle of St. Martins now harbors hundreds of refugees as well as the Riding School. Pilfering by refugees is a problem, with bands stealing supplies and attempting to steal horses to flee from approaching Soviets. General Tellheim arrives with news that the Hungarian Riding school, captured by Soviets on the outskirts of Vienna, were taken prisoners of war and the horses destroyed. Tellheim de-militarizes the Spanish Riding School, hoping it will fare better as a civil institution when the Allies take over.
Contravening General Tellheim, a German officer arrives with orders for Podhajsky, the highest-ranking officer in the region, to become Defense Area Commander; men of the village are armed and awaiting his instructions. Before leaving, the officer informs Podhajsky that fight is not over and attempts at surrender to the Americans will bring severe punishment. Podhajsky orders the butcher—appointed his adjutant—to order the local men to protect the village against plundering by over 300 refugees, shielding untrained old and sick men from fighting seasoned soldiers. Podhajsky burns his orders, declares he is no longer in the army, and orders his staff to shed and burn their uniforms.
The Americans set up headquarters at the castle. Podhajsky asks Colonel Reed for the US Army’s protection and to retrieve the breeding mares before the Soviets take over Czechoslovakia. The general suggests that the School give a performance for General George S. Patton, who himself competed in dressage. Podhajsky and his men have only a couple of days to prepare the horses for the performance. Lower-ranking American soldiers who admire the horses help with preparations.
After General Patton watches the performance, Podhajsky asks for his protection and help in retrieving the mares from Czechoslovakia. Aware of 2000 Allied prisoners of war in Czechoslovakia being used to care for horses, Patton orders that the prisoners be liberated and the horses brought along too. Colonel Reed proposes Operation Cowboy to German Captain Danhoff: If the Germans surrender themselves and their prisoners to the Americans, within 48 hours the Americans will get the Germans and their families out of Czechoslovakia, away from the Soviets. Though Danhoff accepts the terms, SS troops ambush the American troops crossing the border and a battle ensues. In the village, Captain Danhoff and his men surrender, informing Colonel Reed that an insubordinate SS officer led the unauthorized attack. The 2,000 Allied prisoners are liberated along with 1,000 horses, among them the 300 Lipizzaners.
On the Spanish Riding School’s 220th anniversary, the Lipizzaner stallions give a special performance, attended by many of the individuals who helped save them.
Cast
Comic book adaption
Gold Key: Miracle of the White Stallions (June 1963)
Notes
See also
List of American films of 1963
References
External links
Official website
Miracle of the White Stallions at IMDb
Miracle of the White Stallions at the TCM Movie Database
Miracle of the White Stallions at AllMovie |
Savage_Sam_(film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Sam_(film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Sam_(film)"
] | Savage Sam is a 1963 American Western film sequel to Old Yeller based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Fred Gipson. Norman Tokar directed the live-action film, which was released by Walt Disney Productions on June 1, 1963. It did not enjoy the success of the original.
Plot
In 1870, 18-year-old Travis Coates is left in charge of his precocious 12-year-old brother, Arliss, on the family farm in Southwest Texas, while their parents visit an ailing grandmother. While Arliss and his dog, Savage Sam, are tracking a bobcat, Travis is warned by Bud Searcy that renegade Apaches are in the area. When Travis joins Bud's 17-year-old granddaughter, Lisbeth, in a search for Arliss, all three are captured by a band of Apaches led by a Comanche. The boys' Uncle Beck Coates witnesses the scene and manages to wound the leader, but Beck's horse is shot by one of the braves, allowing the Comanche and his followers to escape with the captives. Beck alerts the U. S. Cavalry, but the Indians split into three groups and ride for the hills; in the confusion, Travis escapes but is knocked unconscious and left to die. Beck and his posse of five find Travis and his dog, set out in pursuit of the other captives, and eventually find the Indians in a valley fighting over Lisbeth. Although posse member Pack Underwood, bent on revenge for the massacre of his family, fires a shot that alerts the Indians to their planned ambush, the youngsters are saved and the renegades captured.
Cast
Brian Keith as Uncle Beck Coates
Tommy Kirk as Travis Coates
Kevin Corcoran as Arliss Coates
Dewey Martin as Lester White
Jeff York as Bud Searcy
Marta Kristen as Lisbeth Searcy
Rafael Campos as Young Warrior
Slim Pickens as Willy Crup
Royal Dano as Pack Underwood
Rodolfo Acosta as Bandy Legs
Pat Hogan as Broken Nose
Dean Fredericks as Comanche Chief
Brad Weston as Ben Todd
Behind the scenes
Walt Disney bought the film rights to the novel in September 1961, prior to its publication in February 1962. The price was $25,000.
Gipson was then hired to write the screenplay. He started in October at $1,250 a week. Gipson was an alcoholic by this time and he was frequently incapacitated by rages.
On June 14, 1962, Mike Gipson, Fred Gipson's son, found the Gipson family dog, the inspiration for Savage Sam, chained and clubbed to death in a shed behind the new family home. The next day, Mike returned to university in shock, and committed suicide that weekend. Gipson's wife would leave him a month after the premiere of Savage Sam.
It was one of the first films from director Norman Tokar. Walt Disney said, "I got him from TV. I like young talent. When people get to be institutions, they direct pictures with their left hand and do something else with their right."
Pat Hogan appears as tribesman Broken Nose. Dean Fredericks, formerly Steve Canyon on NBC, played a Comanche chief in this film.
Filming started August 6, 1962. It was mostly shot around the San Fernando Valley.
Critical reception
The film received poor reviews and fell short of box office expectations, paling in comparison with Old Yeller. According to Gipson's biographer, "criticized as clichéd and overdirected, the production was especially faulted for inconsistency with Gipson's tone".
The Washington Post called it a "dogged, listless effort". Los Angeles Times called it "action melodrama with a formula plot". The Chicago Tribune said "the members of the cast are all capable enough, but they are all handicapped by a lurid plot which looks like it was made up by all the action scenes in a bunch of old television scripts."
See also
List of American films of 1963
Old Yeller, 1957 film
References
Notes
Lich, Glen E. (1990). Fred Gipson at work. Texas A & M University Press. ISBN 9780890964248.
External links
Official website
Savage Sam at IMDb |
Summer_Magic_(film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Magic_(film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Magic_(film)"
] | Summer Magic is a 1963 American musical film directed by James Neilson, and starring Hayley Mills, Burl Ives, and Dorothy McGuire in a story about an early 1900s Boston widow and her children taking up residence in a small town in Maine. The film was based on the novel Mother Carey's Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin. It was the fourth of six films that Mills appeared in for Disney, and the young actress received a Golden Globe nomination for her work. While reviews of the film were mostly positive, Mills herself later criticized it as "the worst".
Plot
In the early 20th-century, financial problems force young Boston widow Margaret Carey (Dorothy McGuire) and her 3 children to move out of their home. Nancy (Hayley Mills), the dramatic but kind-hearted eldest child, remembers a large yellow house that the Careys had admired when they visited the small town of Beulah, Maine, and makes an inquiry about it. Upon the sale of the family's treasured piano ("Flitterin'"), Nancy reveals that the house is vacant and the family decides to relocate to the country ("Beautiful Beulah").
When the Careys arrive in Beulah they realize they're slightly out-of-place although the town welcomes them. Overall, the Careys find that moving to the country was the best decision for them and they're content in their new home ("Summer Magic"). The house however is in a shameful state of neglect, and caretaker Osh Popham (Burl Ives), against his wife's wishes, offers cheap labor to make the house livable, as well as offering free products from his hardware store. He also steers young Peter in the right direction, trading him a pair of overalls for his "Buster Brown suit" in which he now feels too citified, and offering him haircut money and carpentry lessons.
Just when the Careys are settled in and things are going better, they find out that orphaned Cousin Julia's adoptive parents have run into their own financial problems and want to send her to the Careys. They reluctantly agree, and while they get ready for her, Gilly (Eddie Hodges) and Nancy entertain Peter (Jimmy Mathers) with jokes about her appearance and snobby, snotty personality ("Pink of Perfection"). When Julia (Deborah Walley) arrives, she's even worse than her cousins remembered. Part of her welcome seems to include being jumped on by Peter's large dog Sam in the middle of the night. Aghast at Beulah's primitive ways, she forces Osh's daughter Lally Joy (Wendy Turner) to help her bathe in the kitchen rather than lug kettles of hot water up the stairs.
While Nancy and Lally Joy cope with Julia, Peter enjoys working on the house with Osh, who entertains him with stories of bugs the like of which Peter hadn't dealt with in the city ("Ugly Bug Ball"). When Margaret informs Osh of their still-failing finances, Osh, hoping to keep them in town, makes up a request from the house's owner, Tom Hamilton, in exchange for no rent. He pretends that Mr. Hamilton has answered in the affirmative, only requesting that on Halloween the Careys must have a ceremony for his dead mother and find a decent place for her picture. The Careys accept and Osh chooses a fake picture for the ceremony, but Osh's wife Mariah, who has been on to his lies from the beginning, visits the yellow house to tell the Careys that Mr. Hamilton has no idea that they are there. Before she can spill the news, Osh fakes a fall from the second story, claims an injured leg, and insist that his wife help him get home.
After church the next Sunday, Nancy and Julia spot a handsome man, Charles Bryant (James Stacy), who has moved to Beulah to be the new schoolteacher. They invite him to a lawn party at the yellow house, where both try to win his affections, Nancy with her smarts and Julia with her looks. Julia wins, leaving Nancy too jealous to enjoy the quiet evening after the party ("On the Front Porch"). In their bedroom, her jealousy and anger drive her to reveal that Julia's adoptive parents "dumped" her on the Careys after gambling away their money. Julia flees to Aunt Margaret for assurance that her parents truly loved her, and Margaret reveals that her parents' situation is looking good enough that they are about ready for her to come home. This makes Nancy realize that she has grown to love Julia despite her many flaws (and her having "won" Charles), and she begs her to stay. Julia accepts, and prepares to move in permanently with the Careys.
As Halloween approaches, everyone gets ready for the big party. Lally Joy, who harbors a big crush on Gilly, displays her ugly dress to Nancy and Julia, fretting embarrassment at the party. Nancy and Julia promise to redesign the dress as they give her pointers on how to act around boys ("Femininity").
On the day of the party, a handsome young man (Peter Brown) appears at the yellow house and meets Nancy. She informs him that they'd been living in the house and tells him about the party for Mr. Hamilton's mother. The stranger quickly heads for Osh's store, where it is revealed that he is Tom Hamilton. Osh comes clean about renting the house to the Careys, inspired by Nancy's good-heartedness. Indignant, Tom leaves the store.
Reluctant to escort Lally Joy to the party, Gilly becomes more willing as she makes her appearance in her beautiful redesigned dress. Seeing them together and Charles and Julia together, Nancy realizes that she's the only one without a partner; after talking it over with her mother, she decides to attend on her own. As she descends the stairs she runs into Tom Hamilton, who accompanies her to the party. Nancy presents the picture Osh had produced, but it is a frighteningly ugly woman and Tom feels insulted and angry at Osh. He reveals his true identity to the thoroughly-embarrassed Nancy, and as he has taken a fancy to her, he asks her to dance. As the party gets going, Osh exclaims that things always work out in the end.
Cast
Songs
Production notes
The screenplay was adapted by Sally Benson, author of the semi-autobiographical short stories that were the basis of M-G-M's similarly themed early 1900s era Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), starring Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien.
At first, Walt Disney did not care for "Ugly Bug Ball", but songwriter Robert Sherman explained "that to bugs, other bugs were not ugly even if they looked ugly to us, beauty being in the eye of the beholder". Disney liked the idea and the song went on to become one of the popular songs of the year. It was sung by Burl Ives.
"On the Front Porch" is songwriter Robert Sherman's personal favorite song from his own work.
Release
The film poster and other associated advertising art were illustrated by artist Paul Wenzel.
Critical response
Variety called the film "an easy-to-take entertainment that promises to be of particular delight to the younger element. The Disney trademark shows through all the way, meaning devotees of Tennessee Williams had better not be invited." John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "School vacationers, and their parents, will find that Walt Disney's 'Summer Magic' lives up to its title admirably ... The plot of 'Summer Magic' is slim but producer Disney and director James Neilson have worked sentimentality and humor into a nice blend." Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post stated, "'Summer Magic' was a pleasure to the small fry who packed the Metropolitan yesterday, but this Walt Disney gift, which includes Hayley Mills and Burl Ives, will charm oldsters as well." The pseudonymous "Mae Tinee" of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "I was disappointed in this one. It is a perfectly clean, wholesome story which seems to aim at the amusing nostalgia of a 'Meet Me in St. Louis' but never achieves it. The plot is both calculated and obvious and all the characters are drawn with a heavy hand." The Monthly Film Bulletin commented that the ingredients of the film "could mean a sticky confection, but thanks to the intelligent, and at times very funny script, and a well integrated cast, the result is a delicious soufflé." Filmink said Maguire "looks like she's going to fall asleep". Mills herself later said that [Summer Magic] was "the worst of the films she made for Disney".
Literary sources
Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: From Before to Beyond. Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.
References
External links
Official website
Summer Magic at UltimateDisney.com
Summer Magic at IMDb
Summer Magic at the TCM Movie Database |
The_Incredible_Journey_(film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Journey_(film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Journey_(film)"
] | The Incredible Journey is a 1963 adventure film directed by Fletcher Markle and produced by Walt Disney Productions. Based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Scottish writer Sheila Burnford, the film follows the adventure of Luath the Labrador Retriever, Bodger the Bull Terrier, and Tao the Siamese cat as they journey 300 miles (480 km) through the Canadian wilderness to return to their home. The film's human cast consists of Émile Genest, John Drainie, Tommy Tweed, and Sandra Scott, with Rex Allen providing narration.
Released on November 20, 1963 by Buena Vista Distribution, the film received $4.2 million in overall rentals. It was the final film to be scored by longtime Disney composer Oliver Wallace, who died two months prior to its release.
Plot
One night, deep in the forests of Ontario, bachelor John Longridge plans a long hunting trip. His housekeeper Mrs. Oakes is coming the next day, so he leaves her a note, including how he plans to let the three animals staying with him - Tao the Siamese cat, Luath the Yellow Labrador, and Bodger the elderly English Bull Terrier - out for a morning run. He retires to bed, and reflects on how his friend John Hunter (Luath's owner, who lives nearly 250 miles away) received an offer for a visiting fellowship at the University of Oxford. Tao and Bodger belong to Hunter's children Elizabeth and Peter, respectively, and Longridge offered to take in all three pets while the family was away. Tao, meanwhile, accidentally knocks the crucial half of the note into the fireplace, destroying it.
The next day, Longridge lets the animals into his yard for a run, and departs. Before Mrs. Oakes can arrive, Luath hears wild geese traveling home, and decides he wants to go home, too. He leaves the yard, and the other two follow. They intend to travel due west until they get there, not knowing how far it is. Mrs. Oakes and her husband Bert arrive, and assume that Longridge has taken the animals with him.
The animals soon realize Bodger, due to his age, is a liability. Having no means of getting food from humans without getting caught, they continue to forge ahead, but Bodger eventually collapses. Tao goes off to hunt some birds, and Luath goes off in search of water. Two American black bear cubs discover Bodger, but he does not respond to their play, so they decide to wrestle each other. The mother bear comes running at the noise, thinks Bodger has hurt her cubs, and tries to attack. Tao and Luath return and drive off the bear, and Bodger eats a bobwhite that Tao has killed for him, regaining his strength.
The animals travel on, hunting as they go. They are forced to pass through the yard of a sawmill, where Bodger attempts to raid the cookhouse trash can, only to be shot at by the cook. Luath catches a rabbit, but Bodger and Tao discover an old hermit, Jeremy, who has dementia. Jeremy mistakes them for human guests, and tries to serve them food, but then distractedly eats it all himself. Later still, the two dogs swim across a river while Tao walks across on a beaver dam. It breaks, and Tao is washed miles downstream, where he is rescued by a little Finnish girl named Helvi, who nurses him to full health with her parents' help. He hurries to catch up with the dogs, taking shelter from a thunderstorm and narrowly avoiding being eaten by a lynx on the way. Luckily, a young hunter appears from the shadows and chases the lynx away.
Shortly after being reunited, the animals encounter a porcupine, which spikes Luath in the face. Seeking water to alleviate the pain, Luath is found by hunter James Mackenzie. He takes Luath back to his farm, where Bodger has already arrived and made friends with Mackenzie's wife Nell. The dogs are treated and fed, and locked in the barn for the night. Meanwhile, Longridge returns home, and he and Mrs. Oakes quickly piece together the truth. Longridge starts calling all the ranger stations and outposts for help, and news of sightings comes in from all over.
Tao manages to free the dogs, and the trio wanders into the harsh Ironmouth Mountains, where there will be no more help from humans, and a terrible wintery climate. The Hunters return home to the sad news that Mackenzie was the last to see the animals alive. Elizabeth refuses to believe Tao will die, but Peter and Mr. Hunter accept that Bodger and Luath are likely no more. They decide to celebrate Peter's birthday to take their mind off of things.
Elizabeth hears a dog barking during the party, believes it's Luath, and convinces her father to whistle for the dog. Hunter whistles, and Luath appears, quickly followed by Tao, joyfully reuniting with the family. Peter mourns for Bodger, who is not there, but then notices the old dog slowly approaching from far behind the others. Peter runs to meet him, and the other two animals return to Bodger's side, so they can all complete their journey together.
Cast
Emile Genest as John Longridge
John Drainie as Professor James Hunter
Sandra Scott as Nancy Hunter
Marion Finlayson as Elizabeth Hunter
Ronald Cohoon as Peter Hunter
Tommy Tweed as The Hermit
Robert Christie as James MacKenzie
Beth Lockerbie as Nell MacKenzie
Beth Amos as Mrs. Oakes
Eric Clavering as Bert Oakes
Jan Rubeš as Carl Nurmi
Syme Jago as Helvi Nurmi
Muffy the Bull Terrier as Bodger
Rink the Labrador Retriever as Luath
Syn Cat the Siamese cat as Tao
Rex Allen as The Narrator
Production
Before filming, producer Jack Couffer visited Burnford in Port Arthur, Ontario to photograph the surrounding countryside which he used to pinpoint a filming location that fitted the area as close as possible. This was necessary as the season in Ontario was too short to schedule the necessary filming.
There were three animal handlers; Hal Driscoll looked after the Labrador, Bill Koehler the Bull Terrier, and Al Niemela the cat.
Burnford spent seven days with the film crew, including one session where they filmed the Siamese cat "fishing in a creek, and landing its flapping catch with a lightningswift professional paw" as often as the director wished.
Remake
In 1993, Disney made a new version of the film, entitled Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Featuring the voices of Don Ameche, Sally Field, and Michael J. Fox in the roles of the animals unlike the original where they are mute, the film keeps the same basic story line, but adds a subplot in which the kids are dealing with a new step-family. All three pets are renamed, the breeds of the dogs are changed, the cat is changed from male to female, and the ages of the original Labrador/Golden Retriever and Bull Terrier/American Bull Dog are switched. It also has vocalizations of the animals' thoughts and communications with each other.
Unlike the original story, the wilderness through which the three animals journey across is in the Sierra Nevada mountains, not the forested wilderness of Ontario.
The film was also followed by a sequel in 1996, entitled Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco.
Filming locations
Palgrave, Ontario (the hermit's cabin)
Aspdin, Ontario (the village fly-over sequence in the intro)
Lake Vernon, Ontario (the lake fly-over sequence in the intro)
Mono Mills, Ontario (the family's home)
Glen Cross, Ontario (the friendly hunter's farm)
Sequim, Washington
Smith Rock, Terrebonne, Oregon
Devils Lake, Cascade Lakes Highway, Oregon
South Sister, Oregon
Wahclella Falls, Oregon
References
External links
Official website
The Incredible Journey at IMDb
The Incredible Journey at the TCM Movie Database
The Incredible Journey at Rotten Tomatoes |
The_Sword_in_the_Stone_(1963_film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_in_the_Stone_(1963_film) | [
615
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_in_the_Stone_(1963_film)"
] | The Sword in the Stone is a 1963 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney and released by Buena Vista Distribution. It is based on the novel of the same name by T. H. White, first published in 1938 and then revised and republished in 1958 as the first book of White's Arthurian tetralogy The Once and Future King. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, the film features the voices of Rickie Sorensen, Karl Swenson, Junius Matthews, Sebastian Cabot, Norman Alden, and Martha Wentworth. It was the last animated film from Walt Disney Productions to be released in Walt Disney's lifetime.
Disney first acquired the film rights to the novel in 1939, and there were various attempts at developing the film over the next two decades before production on the film officially began. Bill Peet wrote the story for the film, while the songs were written by the Sherman Brothers. This was the first animated Disney film to feature songs by the Sherman Brothers; they went on to contribute music to such Disney animated feature films as Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977). George Bruns composed the film's score, following his work on the previous two animated Disney films, Sleeping Beauty (1959) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). He also composed the scores of the next three Disney animated feature films, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood (1973).
The Sword in the Stone premiered in London on December 16, 1963, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 25. The film received mixed reviews but became a box-office success, grossing $22.2 million in the United States and Canada.
Plot
After the King of England, Uther Pendragon, dies without an heir to his throne, a sword magically appears inside an anvil atop a stone, with an inscription proclaiming that whoever removes it will be the future king. Many have unsuccessfully attempted to remove the sword, and the sword becomes forgotten, leaving England in the Dark Ages.
Years later, an 11-year-old orphan named Arthur, commonly called Wart, accidentally scares off a deer his older foster brother Sir Kay was hunting, causing Kay to launch his arrow into the forest. While retrieving the arrow, Arthur meets Merlin, an elderly wizard who lives with his talking pet owl Archimedes. Merlin declares himself Arthur's tutor and returns with him to his home, a castle run by Sir Ector, Arthur's foster father. Ector's friend, Sir Pelinore, arrives to announce that the winner of the upcoming New Year's Day tournament in London will be crowned king. Ector decides Kay will be a contender and appoints Arthur as Kay's squire.
To educate Arthur, Merlin transforms them both into fish. They swim in the castle moat to learn about physics, until an angry pike attacks the pair. After the lesson, Arthur is sent to the kitchen as punishment for attempting to relate what happened to Ector and Kay. Merlin enchants the dishes to wash themselves, then takes Arthur out again for another lesson.
For the next lesson, Merlin transforms them both into squirrels to learn about gravity. Arthur almost gets eaten by a wolf, but is saved by a female squirrel who falls in love with him. After they return to human form, Ector accuses Merlin of using black magic on the dishes. Arthur defends Merlin, but Ector punishes Arthur by giving Kay another squire, Hobbs.
Resolving to make amends, Merlin plans on educating Arthur full-time, but Merlin's knowledge of future history confuses Arthur, prompting Merlin to appoint Archimedes as Arthur's teacher. Merlin transforms Arthur into a sparrow and Archimedes teaches him how to fly. Soon after, Arthur encounters Madam Mim, an eccentric, evil witch who is Merlin's nemesis. Merlin arrives to rescue Arthur before Mim can destroy him, and Mim challenges Merlin to a wizards' duel. Despite Mim's cheating, Merlin outsmarts her by transforming into a germ and infecting her, illustrating the importance of knowledge over strength.
On Christmas Eve, Kay is knighted. When Hobbs comes down with the mumps, Ector reinstates Arthur as Kay's squire, which spurs him to happily break the news to his teachers. Archimedes congratulates him, but Merlin, thinking Arthur is forsaking education, rebukes him for staying under Kay's thumb. When Arthur retorts that he's lucky, Merlin angrily transports himself to 20th-century Bermuda.
At the tournament, Arthur realizes he left Kay's sword at the inn. It is closed for the tournament, but Archimedes sees the "Sword in the Stone", which Arthur removes almost effortlessly, unknowingly fulfilling the prophecy. When Arthur returns with the sword, Ector recognizes it and the tournament is halted. Ector places the sword back in its anvil, demanding Arthur prove that he pulled it. He pulls it once again, revealing that he is England's rightful king, earning Ector and Kay's respect and the former's apology.
Later, the newly crowned King Arthur sits in the throne room with Archimedes, feeling unprepared for the responsibility of ruling a country. Merlin returns from Bermuda and resolves to help Arthur become the great king he has foreseen him to be and ensure his legacy.
Voice cast
Sebastian Cabot as Sir Ector, Arthur's foster father and Kay's father. Though he clearly cares for Arthur, he often treats him more like a servant than a son.
Cabot was also the film's narrator.
Karl Swenson as Merlin, an old and eccentric wizard who aids and educates Arthur.
Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman, and Robert Reitherman as Arthur (aka Wart), the boy who will grow up to become the legendary British leader King Arthur.
Junius Matthews as Archimedes, Merlin's crotchety, yet highly educated, pet owl and servant, who has the ability to speak.
Ginny Tyler as the Little Girl Squirrel who immediately develops an attraction to Arthur upon encountering him as a squirrel.
Martha Wentworth as Mad Madam Mim, a black magic-proficient witch and Merlin's nemesis. Mim's magic uses trickery, as opposed to Merlin's scientific skill.
Wentworth also voiced the Granny Squirrel, an elderly squirrel who is attracted to Merlin while Merlin is a squirrel.
Norman Alden as Sir Kay, Arthur's morose and inept older foster brother and Ector's son. Unlike his father, he has much less regard for Arthur and thinks little good of him.
Alan Napier as Sir Pelinore, Ector's friend, who announces the jousting tournament.
Thurl Ravenscroft voiced Sir Bart, one of the knights seen at the jousting tournament. Jimmy MacDonald voiced the Wolf who has several encounters with Arthur and attempts to eat him, but is constantly met with misfortune. Barbara Jo Allen voiced the Scullery Maid who works in Ector's castle and believes Merlin to be an evil sorcerer. Tudor Owen voiced one of the knights or nobles in the crowd during the tournament.
Production
Development
In early 1939, Walt Disney purchased the film rights to T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone, which he revealed in February. Following the outbreak of World War II, the studio focused instead on producing cartoons for the United States government and armed forces such as Der Fuehrer's Face (1943). In June 1944, following the successful re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney assigned writers to work on The Sword in the Stone, along with Cinderella (1950) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). It continued to be announced that the project was in active development throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s. In June 1960, Disney told the Los Angeles Times that, following the release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, two animated projects were in development, which were Chanticleer and The Sword in the Stone. Around that same time, Disney's elder brother Roy O. Disney attempted to persuade him to discontinue their feature animation division, as enough films remained to make successful re-releases. The younger Disney refused, but because of his plans to build another theme park in the United States, he would approve only one animated film to be released every four years.
Chanticleer was developed by Ken Anderson and Marc Davis, who aimed to produce a feature animated film in a more contemporary setting. They visited the Disney archives and decided to work on adapting the satirical tale after glancing at earlier conceptions dating back to the 1940s. Anderson, Davis, Milt Kahl, and director Wolfgang Reitherman spent months preparing elaborate storyboards for Chanticleer. Following a silent response to one pitch presentation, a voice from the back of the room said, "You can't make a personality out of a chicken!" When the time came to approve either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was, "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it."
Meanwhile, The Sword in the Stone was developed solely by veteran story artist Bill Peet. After Disney had seen the 1960 Broadway production of Camelot, he approved the project to enter production. Ollie Johnston stated that "[Kahl] got furious with Bill for not pushing Chanticleer after all the work he had put in on it. He said, 'I can draw a damn fine rooster, you know'. Bill said, 'So can I.'" Peet recalled about "how humiliated they were to accept defeat and give in to The Sword in the Stone... He allowed them to have their own way, and they let him down. They never understood that I wasn't trying to compete with them, just trying to do what I wanted to work. I was [in] the midst of all this competition, and with Walt to please too."
Writing in his autobiography, Peet said he decided to write a screenplay before producing storyboards, though he found the narrative "complicated, with the Arthurian legend woven into a mixture of other legends and myths" and that finding a direct storyline required "sifting and sorting". After Disney received the first screenplay draft, he told Peet that it should have more substance. Peet lengthened his second draft by elaborating on the more dramatic aspects of the story, which Disney approved of through a phone call from Palm Springs, Florida.
Casting
Rickie Sorensen, who was cast as Arthur, entered puberty during the film's production. This forced director Wolfgang Reitherman to cast two of his sons, Richard and Robert, to replace him. This resulted in Arthur's voice noticeably changing between scenes, and sometimes within the same scene. The three voices also portray Arthur with an American accent, sharply contrasting with the English setting and the accents spoken by most of the other characters. Mari Ness of the online magazine Tor.com suggested, "given that the film is about growing up, this problem might have been overcome" with the three voices being interpreted as symbolizing Arthur's mental and physical development. However, she noted "[Reitherman] inexplicably chose to leave all three voices in for some scenes, drawing attention to the problem that they were not the same actor."
Furthermore, Reitherman estimated that 70 actors read for the part of Merlin, but none of them had eccentricity that he was looking for. Karl Swenson initially read for Archimedes, but he was instead cast as Merlin.
Animation
The film continued the Xerox method of photocopying drawings onto animation cels that had been used in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). An additional animation technique, "touch-up", was created during production to replace the clean-up process. The clean-up process had required assistant animators to transfer the directing animators' sketches onto new sheets of paper, which were then copied onto the animation cels. To do a touch-up, the assistants would instead draw directly on the animators' sketches. This streamlined the process, but it also caused assistants of directing animator Milt Kahl to fear they would ruin his linework.
Animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were proud of their work on the final film and stated on their website that "Some of our best animation is scattered throughout this lively film. "
Release
The Sword in the Stone premiered in London on December 12, 1963. It was released to theaters on December 18 in the United Kingdom and on December 25 in the United States. It was re-released on December 22, 1972. The film was again re-released to theaters on March 25, 1983, as a double bill with the animated short Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore.
Home media
The Sword in the Stone was released on North American VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc in 1986 as an installment of the Walt Disney Classics collection. It was re-released on VHS in 1989 and on VHS and Laserdisc on July 12, 1991. It was first released on VHS in the United Kingdom in 1988, followed by a re-issue the following year. Another re-release on VHS and Laserdisc occurred on October 28, 1994, this time as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection.
The film was released on VHS and DVD on March 20, 2001, as an installment in the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. The VHS edition included the Goofy short A Knight for a Day while the DVD contained the Mickey Mouse short Brave Little Tailor, the episode "All About Magic" from the Disneyland television program, and film facts. The DVD of the film was re-released as a 45th-anniversary special edition on June 17, 2008.
For its 50th anniversary, the film was released on Blu-ray on August 6, 2013. Despite being touted as a new remaster of the film, this release was heavily criticized by home media reviewers for the "scrubbed" quality of its digital transfer due to the excessive use of noise reduction.
Reception
Box office
During its initial release, The Sword in the Stone earned an estimated $4.75 million in box office rentals in the United States and Canada. It garnered $2.5 million in box office rentals during its 1972 re-release and $12 million during its 1983 re-release. The film has had a lifetime domestic gross of $22.2 million in North America.
Critical reception
The Sword in the Stone received mixed reviews from critics, who thought that its humor failed to balance out a "thin narrative". Gene Arneel of Variety wrote that the film "demonstrates anew the magic of the Disney animators and imagination in character creation... But one might wish for a script which stayed more with the basic story line rather than taking so many twists and turns which have little bearing on the tale about King Arthur as a lad." Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film, claiming it is "an eye-filling package of rollicking fun and thoughtful common sense. The humor sparkles with real, knowing sophistication — meaning for all ages — and some of the characters on the fifth-century landscape of Old England are Disney pips." Philip K. Scheuer, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, described the film as "more intimate than usual with a somewhat smaller cast of characters—animal as well as human. Otherwise, the youngsters should find it par the usual Disney cartoon course. It may not be exactly what T. H. White had in mind when he wrote this third of his sophisticated trilogy about King Arthur, but it's a good [bit] livelier than the stage Camelot derived from another third."
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 31 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A decent take on the legend of King Arthur, The Sword in the Stone suffers from relatively indifferent animation, but its characters are still memorable and appealing." Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing that "delightful" classic brings Arthur legend to life. In his book The Best of Disney, Neil Sinyard states that, despite not being well known, the film has excellent animation, a complex structure, and is actually more philosophical than other Disney features. Sinyard suggests that Walt Disney may have seen something of himself in Merlin, and that Mim, who "hates wholesome sunshine", may have represented critics.
Accolades
In 1964, The Sword in the Stone was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of Music—Adaptation or Treatment. It lost the award to Irma la Douce (1963).
In 2008, The Sword in the Stone was one of the 50 films nominated for the American Film Institute's Top 10 Animated Films list, but it was not selected as one of the top 10.
Music
Original songs performed in the film include:
Deleted songs from the film include:
"The Magic Key"
"The Sand of Time"
"Blue Oak Tree" (just the ending was included in the film)
Legacy
Several characters from the film made frequent appearances in the House of Mouse television series. Merlin was voiced by Hamilton Camp, and appears in the episode "Rent Day". Wart also made a few appearances in the series, usually seen in crowd shots with Merlin. He also appears with Merlin in the audience in the episode "Mickey vs. Shelby" after the cartoon ends. Sir Kay was seen in the episode "Ask Von Drake", when he tries to pull the sword from the stone with Arthur, Merlin, and Madam Mim. Madam Mim appears as a villain in the spin-off film Mickey's House of Villains. In the past, Merlin frequented the Disney Parks, the only character from the film appearing occasionally for meet-and-greets at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort. He appeared in the opening unit of Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams at Disneyland Park. He also hosts the Sword in the Stone ceremony in the King Arthur Carrousel attraction in Fantasyland at Disneyland. In 2014 and 2015, UK health directive Change4Life incorporated "Higitus Figitus" as the soundtrack for adverts promoting their Disney-sponsored "10 minute shake up" summer program.
Comics
In the Disney comics, Madam Mim was adopted into the Donald Duck universe, where she sometimes teams with Magica De Spell, Witch Hazel and/or the Beagle Boys. She also appeared in the Mickey Mouse universe, where she teamed with Black Pete on occasion and with the Phantom Blot at one point. She was in love with Captain Hook in several stories; in others, with Phantom Blot. In the comics produced in Denmark or in the Netherlands, she lost her truly evil streak, and appears somewhat eccentric, withdrawn and morbid, yet relatively polite.
Mim appeared in numerous comics produced in the United States by Studio Program in the 1960s and 1970s, often as a sidekick of Magica. Most of the stories were published in Europe and South America. Among the artists are Jim Fletcher, Tony Strobl, Wolfgang Schäfer, and Katja Schäfer. Several new characters were introduced in these stories, including Samson Hex, an apprentice of Mim and Magica.
Merlin (Italian: Mago Merlino), Archimedes (Italian: Anacleto) and Mim (Italian: Maga Magò)'s debut in the prolific Italian Disney comics scene was in a greatly remembered story: "Mago Merlino presenta: Paperino e la 850" (lit. 'The Wizard Merlin presents: Donald Duck and the 850'), published in nine parts in Topolino "libretto" #455-#464 (16 August-18 October 1964). In the story, Scrooge McDuck charged Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey and Louie with delivering a special gas to power the Olympic torch at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, passing through the World's most disparate climates to test its properties. However, Donald's car, the 313, breaks down, but Merlin materializes and magically creates a Fiat 850 (Fiat was sponsoring the story). Mim, however, wants to obtain the gas, and has the Beagle Boys chase after them. The 850 (initially put in contrast with the villains' generic, Edsel-like car), thanks to Merlin's magic, displays remarkable characteristics that help the ducks successfully finish their mission.
Video games
Madam Mim made a surprise appearance in the video game World of Illusion as the fourth boss of the game.
Merlin is a supporting character in the Kingdom Hearts series. In Kingdom Hearts, Merlin, who lives in an abandoned shack in Traverse Town with Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, is sent by King Mickey to train Sora, Donald, and Goofy in the art of magic. He owns an old book that features the world of The Hundred Acre Wood, home of Winnie the Pooh. The book's pages, however, have been torn out and scattered across the universe, so Merlin asks Sora to retrieve them for him.
In Kingdom Hearts II, Merlin, now voiced by Jeff Bennett, has moved to Hollow Bastion to aid Leon's group as part of the town's restoration committee, though he is at odds with Cid, who prefers his own computer expertise over Merlin's magic. Merlin again instructs Sora, Donald, and Goofy in the art of magic, and again requests that they retrieve the stolen parts of the Pooh storybook. At one point in the game, he is summoned to Disney Castle by Queen Minnie to counter the threat of Maleficent, and he constructs a door leading to Disney Castle's past (Timeless River) for the trio to explore and stop Maleficent and Pete's plans.
In the prequel, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Merlin encounters Terra, Aqua, and Ventus and grants them each access to the Hundred Acre Wood. The prequel also reveals that it was Terra who gave him the book in the first place after finding it in Radiant Garden. According to series creator Tetsuya Nomura, a world based on The Sword in the Stone was initially to appear in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, but the idea was scrapped. Merlin returns in Kingdom Hearts III, where he asks Sora to restore Pooh's storybook once more (though this does not involve finding any missing pages), but has no involvement in the story beyond that, and instead spends his time at Remy's bistro in Twilight Town having tea.
Merlin appears in the world builder video game Disney Magic Kingdoms as the guide for the player during the game progress, and as the owner of Merlin's Shop, where the players can buy and sell in-game items, as well as other options that Merlin can perform. In a November 2023 update to that game, Merlin became a fully playable character, while Arthur was also added to the game; both were done in celebration of the film's 60th anniversary. Merlin also appears as one of the villagers in Disney Dreamlight Valley, filling a similar role as a guide who teaches the player new mechanics during the early portions of the game.
Live-action film adaptation
A live-action feature film adaptation entered development in July 2015, with Bryan Cogman writing the script and Brigham Taylor serving as producer. By January 2018, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was announced as director. The next month, the film was revealed to premiere exclusively on Disney+. Enrique Chediak joined to serve as the cinematographer in September, while Eugenio Caballero joined as the production designer in December.
Live-action film spin-off
In October 2021, Disney announced a live-action adaptation of T. A. Barron's The Merlin Saga, with Michael Matthews set to direct with filming taking place in the United Kingdom at Pinewood Studios, London, Tintagel Castle and in the Glastonbury area of Somerset.
Set in Stone
An alternate-scenario young adult novel, Set in Stone, part of the A Twisted Tale series, was released in 2023. It tells of an alternate scenario that shows what might have happened if it was Madam Mim's magic that helped Arthur draw the sword from the stone.
See also
List of films based on Arthurian legend
List of American films of 1963
References
External links
Official website
The Sword in the Stone at IMDb
The Sword in the Stone at the TCM Movie Database
The Sword in the Stone at AllMovie
The Sword in the Stone at Box Office Mojo
The Sword in the Stone at Rotten Tomatoes |
Shogi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi | [
616
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi"
] | Shogi (将棋, shōgi, English: , Japanese: [ɕoːɡi]), also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, chaturanga, xiangqi, Indian chess, and janggi. Shōgi means general's (shō 将) board game (gi 棋).
Shogi was the earliest historical chess-related game to allow captured pieces to be returned to the board by the capturing player. This drop rule is speculated to have been invented in the 15th century and possibly connected to the practice of 15th-century mercenaries switching loyalties when captured instead of being killed.
The earliest predecessor of the game, chaturanga, originated in India in the 6th century, and the game was likely transmitted to Japan via China or Korea sometime after the Nara period. Shogi in its present form was played as early as the 16th century, while a direct ancestor without the drop rule was recorded from 1210 in a historical document Nichūreki, which is an edited copy of Shōchūreki and Kaichūreki from the late Heian period (c. 1120).
Equipment
Two players face each other across a board composed of rectangles in a grid of 9 ranks (rows, 段) by 9 files (columns, 筋) yielding an 81-square board. In Japanese they are called Sente 先手 (first player) and Gote 後手 (second player), but in English are conventionally referred to as Black and White, with Black the first player.
The board is nearly always rectangular, and the rectangles are undifferentiated by marking or color. Pairs of dots mark the players' promotion zones.
Each player has a set of 20 flat wedge-shaped pentagonal pieces of slightly different sizes. Except for the kings, opposing pieces are undifferentiated by marking or color. Pieces face forward by having the pointed side of each piece oriented toward the opponent's side – this shows who controls the piece during play. The pieces from largest (most important) to smallest (least important) are:
1 king
1 rook
1 bishop
2 gold generals
2 silver generals
2 knights
2 lances
9 pawns
Several of these names were chosen to correspond to their rough equivalents in international chess, and not as literal translations of the Japanese names.
Each piece has its name written on its surface in the form of two kanji (Chinese characters used as syllabograms or as logograms to record texts in Old Japanese), usually in black ink. On the reverse side of each piece, other than the king and gold general, are one or two other characters, in amateur sets often in a different color (usually red); this side is turned face up during play to indicate that the piece has been promoted.
In some cases, the backsides of the King pieces (the narrow side which faces back toward the player during normal play) will display kanji containing additional information about the piece manufacturers.
Following is a table of the pieces with their Japanese representations and English equivalents. The abbreviations are used for game notation and often when referring to the pieces in speech in Japanese.
English speakers sometimes refer to promoted bishops as horses and promoted rooks as dragons, after their Japanese names, and generally use the Japanese term tokin for promoted pawns. Silver generals and gold generals are commonly referred to simply as silvers and golds, respectively.
The characters inscribed on the reverse sides of the pieces to indicate promotion may be in red ink, and are usually cursive. The characters on the backs of the pieces that promote to gold generals are cursive variants of 金 'gold', becoming more cursive (more abbreviated) as the value of the original piece decreases. These cursive forms have these equivalents in print: 全 for promoted silver, 今 for promoted knight, 仝 for promoted lance, and 个 for promoted pawn (tokin). Another typographic convention has abbreviated versions of the original values, with a reduced number of strokes: 圭 for a promoted knight (桂), 杏 for a promoted lance (香), and the 全 as above for a promoted silver, but と (a hiragana symbol for the syllable "to") for tokin.
The suggestion that the Japanese characters have deterred Western players from learning shogi has led to "Westernized" or "international" pieces which use iconic symbols instead of characters. Most players soon learn to recognize the characters, however, partially because the traditional pieces are already iconic by size, with more powerful pieces being larger. As a result, Westernized pieces have never become popular. Bilingual pieces with both Japanese characters and English captions have been developed as have pieces with animal cartoons.
Setup and gameplay
Each player sets up friendly pieces facing forward (toward the opponent).
In the rank nearest the player:
The king is placed in the center file;
The two gold generals are placed in files adjacent to the king;
The two silver generals are placed adjacent to each gold general;
The two knights are placed adjacent to each silver general;
The two lances are placed in the corners, adjacent to each knight.
That is, the first rank is
Or
In the second rank, each player places:
The bishop in the same file as the left knight;
The rook in the same file as the right knight.
In the third rank, the nine pawns are placed one per file.
A furigoma 振り駒 'piece toss' is used to decide who moves first. One of the players tosses five pawns. If the number of tokins (promoted pawns, と) facing up is higher than unpromoted pawns (歩), then the player who tossed the pawns plays gote 後手 'white' (that is, getting the second move).
After the piece toss furigoma, the game proceeds. If multiple games are played, then players alternate turns for who goes first in subsequent games. (The terms "Black" and "White" are used to differentiate sides although there is no difference in the color of the pieces.) For each turn, a player may either move a piece that is currently on the board (and potentially promote it, capture an opposing piece, or both) or else drop a piece that has been previously captured onto a square of the board. These options are explained below.
Rules
Objective
The usual goal of a game is for one player to checkmate the other player's king, winning the game.
Movement
Most shogi pieces can move only to an adjacent square. A few may move across the board, and one jumps over intervening pieces.
The lance, bishop, and rook are ranging pieces: They can move any number of squares along a straight line limited only by intervening pieces and the edge of the board. If an opposing piece intervenes, it may be captured by removing it from the board and replacing it with the moving piece. If a friendly piece intervenes, the moving piece must stop short of that square; if the friendly piece is adjacent, the moving piece may not move in that direction at all.
A king (玉/王) moves one square in any direction, orthogonal or diagonal.
A rook (飛) moves any number of squares in an orthogonal direction.
A bishop (角) moves any number of squares in a diagonal direction. Because they cannot move orthogonally, the players' unpromoted bishops can reach only half the squares of the board, unless one is captured and then dropped.
A gold general (金) moves one square orthogonally, or one square diagonally forward, giving it six possible destinations. It cannot move diagonally backwards.
A silver general (銀) moves one square diagonally, or one square straight forward, giving it five possible destinations. Because an unpromoted silver can retreat more easily than a promoted one, it is common to leave a silver unpromoted at the far side of the board. (See Promotion).
A knight (桂) jumps at an angle intermediate to orthogonal and diagonal, amounting to one square straight forward plus one square diagonally forward, in a single move. Thus the knight has two possible forward destinations. Unlike international chess knights, shogi knights cannot move to the sides or in a backwards direction. The knight is the only piece that ignores intervening pieces on the way to its destination. It is not blocked from moving if the square in front of it is occupied, but neither can it capture a piece on that square. It is often useful to leave a knight unpromoted at the far side of the board. A knight must promote, however, if it reaches either of the two furthest ranks. (See Promotion.)
A lance (香) moves just like the rook except it cannot move backwards or to the sides. It is often useful to leave a lance unpromoted at the far side of the board. A lance must promote, however, if it reaches the furthest rank. (See Promotion.)
A pawn (歩) moves one square straight forward. It cannot retreat. Unlike international chess pawns, shogi pawns capture the same as they move. A pawn must promote if it arrives at the furthest rank. (See Promotion.) In practice, however, a pawn is usually promoted whenever possible. There are two restrictions on where a pawn may be dropped. (See Drops.)
All pieces but the knight move either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. These directions cannot be combined in a single move; one direction must be chosen.
Every piece blocks the movement of all other non-jumping pieces through the square it occupies.
If a piece occupies a legal destination for an opposing piece, it may be captured by removing it from the board and replacing it with the opposing piece. The capturing piece may not continue beyond that square on that turn. Shogi pieces capture the same as they move.
Normally, when moving a piece, a player snaps it to the board with the ends of the fingers of the same hand. This makes a sudden sound effect, bringing the piece to the attention of the opponent. This is also true for capturing and dropping pieces. On a traditional shogi-ban, the pitch of the snap is deeper, delivering a subtler effect.
Promotion
A player's promotion zone consists of the furthest one-third of the board – the three ranks occupied by the opponent's pieces at setup. The zone is typically delineated on shogi boards by two inscribed dots. When a piece is moved, if part of the piece's path lies within the promotion zone (that is, if the piece moves into, out of, or wholly within the zone; but not if it is dropped into the zone – see Drops), then the player has the option to promote the piece at the end of the turn. Promotion is indicated by turning the piece over after it moves, revealing the character of the promoted piece.
Promoting a piece is usually not compulsory; however, if a pawn or lance is moved to the furthest rank, or a knight is moved to either of the two furthest ranks, that piece must promote (otherwise, it would have no legal move on subsequent turns). A silver general is never required to promote, and it is often advantageous to keep a silver general unpromoted (it is easier, for example, to extract an unpromoted silver from behind enemy lines: a promoted silver, with only one line of retreat, can be easily blocked.) Rooks, bishops and pawns are almost always promoted, as these pieces do not lose any of their powers upon promotion.
Promoting a piece changes the way it moves. The various pieces promote as follows:
A silver general, knight, lance, or pawn has its normal power of movement replaced by that of a gold general.
A rook or bishop keeps its original movement and gains the power to move one square in any direction (like a king). For a promoted bishop, this means it is able to reach any square on the board, given enough moves.
A king or a gold general does not promote; nor can a piece that is already promoted.
When captured, a piece loses its promoted status. Otherwise promotion is permanent.
A promoted rook (literally dragon king (龍王 (ryūō)); shortended forms: 龍 (ryū) and 竜 (ryū)) moves as a rook and as a king. It is commonly referred to as dragon.
A promoted bishop (literally dragon horse (龍馬 (ryūma)); shortened form 馬 (uma)) moves as a bishop and as a king. It is commonly referred to as horse.
A promoted silver (成銀 narigin; alternate forms: 全, cursive 金), a promoted knight (成桂 narikei; alternate forms: 圭, 今, cursive 金), a promoted lance (成香 narikyō; alternate forms: 杏, 仝, cursive 金) and a promoted pawn (と金 tokin; alternate forms: と, 个) all move the same way as a gold general. The promoted pawn is often called by its Japanese name tokin, even by non-Japanese players.
Drops
Captured pieces are retained in hand and can be brought back into play under the capturing player's control. The Japanese term for piece(s) in hand is either 持ち駒 mochigoma or 手駒 tegoma. On any turn, instead of moving a piece on the board, a player may select a piece in hand and place it – unpromoted side up and facing the opposing side – on any empty square. The piece is then one of that player's active pieces on the board and can be moved accordingly. This is called dropping the piece, or simply, a drop. A drop counts as a complete move.
A drop cannot capture a piece, nor does dropping within the promotion zone result in immediate promotion. Capture and/or promotion may occur normally, however, on subsequent moves of the piece.
Restrictions. There are three restrictions on dropping pieces; the last two of these apply only to pawns.
Piece with No Moves (Japanese: 行き所のない駒 ikidokorononaikoma): Pawns, lances and knights may not be dropped onto the last (9th) rank, and knights may not be dropped onto the penultimate (8th) rank; this is because such dropped pieces would have no legal moves on subsequent turns (as they can only move in the forward direction).
Two Pawns (Japanese: 二歩 nifu): A pawn may not be dropped onto a file (column) containing another unpromoted pawn of the same player (promoted pawns do not count).
Drop Pawn Mate (Japanese: 打ち歩詰め uchifuzume): A pawn may not be dropped to give an immediate checkmate. (This rule only applies specifically to pawns, drops and checkmates − to clarify, a player may deliver an immediate checkmate by dropping a non-pawn piece, a player may checkmate a king with a pawn that is already on the board, and a pawn may be dropped to give an immediate check as long as it does not also result in checkmate.)
A corollary of the second restriction is that a player with an unpromoted pawn on every file is unable to drop a pawn anywhere. For this reason, it is common to sacrifice a pawn in order to gain flexibility for drops.
Captured pieces are typically kept on a wooden stand (駒台 komadai) which is traditionally placed so that its bottom-left corner aligns with the bottom-right corner of the board from the perspective of each player. It is not permissible to hide pieces from full view.
It is common for players to swap bishops, which oppose each other across the board, early in the game. This leaves each player with a bishop in hand to be dropped later. The ability for drops in shogi gives the game tactical richness and complexity. The fact that no piece ever goes entirely out of play accounts for the rarity of draws.
Check
When a player's move threatens to capture the opposing king on the next turn, the move is said to give check to the king and the king is said to be in check. If a player's king is in check, that player's responding move must remove the check. Ways to remove a check include moving the king away from the threat, capturing the threatening piece, or placing another interposing piece between the king and the threatening piece.
To announce check in Japanese, one can say ōte (王手), however, this is an influence of international chess and is not required, even as a courtesy. It may be common to announce ōte in beginner matches or for local rules to dictate that you have to announce it. Announcing a check vocally is unheard of in competitive tournaments.
End of the game
The usual way for shogi games to end is for one side to checkmate the other side's king, after which the losing player will be given the opportunity to admit defeat. Unlike western chess or xiangqi, checkmate is almost always the result in shogi since pieces never retire from play, which gives the players a sufficient number of pieces to deliver checkmate. That said, there are three other possible ways for a game to end: repetition (千日手 sennichite), impasse (持将棋 jishōgi), and an illegal move (反則手 hansokute). The first two – repetition and impasse – are particularly uncommon. Illegal moves are also uncommon in professional games although this may not be true with amateur players (especially beginners).
Unlike western chess, there is no tradition of offering a mutual draw by agreement.
Checkmate
If the king is in check and there is no possible move which could protect the king, the move is said to checkmate (tsumi 詰み) the king. Checkmate effectively means that the opponent wins the game as the player would have no remaining legal moves. (See also: tsumeshogi, hisshi.)
Resignation
The losing player will usually resign when the situation is thought to be hopeless and may declare the resignation at any time during their turn. Although a player may resign just after they are checkmated, playing up to the checkmate point rarely occurs in practice as players normally resign as soon as a loss is deemed inevitable. Similarly, if a player were to lose in an Entering King situation (see section below) by having less than 24 points (or by any of the other Impasse rules used by amateurs), then the player will usually resign before that point.
In traditional tournament play, a formal resignation is required – that is, a checkmate is not a sufficient condition for winning. The resignation is indicated by bowing and/or saying 'I lost' (負けました makemashita) and/or placing the right hand over the piece stands. Placing the hand over the piece stand is a vestige of an older practice of gently dropping one's pieces in hand over the board in order to indicate resignation. In western practice, a handshake may be used.
Illegal move
In professional and serious (tournament) amateur games, a player who makes an illegal move loses immediately. The loss stands even if play continued and the move was discovered later in game. However, if neither the opponent nor a third party points out the illegal move and the opponent later resigned, the resignation stands as the result.
Illegal moves include:
Violating the Two Pawns (nifu) restriction (See §Drops above.)
Violating the Drop Pawn Mate (uchifuzume) restriction
Dropping or moving a piece to position where it cannot move (such as dropping a knight to an opponent's last two ranks, etc.)
Dropping a piece with its promoted value
Playing out of turn, e.g. making more than one move or white moving first instead of moving second.
Making perpetual check four times (cf. sennichite)
Leaving one's king in check, or moving one's king into check
Moving a piece contrary to how its movements are defined (for example, moving a gold like a silver, or moving an unpromoted bishop off its legal diagonal)
In friendly amateur games, this rule is sometimes relaxed, and the player may be able to take back the illegal move and replay a new legal move.
In particular, the Two Pawn violation is the most common illegal move played by professional players. The Two Pawn violation played by Takahiro Toyokawa (against Kōsuke Tamura) in the 2004 NHK Cup is infamous since it was broadcast on television. On the 109th move, Toyokawa (playing as Black) dropped a pawn to the 29 square while he already had a pawn in play on the board on the 23 square and, thus, lost the game.
Repetition (draw)
If the same game position occurs four times with the same player to move and the same pieces in hand for each player, then the game ends in a repetition draw (千日手 sennichite, lit. "moves for a thousand days"), as long as the positions are not due to perpetual check. Perpetual check (連続王手の千日手) is an illegal move (see above), which ends the game in a loss in tournament play.
In professional shogi, a repetition draw outcome is not a final result as draws essentially do not count. Each game can only end in either a win or loss. In the case of a repetition draw, professional shogi players will have to immediately play a subsequent game (or as many games as necessary) with sides reversed in order to obtain a true win outcome. (That is, the player who was White becomes Black, and vice versa.) Also, depending on the tournament, professional players play the subsequent game in the remainder of the allowed game time.
Thus, aiming for a repetition draw may be a possible professional strategy for the White player in order to play the second replay game as Black, which has a slight statistical advantage and/or greater initiative. For instance, Bishop Exchange Fourth File Rook is a passive strategy for White with the goal of a repetition draw (as it requires two tempo losses – swinging the rook and trading the bishops) while it is a very aggressive strategy if played by Black.
Repetition draws are rare in professional shogi occurring in about 1–2% of games and even rarer in amateur games. In professional shogi, repetition draws usually occur in the opening as certain positions are reached that are theoretically disadvantaged for both sides (reciprocal zugzwang). In amateur shogi, repetition draws tend to occur in the middle or endgame as a result of player errors.
Impasse
The game reaches an Impasse or Deadlock (持将棋 jishōgi) if both kings have advanced into their respective promotion zones – a situation known as 相入玉 (ai-nyū gyoku "double entering kings") – and neither player can hope to mate the other or to gain any further material. An Impasse can result in either a win or a draw. If an Impasse happens, the winner is decided as follows: each player agrees to an Impasse, then each rook or bishop, promoted or not, scores 5 points for the owning player, and all other pieces except kings score 1 point each. A player scoring fewer than 24 points loses. (Note that in the start position, both players have 27 points each.) If neither player has fewer than 24, the game is no contest – a draw. In professional shogi, an Impasse result is always a draw since a player that cannot obtain the 24 points will simply resign. Jishōgi is considered an outcome in its own right rather than no contest, but there is no practical difference. As an Impasse needs to be agreed on for the rule to be invoked, a player may refuse to do so and attempt to win the game in future moves. If that happens, there is no official rule about the verdict of the game.
However, in amateur shogi, there are different practices most of which force a win resolution to the Impasse in order to avoid a draw result.
The first draw by Impasse occurred in 1731 in a bishop handicap game between the seventh Lifetime Meijin, Sōkan Itō II, and his brother, Sōkei Ōhashi.
Entering King
As a practical matter, when an opponent's king has entered a player's own territory especially with supporting defending pieces, the opponent's king is often very difficult to mate given the forward attacking nature of most shogi pieces. This state is referred to as entering king (入玉 nyū gyoku). If both players' kings are in entering king states, the game becomes more likely to result in an impasse.
In the adjacent diagram example, although White's king is in a strong Bear-in-the-hole castle, Black's king has entered White's territory making it very difficult to mate. Therefore, this position favors Black.
An example of Entering King occurred in the fourth game of the 60th Ōi title match between Masayuki Toyoshima and Kazuki Kimura held on August 20–21, 2019. After being unsuccessful in attacking Kimura and also in defending his own king within his camp, Toyoshima (playing as White) moved his king away from Kimura's attacking pieces by fleeing up the second file, ultimately entering his king into Kimura's camp by move 150. Although Toyoshima had achieved Entering King, he still had only 23 points—one point shy of the required 24 points for an Impasse draw—while Kimura (Black) had 31 points. Toyoshima then spent the next 134 moves trying to bring his point total, which fluctuated between 17 and 23, up to the necessary 24. By the 231st move, the game had reached a Double Entering Kings state, and by move 285 Kimura had successfully kept Toyoshima's point total at bay. Here, Toyoshima with 20 points (and Kimura at 34 points) resigned. Incidentally, this game broke the record of longest game in a title match.
Amateur resolutions
For amateur games, there are various guidances with little standardization. Fairbairn reports a practice in the 1980s (considered a rule by the now defunct Shogi Association for The West) where the dispute is resolved by either player moving all friendly pieces into the promotion zone and then the game ends with points tallied.
Another resolution is the 27-Point (27点法) rule used for some amateur tournaments. One version of this is simply the player who has 27 or more points is the winner of the Impasse. Another version is a 27-Point Declaration rule. For instance, the Declaration rule on the online shogi site, 81Dojo, is that the player who wants to declare an Impasse win must (i) declare an intention to win via Impasse, (ii) have the king in the enemy camp (the promotion zone for that player), (iii) 10 other pieces must be in the promotion zone, (iv) not be in check, (v) have time remaining, and (vi) must have 28 points if Black or 27 points if White. If all of these conditions are met, then the Impasse declarer will win the game regardless of whether the opponent objects.
Yet another resolution to Impasse is the so-called Try Rule (トライルール torairūru). In this case, after both kings have entered their corresponding promotion zones, then the player who first moves the king to the opponent's king's start square (51 for Black, 59 for White) first will be the winner. As an example, the popular 将棋ウォーズ (Shogi Wars) app by HEROZ Inc. used the Try Rule up until 2014. (Now the app uses a variant of the 27-Point Declaration Rule – although it differs from the variant used on the 81Dojo site.) The idea of the "Try Rule" was taken from rugby football (see Try (rugby)).
Draws in tournaments
In professional tournaments, the rules typically require drawn games to be replayed with sides reversed, possibly with reduced time limits. They are rare compared to chess and xiangqi, occurring at a rate of 1–2% even in amateur games.
The 1982 Meijin title match between Makoto Nakahara and Hifumi Katoh was unusual in this regard with an impasse draw in the first (Double Fortress) game on April 13–14 (only the fifth draw in the then 40-year history of the tournament). This game (with Katoh as Black) lasted for 223 moves with 114 minutes spent pondering a single move. One of the reasons for the length of this game was that White (Nakahara) was very close to falling below the minimum of 24 points required for a draw. Thus, the end of the endgame was strategically about trying to keep White's points above the 24-point threshold. In this match, sennichite occurred in the sixth and eighth games. Thus, this best-of-seven match lasted eight games and took over three months to finish; Black did not lose a single game and the eventual victor was Katoh at 4–3.
Time control
Professional games are timed as in international chess, but professional shogi players are almost never expected to keep time in their games. Instead a timekeeper is assigned, typically an apprentice professional. Time limits are much longer than in international chess (9 hours a side plus extra time in the prestigious Meijin title match), and in addition byōyomi (literally "second counting") is employed. This means that when the ordinary time has run out, the player will from that point on have a certain amount of time to complete every move (a byōyomi period), typically upwards of one minute. The final ten seconds are counted down, and if the time expires the player to move loses the game immediately. Amateurs often play with electronic clocks that beep out the final ten seconds of a byōyomi period, with a prolonged beep for the last five.
Player rank and handicaps
Amateur players are ranked from 15 kyū to 1 kyū and then from 1 dan to 8 dan. Amateur 8 dan was previously only honorarily given to famous people. While it is now possible to win amateur 8 dan by actual strength (winning amateur Ryu-oh 3 times), this has yet to be achieved.
Professional players operate with their own scale, from 6 kyū to 3 dan for pro-aspiring players and professional 4 dan to 9 dan for formal professional players. Amateur and professional ranks are offset (with amateur 4 dan being equivalent to professional 6 kyū).
Handicaps
Shogi has a handicap system (like go) in which games between players of disparate strengths are adjusted so that the stronger player is put in a more disadvantageous position in order to compensate for the difference in playing levels. In a handicap game, one or more of White's pieces are removed from the setup, and instead White plays first.
The imbalance created by this method of handicapping is not as strong as it is in western chess because material advantage is not as powerful in shogi.
Notation
There are two common systems used to notate piece movements in shogi game records. One is used in Japanese language texts while a second was created for western players by George Hodges and Glyndon Townhill in the English language. This system was updated by Hosking to be closer to the Japanese standard (two numerals). Other systems are used to notate shogi board positions. Unlike chess, the origin (11 square) is at the top right of a printed position rather than the bottom left.
In western piece movement notation, the format is the piece initial followed by the type of movement and finally the file and rank where the piece moved to. The piece initials are K (King), R (Rook), B (Bishop), G (Gold), S (Silver), N (Knight), L (Lance), and P (Pawn). Simple movement is indicated with -, captures with x, and piece drops with *. The files are indicated with numerals 1–9. The older Hodges standard used letters a–i for ranks, and the newer Hosking standard also uses numerals 1–9 for the ranks. Thus, Rx24 indicates 'rook captures on 24'. Promoted pieces are notated with + prefixed to the piece initial (e.g. +Rx24). Piece promotion is also indicated with + (e.g. S-21+) while unpromotion is indicated with = (e.g. S-21=). Piece ambiguity is resolved by notating which square a piece is moving from (e.g. N65-53+ means 'knight from 65 moves to 53 and promotes,' which distinguishes it from N45-53+).
The Japanese notation system uses Japanese characters for pieces and promotion indication and uses Japanese numerals instead of letters for ranks. Movement type aside from drops is not indicated, and the conventions for resolving ambiguity are quite different from the western system. As examples, the western Rx24 would be 2四飛 in Japanese notation, +Rx24 would be 2四龍, S-21+ would be 2一銀成, S-21= would be 2一銀不成, and N65-53+ would be 5三桂左成 showing that the leftmost knight jumped (implicitly from the 65 square), which distinguishes it from 5三桂右成 in which the rightmost knight jumped.
Although not strictly part of the notational calculus for games, game results are indicated in Japanese newspapers, websites, etc. with wins indicated by a white circle and losses indicated by a black circle.
Strategy and tactics
Shogi is similar to chess but has a much larger game tree complexity because of the use of drops, greater number of pieces, and larger board size. In comparison, shogi games average about 140 (half-)moves per game (or 70 chess move-pairs) whereas chess games average about 80 moves per game (or 40 chess move-pairs) and minishogi averages about 40 moves per game (or 20 chess move-pairs).
Like chess, however, the game can be divided into the opening, middle game and endgame, each requiring a different strategy. The opening consists of arranging one's defenses usually in a castle and positioning for attack; the mid game consists of attempting to break through the opposing defenses while maintaining one's own; and the endgame starts when one side's defenses have been compromised.
In the adjacent diagram, Black has chosen a Ranging Rook position (specifically Fourth File Rook) where the rook has been moved leftward away from its starting position. Additionally, Black is using a Silver Crown castle, which is a type of fortification structure constructed with one silver and two gold pieces and the king moved inside of the fortification – the silver crown name comes from the silver being positioned directly above the king's head on the 27 square as if it were a crown. In the diagram, White has chosen a Static Rook position, in which the rook remains on its starting square. This Static Rook position is specifically a type of Counter-Ranging Rook position known as Bear-in-the-hole Static Rook that uses a Bear-in-the-hole castle. The Bear-in-the-hole fortification has the king moved all the way into very edge corner of the board on the 11 square as if it were a badger in a hole with a silver moved to the 22 square in order to close up the hole and additional reinforcing golds on 31 and 32 squares. This board position required 33 moves (or 12 move pairs as counted in western chess) to construct.
Etiquette
Shogi players are expected to follow etiquette in addition to rules explicitly described. Commonly accepted etiquette include the following:
Greetings to the opponent both before and after the game
Avoiding disruptive actions both during the game and after, for instance:
Not changing the move once realized on the board
Fair withdrawal without any disruption, such as scattering pieces on the board to demonstrate frustration
Announcing one's resignation
Shogi piece sets may contain two types of king pieces, 王 (king) and 玉 (jewel). In this case, the higher classed player, in either social or genuine shogi player rank, may take the king piece. For example, in titleholder system games, the current titleholder takes the king piece as the higher.
The higher-ranked (or older) player also sits facing the door of the room and is the person who takes the pieces out of the piece box.
Shogi does not have a touch-move rule as in western chess tournament play or chu shogi. However, in professional games, a piece is considered to be moved when the piece has been let go of. In both amateur and professional play, any piece may be touched in order to adjust its centralization within its square (to look tidy).
Taking back moves (待った matta) in professional games is prohibited. However, in friendly amateur games in Japan, it is often permitted.
Professional players are required to follow several ritualistic etiquette prescriptions such as kneeling exactly 15 centimeters from the shogi board, sitting in the formal seiza position, etc.
Game setup
Traditionally, the order of placing the pieces on the board is determined. There are two commonly used orders, the Ōhashi order 大橋流 and the Itō order 伊藤流. Placement sets pieces with multiples (generals, knights, lances) from left to right in all cases, and follows the order:
King
Gold generals
Silver generals
Knights
In ito, the player now places:
5. Pawns (left to right starting from the leftmost file)
6. Lances
7. Bishop
8. Rook
In ohashi, the player now places:
5. Lances
6. Bishop
7. Rook
8. Pawns (starting from center file, then alternating left to right one file at a time)
Furigoma
Among amateur tournaments, the higher-ranked player or defending champion performs the piece toss. In professional games, the furigoma is done on the behalf of the higher-ranked player/champion by the timekeeper who kneels by the side of the higher-ranked player and tosses the pawn pieces onto a silk cloth. In friendly amateur games, a player will ask the opponent to toss the pawns out of politeness. Otherwise, the person who tosses the pawns can be determined by Rock–paper–scissors.
History
From The Chess Variant Pages:
The world's first chess variant, chaturanga arose in India in approximately the seventh century AD. From there it migrated both westward and northward, mutating along the way. The western branch became shatranj in Arabia and Orthodox Chess in Europe. The northern branch became xiangqi in China and janggi in Korea. Sometime in the tenth to twelfth centuries, 'chess' crossed the channel to Japan where it spawned a number of interesting variants. One of these was called 'Small Shogi'. Eventually, Small Shogi (though it went through many forms) won out over the larger variants and is now referred to simply as 'Shogi'. It is certain that Shogi in its present form was played in Japan as early as the 16th century.
It is not clear when chess was brought to Japan. The earliest generally accepted mention of shogi is Shin Saru Gakuki (新猿楽記) (1058–1064) by Fujiwara Akihira. The oldest archaeological evidence is a group of 16 shogi pieces excavated from the grounds of Kōfuku-ji in Nara Prefecture. As it was physically associated with a wooden tablet written on in the sixth year of Tenki (1058), the pieces are thought to date from that period. These simple pieces were cut from a writing plaque in the same five-sided shape as modern pieces, with the names of the pieces written on them.
The dictionary of common folk culture, Nichūreki (二中歴) (c. 1210–1221), a collection based on the two works Shōchūreki (掌中歴) and Kaichūreki (懐中歴), describes two forms of shogi, large (dai) shogi and small (shō) shogi. These are now called Heian shogi (or Heian small shogi) and Heian dai shogi. Heian small shogi is the version on which modern shogi is based, but the Nichūreki states that one wins if one's opponent is reduced to a single king, indicating that drops had not yet been introduced. According to Kōji Shimizu, chief researcher at the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, the names of the Heian shogi pieces keep those of chaturanga (general, elephant, horse, chariot and soldier), and add to them the five treasures of Buddhism (jade, gold, silver, katsura tree, and incense).
Around the 13th century the game of dai shogi developed, created by increasing the number of pieces in Heian shogi, as was sho shogi, which added the rook, bishop, and drunken elephant from dai shogi to Heian shogi. The drunken elephant steps one square in any direction except directly backward, and promotes to the prince, which acts as a second king and must also be captured along with the original king for the other player to win. Around the 15th century, the rules of dai shogi were simplified, creating the game of chu shogi. Chu shogi, like its parent dai shogi, contains many distinct pieces, such as the queen (identical with Western chess) and the lion (which moves like a king, but twice per turn, potentially being able to capture twice, among other idiosyncrasies). The popularity of dai shogi soon waned in favour of chu shogi, until it stopped being played commonly. Chu shogi rivalled sho shogi in popularity until the introduction of drops in the latter, upon which standard shogi became ascendant, although chu shogi was still commonly played until about World War II, especially in Kyoto.
It is thought that the rules of standard shogi were fixed in the 16th century, when the drunken elephant was removed from the set of pieces present in sho shogi. There is no clear record of when drops were introduced, however.
In the Edo period, shogi variants were greatly expanded: tenjiku shogi, dai dai shogi, maka dai dai shogi, tai shogi, and taikyoku shogi were all invented. It is thought that these were played to only a very limited extent, however. Both standard shogi and Go were promoted by the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1612, the shogunate passed a law giving endowments to top shogi players (Meijin (名人)). During the reign of the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, castle shogi tournaments were held once a year on the 17th day of Kannazuki, corresponding to November 17, which is Shogi Day on the modern calendar.
The title of meijin became hereditary in the Ōhashi and Itō families until the fall of the shogunate, when it came to be passed by recommendation. Today the title is used for the winner of the Meijin-sen competition, the first modern title match. From around 1899, newspapers began to publish records of shogi matches, and high-ranking players formed alliances with the aim of having their games published. In 1909, the Shogi Association (将棋同盟社) was formed, and in 1924, the Tokyo Shogi Association (東京将棋連盟) was formed. This was an early incarnation of the modern Japan Shogi Association (日本将棋連盟, nihon shōgi renmei), or JSA, and 1924 is considered by the JSA to be the date it was founded.
In 1935, meijin Kinjirō Sekine stepped down, and the rank of meijin came to be awarded to the winner of a Meijin title match (名人戦, meijin-sen). Yoshio Kimura (木村義雄) became the first Meijin under this system in 1937. This was the start of the shogi title matches (see titleholder system). After the war other tournaments were promoted to title matches, culminating with the Ryūō title match (竜王戦, ryūō-sen) in 1988 for the modern line-up of seven. About 200 professional shogi players compete. Each year, the title holder defends the title against a challenger chosen from knockout or round matches.
After the Second World War, SCAP (occupational government mainly led by US) tried to eliminate all "feudal" factors from Japanese society and shogi was included in the possible list of items to be banned along with Bushido (philosophy of samurai) and other things. SCAP's reason for banning shogi was that the game uniquely utilized captured pieces. SCAP insisted that this could lead to the idea of prisoner abuse. Kozo Masuda, then one of the top professional shogi players, when summoned to the SCAP headquarters for an investigation, criticized such understanding of shogi, instead insisting that chess that potentially contained the idea of prisoner abuse, because opposing pieces are removed permanently, while shogi gives prisoners the chance to get back into the game. Masuda also argued that chess contradicts the ideal of gender equality in western society because the king shields itself behind the queen and runs away. Masuda's assertions are said to have eventually led to the exemption of shogi from the list of items to be banned.
Tournament play
There are two organizations for shogi professional players in Japan: the JSA, and the Ladies' Professional Shogi-players' Association of Japan (日本女子プロ将棋協会, nihon joshi puro shōgi kyōkai), or LPSA. The JSA is the primary organization for men and women's professional shogi while the LPSA is a group of women professionals who broke away from the JSA in 2007 to establish their own independent organization. Both organize tournaments for their members and have reached an agreement to cooperate with each other to promote shogi through events and other activities. Top professional players are fairly well-paid from tournament earnings. In 2016, the highest tournament earners were Yoshiharu Habu and Akira Watanabe who earned ¥91,500,000 and ¥73,900,000. (The tenth highest earner, Kouichi Fukaura, won ¥18,490,000.)
The JSA recognizes two categories of shogi professionals: Professional (棋士, kishi), and Female Professional (女流棋士, joryūkishi). Sometimes kishi are addressed as seikishi (正棋士), a term from Go used to distinguish kishi from other classes of players. JSA professional ranks and female professional ranks are not equivalent and each has their own promotion criteria and ranking system. In 2006, the JSA officially granted women "professional status". This is not equivalent, however, to the more traditional way of "gaining professional status", i.e., being promoted from the "Shoreikai System" (奨励会): leagues of strong amateur players aspiring to become a professional. Rather, it is a separate system especially designed for female professionals. Qualified amateurs, regardless of gender, may apply for the "Shoreikai System" and all those who successfully "graduate" are granted kishi status; however, no woman has yet to accomplish this feat (the highest women have reached is "Shoreikai 3 dan league" by Kana Satomi and Tomoka Nishiyama), so kishi is de facto only used to refer to male shogi professionals.
The JSA is the only body which can organize tournaments for professionals, e.g., the eight major tournaments in the titleholder system and other professional tournaments. In 1996, Yoshiharu Habu became the only kishi to hold seven major titles at the same time. For female professionals, both the JSA and LPSA organize tournaments, either jointly or separately. Tournaments for amateurs may be organized by the JSA and LPSA as well as local clubs, newspapers, private corporations, educational institutions or municipal governments for cities or prefectures under the guidance of the JSA or LPSA.
Since the 1990s, shogi has grown in popularity outside Japan, particularly in the People's Republic of China, and especially in Shanghai. The January 2006 edition of Kindai Shogi (近代将棋) stated that there were 120,000 shogi players in Shanghai. The spread of the game to countries where Chinese characters are not in common use, however, has been slower.
In Europe
As of November 2017, there were over 1,200 active players in Europe.
Computer shogi
Shogi has the highest game complexity of all popular chess variants. Computers have steadily improved in playing shogi since the 1970s. In 2007, champion Yoshiharu Habu estimated the strength of the 2006 world computer shogi champion Bonanza at the level of two-dan shoreikai.
The JSA prohibits its professionals from playing computers in public without prior permission, with the reason of promoting shogi and monetizing the computer–human events.
On October 12, 2010, after some 35 years of development, a computer finally beat a professional player, when the top ranked female champion Ichiyo Shimizu was beaten by the Akara2010 system in a game lasting just over 6 hours.
On July 24, 2011, computer shogi programs Bonanza and Akara crushed the amateur team of Kosaku and Shinoda in two games. The allotted time for the amateurs was one hour and then three minutes per move. The allotted time for the computer was 25 minutes and then 10 seconds per move.
On April 20, 2013, GPS Shogi defeated 8-dan professional shogi player Hiroyuki Miura in a 102-move game which lasted over 8 hours.
On December 13, 2015, the highest rated player on Shogi Club 24 was computer program Ponanza, rated 3455.
On April 10, 2016, Ponanza defeated Takayuki Yamasaki, 8-dan in 85 moves. Takayuki used 7 hours 9 minutes.
In October 2017, DeepMind claimed that its program AlphaZero, after a full nine hours of training, defeated Elmo in a 100-game match, winning 90, losing 8, and drawing two.
From a computational complexity point of view, generalized shogi is EXPTIME-complete.
Video games
Hundreds of video games were released exclusively in Japan for several consoles.
Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics was released internationally by Nintendo in 2020 for the Nintendo Switch console, offering both Shogi and mini Shogi variants using either traditional or bilingual pieces.
Culture
According to professional player Yoshiharu Habu, in Japan shogi is viewed as not merely a game as entertainment or a mind sport but is instead an art that is a part of traditional Japanese culture along with haiku, tanka, noh, ikebana, and the Japanese tea ceremony. Its elevated status was established by the iemoto system supported by the historical shogunate.
The backwards uma (shogi horse symbol) is often featured on merchandise (such as on large decorative shogi piece sculptures, keychains, and other keepsakes) available for sale in Tendō. It also serves as a symbol of good luck. (Cf. Rabbit's foot.) There are multiple theories on its origin. One is that uma (うま ) spelled in the Japanese syllabary backwards is まう mau (舞う), which means (to) dance and dancing horses are a good luck omen.
In popular culture
In the manga and anime series Naruto, shogi plays an essential part in Shikamaru Nara's character development. He often plays it with his sensei, Asuma Sarutobi, apparently always beating him. When Asuma is fatally injured in battle, he reminds Shikamaru that the shogi king must always be protected, and draws a parallel between the king in shogi and the children who would grow up to take care of the Hidden Leaf (Konoha) in the future, as well as his yet-unborn daughter, Mirai, whom he wanted Shikamaru to guide.
Shogi has been a central plot point in the manga and anime Shion no Ō, the manga and anime March Comes in Like a Lion, and the manga and television drama 81diver.
In the manga and anime Durarara!!, the information broker Izaya Orihara plays a twisted version of chess, go and shogi, where he mixes all three games into one as a representation of the battles in Ikebukuro.
In the video game Persona 5, the Star confidant, a girl named Hifumi Togo, is a high school shogi player looking to break into the ranks of the professionals. The player character will gain a knowledge stat when spending time with the confidant, supposedly from learning to play shogi. The abilities learned from ranking up the confidant comes from Japanese shogi terms.
In the manga and anime When Will Ayumu Make His Move?, second-year high school student Urushi Yaotome is the president of her school's shogi club, though the club is considered illegitimate due to not having enough members, the only other member being first-year student Ayumu Tanaka.
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
SHOGI Magazine (70 issues, January 1976 – November 1987) by The Shogi Association (edited by George Hodges)
Aono, Teruichi (1983). Better Moves for Better Shogi. translated by John Fairbairn. Tokyo, Japan: Sankaido Publishing Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-4-381-00597-7.
Aono, Teruichi (1983). Guide to Shogi Openings: Shogi Problems in Japanese and English. translated by John Fairbairn. Tokyo, Japan: Sankaido Publishing Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-4-381-00598-4.
Fairbairn, John (1986). Shogi for beginners (2nd ed.). Ishi Press. ISBN 978-4-8718-720-10.
Habu, Yoshiharu; Hosking, Tony (2000). Habu's Words. translated by Tony Hosking and Yamato Takahashi. Stratford-upon-Avon, England: The Shogi Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9531089-2-3.
Hosking, Tony (1997). The Art of Shogi. Stratford-upon-Avon, England: The Shogi Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9531089-0-9.
Hosking, Tony (2006). Classic Shogi: Games Collection. Stratford-upon-Avon, England: The Shogi Foundation. ISBN 978-0-9531089-3-0.
Pritchard, D. B. (1994). "Shogi". The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. pp. 269–79. ISBN 0-9524142-0-1.
Yebisu, Miles (2016). Comprehensive shogi guide in English: How to play Japanese chess. Laboratory Publishing.
External links
Shogi Shack
Reijer Grimbergen's Shogi Page
Shogi.Net
Shogi Hub Archived 2022-11-30 at the Wayback Machine portal for current information about the shogi world (tournaments, news, etc.)
Shogi-L shogi mailing list
Ricoh Shogi Page Archived 2013-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
Japanese–English shogi glossary
Hans Geuns' Basic Shogi Vocabulary
International Shogi Magazine
Rules
Shogi Harbour: Level 1 Shogi Course by women's professional player Karolina Styczyńska
40 shogi lessons on YouTube by HIDETCHI
An Introduction to Shogi for Chess Players Archived 2006-01-27 at the Wayback Machine
Shogi by Hans Bodlaender and Fergus Duniho, The Chess Variant Pages
Rules and Manners of Shogi by Tomohide Kawasaki (a.k.a. HIDETCHI)
FESA - Shogi official playing rules Archived 2021-11-06 at the Wayback Machine
Shogi, the Japanese Chess by Jean-Louis Cazaux
Shogi and Dobutsu-Animal shogi rules to download by Filip Marek
Online play
81Dojo English-language shogi play online
Lishogi free and open source shogi server
Shogi Dojo 24 shogi server in Japan
Shogi Wars
Shogi Quest
PlayOK shogi
GoldToken online turn-based shogi
World Shogi League international online tournament associated with 81Dojo and the Japan Shogi Association
HamShogi handicap shogi against the computer, instructions
boardspace.net real time play against human or (weak) computer players.
Online tools
将棋DB2 shogi game record database (in Japanese)
Kyokumenpedia game record databases as move decision tree with user-generated wiki annotations (associated with 81Dojo) (in Japanese)
Shogi Playground record or play through games, mate problems, board positions
Create Shogi Diagram on the Web |
Xiangqi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi | [
616
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi"
] | Xiangqi (; Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga, and Indian chess. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, this game is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng, literally 'General's chess'.
The game represents a battle between two armies, with the primary object being to checkmate the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces but enhance that of others; and the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares.
Board
Xiangqi is played on a board nine lines wide and ten lines long. As in the game Go (圍碁; or Wéi qí 圍棋), the pieces are placed on the intersections, which are known as points. The vertical lines are known as files (Chinese: 路; pinyin: lù; "road"), and the horizontal lines are known as ranks (Chinese: 線/綫; pinyin: xiàn; "line").
Centred at the first to third and eighth to tenth ranks of the board are two zones, each three points by three points, demarcated by two diagonal lines connecting opposite corners and intersecting at the centre point. Each of these areas is known as 宮 , a palace.
Dividing the two opposing sides, between the fifth and sixth ranks, is 河 hé, the "river". The river is usually marked with the phrases 楚河 , meaning "River of the Chu", and 漢界 , meaning "Border of the Han", a reference to the Chu–Han War. Although the river (or Hanchu boundary) provides a visual division between the two sides, only two pieces are affected by its presence: soldiers have an enhanced move after crossing the river, and elephants cannot cross it. The starting points of the soldiers and cannons are usually, but not always, marked with small crosses.
Rules
The pieces start in the position shown in the diagram above. Which player moves first has varied throughout history and from one part of China to another. Different xiangqi books advise either that the black or red side moves first. Some books refer to the two sides as north and south; which direction corresponds to which colour also varies from source to source. Generally, Red moves first in most modern tournaments.
Each player in turn moves one piece from the point it occupies, to another point. Pieces are generally not permitted to move through points occupied by other pieces, the exception being the cannon’s capturing move. A piece can be moved onto a point occupied by an enemy piece, in which case the enemy piece is captured and removed from the board. A player cannot capture one of their own pieces. Pieces are never promoted (converted into other pieces), although the soldier gains the ability to move sideways after it crosses the river. Almost all pieces capture using their normal moves, while the cannon has a special capture move described below.
The game ends when one player checkmates the other's general. When the general is in danger of being captured by the enemy player on their next move, the enemy player has "delivered a check" (照將/將軍, abbreviated as 將 ), and the general is "in check". A check should be announced. If the general's player can make no move to prevent the general's capture, the situation is called "checkmate" (將死). Unlike in chess, in which stalemate is a draw, in xiangqi, it is a loss for the stalemated player.
In xiangqi, a player—often with a material or positional disadvantage—may attempt to check or chase pieces in a way such that the moves fall in a cycle, preventing the opponent from winning. While this is accepted in Western chess, in xiangqi, the following special rules are used to make it harder to draw the game by endless checking or chasing, regardless of whether the positions of the pieces are repeated or not:
A player making perpetual checks with one piece or several pieces can be ruled to have lost unless he or she stops such checking.
A player who perpetually chases any one unprotected piece with one or more pieces, excluding generals and soldiers, will be ruled to have lost unless he or she stops such chasing.
If one side perpetually checks and the other side perpetually chases, the checking side has to stop or be ruled to have lost.
When neither side violates the rules and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
When both sides violate the same rule at the same time and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
Different sets of rules set different limits on what is considered perpetual. For example, club xiangqi rules allow a player to check or chase six consecutive times using one piece, twelve times using two pieces, and eighteen times using three pieces before considering the action perpetual.
The above rules to prevent perpetual checking and chasing, while popular, are not the only ones; there are numerous end game situations.
Pieces
Each player controls an army of 16 pieces; the armies are usually coloured red and black. Pieces are flat circular disks labelled or engraved with a Chinese character identifying the piece type, and in a colour indicating which player has ownership. The black pieces are marked with somewhat different characters from the corresponding red pieces.
On mainland China, most sets still use traditional Chinese characters (as opposed to simplified Chinese characters). Modern pieces are usually plastic, though some sets are wooden, and more expensive sets may use jade. In more ancient times, many sets were simple unpainted woodcarvings; thus, to distinguish between pieces of the two sides, most corresponding pieces used characters that were similar but varied slightly. This practice may have originated in situations where there was only one material available to make the pieces from and no colouring material available to distinguish the opposing armies. The oldest xiangqi piece found to date is a 俥 (chariot) piece. It is kept in the Three Gorges Museum.
General
Generals (or kings) are labelled 將 (trad.) / 将 (simp.) ("general") on the black side and 帥 (trad.) / 帅 (simp.) ("marshal") on the red side.
The general starts the game at the midpoint of the back edge, within the palace. The general may move and capture one point orthogonally and may not leave the palace, with the following exception.
If the two generals face each other along the same file with no intervening pieces, the 飛將 ("flying general") move may be executed, in which the general to move crosses the board to capture the enemy general. In practice, this rule means that creating this situation in the first place means moving into check, and is therefore not allowed.
The Indian name king for this piece was changed to general because of Chinese naming taboos; China's rulers objected to their royal titles being given to game pieces. Despite this, the general is sometimes called the "king" by English-speaking players, due to their similar functions as royal pieces.
Advisor
Advisors (also known as guards and less commonly as assistants, mandarins, ministers or warriors) are labelled 士 ("scholar", "gentleman", "officer", "guardian") for Black and 仕 ("scholar", "official", "guardian") for Red. Rarely, sets use the character 士 for both colours.
The advisors start on either side of the general. They move and capture one point diagonally and may not leave the palace, which confines them to five points on the board. The advisor is probably derived from the mantri in chaturanga, like the queen in Western chess.
There is some controversy about whether "士" really is intended to mean "scholar", "gentleman" which would be "士人", or "guard", "guardian" which would be "衛士" (simplified Chinese: 卫士). One argument for the latter is that their functionality seems to be to guard/protect the general. The common Western translation "advisor" does not reflect this layer of meaning.
Elephant
Elephants (or bishops) are labeled 象 xiàng ("elephant") for Black and 相 xiàng ("minister") for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 Tián ("field"), in reference to the board's squares. Blocking an elephant with a diagonally adjacent piece is known as "blocking the elephant's eye" (塞象眼).
Elephants may not cross the river to attack the enemy general, and serve as defensive pieces. Because an elephant's movement is restricted to just seven board positions, it can be easily trapped or threatened. The two elephants are often used to defend each other.
The Chinese characters for "minister" and "elephant" are homophones in Mandarin () and both have alternative meanings as "appearance" or "image". However, in English, both are referred to as elephants, and less commonly as "bishops", due to their similar movements.
Horse
Horses (or knights) are labelled 馬 for Black and 傌 mǎ for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 马 mǎ for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some sets use 馬 for both colours. Horses begin the game next to the elephants, on their outside flanks. A horse moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally away from its former position, a move which is traditionally described as being like the character 日 Rì. The horse does not jump as the knight does in Western chess, and can be blocked by a piece of either colour located one point horizontally or vertically adjacent to it. Blocking a horse is called "hobbling the horse's leg" (蹩馬腿). The diagram on the right illustrates the horse's movement.
Since horses can be blocked, it is possible for one player's horse to have an asymmetric attack advantage if an opponent's horse is blocked, as seen in the diagram on the right.
The horse is sometimes called the "knight" by English-speaking players, due to their similar movements.
Chariot
Chariots (or rooks or cars) are labelled 車 for Black and 俥 for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 车 for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some traditional sets use 車 for both colours. In the context of xiangqi, all of these characters are pronounced as (instead of the common pronunciation chē). The chariot moves and captures any distance orthogonally, but may not jump over intervening pieces. The chariots begin the game on the points at the corners of the board. The chariot is often considered to be the strongest piece in the game due to its freedom of movement and lack of restrictions.
The chariot is sometimes called the "rook" by English-speaking players, since it moves identically to the rook in Western chess. Chinese players (and others) often call this piece a car, since that is one modern meaning of the character 車.
Cannon
Cannons are labelled 砲 ("catapult") for Black and 炮 pào ("cannon") for Red. The names are homophones, though sometimes 炮 is used for both Red and Black. The 石 shí radical of 砲 means "stone", and the 火 huǒ radical of 炮 means "fire". Both colours' pieces are normally referred to as cannons in English. The black piece is sometimes labelled 包 bāo.
Each player has two cannons, which start on the row behind the soldiers, two points in front of the horses. Cannons move like chariots, any distance orthogonally without jumping, but can only capture by jumping a single piece of either colour along the path of attack. The piece over which the cannon jumps is called the 炮臺 (trad.) / 炮台 (simp.) pào tái ("cannon platform" or "screen"). Any number of unoccupied spaces, including none, may exist between the cannon, screen, and the piece to be captured. Cannons can be exchanged for horses immediately from their starting positions.
Soldier
Soldiers (or pawns) are labelled 卒 ("pawn" or "private") for Black and 兵 ("soldier") for Red. Each side starts with five soldiers. Soldiers begin the game located on every other point one row back from the edge of the river. They move and capture by advancing one point. Once they have crossed the river, they may also move and capture one point horizontally. Soldiers cannot move backward, and therefore cannot retreat; after advancing to the last rank of the board, however, a soldier may still move sideways at the enemy's edge. The soldier is sometimes called the "pawn" by English-speaking players, due to the pieces' similar movements.
Approximate relative values of the pieces
These approximate values do not take into account the position of the piece in question (except the soldier in a general sense), the positions of other pieces on the board, or the number of pieces remaining. In what follows, “minor piece” will refer to horses and cannons, and "defensive piece", unless otherwise specified, will refer to the non-royal pieces that cannot cross the river, namely advisors and elephants.
Other common rules of assessment:
A horse plus a cannon is generally better than two horses or two cannons.
The chariot is not only the strongest piece, but it is also generally stronger than any combination of two minor pieces. When the relative values of both sides' pieces are approximately even, the side with more chariots generally has the advantage, especially when one side has a chariot and one side does not (Chinese: 有車壓無車). However, the chariot is not particularly strong in basic endgames: for example, chariot versus four defensive pieces is generally a draw, while if the offensive side instead has two horses or even three unadvanced soldiers it is a win.
In the earlier stages, the cannon is stronger than the horse, because platforms are plentiful and the horse is often blocked by the multitude of pieces on the board. In the endgame, the horse is stronger as an attacking piece, not needing any platforms, but the cannon generally has better defensive abilities.
The values of soldiers vary in different stages of the game. In the opening and the middlegame, the initiative and mobility of pieces often require sacrificing soldiers. In these stages, soldiers closer to the middle file are generally more valuable, since they can effectively join the offence. With few attacking pieces on the board, soldiers have more power and can cross the river more easily. In this stage, advanced soldiers are generally less powerful, since soldiers cannot move backward. In basic endgames, three soldiers starting on the 7th rank are approximately equal to a chariot: they can force a win against four defensive pieces or a horse/cannon plus two elephants, while instead a chariot cannot, and a chariot cannot force a win against three soldiers on the 7th rank when well-defended.
Notation
There are several types of notation used to record xiangqi games. In each case the moves are numbered and written with the same general pattern.
(first move) (first response)
(second move) (second response)
...
It is clearer but not required to write each move pair on a separate line.
System 1
The book The Chess of China describes a move notation method in which the ranks of the board are numbered 1 to 10 from closest to farthest away, followed by a digit 1 to 9 for files from right to left. Both values are relative to the moving player. Moves are then indicated as follows:
[piece name] ([former rank][former file])-[new rank][new file]
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
炮 (32)–35 馬 (18)–37
System 2
A notation system partially described in A Manual of Chinese Chess and used by several computer software implementations describes moves in relative terms as follows:
[single-letter piece abbreviation][former file][operator indicating direction of movement][new file, or in the case of purely vertical movement, number of ranks traversed]
The file numbers are counted from each player's right to each player's left.
In case there are two identical pieces in one file, symbols + (front) and – (rear) are used instead of former file number.
Direction of movement is indicated via an operator symbol. A plus sign is used to indicate forward movement. A minus sign is used to indicate backward movement. A dot or period or equals sign is used to indicate horizontal or lateral movement. For a piece that moves diagonally (such as the horse or elephant), the plus or minus sign is used rather than the period.
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
C2.5 H8+7
According to World Xiangqi Federation (WXF), in the case of tripled, quadrupled, or quintupled soldiers (pawns), there is no need to specify the P for pawn. Instead, the soldiers are numbered starting from the frontmost soldier, and this number replaces the usual piece abbreviation. The file number is given immediately after as usual.
Thus the notation to move the middle of a set of tripled soldiers on the 5th file to the 4th file would be:
25=4
In older books written in Chinese the system is the same, except that:
the names of the pieces are written in Chinese;
the name for the cannon on both sides is 炮;
the name for the horse on both sides is 馬;
forward motion is indicated with 進 (pronounced jìn);
backward motion is indicated with 退 (tuì);
sideways motion is indicated with 平 (píng);
and numbers are written in Chinese either for both players or for just Black.
Thus, the most common opening in the game might be written as:
炮二平五 馬8進7
System 3
This system is unofficial and principally used by Western players. It is similar to algebraic notation for Western chess. Letters are used for files and numbers for ranks. File "a" is on Red's left and rank "1" is nearest to Red. A point's designation does not depend on which player moves; for both sides "a1" is the lowest left point from Red's side.
[single-letter piece abbreviation][former position][capture indication][new position][check indication][analysis]
Pieces are abbreviated as in notation system 2, except that no letter is used for the soldier.
Former position is only indicated if necessary to distinguish between two identical pieces that could have made the move. If they share the same file, indicate which rank moves; if they share the same rank, indicate which file moves. If they share neither rank nor file, then the file is indicated.
Capture is indicated by "x". No symbol is used to indicate a non-capturing move.
Check is indicated by "+", double check by "++", triple check by "+++", and quadruple check by "++++". Checkmate is indicated by "#".
For analysis purposes, bad moves are indicated by "?" and good moves by "!". These can be combined if the analysis is uncertain ("!?" might be either but is probably good; "?!" is probably bad) or repeated for emphasis ("??" is a disaster).
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
Che3 Hg8
For example, the following game is tied with several others as the shortest possible xiangqi game:
Gameplay
Because of the size of the board and the low number of long-range pieces, there is a tendency for the battle to focus on a particular area of the board.
Tactics
Xiangqi involves several tactics common to games in the chess family. Some common ones are briefly discussed here.
In a fork, one piece attacks two or more enemy pieces at once.
A piece is pinned when it cannot move without exposing a more important piece to capture. Every piece except soldiers and advisors can pin, but only chariot pins exactly resemble pins in western chess; pins by other pieces in xiangqi take on many unique forms: Cannons can pin two pieces at once on one file or rank, horses can pin because they can be blocked, and generals can pin because of the "flying general" move rule. In pins by horses and elephants, the pinning piece never attacks the pinned piece, while in a pin by a cannon, only one of the pieces is directly attacked by the cannon. A general can only pin pieces to the enemy general, and the pinning general can never capture the pinned piece, since that would place it in check from the enemy general.
A piece is skewered when it is attacked and, by moving, exposes a less important piece to be captured. In contrast to pins, only cannons and chariots can skewer.
A discovered check occurs when an attacking piece moves so that it unblocks a line for a chariot, cannon, and/or horse to check the enemy general.
A double check occurs when two pieces simultaneously threaten the enemy general. Unlike a Western chess double check, a double check in xiangqi may be blockable or, in one case, possibly met with a capture by a piece other than the general. The only blockable cases are either a chariot and cannon on the same file as the general, with the chariot acting as a screen for the cannon, two horses giving discovered check after another piece unblocks the attack from both, or a cannon using an enemy piece as a platform uncovered by a horse (see below). Double checks delivered by other means are not blockable. In one exceptional case, if a horse moves to give a double check by uncovering a cannon, and the cannon’s platform is an enemy chariot or defensive piece (advisor or elephant), the enemy chariot or defensive piece might be able to capture the horse, which removes the cannon’s platform at the same time. Otherwise, capturing either checking piece is insufficient to remove the threat, unless the general makes the capture.
Unique to xiangqi is a triple check, which arises in four combinations. In the first case of a cannon, a chariot or soldier, and a horse, the horse moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the chariot and the cannon. In the second, rarer case of a chariot or soldier and two horses, the chariot moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the two horses. In the third case of two cannons and two horses, one cannon may uncover a double check from the horses and act as a screen for the other cannon. Finally, a chariot or soldier can move to give check, uncovering a check from a horse while acting as a platform for a cannon to give another check. Quadruple check is also possible, arising with two horses, a chariot, and a cannon. Triple and quadruple check cannot be blocked or met by captures (again, unless the general makes the capture).
In contrast to the ubiquity of pawn chains in western chess, soldiers typically do not support each other until the endgame, because from the initial position it takes a minimum of five moves of a soldier to allow mutual protection between two of them, and they are often prone to capture by other pieces.
Soldiers, horses, cannons and chariots can form up formations that protect each other. However, lining up chariots must be done with caution, as this risks losing one chariot to an enemy's inferior piece. Horses that support each other are called Linked Horses (Chinese: 連環馬), which is a relatively safe formation of the horses, though it can still be threatened with a soldier, a chariot plus another minor piece, or a piece blocking one of the horses thus making the protection one-sided.
It is common to use cannons independently to control particular ranks and files. Using a cannon to control the middle file is often considered vital strategy, because it pins pieces such as the advisors and elephants to the general, which in turn restrict their general’s movement. The two files adjacent to the middle file are also considered important and horses and chariots can be used to push for checkmate there.
Since the general is usually safest in its original position before the endgame phase, attacking the general commonly involves forcing the general out of its original position with check or with threats. Thus, specific points and formations are very important in xiangqi.
For an attacking (Red) horse, the most fatal points are c9 and g9 (Chinese: 臥槽馬), especially since without proper defence a quick mate can follow with an extra chariot or cannon.
For a cannon, one of the most fatal formations is the exposed cannon (Chinese: 空心炮), where the cannon directly controls the middle file with no other pieces between the cannon and the general. This formation is particularly dangerous since the defensive side cannot move any piece in front of the cannon; while with an extra cannon joining the attack, mate can follow on the spot, and with an extra rook, the offensive side can mount a double check (with the rook in front of the cannon) followed by a windmill (as when the check is blocked, the rook moving laterally discovers a new check from the cannon), often winning at least a piece afterwards. If the defensive side cannot chase the cannon away or capture it, it must move the general forward to avoid these threats, leaving the general vulnerable to attacks.
Another fatal formation, called the "cannon-controlled centroid horse" (Chinese: 炮鎮窩心馬, diagram at right), also requires particularly bad coordination of the enemy pieces. In the diagram, Black's "centroid horse" occupies the centre of the palace, blocking Black's own general and advisors, and being pinned to the general by the red cannon, cannot move. Black's cannon at e8 is also pinned to its own general; it too is unable to move and restricts the movement of Black's two elephants, making them unable to protect each other. Such a formation in the middlegame often produces deadly threats of smothered mates, while in the endgame, as in the diagram, Red's cannon cannot be chased away, rendering Black's general, advisors, cannon on e8, and horse all permanently immobilized. Even though Black is up a minor piece, Red has a clear win: The game concluded 41.Hg7 (forking the elephant and pinned cannon and creating a mating threat) Eg10 42.Hh9 Ci9 43.Hf8+ Cf9 (if not for the other black cannon, it is instant mate) 44.Hxg6, and Black resigned: Black's only active piece (the cannon on f9) is absolutely helpless to stop Red's horse and soldiers, which will soon invade the palace.
A common defensive configuration is to leave the general at its starting position, deploy one advisor and one elephant on the two points directly in front of the general, and to leave the other advisor and elephant in their starting positions, to the side of the general. In this setup, the advisor and elephant pairs support each other, and the general is immune from attacks by cannons. Losing any defensive pieces makes the general vulnerable to cannon attack, and the setup may need to be abandoned. The defender may move defensive pieces away from the general, or even sacrifice them intentionally, to ward off attack by a cannon.
Long sequences of checks leading to mate or gain of material are common both in chess compositions and in actual play. A skilled xiangqi player would often have to calculate several steps, or even tens of steps ahead for a forced sequence. In the diagram on the right, Black has an immediate mating threat which cannot be parried, forcing Red to check Black on every move. Although it requires 11 moves to mate, its general idea is clear: Induce a smothered check by sacrificing a chariot at the centre of the palace (e9), then force Black to open the centre file, enabling the Red general to assist the attack, and finally mate by facing generals.
Openings
Since the left and right flanks of the starting setup are symmetrical, it is customary to make the first move on the right flank. Starting on the left flank is considered needlessly confusing.
The most common opening is to move the cannon to the central column, an opening known as 當頭炮 (trad.) / 当头炮 (simp.) dāng tóu pào or "Central Cannon". The most common reply is to advance the horse on the same flank. Together, this move-and-response is known by the rhyme 當頭炮，馬來跳 (trad.) / 当头炮，马来跳 (simp.) . The notation for this is "1. 炮 (32)–35, 馬 (18)–37", "1. C2.5 H8+7", or "1. Che3 Hg8" (diagram at right). After Black's 1. ...H8+7 (Hg8) response, the game can develop into a variety of openings, the most common being the 屏風馬 (trad.) / 屏风马 (simp.) or "Screen Horses (Defence)" in which Black develops the other horse to further protect their middle pawn (...H2+3 or ...Hc8) either immediately on their second move, or later when Black transposes the game into this opening.
Alternative common first moves by Black are developing either cannons (1. ...C8.5/1. ...Che8, or 1. ...C2.5/1. ...Cbe8); note that after either of these moves, taking the central soldier with the cannon (2. C5+4 or 2. Cxe7+) is a beginner's trap that impedes development and coordination of Red's pieces if Black plays correctly (for example, 1. Che3 Che8 2. Cxe7+?? Ade9 3. Hg3 Hg8 4. Ce5 Rh10 when Black develops the rook first, and the loss of Black's middle pawn actually enabled Black's horses to occupy the centre on the next moves).
Other common first moves by Red include moving an elephant to the central column (1. Ege3), advancing the soldier on the third or seventh file (1. c5), moving a horse forward (1. Hg3), and moving either cannon to the 4th or 6th (d- or f-) file (1. Chd3 or 1. Chf3). Compared to the Central Cannon openings, these openings are generally less restricted by theory.
General advice for the opening includes rapid development of at least one chariot and putting it on open files and ranks, as it is the most powerful piece with a long attack range. There is a saying that only a poor player does not move a chariot in the first three moves (Chinese: 三步不出車，必定要輸棋); however this is not to be taken literally, and is in fact often violated in modern Xiangqi games. Attacking and defending the centre, especially the central soldiers / central pawns, are common themes in the opening, hence the Central Cannon openings. Usually, at least one horse should be moved to the middle in order to defend the central soldier; however undefended central soldiers can also become "poisoned pawns" in the early moves, especially if the attacking side does not have an immediate follow-up to retain the pressure on the central file.
Middlegame strategy
Xiangqi strategy shares common themes with chess, but has some differences:
Occupying the centre is relatively less important in xiangqi, but controlling and attacking the middle file is still one of the vital themes. Since the middle file is often well defended, players would then seek to mount an offense on either of the flanks on the enemy side, especially when the defense of one flank is neglected.
The significance of pawn formation in xiangqi and chess are different. In xiangqi, soldiers (pawns) are often pushed to avoid blocking their own horses, and it is uncommon for them to defend each other (in contrast with a Western chess pawn chain). Successfully getting a soldier to cross a river as an attacking force can often tilt the scales of the middlegame by a large margin.
In high-level play, the initiative is highly important, and a minor mistake can doom a game.
Sacrifices are common in xiangqi, however they are more often tactical rather than positional. Usually, at most a minor piece is sacrificed for positional advantages, or a semi-tactical attack.
Like in chess, xiangqi piece values depend highly on the position on the board. The following study from Volume 42 of the Elegant Pastime Manual, dating from the Ming Dynasty, illustrates this dramatically. It is Red to play and win.
In this position, Red is up two soldiers and a cannon but Black threatens seemingly unstoppable mate with ...Rf1#, since 1.Ec5? Ad8! renews the mate threat. Note that the red chariot is nearly useless, having only two legal moves, in stark contrast to the very active black chariot. However, Red averts the checkmate by sacrificing both the cannon and chariot: 1.Ca10+!! Hxa10 2.Ea3! Rxa1 (or the chariot is lost, since the general protects the elephant on e3, which in turn guards g1, and the red horse guards e2) 3.Eec1:
Despite the substantial sacrifice of material by Red, Black's chariot has now become useless as it is permanently immobilized by the red elephants and horse; the red general prevents the black soldier on g2 from moving laterally to free the chariot (for example 3...g1 4.Gf2). Black's horse similarly has no safe move due to the red soldier on c8, which also, along with the soldier on f9, prevents the black general from attacking the soldier on f9 from the behind. In addition, the black soldier on g6 is undefended and has no safe move, so Red can win it by pushing the soldier on c4 to c6 and moving it laterally to the g-file, after which the position is effectively an endgame of three soldiers against two advisers, an easy win for Red (see below) despite being down a chariot for three soldiers.
Endgame
Though xiangqi endgames require remarkable skill to be played well, there are a number of widely known book wins and book draws. Without a counterpart to pawn promotion, xiangqi endgames instead focus more directly on forcing checkmate or stalemate, and in this regard resemble pawnless chess endgames. Since stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player instead of a draw, most book draws in xiangqi are due to fortresses, with a few draws due to insufficient material.
A general rule in xiangqi endgames for the advantageous side is that, when there's less material on the board, do not trade pieces easily, as with fewer attacking pieces on the board, defending is easier (in contrast to Western chess, where it is almost always advantageous to trade pieces when up on material). Hence, if a certain type of endgame can transpose, by trading pieces, into another type of endgame which is a book win, then this endgame itself is a book win.
Zugzwang in xiangqi endgames
Inducing zugzwang is a crucial theme in winning simple endgames, and almost exclusively in simple endgames. In the general + soldier vs general endgame shown on the right, Red's first main goal is to occupy the middle file. Red wins with 1. Gd1, a waiting move, and Black is in zugzwang. Black must proceed with 1. ...Ge8, as 1. ...Ge10 instantly loses after 2. f9#. After 1. ...Ge8 2. f9 Gf8 3. e9 Ge8 4. d9 Gf8 5. Ge1, Red's general successfully occupies the middle file. The game would conclude with 5. ...Gf9 6. e9+, and regardless of Black's reply, 7. Ge2# (stale)mates Black.
Reciprocal zugzwang is possible, but very rare and usually seen in endgame compositions. In this endgame shown on the right, whoever moves loses, since when either of the two generals moves to an open d- or f- file, it threatens unstoppable mate, while the player to move only helps the enemy general occupy one of the files. For instance, Red can only move their two soldiers if he is to move. Moving the f-(or d-)soldier allows the enemy general to occupy the f-file(d-file). Even if 1. fe9+ Gf10 2. d10, when Red threatens mate in 1, Black still mates immediately with either 2. ...fe2# or 2. ...f1#.
Soldier (pawn) endgames
A soldier, as long as it does not reach the opposite rank, wins against a bare general easily. With any extra defensive piece on the defensive side, it is a draw; however, soldier vs advisor requires skill to play well.
Two unadvanced (i.e., on the 6th or 7th ranks) soldiers win against the following combinations: Two advisors, two elephants, a bare horse/cannon. Generally a draw against one advisor plus one elephant, or a horse/cannon plus a defending piece.
Three unadvanced soldiers win against the following combinations: All 4 defensive pieces (2 advisors plus 2 elephants, Chinese: 士象全), a horse plus two advisors/two elephants, a cannon plus two elephants.
Horse endgames
A bare horse wins against a bare advisor, but not a bare elephant.
A horse plus an unadvanced soldier wins against both combinations of 3 defensive pieces, or any combination of a minor piece plus a defensive piece except horse + elephant. This combination draws against all 4 defensive pieces.
A horse plus an advanced soldier(on the 8th or 9th rank) draws against either combination of 3 defensive pieces, but defending requires precise positions.
A horse plus a soldier on the 10th rank wins against two advisors, or one advisor plus one elephant. This combination draws against 2 elephants.
A horse plus two soldiers can win against one minor piece + one advisor + two elephants. With an extra advisor on the defensive side, it is a book draw.
Two horses win against all 4 defensive pieces, or any combination of a minor piece plus 2 defensive pieces except cannon + 2 elephants.
Cannon endgames
A bare cannon, or a cannon with elephants, cannot win against a bare general due to insufficient material. Cannons without other offensive pieces need defensive pieces to act as platforms, especially the advisor, since the advisor can act as a platform on any of the three central files, while an elephant can only act as a platform on the centermost file.
A cannon needs only one advisor to win against two advisors, or a single elephant. Meanwhile, even with all 4 defensive pieces, it is a book draw against two elephants, one advisor + one elephant, one soldier + one advisor, or any minor piece.
A cannon with all 4 defensive pieces needs at least an extra soldier to win against 4 defensive pieces. A bare cannon with a soldier on the 6th rank wins against any combination of 2 defensive pieces.
A cannon + 4 defensive pieces + 2 unadvanced soldiers generally draw against one minor piece + 4 defensive pieces. But if the defensive side lacks a single piece, it is a book win.
Horse+Cannon endgames
This type of endgame is considered one of the more complex endgames. Commonly known book wins and book draws are:
Horse + Cannon + 4 defensive pieces vs a minor piece vs 4 defensive pieces: A win if the minor piece is a horse (the attacking side does not need all 4 defensive pieces to win), a draw if it is a cannon.
With the same combination of the two minor pieces and all 4 defensive pieces on both sides, one needs two extra soldiers for a book win.
If both sides have 2 minor pieces and 4 defensive pieces, and the advantegeous side only has one extra soldier, then regardless of the combination of the two minor pieces, it is a book draw.
Chariot endgames
Single chariot endgames:
A single chariot generally cannot win against 4 defensive pieces, but with 3 or fewer defensive pieces, it is a forced win.
Chariot vs one minor piece plus 2 defensive pieces: A win if the 2 defensive pieces are not the same, or if the combination is horse + two advisors. If the defensive side has horse + two elephants, a specific fortress is required to draw.
Chariot vs one minor piece plus 3 defensive pieces: A draw.
Chariot vs two minor pieces with no defensive pieces: A draw, but requires good defensive positions.
Chariot + soldiers (unadvanced):
Chariot + soldier, with sufficient defensive pieces on their own side, wins against a chariot plus an advisor, a chariot plus two elephants, or a chariot plus a soldier.
Chariot + soldier wins against any 2 minor pieces + 2 advisors. This combination also wins against horse + 4 defensive pieces, but not cannon + 4 defensive pieces.
Chariot + soldier vs 2 unadvanced soldiers + 4 defensive pieces: If the offensive side has no defensive piece, it is a draw since the 2 enemy soldiers can still be a formidable force. If the offensive side has one advisor, it is a win.
Chariot + 2 soldiers cannot force a win against chariot + 4 defensive pieces. In this endgame, both attacking and defending require great skill.
Chariot + horse:
A chariot plus a horse needs one advisor on their own side to win against a chariot plus two advisors.
Chariot + horse vs chariot + two elephants: With enough defensive pieces for the attacking side, it is generally a win if the move limit is not taken into consideration.
Chariot + cannon:
A chariot plus a cannon cannot win against a bare chariot, as long as the defending chariot occupies the middle file. However, with any extra defensive piece on the attacking side, it is a win.
Chariot + cannon + 2 advisors would win against chariot + two elephants.
Chariot + cannon + 4 defensive pieces vs chariot + 4 defensive pieces: Draw.
Two chariots:
Two chariots vs chariot + 4 defensive pieces: A draw with good defensive positions.
Two chariots vs chariot + minor piece + 2 defensive pieces: The only drawing combination is chariot + cannon + 2 advisors.
Two chariots vs 2 minor pieces + 4 defensive pieces: A win if the 2 minor pieces are 2 horses.
History
A game called xiangqi was mentioned as dating to the Warring States period; according to the first-century-BC text Shuo Yuan (說苑/说苑), it was one of Lord Mengchang of Qi's interests. However, the rules of that game are not described, and it was not necessarily related to the present-day game. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou wrote a book in AD 569 called Xiang Jing. It described the rules of an astronomically themed game called xiangxi (象戲). The word xiàngqí 象棋 is usually translated as "elephant game" or "figure game", because the Chinese character 象 means "elephant" and "figure"; it originated as a stylized drawing of an elephant, and was used to write a word meaning "figure", likely because the two words were pronounced the same.
For these reasons, Murray theorized that "in China [chess] took over the board and name of a game called 象棋 in the sense of 'Astronomical Game', which represented the apparent movements of naked-eye-visible astronomical objects in the night sky, and that the earliest Chinese references to 象棋 meant the Astronomical Game and not Chinese chess". Previous games called xiàngqí may have been based on the movements of sky objects. However, the connection between 象 and astronomy is marginal, and arose from constellations being called "figures" in astronomical contexts where other meanings of "figure" were less likely; this usage may have led some ancient Chinese authors to theorize that the game 象棋 started as a simulation of astronomy.
To support his argument, Murray quoted an old Chinese source that says that in the older xiangqi (which modern xiangqi may have taken some of its rules from) the game pieces could be shuffled, which does not happen in the modern chess-style xiangqi. Murray also wrote that in ancient China there was more than one game called xiangqi. Murray also even supposed that chaturanga from India influenced the formation of present-day xiangqi.
An alternative hypothesis to Murray's is that xiangqi was patterned after the array of troops in the Warring States period. David H. Li, for example, argues that the game was developed by Han Xin in the winter of 204 BC-203 BC to prepare for an upcoming battle. His theories have been questioned by other chess researchers, however. The earliest description of the game's rules appears in the story "Cén Shùn" (岑順) in the collection Xuanguai lu (玄怪錄), written by Niu Sengru in the middle part of the Tang dynasty.
Xiangqi is the same as it is today from Southern Song dynasty.
Janggi of Korean Peninsula originates from Xiangqi.
With the popularization of xiangqi, many different schools of circles and players came into prominence, many books and manuals on the techniques of playing the game were also published, they played an important role in popularizing xiangqi and improving the techniques of play in modern times. With the economic and cultural development during the Qing dynasty, xiangqi entered a new stage. A Western-style Encyclopedia of Chinese Chess Openings was written in 2004.
Modern play
Tournaments and leagues
Although xiangqi has its origin in Asia, there are xiangqi leagues and clubs all over the world. Each European nation generally has its own governing league; for example, in Britain, xiangqi is regulated by the United Kingdom Chinese Chess Association. Asian countries also have nationwide leagues, such as the Malaysia Chinese Chess Association.
In addition, there are several international federations and tournaments. The Chinese Xiangqi Association hosts several tournaments every year, including the Yin Li and Ram Cup Tournaments. Other organizations include the Asian Xiangqi Federation and a World Xiangqi Federation, which hosts tournaments and competitions bi-annually, with most limited to players from member nations.
There are Europeanized versions of boards (10 × 9) and figures of xiangqi.
Rankings
The Asian Xiangqi Federation (AXF) and its corresponding member associations rank players in a format similar to the Elo rating system of chess. According to the XiangQi DataBase, the top-ranking female and male players in China, as of June 2012, were Tang Dan and Jiang Chuan, with ratings of 2529 and 2667, respectively. Other strong players include Zhao GuanFang (female), Xu Yinchuan (male), Lu Qin (male), and Wang LinNa (female).
The Asian Xiangqi Federation also bestows the title of grandmaster to select individuals around the world who have excelled at xiangqi or made special contributions to the game. There are no specific criteria for becoming a grandmaster and there are only approximately 100 grandmasters as of 2020. The titles of grandmaster is bestowed by bodies such as the AXF and the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA).
Computers
The game-tree complexity of xiangqi is approximately 10150; in 2004 it was projected that a human top player would be defeated before 2010. Xiangqi is one of the more popular computer-versus-computer competitions at the Computer Olympiads.
Computer programs for playing xiangqi show the same development trend as has occurred for international chess: they are usually console applications (called engines) which communicate their moves in text form through some standard protocol. For displaying the board graphically, they then rely on a separate graphical user interface (GUI). Through such standardization, many different engines can be used through the same GUI, which can also be used for automated play of different engines against each other. Popular protocols are UCI (Universal Chess Interface), UCCI (Universal Chinese Chess Interface), Qianhong (QH) protocol, and WinBoard/XBoard (WB) protocol (the latter two named after the GUIs that implemented them). There now exist many dozens of xiangqi engines supporting one or more of these protocols, including some commercial engines.
Variations
Blitz chess Each player only has around 5–10 minutes each.
Manchu chessInvented during the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. Red horses, cannons, and one of the chariots are absent, but the remaining chariot can be played as horses and cannons as well.
Supply chess Similar to the Western chess variant Bughouse chess, this variant features the ability to re-deploy captured pieces, similar to a rule in shogi. Four players play as two-person teams in two side-by-side games. One teammate plays Black and other plays Red. Any piece obtained by capturing the opponent's piece is given to the teammate for use in the other game. These pieces can be deployed by the teammate to give him an advantage over the other player, so long as the piece starts on the player's own side of the board and does not cause the opponent to be in check.
Formation Similar to Fischer Random Chess, one player's pieces are placed randomly on one side of the river, except for the generals and advisors, which must be at their usual positions, and the elephants, which must start at two of the seven points they can normally reach. The other player's pieces are set up to mirror the first's. All other rules are the same.
Banqi This variation is more well known in Hong Kong than in mainland China. It uses the xiangqi pieces and board, but does not follow any of its rules, bearing more of a resemblance to the Western game Stratego as well as the Chinese game Luzhanqi.
Variations played with special boards or pieces
There are many versions of three-player xiangqi, or san xiangqui, all played on special boards.
San Guo Qi "Game of the Three Kingdoms" is played on a special hexagonal board with three xiangqi armies (red, blue, and green) vying for dominance. A Y-shaped river divides the board into three gem-shaped territories, each containing the grid found on one side of a xiangqi board, but distorted to make the game playable by three people. Each player has eighteen pieces: the sixteen of regular xiangqi, plus two new ones that stand on the same rank as the cannons. The new pieces have different names depending on their side: huo ("fire") for Red, qi ("flag") for Blue, and feng ("wind") for Green. They move two spaces orthogonally, then one space diagonally. The generals each bear the name of a historical Chinese kingdom—Shu for Red, Wei for Blue, and Wu for Green—from China's Three Kingdoms period. It is likely that San Guo Qi first appeared under the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279).
San You Qi "Three Friends Chess" was invented by Zheng Jinde from Shexian in the Anhui province during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty (1661–1722). It is played on a Y-shaped board with a full army of xiangqi pieces set up at the end of each of the board's three wide radii. In the centre of the board sits a triangular zone with certain features, such as ocean, mountain, or city walls, each of which is impassable by certain pieces. Two of an army's five soldiers are replaced by new pieces called huo ("fire") pieces, which move one space diagonally forward. Two qi ("flag") pieces are positioned on the front corners of the palace; they move two spaces forward inside their own camp, and then one space in any direction inside an enemy camp.
Sanrenqi "Three Men Chess" is a riverless, commercial variant played on a cross-shaped board with some special rules, including a fourth, neutral country called Han. Han has three Chariots, one Cannon, and one General named "Emperor Xian of Han", but these pieces do not move and do not belong to any of the players until a certain point in the game when two players team up against the third player. At that point the third player gets to also control Han.
Si Guo Qi "Four Kingdoms Chess" is also played on a riverless, cross-shaped board, but with four players. Because there are no rivers, elephants may move about the board freely.
Qi Guo Xiang Qi "Game of the Seven Kingdoms" is based symbolically on the Warring States Period.
In Unicode
Xiangqi pieces were added to Unicode version 11.0 in June 2018. They are assigned to the codepoints U+1FA60–U+1FA6D in the Chess Symbols block. For legibility, the red pieces are filled white, while black pieces are filled black.
See also
Notes
References
Lau, H. T. (1985). Chinese Chess. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 0-8048-3508-X.
Leventhal, Dennis A. The Chess of China. Taipei, Taiwan: Mei Ya, 1978. (out-of-print but can be partly downloaded)
Li, David H. The Genealogy of Chess. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 1998. ISBN 0-9637852-2-2.
Murray, H. J. R. (1913). A History of Chess (Reissued ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-827403-3.
Wilkes, Charles Fred. A Manual of Chinese Chess. 1952.
Further reading
Li, David H. First Syllabus on Xiangqi: Chinese Chess 1. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 1996. ISBN 0-9637852-5-7.
Li, David H. Xiangqi Syllabus on Cannon: Chinese Chess 2. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 1998. ISBN 0-9637852-7-3.
Li, David H. Xiangqi Syllabus on Elephant: Chinese Chess 3. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 2000. ISBN 0-9637852-0-6.
Li, David H. Xiangqi Syllabus on Pawn: Chinese Chess 4. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 2002. ISBN 0-9711690-1-2.
Li, David H. Xiangqi Syllabus on Horse: Chinese Chess 5. Premier Publishing, Bethesda, Maryland, 2004. ISBN 0-9711690-2-0.
External links
Xiangqi.com Play Xiangqi for free
Xiangqi Championships
Learn Chinese Chess in English Rules, openings, strategy, ancient manuals
An Introduction to Xiangqi for Chess Players
Xiangqi, Chinese Chess Presentation, rules, history and variants, by Jean-Louis Cazaux
Xiangqi (象棋): Chinese Chess by Hans Bodlaender, ed. Fergus Duniho, The Chess Variant Pages |
Japan | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan | [
616
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan"
] | Japan is an island country in East Asia. It is located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and thousands of smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometres (145,937 sq mi). Japan has a population of nearly 124 million as of 2024, and is the eleventh-most populous country. Its capital and largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 38 million inhabitants as of 2016. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of the country's terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. The country sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, making its islands prone to destructive earthquakes and tsunamis.
The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the fourth and sixth centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara, and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō), and enforced by warrior nobility (samurai). After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan pursued rapid industrialization and modernization, as well as militarism and overseas colonization. In 1937, Japan invaded China, and in 1941 attacked the United States and European colonial powers, entering World War II as an Axis power. After suffering defeat in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under Allied occupation. After the war, the country underwent rapid economic growth, although its economy has stagnated since 1990.
Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, the National Diet. A great power and the only Asian member of the G7, Japan has constitutionally renounced its right to declare war, but maintains one of the world's strongest militaries. A highly developed country with one of the world's largest economies, Japan is a global leader in science and technology and the automotive, robotics, and electronics industries. It has one of the world's highest life expectancies, though it is undergoing a population decline. Japan's culture is well known around the world, including its art, cuisine, film, music, and popular culture, which includes prominent comics, animation, and video game industries.
Etymology
The name for Japan in Japanese is written using the kanji 日本 and is pronounced Nihon or Nippon. Before 日本 was adopted in the early 8th century, the country was known in China as Wa (倭, changed in Japan around 757 to 和) and in Japan by the endonym Yamato. Nippon, the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on Japanese banknotes and postage stamps. Nihon is typically used in everyday speech and reflects shifts in Japanese phonology during the Edo period. The characters 日本 mean "sun origin", which is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun".
The name "Japan" is based on Min or Wu Chinese pronunciations of 日本 and was introduced to European languages through early trade. In the 13th century, Marco Polo recorded the Early Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本國 as Cipangu. The old Malay name for Japan, Japang or Japun, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect and encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia, who brought the word to Europe in the early 16th century. The first version of the name in English appears in a book published in 1577, which spelled the name as Giapan in a translation of a 1565 Portuguese letter.
History
Prehistoric to classical history
Modern humans arrived in Japan around 38,000 years ago (~36,000 BC), marking the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic. This was followed from around 14,500 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture. Clay vessels from the period are among the oldest surviving examples of pottery. The Japonic-speaking Yayoi people entered the archipelago from the Korean Peninsula, intermingling with the Jōmon; the Yayoi period saw the introduction of practices including wet-rice farming, a new style of pottery, and metallurgy from China and Korea. According to legend, Emperor Jimmu (descendant of Amaterasu) founded a kingdom in central Japan in 660 BC, beginning a continuous imperial line.
Japan first appears in written history in the Chinese Book of Han, completed in 111 AD. Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Baekje (a Korean kingdom) in 552, but the development of Japanese Buddhism was primarily influenced by China. Despite early resistance, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class, including figures like Prince Shōtoku, and gained widespread acceptance beginning in the Asuka period (592–710).
In 645, the government led by Prince Naka no Ōe and Fujiwara no Kamatari devised and implemented the far-reaching Taika Reforms. The Reform began with land reform, based on Confucian ideas and philosophies from China. It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation. The true aim of the reforms was to bring about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental structure of China. Envoys and students were dispatched to China to learn about Chinese writing, politics, art, and religion. The Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code, which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central and subordinate local governments. These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.
The Nara period (710–784) marked the emergence of a Japanese state centered on the Imperial Court in Heijō-kyō (modern Nara). The period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture with the completion of the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture. A smallpox epidemic in 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of Japan's population. In 784, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital, settling on Heian-kyō (modern-day Kyoto) in 794. This marked the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185), during which a distinctly indigenous Japanese culture emerged. Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji and the lyrics of Japan's national anthem "Kimigayo" were written during this time.
Feudal era
Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence and dominance of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the Taira clan by the Minamoto clan in the Genpei War, samurai Minamoto no Yoritomo established a military government at Kamakura. After Yoritomo's death, the Hōjō clan came to power as regents for the shōgun. The Zen school of Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and became popular among the samurai class. The Kamakura shogunate repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281 but was eventually overthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo was defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336, beginning the Muromachi period (1336–1573). The succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to control the feudal warlords (daimyō) and a civil war began in 1467, opening the century-long Sengoku period ("Warring States").
During the 16th century, Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga used European technology and firearms to conquer many other daimyō; his consolidation of power began what was known as the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the death of Nobunaga in 1582, his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, unified the nation in the early 1590s and launched two unsuccessful invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597.
Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son Toyotomi Hideyori and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, Ieyasu defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. He was appointed shōgun by Emperor Go-Yōzei in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo). The shogunate enacted measures including buke shohatto, as a code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyō, and in 1639 the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603–1868). Modern Japan's economic growth began in this period, resulting in roads and water transportation routes, as well as financial instruments such as futures contracts, banking and insurance of the Osaka rice brokers. The study of Western sciences (rangaku) continued through contact with the Dutch enclave in Nagasaki. The Edo period gave rise to kokugaku ("national studies"), the study of Japan by the Japanese.
Modern era
The United States Navy sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to force the opening of Japan to the outside world. Arriving at Uraga with four "Black Ships" in July 1853, the Perry Expedition resulted in the March 1854 Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with other Western countries brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shōgun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the emperor (the Meiji Restoration). Adopting Western political, judicial, and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution (November 29, 1890), and assembled the Imperial Diet. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Empire of Japan emerged as the most developed state in Asia and as an industrialized world power that pursued military conflict to expand its sphere of influence. After victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), Japan gained control of Taiwan, Korea and the southern half of Sakhalin, and annexed Korea in 1910. The Japanese population doubled from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million by 1935, with a significant shift to urbanization.
The early 20th century saw a period of Taishō democracy (1912–1926) overshadowed by increasing expansionism and militarization. World War I allowed Japan, which joined the side of the victorious Allies, to capture German possessions in the Pacific and China in 1920. The 1920s saw a political shift towards statism, a period of lawlessness following the 1923 Great Tokyo Earthquake, the passing of laws against political dissent, and a series of attempted coups. This process accelerated during the 1930s, spawning several radical nationalist groups that shared a hostility to liberal democracy and a dedication to expansion in Asia. In 1931, Japan invaded China and occupied Manchuria, which led to the establishment of puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932; following international condemnation of the occupation, it resigned from the League of Nations in 1933. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany; the 1940 Tripartite Pact made it one of the Axis powers.
The Empire of Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). In 1940, the Empire invaded French Indochina, after which the United States placed an oil embargo on Japan. On December 7–8, 1941, Japanese forces carried out surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, as well as on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, among others, beginning World War II in the Pacific. Throughout areas occupied by Japan during the war, numerous abuses were committed against local inhabitants, with many forced into sexual slavery. After Allied victories during the next four years, which culminated in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender. The war cost Japan millions of lives and its colonies, including de jure parts of Japan such as Korea, Taiwan, Karafuto, and the Kurils. The Allies (led by the United States) repatriated millions of Japanese settlers from their former colonies and military camps throughout Asia, largely eliminating the Japanese Empire and its influence over the territories it conquered. The Allies convened the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to prosecute Japanese leaders except the Emperor for war crimes.
In 1947, Japan adopted a new constitution emphasizing liberal democratic practices. The Allied occupation ended with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952, and Japan was granted membership in the United Nations in 1956. A period of record growth propelled Japan to become the second-largest economy in the world; this ended in the mid-1990s after the popping of an asset price bubble, beginning the "Lost Decade". In 2011, Japan suffered one of the largest earthquakes in its recorded history - the Tōhoku earthquake - triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. On May 1, 2019, after the historic abdication of Emperor Akihito, his son Naruhito became Emperor, beginning the Reiwa era.
Geography
Japan comprises 14,125 islands extending along the Pacific coast of Asia. It stretches over 3000 km (1900 mi) northeast–southwest from the Sea of Okhotsk to the East China Sea. The country's five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa. The Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, are a chain to the south of Kyushu. The Nanpō Islands are south and east of the main islands of Japan. Together they are often known as the Japanese archipelago. As of 2019, Japan's territory is 377,975.24 km2 (145,937.06 sq mi). Japan has the sixth-longest coastline in the world at 29,751 km (18,486 mi). Because of its far-flung outlying islands, Japan's exclusive economic zone is the eighth-largest in the world, covering 4,470,000 km2 (1,730,000 sq mi).
The Japanese archipelago is 67% forests and 14% agricultural. The primarily rugged and mountainous terrain is restricted for habitation. Thus the habitable zones, mainly in the coastal areas, have very high population densities: Japan is the 40th most densely populated country even without considering that local concentration. Honshu has the highest population density at 450 persons/km2 (1200/sq mi) as of 2010, while Hokkaido has the lowest density of 64.5 persons/km2 as of 2016. As of 2014, approximately 0.5% of Japan's total area is reclaimed land (umetatechi). Lake Biwa is an ancient lake and the country's largest freshwater lake.
Japan is substantially prone to earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions because of its location along the Pacific Ring of Fire. It has the 17th highest natural disaster risk as measured in the 2016 World Risk Index. Japan has 111 active volcanoes. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunami, occur several times each century; the 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed over 140,000 people. More recent major quakes are the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, which triggered a large tsunami.
Climate
The climate of Japan is predominantly temperate but varies greatly from north to south. The northernmost region, Hokkaido, has a humid continental climate with long, cold winters and very warm to cool summers. Precipitation is not heavy, but the islands usually develop deep snowbanks in the winter.
In the Sea of Japan region on Honshu's west coast, northwest winter winds bring heavy snowfall during winter. In the summer, the region sometimes experiences extremely hot temperatures because of the Foehn. The Central Highland has a typical inland humid continental climate, with large temperature differences between summer and winter. The mountains of the Chūgoku and Shikoku regions shelter the Seto Inland Sea from seasonal winds, bringing mild weather year-round.
The Pacific coast features a humid subtropical climate that experiences milder winters with occasional snowfall and hot, humid summers because of the southeast seasonal wind. The Ryukyu and Nanpō Islands have a subtropical climate, with warm winters and hot summers. Precipitation is very heavy, especially during the rainy season. The main rainy season begins in early May in Okinawa, and the rain front gradually moves north. In late summer and early autumn, typhoons often bring heavy rain. According to the Environment Ministry, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures have caused problems in the agricultural industry and elsewhere. The highest temperature ever measured in Japan, 41.1 °C (106.0 °F), was recorded on July 23, 2018, and repeated on August 17, 2020.
Biodiversity
Japan has nine forest ecoregions which reflect the climate and geography of the islands. They range from subtropical moist broadleaf forests in the Ryūkyū and Bonin Islands, to temperate broadleaf and mixed forests in the mild climate regions of the main islands, to temperate coniferous forests in the cold, winter portions of the northern islands. Japan has over 90,000 species of wildlife as of 2019, including the brown bear, the Japanese macaque, the Japanese raccoon dog, the small Japanese field mouse, and the Japanese giant salamander. There are 53 Ramsar wetland sites in Japan. Five sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for their outstanding natural value.
Environment
In the period of rapid economic growth after World War II, environmental policies were downplayed by the government and industrial corporations; as a result, environmental pollution was widespread in the 1950s and 1960s. Responding to rising concerns, the government introduced environmental protection laws in 1970. The oil crisis in 1973 also encouraged the efficient use of energy because of Japan's lack of natural resources.
Japan ranks 20th in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index, which measures a country's commitment to environmental sustainability. Japan is the world's fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. As the host and signatory of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Japan is under treaty obligation to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions and to take other steps to curb climate change. In 2020, the government of Japan announced a target of carbon-neutrality by 2050. Environmental issues include urban air pollution (NOx, suspended particulate matter, and toxics), waste management, water eutrophication, nature conservation, climate change, chemical management and international co-operation for conservation.
Government and politics
Japan is a unitary state and constitutional monarchy in which the power of the Emperor is limited to a ceremonial role. Executive power is instead wielded by the Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, whose sovereignty is vested in the Japanese people. Naruhito is the Emperor of Japan, having succeeded his father Akihito upon his accession to the Chrysanthemum Throne in 2019.
Japan's legislative organ is the National Diet, a bicameral parliament. It consists of a lower House of Representatives with 465 seats, elected by popular vote every four years or when dissolved, and an upper House of Councillors with 245 seats, whose popularly-elected members serve six-year terms. There is universal suffrage for adults over 18 years of age, with a secret ballot for all elected offices. The prime minister as the head of government has the power to appoint and dismiss Ministers of State, and is appointed by the emperor after being designated from among the members of the Diet. Fumio Kishida is Japan's prime minister; he took office after winning the 2021 Liberal Democratic Party leadership election. The broadly conservative Liberal Democratic Party has been the dominant party in the country since the 1950s, often called the 1955 System.
Historically influenced by Chinese law, the Japanese legal system developed independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki. Since the late 19th century, the judicial system has been largely based on the civil law of Europe, notably Germany. In 1896, Japan established a civil code based on the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, which remains in effect with post–World War II modifications. The Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947, is the oldest unamended constitution in the world. Statutory law originates in the legislature, and the constitution requires that the emperor promulgate legislation passed by the Diet without giving him the power to oppose legislation. The main body of Japanese statutory law is called the Six Codes. Japan's court system is divided into four basic tiers: the Supreme Court and three levels of lower courts.
Administrative divisions
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, each overseen by an elected governor and legislature. In the following table, the prefectures are grouped by region:
Foreign relations
A member state of the United Nations since 1956, Japan is one of the G4 countries seeking reform of the Security Council. Japan is a member of the G7, APEC, and "ASEAN Plus Three", and is a participant in the East Asia Summit. It is the world's fifth-largest donor of official development assistance, donating US$9.2 billion in 2014. In 2024, Japan had the fourth-largest diplomatic network in the world.
Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance. The United States is a major market for Japanese exports and a major source of Japanese imports, and is committed to defending the country, with military bases in Japan. In 2016, Japan announced the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, which frames its regional policies. Japan is also a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue ("the Quad"), a multilateral security dialogue reformed in 2017 aiming to limit Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region, along with the United States, Australia, and India.
Japan is engaged in several territorial disputes with its neighbors. Japan contests Russia's control of the Southern Kuril Islands, which were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945. South Korea's control of the Liancourt Rocks is acknowledged but not accepted as they are claimed by Japan. Japan has strained relations with China and Taiwan over the Senkaku Islands and the status of Okinotorishima.
Military
Japan is the third highest-ranked Asian country in the 2024 Global Peace Index. It spent 1.1% of its total GDP on its defence budget in 2022, and maintained the tenth-largest military budget in the world in 2022. The country's military (the Japan Self-Defense Forces) is restricted by Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which renounces Japan's right to declare war or use military force in international disputes. The military is governed by the Ministry of Defense, and primarily consists of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. The deployment of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan marked the first overseas use of Japan's military since World War II.
The Government of Japan has been making changes to its security policy which include the establishment of the National Security Council, the adoption of the National Security Strategy, and the development of the National Defense Program Guidelines. In May 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan wanted to shed the passiveness it has maintained since the end of World War II and take more responsibility for regional security. In December 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida further confirmed this trend, instructing the government to increase spending by 65% until 2027. Recent tensions, particularly with North Korea and China, have reignited the debate over the status of the JSDF and its relation to Japanese society.
Law enforcement
Domestic security in Japan is provided mainly by the prefectural police departments, under the oversight of the National Police Agency. As the central coordinating body for the Prefectural Police Departments, the National Police Agency is administered by the National Public Safety Commission. The Special Assault Team comprises national-level counter-terrorism tactical units that cooperate with territorial-level Anti-Firearms Squads and Counter-NBC Terrorism Squads. The Japan Coast Guard guards territorial waters surrounding Japan and uses surveillance and control countermeasures against smuggling, marine environmental crime, poaching, piracy, spy ships, unauthorized foreign fishing vessels, and illegal immigration.
The Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law strictly regulates the civilian ownership of guns, swords, and other weaponry. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, among the member states of the UN that report statistics as of 2018, the incidence rates of violent crimes such as murder, abduction, sexual violence, and robbery are very low in Japan.
Human rights
Japan has faced criticism for not allowing same-sex marriages, despite a majority of Japanese people supporting marriage equality. It is the least developed out of the G7 countries in terms of LGBT equality. Japan legally prohibits racial and religious discrimination under its constitution. Japan is also a signatory to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, while facing criticism for racial profiling by police. Japan is among the few developed countries which still legally retain and actively allow capital punishment.
Economy
Japan has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, after that of the United States, China and Germany; and the fourth-largest economy by PPP. As of 2021, Japan's labor force is the world's eighth-largest, consisting of over 68.6 million workers. As of 2022, Japan has a low unemployment rate of around 2.6%. Its poverty rate is the second highest among the G7 countries, and exceeds 15.7% of the population. Japan has the highest ratio of public debt to GDP among advanced economies, with a national debt estimated at 248% relative to GDP as of 2022. The Japanese yen is the world's third-largest reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro.
Japan was the world's fifth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer in 2022. Its exports amounted to 18.2% of its total GDP in 2021. As of 2022, Japan's main export markets were China (23.9 percent, including Hong Kong) and the United States (18.5 percent). Its main exports are motor vehicles, iron and steel products, semiconductors, and auto parts. Japan's main import markets as of 2022 were China (21.1 percent), the United States (9.9 percent), and Australia (9.8 percent). Japan's main imports are machinery and equipment, fossil fuels, foodstuffs, chemicals, and raw materials for its industries.
The Japanese variant of capitalism has many distinct features: keiretsu enterprises are influential, and lifetime employment and seniority-based career advancement are common in the Japanese work environment. Japan has a large cooperative sector, with three of the world's ten largest cooperatives, including the largest consumer cooperative and the largest agricultural cooperative as of 2018. It ranks highly for competitiveness and economic freedom. Japan ranked sixth in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2019. It attracted 31.9 million international tourists in 2019, and was ranked eleventh in the world in 2019 for inbound tourism. The 2021 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report ranked Japan first in the world out of 117 countries. Its international tourism receipts in 2019 amounted to $46.1 billion.
Agriculture and fishery
The Japanese agricultural sector accounts for about 1.2% of the country's total GDP as of 2018. Only 11.5% of Japan's land is suitable for cultivation. Because of this lack of arable land, a system of terraces is used to farm in small areas. This results in one of the world's highest levels of crop yields per unit area, with an agricultural self-sufficiency rate of about 50% as of 2018. Japan's small agricultural sector is highly subsidized and protected. There has been a growing concern about farming as farmers are aging with a difficult time finding successors.
Japan ranked seventh in the world in tonnage of fish caught and captured 3,167,610 metric tons of fish in 2016, down from an annual average of 4,000,000 tons over the previous decade. Japan maintains one of the world's largest fishing fleets and accounts for nearly 15% of the global catch, prompting critiques that Japan's fishing is leading to depletion in fish stocks such as tuna. Japan has sparked controversy by supporting commercial whaling.
Industry and services
Japan has a large industrial capacity and is home to some of the "largest and most technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemical substances, textiles, and processed foods". Japan's industrial sector makes up approximately 27.5% of its GDP. The country's manufacturing output is the fourth highest in the world as of 2023.
Japan is in the top three globally for both automobile production and export, and is home to Toyota, the world's largest automobile company by vehicle production. The Japanese shipbuilding industry faces increasing competition from its East Asian neighbors, South Korea and China; a 2020 government initiative identified this sector as a target for increasing exports.
Japan's service sector accounts for about 69.5% of its total economic output as of 2021. Banking, retail, transportation, and telecommunications are all major industries, with companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi UFJ, -NTT, Aeon, SoftBank, Hitachi, and Itochu listed as among the largest in the world.
Science and technology
Relative to gross domestic product, Japan's research and development budget is the second highest in the world, with 867,000 researchers sharing a 19-trillion-yen research and development budget as of 2017. The country has produced twenty-two Nobel laureates in either physics, chemistry or medicine, and three Fields medalists.
Japan leads the world in robotics production and use, supplying 45% of the world's 2020 total; down from 55% in 2017. Japan has the second highest number of researchers in science and technology per capita in the world with 14 per 1000 employees.
Once considered the strongest in the world, the Japanese consumer electronics industry is in a state of decline as regional competition arises in neighboring East Asian countries such as South Korea and China. However, Japan's video game sector remains a major industry. In 2014, Japan's consumer video game market grossed $9.6 billion, with $5.8 billion coming from mobile gaming. By 2015, Japan had become the world's fourth-largest PC game market by revenue, behind only China, the United States, and South Korea.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is Japan's national space agency; it conducts space, planetary, and aviation research, and leads development of rockets and satellites. It is a participant in the International Space Station: the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibō) was added to the station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2008. The space probe Akatsuki was launched in 2010 and achieved orbit around Venus in 2015. Japan's plans in space exploration include building a Moon base and landing astronauts by 2030. In 2007, it launched lunar explorer SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) from Tanegashima Space Center. The largest lunar mission since the Apollo program, its purpose was to gather data on the Moon's origin and evolution. The explorer entered a lunar orbit on October 4, 2007, and was deliberately crashed into the Moon on June 11, 2009.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Japan has invested heavily in transportation infrastructure since the 1990s. The country has approximately 1,200,000 kilometers (750,000 miles) of roads made up of 1,000,000 kilometers (620,000 miles) of city, town and village roads, 130,000 kilometers (81,000 miles) of prefectural roads, 54,736 kilometers (34,011 miles) of general national highways and 7641 kilometers (4748 miles) of national expressways as of 2017.
Since privatization in 1987, dozens of Japanese railway companies compete in regional and local passenger transportation markets; major companies include seven JR enterprises, Kintetsu, Seibu Railway and Keio Corporation. The high-speed Shinkansen (bullet trains) that connect major cities are known for their safety and punctuality.
There are 175 airports in Japan as of 2021. The largest domestic airport, Haneda Airport in Tokyo, was Asia's second-busiest airport in 2019. The Keihin and Hanshin superport hubs are among the largest in the world, at 7.98 and 5.22 million TEU respectively as of 2017.
Energy
As of 2019, 37.1% of energy in Japan was produced from petroleum, 25.1% from coal, 22.4% from natural gas, 3.5% from hydropower and 2.8% from nuclear power, among other sources. Nuclear power was down from 11.2 percent in 2010. By May 2012 all of the country's nuclear power plants had been taken offline because of ongoing public opposition following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011, though government officials continued to try to sway public opinion in favor of returning at least some to service. The Sendai Nuclear Power Plant restarted in 2015, and since then several other nuclear power plants have been restarted. Japan lacks significant domestic reserves and has a heavy dependence on imported energy. The country has therefore aimed to diversify its sources and maintain high levels of energy efficiency.
Water supply and sanitation
Responsibility for the water and sanitation sector is shared between the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, in charge of water supply for domestic use; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, in charge of water resources development as well as sanitation; the Ministry of the Environment, in charge of ambient water quality and environmental preservation; and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, in charge of performance benchmarking of utilities. Access to an improved water source is universal in Japan. About 98% of the population receives piped water supply from public utilities.
Demographics
Japan has a population of almost 125 million, of whom nearly 122 million are Japanese nationals (2022 estimates). A small population of foreign residents makes up the remainder.
Japan is the world's fastest aging country and has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country, comprising one-third of its total population; this is the result of a post–World War II baby boom, which was followed by an increase in life expectancy and a decrease in birth rates. Japan has a total fertility rate of 1.4, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1, and is among the world's lowest; it has a median age of 48.4, the highest in the world. As of 2020, over 28.7 percent of the population is over 65, or more than one in four out of the Japanese population. As a growing number of younger Japanese are not marrying or remaining childless, Japan's population is expected to drop to around 88 million by 2065.
The changes in demographic structure have created several social issues, particularly a decline in the workforce population and an increase in the cost of social security benefits. The Government of Japan projects that there will be almost one elderly person for each person of working age by 2060. Immigration and birth incentives are sometimes suggested as a solution to provide younger workers to support the nation's aging population. On April 1, 2019, Japan's revised immigration law was enacted, protecting the rights of foreign workers to help reduce labor shortages in certain sectors.
In 2022, 92% of the total Japanese population lived in cities. The capital city, Tokyo, has a population of 13.9 million (2022). It is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, the biggest metropolitan area in the world with 38,140,000 people (2016). Japan is an ethnically and culturally homogeneous society, with the Japanese people forming 97.4% of the country's population. Minority ethnic groups in the country include the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan people. Zainichi Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Brazilians mostly of Japanese descent, and Peruvians mostly of Japanese descent are also among Japan's small minority groups. Burakumin make up a social minority group.
Languages
The Japanese language is Japan's de facto national language and the primary written and spoken language of most people in the country. Japanese writing uses kanji (Chinese characters) and two sets of kana (syllabaries based on cursive script and radicals used by kanji), as well as the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. English has taken a major role in Japan as a business and international link language. As a result, the prevalence of English in the educational system has increased, with English classes becoming mandatory at all levels of the Japanese school system by 2020. Japanese Sign Language is the primary sign language used in Japan and has gained some official recognition, but its usage has been historically hindered by discriminatory policies and a lack of educational support.
Besides Japanese, the Ryukyuan languages (Amami, Kunigami, Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama, Yonaguni), part of the Japonic language family, are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands chain. Few children learn these languages, but local governments have sought to increase awareness of the traditional languages. The Ainu language, which is a language isolate, is moribund, with only a few native speakers remaining as of 2014. Additionally, a number of other languages are taught and used by ethnic minorities, immigrant communities, and a growing number of foreign-language students, such as Korean (including a distinct Zainichi Korean dialect), Chinese and Portuguese.
Religion
Japan's constitution guarantees full religious freedom. Upper estimates suggest that 84–96 percent of the Japanese population subscribe to Shinto as its indigenous religion. However, these estimates are based on people affiliated with a temple, rather than the number of true believers. Many Japanese people practice both Shinto and Buddhism; they can identify with both religions or describe themselves as non-religious or spiritual. The level of participation in religious ceremonies as a cultural tradition remains high, especially during festivals and occasions such as the first shrine visit of the New Year. Taoism and Confucianism from China have also influenced Japanese beliefs and customs.
Today, 1% to 1.5% of the population are Christians. Throughout the latest century, Western customs originally related to Christianity (including Western style weddings, Valentine's Day and Christmas) have become popular as secular customs among many Japanese.
About 90% of those practicing Islam in Japan are foreign-born migrants as of 2016. As of 2018 there were an estimated 105 mosques and 200,000 Muslims in Japan, 43,000 of which were Japanese nationals. Other minority religions include Hinduism, Judaism, and Baháʼí Faith, as well as the animist beliefs of the Ainu.
Education
Since the 1947 Fundamental Law of Education, compulsory education in Japan comprises elementary and junior high school, which together last for nine years. Almost all children continue their education at a three-year senior high school. The top-ranking university in the country is the University of Tokyo. Starting in April 2016, various schools began the academic year with elementary school and junior high school integrated into one nine-year compulsory schooling program; MEXT plans for this approach to be adopted nationwide.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) coordinated by the OECD ranks the knowledge and skills of Japanese 15-year-olds as the third best in the world. Japan is one of the top-performing OECD countries in reading literacy, math, and sciences with the average student scoring 520 and has one of the world's highest-educated labor forces among OECD countries. It spent 7.4% of its total GDP on education as of 2021. In 2021, the country ranked third for the percentage of 25 to 64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 55.6%. Approximately 65% of Japanese aged 25 to 34 have some form of tertiary education qualification, with bachelor's degrees being held by 34.2% of Japanese aged 25 to 64, the second most in the OECD after South Korea. Japanese women are more highly educated than the men: 59 percent of women possess a university degree, compared to 52 percent of men.
Health
Health care in Japan is provided by national and local governments. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments. Since 1973, all elderly persons have been covered by government-sponsored insurance.
Japan spent 10.82% of its total GDP on healthcare in 2021. In 2020, the overall life expectancy in Japan at birth was 85 years (82 years for men and 88 years for women), the highest in the world; while it had a very low infant mortality rate (2 per 1,000 live births). Since 1981, the principal cause of death in Japan is cancer, which accounted for 27% of the total deaths in 2018—followed by cardiovascular diseases, which led to 15% of the deaths. Japan has one of the world's highest suicide rates, which is considered a major social issue. Another significant public health issue is smoking among Japanese men. However, Japan has the lowest rate of heart disease in the OECD, and the lowest level of dementia among developed countries.
Culture
Contemporary Japanese culture combines influences from Asia, Europe, and North America. Traditional Japanese arts include crafts such as ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, swords and dolls; performances of bunraku, kabuki, noh, dance, and rakugo; and other practices, the tea ceremony, ikebana, martial arts, calligraphy, origami, onsen, Geisha and games. Japan has a developed system for the protection and promotion of both tangible and intangible Cultural Properties and National Treasures. Twenty-two sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, eighteen of which are of cultural significance. Japan is considered a cultural superpower.
Art and architecture
The history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese esthetics and imported ideas. The interaction between Japanese and European art has been significant: for example ukiyo-e prints, which began to be exported in the 19th century in the movement known as Japonism, had a significant influence on the development of modern art in the West, most notably on post-Impressionism.
Japanese architecture is a combination of local and other influences. It has traditionally been typified by wooden or mud plaster structures, elevated slightly off the ground, with tiled or thatched roofs. Traditional housing and many temple buildings see the use of tatami mats and sliding doors that break down the distinction between rooms and indoor and outdoor space. Since the 19th century, Japan has incorporated much of Western modern architecture into construction and design. It was not until after World War II that Japanese architects made an impression on the international scene, firstly with the work of architects like Kenzō Tange and then with movements like Metabolism.
Literature and philosophy
The earliest works of Japanese literature include the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles and the Man'yōshū poetry anthology, all from the 8th century and written in Chinese characters. In the early Heian period, the system of phonograms known as kana (hiragana and katakana) was developed. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative. An account of court life is given in The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, while The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu is often described as the world's first novel.
During the Edo period, the chōnin ("townspeople") overtook the samurai aristocracy as producers and consumers of literature. The popularity of the works of Saikaku, for example, reveals this change in readership and authorship, while Bashō revivified the poetic tradition of the Kokinshū with his haikai (haiku) and wrote the poetic travelogue Oku no Hosomichi. The Meiji era saw the decline of traditional literary forms as Japanese literature integrated Western influences. Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai were significant novelists in the early 20th century, followed by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Kafū Nagai and, more recently, Haruki Murakami and Kenji Nakagami. Japan has two Nobel Prize-winning authors – Yasunari Kawabata (1968) and Kenzaburō Ōe (1994).
Japanese philosophy has historically been a fusion of both foreign, particularly Chinese and Western, and uniquely Japanese elements. In its literary forms, Japanese philosophy began about fourteen centuries ago. Confucian ideals remain evident in the Japanese concept of society and the self, and in the organization of the government and the structure of society. Buddhism has profoundly impacted Japanese psychology, metaphysics, and esthetics.
Performing arts
Japanese music is eclectic and diverse. Many instruments, such as the koto, were introduced in the 9th and 10th centuries. The popular folk music, with the guitar-like shamisen, dates from the 16th century. Western classical music, introduced in the late 19th century, forms an integral part of Japanese culture. Kumi-daiko (ensemble drumming) was developed in postwar Japan and became very popular in North America. Popular music in post-war Japan has been heavily influenced by American and European trends, which has led to the evolution of J-pop. Karaoke is a significant cultural activity.
The four traditional theaters from Japan are noh, kyōgen, kabuki, and bunraku. Noh is one of the oldest continuous theater traditions in the world.
Media
According to the 2015 NHK survey on television viewing in Japan, 79 percent of Japanese watch television daily. Japanese television dramas are viewed both within Japan and internationally. Many Japanese media franchises have gained considerable global popularity and are among the world's highest-grossing media franchises. Japanese newspapers are among the most circulated in the world as of 2016.
Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries globally. Ishirō Honda's Godzilla became an international icon of Japan and spawned an entire subgenre of kaiju films, as well as the longest-running film franchise in history. Japanese comics, known as manga, developed in the mid-20th century and have become popular worldwide. A large number of manga series have become some of the best-selling comics series of all time, rivalling the American comics industry. Japanese animated films and television series, known as anime, were largely influenced by Japanese manga and have become highly popular globally.
Holidays
Officially, Japan has 16 national, government-recognized holidays. Public holidays in Japan are regulated by the Public Holiday Law (国民の祝日に関する法律, Kokumin no Shukujitsu ni Kansuru Hōritsu) of 1948. Beginning in 2000, Japan implemented the Happy Monday System, which moved a number of national holidays to Monday in order to obtain a long weekend. The national holidays in Japan are New Year's Day on January 1, Coming of Age Day on the second Monday of January, National Foundation Day on February 11, The Emperor's Birthday on February 23, Vernal Equinox Day on March 20 or 21, Shōwa Day on April 29, Constitution Memorial Day on May 3, Greenery Day on May 4, Children's Day on May 5, Marine Day on the third Monday of July, Mountain Day on August 11, Respect for the Aged Day on the third Monday of September, Autumnal Equinox on September 23 or 24, Health and Sports Day on the second Monday of October, Culture Day on November 3, and Labor Thanksgiving Day on November 23.
Cuisine
Japanese cuisine offers a vast array of regional specialties that use traditional recipes and local ingredients. Seafood and Japanese rice or noodles are traditional staples. Japanese curry, since its introduction to Japan from British India, is so widely consumed that it can be termed a national dish, alongside ramen and sushi. Traditional Japanese sweets are known as wagashi. Ingredients such as red bean paste and mochi are used. More modern-day tastes include green tea ice cream.
Popular Japanese beverages include sake, a brewed rice beverage that typically contains 14–17% alcohol and is made by multiple fermentation of rice. Beer has been brewed in Japan since the late 17th century. Green tea is produced in Japan and prepared in forms such as matcha, used in the Japanese tea ceremony.
Sports
Traditionally, sumo is considered Japan's national sport. Japanese martial arts such as judo and kendo are taught as part of the compulsory junior high school curriculum. Baseball is the most popular sport in the country. Japan's top professional league, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), was established in 1936. Since the establishment of the Japan Professional Football League (J.League) in 1992, association football gained a wide following. The country co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup with South Korea. Japan has one of the most successful football teams in Asia, winning the Asian Cup four times, and the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2011. Golf is also popular in Japan.
In motorsport, Japanese automotive manufacturers have been successful in multiple different categories, with titles and victories in series such as Formula One, MotoGP, and the World Rally Championship. Drivers from Japan have victories at the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as podium finishes in Formula One, in addition to success in domestic championships. Super GT is the most popular national racing series in Japan, while Super Formula is the top-level domestic open-wheel series. The country hosts major races such as the Japanese Grand Prix.
Japan hosted the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 1964 and the Winter Olympics in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998. The country hosted the official 2006 Basketball World Championship and co-hosted the 2023 Basketball World Championship. Tokyo hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2021, making Tokyo the first Asian city to host the Olympics twice. The country gained the hosting rights for the official Women's Volleyball World Championship on five occasions, more than any other country. Japan is the most successful Asian Rugby Union country and hosted the 2019 IRB Rugby World Cup.
See also
Index of Japan-related articles
Outline of Japan
Notes
References
External links
Government
JapanGov – The Government of Japan (in English)
Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet Official website (in English)
The Imperial Household Agency – official site of the Imperial House of Japan (archived November 20, 2016)
National Diet Library
General information
Japan from UCB Libraries GovPubs (archived April 21, 2009)
Japan from BBC News
Japan from the OECD
Geographic data related to Japan at OpenStreetMap |
Crown_Australian_Poker_Championship | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Australian_Poker_Championship | [
617
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Australian_Poker_Championship"
] | The Australian Poker Championship, commonly known as Aussie Millions, is a series of poker tournaments held at the Crown Casino, in Melbourne, Australia. The Main Event of the series is the Southern Hemisphere's richest poker tournament with a prize pool in excess of A$7 million.
History
Poker at Crown was introduced in June 1997, with the first major championship held shortly after in July 1998. The Main Event was a $1,000 buy in Limit Holdem tournament that attracted 74 entries with a $74,000 prize pool. The Crown Australian Poker Championship, or the 'Aussie Millions' as it became known, moved to January in 2001, attracting 40 entrants with a $5,000 buy in for a prize pool of $200,000. January 2003 saw the event go international, attracting a field of 122 entrants and a $1,200,000 prize pool. In January 2005, the Aussie Millions continued to grow with 263 participants paying $10,000 each to enter the No Limit Hold'em Main Event, generating the biggest prize pool ever in the Southern Hemisphere of $2,630,000. Over half the field was from overseas including players from New Zealand, England, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, the US, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Italy and Lebanon. In 2006, 418 players competed for a share of the $4,180,000 prize pool, including some of the biggest names in the Poker world such as WSOP Champion Joe Hachem, along with Phil Ivey, John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu. The 2007 championship commenced on Sunday 14 January 2007 with the final table held on Friday 19 January 2007. The buy-in was $10,500 ($10,000+$500). A record 747 players entered, which generated a prize pool of $7,470,000. The top 80 players were "in the money" and received between $15,000 and $1,500,000 each.
The 2008 championship concluded on Sunday 20 January 2008 with the winner being the 21-year-old Russian Alexander Kostritsyn. The buy-in was $10,500 ($10,000+$500). A record 780 players entered, which generated a prize pool of $7,800,000. The top 80 players were "in the money" and received between $15,000 and $1,650,000 each. The 2009 event will feature a total of 15 tournaments. The Main Event will have a guaranteed $2 million first prize. It will also feature ten players taking part in the first Million Dollar Poker Cash Game, the largest poker game of its kind anywhere in the world. Ten players will be required to stake a minimum of $1 million, though it is expected that some players will bring more to the table. The Aussie Millions is now regarded as the largest poker tournament in the Southern Hemisphere and the sixth-largest internationally (by prize pool).
Television
In 2013, Crown's Aussie Millions Poker Championship television coverage, produced by McGuire Media in conjunction with Poker PROductions, was a nine-episode series broadcast on One HD and ESPN Australia. The series was hosted by Lynn Gilmartin, with commentary by Joe Hachem and Jonno Pittock, as well as pro analysis by Antonio Esfandiari.
Main Event structure
The structure of the Main Event is slightly different from that of most other major tournaments. While most major Hold 'em tournaments, including the World Series of Poker Main Event, play at nine-handed tables throughout, the Aussie Millions Main Event begins with eight-handed tables. Play continues eight-handed until the field is reduced to 36 players, at which point all tables are six-handed. The 2009 Aussie Millions Main Event structure will see Day 1 divided into three flights, with blind levels of 90 minutes' duration. From Day 2 until the completion of the tournament, the blind levels are 120 minutes long.
High roller events
The Aussie Millions is also known for its high roller tournaments, which have featured some of the highest buy-ins in history.
$100,000 Challenge
The high roller trend began in 2006 when the Aussie Millions launched its $100,000 No Limit Holdem Challenge (actual buy in is $100,500, including the $500 entry fee), at that time billed as the highest buy-in of any poker tournament in history. It has a particularly unusual structure:
Players start with 100,000 chips, a comparatively larger amount compared to both the Aussie Millions and WSOP Main Events.
Betting is pot limit preflop and no limit afterwards.
Players are allowed only 30 seconds to act on their hands. At the start of the tournament, each player is given three extensions of 30 seconds each for use during the tournament.
The $100,000 Challenge was first played in 2006, with 10 entrants. Eighteen entered the Challenge in 2007, 25 in 2008, and 24 in 2010. Daniel Shak won the 2010 tournament for a total prize of A$1,200,000. A record field of 38 played in the 2011 edition.
$250,000 Super High Roller
With a number of other poker events adding tournaments with buy-ins comparable to that of the $100,000 Challenge, the Aussie Millions added a tournament with a $250,000 buy-in in 2011, which the organisers again claimed as the world's highest. (Since then, the World Series of Poker has held an official event with a US$1 million buy-in.) It was originally scheduled to be a heads-up no-limit event, but the organisers changed the format twice, settling on what they thought would be a single-table no-limit hold 'em tournament. However, 20 players entered the inaugural $250K tournament, including major stars Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Tom Dwan, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, David Benyamine and Annette Obrestad, plus Sam Trickett, who had just won that year's $100K event. Seidel, who had finished second in the $100K event, won the $2.5 million first prize, defeating Trickett in heads-up play.
The 2012 event was won by Ivey, who defeated 15 other players to win $2 million, the largest prize of his career. Trickett won the 2013 event, also winning $2 million after defeating 17 other players.
Results
Main Event Winners
1998 Australian Poker Championships (Limit Hold'em)
Buy-in: $1,000
Date: 26 July 1998
Number of buy-ins: 74
Total Prize Pool: $74,000
Number of Payouts: 9
1999 Australian Poker Championships (Pot-Limit Hold'em)
Buy-in: $1,000
Date: August 1999
Number of buy-ins: 109
Total Prize Pool: $109,000
Number of Payouts: 18
2000 Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $1,500
Date: Sunday, 27 August 2000
Number of buy-ins: 109
Total Prize Pool: $173,500
Number of Payouts: 18
2001 Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $1,500
Date: Friday, 24 August 2001
Number of buy-ins: 101
Total Prize Pool: $151,500
Number of Payouts: 18
2002 Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $5,000
2-Day Event: Friday, 11 January 2002 to Saturday, 12 January 2002
Number of buy-ins: 66
Total Prize Pool: $330,000
Number of Payouts: 10
2003 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
Date: Sunday, 12 January 2003
Number of buy-ins: 122
Total Prize Pool: $1,220,000
Number of Payouts: 18
2004 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
Date: Thursday, 15 January 2004
Number of buy-ins: 133
Total Prize Pool: $1,330,000
Number of Payouts: 18
2005 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
3-Day Event: Tuesday, 18 January 2005 to Thursday, 20 January 2005
Number of buy-ins: 263
Total Prize Pool: $2,630,000
Number of Payouts: 40
2006 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
6-Day Event: Saturday, 14 January 2006 to Thursday, 19 January 2006
Number of buy-ins: 418
Total Prize Pool: $4,180,000
Number of Payouts: 48
2007 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
6-Day Event: Sunday, 14 January 2007 to Friday, 19 January 2007
Number of buy-ins: 747
Total Prize Pool: $7,470,000
Number of Payouts: 80
2008 Crown Australian Poker Championships
Buy-in: $10,000
6-Day Event: Sunday, 14 January 2008 to Friday, 19 January 2008
Number of buy-ins: 780
Total Prize Pool: A$7,758,500
Number of Payouts: 80
2009 Crown Australian Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
7-Day Event: Saturday, 17 January 2009 to Friday, 23 January 2009
Number of buy-ins: 681
Total Prize Pool: $6,810,000
Number of Payouts: 64
2010 Crown Australian Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
7-Day Event: Sunday, 24 January 2010 to Saturday, 30 January 2010
Number of buy-ins: 746
Total Prize Pool: $7,460,000
Number of Payouts: 72
2011 Crown Australian Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
7-Day Event: Sunday, 23 January 2011 to Saturday, 29 January 2011
Number of buy-ins: 721
Total Prize Pool: $7,210,000
Number of Payouts: 72
2012 Crown Australian Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
7-Day Event: Sunday, 22 January 2012 to Saturday, 28 January 2012
Number of buy-ins: 659
Total Prize Pool: $6,590,000
Number of Payouts: 72
2013 Crown Australian Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
7-Day Event: Sunday, 27 January to Saturday, 2 February 2013
Number of buy-ins: 629
Total Prize Pool: $6,290,000
Number of Payouts: 64
2014 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
7-Day Event: Sunday, 2 February to Sunday, 9 February 2014
Number of buy-ins: 668
Total Prize Pool: $6,680,000
Number of Payouts: 72
2015 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
7-Day Event: 25 January–1 February
Number of buy-ins: 648
Total Prize Pool: $6,480,000
Number of Payouts: 72
2016 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
6-Day Event: 25–31 January
Number of buy-ins: 732
Total Prize Pool: $7,320,000
Number of Payouts: 81
2017 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,000
9-Day Event: 22–30 January
Number of buy-ins: 725
Total Prize Pool: $7,685,000
Number of Payouts: 80
2018 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
8-Day Event: 28 January–4 February
Number of buy-ins: 800
Total Prize Pool: $8,000,000
Number of Payouts: 88
2019 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
7-Day Event: 28 January–3 February
Number of buy-ins: 822
Total Prize Pool: $8,220,000
Number of Payouts: 88
*-The final three players made a deal, with Kenney being crowned champion
2020 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Buy-in: $10,600
7-Day Event: 17–24 January 2020
Number of buy-ins: 820
Total Prize Pool: $8,200,000
Number of Payouts: 88
* - Denotes deal between the final three players
2021 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
POSTPONED due Covid-19 - The popular annual Australian poker extravaganza is officially postponed. But organizers for the popular event hope to reschedule it for later in the year. "Crown will continue to monitor and review the situation, working closely with the Victorian Government and health authorities to determine if and when such events can be safely revisited. We look forward to scheduling these long-standing annual events when it is deemed safe for us to do so."
2022 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
A new responsible gambling policy released in 2021 make Crown Melbourne rethink poker tournament and live tables ath their Casino. According Crown, the new policy have a "12 Hour Daily Visit" for all guests, and this will make poker tournaments unvaliable at Crown Casino. "It doesn’t look like the Aussie Millions will be back anytime soon" – PMAunderstands Crown Melbourne has yet to appoint a new tournament director, no surprise given the pandemic-related issued of the past two years.
2023 Aussie Millions Poker Championship
Poker Tournaments will no longer be running at Crown - The popular Australian tournament series last ran in January 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live poker at many casinos around the world. Three years later, it seems unlikely the Aussie Millions will be returning because Victoria recently announced a package of reforms for Crown Melbourne stemming from a royal commission inquiry which found the casino unfit to hold a license.
High Roller Winners (A$100,000 Challenge)
Super High Roller Winners (A$250,000 Challenge)
References
External links
Official site Archived 15 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine |
Alexander_Kostritsyn | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kostritsyn | [
617
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kostritsyn"
] | Alexander Kostritsyn (born 1986) is a Russian professional poker player considered among the best online cash game players in the world. Kostritsyn plays under the alias joiso on PokerStars and PostflopAction on Full Tilt Poker.
In 2010, Kostritsyn won Event No. 9 at the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker for $269,284. Kostritsyn described winning $2.7 million online in 2013 as not a big winning streak for the stakes being played.
Kostritsyn won the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event for $1,450,396 defeating eight-time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel heads up. As of 2015, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,000,000.
References
External links
Card Player profile
Hendon Mob profile
WPT profile
WSOP profile |
World_Championship_of_Online_Poker | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Championship_of_Online_Poker | [
617
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Championship_of_Online_Poker"
] | The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is an online poker tournament series sponsored by PokerStars. It is played on the PokerStars website in September.
Established in 2002, WCOOP is PokerStars' attempt to establish the online equivalent of the World Series of Poker. The WCOOP tournament series is the largest of its kind on the Internet.
The fifteen WCOOP events in 2005 generated $12,783,900 in prize money, making it not only the biggest ever online poker event, but the third biggest poker series (live or online) in all of 2005.
Keeping with the tradition of the World Series of Poker, the WCOOP is a series of tournaments in which players compete in a variety of different poker games, each with different buy-in and prize levels. The games featured are Limit, Pot Limit and No Limit Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Pot Limit Omaha High and Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, and H.O.R.S.E. In 2007, 5 Card Draw and 2-7 Triple draw were added. 2-7 Single Draw and mixed limit games were added in 2008, and Badugi was added in 2009. The main event is No Limit Hold'em.
In addition to the cash prize, the winner of each WCOOP event received a personally engraved 14 karat gold bracelet from PokerStars up until 2015. Since then, PokerStars has discontinued awarding bracelets to save costs.
2002 events
The 2002 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of nine events with over $730,000 in combined prizes. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below.
2003 events
The 2003 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 11 events with a total prize pool of over $2.7 million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below.
2004 events
The 2004 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 12 events with a total prize pool of over $6 Million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below.
2005 events
The 2005 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 15 events with a total prize pool of over $12 Million. The events, buy-ins, and winners are listed below.
2006 events
The 2006 World Championship of Online Poker consisted of 18 events. The schedule including buy in for each event is listed below. 2006 WCOOP Total Prize Pool was $18,674,300
1spawng becomes first player to win 2 WCOOP Bracelets.
²kwob20 becomes first player to win 2 WCOOP bracelets in one year
³The original first prize was to be $1,157,737.50, but the final six players in the tournament struck a deal to more evenly divide the prize money.
2007 events
The 2007 World Championship of Online Poker consists of 23 events. The schedule including buy in for each event is listed below. 2007 WCOOP Total Prize Pool was $24,218,600
The event was marred by controversy when the original winner of the main event, TheV0id was disqualified for using multiple accounts in the tournament following an investigation by PokerStars.
1Original winner, Mark 'TheV0id' Teltscher, disqualified.
2008 events
There were 33 events played in the September 2008 WCOOP. Each day of the 2008 WCOOP featured two events.
1This event uses the same blind structure on the previous event (No Limit Hold'em)
2 the player known as "liberace" who was the runner-up of the $5,200 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event, won more than the winner due to an earlier chop while five handed of $1,375,249
2009 events
There were 45 events in the 2009 WCOOP, including Badugi, big antes No Limit Hold'em, and some new formats. A total of 43,973 unique players in 140 countries participated, making a total prize pool of $51,652,800.
1Holds the record for the largest WCOOP field ever.
2This event uses the 9x awards structure.
2010 events
There were 62 events in the 2010 WCOOP.
* next to the first place prize denotes a deal was made at the final table, original first place prizes are hidden and can be seen in edit mode
** This event was originally scheduled on one day before the date listed above and listed at event 39, but the order was changed so that events 40 and 41 were run before this one.
1g0lfa (Ryan D'Angelo) becomes first player to win 3 WCOOP Bracelets.
2Largest amount of money won in online poker history, 2010 Main Event (Tyson "POTTERPOKER" Marks)
2011 events
There were 62 events in the 2011 WCOOP.
This was the first WCOOP series since Black Friday 2011, A legal action by the U.S. Government that forbids people living in the United States from playing poker for real money on the site due to banking regulations, as a result there are many current or former US citizens playing online from other countries the following list reflects as always the nations where the winners were logged-in at the time of the event.
2012 events
There were 65 events in the 2012 WCOOP.
The following list reflects, as always, the nations where the winners were logged-in at the time of the event.
2013 events
There were 66 events in the 2013 WCOOP.
2014 events
There were 66 events in the 2014 WCOOP.
2015 events
There were 70 events in the 2015 WCOOP.
2016 events
There were 82 events in the 2016 WCOOP.
2017 events
There were 82 "High" events in the 2017 WCOOP, and PokerStars also introduced a "Low" buy-in WCOOP series, with the same events, to run concurrently.
HIGH
LOW
† includes bounties
2018 events
There were 186 events in the 2018 WCOOP.
2019 events
There were 219 tournaments during WCOOP 2019 including a tie-in with UFC, which awarded winners tickets to a UFC bout in New York.
†including bounties
denotes deal
2020 events
WCOOP Main Event winners
WCOOP Player of the Series
WCOOP multiple event winners
Up to Season 17 (2018)
WCOOP bracelet winners by country
Below is a breakdown of the login countries of all bracelet winners in the history of the WCOOP:
USA - 103
Canada - 80
Russia - 60
United Kingdom - 50
Mexico - 35
Sweden - 31
Norway - 24
Germany - 24
Netherlands - 23
Finland - 17
Australia - 17
Poland - 15
Denmark - 14
Austria - 12
Brazil - 12
Hungary - 11
Belgium - 8
Ukraine - 7
France - 7
Argentina - 7
Bulgaria - 6
Romania - 6
Costa Rica - 5
Ireland - 5
Czech Republic - 5
Greece - 4
Cyprus - 4
Malta - 3
Taiwan - 3
South Africa - 3
Philippines - 1
Slovenia - 1
Kazakhstan - 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 1
Uruguay - 1
Chile - 1
Croatia - 1
Armenia - 1
WCOOP Challenge Series
Challenge Series 1 (2013)
Challenge Series 2 (2014)
Challenge Series 3 (2014)
WCOOP Challenge winners by country
Austria - 2
Brazil - 2
Canada - 2
Finland - 2
Israel - 2
Mexico - 2
United Kingdom - 2
Australia - 1
Czech Republic - 1
Denmark - 1
Estonia - 1
Germany - 1
Netherlands - 1
Norway - 1
Peru - 1
Poland - 1
Romania - 1
Singapore - 1
Sweden - 1
See also
World Cup of Poker
Full Tilt Online Poker Series
PlayWCOOP
References
External links
Official site Archived 2009-07-22 at the Wayback Machine
Pokerstars.com WCOOP site
Pokerstars.tv live WCOOP broadcasts
CBS News Story about a group of friends who played on one account together in the WCOOP and made decisions jointly. |
List_of_Canadian_federal_general_elections | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_federal_general_elections | [
618
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_federal_general_elections"
] | This article provides a summary of results for Canadian general elections (where all seats are contested) to the House of Commons, the elected lower half of Canada's federal bicameral legislative body, the Parliament of Canada. The number of seats has increased steadily over time, from 180 for the first election to the current total of 338. The current federal government structure was established in 1867 by the Constitution Act.
For federal by-elections (for one or a few seats as a result of retirement, etc.) see List of federal by-elections in Canada. For the eight general elections of the Province of Canada held in 1843 to 1864 before confederation in 1867, see List of elections in the Province of Canada. There were also earlier elections in Canada, such as for the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada (held in 1792–1836, now part of Ontario) and the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (held in 1792–1834, now part of Quebec).
Two political parties have dominated politics in Canada: the Liberal Party and the historic Conservative party (known as the Progressive Conservative Party from 1942 to 2003). If one regards the modern Conservative Party as the successor to the historic one, then these are the only two parties to have formed a government, although often as the lead party in a minority or coalition government with one or more smaller parties (the 1917 win was by a pro-conscription Unionist coalition of former Liberals and Conservatives).
Although government has primarily been a two-party system, Canadian federal politics has been a multi-party affair since the 1920s, during which there was significant parliamentary presence of the Progressive Party and the United Farmers movement. They were supplanted by the Social Credit Party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in the 1930s. The CCF evolved into the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. The Social Credit Party and the CCF/NDP won the third and fourth most seats between them from the 1930s, until the Social Credit Party failed to win any seats in the 1980 election.
Since 1980, the NDP has remained a presence in the Canadian parliament, but the situation amongst other non-government parties has been more complex. The Progressive Conservative Party never recovered from its spectacular defeat in the 1993 election (when it went from being the majority government with 169 seats, to just two seats and the loss of official party status). Right-wing politics has since seen the rise and fall of the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance, followed by the rise to government of the new Conservative Party. Further, in 1993 the separatist Bloc Québécois won seats for the first time. It has been a constant presence in parliament since then.
Summary of results
The third, fourth, and fifth parties' results are included in "Other" if the party did not win at least four seats in an election at some point in its history. Results for parties placing sixth or lower (as in the 1926 election) are also included in "Other", as are Independent seats.
Notes
Further reading
Argyle, Ray (2004). Turning Points: The Campaigns That Changed Canada 2004 and Before. Toronto: White Knight Publications. ISBN 978-0-9734186-6-8. – covers federal elections of 1878, 1896, 1911, 1917, 1926, 1945, 1957, 1968, 1988, and 2004
MacIvor, Heather, ed. (2010). Election. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. ISBN 978-1-55239-321-5.
Graphs of results
Bar graph of seats from 1867 to 2021
Line graph of votes
See also
2021 Canadian federal election
Elections in Canada
List of elections in the Province of Canada (pre-Confederation)
List of federal by-elections in Canada
List of political parties in Canada
Voter turnout in Canada
References
"History of Federal Ridings since 1867". Parliament of Canada. Archived from the original on 2011-01-01. Retrieved 2007-01-07. |
Results_of_the_2011_Canadian_federal_election | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2011_Canadian_federal_election | [
618
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2011_Canadian_federal_election"
] | The 41st Canadian federal election was held on May 2, 2011. It resulted in a Conservative majority government under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was the third consecutive election win for Harper, and with 166 of 308 seats, giving them a majority government for the first time in their eight-year history. It was also the first right-of-centre majority government since the Progressive Conservatives won their last majority in 1988. The Conservative Party won 39.62% of the popular vote, an increase of 1.96%, and posted a net gain of 24 seats in the House of Commons.
The election resulted in significant upheaval within the opposition parties, as the New Democratic Party (NDP) rode an "orange surge" in the polls during the campaign to 103 seats, becoming Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition for the first time in party history. The total eclipsed the party's previous best of 43 seats in 1988. The Liberals however were reduced to third party status nationwide. They returned only 34 MPs, less than half of what they had at dissolution. It was the first time in Canadian history that the Liberals were not one of the top two parties in the house. Green Party leader Elizabeth May won in her riding, becoming the first Green Party candidate elected to a governmental body in Canada, and to a national body in North America.
Following their staggering defeats, including losing their own seats, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff both announced their resignations as party leaders.
Vote total
Synopsis of results
= results as certified in a judicial recount
= open seat
= turnout is above national average
= incumbency arose from byelection gain
= incumbent switched allegiance after 2008 election
= other incumbents defeated
Party summaries
Conservatives
The Conservatives, who had been leading in the polls since the writs were dropped, won 166 seats - enough for the first Conservative majority government since the Progressive Conservative-Canadian Alliance merger that formed the party in 2003. Notably, the Tories made significant inroads in Toronto, taking eight seats there. While the Tories had won a few seats in the Toronto suburbs since the PC-Canadian Alliance merger, this was the first time a right-of-centre party had won seats in the former Metro Toronto itself since the PC meltdown of 1993. Combined with their traditionally heavy support in the west, this was enough to win a 14-seat majority with 39.62 percent of the national popular vote - a result also notable for being the first time the modern Conservative party successfully polled a larger share of the vote than the combined tally of the PC and CA parties in the election preceding their merger.
Despite winning a majority government, the Conservatives lost over half their seats in Quebec to the NDP, retaining only five seats in that province.
New Democrats
The NDP had a major windfall, emerging as a truly national party for the first time in its 50-year history. They won 103 seats—more than double their previous high (when they won 43 seats in 1988). Much of this was due to a breakthrough in Quebec, a province where they had been more or less nonexistent for the better part of their history. From only one seat at dissolution, the NDP took 59 of 75 seats there, dominating Montreal and sweeping Quebec City and the Outaouais. By comparison, the NDP had only won one other seat in Quebec in its entire history prior to 2011 (and had held only one other seat, via a floor-crossing). It had not even been fully organized in the province since 1990, when its Quebec wing seceded to preach sovereigntism. The 59 seats won by the NDP in Quebec is the most won by any party in that province since the Progressive Conservatives won 63 seats there in 1988. In several cases, NDP candidates in Quebec won handily even though they didn't even actively campaign.
Among the new NDP MPs were several university students. Five members of the McGill University NDP club—Charmaine Borg, Matthew Dubé, Mylène Freeman, Laurin Liu, and Jamie Nicholls—were elected from Montreal-area ridings. Liu is the youngest woman ever elected to Parliament. Also elected was Pierre-Luc Dusseault, a freshman at the Université de Sherbrooke; his victory in Sherbrooke, Quebec makes him the youngest MP in Canadian history (he only turned 20 two days before he was sworn in).
However, they were unable to make much of an impact in their former western heartland. They actually lost Elmwood—Transcona, the former seat of longtime MP and former deputy leader Bill Blaikie, by only 300 votes.
Liberals
Winning only 34 seats, the Liberals suffered the worst result in their history. They sat as the third party in the 41st Parliament, the first since Confederation where the Liberals did not form either the Government or the Official Opposition in the House of Commons. This was the worst showing for an incumbent Official Opposition party in terms of seats, and the lowest percentage for a national Official Opposition party (the Bloc Québécois in 1997 won more seats with a smaller vote share on account of its being a regional party).
The Liberals' poor showing was largely due to a collapse of their support in Montreal and Toronto, which had been the backbones of Liberal support for almost two decades. With few exceptions, their support in Toronto flowed to the Tories, while most of their base in Montreal switched to the NDP.
In 2008, they won 20 out of the 23 ridings fully or partially within Toronto. However, in 2011, they only won six, losing 6 to the NDP and 9 to the Conservatives. Additionally, after going into the election holding 30 of the 44 seats in the Greater Toronto Area, they only won seven in 2011.
In Montreal, the Liberals lost five of their 12 seats, and came close to losing several more. Most notably, they came within 2,500 votes of losing Mount Royal, long reckoned as the safest Liberal riding in the nation.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff lost his seat of Etobicoke—Lakeshore to first time challenger Bernard Trottier by a margin of 5.27% of the total votes. Other famous MP's who also lost their seats are Ken Dryden (York Centre), Dan McTeague (Pickering—Scarborough East), Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale—High Park), Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South) and Joe Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence).
All told, the Liberals only won 11 seats in Ontario (all but four in Toronto) and seven in Quebec (all in Montreal)—the fewest the party has ever won in either province. They went into the next Parliament holding only four seats west of Ontario (Winnipeg North, Wascana, Vancouver Centre and Vancouver Quadra).
Bloc Québécois
The Bloc was practically eliminated from the scene, losing 43 seats. This reduced them to a rump of four seats, only a third of the number required for official party status. In many cases, they lost seats they held since their debut performance in 1993. With few exceptions, their support bled over to the NDP. Notably, the Bloc lost all but one seat in the Montreal area. This included all of their seats in the eastern part of the city, the birthplace of the sovereigntist movement. The Bloc went into the election holding all but one seat in eastern Montreal, but lost all of them to the NDP. They also lost all or most of their seats in their longstanding strongholds in the rest of the province, such as Quebec City and central Quebec. Several Bloc MPs who had never had serious difficulty being reelected ended up losing their seats in landslides. Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, at the time the longest-tenured party leader in Canada, lost his seat in Laurier—Sainte-Marie to NDP challenger Hélène Laverdière.
Greens
Despite losing a significant share of the national vote compared to the 2008 election, Green Party leader Elizabeth May became the first Green Party member elected to the Canadian Parliament.
Vote and seat summaries
Gains, holds and losses
Incumbents defeated
Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff lost his riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore to Bernard Trottier, a Conservative, and the following day he announced he would resign as Liberal leader. Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Québécois and incumbent in Laurier—Sainte-Marie was defeated by Hélène Laverdière of the NDP and announced his intention to resign as leader of the Bloc.
Four Cabinet ministers, Lawrence Cannon (Foreign Affairs), Gary Lunn (Sport), Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Veterans Affairs and Agriculture), and Josée Verner (Intergovernmental Affairs and Francophonie) lost their seats. Lunn lost to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and the NDP won the other three seats.
Open seats
The Bloc gained Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia by the largest margin of victory of their four seats won and vacated by a long-standing member of the Bloc Québécois.
The Conservatives gained Calgary Centre-North and Prince George—Peace River, both vacated by long-standing Conservatives.
Results by province
British Columbia
Prairie provinces
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Atlantic provinces
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Prince Edward Island
Newfoundland and Labrador
Results by territory
See also
Results of the 2011 Canadian federal election by riding
== References == |
Fullmetal_Alchemist | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist | [
619
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist"
] | Fullmetal Alchemist (Japanese: 鋼の錬金術師, Hepburn: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, lit. "Alchemist of Steel") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. It was serialized in Square Enix's shōnen manga anthology magazine Monthly Shōnen Gangan between July 2001 and June 2010; the publisher later collected the individual chapters in 27 tankōbon volumes. The steampunk world of Fullmetal Alchemist is primarily styled after the European Industrial Revolution. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is a widely practiced science, the series follows the journey of two alchemist brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who are searching for the philosopher's stone to restore their bodies after a failed attempt to bring their mother back to life using alchemy.
Fullmetal Alchemist has been adapted into various anime—two television series, released in 2003 and 2009, and two films, released in 2005 and 2011, all animated by Bones—as well as light novels. The series has generated original video animations (OVAs), video games, supplementary books, a collectible card game, and a variety of action figures and other merchandise. A live-action film based on the series was released in 2017, and two sequels in 2022. In North America, the manga was localized and published in English by Viz Media. Yen Press has the rights for the digital release of the volumes since 2014.
The manga has sold over 80 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. It received the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category in 2004, the UK's Eagle Award for favorite manga in 2010 and 2011, and the Seiun Award for best science fiction comic in 2011. Fullmetal Alchemist has received very positive reviews from critics, particularly for its character development, action scenes, symbolism, and philosophical references.
Synopsis
Setting
Fullmetal Alchemist takes place in the fictional country of Amestris (アメストリス, Amesutorisu). In this world, alchemy is one of the most-practiced sciences; alchemists who work for the government are known as State Alchemists (国家錬金術師, Kokka Renkinjutsushi) and are automatically given the rank of major in the military. Alchemists have the ability, with the help of patterns called transmutation circles, to create almost anything they desire. However, when they do so, they must provide something of equal value in accordance with the Law of Equivalent Exchange. The only things alchemists are forbidden from transmuting are humans and gold. There has never been a successful human transmutation; those who attempt it lose a part of their body, and the result is an inhuman mass. Attemptees are confronted by Truth (真理, Shinri), a pantheistic and semi-cerebral God-like being who tauntingly regulates all alchemy use, and whose nigh-featureless appearance is relative to the person with whom Truth converses; it is frequently claimed and believed that Truth is a personal God who punishes the arrogant.
Attemptees of human transmutation are also thrown into the Gate of Truth (真理の扉, Shinri no Tobira), where they receive an overwhelming dose of information, but also allowing them to transmute without a circle. All living things possess their own Gate of Truth, and per the Gaea hypothesis, heavenly bodies like planets also have their own Gates of Truth. It is possible to bypass the Law of Equivalent Exchange using a Philosopher's Stone, a red, enigmatic substance. Philosopher's Stones are used to create Homunculi, artificial humans of proud nature who are named after and embody the seven deadly sins; Homunculi have numerous superhuman abilities unique among each other, and look down upon all humanity. With the exception of one, they do not age and can only be killed via the destruction of their Philosopher's Stones.
There are several cities throughout Amestris. The main setting is the capital of Central City (セントラルシティ, Sentoraru Shiti), along with other military cities such as the northern city of Briggs (ブリッグズ, Burigguzu). Towns featured include Resembool (リゼンブール, Rizenbūru), the rural hometown of the Elrics; Liore (リオール, Riōru), a city tricked into following a cult; Rush Valley (ラッシュバレー, Rasshu Barē), a town that specializes in automail manufacturing; and Ishbal, a conservative-religion region that rejects alchemy and was destroyed in the Ishbalan Civil War instigated after a soldier shot an Ishbalan child. Outside of Amestris, there are few named countries, and none are seen in the main story. The main foreign country is Xing. Heavily reminiscent of China, Xing has a complex system of clans and emperors, as opposed to Amestris's government-controlled election of a Führer. It also has its own system of alchemy, called alkahestry (錬丹術, rentanjutsu), which is more medical and can be bi-located using kunai; in turn, it is implied that all countries have different forms of alchemy.
Plot
Edward and Alphonse Elric live in Resembool with their mother Trisha and father Van Hohenheim. For unknown reasons, Hohenheim abandons them, and Trisha soon dies from an illness. After finishing their alchemy training under Izumi Curtis, the Elrics attempt to bring their mother back with alchemy. However, the transmutation backfires, and Edward loses his left leg while Alphonse is completely deconstructed. Edward sacrifices his right arm to retrieve Alphonse's soul, binding it to a suit of armor. Edward is invited by Roy Mustang to become a State Alchemist and research a way to restore their bodies, undergoing a painful medical procedure that grants him prosthetic automail limbs. Edward becomes a State Alchemist, with the title of Fullmetal Alchemist. The Elrics spend the next three years searching for the Philosopher's Stone to achieve their goals.
The Elrics are eventually attacked by an Ishbalan serial killer known as Scar, who targets State Alchemists in revenge for his people's genocide in the Ishbalan civil war. Returning to Resembool to have Edward's limbs repaired by their childhood friend and mechanic, Winry Rockbell, the Elrics meet Dr. Marcoh, who provides them with clues to learn that a Philosopher's Stone is created from human souls. They investigate a laboratory in which the Stones were created, but are hindered by the Homunculi. The Elrics decide to visit Izumi, hoping to improve their alchemy. Mustang's friend Maes Hughes continues the Elrics' research and finds out about a government conspiracy, but is killed by the homunculus Envy. The Elrics learn that Izumi also performed human transmutation, having attempted to use alchemy to revive her stillborn child. Alphonse is captured by the homunculus Greed, but is rescued by Amestris' leader King Bradley. Bradley is revealed to be the homunculus Wrath and brings the captured Greed to the Homunculi's creator, Father. When Greed refuses to rejoin his fellow Homunculi, he is reabsorbed by Father.
After meeting the Xingese prince Lin Yao, who seeks a Philosopher's Stone to cement his position as heir to his country's throne, the Elrics return to Central City, where they learn of Hughes's murder. Lieutenant Maria Ross is framed for Hughes' murder, so Mustang fakes Ross's death and smuggles her out of the country. In encounters with the Homunculi, Mustang kills Lust. Lin captures Gluttony, who swallows Lin, Edward, and Envy into his void-like stomach. They escape from Gluttony's stomach after he takes Alphonse to meet Father, who makes Lin the vessel of Greed. Mustang tries to expose Bradley to the government but finds that the higher officials are complicit in Father's plans. The Elrics and Mustang are released, but warned not to oppose Father, who seeks to use them as "human sacrifices". Meanwhile, Scar heads north with the Xingese princess May Chang, former corrupt official Yoki, and a kidnapped Dr. Marcoh.
The Elrics head north as well, and reach Fort Briggs, commanded by General Olivier Armstrong. They confront the homunculus Sloth and learn that Father founded Amestris to amass enough population to create a massive Philosopher's Stone. With it, he can achieve godhood by absorbing the being beyond the Gate of Truth on the "Promised Day". Forced to work with Solf Kimblee, a murderous former State Alchemist and ally of the Homunculi, the Elrics turn on him and split up, joined by a reformed Scar, his group, Kimblee's chimera subordinates, and later Lin/Greed. Riza Hawkeye discovers that King Bradley's son Selim is the homunculus Pride. Hohenheim reveals that he was made an immortal when Father arranged the fall of Cselkcess (クセルクセス, Kuserukusesu) four centuries ago and had been working since then to stop Father.
The Promised Day arrives, with Father planning to use an eclipse and 'human sacrifices'— alchemists who have performed human transmutation — to trigger his own transmutation. Wrath and Pride force Mustang to perform the human transmutation, blinding him. The Elrics and their comrades battle Father's minions, resulting in Pride being reduced to an infant, Greed sacrificing himself to save Lin, and the other homunculi as well as Kimblee dying. However, Father manages to activate the nationwide transmutation circle and absorbs the superior being. Hohenheim and Scar activate countermeasures, draining much of Father's absorbed souls, and rendering him unstable. The Elrics and their comrades face Father, who nearly destroy Alphonse's armor. Alphonse sacrifices his soul to restore Edward's right arm. Edward defeats Father, who is dragged into the Gate of Truth. Edward sacrifices his ability to perform alchemy to fully restore Alphonse, while Lin receives a Philosopher's Stone. Hohenheim goes to visit Trisha's grave, where he dies peacefully. The Elrics return home and separate two years later to further research alchemy. Years later, Edward and Winry marry and have two children.
Production
Development
After reading about the concept of the Philosopher's Stone, Arakawa became attracted to the idea of her characters using alchemy in the manga. She started reading books about alchemy, which she found complicated because some books contradict others. Arakawa was attracted more by the philosophical aspects than the practical ones. For the Equivalent Exchange (等価交換, Tōka Kōkan) concept, she was inspired by the work of her parents, who had a farm in Hokkaido and worked hard to earn the money to eat.
Arakawa wanted to integrate social problems into the story. Her research involved watching television news programs and talking to refugees, war veterans and former yakuza. Several plot elements, such as Pinako Rockbell caring for the Elric brothers after their mother dies, and the brothers helping people to understand the meaning of family, expand on these themes. When creating the fictional world of Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa was inspired after reading about the Industrial Revolution in Europe; she was amazed by differences in the culture, architecture, and clothes of the era and those of her own culture. She was especially interested in England during this period and incorporated these ideas into the manga. The series has a steampunk setting. The Ishbal region has similarities to the Middle East, with the plot anticipating elements of the Iraq War which later occurred in the real world.
When the manga began serialization, Arakawa was considering several major plot points, including the ending. She wanted the Elric brothers to recover their bodies—at least partly. As the plot continued, she thought that some characters were maturing and decided to change some scenes. Arakawa said the manga authors Suihō Tagawa and Hiroyuki Eto are her main inspirations for her character designs; she describes her artwork as a mix of both of them. She found that the easiest of the series's characters to draw were Alex Louis Armstrong, and the little animals. Arakawa likes dogs so she included several of them in the story. Arakawa made comedy central to the manga's story because she thinks it is intended for entertainment, and tried to minimize sad scenes.
Conclusion
When around forty manga chapters had been published, Arakawa said that as the series was nearing its end and she would try to increase the pace of the narrative. To avoid making some chapters less entertaining than others, unnecessary details from each of them were removed and a climax was developed. The removal of minor details was also necessary because Arakawa had too few pages in Monthly Shōnen Gangan to include all the story content she wanted to add. Some characters' appearances were limited in some chapters. At first, Arakawa thought the series would last 21 volumes but the length increased to 27. Serialization finished after nine years, and Arakawa was satisfied with her work because she had told everything she wanted with the manga.
During the development of the first anime, Arakawa allowed the anime staff to work independently from her and requested a different ending from that of the manga. She said that she would not like to repeat the same ending in both media, and wanted to make the manga longer so she could develop the characters. When watching the ending of the anime, she was amazed about how different the homunculi creatures were from the manga and enjoyed how the staff speculated about the origins of the villains. Because Arakawa helped the Bones staff in the making of the series, she was kept from focusing on the manga's cover illustrations and had little time to make them.
Themes and analysis
The series explores social problems, including discrimination, scientific advancement, political greed, brotherhood, family, and war. Scar's backstory and his hatred of the state military references the Ainu people, who had their land taken by other people. This includes the consequences of guerrilla warfare and the number of violent soldiers a military can have. Some of the people who took the Ainus' land were originally Ainu; this irony is referenced in Scar's use of alchemy to kill alchemists even though it was forbidden in his own religion. The Elrics being orphans and adopted by Pinako Rockbell reflects Arakawa's beliefs about the ways society should treat orphans. The characters' dedication to their occupations reference the need to work for food. The series also explores the concept of equivalent exchange; to obtain something new, one must pay with something of equal value. This is applied by alchemists when creating new materials and is also a philosophical belief the Elric brothers follow.
Media
Manga
Written and drawn by Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist was serialized in Square Enix's monthly manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Gangan. Its first installment was published in the magazine's August 2001 issue on July 12, 2001. The series finished with the 108th installment in the July 2010 issue of Monthly Shōnen Gangan, published on June 11, 2010. A side-story was published in the same magazine on September 11, 2010. In the July 2011 issue of the same magazine, the prototype version of the manga was published. Square Enix compiled the chapters in 27 tankōbon volumes, released from January 22, 2002, to November 22, 2010. A few chapters have been re-released in Japan in two "Extra number" magazines and Fullmetal Alchemist, The First Attack, which features the first nine chapters of the manga and other side stories. Square Enix republished the series in 18 kanzenban volumes, from June 22, 2011, to September 22, 2012.
In North America, Viz Media licensed the series for an English language release in North America and published the 27 volumes between May 3, 2005, and December 20, 2011. From June 7, 2011, to November 11, 2014, Viz Media published the series in an omnibus format, featuring three volumes in one. In April 2014, Yen Press announced the rights for the digital release of the volumes in North America, and on December 12, 2016, has released the series on the ComiXology website. Viz Media published the 18-volume kanzenban edition, as Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, from May 8, 2018, to August 23, 2022.
Other English localizations were done by Madman Entertainment for Australasia and Chuang Yi in Singapore. The series has been also localized in Polish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Korean.
Anime series
Fullmetal Alchemist was adapted into two separate anime series for television: a loose anime adaption with a mostly original story titled Fullmetal Alchemist in 2003–2004, and a retelling that faithfully adapts the original manga in 2009–2010 titled Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Theatrical films
Animation
Two feature-length anime films were produced; Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, a sequel/conclusion to the 2003 series, and Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos, set during the time period of Brotherhood.
Live-action
A live-action film based on the manga was released on November 19, 2017. Fumihiko Sori directed the film. The film stars Ryosuke Yamada as Edward Elric, Tsubasa Honda as Winry Rockbell and Dean Fujioka as Roy Mustang.
The sequels Fullmetal Alchemist: The Revenge of Scar (鋼の錬金術師 完結編 復讐者スカー, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Kanketsu-hen Fukushūsha Sukā) and Fullmetal Alchemist: The Last Transmutation (鋼の錬金術師 完結編 最後の錬成, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Kanketsu-hen Saigo no Rensei) were released on May 20 and June 24, 2022, respectively. They became available on Netflix on 20 August and 24 September respectively.
Light novels
Square Enix has published a series of six Fullmetal Alchemist Japanese light novels, written by Makoto Inoue and illustrations—including covers and frontispieces—by Arakawa. The novels were licensed for an English-language release by Viz Media in North America, with translations of the first five by Alexander O. Smith. The novels are spin-offs of the manga series and follow the Elric brothers on their continued quest for the philosopher's stone. The first novel, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand, was animated as episodes eleven and twelve of the first anime series. The fourth novel contains an extra story about the military called "Roy's Holiday". Novelizations of the PlayStation 2 games Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel, Curse of the Crimson Elixir, and The Girl Who Succeeds God have also been written, the first by Makoto Inoue and the rest by Jun Eishima. Two Wii games, Prince of the Dawn and Daughter of the Dusk, were also novelized in one volume by Sōji Machida.
Audio dramas
There have been two series of Fullmetal Alchemist audio dramas. The first volume of the first series, Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 1: The Land of Sand (砂礫の大地, Sareki no Daichi), was released before the anime and tells a similar story to the first novel. The Tringham brothers reprised their anime roles. Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 2: False Light, Truth's Shadow (偽りの光 真実の影, Itsuwari no Hikari, Shinjitsu no Kage) and Fullmetal Alchemist Vol. 3: Criminals' Scar (咎人たちの傷跡, Togabitotachi no Kizuato) are stories based on different manga chapters; their State Military characters are different from those in the anime. The second series of audio dramas, available only with purchases of Shōnen Gangan, consists of two stories in this series, each with two parts. The first, Fullmetal Alchemist: Ogutāre of the Fog (霧のオグターレ, Kiri no Ogutāre), was included in Shōnen Gangan's April and May 2004 issues; the second story, Fullmetal Alchemist: Crown of Heaven (天上の宝冠, Tenjō no Hōkan), was issued in the November and December 2004 issues.
Video games
Video games based on Fullmetal Alchemist have been released. The storylines of the games often diverge from those of the anime and manga, and feature original characters. Square Enix has released three role-playing games (RPG)—Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel, Curse of the Crimson Elixir, and Kami o Tsugu Shōjo. Bandai has released two RPG titles, Fullmetal Alchemist: Stray Rondo (鋼の錬金術師 迷走の輪舞曲, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Meisō no Rondo) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Sonata of Memory (鋼の錬金術師 想い出の奏鳴曲, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Omoide no Sonata), for the Game Boy Advance on March 25 and July 22, 2004, respectively, and one, Dual Sympathy, for the Nintendo DS. They also released an action game, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (鋼の錬金術師 背中を託せし者, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Senaka o Takuseshimono, lit. Fullmetal Alchemist: The Person Entrusted with his Back) for the PlayStation Portable in Japan on October 15, 2009, and in Australia and Europe on June 17 and July 1, 2010, respectively. In Japan, Bandai released an RPG Fullmetal Alchemist: To the Promised Day (鋼の錬金術師 Fullmetal Alchemist 約束の日へ, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Fullmetal Alchemist Yakusoku no Hi e) for the PlayStation Portable on May 20, 2010. Bandai also released a fighting game, Dream Carnival, for the PlayStation 2. For the Wii, Akatsuki no Ōji (暁の王子, lit. Fullmetal Alchemist: Prince of the Dawn) was released in Japan on August 13, 2009. A direct sequel of the game, Tasogare no Shōjo (黄昏の少女, lit. Fullmetal Alchemist: Daughter of the Dusk), was released by Square Enix on December 10, 2009, for the same console. For the 20th Anniversary of the series, Square Enix released Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile for iOS and Android devices on August 4, 2022; the game is set to end service on March 29, 2024. Of the twelve games made in Japan, Broken Angel, Curse of the Crimson Elixir, Dual Sympathy, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood have seen international releases.
Arakawa oversaw the story and designed the characters for the RPG games, while Bones—the studio responsible for the anime series—produced several animation sequences. The developers looked at other titles—specifically Square Enix's action role-playing game Kingdom Hearts and other games based on manga series, such as Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece games—for inspiration. The biggest challenge was to make a "full-fledged" game rather than a simple character-based one. Tomoya Asano, the assistant producer for the games, said that development took more than a year, unlike most character-based games.
Funimation licensed the franchise to create a new series of Fullmetal Alchemist-related video games to be published by Destineer in the United States. Destineer released its first Fullmetal Alchemist game for the Nintendo DS, a translation of Bandai's Dual Sympathy, on December 15, 2006, and said that they plan to release further titles. On February 19, 2007, Destineer announced the second game in its Fullmetal Alchemist series, Fullmetal Alchemist: Trading Card Game, based on the trading card game of the series, which was released on October 15 of that same year for the Nintendo DS, in North America only.
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game MapleStory received special in-game items based on the second anime series in 2010.
Art and guidebooks
The Fullmetal Alchemist has received several artbooks. Three artbooks called The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist (イラスト集 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, Irasuto Shū Fullmetal Alchemist) were released by Square Enix; two of those were released in the US by Viz Media. The first artbook contains illustrations made between May 2001 to April 2003, spanning the first six manga volumes, while the second has illustrations from September 2003 to October 2005, spanning the next six volumes. The last one includes illustrations from the remaining volumes.
The manga also has three guidebooks; each of them contains timelines, guides to the Elric brothers' journey, and gaiden chapters that were never released in manga volumes. Only the first guidebook was released by Viz Media, titled Fullmetal Alchemist Profiles. A guidebook titled "Fullmetal Alchemist Chronicle" (鋼の錬金術師 CHRONICLE), which contains post-manga story information, was released in Japan on July 29, 2011.
Merchandise
Action figures, busts, and statues from the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga have been produced by toy companies, including Medicom and Southern Island. Medicom has created high end deluxe vinyl figures of the characters from the anime. These figures are exclusively distributed in the United States and UK by Southern Island. Southern Island released its own action figures of the main characters in 2007, and a 12" statuette was scheduled for release the same year. Southern Island has since gone bankrupt, putting the statuette's release in doubt. A trading card game was first published in 2005 in the United States by Joyride Entertainment. Six expansions have been released before the card game was withdrawn on July 11, 2007. Destineer released a Nintendo DS adaptation of the game on October 15, 2007.
Reception
Popularity
In a survey from Oricon in 2009, Fullmetal Alchemist ranked ninth as the manga that fans wanted to be turned into a live-action film. The series is also popular with amateur writers who produce jadōjinshi (fan fiction) that borrows characters from the series. In the Japanese market Super Comic City, there have been over 1,100 dōjinshi based on Fullmetal Alchemist, some of which focused on romantic interactions between Edward Elric and Roy Mustang. Anime News Network said the series had the same impact in Comiket 2004 as several female fans were seen there writing dōjinshi. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Fullmetal Alchemist ranked ninth.
Sales
The series has become one of Square Enix's best-selling properties, along with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. With the release of volume 27, the manga sold over 50 million copies in Japan. By January 10, 2010, every volume of the manga has sold over a million copies each in Japan. Square Enix reported that the series had sold 70.3 million copies worldwide by April 25, 2018, 16.4 million of those outside Japan. By July 2021, the manga had 80 million copies in circulation worldwide. The series is also one of Viz Media's best sellers, appearing in "BookScan's Top 20 Graphic Novels" and the "USA Today Booklist". It was featured in the Diamond Comic Distributors' polls of graphic novels and The New York Times Best Seller Manga list. The English release of the manga's first volume was the top-selling graphic novel during 2005.
During 2008, volumes 19 and 20 sold over a million copies, ranking as the tenth and eleventh best-selling manga volumes in Japan respectively. In the first half of 2009, it ranked as the seventh best-seller in Japan, having sold over 3 million copies. Volume 21 ranked fourth, with more than a million copies sold and volume 22 ranked sixth with a similar number of sold copies. Producer Kouji Taguchi of Square Enix said that Volume 1's initial sales were 150,000 copies; this grew to 1.5 million copies after the first anime aired. Prior to the second anime's premiere, each volume sold about 1.9 million copies, and then it changed to 2.1 million copies.
Critical response
Fullmetal Alchemist has generally been well received by critics. Though the first volumes were thought to be formulaic, critics said that the series grows in complexity as it progresses. Jason Thompson called Arakawa one of the best at creating action scenes and praised the series for having great female characters despite being a boys' manga. He also noted how the story gets dark by including real-world issues such as government corruption, war and genocide. Thompson finished by stating that Fullmetal Alchemist "will be remembered as one of the classic shonen manga series of the 2000s." Melissa Harper of Anime News Network praised Arakawa for keeping all of her character designs unique and distinguishable, despite many of them wearing the same basic uniforms. IGN's Hilary Goldstein wrote that the characterization of Edward balances between being a "typical clever kid" and a "stubborn kid", allowing him to float between the comical moments and the underlying drama without seeming false. Holly Ellingwood for Active Anime praised the development of the characters in the manga and their beliefs changing during the story, forcing them to mature. Mania Entertainment's Jarred Pine said that the manga can be enjoyed by anybody who has watched the first anime, despite the similarities in the first chapters. Like other reviewers, Pine praised the dark mood of the series and the way it balances the humor and action scenes. Pine also praised the development of characters who have few appearances in the first anime. In a review of volume 14, Sakura Eries—also of Mania Entertainment—liked the revelations, despite the need to resolve several story arcs. She also praised the development of the homunculi, such as the return of Greed, as well as their fights.
Awards and accolades
Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the Manga Division's Jury Recommended Works at the 8th and 11th installments of Japan Media Arts Festival in 2004 and 2007, respectively. Along with Yakitate!! Japan, the series won the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category in 2004. It won the public voting for Eagle Award's "Favourite Manga" in 2010 and 2011. The series won the "Shonen Tournament 2009" by the editorial staff of the French website manga-news. The manga also received the 42nd Seiun Award for best science fiction comic in 2011. Arakawa also received the New Artist Prize in the fifteenth Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes for the manga series in 2011. Fullmetal Alchemist ranked third on the first annual Tsutaya Comic Awards' All-Time Best Section in 2017. The manga was nominated for the Grand Prize of the 10th Sense of Gender Award in 2010.
See also
List of Square Enix manga franchises
List of Square Enix video game franchises
Notes
References
External links
Official website at Gangan Online (in Japanese)
Official website at Square Enix at the Wayback Machine (archived 2020-03-23) (in Japanese)
Official website at Viz Media
Fullmetal Alchemist (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia |
Bones_(studio) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bones_(studio) | [
619
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bones_(studio)"
] | Bones Inc. (Japanese: 株式会社ボンズ, Hepburn: Kabushiki-gaisha Bonzu) is a Japanese animation studio. It has produced numerous series, including RahXephon, No. 6, Wolf's Rain, Scrapped Princess, Eureka Seven, Angelic Layer, Darker than Black, Soul Eater, Ouran High School Host Club, both the 2003 and 2009 adaptations of Fullmetal Alchemist, Star Driver, Gosick, Mob Psycho 100, Space Dandy, Noragami, Bungo Stray Dogs, and My Hero Academia. Its headquarters are located in Igusa, Suginami, Tokyo.
History
Bones was founded by Sunrise staff members Masahiko Minami, Hiroshi Ōsaka and Toshihiro Kawamoto in October 1998. One of their first projects was collaborating with Sunrise on Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, a feature film based on the Cowboy Bebop anime series.
In 2007, the studio suffered the loss of co-founder Hiroshi Ōsaka, well known for his works as character designer on series such as Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Mobile Fighter G Gundam and The Mars Daybreak. Ōsaka had been battling with cancer, and died from the disease on September 24, 2007. He was 44 years old.
After the death of Ōsaka, two new additions have been made to the studio's board of directors: Makoto Watanabe and Takahiro Komori. Komori is well known as a character designer and animator who has been with the studio since its inception. His previous works as designer consist of Angelic Layer, Scrapped Princess, and Darker than Black.
Studios
Like studio Sunrise, where some of its founders previously worked, Bones is divided into smaller studios which are focused on their own anime projects.
Studio A: Led by producer Naoki Amano and mainly known for Gosick, Wolf's Rain, Angelic Layer, Hiwou War Chronicles, Noragami and Carole & Tuesday.
Studio B: Mainly known for Eureka Seven, RahXephon, Space Dandy, and Mob Psycho 100.
Studio C: Led by producer Yoshihiro Oyabu; It's known for Fullmetal Alchemist, Darker than Black: The Black Contractor, Soul Eater and Ouran High School Host Club. It's currently working exclusively on My Hero Academia.
Studio D: Led by Mari Suzuki and mainly known for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and No. 6. Since 2015, it works on Bungo Stray Dogs.
Studio E: The newest studio, led by Makoto Watanabe and mainly known for the Eureka Seven: Hi-Evolution trilogy and Metallic Rouge.
Productions
Anime television series
Anime films
Original net animation
Original video animation
RahXephon Interlude: Her and Herself/Thatness and Thereness (August 7, 2003)
Wolf's Rain (January 23, 2004 – February 25, 2004)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Premium Collection (March 29, 2006)
Ghost Slayers Ayashi: Ayashi Diving Comedy (August 22, 2007 – October 24, 2007)
Darker than Black: Beneath the Fully Bloomed Cherry Blossoms (March 26, 2008)
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (August 26, 2009 – August 25, 2010)
Prototype (part of Halo Legends) (2010)
Darker than Black: Gaiden (January 27, 2010 – July 21, 2010)
Eureka Seven Ao: The Flowers of Jungfrau (September 20, 2012)
Noragami (February 17, 2014 - July 17, 2014)
Hitsugi no Chaika (March 10, 2015)
Noragami Aragoto (November 17, 2015 - March 17, 2016)
Snow White with the Red Hair (January 5, 2016)
Blood Blockade Battlefront (June 3, 2016)
Eureka Seven Ao:Final (January 2017)
Bungo Stray Dogs (August 31, 2017)
Mob Psycho 100 Reigen -The Miraculous Unknown Psychic- (March 18, 2018)
My Hero Academia - All Might: Rising (February 13, 2019)
Mob Psycho 100: The Spirits and Such Consultation Office's First Company Outing ~A Healing Trip that Warms the Heart~ (September 25, 2019)
SK8 the Infinity (TBA)
Video games
Robot Alchemic Drive (Enix, November 4, 2002)
Rahxephon Blu Sky Fantasia (Bandai, August 7, 2003)
Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel (Square Enix, December 25, 2003)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Stray Rondo (Bandai, March 25, 2004)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Sonata of Memories (Bandai, July 22, 2004)
Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir (Square Enix, September 22, 2004)
Fullmetal Alchemist 3: The Girl Who Succeed God (Square Enix, July 21, 2005)
Eureka Seven vol. 1: The New Wave (Bandai, October 27, 2005)
Eureka Seven vol. 2: The New Vision (Bandai, May 11, 2006)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Prince of the Dawn (Square Enix, August 13, 2009)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Daughter of the Dusk (Square Enix, December 10, 2009)
Liberation Maiden (Part of Guild01; Level-5, May 31, 2012)
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Capcom/Level-5, November 29, 2012)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (Capcom, July 25, 2013)
Persona 4: Dancing All Night (Atlus, June 25, 2015)
Music videos
Lotte music video - Shinsekai by Bump of Chicken (December 11, 2018)
Pokémon Special Music Video「GOTCHA！」- Acacia by BUMP OF CHICKEN (Pokémon/Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc., September 29, 2020)
Notes
References
External links
Official website (in Japanese)
Bones at Anime News Network's encyclopedia |
Cowboy_Bebop:_Knockin%27_on_Heaven%27s_Door | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop:_Knockin%27_on_Heaven%27s_Door | [
619
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop:_Knockin%27_on_Heaven%27s_Door"
] | Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, known in Japan as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Japanese: カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉, Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu: Tengoku no Tobira, lit. Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door), is a 2001 Japanese anime science fiction action film based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Hajime Yatate. Several staff from the original series worked on the film, including director Shinichirō Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer/animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto and composer Yoko Kanno. The Japanese and English voice casts also reprised their roles from the series.
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is set between episode 22 and episode 23 of the original series. The plot centers on a mysterious terrorist planning to exterminate the human population of Mars by releasing a virus. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop works to capture the terrorist and prevent the attack.
The film was conceived by Watanabe as an extension of his work on the television series, which he had treated as a series of miniature films. So as not to alienate existing fans, much of the series' style was retained, with adjustments to make it accessible to a new audience. Increased budget and production facilities enabled filming styles associated with live action films, as well as higher-quality animation than in the series. Arabic aesthetics were used, in contrast to the series, which entailed Watanabe traveling to Morocco for research. Arabic elements also influenced Kanno's music.
The film was produced by studios Sunrise, which had previously developed the original series; Bones, a later studio founded by former Sunrise staff; and Bandai Visual. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was released to theaters in Japan on September 1, 2001, and in the United States on August 11, 2002. It went on to gross over $3 million worldwide, and when released on DVD, it ranked high on Japanese and US charts. The film received generally positive reviews from mainstream and anime critics, and was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Animated Film.
Setting
The film is set in the year 2071, fifty years after a disaster on the Moon caused Earth to be largely abandoned. Humanity has settled on other planets and moons. The film's protagonists are bounty hunters who travel together on the spaceship Bebop. They are Spike Spiegel, a former gangster; Faye Valentine, a fugitive; Jet Black, a former police officer; Radical Edward, a hyperactive girl hacker; and Ein, a small dog with enhanced intelligence. Together they hunt for wanted fugitives and criminals throughout the solar system.
Plot
A few days before Halloween on Mars, Faye witnesses an unidentified terrorist blow up a tanker truck while chasing another bounty. The blast spreads an unknown pathogen that kills and sickens various people. The Martian government offers a 300 million Woolong bounty for the culprit's capture, which the crew hopes to earn. Faye and Edward identify the terrorist as Vincent Volaju, a soldier believed to have been killed on Titan. Vincent survived a test of the pathogen, having been immunized, but amnesia and hallucinations have since driven him insane.
Jet learns that the pathogen is a nanomachine, a biological weapon that has been illegally manufactured by Cherious Medical, a pharmaceutical company. Spike encounters Cherious's agent Elektra Ovilo and attempts to capture Vincent, but Vincent throws him off a train and then releases another cloud of nanomachines. Everyone else on the train dies, except for Elektra, who was immunized when in a relationship with Vincent. She gives a sample of her blood to a friend at Cherious Medical, and they prepare a stock of vaccine.
Vincent intends to explode giant jack-o'-lantern balloons full of nanomachines at the Halloween parade, which will kill everyone on Mars. Jet recruits a gang of aged crop-duster pilots to scatter the vaccine and Faye hijacks the city's weather-control systems to cause rain, assisting in the vaccine's spread. Spike confronts Vincent and the two fight to a standstill. The nanomachines are released, but Spike gets cured by the vaccine. Vincent prepares to kill Spike, but is shot by Elektra. Vincent and Elektra remember their time together as he dies. Afterwards, the Bebop crew returns to their normal lives.
Voice cast
Development
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was first announced in September 1999: the majority of the series' staff were carried over along with Watanabe, including producer Masahiko Minami, character designer/animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto, and writer Keiko Nobumoto. The original Japanese cast also returned. The writing process was finished and production began in July 2000. It was produced by the studios Sunrise, Bones and Bandai Visual. While Sunrise worked on the original series, Bones was founded in 1998 after the series' completion by Minami, Kawamoto and Hiroshi Ōsaka. The length of the film's production allowed the team to ensure its high quality.
The idea for a film was in the mind of director Shinichirō Watanabe during the development of the original Cowboy Bebop series, which he had originally envisioned as a film. Watanabe treated each episode of the series as a miniature film, so to progress onto a feature-length film seemed natural to him. So as not to disappoint fans, the film incorporated as much of the series as possible while making it accessible to newcomers. He had thought up some of the story and the character of Vincent during the production of the series. After the series ended and there was demand for a continuation from both fans and sponsors so the decision was made by the series creators to make a film. Watanabe said "When the original 26-episode series concluded, a lot of fans and sponsors wanted me to continue. That's why I made this movie."
Watanabe was aiming towards a live-action look for the film despite its medium, using camera tricks, visual effects and character expression impossible in the series while keeping "the Bebop flavor". According to Kōichi Yamadera, the Japanese voice actor for Spike, the only real changes made by the team in the portrayal were to show off the characters, including Spike, in different ways: Spike, in particular, displayed more of his inner thoughts and showed a gentler side than he did in the series, as there was more time available to express such details. Watanabe personally chose the voice actors for Elektra and Vincent. Vincent was partially intended as a type of villain that could not be done in the series, even though Watanabe felt he was not "particularly unique". The character of Vincent Volaju was also inspired by American actor Vincent Gallo.
Because of increased running time, budget and facilities, the team were able to include more cels in animations, as well as longer and more intricate action sequences. The film included difficult sequences that Watanabe could not do along with the rest of the film, so two guest directors were brought in for them: Hiroyuki Okiura, who handled the opening sequence, and Tensai Okamura, who created a cinematic Western shown at a drive-in theater during the film. Watanabe wanted to give the film an Arabic feel, in contrast to the series which often used New York and Hong Kong for inspiration. To this end, Watanabe went on a research trip to Morocco. The character Rashid was based on the guide who had shown the research team round the city. Working on the film was different for Watanabe when compared to the series in a positive way: while he had to put the entire story in a twenty-minute episode for the series, the team were able to create a longer, more detailed narrative.
Music
The music for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was composed by Yoko Kanno, composer for the original series, and performed by her band Seatbelts. She used the same mixture of music genres (western, opera, jazz) as with the TV series, but also added Arabic elements in keeping with the film's thematic feel. She used Arabic and English for the music lyrics. Alongside these, the soundtrack made use of a large number of rock instruments. Five tracks from the film were released on the Seatbelts mini-album Ask DNA, released on July 25, 2001. The soundtrack's official release, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door OST Future Blues, was released on August 22, 2001. Both these albums were reissued in December 2012.
Release
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was first released in cinemas in Japan on September 1, 2001. After the film's international release, this date was subject to debate in the western fanbase due to its proximity to the September 11 attacks. It was first shown to the west at the 2002 AnimeCon, where it was announced that the original English cast would reprise their roles. Its Japanese subtitle, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", was changed for the western release due to sharing its name with the 1973 Bob Dylan song of the same name. Instead of creating a new subtitle, the team settled with using "The Movie", though a November 2018 rerelease of the film by Funimation features the original subtitle. It was jointly released in the United States by Sony Pictures through their Destination Films label and Samuel Goldwyn Films and internationally by TriStar Pictures. During its initial screening at the event, it sold out completely, prompting a second screening later in the event. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States, opening on April 4, 2003. During its opening weekend, it reached 19th place in the box office chart, bringing in $12,338 per screening. The film's total gross in America was $1,000,045. Its worldwide gross totals $3,007,903.
The film was released on DVD in Japan on February 7, 2002, immediately reaching the top of the DVD/VHS charts. Sunrise and Bandai Visual underestimated the possible sales, with the first print being used up soon after release, prompting a second print for mid-February. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment released it on DVD in the United States on June 24, 2003. In 2006, it was ranked as the sixth best-selling anime DVD in the United States. It did not receive a theatrical release in the United Kingdom, instead being released as a direct-to-DVD feature. It was released in the UK on June 27, 2003. The film was later released on Blu-ray disc in Japan on July 25, 2008. It was released in North America by Image Entertainment on June 28, 2011.
In celebration for the series's 20th anniversary in 2018, the film was shown in US theaters by Funimation Films on August 15 (with Japanese audio and English subtitles) and on August 16 (with the English dub). A limited edition steelbook Blu-ray of the film was released by Funimation under license from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on November 13, 2018.
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 80 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews". The film was nominated at the Online Film Critics Society Awards 2003 in the Best Animated Film category, though it lost the award to Finding Nemo. Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies praised the music of the movie, calling it "the show's secret weapon", and stated that "the movie's only real fault is that it's about half an hour too long".
Critic reviews have generally been positive. Andy Patrizio of IGN gave the film a score of 9 of 10, saying that the developers "did a superb job of fleshing out the story", as well as praising it for "not succumbing to melodrama like many of its live-action counterparts". He also commented that the film's subject matter of terrorism in the face of the September 11 attacks "smacked way too close to home". The music also received praise. Mike Crandol of Anime News Network echoed many of these sentiments. His main criticism stemmed from the fact that Jet, Faye and Ed were relegated to supporting roles, and that it was difficult getting them all into the story. He also said that the team had outdone themselves with the animation quality in a few scenes, such as the final fight between Spike and Vincent. Robert Koehler of Variety, reviewing an undubbed subtitled release, praised the visuals and writing, although he found some sections a little long. Charles Solomon writing in the Los Angeles Times however praised the film for its running time, saying it gave screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto time to explore the characters.
Other reviews were more mixed. Lawrence van Gelder of The New York Times gave the film a mixed review, saying that he enjoyed the experience, but found it a little frivolous when compared to both its subject matter and events at the time. His ultimate impression from the English-dubbed version was that the film could easily have been set in present-day New York. Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and praised the film's visuals, but said that the plot wasn't very interesting and failed to keep him interested. Jamie Russell, writing for the BBC, gave it 4 out of 5 stars, saying it was "good enough to deserve mention in the same breath as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Spirited Away". The most praise went to the use of live-action camera angles. Though he found the film's story sometimes slowed noticeably, the soundtrack and visual references to other notable action films made it "an example of anime at its very best." Other newspapers of the time including the Toronto Star, Chicago Tribune and generally shared opinions with other reviewers: several praised the plot and animation, while others were mixed. Others, including the Toronto Star and Newark Star-Ledger, noted its connection to science fiction films.
Analysis
While the movie is technically set on Mars, it has been described by Thomas Kent Miller as "only a Mars movie by a technicality" due to the fact that "aside from a brief flyover over some Martian terrain at the beginning and a classic dog-fight over the same sort of terrain at the end", there are next to no other visuals to suggest action takes place in an exotic location (here, Mars); instead the urban design of the city where most of the movie takes place looks no different from modern-era cities on Earth.
References
External links
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at AllMovie
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at Box Office Mojo
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at Metacritic
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at Rotten Tomatoes
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at IMDb
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (film) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia |
Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russia | [
620
] | [
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russia"
] | Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (Russian: Анастасия Николаевна Романова, romanized: Anastasiya Nikolaevna Romanova; 18 June [O.S. 5 June] 1901 – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.
Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Maria (commonly known together as the OTMA sister) and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was murdered with her family by a group of Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918.
Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated after her death, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of communist rule. The abandoned mine serving as a mass grave near Yekaterinburg which held the acidified remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters was revealed in 1991. These remains were put to rest at Peter and Paul Fortress in 1998. The bodies of Alexei and the remaining daughter—either Anastasia or her older sister Maria—were discovered in 2007. Her purported survival has been conclusively disproven. Scientific analysis including DNA testing confirmed that the remains are those of the imperial family, showing that Anastasia was killed alongside her family.
Several women falsely claimed to have been Anastasia; the best known impostor was Anna Anderson. Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984; DNA testing in 1994 on pieces of Anderson's tissue and hair showed no relation to the Romanov family.
Biography
Early years
Anastasia was born on 18 June 1901. She was the fourth daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. When she was born, her parents and extended family were disappointed that she was a girl. They had hoped for a son who would have become heir apparent to the throne. Her father went for a long walk to compose himself before going to visit his wife and their newborn child for the first time. Her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia said, "My God! What a disappointment!... a fourth girl!" Her first cousin twice removed Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote, "Forgive us, Lord, if we all felt disappointment instead of joy. We were so hoping for a boy, and it's a daughter." The travel writer Burton Holmes wrote, "Nicholas would part with half his Empire in exchange for one Imperial boy."
Anastasia was named for the fourth-century martyr St. Anastasia. "Anastasia" is a Greek name (Αναστασία), meaning "of the resurrection", a fact often alluded to later in stories about her rumored survival. Anastasia's title is most precisely translated as "Grand Princess". "Grand Duchess" became the most widely used translation of the title into English from Russian.
The Tsar's children were raised as simply as possible. They slept on hard camp cots without pillows, except when they were ill, took cold baths in the morning, and were expected to tidy their rooms and do needlework to be sold at various charity events when they were not otherwise occupied. Most in the household, including the servants, generally called the Grand Duchess by her first name and patronym, "Anastasia Nikolaevna", and did not use her title or style. She was occasionally called by the French version of her name, "Anastasie", or by the Russian nicknames "Nastasya", "Nastya", "Nastas", or "Nastenka". Other family nicknames for Anastasia were "Malenkaya", meaning "little (one)" in Russian, or "Shvybzik", meaning "merry little one" or "little mischief" in German.
Anastasia and her older sister Maria were known within the family as "The Little Pair". The two girls shared a room, often wore variations of the same dress, and spent much of their time together. Their older sisters Olga and Tatiana also shared a room and were known as "The Big Pair". The four girls sometimes signed letters using the nickname OTMA, which derived from the first letters of their first names.
DNA testing on the remains of the imperial family proved conclusively in 2009 that Anastasia’s younger brother, Alexei, suffered from Hemophilia B, a rare form of the disease. His mother and one sister, identified alternatively as Maria or Anastasia, were carriers. Symptomatic carriers of the gene, while not hemophiliacs themselves, can have symptoms of hemophilia including a lower than normal blood-clotting factor that can lead to heavy bleeding. If Anastasia lived to have children of her own, it is genetically probable that they would have been afflicted by the disease.
Appearance and personality
Anastasia was short and inclined to be chubby, and she had blue eyes and blonde hair. Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, her mother's lady-in-waiting, reflected that "her features were regular and finely cut. She had fair hair, fine eyes, with impish laughter in their depths, and dark eyebrows that nearly met." Buxhoeveden believed that Anastasia resembled her mother, saying that she "was more like her mother's than her father's family. She was rather short even at seventeen, and was, then decidedly fat, but it was the fatness of youth. She would have outgrown it, as had her sister Marie."
Anastasia was a vivacious and energetic child. Margaretta Eagar, a governess to the four grand duchesses, said one person commented that the toddler Anastasia had the greatest personal charm of any child she had ever seen.
While often described as gifted and bright, she was never interested in the restrictions of the school room, according to her tutors Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes. Gibbes, Gilliard, and ladies-in-waiting Lili Dehn and Anna Vyrubova described Anastasia as lively, mischievous, and a gifted actress. Her sharp, witty remarks sometimes hit sensitive spots. However, she was also very amusing: "Even as a baby she had entertained grave old men, who were her neighbors at table, with her astonishing remarks."
Anastasia's daring occasionally exceeded the limits of acceptable behavior. "She undoubtedly held the record for punishable deeds in her family, for in naughtiness she was a true genius", said Gleb Botkin, son of the court physician Yevgeny Botkin, who later died with the family at Yekaterinburg. Anastasia sometimes tripped the servants and played pranks on her tutors. As a child, she would climb trees and refuse to come down. Once, during a snowball fight at the family's Polish estate, Anastasia rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at her older sister Tatiana, knocking her to the ground. A distant cousin, Princess Nina Georgievna, recalled that "Anastasia was nasty to the point of being evil", and would cheat, kick and scratch her playmates during games; she was affronted because the younger Nina was taller than she was. She was less concerned about her appearance than her sisters. Hallie Erminie Rives, a best-selling American author and wife of an American diplomat, described how 10-year-old Anastasia ate chocolates without bothering to remove her long, white opera gloves at the St. Petersburg opera house.
Despite her energy, Anastasia's physical health was sometimes poor. The Grand Duchess suffered from painful bunions, which affected both of her big toes. Anastasia had a weak muscle in her back and was prescribed twice-weekly massage. She hid under the bed or in a cupboard to put off the massage. Anastasia's older sister, Maria, reportedly hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils, according to her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, who was interviewed later in her life. The doctor performing the operation was so unnerved that he had to be ordered to continue by Maria's mother. Olga Alexandrovna said she believed all four of her nieces bled more than was normal and believed they were carriers of the hemophilia gene, like their mother.
Association with Grigori Rasputin
Her mother relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering starets or "holy man," and credited his prayers with saving the ailing Tsarevich on numerous occasions. Anastasia and her siblings were taught to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to share confidences with him. In the autumn of 1907, Anastasia's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was escorted to the nursery by the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Anastasia, her sisters and brother Alexei were all wearing their long white nightgowns. "All the children seemed to like him," Olga Alexandrovna recalled. "They were completely at ease with him." Rasputin's friendship with the imperial children was evident in some of the messages he sent to them. In February 1909, Rasputin sent the imperial children a telegram, advising them to "Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework."
However, one of the girls' governesses, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was horrified in 1910 that Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery when the four girls were in their nightgowns and wanted him barred. Nicholas asked Rasputin to avoid going to the nurseries in the future. The children were aware of the tension and feared that their mother would be angered by Tyutcheva's actions. "I am so afr(aid) that S.I. (governess Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva) can speak ... about our friend something bad," Anastasia's twelve-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to their mother on 8 March 1910. "I hope our nurse will be nice to our friend now."
Tyutcheva was eventually fired. She took her story to other members of the family. While Rasputin's visits to the children were, by all accounts, completely innocent in nature, the family was scandalized. Tyutcheva told Nicholas's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, that Rasputin visited the girls, talked with them while they were getting ready for bed, and hugged and patted them. Tyutcheva said the children had been taught not to discuss Rasputin with her and were careful to hide his visits from the nursery staff. Xenia wrote on 15 March 1910, that she could not understand "...the attitude of Alix and the children to that sinister Grigory (whom they consider to be almost a saint, when in fact he's only a khlyst!)"
In the spring of 1910, Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, a royal governess, claimed that Rasputin had raped her. Vishnyakova said the empress refused to believe her account of the assault, and insisted that "everything Rasputin does is holy." Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but instead "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was kept from seeing Rasputin after she made her accusation and was eventually dismissed from her post in 1913.
However, rumors persisted and it was later whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses. This was followed by circulation of pornographic cartoons, which depicted Rasputin having relations with the Empress, her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova. After the scandal, Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine. Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until his murder on 17 December 1916. "Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed", Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on 6 December 1916.
In his memoirs, A. A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death, and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov recalled that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed. Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse by Anastasia, her mother and her sisters. She attended his funeral on 21 December 1916, and her family planned to build a church over the site of Rasputin's grave. After they were killed by the Bolsheviks, it was discovered Anastasia and her sisters were all wearing amulets bearing Rasputin's picture and a prayer.
Captivity during World War I and Russian Revolution
During World War I, Anastasia, along with her sister Maria, visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital in the grounds at Tsarskoye Selo. The two teenagers, too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to lift their spirits. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital and knew Anastasia, recalled that the grand duchess had a "laugh like a squirrel", and walked rapidly "as though she tripped along."
In February 1917, Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917. As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia, where they were housed in the Governor's Mansion. After the Bolsheviks seized majority control of Russia, Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House, or House of Special Purpose, at Yekaterinburg.
The stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. "Goodby [sic]", she wrote to a friend in the winter of 1917. "Don't forget us." At Tobolsk, she wrote a melancholy theme for her English tutor, filled with spelling mistakes, about "Evelyn Hope", a poem by Robert Browning about a girl: "When she died she was only sixteen years old ... Ther(e) was a man who loved her without having seen her but (k)new her very well. And she he(a)rd of him also. He never could tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. But still he thought that when he and she will live [their] next life whenever it will be that ...", she wrote.
Upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, Pierre Gilliard recalled his last sight of the children:
"The sailor Nagorny, who attended to Alexei Nikolaevitch, passed my window carrying the sick boy in his arms, behind him came the Grand Duchesses loaded with valises and small personal belongings. I tried to get out, but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana Nikolayevna came last carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown valise. It was raining and I saw her feet sink into the mud at every step. Nagorny tried to come to her assistance; he was roughly pushed back by one of the commisars ..."
Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden told of her sad last glimpse of Anastasia: "Once, standing on some steps at the door of a house close by, I saw a hand and a pink-sleeved arm opening the topmost pane. According to the blouse the hand must have belonged either to the Grand Duchess Marie or Anastasia. They could not see me through their windows, and this was to be the last glimpse that I was to have of any of them!"
However, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. She and other members of the household performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and others in the spring of 1918. Anastasia's performance made everyone howl with laughter, according to her tutor Sydney Gibbes.
On 7 May 1918, in a letter from Tobolsk to her sister Maria in Yekaterinburg, Anastasia described a moment of joy despite her sadness and loneliness and worry for the sick Alexei: "We played on the swing, that was when I roared with laughter, the fall was so wonderful! Indeed! I told the sisters about it so many times yesterday that they got quite fed up, but I could go on telling it masses of times ... What weather we've had! One could simply shout with joy." In his memoirs, one of the guards at the Ipatiev House, Alexander Strekotin, remembered Anastasia as "very friendly and full of fun", while another guard said Anastasia was "a very charming devil! She was mischievous and, I think, rarely tired. She was lively, and was fond of performing comic mimes with the dogs, as though they were performing in a circus." Yet another of the guards, however, called the youngest grand duchess "offensive and a terrorist" and complained that her occasionally provocative comments sometimes caused tension in the ranks. Anastasia and her sisters helped their maid darn stockings and assisted the cook in making bread and other kitchen chores while they were in captivity at the Ipatiev House.
In the summer, the privations of the captivity, including their closer confinement at the Ipatiev House negatively affected the family. On 14 July 1918, local priests at Yekaterinburg conducted a private church service for the family. They reported that Anastasia and her family, contrary to custom, fell on their knees during the prayer for the dead, and that the girls had become despondent and hopeless, and no longer sang the replies in the service. Noticing this dramatic change in their demeanor since his last visit, one priest told the other, "Something has happened to them in there." But the next day, on 15 July 1918, Anastasia and her sisters appeared in good spirits as they joked and helped move the beds in their shared bedroom so that cleaning women could clean the floors. They helped the women scrub the floors and whispered to them when the guards were not watching. Anastasia stuck her tongue out at Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the detachment, when he momentarily turned his back and left the room.
Death
After the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, Russia quickly disintegrated into civil war. Negotiations for the release of the Romanovs between their Bolshevik (commonly referred to as 'Reds') captors and their extended family, many of whom were prominent members of the royal houses of Europe, stalled. As the Whites (anti-Bolshevik forces, although not necessarily supportive of the Tsar) advanced toward Yekaterinburg, the Reds were in a precarious situation. The Reds knew Yekaterinburg would fall to the better manned and equipped White Army. When the Whites reached Yekaterinburg, the imperial family had simply disappeared. The most widely accepted account was that the family had been murdered. This was due to an investigation by White Army investigator Nicholas Sokolov, who came to the conclusion based on items that had belonged to the family being found thrown down a mine shaft at Ganina Yama.
The "Yurovsky Note", an account of the event filed by Yurovsky to his Bolshevik superiors following the killings, was found in 1989 and detailed in Edvard Radzinsky's 1992 book, The Last Tsar. According to the note, on the night of the deaths, the family was awakened and told to dress. They were told they were being moved to a new location to ensure their safety in anticipation of the violence that might ensue when the White Army reached Yekaterinburg. Once dressed, the family and the small circle of servants who had remained with them were herded into a small room in the house's sub-basement and told to wait. Alexandra and Alexei sat in chairs provided by guards at the Empress's request.
After several minutes, the guards entered the room, led by Yurovsky, who quickly informed the Tsar and his family that they were to be executed. The Tsar had time to say only "What?" and turn to his family before he was killed by several bullets to the chest (not, as is commonly stated, to the head; his skull, recovered in 1991, bears no bullet wounds). The Tsarina and her daughter Olga tried to make the sign of the cross but were killed in the initial volley of bullets fired by the executioners. The rest of the Imperial retinue were shot in short order, with the exception of Anna Demidova, Alexandra's maid. Demidova survived the initial onslaught but was quickly stabbed to death against the back wall of the basement while trying to defend herself with a small pillow she had carried into the sub-basement that was filled with precious gems and jewels.
The "Yurovsky Note" further reported that once the thick smoke that had filled the room from so many weapons being fired in such close proximity cleared, it was discovered that the executioners' bullets had ricocheted off the corsets of two or three of the Grand Duchesses. The executioners later came to find out that this was because the family's crown jewels and diamonds had been sewn inside the linings of the corsets to hide them from their captors. The corsets thus served as a form of "armor" against the bullets. Anastasia and Maria were said to have crouched up against a wall, covering their heads in terror, until they were shot down by bullets, recalled Yurovsky. However, another guard, Peter Ermakov, told his wife that Anastasia had been finished off with bayonets. As the bodies were carried out, one or more of the girls cried out, and were clubbed on the back of the head, wrote Yurovsky.
False reports of survival
Anastasia's supposed escape and possible survival was one of the most popular historical mysteries of the 20th century, provoking many books and films. At least ten women claimed to be her, offering varying stories as to how she had survived. Anna Anderson, the best known Anastasia impostor, first surfaced publicly between 1920 and 1922. She contended that she had feigned death among the bodies of her family and servants, and was able to make her escape with the help of a compassionate guard who noticed she was still breathing and took sympathy upon her. Her legal battle for recognition from 1938 to 1970 continued a lifelong controversy and was the longest running case ever heard by the German courts, where it was officially filed. The final decision of the court was that Anderson had not provided sufficient proof to claim the identity of the grand duchess.
Anderson died in 1984 and her body was cremated. DNA tests were conducted in 1994 on a tissue sample from Anderson located in a hospital and the blood of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a great-nephew of Empress Alexandra. According to Dr Gill who conducted the tests, "If you accept that these samples came from Anna Anderson, then Anna Anderson could not be related to Tsar Nicholas or Tsarina Alexandra." Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was a match with a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska, a missing Polish factory worker. Some supporters of Anderson's claim acknowledged that the DNA tests proving she could not have been the Grand Duchess had "won the day".
Other lesser known claimants were Nadezhda Ivanovna Vasilyeva and Eugenia Smith. Two young women claiming to be Anastasia and her sister Maria were taken in by a priest in the Ural Mountains in 1919 where they lived as nuns until their deaths in 1964. They were buried under the names Anastasia and Maria Nikolaevna.
Rumors of Anastasia's survival were embellished with various contemporary reports of trains and houses being searched for "Anastasia Romanov" by Bolshevik soldiers and secret police. When she was briefly imprisoned at Perm in 1918, Princess Helena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant cousin, Prince John Constantinovich of Russia, reported that a guard brought a girl who called herself Anastasia Romanova to her cell and asked if the girl was the daughter of the Tsar. Helena Petrovna said she did not recognize the girl and the guard took her away. Although other witnesses in Perm later reported that they saw Anastasia, her mother and sisters in Perm after the murders, this story is now widely discredited. Rumors that they were alive were fueled by deliberate misinformation designed to hide the fact that the family was dead. A few days after they had been murdered, the German government sent several telegrams to Russia demanding "the safety of the princesses of German blood". Russia had recently signed a peace treaty with the Germans, and did not want to upset them by letting them know the women were dead, so they told them they had been moved to a safer location.
In another incident, eight witnesses reported the recapture of a young woman after an apparent escape attempt in September 1918 at a railway station at Siding 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoyev, Tatiana Sitnikova (and her son Fyodor Sitnikov), Ivan Kuklin and Matrina Kuklina, Vassily Ryabov, Ustinya Varankina, and Dr Pavel Utkin, a physician who treated the girl after the incident. Some of the witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the grand duchess by White Russian Army investigators. Utkin also told the White Russian Army investigators that the injured girl, whom he treated at Cheka headquarters in Perm, told him, "I am the daughter of the ruler, Anastasia." Utkin obtained a prescription from a pharmacy for a patient named "N" at the orders of the secret police. White Army investigators later independently located records for the prescription. During the same time period in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia passing themselves off as Romanov escapees. Boris Soloviev, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, defrauded prominent Russian families by asking for money for a Romanov impostor to escape to China. Soloviev also found young women willing to masquerade as one of the grand duchesses to assist in deceiving the families he had defrauded.
Some biographers' accounts speculated that the opportunity for one or more of the guards to rescue a survivor existed. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and turn over items they had stolen following the murder. There was reportedly a span of time when the bodies of the victims were left largely unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the corridor of the house. Some guards who had not participated in the murders and had been sympathetic to the grand duchesses were reportedly left in the basement with the bodies.
Romanov graves and DNA proof
In 1991, the presumed burial site of the imperial family and their servants was excavated in the woods outside Yekaterinburg. The grave had been found nearly a decade earlier, but was kept hidden by its discoverers from the Communists who were still ruling Russia at the time. The grave only held nine of the expected eleven sets of remains. DNA and skeletal analysis matched these remains to Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of the four grand duchesses (Olga, Tatiana and presumably Maria). The other remains, with unrelated DNA, correspond to the family's doctor (Yevgeny Botkin), their valet (Alexei Trupp), their cook (Ivan Kharitonov), and Alexandra's maid (Anna Demidova). Forensic expert William R. Maples found that the Tsarevitch Alexei and Anastasia's bodies were missing from the family's grave. Russian scientists contested this conclusion, however, claiming it was the body of Maria that was missing. The Russians identified the body as that of Anastasia by using a computer program to compare photos of the youngest grand duchess with the skulls of the victims from the mass grave. They estimated the height and width of the skulls where pieces of bone were missing. American scientists found this method inexact.
American scientists thought the missing body to be Anastasia because none of the female skeletons showed the evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, undescended wisdom teeth, or immature vertebrae in the back, that they would have expected to find in a seventeen-year-old. In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, a body measuring approximately 5'7" was buried under the name of Anastasia. Photographs taken of her standing beside her three sisters up until six months before the murders demonstrate that Anastasia was several inches shorter than all of them. Her mother commented on sixteen-year-old Anastasia's short stature in a 15 December 1917 letter, written seven months before the murders. "Anastasia, to her despair, is now very fat, as Maria was, round and fat to the waist, with short legs. I do hope she will grow." Scientists considered it unlikely that the teenager could have grown so much in the last months of her life. Her actual height was approximately 5'2".
The account of the "Yurovsky Note" indicated that two of the bodies were removed from the main grave and cremated at an undisclosed area in order to further disguise the burials of the Tsar and his retinue, if the remains were discovered by the Whites, since the body count would not be correct. Searches of the area in subsequent years failed to turn up a cremation site or the remains of the two missing Romanov children.
However, on 23 August 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones were from a boy who was roughly between the ages of twelve and fifteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of fifteen and nineteen years old. Anastasia was seventeen years and one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old respectively at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber". The site was initially found with metal detectors and by using metal rods as probes.
DNA testing by multiple international laboratories including the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and Innsbruck Medical University confirmed that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, proving conclusively that all family members, including Anastasia, died in 1918. The parents and all five children are now accounted for, and each has his or her own unique DNA profile. While the tests have confirmed that all the Romanov bodies have been found, one of the studies was still unsure which body from the two graves was Maria's and which was Anastasia's:
[...] a well publicized debate over which daughter, Maria (according to Russian experts) or Anastasia (according to US experts), has been recovered from the second grave cannot be settled based upon the DNA results reported here. In the absence of a DNA reference from each sister, we can only conclusively identify Alexei – the only son of Nicholas and Alexandra.
Sainthood
In 2000, Anastasia and her family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs. The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred in the St. Catherine Chapel at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg on 17 July 1998, eighty years after they were murdered. As of 2018 the bones of Alexei and Maria (or possibly Anastasia) were still being held by the Orthodox Church.
Depictions in art, media, and literature
The purported survival of Anastasia has been the subject of cinema (such as the 1997 animated film and the 1956 film that inspired it starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner), made-for-television films, and a Broadway musical. The earliest, made in 1928, was called Clothes Make the Woman. The story followed a woman who turns up to play the part of a rescued Anastasia for a Hollywood film, and ends up being recognized by the Russian soldier who originally rescued her from her would-be assassins.
Ancestry
Notes
References
Bibliography
Bokhanov, Alexander; Knodt, Manfred; Oustimenko, Vladimir; Peregudova, Zinaida; Tyutynnik, Lyubov (1993). The Romanovs: Love, Power, and Tragedy. London: Leppi Publications. ISBN 0-9521644-0-X
Buxhoeveden, Sophie (1928). The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Available at alexanderpalace.org, archive.org and openlibrary.org.
Buxhoeveden, Sophie (1929). Left Behind: Fourteen Months in Siberia During the Revolution, December 1917 – February 1919. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Available at alexanderpalace.org.
Christopher, Peter; Kurth, Peter; Radzinsky, Edvard (1995). Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. Boston: Little Brown and Co. ISBN 0-316-50787-3
Dehn, Lili (1922). The Real Tsaritsa. London: Butterworth via alexanderpalace.org. Also available at archive.org, gutenberg.org and hathitrust.org.
Eagar, Margaretta (1906). Six Years at the Russian Court. New York: Bowman via alexanderpalace.org. Also available at archive.org, and openlibrary.org.
Gilliard, Pierre (1921). Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. London: Hutchinson via alexanderpalace.org. Also available at archive.org, gutenberg.org, openlibrary.org, perlego.com and wikipedia. Translated by F. Appleby Holt.
King, Greg; Wilson, Penny (2003). The Fate of the Romanovs. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-20768-3
Kurth, Peter (1983). Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. Boston: Back Bay Books. ISBN 0-316-50717-2
Lovell, James Blair (1991). Anastasia: The Lost Princess. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway. ISBN 0-89526-536-2
Mager, Hugo (1998). Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-7867-0678-3
Massie, Robert K. (1967). Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Dell Publishing Co. ISBN 0-440-16358-7
Massie, Robert K. (1995). The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-58048-6
Maylunas, Andrei; Mironenko, Sergei (eds), Galy, Darya (translator) (1997). A Lifelong Passion, Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48673-1
Occleshaw, Michael (1993). The Romanov Conspiracies: The Romanovs and the House of Windsor. London: Orion Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 1-85592-518-4
Rappaport, Helen (2008). The Last Days of the Romanovs. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-60347-2
Rappaport, Helen (2014). Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-76817-8
Radzinsky, Edvard (1992). The Last Tsar. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-42371-3
Radzinsky, Edvard (2000). The Rasputin File. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48909-9
Vorres, Ian (1965). The Last Grand Duchess. New York: Scribner. ASIN B0007E0JK0
Vyrubova, Anna (1923). Memories of the Russian Court. London: Macmillan via alexanderpalace.org. Also available at gutenberg.org and openlibrary.org. Reprint available at perlego.com
Zeepvat, Charlotte (2004). The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-3049-7
Further reading
Brewster, Hugh (1996). Anastasia's Album: The Last Tsar's Youngest Daughter Tells Her Own Story. Hachette Books. ISBN 978-0786802920
Fleming, Candace (2014). The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia. Schwartz & Wade. ISBN 978-0375867828
King, Greg and Wilson, Penny (2011). The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery. Wiley. ISBN 978-0470444986
External links
Media related to Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia at Wikimedia Commons
The Murder of Russia's Imperial Family Nicolay Sokolov Investigation of the murder of the Romanov Imperial Family in 1918, in Russian.
FrozenTears.org A media library of the last Imperial family
Anastasia Information A web site dealing with the controversy surrounding Anastasia's death.
Hemophilia B (Factor IX Deficiency)
Could the Bulgarian mountain village of Gabarevo be the last refuge of the lost Romanov Princess?
Anastasia and Anna Anderson A website with an overview of Anastasia's life and legend and a brief discussion of Anna Anderson's tale along with links to various books on the subject. |
Anastasia_(1997_film) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_(1997_film) | [
620
] | [
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_(1997_film)"
] | Anastasia is a 1997 American animated musical historical fantasy film produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman from a screenplay by the writing teams of Susan Gauthier and Bruce Graham, and Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, and based on a story adaptation by Eric Tuchman. It features songs written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens and a musical score composed and conducted by David Newman. The film stars the voices of Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria, Bernadette Peters, Kirsten Dunst, and Angela Lansbury. The film shares its plot with the 1956 film Anastasia, which in turn was based on a play by Marcelle Maurette. Unlike those treatments, this version adds Grigori Rasputin as the main antagonist.
Anastasia was the first 20th Century Fox animated feature to be produced by its own animation division, 20th Century Fox Animation, through the animation studio Fox Animation Studios. The film premiered at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City on November 14, 1997, and was released in the United States on November 21. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the animation, voice performances, and soundtrack, though it attracted criticism from some historians for its fantastical retelling of the Grand Duchess. Anastasia grossed $140 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film from Bluth and Fox Animation Studios. It received nominations for several awards, including for Best Original Song ("Journey to the Past") and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score at the 70th Academy Awards.
The success of Anastasia spawned various adaptations of the film into other media, including a direct-to-video spin-off film and a stage musical.
Plot
In 1916, at a ball celebrating the Romanov Tricentennial, Dowager Empress Maria “Marie” Romanov, gives a music box as well as a necklace that says "Together in Paris" to Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, her youngest granddaughter. The ball is interrupted by Grigori Rasputin, the Romanov’s former royal advisor exiled for treason. He vows to Tsar Nicholas II that his family will be killed with a curse. Rasputin sold his soul in exchange for a reliquary, which he uses to start the Russian Revolution. As Bolsheviks invade the palace, Marie and Anastasia are aided by Dimitri, a servant boy, who shows them a secret passageway. Anastasia drops her music box; she tries to retrieve it, but Dimitri pushes her through the passageway. Rasputin confronts them outside on the frozen Little Nevka River but falls through the ice, killing him. Marie gets on a moving train, but Anastasia falls and hits her head on the platform, giving her amnesia.
Ten years later, Russia is now part of the Soviet Union. There are rumors that Anastasia may have escaped her family's execution, so Marie offers 10 million roubles in exchange for her return. Now a conman, Dimitri and his partner-in-crime, Vladimir, plot to obtain the reward with an imposter. The actual Anastasia—now going by "Anya"—leaves the orphanage where she had lived ever since she got amnesia and begins a search for her family. Accompanied by a stray puppy she names Pooka, Anya heads for Paris, but finds she cannot leave the Soviet Union without an exit visa. She is advised to see Dimitri at the abandoned palace. There, the two men are impressed by her resemblance to the "real" Anastasia, and decide to take her with them to Paris, with Dimitri convincing Anya that they are trying to reunite her with her grandmother, unaware of Anya's true identity.
While watching the meeting, Rasputin's albino bat, Bartok, notices the reliquary revived by Anya's presence. It drags him down to limbo, where he finds an undead Rasputin. Enraged to hear that Anastasia had escaped his curse, Rasputin sends demonic entities from the reliquary to kill Anya. They try to sabotage the trio's train as they leave Leningrad by overheating Beulah the train engine, and later try to lure Anya into sleepwalking off their ship headed for France. The trio unwittingly foil the attempts, forcing Rasputin to try to kill Anya himself.
As Dimitri and Vladimir reteach Anya about court etiquette and her family's history, she and Dimitri begin to fall in love. The trio finally arrive in Paris and see Marie, who has decided to give up hope of reuniting with her granddaughter after having met no one except numerous impostors. Despite this, Marie's first cousin and lady-in-waiting, Sophie, quizzes Anya to confirm her identity. Though she gives correct coached answers to every question, Dimitri realizes Anya is Anastasia when she vaguely recalls how he had helped her and Marie escape the palace. Sophie, also convinced, arranges a meeting with Marie at the Palais Garnier. There, Dimitri tries to get Marie to see Anya, but she refuses, having heard of Dimitri's scheme to con her. Anya overhears the conversation and leaves, angry that she fell for Dimitri’s scheme. Dimitri abducts Marie in her car to force her to see Anya. She agrees when he presents the music box. As Marie and Anya talk, Anya begins to regain her memories before she and Marie sing the lullaby the music box played. Soon after, Anya, as the true Anastasia, tearfully reunites with her grandmother.
Marie offers Dimitri the reward money the next day, recognizing him as the servant boy who helped them, but Dimitri declines it and leaves to return to the Soviet Union. At the celebration for her return, Anya is informed by her grandmother of Dimitri's gesture, leaving her torn between staying with Marie or going with him. Anya walks off to the Pont Alexandre III, looking for Pooka, (who ran off with her necklace), where Rasputin entraps her, while Bartok abandons Rasputin. Dimitri returns to save Anya, but is attacked by a Pegasus statue enchanted by Rasputin. Anya smashes the reliquary, and the demons turn on and destroy Rasputin.
Anya and Dimitri elope. Anya sends a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie, promising to visit them. Meanwhile, Bartok falls in love with a female bat whilst Bartok breaks the fourth wall bids the audience goodbye.
Voice cast
Meg Ryan as Anya / Anastasia, an eighteen-year-old orphaned Russian grand duchess, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and granddaughter of Maria Feodorovna, who sets out on a journey to re-discover her past.
Liz Callaway provides the singing voice for Anya / Anastasia.
Kirsten Dunst provides the speaking voice for young Anya / Anastasia.
Lacey Chabert provides the singing voice for young Anya / Anastasia.
John Cusack as Dimitri, a young conman, former servant of the Romanovs, and Anya / Anastasia's love interest.
Jonathan Dokuchitz provides the singing voice for Dimitri.
Glenn Walker Harris Jr. provides the voice for young Dimitri.
Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir "Vlad" Vasilovich, a former nobleman-turned-con artist and friend of Dimitri.
Christopher Lloyd as Grigori Rasputin, an evil lich sorcerer and former advisor of the Romanovs, who casts a curse upon the family when they exile him for treason.
Jim Cummings provides the singing voice of Rasputin.
Hank Azaria as Bartok, Rasputin's mild-mannered, talking albino bat, who serves as the film's comic relief.
Angela Lansbury as Maria Feodorovna, the Dowager Empress, mother of Nicholas II, and Anya / Anastasia's paternal grandmother.
Bernadette Peters as Sophie Stanislovskievna Somorkov-Smirnoff, Marie's first cousin and lady-in-waiting.
Andrea Martin as "Comrade" Phlegmenkoff, the orphanage's inconsiderate owner.
Rick Jones as:
Nicholas II Romanov, the last Tsar of Imperial Russia and Anya / Anastasia's father.
A revolutionary soldier
A servant
A ticket agent
Charity James as an Anastasia imposter
Debra Mooney as an Actress
Arthur Malet as:
Traveling Man
The Romanov's Majordomo
Victoria Clark, Billy Porter, Patrick Quinn, J. K. Simmons, and Lillias White were among the ensemble and character voices.
Production
Development
In May 1994, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman had signed a long-term deal to produce animated features with 20th Century Fox, with the studio channeling more than $100 million in constructing a new animation studio. They selected Phoenix, Arizona, for the location of Fox Animation Studios because the state offered the company about $1 million in job training funds and low-interest loans for the state-of-the-art digital animation equipment. It was staffed with 300 artists and technicians, a third of whom worked with Bluth and Goldman in Dublin, Ireland, for Sullivan Bluth Studios. For their first project, the studio insisted they select one out of a dozen existing properties which they owned where Bluth and Goldman suggested adapting The King and I and My Fair Lady, though Bluth and Goldman felt it would be impossible to improve on Audrey Hepburn's performance and Lerner and Loewe's score. Following several story suggestions, the idea to adapt Anastasia (1956) originated from Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO Bill Mechanic. They would later adapt story elements from Pygmalion with the peasant Anya being molded into a regal woman.
Early into production, Bluth and Goldman began researching the actual events through enlisting former CIA agents stationed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Around this same time, screenwriter Eric Tuchman had written a script. Eventually, Bluth and Goldman decided the history of Anastasia and the Romanov dynasty was too dark for their film. In 1995, Bruce Graham and Susan Gauthier reworked Tuchman's script into a light-hearted romantic comedy. When Graham and Gauthier moved onto other projects, the husband-and-wife screenwriting team Bob Tzudiker and Noni White were hired for additional rewrites. Actress Carrie Fisher also made uncredited rewrites of the film, particularly the scene in which Anya leaves the orphanage for Paris.
For the villains, Bluth also did not take into consideration depicting Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and initially toyed with the idea of a police chief with a vendetta against Anastasia (an idea which the musical adaptation revived in the form of Gleb Vaganov). Instead, they decided to have Grigori Rasputin as the villain with Goldman explaining it was because of "all the different things they did to try to destroy Rasputin and what a horrible man he really was, the more it seemed appetizing to make him the villain". In reality, Rasputin was already dead when the Romanovs were assassinated. In addition to this, Bluth created the idea for Bartok, the albino bat, as a sidekick for Rasputin: "I just thought the villain had to have a comic sidekick, just to let everyone know that it was all right to laugh. A bat seemed a natural friend for Rasputin. Making him a white bat came later – just to make him different". Composers Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens recalled being at the Au Bon Pain in New York City where Rasputin and Bartok were pitched. They were dismayed at the decision to go down a historically inaccurate route; they made their stage musical adaption "more sophisticated, more far-reaching, more political" to encompass their original vision.
Casting
Bluth stated that Meg Ryan was his first and only choice for the title character, but Ryan was indecisive about accepting the role due to its dark historical events. To persuade her, the animation team took an audio clip of Annie Reed from Sleepless in Seattle and created an animation reel based on it which was screened for her following an invitation to the studio. Ryan later accepted the role; in her words "I was blown away that they did that". Before Ryan was cast, Broadway singer and actress Liz Callaway was brought in to record several demos of the songs hoping to land a job in background vocals, but the demos were liked well enough by songwriters that they were ultimately used in the final film. John Cusack openly admitted after being cast that he couldn't sing; his singing duties were performed by Jonathan Dokuchitz. Goldman had commented that originally, as with the rest of the cast, they were going to have Ryan record her lines separately from the others, with Bluth reading the lines of the other characters to her. However, after Ryan and the directors were finding the method to be too challenging when her character was paired with Dimitri, she and Cusack recorded the dialogue of their characters together, with Goldman noting that "it made a huge difference".
Peter O'Toole was considered for the role of Rasputin, but Christopher Lloyd was hired because of his popularity from the Back to the Future trilogy. Bartok was initially written for Woody Allen, but the studio was reluctant to hire him following revelations of his relationship with his ex-partner Mia Farrow's adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Martin Short was also considered, but Hank Azaria won the role ten minutes into his audition.
Musical score and soundtrack album
The film score was composed, co-orchestrated, and conducted by David Newman, whose father, Alfred Newman, composed the score of the 1956 film of the same name. The songs, of which "Journey to the Past" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, were written by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The first song they wrote for the project was "Once Upon a December"; it was written during a heatwave "so [they were] sweating and writing winter imagery". The film's soundtrack was released in CD and audio cassette format on October 28, 1997.
Release
20th Century Fox scheduled for Anastasia to be released on November 21, 1997, notably a week after the re-release of Disney's The Little Mermaid. Disney claimed it had long-planned for the re-release to coincide with a consumer products campaign leading into Christmas and the film's home video release in March 1998, as well continue the tradition of re-releasing their animated films within a seven-to-eight year interval. In addition to this, Disney would release several competing family films including Flubber on the following weekend, as well as a double feature of George of the Jungle and Hercules. To avoid branding confusion, Disney banned television advertisements for Anastasia from being aired on the ABC program The Wonderful World of Disney.
Commenting on the studios' fierce competition, Disney spokesman John Dreyer brushed off allegations of studio rivalry, claiming: "We always re-release our movies around holiday periods". However, Fox executives refused to believe Dreyer's statement with Bill Mechanic responding that "it's a deliberate attempt to be a bully, to kick sand in our face. They can't be trying to maximize their own business; the amount they're spending on advertising is ridiculous... It's a concentrated effort to keep our film from fulfilling its potential".
Despite this, the film is constantly confused to have been made by Disney due to its then contemporary films. This is not helped by the fact that 20th Century Fox, the film's primary distributor, was eventually purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2019, thus adding the film to the studio's library and increasing confusion even more.
Marketing
Anastasia was accompanied by a marketing campaign of more than $50 million with promotional sponsors from Burger King, Dole Food Company, Hershey, Chesebrough-Ponds, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Shell Oil, and the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Overall, the marketing costs exceeded that of Independence Day by more than 35 percent. For merchandising, Fox selected Galoob to license dolls based on Anastasia. Many storybooks adapted from the film were released by Little Golden Books. In August 1997, the SeaWorld theme parks in San Diego and Orlando featured a 40-foot-long, 20-foot-high inflatable playground for children called "Anastasia's Kingdom".
After the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, in December 2022 Disney released its first merchandise based on the film in the form of a mug to honor its 25th anniversary.
Home media
On April 28, 1998, and March 16, 1999, Anastasia was released on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD and sold eight million units. The film was first rereleased on February 19, 2002 as part of the Fox Family Features lineup alongside Thumbelina and FernGully: The Last Rainforest. The film was again rereleased on a two-disc "Family Fun Edition" DVD with the film in its original theatrical 2.35:1 widescreen format on March 28, 2006. The first disc featured an optional audio commentary from directors/writers Bluth and Goldman, and additional bonus material. The second included a making-of documentary, music video and making-of featurette of Aaliyah's "Journey to the Past", and additional bonus content. The film was released on Blu-ray on March 22, 2011; this included Bartok the Magnificent in the special features.
Streaming
Following Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox on March 20, 2019, Anastasia became available on Disney+. In the U.S., it was removed from Disney+ on March 1, 2022, and transferred to Starz on March 18; contrary to popular belief, the film's disappearance bears no connection to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Disney had suspended theatrical releases in Russia such as the then-upcoming Turning Red, which led to confusion that Anastasia's withdrawal was related). Anastasia eventually returned to Disney+ on June 2, 2023.
Reception
Anastasia received mostly positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 84% based on 58 reviews and an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Beautiful animation, an affable take on Russian history, and strong voice performances make Anastasia a winning first film from Fox Animation Studios". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 61 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, praising "the quality of the story" and writing the result as entertaining and sometimes exciting. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave Anastasia three stars, calling the lead character "pretty and charming" but criticized the film for a lack of historical accuracy. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Though originality is not one of its accomplishments, Anastasia is generally pleasant, serviceable and eager to please. And any film that echoes the landscape of Doctor Zhivago is hard to dislike for too long". Todd McCarthy of Variety noted the film was "dazzlingly colorful", but felt that "all the ingredients thrown into the pot don't congeal entirely congenially, and the artistic touch applied doesn't allow the whole to become more than the sum of its various, but invariably familiar, elements". Margaret McGurk, reviewing for The Cincinnati Enquirer, described the film as "charming" and "entertaining", and calling Anastasia as a tasty tale about a fairy-tale princess. Lisa Osbourne of Boxoffice called the film "pure family entertainment". Awarding the film three out of five stars, Empire's Philip Thomas wrote that despite historical inaccuracies, Anastasia manages to be a charming little movie.
Several critics have drawn positive comparisons between Anastasia and the Disney films released during the Disney Renaissance, noting similarities in their story and animation styles. Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle awarded the film three out of five stars. Likening its quality to that of a Disney animated film, Baumgarten wrote that Anastasia "may not beat Disney at its own game, but it sure won't be for lack of trying". Baumgarten continued that "[t]his sumptuous-looking film clearly spared no expense in its visual rendering; its optical flourishes and attention to detail aim for the Disney gold standard and, for the most part, come pretty darn close". The Phoenix's Jeffrey Gantz jokingly stated: "[I]f imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then the folks at Disney should feel royally complimented by Twentieth Century Fox's new animated feature about Tsar Nicholas II's youngest daughter". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Fox has a beautifully animated musical that can challenge Disney's peer, but also said that Anastasia has inferior animation style compared to Disney's and lacks its magic.
Russian critical response
Critical reception in Russia was also, for the most part, positive despite the artistic liberties that the film took with Russian history. Gemini Films, the Russian distributor of Anastasia, stressed the fact that the story was "not history", but rather "a fairy tale set against the background of real Russian events" in the film's Russian marketing campaign so that its Russian audience would not view Anastasia as a historical film. As a result, many Russians praised the film for its art and storytelling and saw it as not a piece of history but another Western import to be consumed and enjoyed.
Some Russian Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, found Anastasia to be an offensive depiction of the Grand Duchess, who was canonized as a new martyr in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Many historians echoed their sentiments, criticizing the film as a sanitized, sugar-coated reworking of the story of the Czar's youngest daughter. While the filmmakers acknowledged the fact that "Anastasia uses history only as a starting point", others complained that the film would provide its audience with misleading facts about Russian history, which, according to the author and historian Suzanne Massie, has been falsified for so many years. Similarly, the amateur historian Bob Atchison said that Anastasia was akin to someone making a film in which Anne Frank "moves to Orlando and opens a crocodile farm with a guy named Mort".
Some of Anastasia's contemporary relatives also felt that the film was distasteful, but most Romanovs have come to accept the "repeated exploitation of Anastasia's romantic tale... with equanimity".
Box office
A limited release of Anastasia at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on the weekend of November 14, 1997, grossed $120,541. The following weekend, the wide release of Anastasia in the United States earned $14.1 million, ranking second behind Mortal Kombat Annihilation. By the end of its theatrical run, Anastasia had grossed $58.4 million in the United States and Canada and $81.4 million internationally. The worldwide gross totaled up to about $139.8 million, making it Don Bluth's highest-grossing film to date and beating out his next highest-grossing film, An American Tail, by about $55 million. This was Don Bluth's first financially successful film since All Dogs Go to Heaven.
Accolades
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score and Best Original Song (for "Journey to the Past"). The R&B singer Aaliyah performed the pop version at the ceremony.
Adaptations and other media
Ice Follies
Anastasia on Ice is a licensed adaptation produced by Feld Entertainment's Ice Follies that ran from at least 1998 to 1999.
Spin-off film
In 1999, a direct-to-video standalone spin-off titled Bartok the Magnificent was released which focused on the character of Bartok.
Stage musical adaptation
Hartford Stage developed a stage production of Anastasia, with the book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty and directed by Darko Tresnjak. The production ran from May 13 through June 19, 2016.
It is an original musical combining both the 1956 Arthur Laurents film and the 1997 animated film. The musical features six songs from the animated film and 16 new songs. Additionally, there have been some newly rewritten characters including Checkist secret police officer Gleb Vaganov (in the place of Rasputin), and Lily, who has been renamed in the place of Sophie. McNally said: "This is a stage version for a modern theatre audience... The libretto's 'a blend' of old and new... There are characters in the musical that appear in neither the cartoon nor the Ingrid Bergman version".
The Hartford production featured Christy Altomare as Anastasia / Anya, Derek Klena as Dimitri, Mary Beth Peil as The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Manoel Felciano as Gleb Vaganov, John Bolton as Vladimir, Caroline O'Connor as Lily, and Nicole Scimeca as Young Anastasia. The musical transferred to Broadway with much of the original Hartford cast, opening on April 24, 2017, at the Broadhurst Theater to mixed reviews.
See also
Anna Anderson
Koschei
Romanov impostors
List of 20th Century Studios theatrical animated feature films
References
External links
Official website
Anastasia at IMDb
Anastasia at AllMovie
Anastasia at Box Office Mojo
Anastasia at Metacritic
Anastasia at Rotten Tomatoes
Anastasia at the TCM Movie Database
Anastasia at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films |
List_of_Defenders_members | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Defenders_members | [
621
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Defenders_members"
] | The Defenders are a loosely organized team of fictional characters mostly, but not solely, superheroes in the Marvel Universe. For much of their history, there was no official membership. Thus, the Defenders had a reputation as being a non-team, a term which was coined in the pages of the comic. All could be considered Defenders. The following list attempts to make sense of their membership but may not be complete.
Original "non-team"
Founders
These characters helped form the team in Marvel Features #1 (December 1971).
Recruits of the early 1970s
Recruits of the mid-1970s
Defenders for a day
The team had managed to keep its existence a secret from the general public until a television documentary film by supporting character Dollar Bill announced it to the world. Dollar made a special mention to the currently open membership for the team. Consequently, in Defenders #62 (August 1978), the currently active members were joined by a large number of former associates and new recruits. The majority of the latter served for a single mission before quitting in Defenders #64 (October 1978).
Rival group
Taking advantage of the newfound notoriety of the team, a number of supervillains formed their own rival group of so-called Defenders in Defenders #63 (September 1978). They soon came to conflict with their heroic counterparts and consequently disbanded in Defenders #64 (October 1978).
Early 1980s recruits
New Defenders
In Defenders #125 (November 1983) the team was reorganized into a more formal organization, somewhat modeled after the Avengers. By this time, several former members had severed ties with the team.
Founders
Later recruits
Dragon Circle
By the time of Defenders #152 (February 1986), Moondragon had fallen under the control of the Dragon of the Moon. The Dragon led her to attack the Defenders. During the battle, the physical forms of Andromeda, Gargoyle, Interloper, Manslaughter, Moondragon, and Valkyrie were destroyed. Candace Southern retired. Angel, Beast, and Iceman were joined by Cyclops and Marvel Girl in forming X-Factor.
Gargoyle and Moondragon were later able to gain new corporeal forms. However the other four remained disembodied spirits until Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme vol 3 #3–4 (March–April 1989). There they managed to gain temporary but recurring spiritual possession over the bodies of four residents of Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. These four unknowingly acted as their representatives in forming a successor group of the Defenders.
Sian Bowen: Host to the spirit of Valkyrie.
Geneviene Cass: Host to the spirit of Andromeda.
Will Fanshawe: Host to the spirit of Interloper.
Roger Loomis: Host to the spirit of Manslaughter.
Dafydd ap Iowerth: Alleged descendant of King Arthur and host to his spirit.
Doctor Strange: Associate member.
Secret Defenders
Debuting in Dr. Strange (vol. 3) #50 (February 1993) the Secret Defenders were another successor group to the team. They were very loosely organized, consisting of a leader and the various associates recruited for a mission at hand. They would disband again after each mission. Several "members" were former Defenders. Others had no previous connection to the team. Some served for a single mission while others were recurring members.
Founders
Early recruits
Questing villains
From Secret Defenders #12-14 (February and April), the title of characters was an organized group of super-villains that was in the quest of finding and obtaining the Oracle of Ancient Knowledge. They apparently disbanded after the successful mission.
Thanos: The leader and recruiter of this group.
Geatar
Nitro
Rhino
Super-Skrull
Titanium Man
Final recruits
By Secret Defenders #15 (May 1994), Doctor Strange's duties and circumstances required him elsewhere. He retired after naming Doctor Druid as his replacement. The latter would serve as leader until the group disbanded in Secret Defenders #25 (March 1995).
Note
Before and during the initial few months of publication of Secret Defenders, an advertisement that Marvel used depicted a team consisting of Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, John Blaze, Maverick, and Wolverine, a team which never existed in the comics. Neither John Blaze nor Maverick were ever part of a Secret Defenders team in any published story.
Cursed members and The Order
In Defenders (vol. 2) #1 (March 2001), four former Defenders were forced to regroup to help Nighthawk and Hellcat in a battle against Yandroth. He was defeated but cursed them to gather every time planet Earth faces a threat. This continued until Defenders (vol. 2) #12 (February 2002). Four members of the team formed The Order. This group attempted to conquer the world in order to protect it. Its activities were featured in The Order #1-6 (April–September 2002). The group disbanded again after Gaia lifted Yandroth's curse which was associated with her.
Founders
Recruits
Recruits against The Order
This incarnation of the Defenders was divided among two rival groups.
The Order (Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer) and the Defenders (Hellcat, Nighthawk, and Valkyrie). The three decided to recruit the so-called "female analogs" of their former teammates. They would serve until both teams disbanded.
Initiative Team (Last Defenders)
Kyle Richmond requested an Initiative version of the Defenders from Tony Stark, intending to fill the ranks with previous Defenders including Gargoyle, Hellcat, and Devil Slayer. However, Stark assembled an entirely different team in hopes of the Defenders maintaining a stable roster for once. The team was officially disbanded after its first mission was deemed a failure.
Founders
Last Defenders recruits
After the Initiative team disbands, Richmond attempts to continue by hiring registered mercenaries to replace the teammates that Stark had assigned to him. After he was forced to retire from his superhero career, he privately assembles and supports a version of the Defenders based on an encounter with a future version of that team. This team is later forcibly disbanded by H.A.M.M.E.R.
Fear Itself: The Deep's Defenders
This incarnation of the Defenders was formed during the Fear Itself storyline in order to liberate Atlantis from Attuma (in the form of Nerkodd: Breaker of Oceans).
Defenders Vol. 4
The Defenders came together again when it comes to keeping the Concordance Engine from falling into the wrong hands.
Fearless Defenders
Defenders Vol. 5
A new, street-level team calling themselves the Defenders form to stop crime. This team is based on the Netflix version of the team.
Defenders Vol. 6
Defenders Beyond
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Members of "The Defenders" appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series Marvel's The Defenders. Each of the Defenders listed below have an individual series all leading up to the miniseries
== References == |
Doctor_Strange | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strange | [
621
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strange"
] | Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (cover-dated July 1963). Doctor Strange serves as the Sorcerer Supreme, the primary protector of Earth against magical and mystical threats. Strange was introduced during the Silver Age of Comic Books in an attempt to bring a different kind of character and themes of mysticism to Marvel Comics.
The character starts as an intelligent and arrogant neurosurgeon who is injured in a car accident. Because his hands had suffered severe nerve damage from the accident, he was told that current medical therapy and rehabilitation would not be enough to enable him to practice again as a surgeon. Unable to accept this prognosis, he travels the world searching for alternative ways of healing, which leads him to the Ancient One, the Sorcerer Supreme. Strange becomes his student and learns to be a master of both the mystical and the martial arts. He acquires an assortment of mystical objects, including the powerful Eye of Agamotto and Cloak of Levitation, and takes up residence in a mansion referred to as the Sanctum Sanctorum, located at 177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. Strange assumes the title of Sorcerer Supreme and, with his friend and valet Wong, defends the world from mystical threats.
In live-action adaptations, the character was first portrayed by Peter Hooten in the 1978 television film Dr. Strange. Since 2016, Benedict Cumberbatch has portrayed the role of Stephen Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Publication history
Creation
Artist Steve Ditko and writer Stan Lee have described the character as having been originally the idea of Ditko, who wrote in 2008, "On my own, I brought in to Lee a five-page, penciled story with a page/panel script of my idea of a new, different kind of character for variety in Marvel Comics. My character wound up being named Dr. Strange because he would appear in Strange Tales." In a 1963 letter to Jerry Bails, Lee called the character Ditko's idea, saying:
Well, we have a new character in the works for Strange Tales (just a 5-page filler named Dr. Strange) Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him-- 'twas Steve's idea and I figured we'd give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much. Little sidelight: Originally decided to call him Mr. Strange, but thought the "Mr." bit too similar to Mister Fantastic -- now, however, I remember we had a villain called Dr. Strange just recently in one of our mags, hope it won't be too confusing!
Early years
Doctor Strange debuted in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963), a split book shared with the feature "The Human Torch". Doctor Strange appeared in issues #110–111 and #114 before the character's eight-page origin story in #115 (December 1963). His origin was later retold in Doctor Strange #169 (February 1968). Scripter Lee's take on the character was inspired by the Chandu the Magician radio program that aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the 1930s. He had Doctor Strange accompany spells with elaborate artifacts, such as the "Eye of Agamotto" and the "Wand of Watoomb", as well as mystical-sounding vocabulary such as "Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!". Although these often referenced the names of established mythological beings, Lee has said he never had any idea what the incantations meant and used them simply because they sounded mystical and mysterious. Ditko showcased surrealistic mystical landscapes and increasingly vivid visuals that helped make the feature a favorite of college students at the time. Comics historian Mike Benton wrote:
The Dr. Strange stories of the 1960s constructed a cohesive cosmology that would have thrilled any self-respecting theosophist. College students, minds freshly opened by psychedelic experiences and Eastern mysticism, read Ditko and Lee's Dr. Strange stories with the belief of a recent Hare Krishna convert. Meaning was everywhere, and readers analyzed the Dr. Strange stories for their relationship to Egyptian myths, Sumerian gods, and Jungian archetypes.
"People who read Doctor Strange thought people at Marvel must be heads [i.e., drug users]," recalled then-associate editor and former Doctor Strange writer Roy Thomas in 1971, "because they had had similar experiences high on mushrooms. But I don't use hallucinogens, nor do I think any artists do."
Originating in the early 1960s, the character was a predictor of trends in the art prior to them becoming more established in the later counterculture of the 1960s. As historian Bradford W. Wright described:
Steve Ditko contributed some of his most surrealistic work to the comic book and gave it a disorienting, hallucinogenic quality. Dr. Strange's adventures take place in bizarre worlds and twisting dimensions that resembled Salvador Dalí paintings. Inspired by the pulp fiction magicians of Stan Lee's childhood as well as by contemporary Beat culture, Dr. Strange remarkably predicted the youth counterculture's fascination with Eastern mysticism and psychedelia. Never among Marvel's more popular or accessible characters, Dr. Strange still found a niche among an audience seeking a challenging alternative to more conventional superhero fare.
As co-plotter and later sole plotter in the Marvel Method of scripting, Ditko took Strange into ever-more-abstract realms. In a 17-issue story arc in Strange Tales #130–146 (March 1965 – July 1966), Ditko introduced the cosmic character Eternity, who personified the universe and was depicted as a silhouette filled with the cosmos. Golden Age of Comic Books artist/writer Bill Everett succeeded Ditko as an artist with issues #147–152, followed by Marie Severin through #160 and Dan Adkins through #168, the final issue before the Nick Fury feature moved to its own title and Strange Tales was renamed Doctor Strange. Expanded to 20 pages per issue, the Doctor Strange solo series ran 15 issues, #169–183 (June 1968 – November 1969), continuing the numbering of Strange Tales. Thomas wrote the run of new stories, joined after the first three issues by the art team of penciler Gene Colan and inker Tom Palmer through the end.
After plans were announced for a never-released split book series featuring Doctor Strange and Iceman, each in solo adventures. Strange next appeared in the first three issues (December 1971 – June 1972) of the quarterly showcase title Marvel Feature. He appeared in both the main story detailing the formation of superhero team the Defenders, and the related back-up story. The character then starred in a revival solo series in Marvel Premiere #3–14 (July 1972 – March 1974). This arc marked the debut of another recurring foe, the entity Shuma-Gorath, created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Frank Brunner, who took over as the regular creative team starting with Marvel Premiere #10. Englehart and Brunner collaborated closely on the stories, meeting over dinner every two months to discuss the series, and their run became known for its psychedelic visuals and plots. In issues #8–10 (May–September 1973), Strange is forced to shut down the Ancient One's mind, causing his mentor's physical death. Strange then assumes the title of Sorcerer Supreme. Englehart and Brunner created another multi-issue storyline featuring sorcerer Sise-Neg ("Genesis" spelled backward) going back through history, collecting all magical energies, until he reaches the beginning of the universe, becomes all-powerful and creates it anew, leaving Strange to wonder whether this was, paradoxically, the original creation. Stan Lee, seeing the issue after publication, ordered Englehart and Brunner to print a retraction saying this was not God but a god, to avoid offending religious readers. According to Frank Brunner, he and Englehart concocted a fake letter from a fictitious minister praising the story, and mailed it to Marvel from Texas. Marvel unwittingly printed the letter in Doctor Strange #3 and dropped the retraction.
Due to the growing number of Doctor Strange readers, the Marvel Premiere series segued to the character's second ongoing title, Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts, also known as Doctor Strange vol. 2, which ran 81 issues (June 1974 – Feb. 1987). Doctor Strange #14 featured a crossover story with The Tomb of Dracula #44, another series which was being drawn by Gene Colan at the time. In Englehart's final story, he sent Dr. Strange back in time to meet Benjamin Franklin.
1980s
Strange met his allies Topaz in #75 (February 1986) and Rintrah in #80 (December 1986). The series ended on a cliffhanger as his home, the Sanctum Sanctorum, was heavily damaged during a battle. Among the losses were Doctor Strange's entire collection of mystic books and other important artifacts. As a consequence, Strange was now considerably weaker, and several spells designed to protect humanity from vampires and the evil serpent god Set expired.
The title was discontinued so that the character's adventures could be transferred to another split-book format series. Strange Tales vol. 2, #1–19 (April 1987–Oct. 1988) was shared with street heroes Cloak and Dagger. This new Doctor Strange series resolved Strange's quest to reclaim his power and missing artifacts, as well as resurrecting the Defenders, who had died in the last issue of that team's title.
1990s
Strange was returned to his own series, this time titled Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme, which ran 90 issues (November 1988 – June 1996). The initial creative team was writer Peter B. Gillis and artists Richard Case and Randy Emberlin, with storylines often spanning multiple issues. Strange lost the title of "Sorcerer Supreme" in issues #48–49 (Dec. 1992 – Jan. 1993) when he refused to fight a war on behalf of the Vishanti, the mystical entities that empower his spells. During this time the series became part of the "Midnight Sons" group of Marvel's supernatural comics. Doctor Strange found new sources of magical strength in the form of chaos magic, as well as a magic construct he used as a proxy. He would form the Secret Defenders with a rotating roster of heroes, and reunite with the original Defenders. Strange regained his title in Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #80 (August 1995).
Strange appeared with the Human Torch and the Thing in the one-shot publication Strange Tales vol. 3, #1 (Nov. 1994).
The character was featured in several limited series. The first was Doctor Strange: The Flight of Bones #1–4 (February–May 1999), with a series of spontaneous combustions by criminals instigated by old foe Dormammu. Strange was the catalyst for the creation of a trio of sorceresses in Witches #1–4 (August–November 2004). The Strange limited series (November 2004 – July 2005) by writers J. Michael Straczynski and Samm Barnes updated the character's origin. Another limited series, Doctor Strange: The Oath #1–5 (December 2006 – April 2007), written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Marcos Martin, focused on Strange's responsibilities as sorcerer and doctor.
Doctor Strange has appeared in four graphic novels: Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa (1986); Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment (1989); Spider-Man/Dr. Strange: The Way to Dusty Death (1992); and Dr. Strange: What Is It That Disturbs You, Stephen? (1997).
2000s
Strange appeared as a supporting character for the bulk of the 2000s. He appeared regularly in The Amazing Spider-Man under J. Michael Straczynski, before being cast into a time loop by Baron Mordo. He later appeared on and off in The New Avengers, where he was stated as being part of the secret group known as the Illuminati to deal with future threats to Earth. Ultimately Strange joined the team and allowed them to use his home as a base after the events of the 2006 "Civil War" storyline, which he sat out. Doctor Strange was critical of the federal Superhuman Registration Act and aided the anti-registration Avengers team led by Luke Cage.
During Brian Michael Bendis' time as writer, Doctor Doom attacked the Avengers and manipulated the Scarlet Witch into eliminating most of the mutant population. Doctor Strange's failure to recognize Doom's hand in the former and to stop the latter caused him to start to doubt his abilities. After he was forced to use dark magic to confront an enraged Hulk, followed by further use of dark spells to save the New Avengers from the Hood's supervillain army, Strange renounced his status as Sorcerer Supreme, as he felt that he was no longer worthy of it. The Eye of Agamotto passed the mantle on to Jericho Drumm.
He was also featured in The Order, which spun out of the 2001 Defenders revival, and the Indefensible Defenders mini-series.
2010s
Doctor Strange appeared as a regular character throughout the 2010-2013 The New Avengers series. Jericho Drumm, now newly appointed Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Voodoo, sacrifices himself to stop the powerful mystical entity Agamotto from reclaiming the Eye. A guilt-ridden Strange rejoins the New Avengers, and he offers the team his valet Wong to act as their housekeeper.
Strange eventually regains his position of Sorcerer Supreme, but is possessed by a demon and becomes leader of the Black Priests.
After the various Marvel universes merge into one, Doctor Strange acts as righthand man of Doctor Doom, who has become the ruler of this world after erasing all recollection of the previous separate realities that existed. Circumstances force Strange to open a pod that releases the surviving heroes of the original Marvel continuity, known as Earth-616. Doom kills Doctor Strange.
In 2015, Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo teamed up for the fourth volume of Doctor Strange. A new character, reluctant librarian Zelma Stanton, agrees to reorganize Strange's magical library. Jericho Drumm returns, and the series and a spinoff, Dr. Strange: Last Days of Magic, sees such characters as Medico Mistico, Magik, Scarlet Witch, Mahatma Doom, Professor Xu, Monako, and Alice Gulliver. With the laws of magic fundamentally altered, and with the loss of his former resources, Doctor Strange is forced to depend on his own physical skills and inventive use of his few functional spells. He eventually no longer has access to most of his former spells or his levitating cape.
During the "Infinity Countdown" storyline, Doctor Strange goes on a space mission. He encounters Super-Skrull who has the Time Stone. After defeating Super-Skrull, Doctor Strange claims the Time Stone. Doctor Strange then tracks down the Mind Stone and finds it in Turk Barrett's possession as Turk manages to evade him. When Black Widow's clone arrives seeking out Doctor Strange where she wants to dispose of the Space Stone, he does not want to take it as he knows what would happen if they are in proximity. Using a magic spell, Doctor Strange speaks to the holders of the Infinity Stones and requests a parley to reform the Infinity Watch. He states to Adam Warlock, Black Widow's clone, Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, and Turk Barrett that they need to safeguard them from such calamities even if one of them is Thanos.
Fictional character biography
Stephen Vincent Strange, M.D., Ph.D., is a brilliant but highly egotistical fictional doctor. He was born in Philadelphia and raised in New York City. After high school, he went to New York College as a pre-med student, entered medical school at Columbia University and completed his residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where his success made him arrogant.
Despite his reputation for being able to handle even the most complicated surgical procedures, Strange is self-centered and greedy, and only treats patients who can afford to pay his exorbitant fees. One night, while speeding in his car, a terrible accident shatters the bones in his hands, leading to extensive nerve damage. He soon finds that his fingers tremble uncontrollably, rendering him unable to perform surgery. Too vain to accept a teaching job, Strange desperately searches for a way to fix his hands and subsequently wastes all of his money on expensive, but unsuccessful treatments.
Broke and ostracized from his colleagues, Strange becomes a drifter. He happens to overhear two sailors in a bar discussing a hermit called the Ancient One (who is actually the Earth's Sorcerer Supreme) in the Himalayas, who can heal any ailment. Despite not personally believing in magic, Strange uses the last of his money to track down the aged mystic. The Ancient One refuses to help Strange due to his arrogance, but senses a good side that he attempts to bring to the surface. He fails, but Strange then commits a heroic act when he discovers the Ancient One's disciple, Baron Mordo, attempting to kill his mentor and usurp his power. After a confrontation with Mordo leads to him being shackled with restraining spells preventing him from either attacking Mordo or warning the Ancient One, Strange desperately and selflessly accepts the Ancient One's offer to become his apprentice to have some hope of helping the old man. The Ancient One, pleased at Strange's sincere change of heart, accepts Strange as his new student and promptly frees him from the restraining spells while explaining he was aware of Mordo's treachery all along. Strange soon becomes Mordo's most enduring enemy, as the Ancient One trains the doctor in the mystic arts. After completing his training, Strange returns to New York City and takes up residence within the Sanctum Sanctorum, a townhouse located in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, accompanied by his personal assistant Wong.
As the Ancient One's disciple, Strange encounters the entity Nightmare, and other mystical foes before meeting Dormammu, a warlord from an alternate dimension called the "Dark Dimension" who wishes to conquer Earth. Strange is aided by a nameless girl, later called Clea, who is eventually revealed to be Dormammu's niece. When Strange helps a weakened Dormammu drive off the rampaging Mindless Ones and return them to their prison, he is allowed to leave the Dark Dimension unchallenged.
In The Unbelievable Gwenpool #3, Strange encounters Gwendolyn Poole, who explains herself to be from a reality where all Marvel characters are fictional characters in comic books. As Strange helps her locate her home reality to create a fake background for her in the Marvel Universe so that she can get a Social Security number, driver's license and other essential documents, he discovers that Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast to play him in Gwen's universe, remarking that he "could see that".
Powers and abilities
Powers and skills
Doctor Strange is a fictional practicing sorcerer who draws his powers from mystical entities such as Agamotto, Cyttorak, Ikonn, Oshtur, Raggadorr, and Watoomb, who lend their energies for spells. Strange also wields mystical artifacts including the Cloak of Levitation which enables him to fly; the Eye of Agamotto, an amulet whose light is used to negate evil magic; the Book of the Vishanti, a grimoire which contains vast knowledge of white magic;: 26–27 and the Orb of Agamotto, a crystal ball which is used for clairvoyance.: 24–27
In addition to his magical abilities, Strange is trained in several martial arts disciplines, including judo, and has shown proficiency with numerous magically conjured weapons including swords and axes. Strange was a skilled neurosurgeon before nerve damage impaired his hands.
Doctor Strange is described as "the mightiest magician in the cosmos" and "more powerful by far than any of your fellow humanoids" by Eternity, the sentience of the Marvel Universe. He holds the title of Sorcerer Supreme beginning with the 1973 storyline in which the Ancient One dies, and retains the title thereafter, except during an interruption from 1992 to 1995. He relinquishes the title once again in a 2009 storyline, but reclaims it in a 2012 story when he proves himself willing to protect the world even without the title.
Artifacts and technology
Book of the Vishanti
The Book of the Vishanti, portrayed as being written by unknown authors, is closely associated with Doctor Strange and is the greatest known source of white magical knowledge on Earth. The Book of the Vishanti contains spells of defensive magic and is indestructible. Its counterpart, the Darkhold, contains all the knowledge of black magic in the Marvel Universe and is likewise indestructible. It is possible to destroy single pages of either book, but the balancing spell in the other book must be destroyed as well to maintain a mystical balance. A collective of the three powerful magical beings—Agamotto, Oshtur, and Hoggoth—known as the Vishanti must allow the spell to be destroyed.
Even though the book is a tome of benevolent magic, the spells within can still be dangerous when used improperly. This is proven when a young, inexperienced Strange tried to use the Book of the Vishanti to resurrect his dead brother Victor, but the spell, known as the Vampire Verses, caused Victor to become the vampire Baron Blood years later.
The first known owner of the book was the Atlantean sorcerer Varnae, who lived around 18,500 BC. The next known owner was the Babylonian god Marduk Kurios. Marduk set a griffin to guard the Book. The sorcerer known as the Ancient One traveled back in time to c. 4000 BC, defeated the griffin, and returned to the 20th century. The Ancient One would remain the book's owner, despite a brief loss when the dark wizard Kaluu returned the Book to the Griffin, until he deemed his student, Doctor Strange, worthy of taking it.
Doctor Strange keeps the book in his townhouse library in New York City's Greenwich Village. He briefly lost the book when he destroyed his home to prevent the alien wizard Urthona from taking his magical artifacts, but the book was saved by Agamotto, who transported it to his realm and returned it to Strange some time later.
Cloak of Levitation
The Cloak of Levitation is depicted as a potent mystical cloak worn by Doctor Strange. The primary purpose of the cloak is to give its wearer the ability to levitate and fly. Additionally, the cloak is able to alter its shape, being often used to act as "another set of hands" to attack an opponent when Strange's own body has been incapacitated.
There were two distinctly different cloaks worn by Doctor Strange bequeathed to him by his mentor, the Ancient One: a billowing, full-length blue cloak, that had minor abilities and spells woven into it, and the later, red cloak that Strange is usually seen wearing. The first appearance of the first (blue) cloak was in Strange Tales #114 (November 1963). The first appearance of the second (red) cloak was in Strange Tales #127 (December 1964). The Cloak of Levitation is seen in a great many battles where it often plays a very significant role. While it is extremely durable, there are a few occasions when it is damaged. Its repair requires that Strange engage an ally, Enitharmon the Weaver.
The item has been referred to as a "relic" in the live-action movie Doctor Strange (2016). In this film (and other MCU films), the cloak appears to be sentient; not only does it rescue falling people on its own accord, but when Strange reached for a weapon in the Sanctum to fight an intruder, the cloaked yanked him to where a harness was sitting.
Eye of Agamotto
Orb of Agamotto
Aside from the Eye of Agamotto, the Orb of Agamotto is the other occult object that Doctor Strange owns. It is a powerful scrying crystal ball powered by the Agamotto entity to detect the use of magic anywhere in the world, providing Strange with a location and visual. It can also be used to monitor the shields that protect the planets created by the three sanctums. If Agamotto is inside the Orb, it becomes Strange's ultimate source of knowledge.
The Orb of Agamotto rests in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum in a room called the Chamber of Shadows. It usually is inside a display case with three curved legs. When summoned, the glass covering rises and the ball levitates. While powerful, the Orb has been blocked by exceptionally powerful mystic forces (such as Umar) who do not want their exact location known. On at least one occasion, it has been used to open a dimensional portal to the realm of Agamotto. In the film Thor, the Orb is briefly shown in Odin's Trophy Room in Asgard.
Enemies
The following are a selection of enemies of Doctor Strange:
Aggamon – The ruler of the Purple Dimension.
Baron Mordo – An evil wizard and former student of the Ancient One.
D'Spayre – A fear-eating demon who is a member of the Fear Lords.
Dagoth – A sea demon who is the spawn of Dagon.
Dormammu – A demon who is the ruler of the Dark Dimension.
Dweller-in-Darkness – A fear-generating demon who is a member of the Fear Lords.
Enchantress – An Asgardian sorceress. Doctor Strange first clashed with her during the "Acts of Vengeance" storyline.
Kaecilius – An evil wizard who works for Baron Mordo.
Kaluu – A 500-year-old wizard and a former classmate of the Ancient One.
Mindless Ones – The inhabitants of the Dark Dimension that serve as Dormammu's foot soldiers.
Mister Rasputin – A sorcerer who is the alleged descendant of Grigori Rasputin.
Necromancer – Counter-Earth's version of Doctor Strange.
Nightmare – The ruler of the Dream Dimension.
Paradox – A creation of Doctor Strange that was originally used to fill in for him.
Satannish – A very-powerful extra-dimensional demon.
Shanzar – The Sorcerer Supreme of the Strange Matter Dimension. He once possessed Hulk, turning him into Dark Hulk.
Shazana - Extradimensional sorceress and queen
Shuma-Gorath – A many-angled one who existed during Earth's pre-history.
Silver Dagger – A religious sorcerer.
Sons of Satannish – A cult that worships Satannish.
Tiboro – A humanoid who claims to be from the Sixth Dimension.
Umar – A resident of the Dark Dimension and the sister of Dormammu.
Undying Ones – A race of demons from another dimension with a variety of magic and a variety of forms.
Yandroth – A Scientist Supreme from the otherdimensional planet Yann.
Cultural impact and legacy
Critical response
Laura Bradley of Vanity Fair included Doctor Strange in their "Stan Lee’s Most Iconic Characters" list. Screen Rant included Doctor Strange in their "10 Most Powerful Comic Book Wizards" list, and in their "10 Smartest Magic Users In Comic Books" list. CBR.com ranked Doctor Strange 1st in their "10 Best Sorcerer Supremes" list, and 5th in their "10 Scariest Avengers" list. Collider ranked Doctor Strange 1st in their "Most Powerful Original Marvel Illuminati Members" list, and 14th in their "20 Most Powerful Marvel Characters" list.
Lance Cartelli of GameSpot ranked Doctor Strange 27th in their "50 Most Important Superheroes" list. IGN ranked Doctor Strange 33rd in their "Top 50 Avengers" list, and 38th in their "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list. The A.V. Club ranked Doctor Strange 47th in their "100 best Marvel characters" list. Lance Cartelli of ComicBook.com ranked Doctor Strange 35th in their "50 Most Important Superheroes Ever" list. Wizard Magazine ranked Doctor Strange 83rd in their "200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time" list.
Impact
Doctor Strange inspired the name of the psychedelic band Dr. Strangely Strange.
Doctor Strange's character inspired the Khalid Nassour version of the Doctor Fate character, which was created by Paul Levitz.
Doctor Strange is referenced in the 1971 song "Mambo Sun" by glam rock band T. Rex on their album Electric Warrior.
Doctor Strange is referenced in the song "Cymbaline" by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd on their 1969 album More.
Doctor Strange appears on the cover of Pink Floyd's second studio album A Saucerful of Secrets, which contains a hidden image based on a panel from a 1967 Doctor Strange comic book story. The image used came from Strange Tales #158 which was illustrated by Marie Severin.
Other versions
Two months before the debut of the sorcerer-hero Doctor Strange, Stan Lee (editor and story-plotter), Robert Bernstein (scripter, under the pseudonym "R. Berns"), and Jack Kirby (artist) introduced a criminal scientist and Ph.D. with the same surname (called Carl Strange). Making his sole appearance in the Iron Man story "The Stronghold of Dr. Strange" in Tales of Suspense #41 (1963), the character gained mental powers in a freak lightning strike.
Age of X
In the Age of X timeline, Doctor Strange poses as a Mutant-hunter for hire, but is in reality a double agent working with Magneto, who teleports mutants to Fortress X for safety.
Amalgam Comics
Set in the Amalgam Comics universe, Dr. Strange was combined with Doctor Fate and Charles Xavier into Dr. Strangefate. As the only character aware of the nature of the Amalgam Universe, he was the chief opponent of Access, who was attempting to separate the DC and Marvel Universes. Originally numbered as Earth-962.
Bullet Points
In the mini-series Bullet Points, Dr. Strange chooses to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., rather than seek out the Ancient One, in exchange for them restoring his hands. Later he is seen possessing claws similar to Wolverine's.
Duckworld
Set in Howard the Duck's home-world and home dimension. This version of Doctor Strange is Ducktor Strange, an anthropomorphic Duck. In this reality, he is still a Sorcerer (the "Mallard of the Mystic Arts"), but is also a drunken derelict, who seems to live in alleys drinking "sorcerous sauce" (alcohol). He has appeared in Howard the Duck magazine #6 (July 1980), wherein he sends Howard and Beverly back to Earth; and in She-Hulk, vol. 4, #20 (Sept 2007), wherein he helps Stu the Intern return to Earth (since Stu's extensive knowledge of Marvel Comics continuity reminded him that he could find the Ducktor and how he could be returned by the Mystic Mallard).
Earth-A/Earth-721
In She-Hulk (vol. 2) #21, a non-powered counterpart of Dr. Strange from Earth-A comes to Earth-616 (aka Earth-B) and impersonates the 616 Dr. Strange. The impostor is revealed when he cannot think of a rhyme for the word "Cyttorak".
Earth X
Set in the Earth X universe. Dr. Strange's body is murdered by Clea (this Earth's Sorceress Supreme) under the behest of Loki. His astral form aids Captain Marvel in his journey through Death's Realm as one of the few inhabiting heroes aware of his death.
Exiles
An alternative Dr. Strange helped the Exiles briefly. This character was not a mystic, but instead was still a practicing physician who specialized in superhumans. This version of Doctor Strange was killed by an alternative version of Deadpool.
Fantastic Four: The End
In this series, Dr. Strange is now the Ancient One and had a daughter with Clea who is the new Dr. Strange.
Guardians of the Galaxy
In the alternative future of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Strange assumed the title of the Ancient One (previously held by his mentor) and took on a disciple of his own, a Lem named Krugarr. Strange/the Ancient One was eventually killed by Dormammu, who was defeated by the combined efforts of Krugarr, his disciple Talon, and the Guardians.
Marvel 1602
Set in the Marvel 1602 universe. Sir Stephen Strange, both the court physician of Queen Elizabeth I and a magician, senses that there are unnatural forces at work. He is the replacement in the 1602 universe for John Dee and is married to a version of Clea. Here, he cannot use his 'Astral Projection' (which he refers to as a magic mirror) as well as the modern one could, lacking modern materials, and is often physically drained after it is finished, and lacks memory of what he saw in astral form. During this time, he makes indirect contact with Uatu, who warns him about the danger caused by the 'Forerunner's' arrival in the past, but is placed under a compulsion not to speak or act on this knowledge. Eventually, when Elizabeth is dead, he allows himself to be executed for witchcraft and treason so that his head, kept alive by Clea for some time after his execution, can continue to be of help by sharing the information he has gained from Uatu with the other heroes so that they can prevent the destruction of reality.
Marvel 2099
Set in the Marvel 2099 universe, the Sorceress Supreme of Earth is a young woman who calls herself "Strange". She secretly shares her body with a monstrous demon. She is very inexperienced in her powers and uses them recklessly. In one incident, she causes the death of her brother. Her main opponent is Garokk who wishes to use her past torments and inexperience to gain the title of Sorcerer Supreme for himself.
In a 'reset' 2099 timeline where the Maestro has conquered a decimated world, he apparently kept Strange contained in a mystical circle. When Miguel O'Hara emerged into this timeline and released Strange, she claimed that the demon possessing her protected her from major world-shifts, working with Miguel to repair an old time machine of Doctor Doom's so that he could return to 2015 and avert this timeline. However, after Miguel's departure, Strange revealed that she was working with the Maestro and was under the control of the demon within her.
During the "Secret Wars" storyline, a version of Strange later appears on Battleworld as a member of the Defenders 2099.
When Miguel returns to a new variation of the 2099 timeline where having superpowers is illegal, he witnesses Moon Knight banishing Strange's demon being from her body using a soul sword.
In the unified Marvel 2099 reality of Earth-2099, Strange was a member of 2099 version of the Avengers. She was among those who were massacred by the 2099 version of the Masters of Evil.
Marvel Zombies
In the Marvel Zombies universe, Dr. Strange is one of the last heroes in the alternative "zombie world" to be transformed into a zombie. He was last seen in living form as part of Nick Fury's resistance to defeat the zombified Marvel superheroes in the spinoff Dead Days before he and the rest of the surviving superheroes are later overwhelmed by the zombie Fantastic Four and turned. He participates in the multi-zombie attack on Doctor Doom's castle, in an effort to capture and devour the unaffected Latverian citizens inside. While part of a multi-zombie chase of Ultimate Reed Richards, he vanishes under a rain of cars launched by Magneto. However, he later resurfaces in Marvel Zombies 3 but with limited function as a result of Magneto's wrath. He is part of Kingpin's undead alliance and can only perform two spells, one of which allows viewers to see into other universes which becomes an essential tool to Kingpin's plans. Ultron kills Zombie Dr. Strange.
MC2
Set in the MC2 universe. Dr. Strange is retired and the title of Sorcerer Supreme has been passed to the younger Doc Magus.
Mutant X
Set in the Mutant X universe. Dr. Strange was the Man-Thing. The title of Sorcerer Supreme had been taken by Mordo.
Spider-Ham
Set in the Larval zooniverse, the talking animal version of Doctor Strange is Croctor Strange, an anthropomorphic crocodile.
Thor: Vikings
Dr. Strange assists Thor in the MAX mini series Thor: Vikings, when zombified, evil Vikings massacre Manhattan by pillaging and killing its citizens. Strange helps Thor locate the descendants of a victim that the Vikings had slain, just after the victim, a village wiseman had placed a curse on the Vikings that caused them to become zombified. With Strange's instruction, the battle-experienced descendants all fight the Vikings with Thor.
Ultimate Marvel
There are two versions of Doctor Strange that reside in the Ultimate Marvel Universe.
Stephen Strange Sr.
First appearing in flashbacks, Dr. Stephen Strange married his former student Clea and the two of them had a child named Stephen Strange Jr. Strange Sr. later vanished and Clea decided to raise Stephen Jr. away from magic. The title of "Sorcerer Supreme" was only self-proclaimed by the elder Strange as reported in the comics during a TV news broadcast.
Stephen Strange Jr.
As a college student, Stephen Strange Jr. was approached by Wong who told him about his father and took him on as a student. He supports himself as a new-age guru to the rich, powerful, and famous, and is seen as a celebrity appearing on television talk shows. He is known to the public as "Dr. Strange", although he does not hold a medical degree or doctorate. Stephen Strange Jr. has bemoaned his lack of knowledge in things mystical and usually, just barely saves the day with one last desperate untried spell. Starting in Ultimate Spider-Man #107, this Doctor Strange is a member of Daredevil's team fighting against the Kingpin, the Ultimate Knights.
In Ultimatum, Strange is gruesomely killed by Dormammu when Hulk rampages through his house. A mysterious person later found his body.
Venomverse
A Venomized version of Doctor Strange appears in Venomverse, who is responsible for gathering all of the different incarnations of Venom. His Earth was eradicated by the Poisons so he had gathered Venoms from across the multiverse to prevent the Poisons from consuming more of them. He is captured by the Poisons and he realizes that instead of bringing more Venoms to fight, he had brought the Poisons more Venoms to consume. In the climax he sends all of the surviving Venoms to their universes while the bomb built by Rocket Raccoon explodes. His fate is unknown.
What If?...
Dr. Strange also exists in several What If?... multiverses.
In "What If....Doctor Strange Had Been Disciple of Dormammu?", Strange has his hands healed by Mordo and does not become a student of the Ancient One. Mordo later converts Strange into a disciple of Dormammu. When Strange is forced into a battle between Dormammu and the Ancient One, he decides in favor of good, and finally becomes a disciple of the Ancient One.
In "What If...Dr. Strange Had Not Become Master of the Mystic Arts?", Dr. Strange never travels to Tibet, and Mordo becomes the Sorcerer Supreme.
In other media
Television
Doctor Strange appears in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode "7 Little Superheroes", voiced by John Stephenson.
Doctor Strange makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in the X-Men: The Animated Series episode "The Dark Phoenix Saga (Part 3)".
Doctor Strange appears in a self-titled episode of Spider-Man (1994), voiced by John Vernon.
Doctor Strange appears in The Incredible Hulk episode "Mind Over Anti-Matter", voiced by Maurice LaMarche.
Doctor Strange appears in The Super Hero Squad Show, voiced by Roger Rose. First appearing in the episode "Enter: Dormammu!", he behaves irrationally due to an Infinity Fractal getting lodged inside the Eye of Agamotto until the Super Hero Squad cure him. In later episodes, he takes in the squad for a night at the Sanctum Sanctorum, fights the Enchantress, forms the Defenders, and aids Chthon in recovering his dimension from Doctor Doom.
Doctor Strange appears in the Disney XD Marvel animated series Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., voiced originally by Jack Coleman, and later by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears in Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers, voiced by Yasunori Masutani in the Japanese dub, and Wally Wingert (episode 2) and Liam O'Brien (episode 46) in the English dub.
Doctor Strange appears in Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Black Panther: Trouble in Wakanda, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears in Marvel Future Avengers, voiced again by Yasunori Masutani in the Japanese dub and Liam O'Brien in the English dub.
Doctor Strange appears in the Spider-Man (2017) episode "Amazing Friends", voiced again by Liam O'Brien. This version is a member of the Avengers.
Doctor Strange appears in Marvel Super Hero Adventures, voiced by Toren Atkinson.
Doctor Strange appears in the X-Men '97 episode "Tolerance is Extinction - Part 3".
Film
Doctor Strange appears in a self-titled film (1978), portrayed by Peter Hooten. This version is a psychiatrist.
Doctor Mordrid began development as a Doctor Strange adaptation, but the studio's license expired before production began. As a result, the project was rewritten to change the main character's name and slightly alter his origin. Additionally, the main character was originally going to be called "Doctor Mortalis" and Jack Kirby worked on the early concept art.
Doctor Strange appears in Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme, voiced by Bryce Johnson.
Doctor Strange makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in Planet Hulk as a member of the Illuminati.
Doctor Strange appears in Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Doctor Stephen Strange appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. First appearing in a self-titled live-action film (2016), this version is a successful, wealthy neurosurgeon who becomes severely injured following a car accident, leading him to travel the world for answers to heal his injuries, eventually landing in Kamar-Taj, and becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts. He makes further appearances in the live-action films Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Additionally, alternate timeline variants of Strange appear in the Disney+ animated series What If... ? and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man as well as Multiverse of Madness.
Video games
Doctor Strange appears as a non-player character (NPC) in The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin. This version serves as Spider-Man's advisor.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, voiced by James Horan.
Doctor Strange appears in Hsien-Ko's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.
He later appears as a playable character in the updated version, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, voiced by Rick Pasqualone.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Charlie Adler.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, voiced by Chris Cox.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Heroes, voiced by Nick Jameson.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes, voiced again by James Horan.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers, voiced by Wally Wingert. Additionally, an "All-New, All-Different Doctor Strange" appears in a self-titled DLC, voiced by Jack Coleman.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Two versions of Doctor Strange, "Stephen Strange" and the "Sorcerer Supreme", appear as playable characters in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Powers United VR, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears in Marvel Dimension of Heroes, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Revolution, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.
Doctor Strange appears in Marvel Snap.
Doctor Strange appears as a playable character in Marvel's Midnight Suns, voiced again by Rick Pasqualone. This version displays a rivalry with Iron Man.
Doctor Strange will appear as a playable character in Marvel Rivals.
Miscellaneous
Doctor Strange appears in a self-titled WBAI radio drama.
Doctor Strange appears in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts: Nightmare, written by William Rotsler and published by Pocket Books.
Doctor Strange makes a cameo appearance in Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours, by Jim Butcher.
Notes
References
External links
Doctor Strange at Marvel.com |
Hulk | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk | [
621
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk"
] | The Hulk is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk (May 1962). In his comic book appearances, the character, who has dissociative identity disorder (DID), is primarily represented by the alter ego Hulk, a green-skinned, hulking, and muscular humanoid possessing a limitless degree of physical strength, and the alter ego Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak, socially withdrawn, and emotionally reserved physicist, both of whom typically resent each other.
Following his accidental exposure to gamma rays while saving the life of Rick Jones during the detonation of an experimental bomb, Banner is physically transformed into the Hulk when subjected to emotional stress, at or against his will. This transformation often leads to destructive rampages and conflicts that complicate Banner's civilian life. The Hulk's level of strength is usually conveyed proportionate to his anger level. Commonly portrayed as a raging savage, the Hulk has been represented with other alter egos, from a mindless, destructive force (War) to a brilliant warrior (World-Breaker), a self-hating protector (the Devil Hulk), a genius scientist in his own right (Doc Green), and a gangster (Joe Fixit).
Despite Hulk and Banner's desire for solitude, the character has a large supporting cast. This includes Banner's love interest Betty Ross, his best friend, Rick Jones, his cousin She-Hulk, and therapist and ally Doc Samson. In addition, the Hulk alter ego has many key supporting characters, like his co-founders of the superhero team the Avengers, his queen Caiera, fellow warriors Korg and Miek, and sons Skaar and Hiro-Kala. However, his uncontrollable power has brought him into conflict with his fellow heroes and others. Despite this, he tries his best to do what's right while battling villains such as the Leader, the Abomination, the Absorbing Man, and more.
Lee stated that the Hulk's creation was inspired by a combination of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although the Hulk's coloration has varied throughout the character's publication history, the usual color is green.
One of the most iconic characters in popular culture, the character has appeared on a variety of merchandise, such as clothing and collectable items, inspired real-world structures (such as theme park attractions), and been referenced in several media. Banner and the Hulk have been adapted into live-action, animated, and video game incarnations. The character was first played in live-action by Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno in the 1978 television series The Incredible Hulk and its subsequent television films The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), and The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990). In the film, the character was played by Eric Bana in Hulk (2003). In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the character was first portrayed by Edward Norton in the film The Incredible Hulk (2008) and then by Mark Ruffalo in later appearances in the franchise.
Publication history
Concept and creation
The Hulk first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 (cover dated May 1962), written by writer-editor Stan Lee, penciled and co-plotted by Jack Kirby, and inked by Paul Reinman. Lee cites influence from Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the Hulk's creation:
It was patently apparent that [the monstrous character the] Thing was the most popular character in [Marvel's recently created superhero team the] Fantastic Four. ... For a long time, I'd been aware of the fact that people were more likely to favor someone who was less than perfect. ... It's a safe bet that you remember Quasimodo, but how easily can you name any of the heroic, handsomer, more glamorous characters in The Hunchback of Notre Dame? And then there's Frankenstein ... I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Frankenstein monster. No one could ever convince me that he was the bad guy. ... He never wanted to hurt anyone; he merely groped his torturous way through a second life trying to defend himself, trying to come to terms with those who sought to destroy him. ... I decided I might as well borrow from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well—our protagonist would constantly change from his normal identity to his superhuman alter ego and back again.
Kirby also stated the Frankenstein inspiration stating, "I did a story called "The Hulk"– a small feature, and it was quite different from the Hulk that we know. But I felt that the Hulk had possibilities, and I took this little character from the small feature and I transformed it into the Hulk that we know today.
Of course, I was experimenting with it. I thought the Hulk might be a good-looking Frankenstein. I felt there's a Frankenstein in all of us; I’ve seen it demonstrated. And I felt that the Hulk had the element of truth in it, and anything to me with the element of truth is valid and the reader relates to that. And if you dramatize it, the reader will enjoy it." Kirby also commented upon his influences in drawing the character, and recalled the inspiration of witnessing the hysterical strength of a mother lifting a car off her trapped child.
Lee has also compared Hulk to the Golem of Jewish mythology. In The Science of Superheroes, Gresh and Weinberg see the Hulk as a reaction to the Cold War and the threat of nuclear attack, an interpretation shared by Weinstein in Up, Up and Oy Vey. This interpretation corresponds with other popularized fictional media created during this time period, which took advantage of the prevailing sense among Americans that nuclear power could produce monsters and mutants.
In the debut, Lee chose grey for the Hulk because he wanted a color that did not suggest any particular ethnic group. Colorist Stan Goldberg, however, had problems with the grey coloring, resulting in different shades of grey, and even green, in the issue. After seeing the first published issue, Lee chose to change the skin color to green. Green was used in retellings of the origin, with even reprints of the original story being recolored for the next two decades, until The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #302 (December 1984) reintroduced the grey Hulk in flashbacks set close to the origin story. An exception is the early trade paperback, Origins of Marvel Comics, from 1974, which explains the difficulties in keeping the grey color consistent in a Stan Lee-written prologue, and reprints the origin story keeping the grey coloration. Since December 1984, reprints of the first issue have displayed the original grey coloring, with the fictional canon specifying that the Hulk's skin had initially been grey.
Lee gave the Hulk's alter ego the alliterative name "Bruce Banner" because he found he had less difficulty remembering alliterative names. Despite this, in later stories he misremembered the character's name and referred to him as "Bob Banner", an error which readers quickly picked up on. The discrepancy was resolved by giving the character the official full name "Robert Bruce Banner."
The Hulk got his name from a comic book character named The Heap who was a large green swamp monster.
Series history
The Hulk's original series was canceled with issue #6 (March 1963). Lee had written each story, with Kirby penciling the first five issues and Steve Ditko penciling and inking the sixth. The character immediately guest-starred in The Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), and months later became a founding member of the superhero team the Avengers, appearing in the first two issues of the team's eponymous series (Sept. and Nov. 1963), and returning as an antagonist in issue #3 and as an ally in #5 (Jan.–May 1964). He then guest-starred in Fantastic Four #25–26 (April–May 1964), which revealed Banner's full name as Robert Bruce Banner, and The Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964).
Around this time, co-creator Kirby received a letter from a college dormitory stating the Hulk had been chosen as its official mascot. Kirby and Lee realized their character had found an audience in college-age readers.
A year and a half after The Incredible Hulk was canceled, the Hulk became one of two features in Tales to Astonish, beginning in issue #60 (Oct. 1964).
This new Hulk feature was initially scripted by Lee, with pencils by Steve Ditko and inks by George Roussos. Other artists later in this run included Jack Kirby (#68–87, June 1965 – Oct. 1966); Gil Kane (credited as "Scott Edwards", #76, (Feb. 1966)); Bill Everett (#78–84, April–Oct. 1966); John Buscema (#85–87); and Marie Severin. The Tales to Astonish run introduced the super-villains the Leader, who would become the Hulk's nemesis, and the Abomination, another gamma-irradiated being. Marie Severin finished out the Hulk's run in Tales to Astonish. Beginning with issue #102 (April 1968) the book was retitled The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, and ran until 1999, when Marvel canceled the series and launched Hulk #1. Marvel filed for a trademark for "The Incredible Hulk" in 1967, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued the registration in 1970.
Len Wein wrote the series from 1974 through 1978, working first with Herb Trimpe, then, as of issue #194 (December 1975), with Sal Buscema, who was the regular artist for ten years. Issues #180–181 (Oct.–Nov. 1974) introduced Wolverine as an antagonist, who would go on to become one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters. In 1977, Marvel launched a second title, The Rampaging Hulk, a black-and-white comics magazine. This was originally conceived as a flashback series, set between the end of his original, short-lived solo title and the beginning of his feature in Tales to Astonish. After nine issues, the magazine was retitled The Hulk! and printed in color.
In 1977, two Hulk television films were aired to strong ratings, leading to an Incredible Hulk TV series that aired from 1978 to 1982. A huge ratings success, the series introduced the popular Hulk catchphrase "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry", and broadened the character's popularity from a niche comic book readership into the mainstream consciousness.
Bill Mantlo became the series' writer for five years beginning with issue #245 (March 1980). Mantlo's "Crossroads of Eternity" stories (#300–313 (Oct. 1984 – Nov. 1985)) explored the idea that Banner had suffered child abuse. Later Hulk writers Peter David and Greg Pak have called these stories an influence on their approaches to the character. Mantlo left the series for Alpha Flight and that series' writer John Byrne took over The Incredible Hulk. The final issue of Byrne's six issue run featured the wedding of Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. Writer Peter David began a 12-year run with issue #331 (May 1987). He returned to the Roger Stern and Mantlo abuse storylines, expanding the damage caused, and depicting Banner as suffering dissociative identity disorder (DID).
In 1998, David killed off Banner's long-time love Betty Ross. Marvel executives used Ross' death as an opportunity to pursue the return of the Savage Hulk. David disagreed, leading to his parting ways with Marvel. Also in 1998, Marvel relaunched The Rampaging Hulk as a standard comic book rather than as a comics magazine. The Incredible Hulk was again cancelled with issue #474 of its second volume in March 1999 and was replaced with a new series, Hulk the following month, with returning writer Byrne and art by Ron Garney. New series writer Paul Jenkins developed the Hulk's multiple dissociative identities, and his run was followed by Bruce Jones with his run featuring Banner being pursued by a secret conspiracy and aided by the mysterious Mr. Blue. Jones appended his 43-issue Incredible Hulk run with the limited series Hulk/Thing: Hard Knocks #1–4 (Nov. 2004 – Feb. 2005), which Marvel published after putting the ongoing series on hiatus. Peter David, who had initially signed a contract for the six-issue Tempest Fugit limited series, returned as writer when it was decided to make that story the first five parts of the revived (vol. 3). After a four-part tie-in to the "House of M" storyline and a one-issue epilogue, David left the series once more, citing the need to do non-Hulk work for the sake of his career.
Writer Greg Pak took over the series in 2006, leading the Hulk through several crossover storylines including "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk", which left the Hulk temporarily incapacitated and replaced as the series' title character by the demigod Hercules in the retitled The Incredible Hercules (Feb. 2008). The Hulk returned periodically in Hulk, which then starred the new Red Hulk. In September 2009, The Incredible Hulk was relaunched as The Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #600. The series was retitled The Incredible Hulks with issue #612 (Nov. 2010) to encompass the Hulk's expanded family, and ran until issue #635 (Oct. 2011) when it was replaced with The Incredible Hulk (vol. 3) (15 issues, Dec. 2011 – Dec. 2012) written by Jason Aaron with art by Marc Silvestri. As part of Marvel's 2012 Marvel NOW! relaunch, a series called Indestructible Hulk (Nov. 2012) debuted under the creative team of Mark Waid and Leinil Yu. This series was replaced in 2014 with The Hulk by Waid and artist Mark Bagley.
A new series titled The Immortal Hulk, written by Al Ewing and drawn by Joe Bennett, was launched in 2018 and ran for 50 issues. The series had a spin-off one-shot Immortal She-Hulk and a spin-off series about Gamma Flight in June 2021.
In November 2021, Donny Cates became the new writer of Hulk, with Ryan Ottley joining as artist. In May 2022, the series did a crossover with the Thor series, also written by Cates, entitled Hulk vs Thor: Banner of War. The series ran for 14 issues, with Ottley taking over as writer for the last 4 issues afters Cates left the book.
In March 2023, it was announced that a new volume of The Incredible Hulk would launch in June 2023, written by Philip Kennedy Johnson and drawn by Nic Klein.
Characterization
Fictional character biography
Robert Bruce Banner's psyche was profoundly affected by his troubled childhood, in which his father, Brian Banner, regarded him as a monster due to his seemingly unnatural intellect from a young age. These experiences caused Bruce to develop a dissociative identity disorder and repress his negative emotions as a coping mechanism. After Brian killed Bruce's mother in a fit of rage, Bruce lived with several relatives up until his high school years, when his intelligence caught the attention of the United States Army. Banner was recruited to develop nuclear weapons under the authority of General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, and soon developed a relationship with the General's daughter Betty Ross.
During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, Banner saves teenager Rick Jones, who was dared onto the testing field; Banner pushes Jones into a trench to save him, but is hit with the blast, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation. He awakens later seemingly unscathed, but he begins transforming into a powerful and destructive creature upon nightfall, which a pursuing soldier describes as a "hulk". Banner's attempts to cure himself of these transformations alter their conditions, causing Banner to transform as a response to rage or fear. The Hulk is a founding member of the Avengers, but quickly leaves the group due to their distrust of him. Banner maintains the secret of his dual identity with Rick's aid, but Rick reveals his secret following his assumed death to Major Glenn Talbot who subsequently informed his superiors, forcing Banner to become a fugitive upon returning from the future where he was actually thrown to.
Psychiatrist Doc Samson captures the Hulk and manages to physically separate Banner and the Hulk, allowing Banner to marry Betty. However, Banner and the Hulk's molecular structure destabilized and threatened to kill them, requiring Samson to reunite them with the aid of Vision. Samson is later able to merge elements of Banner's fractured psyche to create Professor Hulk, an intelligent but egocentric variation of the Hulk. Professor Hulk soon becomes a key member of the Pantheon, a secretive organization of superpowered individuals. His tenure with the organization brings him into conflict with a tyrannical alternate future version of himself called the Maestro, who rules over a world where many heroes are dead. The Professor Hulk construct ultimately proves unstable, and Banner's psyche eventually splinters once more.
In "Planet Hulk", the Illuminati decide the Hulk is too dangerous to remain on Earth and send him away by rocket ship which crashes on Planet Sakaar. The Hulk finds allies in the Warbound and marries alien queen Caiera, a relationship that bears him two sons: Skaar and Hiro-Kala. After the Illuminati's ship explodes and kills Caiera, the Hulk returns to Earth with his superhero group Warbound and declares war on the planet in "World War Hulk". However, after learning that Miek, one of the Warbound, had actually been responsible for the destruction, the Hulk allows himself to be defeated, with Banner subsequently redeeming himself as a hero as he works with and against the new Red Hulk to defeat the new supervillain team the Intelligencia.
Later, the Hulk turns to Doctor Doom to physically separate himself and Banner, with Doom surgically extracting the elements of the Hulk's brain uniquely belonging to Banner and inserting them into a clone body. Banner eventually re-combines with the Hulk when his cloned body is destroyed in an attempt to recreate his original transformation. Following this, Bruce willingly joins the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., allowing them to use the Hulk as a weapon in exchange for providing him with the means and funding to create a lasting legacy for himself. When Banner is shot in the head by an assassin, Tony Stark saves him with a variant of the Extremis virus. This procedure creates a new intelligent persona named Doc Green, who concludes that the world is in danger by Gamma Mutates and thus need to be depowered. He creates a cure and depowers A-Bomb, Skaar and Red Hulk. Eventually, Doc Green's intellect fades and his normal Hulk form is restored.
When the vision of the Inhuman Ulysses shows a rampaging Hulk standing over the corpses of many superheroes, Banner gives Hawkeye special arrows capable of killing him during a transformation, which Hawkeye accomplishes. The Hulk was first revived by the Hand, then by Hydra, and finally by the Challenger for a contest against the Grandmaster.
Personality
Like other long-lived characters, the Hulk's character and cultural interpretations have changed with time, adding or modifying character traits. The Hulk is typically seen as a hulking man with green skin, hair, and eyes, wearing only a pair of torn purple pants that survive his physical transformation as the character progressed. As Bruce Banner, the character is about 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) tall and weighs 128 lbs (58.05 kg), but when transformed into the Hulk, the character stands between 7 and 8 ft (2.13 - 2.43 m) tall and weighs between 1,040 and 1,400 lbs (471.73 - 635.02 kg). The Gray Hulk stands 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) tall and weighs 900 lbs (408.23 kg); the Merged Hulk stands 7 ft 6 in (2.28 m) tall and weighs 1,150 lbs (521.63 kg); the Green Scar stands 8 ft 8 in (2.64 m) tall and weighs 2,400 lbs (1.08 ton). The Devil Hulk is roughly the same size as Sasquatch, standing around 9 or 10 ft (2.74 / 3.04 m) tall and weighing roughly 2,000 lbs (907.18 kg). Following his debut, Banner's transformations were triggered at nightfall, turning him into a grey-skinned Hulk. In Incredible Hulk #2, the Hulk started to appear with green skin, and in Avengers #3 (1963) Banner realized that his transformations were now triggered by surges of adrenaline in response to feelings of fear, pain or anger. Incredible Hulk #227 (1978) established that the Hulk's separate identity was not due to the mutation affecting his brain, but because Banner was suffering from dissociative identity disorder, with the savage Green Hulk representing Banner's repressed childhood rage and aggression, and the Grey Hulk representing Banner's repressed selfish desires and urges.
Identities
Bruce Banner
During his decades of publication, Banner has been portrayed differently, but common themes persist. Banner, a physicist who earned his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is sarcastic and seemingly very self-assured when he first appears in Incredible Hulk #1, but is also emotionally withdrawn. Banner designed the gamma bomb that caused his affliction, and the ironic twist of his self-inflicted fate has been one of the most persistent common themes. Arie Kaplan describes the character thus: "Robert Bruce Banner lives in a constant state of panic, always wary that the monster inside him will erupt, and therefore he cannot form meaningful bonds with anyone." As a child, Banner's father Brian often got mad and physically abused both Banner and his mother, creating the psychological complex of fear, anger, and the fear of anger and the destruction it can cause that underlies the character. Banner has been shown to be emotionally repressed, but capable of deep love for Betty Ross, and for solving problems posed to him. Under the writing of Paul Jenkins, Banner was shown to be a capable fugitive, applying deductive reasoning and observation to figure out the events transpiring around him. On the occasions that Banner controlled the Hulk's body, he applied principles of physics to problems and challenges and used deductive reasoning. It was shown after his ability to turn into the Hulk was taken away by the red Hulk that Banner has been extremely versatile as well as cunning when dealing with the many situations that followed. When he was briefly separated from the Hulk by Doom, Banner became criminally insane, driven by his desire to regain the power of the Hulk, but once the two recombined he came to accept that he was a better person with the Hulk to provide something for him to focus on controlling rather than allowing his intellect to run without restraint against the world.
Hulk
The traditional Hulk, often called "Savage Hulk", was originally shown as grey and average in intelligence. He roamed aimlessly and became annoyed at "puny" humans who took him for a dangerous monster. Shortly after becoming the Hulk, his transformation continued turning him green, coinciding with him beginning to display primitive speech. By Incredible Hulk #4, radiation treatments gave Banner's mind complete control of the Hulk's body. While Banner relished his indestructibility and power, he was quick to anger and more aggressive in his Hulk form. He became known as a hero alongside the Avengers, but his increasing paranoia caused him to leave the group. He was convinced that he would never be trusted.
Originally, the Hulk was shown as simple-minded and quick to anger. The Hulk generally divorces his identity from Banner's, decrying Banner as "puny Banner." From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet. He is often shown to quickly react emotionally to situations. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "dark, primordial side of Banner's psyche." Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences. Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue #6, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities Hulk has, when the Hulk says, "But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations, briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form. Artistically and conceptually, the character has become progressively more muscular and powerful in the years since his debut.
Joe Fixit
Originally, Stan Lee wanted the Hulk to be grey. Due to ink problems, Hulk's color was changed to green. This was later changed in the story to indicate that the Grey Hulk and the Savage Hulk are separate dissociative identities or entities fighting for control in Bruce's subconscious. The Grey Hulk incarnation can do the more unscrupulous things that Banner could not bring himself to do, with many sources comparing the Grey Hulk to the moody teenager that Banner never allowed himself to be. While the grey Hulk still had the-madder-he-gets, the-stronger-he-gets part that is similar to the Savage Hulk, it is on a much slower rate. It is said by the Leader that the Grey Hulk is stronger on nights of the new moon and weaker on nights of the full moon. Originally, the night is when Bruce Banner became the Grey Hulk and changed back by dawn. In later comics, willpower or stress would have Banner turn into the Grey Hulk. During one storyline where he was placed under a spell to prevent him turning back into Bruce Banner and publicly presumed dead when he was teleported away from a gamma bomb explosion that destroyed an entire town, the grey Hulk adopted a specific name as Joe Fixit, a security expert for Las Vegas casino owner Michael Berengetti, with the grey Hulk often being referred to as Joe after these events. Joe Fixit later gained the ability to transform into his version of Red Hulk form when in the Below-Place.
Merged Hulk
Convinced that unaided, the Banner, Green Hulk, and Grey Hulk identities would eventually destroy each other, Doc Samson uses hypnosis to merge the three to create a new single identity combining Banner's intelligence with the Grey Hulk's and Banner's attitudes and the Green Hulk's body. This new Merged Hulk, Professor Hulk, or simply The Professor, considered himself cured and began a new life, but the merger was not perfect, and the Hulk sometimes still considered Banner a separate person, and when overcome with rage the Merged Hulk would transform back into Banner's human body while still thinking himself the Hulk. The Merged Hulk is the largest of the three primary Hulk incarnations. While in a calm emotional state, the Merged Hulk is stronger than Savage Hulk when he is calm. Unlike the Savage Hulk and the Grey Hulk, Banner subconsciously installed a type of safeguard within this incarnation. The safeguard is that when the Merged Hulk gets angry, he regresses back to Banner with the mind of the Savage Hulk.
Doc Green
A variation of the Merged Hulk identity takes on the name Doc Green as the result of Extremis fixing Hulk's brain, becoming powerful enough to destroy Tony Stark's mansion with one thunderclap. This form was also known as Omega Hulk. It was theorized by Doc Green that this form was an earlier incarnation of his possible future form Maestro.
The Devil Hulk
The Devil Hulk, or simply the Devil, is the result of the Hulk needing a father figure. While the character's physical appearance varies, he is always depicted as having glowing red eyes and reptilian traits. The new form of the Devil Hulk is the result of Banner and Hulk having been through different deaths and rebirths. This incarnation is articulate, smart, and cunning, and does merciless attacks on those who do harm. Unlike the other Hulk incarnations, the Devil Hulk is content with waiting inside Bruce. If Bruce is injured by sunset, the Devil Hulk will emerge with his transformation being limited to night-time. Thanks to the Devil Hulk side and Banner working together, the Devil Hulk can maintain his form in sunlight.
Other identities
The Gravage Hulk is the result of Banner using the Gamma Projector on himself which merged his Savage Hulk and Grey Hulk identities. This form possesses the raw power of the Savage Hulk and the cunning intellect of the Grey Hulk. While he does not draw on anger to empower him, the Gravage Hulk identity draws on dimensional nexus energies to increase his strength.
The Dark Hulk identity is the result of Hulk being possessed by Shanzar. This form has black skin and is viciously strong.
The Guilt Hulk is a malevolent representation of Banner's abusive father, Brian Banner, that manifests itself in Banner's childhood memories.
The Green Scar identity is unleashed on Sakaar and is an enraged version of the Gravage Hulk. In addition, he is an expert in armed combat like the use of swords and shields. Green Scar is also a capable leader and an expert strategist.
Kluh is a personality of Hulk who is described as the "Hulk's Hulk". This form sports a white mohawk, black skin, and red lines on him.
Titan is a more monstrous and malicious form of Hulk who stands at 30 ft., has black skin, rock-like spikes on his shoulders, and possesses the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes. This personality was born when it was planted in Hulk by D'Spayre.
Powers and abilities
Bruce Banner
Considered to be one of the greatest scientific minds on Earth, Banner possesses "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test." Norman Osborn estimates that he is the fourth most-intelligent person on Earth. Banner holds expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics. Using this knowledge, he creates advanced technology dubbed "Bannertech", which is on par with technological development from Tony Stark or Doctor Doom. These technologies include a teleporter and a force field that can protect him from the attacks of Hulk-level entities.
After becoming a fugitive from the law, Banner is forced to go on the run and over the years learns various skills in order to both survive and remain under radar of those who are hunting him. Banner's most frequent method of travel includes hitchhiking, train hopping or simply just walking as he is unable to travel legally via planes, passenger ships or buses due to being in several travel watchlists. Banner is generally on the move and rarely ever stays in one place for very long and only does so if there's a possibility of curing himself. He will only ever stay in one place for an extended period of time if it provides him with complete solitude and privacy where the Hulk can do little to no harm.
To avoid being tracked, Banner does not use cell phones, debit or credit cards and will only use payphones or cash. He will often use fake identities when staying at motels or working jobs that require identification. Having been on the run for years, Banner can normally tell when he is being followed and will generally make a run for it when he is discovered. Having traveled across the globe, Banner is able to sneak over borders without being detected and can get by, by either knowing or learning the local language. Often traveling light, Banner has little to no possessions that he carries in either a satchel or backpack. Often losing everything he owns after transforming into the Hulk, Banner avoids keeping anything of personal value to him so that he can easily replace the items and clothes that were lost or destroyed.
To support himself financially, Banner will work quick part-time jobs and will only accept payments in cash. These jobs have varied from simply working in low pay diners to working as local doctor. Banner's work ethic as well as his vast knowledge and skillset in science, medicine and engineering often help him get hired rather quickly. Unless desperate, Banner will generally avoid jobs that are high stress due to the potential danger of transforming into the Hulk.
Banner has little to no memories of the Hulk's actions aside from his initial transformation which he described as being extremely painful. Banner's lack of memories often terrifies him as he has often transformed back to witness the devastating aftermath of the Hulk's battles which both saddens and encourages him to find a way to understand his condition so that he won't cause anymore destruction or harm. During his travels, Banner has developed several different techniques to help suppress or control his transformations when he becomes a little angry or upset. Among the techniques he has learned over the years include meditation and hypnotherapy. While they have helped him to better understand and suppress his transformations, none of techniques Banner has learned have helped him to gain full control over the Hulk.
The Hulk
The Hulk possesses the potential for seemingly limitless physical strength that is influenced by his emotional state, particularly his anger. This has been reflected in the repeated comment "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." The cosmically powerful entity known as the Beyonder once analyzed the Hulk's physiology, and claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside." Hulk's strength has been depicted as sometimes limited by Banner's subconscious influence; when Jean Grey psionically "shut Banner off", Hulk became strong enough to overpower and destroy the physical form of the villain Onslaught. Writer Greg Pak described the Worldbreaker Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal—and most immortals—who ever walked the Earth" and depicted the character as powerful enough to completely destroy entire planets. His strength allows him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has displayed superhuman speed. Exposure to radiation has also been shown to make the Hulk stronger. It is unknown how he gains biomass during transformation but it may be linked to the One-Below-All.
His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper. Hulk is resistant to injury or damage, though the degree to which varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of solar temperatures, nuclear explosions, and planet-shattering impacts. Despite his remarkable resiliency, continuous barrages of high-caliber gunfire can hinder his movement to some degree while he can be temporarily subdued by intense attacks with chemical weapons such as anesthetic gases, although any interruption of such dosages will allow him to quickly recover. He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater, surviving unprotected in space for extended periods, and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds, including, on one occasion, the complete destruction of most of his body mass. His future self, the "Maestro", was even eventually able to recover from being blown to pieces. As an effect, he has an extremely prolonged lifespan.
He also possesses less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico; resist psychic control, or unwilling transformation; grow stronger from radiation or dark magic; punch his way between separate temporal or spatial dimensions; and to see and interact with astral forms. Some of these abilities were in later years explained as being related; his ability to home in on the New Mexico bomb site was due to his latent ability to sense astral forms and spirits, since the bomb site was also the place where the Maestro's skeleton was and the Maestro's spirit was calling out to him in order to absorb his radiation. He is also shown to have a separate memory to Bruce Banner - when Spider-Man has the knowledge of his secret identity erased during Spider-Man: One More Day, the Hulk later asks how Peter is doing, not Spider-Man; upon questioning, he enigmatically states "Banner forgot. But I don't forget."
In the first Hulk comic series, "massive" doses of gamma rays would cause the Hulk to transform back to Banner, although this ability was written out of the character by the 1970s.
Supporting characters
Over the long publication history of the Hulk's adventures, many recurring characters have featured prominently, including his best friend and sidekick Rick Jones, love interest and wife Betty Ross and her father, the often adversarial General "Thunderbolt" Ross. Both Banner and Hulk have families created in their respective personas. Banner is son to Brian, an abusive father who killed Banner's mother while she tried to protect her son from his father's delusional attacks, and cousin to Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, who serves as his frequent ally. Banner had a stillborn child with Betty, while the Hulk has two sons with his deceased second wife Caiera Oldstrong, Skaar and Hiro-Kala, and his DNA was used to create a daughter named Lyra with Thundra the warrior woman.
The Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), featured the Hulk's first battle with the Thing. Although many early Hulk stories involve Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk, the main villain is often a radiation-based character, like the Gargoyle or the Leader, along with other foes such as the Toad Men, or Asian warlord General Fang. Ross' daughter Betty loves Banner and criticizes her father for pursuing the Hulk. General Ross' right-hand man, Major Glenn Talbot, also loves Betty and is torn between pursuing Hulk and trying to gain Betty's love more honorably. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick in these early tales. The Hulk's archenemies are the Abomination and the Leader. The Abomination is more monstrous-looking, twice as strong as the Hulk at normal levels (however, the Abomination's strength levels do not increase when he gets angry) and wreaks havoc for fun and pleasure. The Leader is a gamma-irradiated super-genius who has tried plan after plan to take over the world.
Cultural impact
The Hulk character and the concepts behind it have been raised to the level of iconic status by many within and outside the comic book industry. In 2003, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine claimed the character had "stood the test of time as a genuine icon of American pop culture." In 2008, the Hulk was listed as the 19th greatest comic book character by Wizard magazine. Empire magazine named him as the 14th-greatest comic-book character and the fifth-greatest Marvel character. In 2011, the Hulk placed No. 9 on IGN's list of "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes", and fourth on their list of "The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012.
Analysis
The Hulk is often viewed as a reaction to war. As well as being a reaction to the Cold War, the character has been a cipher for the frustrations the Vietnam War raised, and Ang Lee said that the Iraq War influenced his direction. In the Michael Nyman edited edition of The Guardian, Stefanie Diekmann explored Marvel Comics' reaction to the September 11 attacks. Diekmann discussed The Hulk's appearance in the 9/11 tribute comic Heroes, claiming that his greater prominence, alongside Captain America, aided in "stressing the connection between anger and justified violence without having to depict anything more than a well-known and well-respected protagonist." In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Les Daniels addresses the Hulk as an embodiment of cultural fears of radiation and nuclear science. He quotes Jack Kirby thus: "As long as we're experimenting with radioactivity, there's no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements in science may cost us." Daniels continues, "The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age."
In Comic Book Nation, Bradford Wright alludes to Hulk's counterculture status, referring to a 1965 Esquire magazine poll amongst college students which "revealed that student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons." Wright goes on to cite examples of his anti-authority symbol status. Two of these are "The Ballad of the Hulk" by Jerry Jeff Walker, and the Rolling Stone cover for September 30, 1971, a full color Herb Trimpe piece commissioned for the magazine. The Hulk has been caricatured in such animated television series as The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, and Family Guy, and such comedy TV series as The Young Ones. The character is also used as a cultural reference point for someone displaying anger or agitation. For example, in a 2008 Daily Mirror review of an EastEnders episode, a character is described as going "into Incredible Hulk mode, smashing up his flat." In September 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson likened himself to The Hulk in an interview with the Mail On Sunday, as political pressure built on him to request an extension to the date of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.
The Hulk, especially his alter ego Bruce Banner, is also a common reference in hip hop music. The term was represented as an analogue to marijuana in Dr. Dre's 2001, while more conventional references are made in Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri's popular single "Welcome to Atlanta".
The 2003 Ang Lee-directed Hulk film saw discussion of the character's appeal to Asian Americans. The Taiwanese-born Ang Lee commented on the "subcurrent of repression" that underscored the character of The Hulk, and how that mirrored his own experience: "Growing up, my artistic leanings were always repressed—there was always pressure to do something 'useful,' like being a doctor." Jeff Yang, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, extended this self-identification to Asian American culture, arguing that "the passive-aggressive streak runs deep among Asian Americans—especially those who have entered creative careers, often against their parents' wishes."
There have been explorations about the real-world possibility of Hulk's gamma-radiation-based origin. In The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg examined Hulk's powers, explaining the scientific flaws in them. Most notably, they point out that the level of gamma radiation Banner is exposed to at the initial blast would induce radiation sickness and kill him, or if not, create significant cancer risks for Banner, because hard radiation strips cells of their ability to function. They go on to offer up an alternate origin, in which a Hulk might be created by biological experimentation with adrenal glands and GFP. Charles Q. Choi from LiveScience.com further explains that, unlike the Hulk, gamma rays are not green; existing as they do beyond the visible spectrum, gamma rays have no color at all that we can describe. He also explains that gamma rays are so powerful (the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation and 10,000 times more powerful than visible light) that they can even convert energy into matter – a possible explanation for the increased mass that Bruce Banner takes on during transformations. "Just as the Incredible Hulk 'is the strongest one there is,' as he says himself, so too are gamma-ray bursts the most powerful explosions known."
Other Marvel Comics characters called the Hulk
Prior to the debut of the Hulk in May 1962, Marvel had earlier monster characters that used the name the "Hulk", but had no direct relation.
In Strange Tales #75 (June 1960), Albert Poole built an armor he called the Hulk. In modern-day reprints, the character's name was changed to Grutan.
In Journey into Mystery #62 (Nov. 1960) was Xemnu the Living Hulk, a huge, furry alien monster who went by the name of the Hulk. Coincidentally, the character's debut story was also illustrated by Jack Kirby. The character reappeared in issue #66 (March 1961). Since then the character has been a mainstay in the Marvel Universe, and was renamed Xemnu the Living Titan.
A huge, orange, slimy monster called the Hulk was featured in a movie titled The Hulk in Tales to Astonish #21 (July 1961). In modern-day reprints, the character's name was changed to the Glop.
Alternative versions of Hulk
A number of alternate universes and alternate timelines in Marvel Comics publications allow writers to introduce variations on the Hulk, in which the character's origins, behavior, and morality differ from the mainstream setting. In some stories, someone other than Bruce Banner is the Hulk.
In some versions, the Hulk succumbs to the darker side of his nature: in "Future Imperfect" (December 1992), a future version of the Hulk has become the Maestro, the tyrannical and ruthless ruler of a nuclear war-irradiated Earth, and in "Old Man Logan" (2008), an insane Hulk rules over a post-apocalyptic California and leads a gang of his inbred Hulk children created with his first cousin She-Hulk.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse alternative setting, Bruce Banner was never exposed to gamma radiation. Therefore, he did not become the Hulk. Instead he became a member of the Human High Council, where he was a scientist and became a weapons designer. However he also yearns to gain knowledge and power, something Apocalypse was willing to help with, and so Bruce sold himself to Mikhail Rasputin, one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse, to give him mutants as test subjects. He succeeds in his experiments and can now transform into a creature resembling the Grey Hulk. He was used as a mole in the council, but was discovered by Susan Storm and Ben Grimm because the patterns of Bruce's injuries were identical to those sustained by the Hulk.
Later, Banner attempted to redeem himself by jumping out of the Human High Council ship in an effort to prevent it from getting struck by a gamma missile of his own creation. The missile detonated, allowing the Human High Council to escape Earth. He fell back to Earth, landed in the Colosseum, and emerged as the Green Hulk. There were no further mentions of the Hulk in the Age of Apocalypse material.
Age of X
In the "Age of X" reality, Bruce Banner was a scientist who was under contract from the United States government to build a device that would depower any mutant. However, during the testing phase one of the mutant volunteers began to panic. Her powers caused the machine to go off prematurely while still in the gamma spectrum. The mutants were killed and Banner was bombarded by gamma radiation. The combination of the radiation and the fact that some of the mutants' genes were imprinted on him as well, caused Banner to transform into the Hulk. Because of his exposure to mutant genes, Banner holds a deep murderous resentment for all mutants to the point that he volunteered for a suicide mission to detonate a chemical bomb that would destroy the entire mutant stronghold, forcing his former teammates to sacrifice their lives to detonate the bomb early. He was incinerated by his own bomb when one of his former teammates named Redback (this reality's Spider-Woman) uses Steel Corpse's (this reality's Iron Man) severed glove to destroy the bomb.
Amalgam Comics
The Skulk is a hero of the Amalgam Universe. He is amalgamation of the Hulk and DC Comics' Solomon Grundy.
Bruce Banner was a scientist working with gamma rays. He was testing his gamma bomb out in the desert, but a tall figure walked out into the testing area. When Banner went out to see who it was, the man turned out to be Solomon Grundy. The bomb went off fusing Grundy and Banner together. When Banner gets angry he becomes Grundy, but the creature made a name for itself, calling itself Skulk.
Breaker-Apart
In a potential future, the One Below All is able to destroy Bruce Banner's soul and possesses the body of the Hulk. After which, it went on to kill Franklin Richards, Galactus, Mister Immortal, and many others until it was the only being left in the universe. Taking on Bruce's appearance, the One Below All encounters the Sentience of the Eighth Cosmos/Metatron and is able to trick and devour him, absorbing his powers. In the newly formed Ninth Cosmos, the One Below All used its newly acquired powers to transform Hulk into a Galactus-like being named the 'Breaker-Apart'. 10 billion years later, the Breaker-Apart has destroyed all light, all life, and all planets in the Multiverse. When Par%l tried to make contact and reason with it, the alien instead meets the abstract form of the One Below All which told hir it wanted to "Make all hollow as I, dark and dead as I" and killed Par%l and hir's planet, O%los.
Bullet Points
In the Bullet Points mini-series, Peter Parker finds himself on the test site for a Gamma bomb and absorbs a large dose of gamma radiation, becoming the Hulk. In a further twist, later in the series, in an attempt to find a cure for Peter, Dr. Bruce Banner examines specimens taken from the test site and is bitten by a radioactive spider, becoming Spider-Man. Parker is killed by Galactus and Banner is killed by an Inheritor during the Spider-Verse event.
Deadpool: Samurai (Earth-346)
In the Deadpool: Samurai manga series, which takes place on Earth-346, Bruce Banner removes a control collar from the singer Neiro Aratabi, who had been saved from a deranged fan by Deadpool. Banner then attempts to transform into the Hulk to help Deadpool stop HYDRA agents from retrieving the Gateway Controller, which had been hidden under the Tokyo Dome, but he was knocked unconscious by a piece of falling debris before he could finish his transformation. Banner did gradually regain consciousness and he then completed transforming into the Hulk, but he was quickly defeated by Thanos, who had been summoned by the Hydra agents.
Earth X
The Earth X series featured a vastly different take on the character, one in which the Hulk and Bruce Banner have finally achieved separation. However, they still rely on each other with Banner becoming a blind child who sees through the Hulk's eyes. In an interview in Comicology Volume I: The Kingdom Come Companion, Alex Ross said that the design of Earth-X Banner and Hulk was based on the appearance of Moon-Boy and Devil Dinosaur.
Exiles
Numerous alternate versions of the Hulk have been present in the Exiles series.
A crazy version of the Hulk was seen attacking Canada. He was stopped by the Exiles and Alpha Flight. This battle featured the first appearance of the rogue reality jumpers known as Weapon X. The crazy Hulk was presumed dead after this encounter.
Another visually different Hulk appeared in this universe. This version had a long ponytail and wore a "Peace Out" costume, but he still retained his gamma-irradiated appearance, strength and his famous smashing abilities. He teamed up with an evil Firestar and was recruited by the Timebroker to stop an evil Hyperion. The plan succeeded and they both joined Weapon X. When Hyperion had gone even crazier than before, Hulk attacked and Weapon X began to fight with each other. This version of The Hulk was killed when Hyperion brutally fought him until he was in a weakened state, Hyperion then used his heat vision on The Hulk, melting and destroying him. His body is sent back to his reality, where his funeral is held. Some time after Hulk's death, Firestar committed suicide when she incinerates herself and a teammate.
A conqueror version of the Hulk, in his gladiator outfit, killed Annihilus, most of the superhumans, took full control of the Annihilation Wave, and decimated Earth. He has been apparently knocked unconscious by the Exiles. It is unknown if he survived this incident. This version is even more insane than the other alternate versions of the Hulk. While the Exiles had been dealing with Proteus, Hulk's Annihilation Wave killed many of the superhumans which should not have happened if not for Proteus. A new version of the Exiles have been present showing the surviving superhumans and they all have one goal: to stop Hulk and his Annihilation Wave, in which they apparently succeeded.
Hulk: Chapter One
In the Hulk 1999 Annual, writer John Byrne revised the Hulk's origin, much like his Spider-Man: Chapter One. In the revised origin, the Gamma Bomb that was being tested is now a gamma laser, and a Skrull was responsible for Rick Jones' presence on the base during the gamma test. The Skrull also disguised himself as Igor Rasminsky (Drenkov in the original stories), a fellow scientist working on the project. The contemporary setting removes the Cold War context of the original story, and serves as a tie-in to the Marvel: The Lost Generation maxi-series created by Roger Stern and Byrne, which also brought the origins of many Marvel characters out of the 1960s and into contemporary times. The storyline is currently designated as set on Earth-9992, and is not part of mainstream Marvel continuity (Earth-616).
The Last Avengers Story
In the 1995 Two Issues mini series The Last Avengers Story, Hulk was amongst those who joined Thor, The Thing and Hercules in a mysterious conflict known as the "Great Cataclysm" which threatened Olympus and Asgard. The event ended with Hulk holding Hercules's golden mace and his skin temporarily turned grey, suggesting that the Hulk was the only survivor of this conflict. After the Event Hulk was recruited alongside Mockingbird, Tigra, Wonder Man and Hawkeye to fight Ultron However Hulk had been seemingly corrupted by the events of the Great Cataclysm, Hulk turned on his allies, ripping Tigra in half and puncturing Wonder Man, Wonder Man unleashed his energy against the Hulk, seemingly killing them both and accidentally blinding Hawkeye. Hulk is finally defeated by Thor, which ends the chaos.
House of M
In the House of M reality, Bruce Banner disappears in Australia, where he befriends an Aborigine tribe, and attempts to control his dark side. When the mutant rulers of the Earth attack his tribe he retaliates, and eventually conquers Australia with the aid of Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.).
Infernal Hulk
In one alternative reality, Bruce Banner and the Hulk were magically separated. Bruce became the new Sorcerer Supreme, and the Hulk was cast into hell. However, while in hell, the Hulk became corrupted by the demonic beings he encountered, transforming him into a demon himself. Now completely evil, he escaped from hell and attempted to kill Banner. With help from the mainstream Hulk, Banner tricked the "infernal" Hulk into shattering the Eye of Agamotto, causing him to be thrown back into hell.
Maestro
Set in a post apocalyptic future, the Hulk has mutated into the dictator Maestro ruling the remains of humanity with an iron fist. Ruthless, sadistic, violent, and tyrannical, the Maestro was shown to be an example of what would happen if the Hulk ever embraced his darker roots. Maestro was known to be an enemy of the Hulk, as the two alternate versions fought each other on Maestro's world.
Marvel 2099
For the Marvel 2099 imprint, Gerard Jones and Dwayne Turner created a new version of the character. First appearing in 2099 Unlimited #1, John Eisenhart, a selfish film producer in "LotusLand" (future Hollywood) is inadvertently exposed to gamma radiation by the Knights of the Banner (a cult worshipping the original Hulk) who intend to create a Hulk of their own. As the Hulk, Eisenhart finds himself representing freedom to a closed-off society. A Hulk 2099 series was published for 10 issues.
The unified Marvel Noir reality of Earth-2099 featured a version of Hulk 2009. In addition, there was a 2099 version of Grey Hulk who was a member of the 2099 version of the Avengers until he was among those who were killed by the 2099 version of the Masters of Evil. The 2099 version of Moon Knight survived the massacre and formed the 2099 version of the New Avengers with Hulk 2099 as one of its members as they avenged Grey Hulk 2099 and the fallen Avengers by defeating the Masters of Evil and having them remanded to a prison on the planet Wakanda.
Marvel Comics 2
In another take, The Hulk is shown to still be active in the alternative future of the MC2 universe. There, he is shown as an amalgamation of his three main transformations; He has the strength of the Savage Hulk, the attitude of the Grey Hulk, and the intelligence of the Professor Hulk.
He's also shown to have fathered a son named David by an unknown spouse.
He was later seen within the pages of Last Hero Standing, where Loki manipulated him into attacking the heroes. When he was freed of his manipulation he was critical in punishing Loki by forcing him into the voided dimension that Thor had opened a rift into, Hulk informing Loki that he was ruined on Earth because of Loki's actions and he therefore had nothing to lose by ensuring that Loki would be punished for eternity.
Marvel Zombies
Marvel Zombies: Dead Days
In the series Marvel Zombies, the Hulk has been infected with a virus which makes him into an undead zombie (he is actually infected by the zombie Fantastic Four). Although he still retains his strength and invulnerability, he no longer heals, is losing weight because of his now-deteriorating tissue, does not feel pain and now craves human flesh. The zombie Hulk's transformations are physically controlled purely by his appetite — after feeding, he transforms back into Banner, who is also a zombie, until the hunger returns. When Hulk first transforms back into Banner, his stomach starts to burst. He is directly responsible for killing the Silver Surfer by biting off his head. Later he joins Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Giant-Man, Wolverine and Luke Cage as the Galacti after killing and consuming Galactus.
Marvel Zombies 2
Forty years later, the zombie Hulk, along with the other zombies, had eaten or converted most of the universe, prompting them to return to Earth to try to recover the dimensional transporter. Although the other zombies managed to beat their hunger by going without food for a time, the Hulk's raw hunger was too great for him to be convinced to stop, resulting in him killing the zombified but "cured" Iron Man, Jean Grey, Hawkeye, and Firelord. Once he feeds and returns to Bruce Banner, he is finally killed by Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Giant-Man, recognizing that there is no other way to stop the Hulk from feeding again.
Marvel Zombies 3
Hulk makes a cameo appearance in Marvel Zombies 3' when Machine Man, Ultron, and Jocasta travel to Earth 2149, killing winged zombies (zombie Beak, Angel, Vulture, and Falcon altogether). He also makes another cameo appearance when Vanessa Fisk explains to the 3 androids how the Silver Surfer died, and how the zombie Kingpin, who is, surprisingly, her husband, created a zombie empire forming a huge alliance.
Marvel Zombies Return
A second Hulk appears in the reality the Marvel Zombies of the original series are teleported to, known as Earth-Z. This version's life appears identical to his core counterpart up until the events of World War Hulk. When he reaches the Moon to attack the Inhumans, he is infected by the zombie Giant-Man, and his allies killed. Oddly hungry, he heads back to Earth and begins eating people, and ultimately infecting the Sentry, who sets about forming a team of Zombie Avengers to eat humanity and wipe out any competition or resistance from other heroes, infected or otherwise dead. After the Sentry tries to kill Hulk to eliminate the competition as the two are the only creatures capable of challenging each other, Hulk is later cured of his hunger by the Zombie Spider-Man and joins his New Avengers. The team succeeds in killing the Zombie Avengers and ending their plan to eat the multiverse, sacrificing themselves in the process. Ultimately, the nanite infused Sandman killed Hulk.
Old Man Logan
Old Man Logan is set 50 years into an apocalyptic future. The world is in ruin and shadow following a massive conflict. A large coordinated force of super villains has killed a majority of the heroes and seized control of the United States splitting it into sections. Bruce Banner is said to have gone mad from radiation sickness, possibly from nuclear weapons that may have been used during the conflict or this and other changes may be the long-term result of his famous gamma radiation accident. Bruce's personality and powers seem altered, in human form he now has little empathy and possesses superhuman strength. Banner and his cousin Jennifer Walters have mated and produced offspring that possess their green skin and a little of their strength. They form the hillbilly-like "Hulk Gang" that rule the entire west coast of the country dubbed "Hulkland", a domain formerly held by the Abomination until Banner killed him. Banner, along with his children and grandchildren, live in a collection of caves and trailers, forcing those that live on the west coast to pay them rent in order to be allowed to live.
There were two versions of the Hulk that appear:
Earth-807128
"Pappy" Bruce Banner's family threaten Logan's family over rent due to the Banners. Logan accompanies Clint Barton on a cross country delivery to source the rent money. When Logan returns and finds the bodies of his family, killed by the Banners, he kills the Hulk Gang and attacks Pappy Banner who admits that he set all of this into motion because he missed their old brawls. Banner gets angry when Wolverine calls him a redneck SOB and drives his claws through his chest. He transforms into The Hulk. Hulk overpowers Logan and eats him. Logan's mutant healing factor then allows him to recover and slash his way out of Hulk's stomach, killing him. Logan spots Banner's son, Bruce, Jr. and spares him. Logan takes the boy to raise in an effort to someday help combat the various villains that still rule the country.
Old Man Logan found that Pappy Banner's head was placed on a gamma-powered robot made from Adamantium by Tinkerer. He used it in his revenge on Old Man Logan. Before Old Man Logan can be finished off by Pappy Banner, he is suddenly attacked by Bruce Banner Jr. who separated Pappy Banner's head from the Adamantium armor. Rather than kill his head, Old Man Logan buried it and planted a tree over him so that its roots can slowly dig into his skull.
Earth-21923
Pappy Banner's history on Earth-21923's history was still intact up to his death at the hands of Old Man Logan. When Old Man Logan uses Asmodeus' help to return to this future to rescue Bruce Banner Jr., he finds that the time has been altered in which Maestro appears in the place of Pappy Banner. This unidentified version of Maestro has rounded up the remaining members of the Hulk Gang as he makes plans to help them build a paradise for all Hulks on Earth-616. With help from the Cambria Banner, Logan and Hawkeye of Earth-616 were able to defeat Maestro and the surviving members of the Hulk Gang went their separate ways.
Otto Banner
During the "Devil's Reign" storyline, Doctor Octopus started forming his Superior Four that includes a Hulk that has four extra arms growing from his back. His real name is Otto Banner of Earth-8816 and he was also abused by his Earth's version of Brian Banner.
Ruins
In the Warren Ellis series Ruins, a dark flip to the Kurt Busiek tale Marvels, the accidents, experiments and mutations that led to the creation of Super Heroes and super humans, instead led to terrible deformations and painful deaths. Here, Bruce Banner's story goes exactly the same as his 616 counterpart, but when he is caught in the middle of the gamma bomb explosion, instead of transforming into the Incredible Hulk, his whole body opens up from the gigantic tumors that appear inside it, pushing most of his organs and skull outside his body and giving Rick Jones cancer. He did not die, and was put in an underground vault by the CIA, codenamed "the Hulk".
Secret Wars (2015)
During the Secret Wars storyline, different versions of Hulk reside in each Battleworld domain.
The Battleworld domain of Greenland is filled with an assortment of Hulks ranging from Tribal Hulks (a group of Hulks that live like a tribe), Bull Hulks (a group of gamma-irradiated cattle), Sand Hulks (who evoke the traits of Hulk and Sandman), and a Sea Hulk. This land is a recreation of Earth-71612 where it was rendered into a Hulk-filled land by a gamma bomb strike by A.I.M. It was stated that Bruce Banner had started Bannertech Industries and his fate has not been mentioned since A.I.M.'s gamma bomb strike. In addition to the various type of Hulks and a variation of a Red Hulk that rules Greenland as the Red King", a variation of Steve Rogers that was sent into Greenland by God Emperor Doom and Sheriff Strange encountered another variation of Steve Rogers that operated as Doc Green.
The Battleworld domain of Spider-Island that was based from the remnants of Earth-19919 told an alternate version of the Spider-Island storyline where Hulk was mutated into Spider-Hulk and served as one of Spider-Queen's minions. However, Agent Venom uses Curt Connors' Lizard Formula to mutate Hulk into a giant lizard monster, which broke him free from the Spider Queen's control.
The Battleworld domain of Marville that was based from the remnants of Earth-71912 featured a child version of Hulk that is a member of the Avengers.
The Battleworld domain of the Kingdom of Manhattan is based from the remnants of Earth-61610 where variations of characters from Earth-616 and Earth-1610 co-exist on the combined version of both reality's Manhattan. In this case, a variation of Hulk's Doc Green form co-exists with a variation of Earth-1610's Hulk.
The Battleworld domain of Bug World that was based from the remnants of Earth-22312 features an anthropomorphic insect version of Hulk called Roly-Poly Hulk.
The Battleworld domain of the Walled City of New York that was based from the remnants of Earth-21722 features a version of Hulk that is a member of the Avengers where they are allied with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side of the Walled City of New York.
Spider-Geddon
During the "Spider-Geddon" storyline, a sequel to "Spider-Verse", Robbie Banner is a punk on Earth-138 who is allied with Spider-Punk and can turn into the Hulk while listening to "Atomic Bomb" music. He helped Spider-Punk and Captain Anarchy fight the U-Foes at the Hellfire Club, assisted Spider-Punk and M.C. Strange push the Universal Church of Truth out of Queens, and fought Hydra on the streets. After obtaining the "Atomic Bomb" tape from Captain Anarchy, Spider-Punk visited Robbie to get his help, but the latter was reluctant to listen to the tape. When Kang the Conglomerator went on the attack, Robbie reluctantly listened to the tape and transformed into the Hulk to help Spider-Punk fight Kang.
The End
In other tales, possible futures for the character have been shown. Using a post apocalyptic wasteland as a backdrop, the Peter David written Incredible Hulk: The End one-shot features an elderly Bruce Banner as the last surviving inhabitant of Earth, the Hulk having hidden in a cave during a nuclear war until he was released by the Recorder sent to confirm humanity's demise. After Bruce has spent time traveling Earth, transforming into the Hulk at night and when attacked by the mutated cockroaches that are the only other surviving lifeforms on Earth, the story concludes with Banner dying of a heart attack, thus leaving the Hulk as the last living being on the planet, Hulk musing that he is now "the only one there is", having achieved his wish to be left alone, but aware that he will die if he turns back into Banner.
Ultimate Marvel
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Hulk first appears in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #2 (2001), written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Phil Hester. In the Ultimates series, Bruce Banner works for S.H.I.E.L.D., attempting to re-create the super-soldier formula that created Captain America.
Dr. Robert Bruce Banner was one of the leading scientists in the United States. He had a scientist named Leonard Williams as his teacher.
He was later among the scientists that are used to recreate the Super-Soldier Formula that created Captain America. Bruce Banner is shown to have been hired by the U.S. Government and General Nick Fury as part of a project to secretly recreate the Super Soldier Serum. At a covert lab in Dover, New Jersey, Bruce works alongside fellow scientists, Hank Pym, Franklin Storm, father of Sue and Johnny Storm, and Richard Parker, father of Peter Parker. Bruce believes that he has come up with the correct formula for the serum, but needs to test it out. Eager to try his results on a human subject, Banner synthesizes his serum and injects himself with it. The serum turns him into the Hulk for the first time. Banner goes on a rampage inside the laboratory and eventually destroys the entire complex, nearly killing Richard Parker, along with his wife Mary, who had brought an infant Peter along with her to visit Richard. Years later, Hulk laid waste to Chelsea Piers before he could be subdued by Spider-Man and taken into custody.
Banner and Henry Pym were both hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. to create post-human soldiers for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Ultimates, with Banner focusing on the Super-Soldier formula responsible for Captain America, and Henry Pym experimenting with his Giant-Man formula. Whereas Pym found success and celebrity with "Giant-Man", Banner found himself unable to crack the Super-Soldier formula. Classifying himself a failure and suffering ridicule at the hands of Pym, Banner took some of the recently rediscovered Captain America's blood, combined it with his Hulk formula, and injected it. Banner rationalized his decision by saying that turning himself into a monster gave the Ultimates a villain to fight, thereby justifying their existence at a time when they were accused of being an enormous multi-billion dollar waste of government resources. Before lapsing into unconsciousness however, Banner confessed that "honest-to-God truth of the matter" is that he simply "just missed being big".
Shortly afterwards, Banner transformed into a sociopathic grey-skinned Hulk that channeled and amplified Banner's hidden emotions, unleashing the darkest depths of his id. The Hulk proceeded to track down and pursue Betty Ross, the object of Bruce Banner's affection who, because of relationship problems with Banner, was courting the favor of Hollywood film star Freddie Prinze, Jr. that night, and inadvertently boasted about it to Banner over the phone shortly before his transformation. During his rampage and cross-town pursuit of the fleeing Betty Ross, The Hulk informed Betty that he was "horny as Hell" and destroyed everything in his path, indiscriminately killing hundreds of people in the process. After rendering Giant-Man unconscious and overpowering Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, who were all dispatched to stop his rampage, The Hulk changed back into Banner after the Wasp entered his skull through the ear canal and fired her bio-electric sting directly into his brain. Upon regaining consciousness, Banner was promptly knocked unconscious, restrained and shuttled away to S.H.I.E.L.D., the connection between him and the Ultimate Hulk covered up. Later, after being subdued by the Ultimates, an examination on Banner's blood revealed that the latest Super-Soldier Formula he took has placed a more permanent effect on Banner. The "Hulk cells" were not disappearing like they did after the first time Banner transformed, showing that the new Super-Soldier Formula Banner took would forever keep the Hulk within him.
After his rampage, Banner spent a number of months in a cell specifically designed to withstand the Hulk's fury, with Anti-Hulk serum administered to him on a continuous basis. Amidst the Chitauri's assault on Earth and their takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United States Armed Forces, General Fury quickly mobilized an army and attacked the alien base in Arizona. During his battle with Herr Kleiser, a Chitauri agent capable of absorbing and administering enormous physical damage, Captain America, with all other tactical options exhausted, gave the order for "the Weapon of Last Resort" and gave "Permission to traumatize Banner", who was in a helicopter with a military escort hovering over the S.H.I.E.L.D. battlefield. The delicate procedure of traumatizing a 90-pound scientist simply amounted to throwing him out of the chopper in hopes that his anger would overcome the effects of the anti-Hulk serum coursing through his veins. The Hulk's first course of action was to bodyslam Captain America into the concrete to pay him back for breaking Banner's jaw after the first Hulk transformation in Manhattan. Captain America immediately pointed out Herr Kleiser, declaring that he had been "all over Betty" while Banner was in his solitary cell. Not one to be overshadowed by a skinny German Nazi, the Hulk promptly pounded Kleiser to a pulp and even ate him. While Hulk was dining on Kleiser, Captain America manipulated him once more by calling down to him, telling Hulk that the Chitauri alien fleet had called him a "sissy-boy" and asked if the Hulk intended to let the aliens get away with such an insult. In a most vigorous defense of his heterosexuality, Hulk leaped a mile into the air, ripping apart the entire airborne alien fleet that clouded the sky, all the while proclaiming that "Hulk no Sissy Boy...HULK STRAIGHT!" Even after destroying the entire fleet and saving what remained of the day, the Hulk was full of adrenaline and rage, and needed to be sedated. Hawkeye, the marksman, was called in to take him down with an adamantium-tipped syringe full of anti-Hulk serum. Hawkeye did, but barely succeeded since Hulk seemed to be impervious to the antidote Hawkeye shot into Hulk before he finally passed out. While Banner returned to normal while in containment in S.H.I.E.L.D., his caretakers monitored him closely. Because of Herr Kleiser's shapeshifting abilities, Banner's stool were collected and properly disposed of after the battle, to rule out the possibility of Kleiser reconstituting himself in a cunning, if disgusting, way.
When Magneto attacked the Triskelion's lockup during the "Ultimate War" series, power went down for the entire facility. The Hulk was said to have eaten six members of the nursing staff in the chaos.
During the "Ultimate Six" miniseries, the Triskelion was attacked by Electro and Green Goblin, but Banner was later reported by Iron Man to have "fallen asleep reading a magazine" and was promptly sedated for a week just in case.
Banner remained in his cell for a year, with very few Hulk episodes; during one such transformation, he sat on the couch and watched Curb Your Enthusiasm until he changed back. The few visitors he received included Hank Pym, demonstrating his new "Ant Man" technology. Shortly thereafter, he learned from the national news that somebody had leaked top-secret information to the press regarding the Hulk/Banner connection. S.H.I.E.L.D. hired lawyer Matt Murdock to try to avoid the death penalty for 800-plus murder counts by bringing up the important things Banner had done in the interests of national security, and his work for the Ultimates. During jury deliberation, Banner received a visit from General Nick Fury, who told him that the case had been dismissed, and presented him with a bottle of champagne. Eagerly drinking his first drink as a free man, Banner passed out – the bottle had been drugged by Hank Pym at Fury's request – and awakened much later on the deck of an aircraft carrier, with a one-megaton nuclear weapon nearby. Fortunately for his well-being, he transformed into the Hulk right before the nuclear device was detonated. Later, Banner anonymously calls Pym from a public telephone to thank him for deliberately botching the dose before Banner decided to go into hiding. It is not clear if Pym deliberately botched the dose, or was merely incompetent in his research.
Bruce Banner later appears in Washington D.C. before one of the Crimson Dynamo's giant duplicates, letting it step on him, all the while muttering to himself about being "in touch with his inner sociopath". The Hulk appears in the next panel, lifting the robot with both hands and then ripping it in two, finishing the issue with a declaration of "NOW BRING IT ON!" He then continues to aid the Ultimates against the Liberators by defeating, dismembering, and finally eating Abomination.
Some time after Banner's disappearance in the pages of "Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk", strange occurrences across Europe and Asia reported. General Fury started piecing together the evidence and concluded that despite their distance from one another, they were all related. The discovery of feces in Tibet belonging to Banner confirmed that he had survived his execution. Since S.H.I.E.L.D. was in charge of executing Banner in a very public way, they acted to cover up their error by contracting James "Logan" Howlett (Wolverine) to track Banner down and eliminate him. Logan arrives at a rural village in Tibet and discovers that all the women have been kidnapped. He eventually makes his way to a beautiful but derelict palace. The Hulk (decked in Tibetan robes and beads) has taken up residence here with the kidnapped women as his concubines. The Hulk is annoyed at being interrupted and he and Wolverine fight. After an intense struggle, the Hulk physically rips Wolverine's body in half and hurls his legs four miles up a mountain, leaving Logan's torso to freeze in the snow.
Issue #2 reveals, in flashback, that Bruce Banner, after travelling through France, Ireland and India, finally treks to Tibet, to seek the wisdom of the Panchen Lama who he hopes can reveal the true relationship behind Banner and the Hulk. It is here that the Hulk resides prior to Logan's intrusion.
He then appeared together with Iron Man in their own mini-series titled Ultimate Human, focusing on Bruce Banner approaching Tony Stark about the possibility of using the Iron Man nanites to control the Hulk transformations. The Leader is introduced as Pete Wisdom, a scientist after the blood of both men, for use in the creation of a superhuman. This series depicts the Hulk's physiology as almost infinitely adaptive to adverse conditions, including simulations of hostile extraterrestrial environments such as the surface of the planet Venus. It also described him as generating carbon Fullerenes in his skin structure, adding to his durability.
A naked Hulk comes into a restaurant demanding food. Princess Zarda who is already at the restaurant fights and defeats the Hulk. After the fight, the two form a bond and go to another restaurant before renting a motel room and having sex.
During the "Ultimatum" storyline, the Hulk appears in New York and is convinced by Spider-Man to help him rescue people. When demons start appearing they go to the home of Doctor Strange, only to learn that his body had been possessed by Nightmare. He then starts to torture them. Hulk in response heats the Orb of Acmantata, which causes an explosion. He survives and is recruited by the remaining Ultimates and X-Men to stop Magneto. In Magneto's Citadel, he and Colossus are tasked with destroying some of the citadel's machinery. They try to stop Mystique and Sabretooth from escaping, but fail. Hulk survives Ultimatum and is later seen in Ultimate Comics: X in a soup kitchen as Bruce Banner in New York. He is convinced by Karen Grant to be their "enforcer" in a new team sponsored by former Director Nick Fury.
During the European crisis involving the Children of Tomorrow, Hulk was convinced by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Flumm to attack the Children of Tomorrow in exchange for the safety of Betty Ross, currently in custody. Hulk was unleashed in Children's base called The City, but the Maker managed to calm him down and convince him that he was being used. In that moment, the US Government launched an ineffective nuclear attack on the City, and the Children detonate an anti-matter bomb in Washington, D.C. in retaliation. When the Ultimates finally turned the tide, the Maker injected the Hulk with the Giant-Man serum, turning him into a giant juggernaut, although he was defeated and put into sedated custody beneath the Triskelion once more.
Bruce was freed by the mysterious woman called Kang, and convinced him to steal the Infinity Gems with which he battled the Ultimates. After the arrival of escapee Reed Richards, the heroes escaped, but Captain America decided to be left behind in order to stop the villains, although he was defeated by Thor.
When Maker merged all realities in order to help Eternity to fight the First Firmament, Hulk is among the Ultimates members that are revived. It was shown that Hulk did not retain his intelligence and referred to himself in the third person. When the Ultimates of Earth-616 arrived on Counter-Earth to confront Maker for his actions, he had the Earth-1610 Ultimates fight the Earth-616 Ultimates where Hulk was thrown out of the building by Blue Marvel. Eventually, Hulk and the rest of the Earth-1610 Ultimates decided that there was no reason to fight the Earth-616 Ultimates which resulted in Maker killing the Earth-1610 Captain America. After aiding the Earth-616 Ultimates into giving Eternity the power to defeat the First Firmament, Hulk and the rest of the Earth-1610 Ultimates left to pursue Maker.
After Earth-1610 was restored, Hulk was seen with the Avengers where they help Spider-Man fight Green Goblin.
Ultimate Universe
During the "Ultimate Invasion" storyline, Maker visits Earth-6160 and remakes it into his own image. One of the things he could not succeed in was preventing the origin of Hulk, who would later find personal "enlightenment". He and his fellow monks of the Children of the Eternal Light would later attend an international event held by the Maker at the City in Latveria as part of his Council. Hulk and the Children of the Eternal Light are revealed to rule India and parts of Asia.
While giving condolences to Howard Stark over the death of Obadiah Stane, Hulk explains the artificial nature of the war economy praticed by the Council's power blocs as Stark is appointed to rule the North American Union in Stane's former role. Hulk and the other leaders later discuss about The City closing up for two years with Maker imprisoned inside. With Howard Stark being locked inside as well, Hulk and the others plan to divide up the Union among themselves.
Hulk and other members of the Council are later informed of Iron Lad's raid on the Latverian repositories. While giving his condolences to Henri Duggary due to his wounds, Hulk states that Tony Stark "gave them America", as the group uses an orbiting Stark/Stane satellite to conduct a false flag attack on Stark Tower, causing thousands of casualities in a section of Manhattan. He suggests framing Stark and his allies as terrorists as they consolidate control over the Union's territories.
It is later shown that Banner was the director of the Castle Gamma project, creating the "Banner-Ulam Gamma Bomb" and detonating it over an island in the Pacific, causing not only his transformation into the Hulk but also a mass contamination incident involving the island's inhabitants (mirroring the real-life events of Castle Bravo and the fallout over the Marshall Islands). It's stated that Banner might have deliberately planned the results, also trying to conceal the island to the rest of the world and make it impossible to reach in the current days. As the Ultimates members Iron Lad, Thor, and Sif make an agreement with a Gamma-powered native called Lejori Zakaria, Banner watches from a hidden camera feed as he orders his subordinates in the Children of the Eternal Light to assemble the Immortal Weapons, as the team is starting to "make him angry".
In other media
The character has been played in live-action and animation by a variety of actors. The character was first played in live-action by Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno in the 1978 television series The Incredible Hulk and its subsequent television films The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), and The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990), and Eric Bana in the film Hulk (2003). In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the character was first portrayed by Edward Norton in the film The Incredible Hulk (2008), and then by Mark Ruffalo in later appearances, including the films The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and the television series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) and What If...? (2021).
Reception
The Hulk was ranked #1 on a listing of Marvel Comics' monster characters in 2015.
In 2018, CBR.com ranked The Thing (Bruce Banner) 2nd in their "Age Of Apocalypse: The 30 Strongest Characters In Marvel's Coolest Alternate World" list.
In 2022, Screen Rant included Hulk in their "10 Most Powerful Hercules Villains In Marvel Comics" list.
See also
List of Marvel Comics superhero debuts
Notes
References
External links
Hulk at the Marvel Universe wiki
Hulk at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
Hulk at the Grand Comics Database
Hulk at Curlie
Hulk on IMDb
Bruce Banner on Marvel Database, a Marvel Comics wiki |
Namor | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namor | [
621
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namor"
] | Namor McKenzie (), also known as the Sub-Mariner, is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-artist Bill Everett for comic book packager Funnies Inc., the character first appeared in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (uncirculated). Namor first appeared publicly in Marvel Comics #1 (cover-dated October 1939). It was the first comic book from Timely Comics, the 1930s–1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics. During that period, known to historians and fans as the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Sub-Mariner was one of Timely's top three characters, along with Captain America and the original Human Torch. Moreover, Namor has also been described as the first comic book antihero.
The mutant son of a human sea captain and a princess of the mythical undersea kingdom of Atlantis, Namor possesses the superstrength and aquatic abilities of the Homo mermanus race, as well as the mutant ability of flight, along with other superhuman powers. Throughout the years he has been portrayed as an antihero, alternating between a good-natured but short-fused superhero, and a hostile invader seeking vengeance for perceived wrongs that misguided surface-dwellers committed against his kingdom. A historically important and relatively popular Marvel character, Namor has served directly with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Invaders, the Defenders, the X-Men and the Illuminati as well as serving as a foil to them on occasion.
Tenoch Huerta Mejía portrays Namor in his live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
Publication history
Creation
Namor was created by writer-artist Bill Everett. The character first appeared in April 1939 in the prototype for a planned giveaway comic titled Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, which was produced by the comic book packager Funnies Inc. The only eight known samples among those created to send to theater owners were discovered in the estate of the deceased publisher in 1974. Allegedly, Everett created Namor because he was informed that Carl Burgos had created the Human Torch, who can manipulate fire, and he wanted to play on the notion of "fire and water". His interest in "anything nautical, [and having] to do with the sea", also factored in Namor's creation and origin.
Everett stated that the inspiration for creating the character was Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), and came up with "Namor" by writing down noble-sounding names backwards and thought Roman / Namor looked the best. He described the character as an "ultra-man of the deep [who] lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, [and] has the strength of a thousand [surface] men". When the giveaway idea with Motion Picture Funnies Weekly fell through, Everett used the character for Marvel Comics #1, the first comic book by Funnies, Inc. client Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. The final panel of the earlier, unpublished eight-page Sub-Mariner story had included a "Continued Next Week" box that reappeared, sans lettering, in an expanded 12-page story.
Golden Age
In his first appearances Namor was an enemy of the United States. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Namor was a freak in the service of chaos. Although the Sub-Mariner acted like a villain, his cause had some justice, and readers reveled in his assaults on civilization. His enthusiastic fans weren't offended by the carnage he created as he wrecked everything from ships to skyscrapers." Everett's antihero would eventually battle Carl Burgos' android superhero, the Human Torch, when in 1940 Namor threatened to sink the island of Manhattan underneath a tidal wave. When the U.S. entered World War II, Namor would aid the Allies of World War II against Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers. Supporting characters included Betty Dean, a New York City policewoman introduced in Marvel Mystery Comics #3 (and later known as Betty Dean-Prentiss), who was a steady companion, and his cousins Namora and Dorma.
Namor starred in the Golden Age comic book Sub-Mariner, published quarterly, then thrice-yearly, and finally bimonthly, from issues #1–32 (Fall 1941–June 1949). A backup feature each issue starred the detective-superhero the Angel. Along with many other Timely characters, Namor disappeared a few years after the end of World War II and the decline in popularity of superhero comics. He briefly fought crime as a member of the post-war superhero team the All-Winners Squad, and, through a 1970s retcon, was given a history of having fought with the Allies during World War II in the superhero team the Invaders. Both of these super-groups were built around the core of Namor, Captain America, and the original Human Torch. The Sub-Mariner experienced a brief revival in the mid-1950s at Atlas Comics, the 1950s iteration of Marvel. Along with Captain America and the original Human Torch, he was revived in Young Men #24. Soon afterward, Sub-Mariner was revived with issues #33–42 (April 1954 – Oct. 1955). During this time, Namora had her own spin-off series. A planned live-action television program starring Namor did not appear and the revival of the comic book series was cancelled a second time.
Silver Age
Namor returned in Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962), where a member of the titular superhero team, Johnny Storm, the new Human Torch, discovers him living as an amnesiac homeless man in the Bowery section of Manhattan. Storm helps him recover his memory, and Namor immediately returns to his undersea kingdom—later identified as Atlantis in Fantastic Four Annual #1 (June 1963). Finding it destroyed from nuclear testing, Namor assumes his people are scattered and that he will never find them. He again becomes an antihero during this period, as two elements – a thirst for vengeance and a quest for identity – would dominate the Sub-Mariner stories of the 1960s. He was both a villain and a hero – striking against the human race who destroyed his home, but showing a great deal of noblesse oblige to individuals.
Initially, Namor variously finds himself allied with the supervillains Doctor Doom and Magneto, but his royal nobility and stubborn independent streak make these alliances-of-convenience short-lived. Namor's revival was a hit with readers, but Marvel could not give him his own title due to publication and distribution restrictions that would not be lifted until 1968. Instead, Namor was given numerous guest-appearances – including in Daredevil #7 (April 1965), a rare superhero story drawn by comics great Wally Wood – and a starring feature in the split-title comic Tales to Astonish (beginning issue #70, Aug. 1965). By now, during a period fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books, he is more authoritative, arrogant and solemn than the impetuous youthful character of the 1940s and mid-1950s, speaking in neo-Shakespearean dialogue rather than the more colloquial speech of his youth, often shouting his battle cry, "Imperius Rex!".
Bronze Age
He was spun off into his own title, the 1968–74 series Sub-Mariner. The super-villain Tiger Shark was introduced in issue #5 by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema and the super-hero Stingray in issue #19 by Thomas and Bill Everett. Some of the later issues of this Sub-Mariner series are notable for having been written and drawn by the character's creator, Bill Everett, shortly before his death; as well, they reintroduced a now-older Namora, and introduced her daughter, Namorita Prentiss. By now more of a reluctant superhero "the Sub-Mariner was perfect for the Marvel Age of angst-ridden protagonists. Noble yet misunderstood, powerful yet thwarted ... [he was] portrayed as a regal monarch – a king without a country." The final issue, #72 (Sept. 1974), was written by Steve Skeates and featured an unofficial intercompany crossover with the last issue of DC Comics' Aquaman series. A five- to six-page backup feature, "Tales of Atlantis", chronicling the undersea kingdom from its ancient origins, appeared in issues #62–66 (June–Oct. 1973), written by Steve Gerber, with penciling by Howard Chaykin and later Jim Mooney. After the cancellation of Sub-Mariner, Namor co-starred with Doctor Doom in the Super-Villain Team-Up series. The series suffered from mediocre sales due to its lack of a stable creative team, and following issue #13 Namor was dropped from the co-star spot. Marvel published a four-issue miniseries a decade later, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner (Sept.-Dec. 1984), by scripter/co-plotter J. M. DeMatteis, penciler/co-plotter Bob Budiansky, and inker Danny Bulanadi.
Modern Age
The 12-issue maxiseries The Saga of the Sub-Mariner (Nov. 1988 – Oct. 1989) provided a retrospective of Namor's past adventures while tying up loose plot threads and resolving contradictions that had accumulated over the character's decades of published history. Namor again received an ongoing series in 1990. Namor, the Sub-Mariner, which ran 62 issues (April 1990 – May 1995), was initially written and penciled by John Byrne who took over the inking as well from issues #4–21. Unlike all of Namor's previous series, the cover logo emphasized the character's name rather than the "Sub-Mariner" epithet. From #26–38, the series' penciler and eventual penciler-inker was then-newcomer Jae Lee, with Bob Harras scripting from #33–40. After three fill-in issues, the remainder of the series was written by Glenn Herdling and pencilled by Geof Isherwood. This series followed Namor as CEO of Oracle, Inc., a corporation devoted to reducing pollution, particularly in the oceans, and provided the stage for the return of the 1970s martial artist superhero Iron Fist, who had been presumed dead. Whereas J. M. DeMatteis saw his series as an opportunity to explore Namor much more deeply than he had been able to in the team book The Defenders, John Byrne felt that the character did not work well outside of a group context and accordingly gave Namor, the Sub-Mariner a massive supporting cast.
The 12-issue miniseries Namor (June 2003–May 2004), credited to co-writers Bill Jemas (then Marvel's president) and Andi Watson, and penciled initially by Salvador Larroca and later by Pat Olliffe and others, explored Namor's youth, charting his teenage romance with a young American girl in the early 20th century. A six-issue miniseries, Sub-Mariner vol. 2 (Aug. 2007 – Jan. 2008), by co-writers Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson and, primarily, artist Phil Briones, introduced Namor's heretofore undisclosed son, Kamar. Namor was featured in his own ongoing series, Namor: The First Mutant, in 2011. The series was cancelled after less than a year into its publication. Namor has also served alongside, or even as a member of, superhero teams – most notably the Defenders, which included Doctor Strange, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer. Other groups he was associated with included the Avengers; and both the World War II and modern-day versions of the Invaders. Marvel revived The Defenders, with Namor on the team, in December 2011. The series was cancelled after 12 issues. He became one of the main characters, along with the other Illuminati members, in the third volume of New Avengers beginning in 2013. He appeared in the 2018 Namor: The Best Defense one-shot.
Fictional character biography
Early life
Namor was born in the capital city of the Atlantean empire, then located under the Antarctic ice pack. His mother was Emperor Thakorr's daughter, Fen, and his father an American sea captain, Leonard McKenzie, of the icebreaker Oracle; they had fallen in love and married aboard ship while she was, unbeknownst to him, spying on the human intruders. When Fen did not return, Atlantean warriors attacked the Oracle, evidently killing Captain McKenzie, and returned Fen to her kingdom. The pink-skinned mutant Namor was subsequently born among the blue-skinned Atlanteans. He became the Prince of Atlantis, and a warrior for his people against the "surface-dwellers".
At some point, when Namor was a child, the people of Atlantis relocated and built a new kingdom near the Pacific Northwest. There, Namor would befriend a young girl named Sandy Pierce, the daughter of wealthy businessman Henry Pierce. During this time, Namor would also meet his cousin Namora, who was named after him. Years later as a teenager, Namor would reconnect with Sandy, revealing his identity to her and starting a relationship. Due to oil leaking from the ground into Atlantis, and Sandy's father facing financial ruin due to problems with his oil rig, Namor struck a deal with Henry to help each other out. In an attempt to discredit Namor in the eyes of the Atlanteans, his cousin Beemer first attacked Sandy and her father and destroyed the oil rig. With the oil threatening to poison them, the Atlanteans had to relocate back to the South Pacific Ocean. Sandy decided to join them, but would disappear. When Namor was a teenager, he witnessed the Chasm People's Swift Tide in combat practice until his royal cousin Lady Dorma arrived. He even witnesses a meeting between Atlantis and the Chasm People where he has his first encounter with Prince Attuma. When some Chasm People appear to take on the Imperial Atlanteans and the traitorous Swift Tide, Namor and Lady Dorma are awestruck of the Swift Tide's fighting skills as they and Attuma assist in the battle. When it came to a dark artifact called the Unforgotten Stone, the Swift Tide is sent to retrieve it.
World War II
In 1939, Namor became friends with New York City policewoman Betty Dean, who pleaded with him to help the Allies' effort against the Axis powers during World War II. Despite originally denying her pleas, and attacking New York on multiple occasions due to their provocations, Namor decided to join the Allies' cause against the Nazis in September 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the US officially joining the war in 1941, Namor formed superhero team the Invaders, alongside Captain America, Bucky, the original Human Torch, and Toro. In 1944, Namor and the Invaders would go to Wakanda, where they encountered T'Chaka, the king and Black Panther of the nation. Namor would later find both contention and companionship in youthful monarch T'Challa. The pair of kings would briefly work together to track down traitors and enemies along with missing subjects of their respective kingdoms for a time. Succeeding in their mission, Namor and T'Challa would part on friendly terms afterwards, the former being dismayed after hearing of his land-born counterpart's opening suzerainties to the rest of the world later on.
While investigating an assault on Atlantis, Namor fell under the control of Paul Destine, bearer of the Serpent Crown, who bade him to fly to New York and wander without his memories until he was summoned. In his amnesiac state, he met the daughter of friend and fellow World War II veteran Randall Peterson, Nay Peterson, who recognized him and took him back to her family home. Namor spent years living with the Petersons, slowly recovering his memories, until he was approached by Professor Charles Xavier and joined him in search of fellow mutants. His travels with Xavier revealed Namor's emotional imbalance due to wartime PTSD. In an attempt to heal Namor's mental trauma, Xavier created a persona based on his memories of Thomas Machan, another war buddy Namor had failed to save, hoping that Machan could act as therapist for him. When confronted with the presence of his dead friend, Namor instead suffered a mental break and fled, succumbing to Destine's command once more. Xavier's intervention would solidify the bipolar disorder he would suffer from for decades to come.
The Fantastic Four and modern world
He was later found by Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four #4 living in the flophouse Bowery district of Manhattan as an amnesiac derelict. Regaining his memory, he became enraged upon learning that his people's city had been destroyed by nuclear testing, its inhabitants evacuated. Namor vows revenge on humanity, but after several attacks thwarted by superheroes, including in Fantastic Four #6, 9, and 14 (Sept. and Dec. 1962, May 1963), Strange Tales #107 (April 1963), he finds his people and launches an unsuccessful invasion of New York City in Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963).
Prior to Namor's first battle with the Avengers, he comes across a group of Inuit worshiping a figure frozen in ice; someone whom the Sub-Mariner vaguely recognizes from the past just before hurling said monolith into the ocean during an outburst of rage. After his second bout with the Avengers he is approached by then-ally in the war turned adversary in modern times; Captain Steven Rogers, the two catching up about life and times. Namor returns to Atlantis to marry his royal cousin Lady Dorma. In Sub-Mariner #37 (May 1971), the evil princess Llyra of Lemuria, another undersea culture, kidnaps and replaces Dorma at the wedding, hoping to usurp Namor's kingdom. Though Namor's marriage to Dorma is still official, she dies as a result of Llyra's machinations. In issues #45–46 (Nov.-Dec. 1971) Namor finally meets his father, long thought dead, only to lose him when Leonard McKenzie gives his life in battle against the supervillain Tiger Shark. Namor allies with the "non-team" the Defenders initially in Marvel Feature #1–3, Dec. 1971 – June 1972, then in the series The Defenders. After being deposed from his throne, Namor joins the superhero team the Avengers. He is briefly married to Marrina, an aquatic alien and a member of the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight. She is later presumed killed, but she is later revealed to be in a coma, of which Namor is unaware.
Father-daughter oceanographers Caleb and Carrie Alexander, theorizing that Namor's propensity toward rage is due to his half-human half-Atlantean blood chemistry, equip Namor with a monitor to warn when he has to seek either air or water. This allows Namor to control his metabolism. He collects sunken treasures to finance his secret purchase of a corporation he renames Oracle Inc., which he turns to conservation and environmental purposes. Unbeknownst to the Sub-Mariner, the Machan guilt apparition would secretly influence his actions, leading him to turn willing Atlantean soldiers human for the purpose of infiltrating governments. Later, Namor loses his ankle-wings during a battle with the animated garbage-monster Sluj, but they are later restored. Namor travels to the dimension of K'un-L'un, where he finds and retrieves the superhero Iron Fist, who had been presumed dead. Namor reclaims the throne of Atlantis, and Oracle begins sponsoring the charitable super-group Heroes for Hire. In the one-shot New Avengers: Illuminati (May 2006), Namor is revealed to have been a member for several years of the clandestine policy group the Illuminati, with Mister Fantastic, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Professor X, and Black Bolt. In the series Sub-Mariner vol. 2 #1–6 (Aug. 2007–Jan. 2008), he discovers his long-lost son Kamar, who attempts to usurp the throne of Atlantis but is killed by the supervillain Nitro.
In 2011, Namor joined the mutant superhero team the X-Men. Namor helped with the Curse of the Mutants, and Avengers vs. X-Men events before joining the Illuminati and All-New Invaders. That same year, during the "Fear Itself" storyline, Namor is ousted from his kingdom by Attuma, who was transformed into Nerkodd: Breaker of Oceans. Namor assists the X-Men, who have relocated to Utopia, off the coast of San Francisco, and sides with them during the subsequent war with the Avengers over the coming of the Phoenix Force to Earth. He becomes one of the Phoenix Five when the Phoenix Force is fractured between himself, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus and Magik. He eventually becomes the first of the Phoenix Five to fall. Namor rejoins the Illuminati, but believing the group's morality holds it back, he assembles a new group, the Cabal, to deal with interdimensional incursions. Namor and the Cabal eventually escape to another Earth, this one in the Ultimate Universe. The new Squadron Supreme decapitates Namor in retaliation for the worlds destroyed by the Cabal, but this is undone through time travel.
During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Captain America puts Namor into a position where he is forced to sign a peace treaty that for a time enabled Hydra to access a fragment of the Cosmic Cube stored in Atlantis. In reality, Namor secretly aids the Underground resistances against Hydra, after finding Winter Soldier falling to the sea out of nowhere and cover his track from Hydra by disguising him as his bodyguard, having had realized that the Steve Rogers-Captain America he and his fellow resistances saw now is not the man they once knew. Once Captain America returns and gives hope to his fellow heroes to find the Cosmic Cube fragments before Hydra does, Namor tells Winter Soldier that the time has come to remove the latter's disguise and help their fellow allies against Hydra, and returning the real Steve Rogers they knew.
Marvel Legacy & Fresh Start (2017–present)
X-Men Red and West Coast Avengers
Sometime after the fall of Hydra America, Jean Grey of the X-Men implores Namor's backing for a new mutant nation. He lends the support of Atlantis to her cause and works with his fellow mutants in the battle against Cassandra Nova as she manipulates national powers against Homo superior on a global scale, once more donning the colors of X to resist a nanorobotic sentinel attack. Relapsing into his human-hating ways, Namor goes back to concocting war plans against the surface nations of the world. When Professor Charles Xavier offers Namor sanctuary in the new mutant nation of Krakoa, the somber monarch refuses Xavier's request on the grounds that neither Xavier nor the mutant nation actually believed themselves to be superior to those from whom they had finally separated themselves, and demands that Xavier not contact him until Xavier believes in his own supremacy. Elsewhere, in Los Angeles, while explaining her backstory to Gwen Poole, Ramone Watts implies that both she and her brother Johnny "Fuse" Watts are children of Namor, born to exiled Dora Milaje Zobae.
Forming the Defenders of the Deep
Namor crashes Tiger Shark's battle with Stingray, nearly killing Stingray and intimidating Tiger Shark into swearing his allegiance. Tiger Shark is drafted into the Defenders of the Deep, along with Orka, Andromeda, Echidna, the Piranhas, Fathom Five members Bloodtide and Manowar, and King Crab, in order to protect the oceans just as the Avengers protect the land. They encounter the Avengers, where Captain America voices his disappointment in Namor for nearly killing Stingray. Their fight is interrupted by the Winter Guard who are also after the Defenders of the Deep. In the ensuing chaos, the Defenders escape after the sea king makes an example of some piranha men. After battling cybernetically augmented dolphins sent by the Roxxon oil corporation, Namor sits brooding in an undersea tavern, musing on the decline of his kingdom and repeated aggression from the surface world, and considering giving in to the hunger for war. The bartender suggests he focus his strength against the Wakandan-led Avengers, pointing out the many potential allies among the Avengers' enemies. Unbeknownst to Namor, the bartender is an agent of Mephisto. Taking the bartender's words to heart, Namor uses his lingering psychic link with the Phoenix Force to summon it back to Earth, promising to set galaxies ablaze in exchange for the power to defeat the Avengers.
The Best Defense
Leaving the Defenders of the Deep to protect Hydropolis, the Sub-Mariner seeks out a long defected splinter sect of Atlanteans known as the Vodani. Namor attempts to forge an alliance by joining with the king's daughter, Kataw, to vanquish an ancient monster, but this turns out to be a ruse by the Vodani king Okun to leave him vulnerable, the Vodani having grown to despise what they see as impure Atlanteans. Namor flings himself at Okun, hoping to surface and use his airbreathing abilities to gain the upper hand, but realizes that the tunnel he passed through to reach the Vodani was in fact a portal to another world, and he has unwittingly cast them both into the vacuum of space, where he is only saved by the unexpected intervention of the Silver Surfer. Namor, in conjunction with his colleagues in the Defenders, battles against Nebulon, a demon-empowered entity who has hijacked a cosmic train that burns planets as fuel, and has directed it to Vodan and ultimately towards Earth. Dr. Strange and Hulk manage to rescue Vodan from the furnace, instead sending it into the freezing void of space. Namor offers to let Kataw use her electricity redirection powers to siphon his bioelectric life force and give the Silver Surfer enough power to save the planet, a sacrifice he is willing to make as king. Furious at his arrogance after killing her father, she sacrifices her own life instead. After being exiled from their world, Namor acknowledges to the Silver Surfer that his offer was an attempt to undermine Kataw's rule and force an alliance, but his arrogance has cost yet another life.
Invaders
Namor prepares for war accompanied by his advisor Machan, who appears to be a blue-skinned Atlantean with the same abilities of flight and air-breathing that Namor does. It soon becomes clear that Machan only exists in Namor's mind, and is in fact the psychic entity based on Thomas Machan that Xavier implanted in his mind years before. Namor developed hydrokinesis in order to get a branch of the Atlanteans called the Sea Blades to swear their allegiance with him. In addition to incarcerating the criminal Hydro-Man to siphon his hydrokinetic powers which explained how Namor got the Sea Blades to side with him, Atlantean technicians have been fabricating a bomb to target human DNA. When Captain America tries to broker peace, he is violently beaten by Namor and told that next time there will be no mercy.
Steve and Jim Hammond turn to the Petersons, a bedridden Randall and his daughter Nay, in order to find insight into Namor's fits of aggression. Machan urges Namor to dispatch the Petersons to tie up loose ends, and in a confrontation between the three heroes, Randall dies of geriatric complications, much to Namor's distress. Nay and her son, US Navy Commander Roman Peterson, are revealed to be agents of Namor. Namor intercepts Hammond and summarily decapitates the android. Roman takes control of a missile base to launch a strike against Atlantis, which the Avengers intercept in order to prevent a war.
The missile strike gives Namor justification to retaliate with the Genus Compound, a biochemical weapon which transforms homo sapiens into water breathing homo mermanus. He then floods the town in order to save thousands of lives, including Roman, who joins Namor's side. The Atlanteans provide humanitarian aid for the displaced townsfolk, Namor's intent being to ultimately transform the entire population of Earth into homo mermanus. During his time travelling with Professor X, Namor had witnessed the police gun down a mutant called Genus who had the ability to transform animals from one species to another, and has used Genus' recovered corpse as the basis for his weapon.
The Machan part of Namor's psyche continues to work behind Namor's back, approving additional testing on Russian citizens without his knowledge. He also procures the Serpent Crown under the pretext of protecting Namor from psychic attack. Namor reveals to Bucky that he is aware that Machan has been intermittently been taking over his body throughout the years, creating the plan without his knowledge, but with his ultimate approval. Machan has become a symbol of his failure and righteous anger at the injustices of the world, pushing him to ever more extreme actions. Machan ultimately uses the Serpent Crown to transfer himself into the body of Roman Peterson, in order to do what his king will not.
When Roxxon mercenaries steal the Genus Compound, Namor is exposed to a variant used to turn Atlantean spies into humans, and loses his powers. He ends up stranded on a seemingly deserted island along with Captain America. Powerless, Namor takes responsibility for everything Machan has done, whereas Steve insists on Namor's fundamental goodness. They discover the island hosts a Roxxon testing facility where scientists are experimenting with the Genus Compound to create more humanoid-animal hybrids. Steve uses the compound to restore Namor's Atlantean powers, and an enraged Namor releases the experiments upon the scientists, who are mauled to death before Steve can intervene. Steve calls Namor no better than the scientists, as the Genus Compound was his work to begin with.
Steve and Namor reunite with the rest of the Invaders to prevent Roman Machan, as he is now calling himself, from unleashing the Omega Sea. By siphoning water from the oceanic world of Vodon, Machan can flood the planet and coerce humanity into taking the Genus Compound to survive. Namor momentarily falls under the sway of the Serpent Crown but reasserts control, declaring he takes commands from no one. After the Invaders disable the doomsday engine, Namor intends to take Roman Machan back to Atlantis to be executed, but Steve insists that he be taken into surface-dwelling custody as the world still thinks Namor was behind everything. Recounting how a king sacrifices for the sake of the greater good, Rogers challenges his fellow Invader to forgo his vengeful needs for the sake of his kingdom.
Atlantis Attacks
Namor invades the portal city of Pan to demand the return of Atlantis' sacred guardian dragon, which the Big Nguyen Company has stolen in order to power the city's portal technology. The New Agents of Atlas negotiate a truce between Namor and Pan, with Namor being particularly impressed by Wave due to her recent role in defeating the Sirenas, longtime enemies of Atlantis. The Agents successfully develop a new power source to prevent Pan's citizens from being displaced, and the dragon is safely returned to Atlantis, but abruptly goes berserk upon arrival and attacks the underwater city.
Atlantean scientists discover an implant embedded in the dragon's scales. Namor flies to Pan for revenge, but Big Nguyen Company's CEO and Pan founder Mike Nguyen reveals that he has recruited the Sirenas to defend Pan from attack. Namor defeats a Hulked-out Brawn and is about to strike the final blow, but is overpowered by the Sirenas and imprisoned. Nguyen proposes all-out war with Atlantis, while Namora discovers that the implant on the dragon was Sirena tech, splitting the heroes' loyalties. Namor breaks free from his restraints and threatens to destroy the entire city upon realizing that Ngyuen has sent a force of Sirenas to attack Atlantis. Nguyen, via hologram, warns of civilian casualties and instead proposes a triple alliance between Pan, Atlantis and the Sirenas; Namor refuses and resumes battle with the remaining Agents.
Brawn talks down the combatants, having hacked Ngyuen's mainframe, and confronts Atlas founder Jimmy Woo for withholding secrets from the team. Woo reveals that for thousands of years, dragons have served as advisors for human rulers, using humans as proxies in their conflicts with one another, making them responsible for almost every major war in history. The Atlas Foundation itself is run by a dragon, Mr. Lao. Nguyen intends to unite the world under Pan, proposing to Namor and Woo that by harvesting the combined power of their dragons, they can claim the rest of them. Namor instead returns to Atlantis where Wave brokers a truce with the Sirenas, while Brawn and the other Agents confront Nguyen in his personal bunker. Nguyen attaches a Sirena implant to Amadeus, transforming him into the Hulk.
Nguyen commands the Hulk to kill Namor to ensure Pan's safety, intending to wipe out all kings and autocrats. Namor takes the battle to an island two miles off the Heart of Pan, where Sword Master and Shang-Chi manage to remove the device, freeing Amadeus from Nguyen's control. Namor then reveals that the shockwaves from the Hulk's blows have created a massive tsunami that is heading towards the Heart of Pan. With some goading from Woo and Namor, Brawn transforms back into Hulk and creates another shockwave to weaken the tsunami with help from Namor, Wave, Aero and Luna Snow. The city is saved, although Nguyen dies protecting a Madripoorian refugee and her young son from the tsunami. One month later at the Heart of Pan, Woo announces to the Agents and Pan's new leadership at a banquet that Atlantis and the Sirenas have signed a non-aggression pact, recognizing Pan as an independent nation. Mr. Lao and Woo plan their next move with the Agents: helping Namor fight the King in Black.
King in Black
During the "King in Black" storyline, Namor recounts his history with the Swift Tide and the exile of the Chasm People. When Knull attacks Earth, Namor agrees to help his fellow superheroes. One way to fight Knull's symbiote forces is to awaken the Black Tide. Upon Namor's arrival, Iron Man agrees to help him if the Black Tide attack Namor.
Enter the Phoenix
After the Phoenix Force makes its nest near Avengers Mountain in the North Pole, Namor attempts to reunite with the entity, leading to a clash between the Avengers and the Defenders of the Deep. During the battle, the Phoenix decides to hold a tournament to decide who its next host will be and selects Namor as a candidate, transporting him and many other heroes and villains to another dimension to wait the next match following Captain America's win over Doctor Doom.
Powers and abilities
Because of his unusual genetic heritage, Namor is unique among both ordinary humans and Atlanteans; he is sometimes referred to as "Marvel's first mutant" because, while the majority of his observed superhuman powers come from the fact that he is a hybrid of human and Atlantean DNA, his ability to fly cannot be explained by either side (Atlanteans are an offshoot of "baseline" humanity); however, in terms of in-continuity chronology, there were many mutants in existence before Namor. Namor possesses a fully amphibious physiology suited for extreme undersea pressures, superhuman strength, speed, agility, durability, flight, and longevity. Namor has the ability to survive underwater for indefinite periods, and specially developed vision which gives him the ability to see clearly in the murky depths of the ocean.
Bill Everett, in his first Sub-Mariner story, described the character as "an ultra-man of the deep [who] lives on land and in the sea, flies in the air, [and] has the strength of a thousand [surface] men". No other powers were mentioned. When the series was revived in 1954, Namor lost his ankle wings and with them the power of flight; they, and his full strength, were restored in Sub-Mariner Comics #38 (Feb. 1955), in which Everett additionally wrote a flashback story, "Wings on His Feet", detailing their appearance on Namor at age 14. This story was twice reprinted during the Silver Age of Comic Books, in Marvel Super-Heroes #17 (Nov. 1968), and in the book Comix by Les Daniels.
Namor has the ability to swim at superhuman speeds, even by Atlantean standards.
Namor has greater longevity than a normal human being. He is nearly 100 years old, but has the appearance of a male in his prime.
His enhanced senses enable him to see in the deepest ocean depths, hear when a school of fish turn a corner from a world away and even feel when the deepest currents change by the slightest degree.
In all his incarnations, Namor possesses superhuman strength and, with the possible exceptions of Orka and Tyrak at their full sizes, is the strongest Atlantean ever known. The exact level of his strength is dependent upon his physical contact with water, in which he needn't be submerged. It has been shown as sufficient to effortlessly toss a water-filled ocean-liner, despite the underwater viscosity. His strength diminishes slowly the longer he is out of contact with water, though an extended period on land does not result in his death, as it would for a typical Atlantean, and his power is retained in full as long as he keeps himself wet. Namor possesses superhuman stamina and resistance to injury due to his hybrid nature. Namor's strength level is such that he has held his own in hand-to-hand combat with beings as powerful as the Hulk in the past.
Some stories have mentioned that Namor has gills for breathing underwater, e.g., in Namor, the Sub-Mariner #5, Namor thinks "this New York river water burns my gills and scalds my lungs". and artists such as Salvador Larroca have drawn him with gill slits on either side of his neck. In The Sub-Mariner #18–22 (1969–70), beings from outer space surgically closed Namor's gills for a time, leaving him with the ability to breathe air but unable to breathe underwater. Other sources have stated that his lungs contain oxygen diffusing membranes that allow him to breathe underwater.
Namor possesses a telepathic rapport with all forms of marine life. He is able to mentally communicate with most forms of Ichthyoid, Cephalopod, Plankton, Anthozoa, Csnidarian, etc.; and can mentally persuade them to do his bidding. Namor can mentally communicate with other Atlanteans and give mental-telepathic orders to all his men. He had a limited empathic rapport with Namorita, but only as a result of being given one of her "magic earrings" (which has long since disappeared).
Due to a unique aspect of his hybrid nature, not shared by Namorita, it was theorized that Namor is vulnerable to oxygen imbalances in his blood that trigger manic-depressive mood swings; he can prevent imbalances by regular immersion in water.
Namor was educated by the royal tutors of the Atlantean court, and speaks many surface languages, Atlantean, and Lemurian. He is a highly skilled business executive. On top of having a slew of vast Atlantean technologies available to him and his forces, Namor also has a slew of powerful mystical relics in his national treasury he regularly makes use of; like the Trident of Neptune, patron weapon of his kingdom's founding sea god Poseidon.
The weapon supposedly comes with many replicas as an adversary who held the sea king in resentment due to prior infractions he had in the past utilized a true oceanic scepter while Namor held only a ceremonial copy. Said recipient would study up on the lore of Atlantis's mythical, mystical background and discovered a hidden treasure cove pertaining to numerous magical relics in the ocean deity's possession. One that would enable he and all others who wielded it power over the waters of the world and the vast metaphysical might of its namesake to which they could accomplish a great many feats. Other powers include that of physical transformation, such as changing a human into merfolk, firing destructive energy beams, commanding the creatures of the brine to act on its wielders behalf, as well as influence both weather and the tides of the world to do their bidding. Like all weapons and reliquary crafted by and for the Olympian Pantheon, such as Heracles' Adamantine Mace, the trident is composed of indestructible metal belonging to the gods, able to battle against multiple enforcers of the Thor Corps and their legions of Mjolnir hammers without taking any damage.
In the past Namor has interacted with the Serpent Crown throughout his adventures, in later publishing he has regained access to all of its supernatural facilities to augment his own powers.
Former powers and abilities
In The Fantastic Four #9 (Dec. 1962), Namor states, "I have the powers of all the creatures who live beneath the sea! I can charge the very air with electricity – using the power of the electric eel!" In the same issue, "the radar sense of the cave fish from the lowest depths of the sea" enables him to sense the presence of Sue Storm when she is invisible. He uses "the power to surround himself with electricity in the manner of an electric eel" again in Strange Tales #107 (April 1963), and #125 (Oct. 1964); in the former, he manifests the power to inflate his body like a puffer fish. An editorial note in Marvel Tales #9 (July 1967), which reprinted the story from Strange Tales #107, stated explicitly that "nautical Namor has since lost his power to imitate the characteristics of fish..." His electrical abilities were seen in later comics, and in the 1991 Spider-Man: The Video Game.
In Marvel Mystery Comics #2 (Dec. 1939) Namor once boasted a personal hydration function of his physiology, once extinguishing a pedestrian had been set on fire by cigarette light. His body excreted water from his individual pores, dousing the flames. During Namor's original fight with the Human Torch in Marvel Mystery Comics #8 (June 1940, and the first fight between superheroes at Marvel), Namor was able to forcibly expel water from his body to extinguish fires, although it proved useless against the Torch.
Namor was given possession of the Time Gem which he did not use. This gem allows the user total control over the past, present, and future. It allows time travel, can age and de-age beings, and can be used as a weapon by trapping enemies or entire worlds in unending loops of time. After the Hood attempted to steal the Gems, Namor briefly helped Thor recover the Gem from the bottom of the ocean to prevent the Hood acquiring it, before being entrusted with the Power Gem as the Gems were divided amongst the new Illuminati – Steve Rogers replacing Black Bolt – once again.
Through unknown means, Namor later siphoned the hydrokinesis abilities of Hydro-Man. He was able to flood a prison cell containing Roxxon murderers miles away from the ocean using the penal facility's sewage line. When he went to conscript the Sea Blades in preparation for war on the surface world, he literally parting the seas around them only to drop the waters back into place.
Namor was host for a fifth of the Phoenix Force as one of the Phoenix Five. He lost the Phoenix Force in battle with the Scarlet Witch. He summoned the Phoenix Force to regain those powers, but the Phoenix decided to choose its next host in a tournament. Each candidate, including Namor, was temporarily given a portion of the Phoenix Force, until Echo was chosen as its new host.
"Marvel's first mutant"
Marvel has repeatedly identified Namor as "Marvel's first mutant," which is accurate when describing first appearances in print. However, he is not the oldest mutant within the fictional Marvel Universe timeline. A number of mutants predate him, including Selene, Apocalypse, Romulus, Exodus, Sabertooth, Azazel, Wolverine, Mystique, and Destiny.
In X-Men #6 (July 1964), X-Men leader Professor Xavier and antagonist Magneto each suspect Namor is a mutant and make efforts to recruit him. Later writers in the 1960s and 1970s described him as a hybrid, not a mutant, to distinguish him from the mutant X-Men. When the series was revived in 1990, the series title logo carried the subtitle "Marvel's first and mightiest mutant!"
Namor is actually a hybrid of Atlantean and human physiology, although he has principal characteristics that neither Atlanteans (Homo mermanus) nor humans (Homo sapiens) possess. These include his ability to fly, and possibly his durability and strength (which is several times that of an Atlantean).
In the first issue of the five-part Illuminati miniseries, after being experimented on by the Skrulls, it was confirmed that Namor is not only an Atlantean/human hybrid but also a mutant.
Enemies
Attuma – Leader of the Atlantean barbarians, Attuma would threaten Atlantis repeatedly; conquering it on several occasions, and became Namor's nemesis.
Byrrah – Childhood friend and rival to Namor, Byrrah was Atlantean royalty that lost the throne to Namor and observed him as unfit for the position. For many years, he would challenge Namor's rule and ally with his enemies to usurp him. Eventually, he appears to have made peace with Namor and stands by his side as a brother.
Captain Barracuda – A modern-day pirate employing advanced technology that frequently crossed swords with Namor (and several other heroes).
Deep Six – A group formed by Attuma to maintain his rule of Atlantis during one of his periods as its conqueror. His subordinates included Tiger Shark, Orka, Piranha, Sea Urchin, and Nagala (bearing the Serpent Crown).
Doctor Doom – Sometimes allies, sometimes enemies, Doom and Namor use each other but inevitably turn against each other when their ultimate sensibilities override the benefits of working together. This has been their perpetual relationship since first meeting years ago.
Doctor Dorcas – A brilliant scientist that created several of Namor's greatest threats such as Tiger Shark, Orka, and Piranha, often working alongside the likes of Attuma and Byrrah. He appeared to die in a battle with Namor, but later turned up alive with starfish-based abilities.
Fathom Five – Led by Llyron, the son of Namor's enemy Llyra and supposedly Namor himself. Later, it is revealed that Llyron is the grandson of Namor's half-brother that was passed off as Namor's successor who usurped his throne, Fathom Five sought to wipe out humanity. Its members include Dragonrider, Bloodtide, Manowar, and Sea Leopard.
Great White – An albino villain and shark trainer. He ambushed Loa and her father while they were surfing. Loa managed to use her ability to kill the sharks while Great White was defeated by Namor.
Karthon the Quester – A faithful servant to Lemurian ruler Naga that sought the Serpent Crown for his master from Namor. His sense of honor conflicted with his master and after Naga's rule was toppled, Karthon became king and an ally to Namor.
Llyra – A Lemurian that usurped Karthon's rule of his kingdom and became Namor's enemy when he tried to restore his friend and ally. She would return to face him repeatedly, in time becoming high priestess of Set.
Magneto – More often amicable allies than anything else, Magneto would approach Namor during his Brotherhood's first outing as Supervillains to join forces against humanity. Initially, the latter refused, seeking to work alone, but having worked with the X-Men, Magnus included, Namor respects the mutant revolutionary nonetheless.
Naga – Longtime wielder of the Serpent Crown, Naga would rule Lemuria until he was murdered by his staunchest aide Karthon.
Orka – An underling of Krang empowered by Doctor Dorcas to be massively strong and grow stronger in the presence of orca. He would return repeatedly as a minion for Namor's enemies.
Piranha – Created by Doctor Dorcas, the Piranha is an ever-evolving enemy of Namor to return again and again.
Puppet Master – Using Namor as a pawn on several occasions, such as against the Fantastic Four and in obtaining funds, the Puppet Master would garner the ire of the sea king. On one occasion, when Namor considered befriending the Hulk, Puppet Master took the green behemoth over and forced him to battle Namor.
Tiger Shark – An Olympic swimmer transformed by Doctor Dorcas into a hybrid of Namor's DNA and a tiger shark. He battles Namor repeatedly over the years, at one time an ally to the sea king, though today he has again chosen to be his enemy.
Tyrak – A powerful warrior in Attuma's army that can grow to monstrous size and bears incredible physical strength.
U-Man – Meranno was a childhood rival to Namor that joined the Third Reich and took the name U-Man. Leading the Nazis to Atlantis, their attack left its emperor in a coma with Namor succeeding him. During World War II, he would be Namor's frequent sparring partner.
Warlord Krang – One-time military leader of Atlantis' forces, Krang tried to usurp Namor's power and became an enemy to the kingdom. He would return repeatedly to challenge Namor.
Reception
Critical response
Richard Fink of MovieWeb called Namor a "fan favorite for years," writing, "The character has a long rich history in the comics and has had dealings with The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, and many more. He has been both an ally and an enemy to the heroes. He is one of the first comic book antiheroes, and his status as the first Marvel character has made him an appealing one for adaptation." Matt Wood of CinemaBlend included Namor in their "5 Marvel Villains We'd Love To See In Black Panther 2" list. Marco Vito Oddo of Collider included Namor in their "7 Most Powerful Avengers Who Aren't in the MCU" list. Screen Rant included Namor in their "15 Best Antiheroes In Marvel Comics" list, in their "15 Most Powerful Black Panther Villains" list, in their "10 Most Powerful Hercules Villains In Marvel Comics" list, in their "10 Best Black Panther Comics Characters Not In The MCU" list, and in their "MCU: 10 Most Desired Fan Favorite Debuts Expected In The Multiverse Saga" list, and ranked Namor 1st in their "Marvel's 10 Most Powerful Aquatic Characters" list. Cameron Bonomolo of ComicBook.com included Namor the Submariner in their "7 Great Villains for Black Panther 2" list, while Chase Magnett ranked him 4th in their "8 Best Black Panther Villains" list, writing, "Over the past 10 years, Black Panther and Namor have developed one of the most engaging rivalries in all of superhero comics," and Lance Cartelli ranked him 43rd in their "50 Most Important Superheroes Ever" list.
Comic Book Resources ranked Namor 1st in their "10 Most Iconic Black Panther Villains" list, 2nd in their "10 Strongest Aquatic Superheroes" list, and 13th in their "30 Strongest Marvel Superheroes" list. Aaron Young of Looper ranked Namor 12th in their "Strongest Superheroes In History" list. IGN ranked Namor 14th in their "Top 50 Avengers" list, and 77th in their "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list. Andrew Wheeler of ComicsAlliance ranked Namor 16th in their "50 Sexiest Male Characters in Comics" list. Rob Bricken of Gizmodo ranked Namor 29th in their "Every Member Of The Avengers" list. Lance Cartelli of GameSpot ranked Namor 35th in their "50 Most Important Superheroes" list, saying, "Namor played an important role in comic books as the medium’s first antihero." Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly ranked Namor 47th in their "Let's Rank Every Avenger Ever" list. Wizard magazine ranked Namor 88th in their "The 200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time" list.
Literary reception
Volumes
During the period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books, generally agreed to last from 1938 to 1956, Namor was one of Timely Comics' "Big Three," alongside Captain America and the original Human Torch. During this period, Namor's Sub-Mariner title was selling millions of copies.
Namor (2003)
According to Diamond Comic Distributors, Namor #2 was the 43rd best selling comic book in May 2003.
Jared Gaudreau of Comic Book Resources ranked the Namor comic book series 2nd in their "15 Best Namor Comics" list, writing, "Along with becoming more narratively rich, this comic gave Namor something he'd never had before: a serious love interest named Sandra Pierce."
Namor: The First Mutant (2010)
According to Diamond Comic Distributors, Namor: The First Mutant #1 was the 42nd best selling comic book in August 2010.
Shawn S. Lealos of Screen Rant included the Namor: The First Mutant comic book series in their "10 Best Ever Namor Comics To Read" list.
Namor: The Best Defense (2018)
According to Diamond Comic Distributors, Namor: The Best Defense #1 was the 50th best selling comic book in December 2018.
Charlie Ridgely of ComicBook.com gave Namor: The Best Defense #1 a grade of 5 out of 5, writing, "Chip Zdarsky has proven in the past that he can write incredibly fun, light-hearted characters like Peter Parker and The Thing. However, he makes a very bold statement with this issue of Namor, as he declares that he's far more than you might believe him to be. Zdarsky writes the hell out of Namor, who is about as damaged, serious, and complicated as you can get in the Marvel universe. He does so with a precision and depth that is slightly unexpected, but completely refreshing when dealing with a character that has often been underutilized. Between Defenders and Avengers, it's very clear that a Namor resurgence is underway, and Chip Zdarsky is leading the charge."
Other versions
Amalgam Comics
In the Amalgam Comics reality, Namor is combined with DC Comics' King of Atlantis, Aquaman, to create Aqua Mariner.
Earth X
In the Earth X series, Namor suffers from dementia due to the Terrigen mists contaminating the oceans. Amid the crisis, Namor is responsible for the death of Johnny Storm as a result of an attack by him and Doctor Doom on the United Nations against the Fantastic Four and Captain America. A furious Franklin Richards used his powers to cause half of Namor's body to be continually on fire, now known as Namor the Cursed. Years later, Namor would join The Skull's mind-controlled army.
Exiles
In Exiles issues 14 and 15, Namor appears as a king who has taken over Latveria. Another version of Namor is black and is married to Sue Storm and has a son Remy.
Marvel 1602
In the Marvel 1602 limited series Fantastick Four, Namor is reinvented as Numenor, Emperor of Bensaylum, a city beyond the edge of the world.
When the characters arrive in his realm he is arguing with his cousin Rita (Namorita) about her reluctance to marry. She suggests that this is because he refuses to find a consort himself. Upon meeting the Four from the Fantastick, he is attracted to Susan Storm, and attempts to woo her, unsuccessfully. He later plots with Otto von Doom to win her, while "disposing" of Sir Richard Reed. Doom turns against him, and Numenor is stabbed with his own trident and dies. Because Bensaylum is not underwater, its inhabitants are portrayed as basically human although they retain the pointed ears.
Marvel Noir
In the Marvel Noir reality, Namor is a captain of a ship named "Dorma". Captain Namor is a widely infamous pirate of the seven seas and an associate of Tony Stark, who pays him for the numerous voyages on his adventures. Namor considers himself as a man of the sea and doesn't share any allegiances to any countries or nations. As part of his tradition as a pirate, Namor marks himself and his crew by slicing their ears to look like shark's fins. He is the captain of the Dorma, an advanced submarine while taking the guise of a fishing trawler.
In May 1939, Stark hired Namor to find the location of Atlantis. He traveled with Stark, James Rhodes, and Pepper Potts on the submersible, the "Happy Hogan", in locating Atlantis and finding the valuable Orichalcum. Upon returning to the surface, Namor and his friends were immediately captured by the Nazis led by Baron Zemo and Von Strucker, and the Orichalcum stolen by them. Namor and his allies were then left to die on his trawler by torpedo; Namor took action in having everyone quickly board the Dorma and escape before the torpedo destroyed the trawler. Namor later rescued Stark following the destruction of Von Strucker's airship fleet, as (in Namor's words) Stark owes him a boat for the destruction of his.
MC2
Namor is still active in the MC2 future timeline, and still uniting occasionally for battle alongside the Hulk and Doctor Strange as "Defenders". His appearance, while slightly older looking, is unchanged save for growing a goatee. In Fantastic Five vol. 2 #1 it was revealed that he had held Doctor Doom captive for over ten years after the mad monarch destroyed Atlantis. Doom subsequently escaped, and in #4, Namor is seen being tortured by him. He is freed after Reed Richards sacrifices himself to send both his and Doom's consciousnesses to the Crossroads of Infinity.
Sub-Mariner: The Depths
In the Marvel Knights mini-series set in an alternate 1950s, Namor is fabled among mariners, said to pursue and kill any searching for Atlantis. Randolph Stein, a man who makes a living debunking modern myths, encounters Namor in the ocean depths while trying to find Atlantis.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate version of Namor is a mutant Atlantean with amphibious physiology suited for high water pressure. He has vast super strength, durability, high-speed swimming ability, flight, and water manipulation.
In Ultimate Fantastic Four #24, the eponymous team is surveying the ruins of Atlantis and finds an estimated 9,000-year-old tomb containing the hibernating Namor – an imprisoned Atlantean criminal, considered the worst villain of his time. Reed Richards' translation of the Atlantean language reveals Namor's claims of kingship to be false.
His extreme intelligence allows him to become fluent in English in a matter of minutes merely by listening to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the Fantastic Four talking. Confronting the human, Namor withstands full-strength flares from the Human Torch and is strong enough to fight the Thing, withstand Sue Storm's force fields, and stretch Richards (Mr. Fantastic) to near-breaking. He destroys machinery designed to contain the Hulk. Though beaten by the Fantastic Four, he creates a tidal wave in the shape of Poseidon, threatening to destroy Manhattan with it. He is appeased when he demands, and receives, a meaningful kiss from Sue Storm. He then returns to the sea.
Namor reappears at the end of issue #55, rescuing an unconscious Sue after she was attacked by the Ultimate version of the Salem's Seven. Later, he is seen in Latveria as Doctor Doom's prisoner.
In other media
Television
In the 1950s, a Namor television series starring Richard Egan was planned, but it never went into production.
In the 1970s, a Sub-Mariner television pilot was announced, but never filmed. It has been claimed that this was due to its similarity to the short-lived Man from Atlantis. although the veracity of this is disputed. A comic book of the series was published by Marvel.
Namor appears in a self-titled segment of The Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by John Vernon.
Prince Triton, a substitute for Namor, appears in Fantastic Four (1967), voiced by Mike Road.
Namor appears in the Spider-Man (1981) episode "Wrath of the Sub-Mariner", voiced by Vic Perrin.
Namor appears in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode "7 Little Superheroes", voiced by William Woodson.
Namor appears in the Fantastic Four (1994) episode "Now Comes the Sub-Mariner", voiced by James Warwick.
Namor appears in The Avengers: United They Stand episode "To Rule Atlantis", voiced by Raoul Trujillo.
Namor appears in Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, voiced by Michael Adamthwaite.
Film
Development of a film based on Namor the Sub-Mariner began at Marvel Studios in April 1997, when Philip Kaufman was negotiating to direct the film, entitled Namor: Sub-Mariner. Kaufman was developing the film the next month when he revealed it would tackle environmental issues by depicting Namor as having "bad feelings" towards the land residents of Earth over ecological concerns. By July 1999, Sam Hamm was in negotiations to write the script. In June 2001, Universal Pictures entered negotiations to gain the rights for Namor, with then Marvel Studios President Avi Arad and Kevin Misher set to produce the film. Arad felt that the film could explore environmental issues such as oil spills, underwater bomb testing, pollution and global warming. By then, writers were being sought for the project. Universal hired David Self to write the script in July 2002 for an intended 2004 release. The following month, Randall Frakes was revealed to have worked on the script for Namor, the Sub-Mariner at Saban Entertainment.
In October 2002, Marvel Studios announced that it had finalized a deal with Universal to produce the Sub-Mariner film after their work together on Hulk (2003). Avi Arad said the film would be an "epic underwater tale of majestic fantasy", which Marvel described as following the adventures of Namor as a prince from Atlantis who is a "half-human/half-amphibian" and a "troubled rebel with a short temper" and has helped humans and fought them over pollution. Kevin Feige, Stan Lee, and Self were set as executive producers, while Avi Arad was a co-producer. By July 2004, Marvel and Arad entered negotiations for Chris Columbus to direct the project, and he signed on as director and producer of Sub-Mariner by that December, developing it through his production company 1492 Pictures. The film was slated for a 2007 release. However, Columbus said in November 2005 that he was unlikely to make the film. In September 2006, Universal and Marvel Studios hired Jonathan Mostow to write and direct The Sub-Mariner, with the film following Namor discovering he is a prince of Atlantis who is key in a war between the modern surface world and the underwater world. Feige said the heart of the film's story would be "tempered" with Namor being stuck between those two worlds. Mostow said The Sub-Mariner was still in active development in August 2009 and that they were still working on getting the script right. He also explained that Universal kept renewing the option to produce the property.
Marvel Entertainment's chief creative officer (CCO) Joe Quesada said in May 2012 and June 2016 that to his knowledge, Marvel Studios held the film rights to Namor. In August 2013, Feige, who since became the President of Marvel Studios, said that Universal still held the rights to Namor and that the character would not appear in Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) at that time because of it. In April 2014, Feige said the rights to Namor were a "little complicated," while The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit revealed in May that Marvel held the Namor rights and not Universal. That July, Feige clarified that Marvel could make a Namor film, instead of Universal and Legendary Pictures as was rumored, but noted there were older contracts with other parties that needed to be worked out before they could move forward with a film. In February 2017, Production Weekly included The Sub-Mariner in their report of upcoming projects in development, when the production was expected to take place in Hawaii. In April 2018, Feige reiterated Namor's rights were complicated, with Universal holding the distribution rights, and said in October that Namor could appear in the MCU and that Marvel Studios was deciding if and when he could. In November 2022, Marvel Studios executive Nate Moore confirmed that they cannot make a standalone Namor film since Universal still holds the character's distribution rights, similar to the Hulk. In March 2023, Citigroup financial analyst Jason Bazinet felt Disney may try to include the distribution rights to Namor, along with Hulk, in any potential sale of the streaming service Hulu to Comcast, the owner of Universal Pictures through NBCUniversal.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
K'uk'ulkan / Namor appears in the MCU film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), portrayed by Tenoch Huerta Mejía. This version is the king of Talokan, an ancient civilization of water-dwelling people connected to the Mayas, as well as a mutant. Namor has an antagonistic role in the film, similar to some versions in the comics. Michael Waldron, the writer for the MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), previously said there had been talks about including Namor in that film as a member of the Illuminati as in the comics, but his inclusion was dropped because Marvel Studios had other plans for the character. In 1571, his mother Fen ingested a Vibranium-laced herb to gain immunity from smallpox while pregnant with her son. This caused her and the rest of Yucatán's people to develop blue skin and grow gills that restricted their ability to breathe air on the surface, forcing them to relocate underwater and establish Talokan as a new civilization. The herb additionally caused her son to undergo a mutation at birth, which gave him pointed ears and winged ankles enabling him to fly, as well as hybrid human physiology that enabled him to breathe oxygen and water simultaneously.
Video games
Namor appears as a playable character in Spider-Man: The Video Game.
Namor makes a cameo appearance in Captain America and The Avengers.
Namor appears as a boss in Fantastic Four (1997).
Namor makes a cameo appearance in Spider-Man (2000)'s "What If?" mode.
Namor appears as an assist character in the Game Boy Advance version of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, voiced by Peter Renaday.
Namor appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
Namor appears as a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight.
Namor appears as a playable character in Marvel Super War.
Namor will appear as a playable character in Marvel Rivals.
Miscellaneous
Namor appears in the Inhumans motion comic, voiced by Trevor Devall.
Collected editions
Golden Age
Modern Age
See also
List of Marvel Comics superhero debuts
Aquaman - a similar character from DC Comics
References
Bibliography
Bell, Blake (September 22, 2010). Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics. Seattle, Washington, United States: Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1606991664.
Benton, Mike (1991). Superhero Comics of the Silver Age: The Illustrated History. Austin, Texas, United States: Taylor Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-87833-746-0.
Daniels, Les (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. New York City, United States: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810938212.
DeFalco, Tom; Brevoort, Tom; Manning, Matthew; Sanderson, Peter (November 3, 2008). Marvel Chronicle: A Year by Year History. London, England: DK. ISBN 978-0756641238.
Madison, Nathan Vernon (January 3, 2013). Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, 1920–1960. Jefferson, North Carolina, United States: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0786470952.
Maslon, Laurence; Kantor, Michael (2013). Superheroes!: Capes, Cowls, and the Creation of Comic Book Culture. New York City, United States: Crown Archetype. ISBN 978-0385348584.
Sanderson, Peter (2007). The Marvel Comics Guide to New York City. New York City, United States: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-3141-8.
Thomas, Roy; Thomas, Dann (2014). Sub-Mariner & The Original Human Torch. New York City, United States: Marvel Entertainment. ISBN 9781302403812.
External links
Namor at Marvel
Namor at the Marvel Universe wiki
Marvel Directory: Namor
The Sub-Mariner at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Pryor, Monique (November 25, 2003). "A Tribute to Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner's Father". Jim Hill Media. Archived from the original on February 28, 2006.
"Heritage to Auction Legendary 'Pay Copy' of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1!" (Press release). Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers. September 16, 2005. Archived from the original on November 10, 2011.{{cite press release}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) |
Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy | [
622
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy"
] | On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.
After the assassination, Oswald returned home to retrieve a pistol; he shot and killed lone Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit shortly afterwards. Around 70 minutes after Kennedy and Connally were shot, Oswald was apprehended by the Dallas Police Department and charged under Texas state law with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit. Two days later, at 11:21 a.m. on November 24, 1963, as live television cameras covered Oswald's being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, he was fatally shot by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, though the decision was overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.
After a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, and that there was no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of a conspiracy. In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison brought the only trial for Kennedy's murder, against businessman Clay Shaw; Shaw was acquitted. Subsequent federal investigations—such as the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee—agreed with the Warren Commission's general findings. In its 1979 report, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Kennedy was likely "assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". The HSCA did not identify possible conspirators, but concluded that there was "a high probability that two gunmen fired at [the] President". The HSCA's conclusions were largely based on a police Dictabelt recording later debunked by the U.S. Justice Department.
Kennedy's assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned many conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios; polls found that a vast majority of Americans believed there was a conspiracy. The assassination left a profound impact and was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s in the United States, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy's brother Robert in 1968. Kennedy was the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated and is the most recent to have died in office.
Background
Kennedy
In 1960, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was elected the 35th president of the United States with Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice presidential running mate. Kennedy's tenure saw the height of the Cold War, and much of his foreign policy was dedicated to countering the Soviet Union and communism. As president, he authorized operations to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba, which culminated in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, during which he declined to directly involve American troops. The following year, Kennedy deescalated the Cuban Missile Crisis, an incident widely regarded as the closest that humanity has come to nuclear holocaust.
In 1963, Kennedy decided to travel to Texas to smooth over frictions in the state's Democratic Party between liberal U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough and conservative Governor John Connally. The visit was first agreed upon by Kennedy, Johnson, and Connally during a meeting in El Paso in June. The motorcade route was finalized on November 18 and announced soon thereafter. Kennedy also viewed the Texas trip as an informal launch of his 1964 reelection campaign.
Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald (born 1939) was a former U.S. Marine who had served in Japan and the Philippines and had espoused communist beliefs since reading Karl Marx at the age of 14. After accidentally shooting his elbow with an unauthorized handgun and fighting an officer, Oswald was court-martialed twice and demoted. In September 1959, he received a dependency discharge after claiming his mother was disabled. A 19-year-old Oswald sailed on a freighter from New Orleans to France and then traveled to Finland, where he was issued a Soviet visa.
Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, and in January 1960 he was sent to work at a factory in Minsk, Belarus. In 1961, he met and married Marina Prusakova, with whom he had a child. In 1962, he returned to the United States with a repatriation loan from the U.S. Embassy. He settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where he socialized with Russian émigrés—notably George de Mohrenschildt. In March 1963, a bullet narrowly missed General Edwin Walker at his Dallas residence; a witness observed two conspicuous men. Relying on Marina's testimony, a note left by Oswald, and ballistic evidence, the Warren Commission attributed this assassination attempt to Oswald.
In April 1963, Oswald returned to his birthplace, New Orleans, and established an independent chapter of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, of which he was the sole member. While passing out pro-Castro literature alongside unknown compatriots, Oswald was arrested after scuffling with anti-Castro Cuban exiles. In late September 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City, where, according to the Warren Commission, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies.
On October 3, Oswald returned to Dallas and found work at the Texas School Book Depository on Dealey Plaza. During the workweek he lived separately from Marina at a Dallas rooming house. On the morning of the assassination, he carried a long package (which he told coworkers contained curtain rods) into the Depository; the Warren Commission concluded that this package contained Oswald's disassembled rifle.
November 22
Kennedy's arrival in Dallas and route to Dealey Plaza
On November 22, Air Force One arrived at Dallas Love Field at 11:40 a.m. President Kennedy and the First Lady boarded a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limousine to travel to a luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. Other occupants of this vehicle—the second in the motorcade—were Secret Service Agent Bill Greer, who drove; Special Agent Roy Kellerman in the front passenger seat; and Governor Connally and his wife Nellie, who sat just forward of the Kennedys. Four Dallas police motorcycle officers accompanied the Kennedy limousine. Vice President Johnson, his wife Lady Bird, and Senator Yarborough rode in another convertible.
The motorcade's meandering 10-mile (16 km) route through Dallas was designed to give Kennedy maximum exposure to crowds by passing through a suburban section of Dallas, and Main Street in Downtown Dallas, before turning right on Houston Street. After another block, the motorcade was to turn left onto Elm Street, pass through Dealey Plaza, and travel a short segment of the Stemmons Freeway to the Trade Mart. The planned route had been reported in newspapers several days in advance. Despite concerns about hostile protestors—Kennedy's UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been spat on in Dallas a month earlier—Kennedy was greeted warmly by enthusiastic crowds.
Shooting
Kennedy's limousine entered Dealey Plaza at 12:30 p.m. CST. Nellie Connally turned and commented to Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, "Mr. President, they can't make you believe now that there are not some in Dallas who love and appreciate you, can they?" Kennedy's reply – "No, they sure can't" – were his last words.
From Houston Street, the limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm, passing the Texas School Book Depository. As it continued down Elm Street, multiple shots were fired: about 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. The Warren Commission concluded that three shots were fired and noted that most witnesses recalled that the second and third shots were bunched together. Shortly after Kennedy began waving, some witnesses heard the first gunshot, but few in the crowd or motorcade reacted, many interpreting the sound as a firecracker or backfire.
Within one second of each other, Governor Connally and Mrs. Kennedy turned abruptly from their left to their right. Connally—an experienced hunter—immediately recognized the sound as that of a rifle and turned his head and torso rightward, noting nothing unusual behind him. He testified that he could not see Kennedy, so he started to turn forward again (turning from his right to his left), and that when his head was facing about 20 degrees left of center, he was struck in his upper right back by a shot he did not hear, then shouted, "My God. They're going to kill us all!"
According to the Warren Commission and the HSCA, Kennedy was waving to the crowds on his right when a shot entered his upper back and exited his throat just beneath his larynx. He raised his elbows and clenched his fists in front of his face and neck, then leaned forward and leftward. Mrs. Kennedy, facing him, put her arms around him. Although a serious wound, it likely would have been survivable.
According to the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory—derided as the "magic bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists—Governor Connally was injured by the same bullet that exited Kennedy's neck. The bullet created an oval-shaped entry wound near Connally's shoulder, struck and destroyed several inches of his right fifth rib, and exited his chest just below his right nipple, puncturing and collapsing his lung. That same bullet then entered his arm just above his right wrist and shattered his right radius bone. The bullet exited just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm and finally lodged in his left thigh.
As the limousine passed the grassy knoll, Kennedy was struck a second time, by a fatal shot to the head. The Warren Commission made no finding as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired, and concluded—as did the HSCA—that the second shot to strike Kennedy entered the rear of his head. It then passed in fragments through his skull, creating a large, "roughly ovular" [sic] hole on the rear, right side of the head, and spraying blood and fragments. His brain and blood spatter landed as far as the following Secret Service car and the motorcycle officers.
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was riding on the running board of the car immediately behind Kennedy's limousine. Hill testified to the Warren Commission that he heard one shot, jumped onto the street, and ran forward to board the limousine and protect Kennedy. Hill stated that he heard the fatal headshot as he reached the Lincoln, "approximately five seconds" after the first shot that he heard. After the headshot, Mrs. Kennedy began climbing onto the limousine's trunk, but she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she may have been reaching for a piece of Kennedy's skull. He jumped onto the limousine's bumper, and he clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital. After Mrs. Kennedy crawled back into her seat, both Governor and Mrs. Connally heard her repeatedly saying: "They have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand."
Bystander James Tague received a minor wound to the cheek—either from bullet or concrete curb fragments—while standing by the triple underpass. Nine months later, the FBI removed the curb, and spectrographic analysis revealed metallic residue consistent with the lead core in Oswald's ammunition. Tague testified before the Warren Commission and initially stated that he was wounded by either the second or third shot of the three shots that he remembered hearing. When the commission counsel pressed him to be more specific, Tague testified that he was wounded by the second shot.
Aftermath in Dealey Plaza
As the motorcade left Dealey Plaza, some witnesses sought cover, and others joined police officers to run up the grassy knoll in search of a shooter. No shooter was found behind the knoll's picket fence. Among the 178 witnesses who testified to the Warren Commission, 78 were unsure of the shots' origin, 49 believed they came from the Depository, and 21 thought they came from the grassy knoll. No witness ever reported seeing anyone—with or without a gun—immediately behind the knoll's picket fence at the time of the shooting.
Lee Bowers was in a two-story railroad switch tower 120 yards (110 m) behind the grassy knoll's picket fence; he was watching the motorcade and had an unobstructed view of the only route by which any shooter could flee the grassy knoll; he saw no one leaving the scene. Bowers testified to the Warren Commission that "one or two" men were between him and the fence during the assassination: one was a familiar parking lot attendant and the other wore a uniform like a county courthouse custodian. He testified seeing "some commotion" on the grassy knoll at the time of the assassination: "something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason which I could not identify".
At 12:36 p.m., teenager Amos Euins approached Dallas police Sergeant D.V. Harkness to report having seen a "colored man ... leaning out of the window [with] a rifle" on the sixth floor of the Depository during the assassination; in response, Harkness radioed that he was sealing off the Depository. Witness Howard Brennan then approached a police inspector to report seeing a shooter—a white man in khaki clothing—in the same window. Police broadcast Brennan's description of the man at 12:45 p.m. Brennan testified that, after the second shot, "This man ... was aiming for his last shot ... and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he had hit his mark." Witness James R. Worrell Jr. also reported seeing a gun barrel emerge from a sixth floor Depository window. Bonnie Ray Williams, who was on the fifth floor of the Depository, stated that the rifle's report was so loud and near that ceiling plaster fell onto his head.
Oswald's flight, killing of J. D. Tippit, and arrest
When searching the sixth floor of the Depository, two deputies found an Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle. Oswald had purchased the used rifle the previous March under the alias "A. Hidell" and had it delivered to his Dallas P.O. box. The FBI found Oswald's partial palm print on the barrel, and fibers on the rifle were consistent with those of Oswald's shirt. A bullet found on Governor Connally's hospital gurney and two fragments found in the limousine were ballistically matched to the Carcano.
Oswald left the Depository and traveled by bus to his boarding house, where he retrieved a jacket and revolver. At 1:12 p.m., police officer J. D. Tippit spotted Oswald walking in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff and called him to his patrol car. After an exchange of words, Tippit exited his vehicle; Oswald then shot Tippit three times in the chest. As Tippit lay on the ground, Oswald fired a final shot into Tippit's right temple. Oswald then calmly walked away before running as witnesses emerged.
As Dallas police officers conducted a roll call of Depository employees, Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly realized that Oswald was absent and notified the police. Based on a false identification of Oswald, Dallas police raided a library in Oak Cliff before realizing their mistake. At 1:36 p.m., the police were called after a conspicuous Oswald, tired from running, was seen sneaking into the Texas Theatre without paying. With the film War Is Hell still playing, Dallas policemen arrested Oswald after a brief struggle in which Oswald drew his fully loaded gun. He denied shooting anyone and claimed he was being made a "patsy" because he had lived in the Soviet Union.
Kennedy declared dead; Johnson sworn in
At 12:38 p.m., Kennedy arrived in the emergency room of Parkland Memorial Hospital. Although Kennedy was still breathing after the shooting, his personal physician, George Burkley, immediately saw that survival was impossible. After Parkland surgeons performed futile cardiac massage, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m., 30 minutes after the shooting. CBS host Walter Cronkite broke the news on live television.
The Secret Service was concerned about the possibility of a larger plot and urged Johnson to leave Dallas and return to the White House, but Johnson refused to do so without any proof of Kennedy's death. Johnson returned to Air Force One around 1:30 p.m., and shortly thereafter, he received telephone calls from advisors McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins advising him to depart for Washington, D.C., immediately. He replied that he would not leave Dallas without Jacqueline Kennedy and that she would not leave without Kennedy's body. According to Esquire, Johnson did "not want to be remembered as an abandoner of beautiful widows".
At the time of Kennedy's assassination, the murder of a president was not under federal jurisdiction. Accordingly, Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose insisted that Texas law required him to perform an autopsy. A heated exchange between Kennedy's aides and Dallas officials nearly erupted into a fistfight before the Texans yielded and allowed Kennedy's body to be transported to Air Force One. At 2:38 p.m., with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side, Johnson was administered the oath of office by federal judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes aboard Air Force One, shortly before departing for Washington with Kennedy's coffin.
Immediate aftermath
Autopsy
President Kennedy's autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland on the night of November 22. Jacqueline Kennedy had selected a naval hospital as the postmortem site as President Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II. The autopsy was conducted by three physicians: naval commanders James Humes and J. Thornton Boswell, with assistance from ballistics wound expert Pierre A. Finck; Humes led the procedure. Under pressure from the Kennedy family and White House staffers to expedite the procedure, the physicians conducted a "rushed" and incomplete autopsy. Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley, signed a death certificate on November 23 and recorded that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the skull.
Three years after the autopsy, Kennedy's brain—which had been removed and preserved for later analysis—was found to be missing when the Kennedy family transferred material to the National Archives. Conspiracy theorists often claim that the brain may have shown that the headshot entered from the front. Alternatively, the HSCA concluded that an assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother, likely removed the footlocker holding the brain and other materials at his direction, and he "either destroyed these materials or otherwise rendered them inaccessible" to prevent "misuse" of said material or to hide the extent of the president's chronic illnesses and consequent medication. Some autopsy X-rays and photographs have also been lost.
Most historians regard the autopsy as the "most botched" segment of the government's investigation. The HSCA forensic pathology panel concluded that the autopsy had "extensive failings", including failure to take sufficient photographs, failure to determine the exact exit or entry point of the head bullet, not dissecting the back and neck, and neglecting to determine the angles of gunshot injuries relative to body axis. The panel further concluded that the two doctors were not qualified to have conducted a forensic autopsy. Panel member Milton Helpern—Chief Medical Examiner for New York City—said that selecting Humes (who had only taken a single course on forensic pathology) to lead the autopsy was "like sending a seven-year-old boy who has taken three lessons on the violin over to the New York Philharmonic and expecting him to perform a Tchaikovsky symphony".
Funeral
Following the autopsy, Kennedy lay in repose in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours. President Johnson issued Presidential Proclamation 3561, declaring November 25 to be a national day of mourning, and that only essential emergency workers be at their posts. The coffin was then carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol to lie in state. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined up to view the guarded casket, with a quarter million passing through the rotunda during the 18 hours of lying in state. Even in the Soviet Union—according to a memo by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover—news of the assassination "was greeted by great shock and consternation and church bells were tolled in the memory of President Kennedy".
Kennedy's funeral service was held on November 25, at St. Matthew's Cathedral, with the Requiem Mass led by Cardinal Richard Cushing. About 1,200 guests, including representatives from over 90 countries, attended. Although there was no formal eulogy, Auxiliary Bishop Philip M. Hannan read excerpts from Kennedy's speeches and writings. After the service, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. An eternal flame was lit at his burial site in 1967.
Killing of Oswald
On Sunday, November 24, at 11:21 a.m., as Oswald was being escorted to a car in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters for the transfer from the city jail to the county jail, he was shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The shooting was broadcast live on television. Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald photographed the shooting which was titled, Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald for which he was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Oswald was taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital; he was treated by the same surgeons who had tried to save Kennedy. The bullet had entered his lower left chest but had not exited; major heart blood vessels such as the aorta and inferior vena cava were severed, and the spleen, kidney, and liver were hit. Despite surgical intervention and defibrillation, Oswald died at 1:07 p.m.
Arrested immediately after the shooting, Ruby testified to the Warren Commission that he had been distraught by Kennedy's death and that killing Oswald would spare "Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial". He also stated he shot Oswald on the spur of the moment when the opportunity presented itself, without considering any reason for doing so. Initially, Ruby wished to represent himself in his trial until his lawyer Melvin Belli dissuaded him: Belli argued that Ruby had an episode of psychomotor epilepsy and was thus not responsible. Ruby was convicted, but the decision was overturned on appeal. While awaiting retrial in 1967, Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism, secondary to cancer. Like Oswald and Kennedy, Ruby was declared dead at Parkland Hospital.
Films and photographs of the assassination
Standing on the pergola wall some 65 feet (20 m) from the road, tailor Abraham Zapruder recorded Kennedy's killing on 26 seconds of silent 8 mm film — known as the Zapruder film. Frame 313 captures the exact moment at which Kennedy's head explodes. Life magazine published frame enlargements from the Zapruder film shortly after the assassination. The footage itself was first publicly shown at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw, and on television in 1975 by Geraldo Rivera. In 1999, an arbitration panel ordered the federal government to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs, valuing the complete film at $16 million (equivalent to $27.5 million in 2022).
Zapruder was one of at least 32 people in Dealey Plaza known to have made film or still photographs at or around the time of the shooting. Most notably among the photographers, Mary Moorman took several photos of Kennedy with her Polaroid, including one of Kennedy less than one-sixth of a second after the headshot.
As well as Zapruder, Charles Bronson, Marie Muchmore, and Orville Nix filmed the assassination, but at farther distances than Zapruder. Of the three, only Nix — who filmed the assassination from the opposite side of Elm Street from Zapruder, capturing the grassy knoll — actually recorded the fatal shot. In 1966, Nix claimed that, after he gave the film to the FBI, the duplicate that they returned had frames "missing" or "ruined". Although lower-quality duplicates exist, the original film has been missing since 1978. Previously unknown footage filmed by George Jefferies was released in 2007. Recorded a few blocks before the shooting, the film captures Kennedy's bunched suit jacket, explaining the discrepancies between the location of the bullet hole in Kennedy's back and his jacket.
Some films and photographs captured an unidentified woman apparently filming the assassination; researchers have nicknamed her the Babushka Lady due to the shawl around her head. In 1978, Gordon Arnold came forward and claimed that he had filmed the assassination from the grassy knoll and that a police officer had confiscated his film. Arnold is not visible in any photographs taken of the area, which Vincent Bugliosi—author of Reclaiming History—called "conclusive photographic proof that Arnold's story was fabricated".
Official investigations
Dallas Police
At the Dallas Police headquarters, officers interrogated Oswald about the shootings of Kennedy and Tippit; these intermittent interviews lasted for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m. on November 22 and 11 a.m. on November 24. Throughout, Oswald denied any involvement and resorted to statements that were found to be false.
Captain J. W. Fritz of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau did most of the questioning and kept only rudimentary notes. Days later, Fritz wrote a report of the interrogation from notes he made afterwards. There were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the Secret Service, and occasionally participated in the questioning. Several of the FBI agents who were present wrote contemporaneous reports of the interrogation.
On the evening of November 22, Dallas Police performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek in an effort to establish whether or not he had recently fired a weapon. The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek. Such tests were unreliable, and the Warren Commission did not rely on these results.
The Dallas police forced Oswald to host a press conference after midnight on November 23, and, early in the investigation, made many leaks to the media. Their conduct angered Johnson, who instructed the FBI to tell them to "stop talking about the assassination". Dallas Police, after the FBI expressed concerns that someone might try to kill Oswald, assured federal authorities that they would provide him adequate protection.
FBI investigation
The FBI immediately launched an investigation into the assassination, relying on a federal statute that forbade assaulting a federal officer. Within 24 hours of the killing, FBI Director Hoover sent President Johnson a preliminary report finding that Oswald was the sole culprit. After Ruby killed Oswald, Johnson decided that the Texan authorities were incompetent and instructed the FBI to conduct a complete investigation.
On December 9, 1963, the Warren Commission received the FBI's report of its investigation which concluded that three bullets had been fired—the first striking Kennedy in the upper back; the second striking Connally; and the third striking Kennedy in the head, killing him. The FBI continued to serve as the main investigative arm of the Warren Commission in the field. A total of 169 FBI agents worked on the case, conducting over 25,000 interviews and writing over 2,300 reports.
The thoroughness of the FBI's investigation is contested. Bugliosi applauded its quality and cites conspiracy theorist Harrison Edward Livingstone's praise of the FBI's commitment to following all leads. In its 1979 report, the HSCA found that the FBI's investigation of pro- and anti-Castro Cubans, and any connections to Oswald or Ruby, was insufficient. The HSCA also noted that Hoover "seemed determined [to make the case that Oswald was the lone assassin] within 24 hours of the assassination".
Warren Commission
On November 29, President Johnson established by executive order "The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy" and selected Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court to chair the investigation, commonly known as the Warren Commission. Its 888-page final report was presented to Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and wounding Connally, and that Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. It made no conclusions as to Oswald's motive, but noted his Marxism, anti-authoritarianism, violent tendencies, failure to form personal relationships, and his desire to be significant in history.
Upon examining the Zapruder film, commission staffers realized that the FBI's gunshot theory was impossible. The reaction times of Kennedy and Connally were too close to have been caused by two bullets from Oswald: the reaction interval was less than the 2.3 seconds that it took to reload. This was one of the commission's most crucial findings: that a single shot caused the non-fatal wounds of Kennedy and Connally, known as the "single-bullet theory". In May 1964, staffer Arlen Specter replicated the single bullet's trajectory via a reenactment in Dealey Plaza: the bullet's path was exactly consistent with Kennedy's and Connally's wounds.
Out of the eight commission members, three—Representative Hale Boggs and Senators John Cooper and Richard Russell—found the theory "improbable"; their qualms were not mentioned in the final report. Conspiracy theorists labelled this theory the "magic bullet theory", partly due to the bullet's intact and purportedly pristine state. However, the HSCA's Michael Baden noted that the bullet, despite its lack of fragmentation, was fundamentally deformed. In 2023, Secret Service Agent Paul Landis—who had stood on the running board of Kennedy's car—told The New York Times that he retrieved the "magic bullet" from immediately behind Kennedy's seat upon arrival at Parkland, and that he placed it on Kennedy's stretcher. Landis believes that the bullet dislodged from a shallow wound in Kennedy's back.
As well as the Warren Report's 27 published volumes, the commission created hundreds of thousands of pages of investigative reports and documents. Relman Morin stated that "Never in history was a crime probed as intensely"; Bugliosi concluded that the commission's basic findings have "held up remarkably well". According to Gerald Posner, the Warren report is "universally derided" by the American public. Walter Cronkite noted that, "Although the Warren Commission had full power to conduct its own independent investigation, it permitted the FBI and the CIA to investigate themselves – and so cast a permanent shadow on the answers." According to a 2014 report by CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, then-CIA director John A. McCone was involved in a "benign cover-up" by withholding information from the commission.
Trial of Clay Shaw
On March 22, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. A respected businessman who had helped renovate and preserve the French Quarter, Shaw was described as "the unlikeliest villain since Oscar Wilde". Both Shaw and the neurotic, avidly anti-Castro Ferrie were members of New Orleans' gay community. Ferrie died, possibly by suicide, four days after news of the investigation broke. On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1968, Garrison first publicly alleged that Shaw and Ferrie had been part of a larger CIA scheme to kill Kennedy and frame Oswald. In the 34-day trial conducted in 1969, Garrison played the Zapruder film and argued that the backwards motion of Kennedy's head after the fatal shot was indicative of a shooter in front on the grassy knoll.
After a brief deliberation, the jury found Shaw not guilty. Mark Lane interviewed the jurors after the trial and stated that some believed that Shaw likely was involved in a conspiracy but that there was insufficient evidence to convict. Lane's claims have been disputed by playwright James Kirkwood—a personal friend of Clay Shaw—who said that he met several jurors who denied ever speaking to Lane. Kirkwood also questioned Lane's claim that the jury believed that there was a conspiracy: jury foreman Sidney Hebert told Kirkwood, "I didn't think too much of the Warren Report either until the trial. Now I think a lot more of it than I did before."
According to academic E. Jerald Ogg, the Shaw trial is now widely regarded as a "travesty of justice"; Kirkwood likened the trial to a Spanish Inquisition hearing. Other observers have characterized the proceedings as relying on homophobia. It remains the only trial to be brought for the Kennedy assassination. In 1979, former CIA director Richard Helms testified that Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA, through which Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad, mostly to Latin America. However, according to Max Holland, some 150,000 Americans were contacts. In 1993, the PBS program Frontline obtained a group photograph that featured Ferrie and Oswald together at a 1955 cookout for the Civil Air Patrol: Ferrie had denied ever knowing Oswald.
Ramsey Clark Panel
Excluding Chief Justice Warren, the members of Warren Commission did not view the photographs or X-rays taken during Kennedy's autopsy. According to Warren, this was to avoid having to publicly release the explicit material to "sensation mongers". Due to persistent speculation, in February 1968, Attorney General Ramsey Clark convened a panel of four medical experts to examine the photographs and X-rays from the Kennedy autopsy. Their findings concurred with the Warren Commission: Kennedy was struck by two bullets, both from behind.
Rockefeller Commission
In 1975, President Gerald Ford—who had been a member of the Warren Commission a decade prior—established the United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, better known as the Rockefeller Commission after its chairman, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The commission received a mandate to determine if any domestic activities by the CIA were unlawful and to make appropriate recommendations: accordingly, it also re-examined the Kennedy assassination.
After five months of investigation, the Rockefeller Commission submitted its report to President Ford. The report reviewed the medical evidence and agreed that Kennedy had been killed by two shots from behind. Refuting Garrison's claims that the backwards motion of Kennedy's head seen on the Zapruder film was indicative of a grassy knoll shooter, the commission found that "such a motion would be caused by a violent straightening and stiffening of the entire body as a result of a seizure-like neuromuscular reaction to major damage inflicted to nerve centers in the brain". The later HSCA suggested that the "propulsive effect resulting from brain matter" ejected from the exit wound may have been responsible. Pathologist Vincent Di Maio testified before the HSCA that the notion of a "transfer of momentum" from a grassy knoll bullet was unfounded and something from "Arnold Schwarzenegger pictures".
The Rockefeller Commission also sought to determine whether CIA operatives—particularly E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis—were present in Dealey Plaza during the assassination, and whether they were among the "three tramps" pictured shortly after the assassination. The commission found no evidence for these claims. It also inquired into purported connections between the CIA and Oswald and Ruby, for which it found no evidence and concluded was "farfetched speculation". They concluded that there was "no credible evidence of CIA involvement".
Church Committee
In 1975, following the Watergate scandal and the revelation of CIA misconduct by Seymour Hersh (the CIA's so-called "Family Jewels"), the U.S. Senate launched the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities—better known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church. The committee was to investigate all improper and unlawful actions by the CIA and FBI, both foreign and domestic. Due to persisting theories, the Church Committee organized a subcommittee (staffed by Senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart) to examine CIA and FBI conduct pertaining to the assassination.
In its final report, the Church Committee concluded that there was no evidence of a CIA- or FBI-led conspiracy. They found that the original investigation into the assassination was "deficient" and criticized the FBI and CIA for withholding information from the Warren Commission. In particular, it noted that knowledge of the CIA's many failed attempts to assassinate Castro may have significantly affected the course of the investigation. Moreover, the Church Committee revealed that the CIA had conspired with the Mafia in these plots against Castro. These revelations led to further public scrutiny of the assassination.
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations
As a result of increasing public and congressional skepticism of the Warren Commission's findings and the transparency of government agencies, in 1976 the House Select Committee on Assassinations was created to investigate the assassinations of Kennedy and that of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The HSCA conducted its inquiry until 1978 and issued its final report the following year, concluding that Kennedy was likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. They concluded that there was a "high probability" that a fourth shot was fired from the grassy knoll, but they stated that this shot missed Kennedy. Concerning the conclusions of "probable conspiracy", four of the twelve committee members wrote dissenting opinions.
The HSCA also concluded that previous investigations into Oswald's responsibility were "thorough and reliable" but did not adequately investigate the possibility of a conspiracy, and that federal agencies performed with "varying degrees of competency". Specifically, the FBI and CIA were found to be deficient in sharing information with other agencies and the Warren Commission. Instead of furnishing all relevant information, the FBI and CIA only responded to specific requests and were still occasionally inadequate. Furthermore, the Secret Service did not properly analyze information it possessed prior to the assassination and was inadequately prepared to protect Kennedy.
The chief reason for the conclusion of "probable conspiracy" was, according to the report's dissent, the subsequently discredited acoustic analysis of a police channel Dictabelt recording. In accordance with the recommendations of the HSCA, the Dictabelt recording and acoustic evidence of a second assassin was subsequently reexamined. In light of investigative reports from the FBI's Technical Services Division and a specially appointed National Academy of Sciences Committee determining that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman", the Justice Department concluded "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy" in the Kennedy assassination.
JFK Act and Assassination Records Review Board
In 1991, Oliver Stone's film JFK renewed interest in the assassination and particularly in the still-classified files relating to the killing. In response, Congress passed the JFK Records Act, which called for the National Archives to collect and release all assassination-related documents within 25 years. The act also mandated the creation of an independent office, the Assassination Records Review Board, to review the submitted records for completeness and continued secrecy. From 1994 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed about 60,000 documents comprising over 4 million pages.
A 1998 staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records may not be of Kennedy's brain, reportedly showing much less damage than Kennedy sustained. Dr. Boswell refuted these allegations. The board also found that, conflicting with the photographic images showing no such defect, several witnesses (at both Parkland hospital and the autopsy) remembered a large wound in the back of Kennedy's head. The board, and board member Jeremy Gunn, stressed the problems with witness testimony, urging people to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.
All remaining assassination-related records were scheduled to be released by October 2017, with the exception of documents certified for continued postponement by succeeding presidents due to "identifiable harm... to the military, defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations... of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure." President Donald Trump said in October 2017 that he would not block the release of documents, but in April 2018—the deadline he set to release all JFK records—Trump blocked the release of some records until October 2021. President Joe Biden, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, delayed the release further, before releasing 13,173 unredacted documents in 2022. A second group of files were unsealed in June 2023, at which point 99 percent of documents had been made public.
Conspiracy theories
The Kennedy assassination has been described as "the mother of all conspiracies".
For decades, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy; some 1,000 to 2,000 books—mostly pro-conspiracy—have been written about the killing. Across different theories, Oswald's role varies from co-conspirator to entirely innocent. Common culprits include the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. military, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Vice President Johnson, Castro, the KGB, or some combination thereof. Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused in various assassination theories.
Conspiracy theorists often argue that there were multiple shooters—a "triangulation of crossfire"—and that the fatal shot was fired from the grassy knoll and struck Kennedy in the front of the head. Individuals present in Dealey Plaza have been the subject of much speculation, including the three tramps, the umbrella man, and the purported Badge Man. Conspiracy theorists argue that the autopsy and official investigations were flawed or, at worst, complicit, and that witnesses to the Kennedy assassination met mysterious and suspicious deaths.
Conspiracy theories have been espoused by notable figures, such as L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, who believed that elements of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had conspired to assassinate the president. Governor Connally also rejected the single-bullet theory, and President Johnson reportedly expressed doubt regarding the Warren Commission's conclusions prior to his death. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his father believed that the Warren Report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship" and that John F. Kennedy had been killed by a conspiracy, possibly involving Cuban exiles and the CIA. Communist rulers like Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev believed that Kennedy had been killed by right-wing Americans. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has argued that Oswald killed Kennedy as part of a Soviet conspiracy.
Legacy
Political impact and memorialization
On November 27—five days after the assassination—President Johnson delivered his "Let Us Continue" speech to Congress. Effectively an inaugural address, Johnson called for the realization of Kennedy's policies, particularly on civil rights; this effort soon materialized as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Confusion surrounding Johnson's succession led to the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S Constitution, which was adopted in 1967 and affirmed that the vice president became president upon the president's death.
On November 29, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11129, renaming Florida's Cape Canaveral—a name borne since at least 1530—to Cape Kennedy. NASA's Launch Operations Center, located on the cape, was also renamed as the Kennedy Space Center. The federal government honored Kennedy in other ways, such as replacing the Benjamin Franklin half dollar with the Kennedy half dollar, and renaming Washington, D.C.'s long-planned National Culture Center as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. New York City's airport was also renamed as the John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Kennedy's assassination also resulted in an overhaul of the Secret Service and its procedures. Open limousines were eliminated, staffing was significantly increased, and specialized teams like counter-sniper units were established. The agency's budget has also increased, from $5.5 million in 1963 (equivalent to $42 million in 2013) to over $1.6 billion by the 50th anniversary in 2013.
Cultural impact and depictions
John F. Kennedy's assassination was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. For the public, Kennedy's assassination mythologized him into a heroic figure. Although scholars typically regard Kennedy as a good but not great president, public opinion polls consistently find him the most popular post-WWII president.
Kennedy's murder left a lasting impression on many worldwide. As with the attack on Pearl Harbor of December 7, 1941, and, much later, the September 11 attacks in 2001, asking "Where were you when you heard about President Kennedy's assassination?" became a common topic of discussion. Journalist Dan Rather opined that the Kennedy assassination will be discussed "a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, in somewhat the same way as people discuss the Iliad. Different people read Homer's description of the war and come to different conclusions, and so it shall be for Kennedy's death."
Along with Oliver Stone's JFK, the assassination has been portrayed in several films: the pro-conspiracy, Dalton Trumbo–written Executive Action (1973) was the first feature film to depict the assassination. Besides explicit portrayals, some critics have argued that the Zapruder film—which itself has been featured in many films and television episodes—advanced cinéma vérité or inspired more graphic depictions of violence in American cinema. Many works of literature have also explored the killing, such as Don DeLillo's 1988 novel Libra in which Oswald is a CIA agent, James Ellroy's 1995 work American Tabloid, and Stephen King's 2011 time travel novel 11/22/63. The assassination has also been featured in several musical compositions, such as Igor Stravinsky's 1964 piece Elegy for J.F.K. and Phil Ochs' 1966 song "Crucifixion", which reportedly brought Robert Kennedy to tears. Other songs include "Abraham, Martin and John" (1968) and Bob Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" (2020).
Artifacts, museums, and locations today
In 1993, the National Park Service designated Dealey Plaza, the surrounding buildings, the overpass, and a portion of the adjacent railyard as a National Historic Landmark District. The Depository and its Sixth Floor Museum, operated by the city of Dallas, draw over 325,000 visitors annually.
The Boeing 707 that served as Air Force One at the time of the assassination is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force; Kennedy's limousine is at the Henry Ford Museum. The Lincoln Catafalque, on which Kennedy's coffin rested in the Capitol, is exhibited at the Capitol Visitor Center. Jacqueline's pink suit, autopsy X-rays, and President Kennedy's blood-stained clothing are in the National Archives, with access controlled by the Kennedy family. Other items in the Archives include Parkland Hospital trauma room equipment; Oswald's rifle, diary, and revolver; bullet fragments; and the limousine's windshield. The Texas State Archives preserve Connally's bullet-punctured clothes; the gun Ruby used to kill Oswald came into the possession of Ruby's brother Earl, and was sold in 1991 for $220,000 (equivalent to $439,000 in 2022).
At the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, some items were destroyed. The casket in which Kennedy's body was transported from Dallas to Washington was dropped into the sea, because "its public display would be extremely offensive and contrary to public policy".
Notes and references
Notes
Citations
Works cited
Books
Government and institutional documents and reports
Warren Commission documents, exhibits, and testimonies
Journal articles
Magazines
News publications and websites
External links
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (archived May 26, 2008)
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection – National Archives and Records Administration
JFK Assassination:A look back at the death of President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago – CBS News
"November 22, 1963: Death of the President". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
"Weisberg Collection on the JFK Assassination" – Internet Archive
LIFE Magazine Nov. 25, 1966
John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection finding aid at University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Special Collections via Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) |
List_of_oldest_fathers | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_fathers | [
623
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_fathers"
] | This is a list of persons reported to have become father of a child at or after 75 years of age. These claims have not necessarily been verified.
Medical considerations
According to a 1969 study, there is a decrease in sperm concentration as men age. The study reported that 90% of seminiferous tubules in men in their 20s and 30s contained spermatids, whereas men in their 40s and 50s had spermatids in 50% of their seminiferous tubules. In the study, only 10% of seminiferous tubules from men aged > 80 years contained spermatids. In a random international sample of 11,548 men confirmed to be biological fathers by DNA paternity testing, the oldest father was found to be 66 years old at the birth of his child; the ratio of DNA-confirmed versus DNA-rejected paternity tests around that age is in agreement with the notion of general male infertility greater than age 65–66.
List of claims
See also
List of oldest birth mothers
List of people with the most children
List of multiple births
Pregnancy
Abraham and his son Isaac
Genealogies of Genesis including multiple accounts of super-aged fathers
References
External links
Well Known Fathers After 50
Who's broody now?
Older men who want to go from here to paternity |
Ramjit_Raghav | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjit_Raghav | [
623
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjit_Raghav"
] | Ramjit Raghav (1916 – 11 February 2020) was an Indian man who was claimed by various media outlets as the world's oldest father. He resided in Haryana with his wife. He claimed to have had his first child with his wife at age 94. He fathered a second child at age 96. A vegetarian who claimed to engage in sexual intercourse around three times a day, Raghav was chosen to be an ambassador for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in November 2012.
Biography
Ramjit Raghav was born in India in 1916. In his younger days, he worked as a professional wrestler. Later, he switched to farming.
Raghav was a strict vegetarian, living predominantly on milk, almonds and butter, and credits vegetarianism for his longevity and clean bill of health. He was quoted by The Telegraph as saying:
I have been a vegetarian all my life, and I credit my stamina and virility to my diet of vegetables and grains. Being a vegetarian is the secret to my strength and good health.
In 2010, at the supposed age of 94, Raghav claimed to have become the world's oldest father when his wife, then aged 49, gave birth to a son, whom the couple named Bikramjeet.
In November 2012, PETA selected Raghav to be one of its international ambassadors. He was featured in a PETA awareness-raising advertisement with the slogan "Vegetarians Still Got It at the Age of 96".
In 2012, when Raghav claimed to have been 96, his 52-year-old spouse allegedly gave birth to another son, named Ranjeet. Raghav stated that the couple would not have a third child, as they were experiencing financial troubles. He also announced that his wife would be undergoing tubal ligation to avoid the possibility of an accidental pregnancy.
Raghav died in a fire at his home in February 2020 at the age of 104.
Oldest fathers: medical considerations
The website of the world record authority Guinness World Records lists the oldest father ever as Australian Les Colley (1898-1998), who allegedly fathered his ninth child at age 92 with a Fijian woman he met through a dating agency. In contrast, in a random international sample of 11,548 men confirmed to be biological fathers by DNA paternity testing, the oldest father was found to be just 66 years old at the birth of his child. Regarding Raghav's case, an Indian hospital worker stated, "Having babies at such an age is a remote possibility, but it just needs one sperm to fertilise an egg."
== References == |
Chris_Benoit | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit | [
623
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit#Death"
] | Christopher Michael Benoit ( bə-NWAH; May 21, 1967 – June 24, 2007) was a Canadian professional wrestler. He worked for various pro-wrestling promotions during his 22-year career, but became notorious for murdering his wife and son.
Bearing the nicknames The (Canadian) Crippler alongside The Rabid Wolverine throughout his career, Benoit held 30 championships between
World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment (WWF/WWE), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW – all United States), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW – Japan), and Stampede Wrestling (Canada). He was a two-time world champion, Benoit having reigned as a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion and a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in WWE; he was booked to win a third world championship at a WWE event on the night of his death. Benoit was the twelfth WWE Triple Crown Champion and the seventh WCW Triple Crown Champion, and the second of four men in history to achieve both the WWE and the WCW Triple Crown Championships. He was also the 2004 Royal Rumble winner, joining Shawn Michaels and preceding Edge as one of the three men to win a Royal Rumble as the number one entrant. Benoit headlined multiple pay-per-views for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) including a victory in the World Heavyweight Championship main event match of WrestleMania XX in March 2004.
In a three-day double-murder and suicide, Benoit murdered his wife in their residence on June 22, 2007, and his 7-year-old son the next day, before committing suicide on June 24. Subsequent research undertaken by the Sports Legacy Institute (now the Concussion Legacy Foundation) suggested that depression and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition of brain damage, from concussions that Benoit had sustained during his pro-wrestling career were likely contributing factors of the crimes.
Due to his murders, Benoit's legacy in the professional wrestling industry is heavily debated. Benoit has been renowned by many for his exceptional technical wrestling ability. Prominent combat sports journalist Dave Meltzer considers Benoit "one of the top 10, maybe even [in] the top five, all-time greats" in professional wrestling history. Benoit was inducted into the Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 2003. His WON induction was put to a re-vote for WON readers in 2008 to determine if Benoit should remain a member of the WON Hall of Fame. Ultimately, the threshold percentage of votes required to remove Benoit from it was not met.
Early life
Benoit was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Michael and Margaret Benoit. He grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, from where he was billed throughout the bulk of his career. He had a sister who lived near Edmonton.
During his childhood and early adolescence in Edmonton, Benoit idolized Tom "Dynamite Kid" Billington and Bret Hart; at twelve years old, he attended a local wrestling event at which the two performers "stood out above everyone else". Benoit trained to become a professional wrestler in the Hart family "Dungeon", receiving education from family patriarch Stu Hart. In-ring, Benoit emulated both Billington and Bret Hart, cultivating a high-risk style and physical appearance more reminiscent of the former (years later, he adopted Hart's own "Sharpshooter" hold as a finishing move).
Professional wrestling career
Stampede Wrestling (1985–1989)
Benoit began his career in 1985, in Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion. From the beginning, similarities between Benoit and Billington were apparent, as Benoit adopted many of his moves such as the diving headbutt and the snap suplex; the homage was complete with his initial billing as "Dynamite" Chris Benoit. According to Benoit, in his first match, he attempted the diving headbutt before learning how to land correctly, and had the wind knocked out of him; he said he would never do the move again at that point. His debut match was a tag team match on November 22, 1985, in Calgary, Alberta, where he teamed with "The Remarkable" Rick Patterson against Butch Moffat and Mike Hammer, which Benoit's team won the match after Benoit pinned Moffat with a sunset flip. The first title Benoit ever won was the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship on March 18, 1988, against Gama Singh. During his tenure in Stampede, he won four International Tag Team and three more British Commonwealth titles, and had a lengthy feud with Johnny Smith that lasted for over a year, which both men traded back-and-forth the British Commonwealth title. In 1989, Stampede closed its doors, and with a recommendation from Bad News Allen, Benoit departed for New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (1986–1999)
Upon arriving to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Benoit spent about a year training in their "New Japan Dojo" with the younger wrestlers to improve his abilities. While in the dojo, he spent months doing strenuous activities like push-ups and floor sweeping before stepping into the ring. He made his Japanese debut in 1986 under his real name. In 1989, he started wearing a mask and assuming the name The Pegasus Kid. Benoit said numerous times that he originally hated the mask, but it eventually became a part of him. While with NJPW, he came into his own as a performer in critically acclaimed matches with luminaries like Jushin Thunder Liger, Shinjiro Otani, Black Tiger, and El Samurai in their junior heavyweight division.
In August 1990, he won his first major championship, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, from Jushin Thunder Liger. He eventually lost the title in November 1990 (and in July 1991 in Japan and in November 1991 in Mexico, his mask) back to Liger, forcing him to reinvent himself as Wild Pegasus. Benoit spent the next couple years in Japan, winning the Best of the Super Juniors tournament twice in 1993 and 1995. He went on to win the inaugural Super J-Cup tournament in 1994, defeating Black Tiger, Gedo, and The Great Sasuke in the finals. He wrestled outside New Japan occasionally to compete in Mexico and Europe, where he won a few regional championships, including the UWA Light Heavyweight Championship. He held that title for over a year, having many forty-plus minute matches with Villano III.
World Championship Wrestling (1992–1993)
Benoit first came to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in June 1992, teaming up with fellow Canadian wrestler Biff Wellington for the NWA World Tag Team Championship tournament; they were defeated by Brian Pillman and Jushin Thunder Liger in the first round at Clash of the Champions XIX.
He did not return to WCW until January 1993 at Clash of the Champions XXII, defeating Brad Armstrong. A month later, at SuperBrawl III, he lost to 2 Cold Scorpio, getting pinned with only three seconds left in the 20-minute time limit. At the same time, he formed a tag team with Bobby Eaton. After he and Eaton lost to Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell at Slamboree, Benoit headed back to Japan.
Various promotions (1993–1994)
After WCW, Benoit worked in Australia, and CMLL in Mexico. In early 1994, he worked for NWA New Jersey where he defeated Jerry Lawler. A month later he fought Terry Funk to a double count out.
Extreme Championship Wrestling (1994–1995)
In August 1994, Benoit began working with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in between tours of Japan. He was booked as a dominant wrestler there, gaining notoriety as the "Crippler" after he put Rocco Rock out. In his first appearance, Benoit competed in a one-night eight-man tournament for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship, losing to 2 Cold Scorpio in the quarter-finals match.
At November to Remember, Benoit accidentally broke Sabu's neck within the opening seconds of the match. The injury came when Benoit threw Sabu with the intention that he take a face-first "pancake" bump, but Sabu attempted to turn mid-air and take a backdrop bump instead. He did not achieve full rotation and landed almost directly on his neck.
After this match Benoit returned to the locker room and broke down over the possibility that he might have paralysed someone. Paul Heyman, the head booker of ECW at the time, came up with the idea of continuing the "Crippler" moniker for Benoit. From that point until his departure from ECW, he was known as "Crippler Benoit". When he returned to WCW in October 1995, WCW modified his ring name to "Canadian Crippler Chris Benoit". In The Rise and Fall of ECW book, Heyman commented that he planned on using Benoit as a dominant heel for quite some time, before putting the company's main title, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, on him to be the long-term champion of the company.
Benoit and Dean Malenko won the ECW World Tag Team Championship – Benoit's first American title – from Sabu and The Tazmaniac in February 1995 at Return of the Funker. After winning, they were initiated into the Triple Threat stable, led by ECW World Heavyweight Champion, Shane Douglas, as Douglas's attempt to recreate the Four Horsemen, as the three-man contingency held all three of the ECW championships at the time (Malenko also held the ECW World Television Championship at the time). The team lost the championship to The Public Enemy that April at Three Way Dance. Benoit spent some time in ECW feuding with The Steiner Brothers and rekindling the feud with 2 Cold Scorpio. He was forced to leave ECW after his work visa expired; Heyman was supposed to renew it, but he failed to make it on time, so Benoit left ECW in August 1995 as a matter of job security and the ability to enter the United States. He toured Japan until WCW called.
World Wrestling Federation (1995)
In June 1995, while under contract with ECW, Benoit worked in three dark matches losing to Bob Holly, Adam Bomb and Owen Hart.
Return to WCW (1995–2000)
The Four Horsemen (1995–1999)
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) had a working relationship, and because of their "talent exchange" program, Benoit signed with WCW in late 1995 along with a number of talent working in New Japan to be a part of the angle. Like the majority of those who came to WCW in the exchange, he started out in as a member of the cruiserweight division, having lengthy matches against many of his former rivals in Japan on almost every single broadcast. At the end of 1995, Benoit went back to Japan as a part of the "talent exchange" to wrestle as a representative for New Japan in the Super J-Cup: 2nd Stage, defeating Lionheart in the quarterfinals (he received a bye to the quarterfinals for his work in 1995, similar to the way he advanced in the 1994 edition) and losing to Gedo in the semifinals.
After impressing higher-ups with his work, he was approached by Ric Flair and the WCW booking staff to become a member of the reformed Four Horsemen in 1995, alongside Flair, Arn Anderson, and Brian Pillman; he was introduced by Pillman as a gruff, no-nonsense heel similar to his ECW persona, "The Crippler". He was brought in to add a new dynamic for Anderson and Flair's tormenting of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in their "Alliance to End Hulkamania", which saw the Horsemen team up with The Dungeon of Doom, but that alliance ended with Dungeon leader and WCW booker, Kevin Sullivan feuding with Pillman. When Pillman abruptly left the company for the WWF, Benoit was placed into his ongoing feud with Sullivan. This came to fruition through a dissension between the two in a tag team match with the two reluctantly teaming with each other against The Public Enemy, and Benoit being attacked by Sullivan at Slamboree. This led to the two having violent confrontations at pay-per-views, which led to Sullivan booking a feud in which Benoit was having an affair with Sullivan's real-life wife and onscreen valet, Nancy (also known as Woman). Benoit and Nancy were forced to spend time together to make the affair look real, (hold hands in public, share hotel rooms, etc.).
This onscreen relationship developed into a real-life affair offscreen. As a result, Sullivan and Benoit had a contentious backstage relationship at best, and an undying hatred for each other at worst. Benoit did, however, admit having a certain amount of respect for Sullivan, saying on the DVD Hard Knocks: The Chris Benoit Story that Sullivan never took undue liberties in the ring during their feud, even though he blamed Benoit for breaking up his marriage. This continued for over the course of a year with Sullivan having his enforcers apprehend Benoit in a multitude of matches. This culminated in a retirement match at the Bash at the Beach, where Benoit defeated Sullivan; this was used to explain Sullivan going to a behind-the-scenes role, where he could focus on his initial job of booking.
In 1998, Benoit had a long feud with Booker T. They fought over the WCW World Television Championship until Booker lost the title to Fit Finlay. Booker won a "Best-of-Seven" series which was held between the two to determine a number one contender. Benoit went up 3 to 1 before Booker caught up, forcing the 7th and final match on Monday Nitro. During the match, Bret Hart interjected himself, interfering on behalf of Benoit in an attempt to get him to join the New World Order. Benoit refused to win that way and told the referee what happened, getting himself disqualified. Booker refused that victory, instead opting for an eighth match at the Great American Bash to see who would fight Finlay later that night. Booker won the final match and went on to beat Finlay for the title. This feud significantly elevated both men's careers as singles competitors, and both remained at the top of the midcard afterward.
In 1999, Benoit teamed with Dean Malenko once again and defeated Curt Hennig and Barry Windham to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship. This led to a reformation of the Four Horsemen with the tag team champions, Anderson, and Steve "Mongo" McMichael. The two hunted after the tag team championship for several months, feuding with teams like Raven and Perry Saturn or Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr.
The Revolution and World Heavyweight Champion (1999–2000)
After a falling out with Anderson and McMichael, Benoit and Malenko left the Horsemen; he won the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship before bringing together Malenko, Perry Saturn, and Shane Douglas to form "the Revolution".
The Revolution was a heel stable of younger wrestlers who felt slighted (both kayfabe and legitimate) by WCW management, believing they never gave them the chance to be stars, pushing older, more established wrestlers instead, despite their then-current questionable worthiness of their pushes. This led to the Revolution seceding from WCW, and forming their own nation, complete with a flag. This led to some friction being created between Benoit and leader, Douglas, who called into question Benoit's heart in the group, causing Benoit to quit the group, thus turning face, and having his own crusade against the top stars, winning the Television title one more time and the United States title from Jeff Jarrett in a ladder match. In October 1999 on Nitro in Kansas City, Missouri, Benoit wrestled Bret Hart as a tribute to Bret's brother Owen Hart, who had recently died due to an equipment malfunction. Hart defeated Benoit by submission, and the two received a standing ovation, and an embrace from guest ring announcer, Harley Race.
Benoit was unhappy working for WCW. One last attempt in January 2000 was made to try to keep him with WCW, by putting the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship on him by defeating Sid Vicious at Souled Out. However, due to disagreements with management and to protest the promotion of Kevin Sullivan to head booker, Benoit left WCW the next day alongside his friends Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn, forfeiting his title in the process. WCW then refused to acknowledge Benoit's victory as an official title reign, and Benoit's title reign was not listed in the title lineage at WCW.com. However, the WWF recognized Benoit's title win, and Benoit's title reign is still listed in the title lineage at WWE.com. Benoit spent the next few weeks in Japan before heading to the WWF, who acknowledged his WCW World Heavyweight Championship win and presented him as a former world champion.
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (2000–2007)
The Radicalz and teaming with Chris Jericho (2000–2001)
Benoit joined the World Wrestling Federation near the end of its Attitude Era. Along with Guerrero, Saturn and Malenko, he debuted in the WWF as a stable that became known as the Radicalz. After losing their "tryout matches" upon entry, The Radicalz aligned themselves with WWF Champion Triple H and became a heel faction. Benoit quickly won his first title in the WWF just over a month later at WrestleMania 2000, pinning Chris Jericho in a triple threat match to win Kurt Angle's Intercontinental Championship. It was also in this time period that Benoit wrestled in his first WWF pay-per-view main events, challenging The Rock for the WWF Championship at Fully Loaded in July and as part of a fatal four-way title match at Unforgiven in September. On both occasions Benoit appeared to have won the title, only to have the decision reversed by then-WWF commissioner Mick Foley due to cheating on Benoit's part. Benoit simultaneously entered into a long-running feud with Jericho for the Intercontinental title, with the two meeting at Backlash, Judgment Day and SummerSlam; Benoit winning all three matches. The feud finally culminated in Jericho defeating Benoit in a ladder match at the Royal Rumble in January 2001. Benoit won the Intercontinental title three times between April 2000 and January 2001.
In early 2001, Benoit broke away from The Radicalz (who had recently reformed three months earlier) and turned face, feuding first with his former stablemates and then with Kurt Angle, whom he wrestled and lost to at WrestleMania X-Seven. He gained some amount of revenge after beating Angle in an "Ultimate Submission" match at Backlash. The feud continued after Benoit stole Angle's cherished Olympic Gold Medal. This culminated in a match at Judgment Day where Angle won a two out of three falls match with the help of Edge and Christian. In response, Benoit teamed up with his former rival Jericho to defeat Edge and Christian in that night's Tag Team Turmoil match to become the number one contenders to the WWF Tag Team Championship.
The next night on Raw Is War, Benoit and Jericho defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H to win the WWF Tag Team Championship. On the May 24 episode of SmackDown!, Benoit suffered a legitimate neck injury in a four-way TLC match. Benoit challenged Austin for the WWF Championship on two occasions, first losing in a manner similar to the Montreal Screwjob in Calgary on the May 28 episode of Raw is War and then losing in a close match in Benoit's hometown of Edmonton on the May 31 episode of SmackDown!. Despite the neck injury, he continued to wrestle until the King of the Ring, where he was pinned by Austin in a triple threat match for the WWF Championship also involving Jericho. Benoit missed the next year due to his neck injury, missing the entire Invasion storyline.
Championship pursuits and reigns (2002–2003)
During the first WWF draft, he was the third wrestler picked by Vince McMahon to be part of the new SmackDown! roster, although still on the injured list. However, when he returned, he did so as a member of the Raw roster. On his first night back, he turned heel again and aligned himself with Eddie Guerrero, and he feuded with Stone Cold Steve Austin briefly. Benoit defeated Rob Van Dam on the July 29, 2002, edition of Raw to become Intercontinental Champion for the fourth and final time. He and Guerrero were then moved to SmackDown! during a storyline "open season" on wrestler contracts, with Benoit taking the Intercontinental Championship to SmackDown!. Van Dam defeated Benoit at SummerSlam and returned the title to Raw.
After returning to SmackDown!, he embarked on a feud with Kurt Angle in which he defeated him at Unforgiven. On October 20, 2002, at No Mercy, he teamed with Angle to win a tournament to crown the first-ever WWE Tag Team Champions. They became tweeners after betraying Los Guerreros. At Rebellion, Benoit and Angle made their successful title defence, defeating Los Guerreros. They lost the championships to Edge and Rey Mysterio on the November 7 episode of SmackDown! in a two-out-of-three falls match. They received a rematch at Survivor Series in a triple threat elimination match against Edge and Mysterio and Los Guerreros, but failed to win the titles after being the first team eliminated. The team split up shortly afterward and Benoit became a face.
Angle won his third WWE Championship from Big Show at Armageddon, and Benoit faced him for the title at the 2003 Royal Rumble. The match was highly praised from fans and critics. Although Benoit lost the match, he received a standing ovation for his efforts. Benoit returned to the tag team ranks, teaming with the returning Rhyno.
At WrestleMania XIX, the WWE Tag Team Champions, Team Angle (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin), put their titles on the line against Benoit and his partner Rhyno and Los Guerreros in a triple threat tag team match. Team Angle retained when Benjamin pinned Chavo.
In April 2003, following WrestleMania XIX, Benoit then feuded with John Cena (wearing a shirt saying "Toothless Aggression") and The Full Blooded Italians, teaming with Rhyno occasionally.
In June 2003, the WCW United States Championship was reactivated and renamed the WWE United States Championship, and Benoit participated in the tournament for the title. He lost in the final match to Eddie Guerrero at Vengeance. The two feuded over the title for the next month, and Benoit went on to defeat the likes of A-Train at No Mercy, Big Show, and eliminating Brock Lesnar by submission at Survivor Series as part of a Survivor Series elimination tag team match between Team Angle against Team Lesnar. As a result, Benoit challenged Lesnar for the WWE Championship on the December 4 episode of SmackDown!, but lost after passing out to Lesnar's debuting Brock Lock submission hold. SmackDown! General Manager Paul Heyman had a vendetta against Benoit along with Lesnar, preventing him from gaining a shot at Lesnar's WWE Championship.
World Heavyweight Champion (2004–2005)
When Benoit won a qualifying match for the 2004 Royal Rumble against the Full Blooded Italians in a handicap match with John Cena, Heyman named him as the number one entry. On January 25, 2004, he won the Royal Rumble by last eliminating Big Show, and thus earned a world title shot at WrestleMania XX. He became only the second WWE performer to win the Royal Rumble as the number one entrant along with Shawn Michaels. With Benoit being on the SmackDown! brand at the time, it was assumed that he was going to compete for his brand's championship, the WWE Championship. However, Benoit exploited a "loophole" in the rules and moved to the Raw brand the following night to announce he would instead challenge World Heavyweight Champion Triple H at WrestleMania. Though the match was originally intended to be a one-on-one match, Shawn Michaels, whose Last Man Standing match against Triple H at the Royal Rumble for the World Heavyweight Championship ended in a draw, thought that he deserved to be in the main event. When it was time for Benoit to sign the contract putting himself in the main event, Michaels superkicked him and signed his name on the contract, which eventually resulted in a Triple Threat match between Michaels, Benoit, and the champion, Triple H.
On March 14, 2004, at WrestleMania XX, Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship by forcing Triple H to tap out to his signature submission move, the Crippler Crossface, in a highly acclaimed match. The match marked the first time the main event of a WrestleMania ended in submission. After the match, Benoit celebrated his win with then-reigning WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero. The rematch was held at Backlash in Benoit's hometown of Edmonton. It was Michaels who ended up submitting to Benoit's Sharpshooter, allowing Benoit to retain his title. The next night in Calgary, he and Edge won the World Tag Team Championship from Batista and Ric Flair, making Benoit a double champion.
Following his victories, Benoit and Edge engaged in a rivalry with La Résistance for the World Tag Team Championship, which saw a series of matches (including losing the titles to La Résistance on the May 31 episode of Raw), while simultaneously having confrontations with Kane over the World Heavyweight Championship. Benoit wrestled in two matches at Bad Blood in his respective rivalries; he and Edge failed to regain the World Tag Team Championship (winning by disqualification when Kane interfered) while he successfully defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Kane. A month later at Vengeance, Benoit retained the title against Triple H.
On August 15, 2004, Benoit was defeated by Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam. Benoit then teamed with William Regal at Unforgiven against Ric Flair and Batista in a winning effort. Benoit then feuded with Edge (who had turned into an arrogant and conceited heel), leading to Taboo Tuesday where Benoit, Edge, and Shawn Michaels were all put into a poll to see who would face Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship that night. Michaels received the most votes and as a result, Edge and Benoit were forced to team up to face the World Tag Team Champions, La Résistance, in the same night. However, Edge deserted Benoit during the match and Benoit was forced to take on both members of La Résistance by himself. He and Edge still managed to regain the World Tag Team Championship. They lost the titles back to La Résistance on the November 1 episode of Raw. At Survivor Series, Benoit sided with Randy Orton's team while Edge teamed with Triple H's team, and while Edge was able to pin Benoit after a Pedigree from Triple H, Orton's team won.
The Benoit-Edge feud ended at New Year's Revolution in an Elimination Chamber match, which both men lost. The feud stopped abruptly, as Edge feuded with Shawn Michaels, and Benoit entered the Royal Rumble as the second entrant, lasting longer than any competitor before being eliminated by Ric Flair. The two then continued to have matches in the following weeks until the two of them, Chris Jericho, Shelton Benjamin, Kane, and Christian were placed in the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 21. Edge won the match by knocking Benoit off of the ladder by smashing his arm with a chair. The feud finally culminated in a Last Man Standing match at Backlash, which Edge won with a brick shot to the back of Benoit's head.
United States Champion (2005–2007)
On June 9, Benoit was drafted to the SmackDown! brand after being the first man selected by SmackDown! in the 2005 Draft Lottery and participated in an ECW-style revolution against the SmackDown! heels. Benoit appeared at ECW One Night Stand, defeating Eddie Guerrero.
On July 24 at The Great American Bash, Benoit failed to win the WWE United States Championship from Orlando Jordan, but won a rematch at SummerSlam in 25 seconds. Benoit then won three consecutive matches against Jordan in less than a minute. Benoit later wrestled Booker T in friendly competitions, until Booker T and his wife, Sharmell, cheated Benoit out of the United States title on the October 21 episode of SmackDown!.
On November 13, 2005, Eddie Guerrero was found dead in his hotel room. The following night, Raw held a Guerrero tribute show hosted by both Raw and SmackDown! wrestlers. Benoit was devastated at Guerrero's death and was very emotional during a series of video testimonials, eventually breaking down on camera. The same week on SmackDown! (taped on the same night as Raw), Benoit defeated Triple H in a tribute match to Guerrero. Following the contest, Benoit, Triple H, and Dean Malenko all assembled in the ring and pointed to the sky in salute of Guerrero.
After controversy surrounding a United States Championship match against Booker T, Theodore Long set up a "Best of Seven" series between the two. Booker T won three times in a row (at Survivor Series, the November 29 SmackDown! Special, and the December 9 episode of SmackDown!), due largely to Sharmell's interference, and Benoit faced elimination in the series. Benoit won the fourth match to stay alive at Armageddon, but after the match, Booker T suffered a legitimate groin injury, and Randy Orton was chosen as a stand-in. Benoit defeated Orton twice by disqualification on the December 30 and January 6, 2006, episodes of SmackDown!. However, in the seventh and final match, Orton defeated Benoit with the help of Booker T, Sharmell, and Orlando Jordan, and Booker T captured the United States Championship. Benoit feuded with Orton for a short time, before defeating Orton in a No Holds Barred match on the January 27 episode of SmackDown! via the Crippler Crossface. Benoit was given one last chance at the United States Championship at No Way Out and won it by making Booker T submit to the Crippler Crossface, ending the feud.
The next week on SmackDown!, Benoit (kayfabe) broke John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL)'s hand (JBL actually needed surgery to remove a cyst). A match was set up for the two at WrestleMania 22 for Benoit's title, and for the next several weeks, they attacked each other. At WrestleMania, JBL won the match with an illegal cradle to win the title. Benoit used his rematch clause two weeks later in a steel cage match on SmackDown!, but JBL again won with illegal tactics. Benoit entered the King of the Ring tournament, only to be defeated by Finlay in the opening round on the May 5 episode of SmackDown!, after Finlay struck Benoit's neck with a chair and delivered a Celtic Cross. At Judgment Day, Benoit gained some revenge by defeating Finlay with the Crippler Crossface in a grudge match. On the following episode of SmackDown!, Mark Henry brutalized Benoit during their match, giving him (kayfabe) back and rib injuries and causing him to bleed from his mouth. Benoit then took a sabbatical to heal nagging shoulder injuries.
On October 8, Benoit made his return at No Mercy, defeating William Regal in a surprise match. Later that week, he won his fifth and final United States Championship from Mr. Kennedy. Benoit then engaged in a feud with Chavo and Vickie Guerrero. He wanted answers from the Guerreros for their rash behaviour towards Rey Mysterio, but was avoided by the two and was eventually assaulted. This led to the two embarking on a feud with title matches at Survivor Series and Armageddon; Benoit won both. The feud culminated with one last title match as a No disqualification match, which was also won by Benoit. Later, Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP), who claimed that he was the best man to hold the United States title, challenged Benoit for the title at WrestleMania 23, where Benoit retained. Their rivalry continued with Benoit defeating MVP again at Backlash. At Judgment Day, however, MVP gained the upper hand and defeated Benoit to win the title in a two out of three falls match, thus ending the feud. Benoit would wrestle MVP one last time at Saturday Night's Main Event XXXIV on June 2, in a winning effort in a tag-team match where Benoit partnered with Batista and MVP partnered with then-World Heavyweight Champion Edge.
ECW (2007)
On the June 11 episode of Raw, Benoit was drafted from SmackDown! to ECW as part of the 2007 WWE draft after losing to ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley. In his debut on the ECW brand, Benoit teamed up with CM Punk in a tag team match against Elijah Burke and Marcus Cor Von, in which Benoit and Punk won. On the June 19 episode of ECW, Benoit wrestled his final match, defeating Elijah Burke in a match to determine who would compete for the vacated ECW World Championship at Vengeance on June 24. Since Lashley was drafted to Raw, he had vacated the title.
Benoit missed the weekend house shows, telling WWE officials that his wife and son were vomiting blood due to food poisoning. When he failed to show up for the pay-per-view, viewers were informed that he was unable to compete due to a "family emergency" and he was replaced in the title match by Johnny Nitro, who won the match and became ECW World Champion. The crowd spent the majority of the match chanting for Benoit. It would be revealed in the following days that Benoit had murdered his wife Nancy and son Daniel before committing suicide.
WWE executive Stephanie McMahon later indicated that Benoit would have defeated CM Punk for the ECW World Championship had he been present for the event. Professional wrestler and MMA fighter Bob Sapp, whom WWE had tried to sign up before a contract dispute with K-1 rendered it impossible, reported he would have been put into an oncoming angle with Benoit in case he would have been able to debut.
Professional wrestling style
Benoit included a wide array of submission holds in his move-set and used a crossface, dubbed the Crippler Crossface, and a sharpshooter as finishers. He also used a diving headbutt to finish off opponents. The diving headbutt, which saw the deliverer leap off the top rope and land head first on the opponent, was partially blamed for the head trauma that caused Benoit to commit his crimes. Another of Benoit's trademark moves was three rolling German suplexes. This move would later be mimicked by multiple other wrestlers, including Brock Lesnar who uses it as Suplex City.
Benoit was renowned for his high-impact technical style. Former WWE rival Kurt Angle said in a 2017 interview that "he has to got to be in the top three of all time."
Professional wrestling games
Championships and accomplishments
Cauliflower Alley Club
Future Legend Award (2002)
Catch Wrestling Association
CWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Dave Taylor
Extreme Championship Wrestling
ECW World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Dean Malenko
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Super J-Cup (1994)
Top/Best of the Super Juniors (1993, 1995)
Super Grade Junior Heavyweight Tag League (1994) – with Shinjiro Otani
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Feud of the Year (2004) vs. Triple H
Match of the Year (2004) vs. Shawn Michaels and Triple H at WrestleMania XX
Wrestler of the Year (2004)
Ranked No. 1 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2004
Ranked No. 69 of the top 500 greatest wrestlers in the PWI Years in 2003
Stampede Wrestling
Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship (4 times)
Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship (4 times) – with Ben Bassarab (1), Keith Hart (1), Lance Idol (1), and Biff Wellington (1)
Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame (1995)
Universal Wrestling Association
WWF Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Championship Wrestling
WCW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
WCW World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Dean Malenko (1) and Perry Saturn (1)
WCW World Television Championship (3 times)
WCW United States Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
Seventh WCW Triple Crown Champion
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time, inaugural) – with Kurt Angle
WWE United States Championship (3 times)
WWF/WWE Intercontinental Championship (4 times)
WWF/World Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Chris Jericho (1) and Edge (2)
Royal Rumble (2004)
WWE Tag Team Championship Tournament (2002) – with Kurt Angle
12th Triple Crown Champion
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Best Brawler (2004)
Best Technical Wrestler (1994, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2004)
Feud of the Year (2004) vs. Shawn Michaels and Triple H
Match of the Year (2002) with Kurt Angle vs. Edge and Rey Mysterio at No Mercy
Most Outstanding Wrestler (2000, 2004)
Most Underrated (1998)
Readers' Favorite Wrestler (1997, 2000)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 2003)
Personal life
Benoit spoke both English and French fluently. He married twice, and had two children (David and Megan) with his first wife, Martina. By 1997, that marriage had broken down, and Benoit was living with Nancy Sullivan, the wife of the WCW booker and frequent opponent Kevin Sullivan. On February 25, 2000, Chris and Nancy's son Daniel was born; on November 23, 2000, Chris and Nancy married. It was Nancy's third marriage. In 2003, Nancy filed for divorce from Benoit, citing the marriage as "irrevocably broken" and alleging "cruel treatment". She claimed that he would break and throw furniture around. She later dropped the suit as well as the restraining order she had filed.
Benoit became good friends with fellow wrestler Eddie Guerrero following a match in Japan, when Benoit kicked Guerrero in the head and knocked him out cold.
Benoit was also close friends with Dean Malenko, as the trio travelled from promotion to promotion together putting on matches, eventually being dubbed the "Three Amigos" by commentators. According to Chris Benoit, the Crippler Crossface was borrowed from Malenko and eventually caught on as Chris Benoit's finishing hold.
Benoit's lost tooth, his top-right lateral incisor, was commonly misattributed to training or an accident early on in his wrestling career. It actually resulted from an accident involving his pet rottweiler: one day while playing with the dog, the animal's skull struck Benoit's chin, and his tooth "popped out".
Death
On June 25, 2007, police entered Benoit's home in Fayetteville, Georgia, when WWE, Benoit's employers, requested a "welfare check" after Benoit missed weekend events without notice, leading to concerns. The officers discovered the bodies of Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their 7-year-old son Daniel at around 2:30 p.m. EDT. Upon investigating, no additional suspects were sought by authorities. It was determined that Benoit had committed the murders. Over a three-day period, Benoit had killed his wife and son before committing suicide. His wife was bound before the killing. Benoit's son was drugged with Xanax and likely unconscious before Benoit strangled him. Benoit then committed suicide by hanging himself on his lat pulldown machine.
WWE cancelled the scheduled three-hour-long live Raw show on June 25 and replaced the broadcast version with a three-hour tribute to his life and career, featuring his past matches, segments from the Hard Knocks: The Chris Benoit Story DVD, and comments from wrestlers and announcers.
Toxicology reports released on July 17, 2007, revealed that at their time of death, Nancy had three different drugs in her system: Xanax, hydrocodone, and hydromorphone, all of which were found at the therapeutic rather than toxic levels. Daniel was found to have Xanax in his system, which led the chief medical examiner to believe that he was sedated before he was murdered. Benoit was found to have Xanax, hydrocodone, and an elevated level of testosterone, caused by a synthetic form of the hormone, in his system. The chief medical examiner attributed the testosterone level to Benoit possibly being treated for a deficiency caused by previous steroid abuse or testicular insufficiency. There was no indication that anything in Benoit's body contributed to his violent behaviour that led to the murder-suicide, concluding that there was no "roid-rage" involved. Prior to the murder-suicide, Benoit had illegally been given medications not in compliance with WWE's Talent Wellness Program in February 2006, including nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, and anastrozole, a breast cancer medication which is used by bodybuilders for its powerful antiestrogenic effects. During the investigation into steroid abuse, it was revealed that other wrestlers had also been given steroids.
After the double-murder suicide, neuroscientist and retired professional wrestler Christopher Nowinski contacted Michael Benoit, Chris's father, suggesting that years of trauma to his son's brain may have led to his actions. Tests were conducted on Benoit's brain by Julian Bailes, the head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, and results showed that "Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient." He was reported to have had an advanced form of dementia, similar to the brains of four retired NFL players who had multiple concussions, sank into depression, and harmed themselves or others. Bailes and his colleagues concluded that repeated concussions can lead to dementia, which can contribute to severe behavioural problems. Benoit's father suggests that brain damage may have been the leading cause.
Once the details of Benoit's actions became apparent, WWE made the decision to remove nearly all mentions of Chris Benoit from their website, future broadcasts, and all publications.
See also
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
List of premature professional wrestling deaths
Notes
References
Sources
Royal Duncan & Gary Will (2006). Wrestling Title Histories (4th ed.). Archeus Communications. ISBN 978-0-9698161-5-7.
Kevin Dunn (Director) (2004). Hard Knocks: The Chris Benoit Story (DVD). WWE Home Video.
SLAM! Wrestling — Chris Benoit[usurped]
Metro — 60 Seconds: Chris Benoit by Andrew Williams
Wrestling Digest: Technically Speaking, wrestler and sports entertainer Chris Benoit
External links
Chris Benoit at IMDb
World Championship Wrestling profile at the Wayback Machine (archived May 8, 1999)
World Wrestling Entertainment profile at the Wayback Machine (archived June 17, 2005)
Chris Benoit's profile at Cagematch.net , Wrestlingdata.com , Internet Wrestling Database |
Professional_wrestling | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_wrestling | [
623
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_wrestling#Occupational_hazards"
] | Professional wrestling (often referred to as pro wrestling, or simply, wrestling) is a form of athletic theater that combines mock combat with drama, under the premise (known colloquially as kayfabe) that the performers are competitive wrestlers. Although it entails elements of amateur wrestling and martial arts, including genuine displays of athleticism and physicality before a live audience, professional wrestling is distinguished by its scripted outcomes and emphasis on entertainment and showmanship. The staged nature of matches is an open secret, with both wrestlers and spectators nonetheless maintaining the pretense that performances are bona fide competitions; this is likened to the suspension of disbelief employed when engaging with fiction, known in the industry as the aforementioned kayfabe.
Professional wrestlers perform as characters and usually maintain a "gimmick" consisting of a specific persona, stage name, and other distinguishing traits. Matches are the primary vehicle for advancing storylines, which typically center on interpersonal conflicts, or feuds, between heroic "faces" and villainous "heels". A wrestling ring, akin to the platform used in boxing, serves as the main stage; additional scenes may be recorded for television in backstage areas of the venue, in a format similar to reality television. Performers generally integrate authentic wrestling techniques and fighting styles with choreography, stunts, improvisation, and dramatic conventions designed to maximize entertainment value and audience engagement.
Professional wrestling as a performing art evolved from the common practice of match-fixing among American wrestlers in the 19th century, who sought initially to carry out gambling-related scams and later to make matches shorter, more entertaining, and less physically taxing. As the public gradually realized and accepted that matches were predetermined, wrestlers responded by increasingly adding melodrama, gimmickry, and outlandish stuntwork to their performances to further enhance the spectacle. By at least the early 20th century, professional wrestling had diverged from the competitive sport to become an artform and genre of sports entertainment.
Professional wrestling is performed around the world through various "promotions", which are roughly analogous to production companies or sports leagues. Promotions vary considerably in size, scope, and creative approach, ranging from local shows on the independent circuit, to internationally broadcast events at major arenas. The largest and most influential promotions are in the United States, Mexico, Japan, and northwest Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany/Austria and France) which have each developed distinct styles, traditions, and subgenres within professional wrestling.
Professional wrestling has developed its own culture and community, including a distinct vernacular. It has achieved mainstream success and influence within popular culture, with many terms, tropes, and concepts being referenced in everyday language as well as in film, music, television, and video games. Likewise, numerous professional wrestlers have become national or international icons with recognition by the broader public.
Context
In the United States, wrestling is generally practiced in an amateur context. No professional league for competitive wrestling exists due to a lack of popularity. For example, Real Pro Wrestling, an American professional freestyle wrestling league, dissolved in 2007 after just two seasons. In other countries, such as Iran and India, wrestling enjoys widespread popularity as a genuine sport, and the phrase "professional wrestling" therefore has a more literal meaning in those places. A notable example is India's Pro Wrestling League.
In numerous American states, professional wrestling is legally defined as a non-sport. For instance, New York defines professional wrestling as:
Professional wrestling means an activity in which participants struggle hand-in-hand primarily for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators and which does not comprise a bona fide athletic contest or competition. Professional wrestling is not a combative sport. Wrestling constituting bona fide athletic contests and competitions, which may be professional or amateur combative sport, shall not be deemed professional wrestling under this Part. Professional wrestling as used in this Part shall not depend on whether the individual wrestlers are paid or have been paid for their performance in a professional wrestling exhibition. All engagements of professional wrestling shall be referred to as exhibitions, and not as matches.
In the industry's slang, a fixed match is referred to as a worked match, derived from the slang word for manipulation, as in "working the crowd". A shoot match is a genuine contest where both wrestlers fight to win and are therefore "straight shooters", which comes from a carny term for a shooting gallery gun whose sights were not deliberately misaligned.
History in the United States
From sport to performance art
Wrestling in the United States blossomed in popularity after the Civil War, with catch wrestling eventually becoming the most popular style. At first, professional wrestlers were genuine competitive fighters, but they struggled to draw audiences because Americans did not find real wrestling to be very entertaining, so the wrestlers quietly began faking their matches so that they could give their audiences a satisfying spectacle. Fixing matches was also convenient for scheduling. A real ("shoot") match could sometimes last hours, whereas a fixed ("worked") match can be made short, which was convenient for wrestlers on tour who needed to keep appointments or share venues. It also suited wrestlers who were aging and therefore lacked the stamina for an hours-long fight. Audiences also preferred short matches. Worked matches also carried less risk of injury, which meant shorter recovery. Altogether, worked matches proved more profitable than shoots. By the end of the 19th century, nearly all professional wrestling matches were worked.
A major influence on professional wrestling was carnival culture. Wrestlers in the late 19th century worked in carnival shows. For a fee, a visitor could challenge the wrestler to a quick match. If the challenger defeated the champion in a short time frame, usually 15 minutes, he won a prize. To encourage challenges, the carnival operators staged rigged matches in which an accomplice posing as a visitor challenged the champion and won, giving the audience the impression that the champion was easy to beat. This practice taught wrestlers the art of staging rigged matches and fostered a mentality that spectators were marks to be duped. The term kayfabe comes from carny slang.
By the turn of the 20th century, most professional wrestling matches were "worked" and some journalists exposed the practice:
American wrestlers are notorious for the amount of faking they do. It is because of this fact that suspicion attaches to so many bouts that the game is not popular here. Nine out of ten bouts, it has been said, are pre-arranged affairs, and it would be no surprise if the ratio of fixed matches to honest ones was really so high.
The wrestler Lou Thesz recalled that between 1915 and 1920, a series of exposés in the newspapers about the integrity of professional wrestling alienated a lot of fans, sending the industry "into a tailspin". But rather than perform more shoot matches, professional wrestlers instead committed themselves wholesale to fakery.
Several reasons explain why professional wrestling became fake whereas boxing endured as a legitimate sport. Firstly, wrestling was more entertaining when it was faked, whereas fakery did not make boxing any more entertaining. Secondly, in a rigged boxing match, the designated loser must take a real beating for his "defeat" to be convincing, but wrestling holds can be faked convincingly without inflicting injury. This meant that boxers were less willing to "take dives"; they wanted to have a victory for all the pain to which they subjected themselves.
Cartelization
In the 1910s, promotional cartels for professional wrestling emerged in the East Coast (outside its traditional heartland in the Midwest). These promoters sought to make long-term plans with their wrestlers, and to ensure their more charismatic and crowd-pleasing wrestlers received championships, further entrenching the desire for worked matches.
The primary rationale for shoot matches at this point was challenges from independent wrestlers. But a cartelized wrestler, if challenged, could credibly use his contractual obligations to his promoter as an excuse to refuse the challenge. Promotions would sometimes respond to challenges with "policemen": powerful wrestlers who lacked the charisma to become stars, but could defeat and often seriously injure any challenger in a shoot match. As the industry trend continued, there were fewer independent wrestlers to make such challenges in the first place.
"Double-crosses", where a wrestler agreed to lose a match but nevertheless fought to win, remained a problem in the early cartel days. At times a promoter would even award a victorious double-crosser the title of champion to preserve the facade of sport. But promoters punished such wrestlers by blacklisting them, making it quite challenging to find work. Double-crossers could also be sued for breach of contract, such as Dick Shikat in 1936. In the trial, witnesses testified that most of the "big matches" and all of the championship bouts were fixed.
The end of shoot matches
By the 1930s, with the exception of the occasional double-cross or business dispute, shoot matches were essentially nonexistent. In April 1930, the New York State Athletic Commission decreed that all professional wrestling matches held in the state had to be advertised as exhibitions unless certified as contests by the commission. The Commission did on very rare occasions hand out such authorizations, such as for a championship match between Jim Londos and Jim Browning in June 1934. This decree did not apply to amateur wrestling, which the commission had no authority over.
Wrestling fans widely suspected that professional wrestling was fake, but they did not care as long as it entertained. In 1933, a wrestling promoter named Jack Pfefer started talking about the industry's inner workings to the New York Daily Mirror, maintaining no pretense that wrestling was real and passing on planned results just before the matches took place. While fans were neither surprised nor alienated, traditionalists like Jack Curley were furious, and most promoters tried to maintain the facade of kayfabe as best they could.
Not the least interesting of all the minor phenomena produced by the current fashion of wrestling is the universal discussion as to the honesty of the matches. And certainly the most interesting phrase of this discussion is the unanimous agreement: "Who cares if they're fixed or not—the show is good."
Newspapers tended to shun professional wrestling, as journalists saw its theatrical pretense to being a legitimate sport as untruthful. Eventually promoters resorted to publishing their own magazines in order to get press coverage and communicate with fans. The first professional wrestling magazine was Wrestling As You Like It, which printed its first issue in 1946. These magazines were faithful to kayfabe.
Before the advent of television, professional wrestling's fanbase largely consisted of children, the elderly, blue-collar workers and minorities. When television arose in the 1940s, professional wrestling got national exposure on prime-time television and gained widespread popularity. Professional wrestling was previously considered a niche interest, but the TV networks at the time were short on content and thus were willing to try some wrestling shows. In the 1960s, however, the networks moved on to more mainstream interests such as baseball, and professional wrestling was dropped. The core audience then shrunk back to a profile similar to that of the 1930s.
Deregulation
In 1989, Vince McMahon was looking to exempt his promotion (the World Wrestling Federation) from sports licensing fees. To achieve this, he testified before the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board that professional wrestling is not a real sport because its matches have predetermined outcomes. Shortly thereafter, New Jersey deregulated professional wrestling. The WWF then rebranded itself as a "sports entertainment" company.
The style
In the early years of the 20th century, the style of wrestling used in professional wrestling matches was catch wrestling. Promoters wanted their matches to look realistic and so preferred to recruit wrestlers with real grappling skills.
In the 1920s, a group of wrestlers and promoters known as the Gold Dust Trio introduced moves which have since become staples of the mock combat of professional wrestling, such as body slams, suplexes, punches, finishing moves, and out-of-ring count-outs.
By the early 1930s, most wrestlers had adopted personas to generate public interest. These personas could broadly be characterized as either faces (likeable) or heels (villainous). Native Americans, cowboys, and English aristocrats were staple characters in the 1930s and 1940s. Before the age of television, some wrestlers played different personas depending on the region they were performing in. This eventually came to an end in the age of national television wrestling shows, which forced wrestlers to stick to one persona.
Wrestlers also often used some sort of gimmick, such as a finishing move, eccentric mannerisms, or out-of-control behavior (in the case of heels). The matches could also be gimmicky sometimes, with wrestlers fighting in mud and piles of tomatoes and so forth. The most successful and enduring gimmick to emerge from the 1930s were tag-team matches. Promoters noticed that matches slowed down as the wrestlers in the ring tired, so they gave them partners to relieve them. It also gave heels another way to misbehave by double-teaming.
Towards the end of the 1930s, faced with declining revenues, promoters chose to focus on grooming charismatic wrestlers with no regard for their skill because it was charisma that drew the crowds, and wrestlers who were both skilled at grappling and charismatic were hard to come by. Since most of the public by this time knew and accepted that professional wrestling was fake, realism was no longer paramount and a background in authentic wrestling no longer mattered. After this time, matches became more outlandish and gimmicky and any semblance professional wrestling had to catch wrestling faded. The personas of the wrestlers likewise grew more outlandish.
Gorgeous George, who performed throughout the 1940s and 1950s, was the first wrestler whose entrance into the arena was accompanied by a theme song played over the arena's loudspeakers, his being Pomp and Circumstance. He also wore a costume: a robe and hairnet, which he removed after getting in the ring. He also had a pre-match ritual where his "butler" would spray the ring with perfume. In the 1980s, Vince McMahon made entrance songs, costumes, and rituals standard for his star wrestlers. For instance, McMahon's top star Hulk Hogan would delight the audience by tearing his shirt off before each match.
The promoter cartels
The first major promoter cartel emerged on the East Coast, although up to that point, wrestling's heartland had been in the Midwest. Notable members of this cartel included Jack Curley, Lou Daro, Paul Bowser and Tom and Tony Packs. The promoters colluded to solve a number of problems that hurt their profits. Firstly, they could force their wrestlers to perform for less money. As the cartel grew, there were fewer independent promoters where independent wrestlers could find work, and many were forced to sign a contract with the cartel to receive steady work. The contracts forbade them from performing at independent venues. A wrestler who refused to play by the cartel's rules was barred from performing at its venues. A second goal of the wrestling cartels was to establish an authority to decide who was the "world champion". Before the cartels, there were multiple wrestlers in the U.S. simultaneously calling themselves the "world champion", and this sapped public enthusiasm for professional wrestling. Likewise, the cartel could agree on a common set of match rules that the fans could keep track of. The issue over who got to be the champion and who controlled said champion was a major point of contention among the members of wrestling cartels as the champion drew big crowds wherever he performed, and this would occasionally lead to schisms.
By 1925, this cartel had divided the country up into territories which were the exclusive domains of specific promoters. This system of territories endured until Vince McMahon drove the fragmented cartels out of the market in the 1980s. This cartel fractured in 1929 after one of its members, Paul Bowser, bribed Ed "Strangler" Lewis to lose his championship in a match against Gus Sonnenberg in January 1929. Bowser then broke away from the trust to form his own cartel, the American Wrestling Association (AWA), in September 1930, and he declared Sonnenberg to be the AWA champion. This AWA should not be confused with Wally Kadbo's AWA founded in 1960. Curley reacted to this move by convincing the National Boxing Association to form the National Wrestling Association, which in turn crowned a champion that Curley put forth: Dick Shikat. The National Wrestling Association shut down in 1980.
In 1948, a number of promoters from across the country came together to form the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). The NWA recognized one "world champion", voted on by its members, but allowed member promoters to crown their own local champions in their territories. If a member poached wrestlers from another member, or held matches in another member's territory, they risked being ejected from the NWA, at which point his territory became fair game for everyone. The NWA would blacklist wrestlers who worked for independent promoters or who publicly criticized an NWA promoter or who did not throw a match on command. If an independent promoter tried to establish himself in a certain area, the NWA would send their star performers to perform for the local NWA promoter to draw the customers away from the independent. By 1956, the NWA controlled 38 promotions within the United States, with more in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. The NWA's monopolistic practices became so stifling that the independents appealed to the government for help. In October 1956 the US Attorney General's office filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NWA in an Iowa federal district court. The NWA settled with the government. They pledged to stop allocating exclusive territories to its promoters, to stop blacklisting wrestlers who worked for outsider promoters, and to admit any promoter into the Alliance. The NWA would flout many of these promises, but its power was nonetheless weakened by the lawsuit.
Paul Bowser's AWA joined the NWA in 1949. The AWA withdrew from the Alliance in 1957 and renamed itself the Atlantic Athletic Corporation (AAC). The AAC shut down in 1960.
In 1958, Omaha promoter and NWA member Joe Dusek recognized Verne Gagne as the world champion without the approval of the NWA. Gagne asked for a match against the recognized NWA champion Pat O'Connor. The NWA refused to honor the request, so Gagne and Minneapolis promoter Wally Karbo established the American Wrestling Association in 1960. This AWA should not be confused with Paul Bowser's AWA, which ceased operations just two months prior. Gagne's AWA operated out of Minnesota. Unlike the NWA, which only allowed faces to be champions, Gagne occasionally allowed heels to win the AWA championship so that they could serve as foils for him.
In August 1983, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), a promotion in the north-east, withdrew from the NWA. Vince K. McMahon then took over as its boss. No longer bound by the territorial pact of the NWA, McMahon began expanding his promotion into the territories of his former NWA peers, now his rivals. By the end of the 1980s, the WWF would become the sole national wrestling promotion in the U.S. This was in part made possible by the rapid spread of cable television in the 1980s. The national broadcast networks generally regarded professional wrestling as too niche an interest, and had not broadcast any national wrestling shows since the 1950s. Before cable TV, a typical American household only received four national channels by antenna, and ten to twelve local channels via UHF broadcasting. But cable television could carry a much larger selection of channels and therefore had room for niche interests. The WWF started with a show called All-American Wrestling airing on the USA Network in September 1983. McMahon's TV shows made his wrestlers national celebrities, so when he held matches in a new city, attendance was high because there was a waiting fanbase cultivated in advance by the cable TV shows. The NWA's traditional anti-competitive tricks were no match for this. The NWA attempted to centralize and create their own national cable television shows to counter McMahon's rogue promotion, but it failed in part because the members of the NWA, ever protective of their territories, could not stomach submitting themselves to a central authority. Nor could any of them stomach the idea of leaving the NWA themselves to compete directly with McMahon, for that would mean their territories would become fair game for the other NWA members. McMahon also had a creative flair for TV that his rivals lacked. For instance, the AWA's TV productions during the 1980s were amateurish, low-budget, and out-of-touch with contemporary culture, which lead to the promotion's closing in 1991.
In the spring of 1984, the WWF purchased Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), which had been ailing for some time due to financial mismanagement and internal squabbles. In the deal, the WWF acquired the GCW's timeslot on TBS. McMahon agreed to keep showing Georgia wrestling matches in that timeslot, but he was unable to get his staff to Atlanta every Saturday to fulfill this obligation, so he sold GCW and its TBS timeslot to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). JCP started informally calling itself World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In 1988, Ted Turner bought JCP and formally renamed it World Championship Wrestling. During the 1990s, WCW became a credible rival to the WWF, but by end it suffered from a series of creative missteps that led to its failure and purchase by the WWF. One of its mistakes was that it diminished the glamor of its World Heavyweight Championship. Between January 2000 and March 2001, the title changed hands eighteen times, which sapped fan enthusiasm, particularly for the climactic pay-per-view matches.
Industry conventions
In professional wrestling, two factors decide the way of proceedings: the "in-show" happenings, presented through the shows; and real-life happenings outside the work that have implications, such as performer contracts, legitimate injuries, etc. Because actual life events are often co-opted by writers for incorporation into storylines of performers, the lines between real life and fictional life are often blurred and become confused.
Special discern must be taken with people who perform under their own name (such as Kurt Angle and his fictional persona). The actions of the character in shows must be considered fictional, wholly separate from the life of the performer. This is similar to other entertainers who perform with a persona that shares their own name.
Some wrestlers also incorporate elements of their real-life personalities into their characters, even if they and their in-ring persona have different names.
Kayfabe
Kayfabe is the practice of pretending that professional wrestling is a true sport. Wrestlers would at all times flatly deny allegations that they fixed their matches, and they often remained in-character in public even when not performing. When in public, wrestlers would sometimes say the word kayfabe to each other as a coded signal that there were fans present and they needed to be in character. Professional wrestlers in the past strongly believed that if they admitted the truth, their audiences would desert them.
Today's performers don't "protect" the industry like we did, but that's primarily because they've already exposed it by relying on silly or downright ludicrous characters and gimmicks to gain popularity with the fans. It was different in my day, when our product was presented as an authentic, competitive sport. We protected it because we believed it would collapse if we ever so much as implied publicly that it was something other than what it appeared to be. I'm not sure now the fear was ever justified given the fact that the industry is still in existence today, but the point is no one questioned the need then. "Protecting the business" in the face of criticism and skepticism was the first and most important rule a pro wrestler learned. No matter how aggressive or informed the questioner, you never admitted the industry was anything but a competitive sport.
The first wrestling promoter to publicly admit to routinely fixing matches was Jack Pfefer. In 1933, he started talking about the industry's inner workings to the New York Daily Mirror, resulting in a huge exposé. The exposé neither surprised nor alienated most wrestling fans, although some promoters like Jack Curley were furious and tried to restore the facade of kayfabe as best as they could. In 1989, Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey government that professional wrestling was not a true sport and therefore should be exempted from sports-related taxes. Many wrestlers and fans resented McMahon for this, but Lou Thesz accepted it as the smart move as it gave the industry more freedom to do as it pleased, and because by that point professional wrestling no longer attempted to appear real.
The demise of WCW in 2001 provided some evidence that kayfabe still mattered to a degree. Vince Russo, the boss of WCW in 2000, completely disregarded kayfabe by routinely discussing business matters and office politics in public, which alienated fans.
Performance aspects
I watch championship wrestling from Florida with wrestling commentator Gordon Solie. Is this all "fake"? If so, they deserve an Oscar.
Professional wrestling shows can be considered a form of theater in the round, with the ring, ringside area, and entryway comprising a stage. There is less of a fourth wall than in most theatric performances, similar to pantomime involving audience participation. The audience is recognized and acknowledged by the performers as spectators to the sporting event being portrayed, and are encouraged to interact as such. This leads to a high level of audience participation; in fact, their reactions can dictate how the performance unfolds. Often, individual matches will be part of a longer story line conflict between "babyfaces" (often shortened to just "faces") and "heels". "Faces" (the "good guys") are those whose actions are intended to encourage the audience to cheer, while "heels" (the "bad guys") act to draw the spectators' ire.
In pro wrestling matches, performers often execute a series of pre-planned moves and attacks, ranging from grappling and throws found in some traditional forms of wrestling, to more spectacular stunts, sometimes involving props and special effects. The attacks in these matches are designed to appear dramatic while reducing the risk of serious injury as much as possible. Overall, the performers aim to minimize the actual injurious impact of their moves while maximizing their entertainment value. Shows produced by the largest professional wrestling promotions like WWE are traditionally performed in indoor venues, flagship events in this profession like WrestleMania are sometimes staged at outdoor venues; these shows are generally video recorded for live or delayed broadcasting for an audience all over the world. Additionally filmed footage known as "segments" or "promos" are usually used to accompany the drama in these shows.
Prior experience in legitimate wrestling is not a requirement for aspiring professional wrestlers, but is seen as an advantageous background. Despite its scripted format, there have been quite a number of performers throughout the history of pro wrestling who have had prior experience in legitimate wrestling, before transitioning to its theatrical form. A popular performer, Kurt Angle, is the first Olympic gold medalist in professional wrestling history, having won his gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in freestyle wrestling. Another prominent performer is Brock Lesnar, a former NCAA Wrestler who won the NCAA Division I National Championship in 2000.
Rules and other dramatic elements
Professional wrestlers nominally compete under rules promulgated by wrestling promotions. However, the rules are not legitimate standards for sporting activity, instead serving as a basis to advance plotlines, similar to the artificial constraints imposed in other fictional universes. Sociologist Thomas S. Henricks has argued the rules serve as a basis for a structuralist moral order, serving to advance plot lines involving charismatic heroes applying an instrumentally rationalist approach to social conflicts.
Professional wrestlers do not follow an industry-standard set of rules, unlike most sporting events, which generally have a governing body to regulate competitions. While each promoter can set his own standards, promoters have long understood that fans enjoy professional wrestling more when all matches appear to follow a consistent set of rules. The rules described in this section represent common standards but may not precisely align with the ruleset of any specific promotion.
Structure of performances
Matches are staged between two or more sides ("corners"). Each corner may consist of one wrestler, or a team of two or more. Most team matches are nominally governed by tag team rules. Other matches present under the premise of a free-for-alls, with multiple combatants but no teams. In all variants, there can be only one winning team or wrestler.
Matches generally take place within a wrestling ring, an elevated square canvas mat with posts on each corner. A cloth apron hangs over the edges of the ring. Three horizontal ropes or cables surround the ring, suspended with turnbuckles which are connected to the posts. For safety, the ropes are padded at the turnbuckles and cushioned mats surround the floor outside the ring. Guardrails or a similar barrier enclose this area from the audience. Wrestlers are generally expected to stay within the confines of the ring, though matches sometimes end up moving outside the ring, and even into the audience.
The standard method of scoring is the "fall", which, is premised as being accomplished by:
Pinning the opponent's shoulders to the mat, typically for three seconds (though other times have been used)
Forcing the opponent to submit
Disqualification of the opponent
The opponent remaining outside the ring for too long (countout)
Knocking out or otherwise incapacitating the opponent
These are each explained in greater detail below. Pinfalls and submissions must occur within the ring unless stipulated otherwise.
Most wrestling matches last for a set number of falls, with the first side to achieve the majority number of pinfalls, submissions, or countouts being the kayfabe winner. Historically, the matches went to 3 falls ("best 2 out of 3") or 5 falls ("best 3 out of 5"). For modern wrestling, the genre convention is 1 fall. These matches have a time limit; if not enough falls are scored by the end of the time limit, the match is presented as draw. Modern matches are generally given a 10- to 30-minute time limit for standard matches; title matches can go for up to one hour. British wrestling matches held under Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules (and similar systems across Europe) consist of a series of rounds – typically six rounds each lasting three minutes or until a fall or submission is scored, with a thirty-second break between each round and can either be two-out-of-three falls, one fall to a finish (mostly for low-priority warmup matches) or the wrestler with the most falls wins at the end of the final round.
An alternative subgenre involves is a match set for a prescribed length of time, with a running tally of falls. The entrant with the most falls at the end of the time limit is declared the winner. This is usually for 20, 30 or 60 minutes, and is commonly called an Iron Man match. This type of match can be modified so that fewer types of falls are allowed.
In performances staged with multiple competitors, an elimination system may be used. Any wrestler who has a fall scored against them is forced out of the match, and the match continues until only one remains. It is much more common when more than two wrestlers are involved to simply go one fall, with the one scoring the fall, regardless of who they scored it against, being the winner. In championship matches, this means that, unlike one-on-one matches (where the champion can simply disqualify himself or get himself counted out to retain the title via the Champion's Advantage), the champion does not have to be pinned or involved in the decision to lose the championship. Heel champions often find advantages, not in Champion's Advantage, but in the use of weapons and outside interference, as these poly-sided matches tend to involve no holds barred rules.
Some wrestling performances are staged with unique winning conditions, often to allow a thing theoristic plot construction. An example is the ladder match.
In the basic ladder match, the premise is wrestlers or teams of wrestlers must climb a ladder to obtain a prize that is hoist above the ring. The key to winning this match is that the wrestler or team of wrestlers must try to incapacitate each other long enough for one wrestler to climb the ladder and secure that prize for their team. As a result, the ladder can be used as a weapon. The prizes include, but are not limited to, any given championship belt (the traditional prize), a document granting the winner the right to a future title shot, or any document that matters to the wrestlers involved in the match (such as one granting the winner a cash prize). Something that is also common in pro wrestling is the cage match which comes in many variety and is often used as the final battle in a heated rivalry. Another common specialty match is known as the battle royal. In a battle royal, all the wrestlers enter the ring to the point that there are 20–30 wrestlers in the ring at one time. When the match begins, the simple objective is to throw the opponent over the top rope and out of the ring with both feet on the floor to eliminate that opponent. The last wrestler standing is declared the winner. A variant on this type of match is the WWE's Royal Rumble where two wrestlers enter the ring to start the match and other wrestlers follow in 90 second intervals (previously 2 minutes) until 30–40 wrestlers have entered the ring. All other rules stay the same.
Almost every professional wrestling match features referee, who is the final arbitrator of the fictional rules, which may vary from promotion to promotion. In multi-man lucha libre matches, two referees are used, one inside the ring and one outside.
Due to the legitimate role that referees play in wrestling of serving as liaison between the bookers backstage and the wrestlers in the ring (the role of being a final arbitrator is merely kayfabe), the referee is present, even in matches that do not at first glance appear to require a referee (such as a ladder match, as it is no holds barred, and the criteria for victory could theoretically be assessed from afar). Although their actions are also frequently scripted for dramatic effect, referees are subject to certain general rules and requirements to maintain the theatrical appearance of unbiased authority. The most basic rule is that an action must be seen by a referee to be declared for a fall or disqualification. This allows for heel characters to gain a scripted advantage by distracting or disabling the referee to perform some ostensibly illegal maneuver on their opponent. Most referees are unnamed and essentially anonymous, though some wrestling promotions, most notably in the present All Elite Wrestling, have made officials known by their names (and there are some cases where fans have called their names during matches).
Special guest referees may be used from time to time; by virtue of their celebrity status, they are often scripted to dispense with the appearance of neutrality and use their influence to unfairly influence the outcome of the match for added dramatic impact. Face special referees will often fight back against hostile heel wrestlers, particularly if the special referee is either a wrestler himself or a famous martial artist (such as Tito Ortiz at the main event at Hard Justice 2005).
For dramatic effect, heel referees may assist a heel wrestler. Several common plot devices involve the heel referee assisting the heel wrestler.
Counting fast whenever the face wrestler is being pinned, while counting slow, faking a wrist or eye injury, or even refusing to count at all, when the heel wrestler is being pinned.
Allowing heel wrestlers to use blatantly illegal tactics that most normal referees would instantly disqualify for, while not extending these relaxed rules to face wrestlers.
Disqualifying the face wrestler for unfair reasons, such as an accidental attack on the referee or a maneuver that appears to be an illegal attack.
Feigning unconsciousness far longer than they would normally otherwise be out, or using convenient distractions to look away from the wrestlers for a prolonged period of time. This allows for greater opportunities for run-ins or use of illegal weapons and tactics, or can be used as an excuse to avoid counting a pinfall or calling a submission in the face's favor. The referee often instantly up the moment the heel wrestler seems to have an advantage, usually the moment the heel goes for the pinfall or applies a submission finisher.
Actually assisting in attacking the face wrestler.
Tag rules
In some team matches, there is a fictional premise that only one entrant from each team may be designated as the "legal" or "active" wrestler at any given moment. Two wrestlers must make physical contact in the corner (typically palm-to-palm) to transfer this legal status. This is known as a "tag", with the participants "tagging out" and "tagging in". Typically, the wrestler who is tagging out has a five count to leave the ring, whereas the one tagging in can enter the ring at any time, resulting in heels legally double-teaming a face.
The non-legal wrestlers must remain outside the ring or other legal area at all times (and avoid purposeful contact with the opposing wrestlers) or face reprimand from the referee. In most promotions, the wrestler to be tagged in must be touching the turnbuckle on his corner, or a cloth strap attached to the turnbuckle.
Some multi-wrestler matches allow for a set number of legal wrestlers; this rule is commonplace in four-way tag team matches, where only two wrestlers are legal in the match, meaning two teams will have both members on the outside at any given time. In these matches, tags can be made between any two teams regardless if they are on the same team or not. As a result of this stipulation, tags between different teams are not usually mutual effort; a non-legal wrestler will usually tag themselves in against the legal wrestler's will. A legal wrestler will only voluntarily tag themselves out to another team if their own partner is incapacitated, or are being held in a submission hold and are closer to another tag team than their own.
Sometimes, poly-sided matches that pit every man for himself will incorporate tagging rules. Outside of kayfabe, this is done to give wrestlers a break from the action (as these matches tend to go on for long periods of time), and to make the action in the ring easier to choreograph. One of the most mainstream examples of this is the Four-Corner match, the most common type of match in the WWE before it was replaced with its equivalent Fatal Four-Way; four wrestlers, each for himself, fight in a match, but only two wrestlers can be in the match at any given time. The other two are positioned in the corner, and tags can be made between any two wrestlers.
In a Texas Tornado Tag Team match, all the competitors are legal in the match, and tagging in and out is not necessary. All matches fought under hardcore rules (such as no disqualification, no holds barred, ladder match, etc.) are all contested under de facto Texas Tornado rules, since the lack of ability of a referee to issue a disqualification renders any tagging requirements moot.
Regardless of rules of tagging, a wrestler cannot pin his or her own tag team partner, even if it is technically possible from the rules of the match (e.g. Texas Tornado rules, or a three-way tag team match). This is called the "Outlaw Rule" because the first team to attempt to use that (in an attempt to unfairly retain their tag team titles) was the New Age Outlaws.
Victory
Although scripted and choreographed, wrestling matches are presented as being legitimate athletic competitions decided on one of several possible outcomes.
Pinfall
A matches fictional premise may allow a score by pinfall, in which a wrestling performer must pin both his opponent's shoulders against the mat while the referee slaps the mat three times (referred to as a "three count"). This is the most common form presented a defeat. The pinned wrestler must also be on his back and, if they're lying on his stomach, it usually does not count. A count may be started at any time that a wrestler's shoulders are down (both shoulders touching the mat), back-first and any part of the opponent's body is lying over the wrestler. This often results in pins that can easily be kicked out of, if the defensive wrestler is even slightly conscious. For example, an attacking wrestler who is half-conscious may simply drape an arm over an opponent, or a cocky wrestler may place his foot gently on the opponent's body, prompting a three-count from the referee.
In some promotions, there is a premise that certain pinning methods are disallowed, including using the ropes for leverage and hooking the opponent's clothing. As a plot device, disallowed pinning methods can be depicted as a cheating method for heels. Pins such as these are rarely seen by the referee and are often used by heels and on occasion by cheating faces to win matches. Even if it is noticed, storylines rarely result in a disqualification and instead it simply results in nullification of the pin attempt, so the wrestler rarely has anything to lose.
Occasionally, there are instances where a pinfall is presented as being made where both wrestlers' shoulders were on the mat for the three-count. This situation will most likely lead to a draw, and in some cases a continuation of the match or a future match to determine the winner.
Submission
To score by submission, the performer must make their opponent give up, usually by putting them in a submission hold (e.g. figure four leg-lock, arm-lock, sleeper-hold).
A performer may appear to voluntarily submit by verbally informing the referee (usually used in moves such as the Mexican Surfboard, where all four limbs are incapacitated, making tapping impossible). Since Ken Shamrock popularized it in 1997, a wrestler can indicate a voluntary submission by "tapping out", that is, tapping a free hand against the mat or against an opponent. Submission was initially a large factor in professional wrestling, but following the decline of the submission-oriented catch-as-catch-can style from mainstream professional wrestling, the submission largely faded. Despite this, some wrestlers, such as Chris Jericho, Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Kurt Angle, Ken Shamrock, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Bryan Danielson, and Tazz, became famous for their fictional depictions of winning matches via submission. A wrestler with a signature submission technique is portrayed as better at applying the hold, making it more painful or more difficult to get out of than others, or can be falsely credited as inventing the hold (such as when Tazz popularized the kata ha jime judo choke in pro wrestling as the "Tazzmission").
Under wrestling nominal rules, all contact between the wrestlers must cease if any part of the body is touching or underneath the ropes. As such, many performances will attempt to break submission holds by deliberately grabbing the bottom ropes. This is called a "rope break", and it is one of the most common ways to break a submission hold. Most holds leave an arm or leg free, so that the person can tap out if they want. Instead, they use these free limbs to either grab one of the ring ropes or drape their foot across or underneath one. Once this has been accomplished and witnessed by the referee, the referee will demand that the offending wrestler break the hold and start counting to five if the wrestler does not. If the referee reaches the count of five and the wrestler still does not break the hold, they are disqualified.
If a manager decides that their wrestler presented as their client should tap out, but cannot convince the wrestler to do so, they may "throw in the towel" (by literally taking a gym towel and hurling it into the ring where the referee can see it). This is the same as a submission, as in kayfabe the manager is considered the wrestler's agent and therefore authorized to make formal decisions (such as forfeiting a match) on the client's behalf.
Knockout
Some wrestling performances are presented as resulting in a knockout, mirroring legitimate martial arts and concluding with a technical knockout or technical submission. To determine if a wrestler has passed out in WWE, the referee usually picks up and drops his hand. If it drops to the mat or floor one or three consecutive times without the wrestler having the strength to hold it up, the wrestler is considered to have passed out.
A performer can also be presented as winning by technical knockout even if he does not resort to submission holds, but still beats the opponent to the point of unconsciousness or to the impossibility to defend himself. To check for a technical knockout in this manner a referee would wave his hand in front of the wrestler's face and, if this produces no reaction of any kind, the referee would award the victory to the other wrestler.
A wrestler can also request a ten-count from the referee when, under the event's fictional premise, they think an opponent is sufficiently incapacitated to not be able to stand before the count of ten. Except in traditional European promotions where following down on a fallen opponent was prohibited, these knockouts are rarely used or mentioned as logically it makes more sense for a wrestler to actively pin an opponent for three seconds rather than leaving an opponent the chance to stand up before ten. In such European promotions, countouts as described below are treated as a variant of a knockout.
Countout
A performance can be depicted as ending in a countout (alternatively "count-out" or "count out"), where wrestler is out of the ring long enough for the referee to count to ten (twenty in some promotions) and thus, under the event's fictional premise, is disqualified. The count is broken and restarted when a wrestler in the ring exits the ring. Playing into this, some wrestlers are depicted as "milking" the count by sliding in the ring and immediately sliding back out. As he was technically inside the ring for a split second before exiting again, it is sufficient to restart the count. This is often referred to by commentators as "breaking the count". Heels often use this tactic in order to buy themselves more time to catch their breath, or to attempt to frustrate their babyface opponents.
If all the active wrestlers in a match are down inside the ring at the same time, the referee begins a count (usually ten seconds, twenty in Japan). If nobody rises to their feet by the end of the count, the match is ruled a draw. Any participant who stands up in time ends the count for everyone else, while in a Last Man Standing match this form of a countout is the only way that the match can end, so the referee counts when one or more wrestlers are down and one wrestler standing up before the 10-count does not stop the count for another wrestler who is still down.
In most major modern promotions, championships are not permitted to change hands via a countout, unless the on-screen authority figure declares otherwise; this rule varies in some promotions, however. In some storylines, heels are presented take advantage of this and will intentionally get counted out when facing difficult opponents while defending championships.
Disqualification
Disqualification (sometimes abbreviated as "DQ") occurs when a wrestler violates the rules established as part of the performance's fictional premise, thus losing automatically. Although a countout can technically be considered a disqualification (as it is, for all intents and purposes, an automatic loss suffered as a result of violating a match rule), the two concepts are often distinct in wrestling. A no disqualification match can still end by countout (although this is rare). Typically, a match must be declared a "no holds barred" match, a "street fight" or some other term, in order for both disqualifications and countouts to be waived.
Disqualification from a match is called when the fictional storyline involves:
Performing any illegal holds or maneuvers, such as refusing to break a hold when an opponent is in the ropes, hair-pulling, choking or biting an opponent, or repeatedly punching with a closed fist. These violations are usually subject to a referee-administered five count and will result in disqualification if the wrestler does not cease the offending behavior in time. Note that the ban on closed fists does not apply if the attacker is in midair when the punch connects, like with Jerry Lawler's diving fist drop or Roman Reigns's Superman Punch.
Deliberate injury of an opponent, such as attacking an opponent's eye, such as raking it, poking it, gouging it, punching it or other severe attacks to the eye. This was imposed when Sexy Star was disqualified for a legitimate injury on Rosemary at AAA Triplemanía XXV by popping her arm out of the socket. This type of disqualification can also be grounds for stripping a wrestler of a championship, as AAA overturned the result of that AAA Women's Championship match, stripping her of the title.
Any outside interference involving a person not involved in the match striking or holding a wrestler. Sometimes (depending on the promotion and uniqueness of the situation), if a heel attempts to interfere but is ejected from the ring by a wrestler or referee before this occurs, there may not be a disqualification (All Elite Wrestling is known to use ejections, as AEW referees Earl Hebner and Aubrey Edwards have ejected numerous wrestlers during events, all for outside interference). In this disqualification method, the wrestler being attacked by the foreign member is awarded the win. Sometimes this can work in heels' favor. In February 2009, Shawn Michaels, who was under the kayfabe employment of John "Bradshaw" Layfield, interfered in a match and super kicked JBL in front of the referee to get his employer the win via "outside interference".
Striking an opponent with a foreign object (an object not permitted by the rules of the match; see hardcore wrestling). Sometimes the win decision can be reversed if the referee spots the weapon before pin attempt or after the match because a wrestler tried to strike when the referee was either distracted or knocked out.
Using any kind of "banned" move (see below for details).
A direct low blow to the groin (unless the rules of the match specifically allow this).
Intentionally laying hands on the referee.
Pulling an opponent's mask off during a match (this is illegal in Mexico, and sometimes in Japan).
Throwing an opponent over the top rope during a match (illegal in the National Wrestling Alliance).
In a mixed tag team match, a male wrestler hitting a female wrestler (intergender), or a normal sized wrestler attacking an opposing midget wrestler (tag team matches involving teams with one normal-sized and one midget wrestler).
In the fictional universe of some promotions, not all rule violations result in a disqualification as the referee may be depicted as using his own judgement and is not obligated to stop the match. Usually, the only offenses that the referee will see and immediately disqualify a wrestler for (as opposed to having multiple offenses) are low blows, weapon usage, interference, or assaulting the referee. In WWE, the plot convention is that a referee must see the violation with his own eyes to rule that the match end in a disqualification (simply watching the video tape is usually not enough) and the referee's ruling is almost always final, although "Dusty finishes" (named after, and made famous by, Dusty Rhodes) will often result in the referee's decision being overturned. It is not uncommon for the referees themselves to get knocked out during a match, which is commonly referred to by the term "ref bump". While the referee remains "unconscious", wrestlers are free to violate rules until he is revived or replaced. In some cases, a referee might disqualify a person under the presumption that it was that wrestler who knocked him out; most referee knockouts are arranged to allow a wrestler, usually a heel, to gain an advantage. For example, a wrestler may get whipped into a referee at a slower speed, knocking the ref down for short amount of time; during that interim period, one wrestler may pin his opponent for a three-count and would have won the match but for the referee being down (sometimes, another referee will sprint to the ring from backstage to attempt to make the count, but by then, the other wrestler has had enough time to kick out on his own accord). In most promotions, a championship title cannot normally change hands via disqualification; this rule is explicitly enforced in a title match under special circumstances.
In traditional European promotions, severe or persistent infractions of the rules result in a formal caution, called a "public warning" in the U.K., "avertissement" (warning) in France and a soccer-style yellow card in Germany. Three of these will result in disqualification (a red card in Germany). One major North American promotion – Stampede Wrestling of Calgary – also used the German card system from the late 1970s onward.
If all participants in a match continue to breach the referee's instructions, the staged performance may presented as ending in a double disqualification, where both wrestlers and/or teams (in a tag team match) have been disqualified. The match is essentially nullified and called a draw or in some cases a restart or the same match being held at a pay-per-view or next night's show. Sometimes, in a match to determine the challenger for a heel champion's title, the champion is forced to face both opponents simultaneously for the title. Usually, the double disqualification is caused by the heel wrestler's associates in a match between two face wrestlers to determine his opponent.
Forfeit
Although extremely rare, some fictional storylines involve a match ending in a forfeit if the opponent is depicted as either does not show up for the match, or shows up but refuses to compete. Although the plot premise is that championship usually cannot change hands except by pinfall or submission, a forfeit victory is enough to crown a new champion. A famous example of this happened on the December 8, 1997, episode of Raw is War, when Stone Cold Steve Austin handed the WWE Intercontinental Championship to The Rock after refusing to defend the title.
When a pay-per-view match is booked and one wrestler is unable to make it for one reason or another, the genre convention is to insert a last-minute replacement rather than award a wrestler a victory by forfeit. Forfeit victories are almost always reserved for when the story the promotion is telling specifically requires such an ending.
Despite being, statistically, an extremely rare occurrence, Charles Wright is one wrestler who is famous performances in which forfeit victories were turned into his own gimmick. During the late 1990s, Wright called himself "The Godfather" and portrayed the gimmick of a pimp. He often brought multiple women, whom he referred to as "hos", to the ring with him, and offered them to his opponents in exchange for their forfeit.
Draw
A professional wrestling match can be depicted as ending in a draw. A draw occurs if both opponents are simultaneously disqualified (e.g. Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker at Unforgiven in 2002), neither opponent is able to answer a ten-count (e.g. Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H at the Royal Rumble in 2004), or both opponents simultaneously win the match. The latter can occur if, for example, both wrestlers pin each other (e.g. MJF vs. Adam Cole at All In in 2023, before the match was restarted), or one competitor scores a submission victory while the other scores a pinfall victory (e.g. Kurt Angle being pinned while successfully applying the triangle choke to The Undertaker on a 2002 episode of SmackDown). Traditionally, a championship may not change hands in the event of a draw.
A variant of the draw is the time-limit draw, where the match does not have a winner by a specified time period; a one-hour draw, which was once common, is known in wrestling circles as a "Broadway". In European promotions where wrestling is traditionally timed in rounds, a best of three falls match is stopped and declared a one-fall-each draw if an equalizing pinfall or submission is scored in the final round.
No contest
A wrestling match may be declared a no contest if, under the fictional storyline, the winning conditions are unable to occur. The storyline may attribute such an outcome to factors such as excessive interference, the loss of referee's control over the match, an injury unrelated to the fictitious storyline, or other fictional circumstances presenting the scheduled match to even begin. A no contest is a state separate and distinct from a draw — a draw indicates winning conditions were met. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in practice, this usage is technically incorrect.
Other dramatic elements
While each wrestling match is ostensibly a competition of athletics and strategy, the goal from a business standpoint is to excite and entertain the audience. Although the competition is staged, dramatic emphasis draws out the most intense reaction. Heightened interest results in higher attendance, increased ticket sales, higher ratings on television broadcasts (greater ad revenue), higher pay-per-view buyrates, and sales of branded merchandise and recorded video footage. All of these contribute to the profit of the promotion company.
Character gimmicks
In Latin America and English-speaking countries, most wrestlers (and other on-stage performers) portray character roles, sometimes with personalities wildly different from their own. These personalities are a gimmick intended to heighten interest in a wrestler without regard to athletic ability. Some can be unrealistic and cartoon-like (such as Doink the Clown), while others carry more verisimilitude (such as Chris Jericho, The Rock, John Cena, Steve Austin, and CM Punk). In lucha libre, many characters wear masks, adopting a secret identity akin to a superhero or a supervillain, a near-sacred tradition.
An individual wrestler may use their real name, or a minor variation of it, for much of their career, such as Bret Hart, John Cena and Randy Orton. Others can keep one ring name for their entire career (Shawn Michaels, CM Punk and Ricky Steamboat), or may change from time to time to better suit the demands of the audience or company. Sometimes a character is owned and trademarked by the company, forcing the wrestler to find a new one when he leaves (although a simple typeset change, such as changing Rhyno to Rhino, can get around this), and sometimes a character is owned by the wrestler. Sometimes, a wrestler may change their legal name to obtain ownership of their ring name (Andrew Martin and Warrior). Many wrestlers (such as The Rock and The Undertaker) are strongly identified with their character, even responding to the name in public or between friends. Proper decorum is for wrestlers to refer to each other by their stage names/characters rather than their birth/legal names, unless otherwise introduced. A character can become so popular that it appears in other media (Hulk Hogan and El Santo) or even gives the performer enough visibility to enter politics (Antonio Inoki and Jesse Ventura).
Typically, matches are staged between a protagonist (historically an audience favorite, known as a babyface, or "the good guy") and an antagonist (historically a villain with arrogance, a tendency to break rules, or other unlikable qualities, called a heel, or "the bad guy"). In recent years, antiheroes have also become prominent in professional wrestling. There is also a less common role of a "tweener", who is neither fully face nor fully heel yet able to play either role effectively (case in point, Samoa Joe during his first run in Impact Wrestling from June 2005 to November 2006).
At times, a character may "turn", altering their face/heel alignment. This may be an abrupt, surprising event, or it may slowly build over time. It is almost always accomplished with a markable change in behavior. Some turns become defining points in a career, as when Hulk Hogan turned heel after being a top face for over a decade. Others may have no noticeable effect on the character's status. If a character repeatedly switches between face and heel, this lessens the effect of such turns, and may result in apathy from the audience. Big Show is a good example of having more heel and face turns than anyone in WWE history. Sometimes a character's heel turn will become so popular that eventually the audience response will alter the character's heel-face cycle to the point where the heel persona will, in practice, become a face persona, and what was previously the face persona, will turn into the heel persona, such as when Dwayne Johnson first began using "The Rock" persona as a heel character, as opposed to his original "Rocky Maivia" babyface persona. Another legendary example is Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was originally booked as a heel, with such mannerisms as drinking on the job, using profanity, breaking company property, and even breaking into people's private homes. The fans' response to Austin was so positive that he effectively became one of the most popular antiheroes in professional wrestling. Austin, along with the stable of D-Generation X, Bret Hart and his Hart Foundation, is generally credited with ushering the Attitude Era of WWF programming.
Story
While real exhibition matches are now not uncommon, most matches tell a story analogous to an episode of a serial drama: the face will from time to time win (triumph) or from time to time lose (tragedy), and longer story arcs can result from a couple of matches. Since most promotions have a championship title, opposition for the championship is a frequent impetus for stories. For added stakes, anything from a character's own hair to their job can be wagered in a match.
Some matches are designed to further the story of only one participant. It could be intended to portray an unstoppable force, a lucky underdog, a sore loser, or any other characterization. Sometimes non-wrestling vignettes are shown to enhance a character's image without the need for matches.
Other stories result from a natural rivalry. Outside of performance, these are referred to as feuds. A feud can exist between any number of participants and can last from a few days to decades. The feud between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat lasted from the late 1970s into the early 1990s and allegedly spanned over two thousand matches (although most of those matches were mere dark matches). The career-spanning history between characters Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka is another example of a long-running feud, as is the case of Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon, one of the most lucrative feuds in the World Wrestling Federation during 1998 and 1999.
In theory, the longer a feud is built up, the more audience interest (aka heat) lasts. The main event of a wrestling show is generally the most heated. Commonly, a heel will hold the upper hand over a face until a final showdown, heightening dramatic tension as the face's fans desire to see them win.
Throughout the history of professional wrestling, many other elements of media have been utilized in professional wrestling storytelling: pre- and post-match interviews, "backstage" skits, positions of authority and worked behind-the-scenes feuds, division rankings (typically the #1-contendership spot), contracts, lotteries, news stories on websites, and in recent years social media.
Anything that can be used as an element of drama can exist in professional wrestling stories: romantic relationships (including love triangles and marriage), racism, classism, nepotism, favoritism, corporate corruption, family bonds, personal histories, grudges, theft, cheating, assault, betrayal, bribery, seduction, stalking, confidence tricks, extortion, blackmail, substance abuse, self-doubt, self-sacrifice; even kidnapping, sexual fetishism, necrophilia, misogyny, rape and death have been portrayed in wrestling. Some promotions have included supernatural elements such as magic, curses, the undead and Satanic imagery (most notably the Undertaker and his Ministry of Darkness, a stable that regularly performed evil rituals and human sacrifice in Satanic-like worship of a hidden power figure).
Commentators have become important in communicating the relevance of the characters' actions to the story at hand, filling in past details and pointing out subtle actions that may otherwise go unnoticed.
Promos
A main part of storytelling in wrestling is a promo, short for promotional interview. Promos are performed, or "cut" in wrestling jargon, for a variety of reasons, including to heighten interest in a wrestler, or to hype an upcoming match.
Since the crowd is often too loud or the venue too large for promos to be heard naturally, wrestlers generally use amplification when speaking in the ring. Unlike most stage acting, large and highly visible handheld microphones are typically used and wrestlers frequently speak directly to the audience.
Championships
Professional wrestling mimics the structure of title match combat sports. Participants compete for a championship and must defend it after winning it. These titles are represented physically by a title belt that can be worn by the champion. In the case of team wrestling, there is a title belt for each member of the team.
Almost all professional wrestling promotions have at least one title, and some have more. Championships are designated by divisions of weight, height, gender, wrestling style and other qualifications.
Typically, each promotion only recognizes the "legitimacy" of their own titles, although cross-promotion does happen. When one promotion absorbs or purchases another, the titles from the defunct promotion may continue to be defended in the new promotion or be decommissioned. Behind the scenes, the bookers in a company will place the title on the most accomplished performer, or those the bookers believe will generate fan interest in terms of event attendance and television viewership. Historically, a world champion was typically a legit shooter/hooker who had the skills to prevent double crosses by shooters who would deviate from the planned finish for personal glory. Lower ranked titles may also be used on the performers who show potential, thus allowing them greater exposure to the audience. Other circumstances may also determine the use of a championship. A combination of a championship's lineage, the caliber of performers as champion, and the frequency and manner of title changes, dictates the audience's perception of the title's quality, significance and reputation.
A wrestler's championship accomplishments can be central to their career, becoming a measure of their performance ability and drawing power. In general, a wrestler with multiple title reigns or an extended title reign is indicative of a wrestler's ability to maintain audience interest or a wrestler's ability to perform in the ring. As such, the most accomplished or decorated wrestlers tend to be revered as legends due to the amount of title reigns they hold. American wrestler Ric Flair has had multiple world heavyweight championship reigns spanning over three decades. Japanese wrestler Último Dragón once held and defended a record ten titles simultaneously.
Ring entrance
While the wrestling matches themselves are the primary focus of professional wrestling, a key dramatic element of the business can be entrances of the wrestlers to the arena and ring. It is typical for a wrestler to get their biggest crowd reaction (or "pop") for their ring entrance, rather than for anything they do in the wrestling match itself, especially if former main event stars are returning to a promotion after a long absence.
All notable wrestlers now enter the ring accompanied by music, and regularly add other elements to their entrance. The music played during the ring entrance will usually mirror the wrestler's personality. Many wrestlers, particularly in the U.S., have music and lyrics specially written for their ring entrance. While invented long before, the practice of including music with the entrance gained rapid popularity during the 1980s, largely as a result of the huge success of Hulk Hogan and the WWF, and their Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection. When a match is won, the victor's theme music is usually also played in celebration.
Because wrestling is predetermined, a wrestler's entrance music will play as they enter the arena, even if they are, in kayfabe, not supposed to be there. For example, in 2012 through 2014, The Shield was a trio of wrestlers who were (in kayfabe) not at the time under contract with WWE (hence their gimmick of entering the ring through the crowd), but they still had entrance music which was played whenever they entered the arena, despite the fact that they were kayfabe invaders.
With the introduction of the Titantron entrance screen in 1997, WWF wrestlers also had entrance videos play along with their music.
Other dramatic elements of a ring entrance can include:
Pyrotechnics such as a ring of fire for The Brood when they ascend to the stage, multi-colour fireworks (most notably for Edge), fire for Kane and Seth Rollins, a stage of smoke for Finn Bálor and (for a short period of time) falling fireworks for Christian Cage.
Additional visual graphics or staging props to complement the entrance video/routine or further emphasize the character. For instance, Kane's entrance graphics employ heavy use of fire-themed visuals, The Undertaker's entrance features dark lighting, fire, fog and dry ice, and lightning-themed effects, and Goldust has been known to use on-screen visual effects in his entrance to simulate the presentation of a feature film (i.e. widescreen, production company credits), as to emphasize his Hollywood-themed film aficionado character. Adam Page is usually accompanied by humerous sub-headings such as "Anxious Millenial Cowboy", "New Boot Goofin'", "Finally Showed Up To Work", and "For The Love Of God, Give Me A Lower Third This Week Even If It's For 1 Frame".
A distinct sound or opening note in the music (used to elicit a Pavlovian response from the crowd). For example, the glass shattering in Steve Austin's entrance theme, The Undertaker's signature bell toll, sirens, such as used by Scott Steiner or Right to Censor, Bret Hart's electric guitar stinger, the NYSE trading bell and a cow's moo in JBL's theme.
Darkening of the arena, often accompanied by mood lighting or strobe lighting, such as in The Undertaker's, Triple H's, or Sting's entrances. Certain colors of lighting have been associated with specific wrestlers; for instance, blue lighting for The Undertaker and Alexa Bliss, green lighting for Triple H, D-Generation X, and Shane McMahon, a mixture of red and yellow lighting for Brock Lesnar, a lot of red for Seth Rollins (mainly for his "Embrace The Vision" character, a.k.a when using his theme named "Visionary"), a mixture of red and orange lighting for Kane, multicolored lighting for John Morrison, gold lighting for Goldust, pink lighting for Val Venis and Trish Stratus, and so forth.
Driving a vehicle into the arena. For example, Eddie Guerrero arrived in a lowrider, The Undertaker (in his "American Bad Ass" biker gimmick), Chuck Palumbo, Tara, and the Disciples of Apocalypse on motorcycles, The Mexicools on riding lawn mowers, JBL in his limousine, Alberto Del Rio arriving into the arena in various luxury cars, Steve Austin driving an all-terrain vehicle, and Camacho and Hunico entering on a lowrider bicycle. Darby Allin in similar fashion rides a skateboard down to the ring, which is occasionally used as a weapon if the match type permits.
Talking to the crowd using a distinctive patter. For instance, chanting or rapping along with the music (i.e. Road Dogg, R-Truth). Another example is Vickie Guerrero entering to no music, but announcing her arrival with the words "Excuse me!". The Acclaimed's Max Caster will perform a freestyle rap, usually at the expense of the opponent or a real life figure that has been brought up in recent news.
Alternative forms of announcing one's entrance. Orange Cassidy, whose persona is a carefree individual, has his weight billed as "whatever", and being billed from "wherever". In similar fashion, Danhausen (wrestler) is billed as "claiming to stand 6 ft 7 in. tall, and over 300 lbs", despite being nowhere near either of those statistics. Mr. Kennedy would enter with his theme music, but would notably have a microphone descend from the ceiling when he reached the ring, where he would announce himself, rather than the traditional announcer. Maxwell Jacob Friedman during his heel persona would occasionally have the announcer begrudgingly announce him as "He's better than you, and you know it...", generally after a large victory for the character, or being surrounded by henchman of his that threaten to harm the announcer if they do not read off the card verbatim.
Many heels with narcissistic gimmicks (Lex Luger, Shawn Michaels, Cody Rhodes, Paul Orndorff, etc.) admired themselves in mirrors on their way to the ring.
Coming through the audience, such as The Sandman's beer drinking and can smashing entrance, or Diamond Dallas Page's exit through the crowd, or Jon Moxley entering through the crowd.
Accompaniment by a ringside crew or personal security, as Goldberg did.
Entering the arena by a lift in the stage, such as Kurt Angle, The Brood and Rey Mysterio.
Special ring entrances are also developed for big occasions, most notably the WrestleMania event. For example, WrestleMania III and VI both saw all wrestlers enter the arena on motorized miniature wrestling rings. Live bands are sometimes hired to perform live entrance music at special events. John Cena and Triple H are particularly notable in recent years for their highly theatrical entrances at WrestleMania.
Subgenres
Women's wrestling
The women's division of professional wrestling has maintained a recognized world champion since 1937, when Mildred Burke won the original World Women's title. She then formed the World Women's Wrestling Association in the early 1950s and recognized herself as the first champion, although the championship was vacated upon her retirement in 1956. The NWA ceased to acknowledge Burke as the Women's World champion in 1954, and instead acknowledged June Byers as champion after a controversial finish to a high-profile match between Burke and Byers that year. Upon Byers's retirement in 1964, The Fabulous Moolah, who won a junior heavyweight version of the NWA World Women's Championship (the predecessor to the WWE Women's Championship) in a tournament back in 1958, was recognized by most NWA promoters as champion by default.
Intergender
For most of its history, men and women rarely worked against each other in professional wrestling, as it was deemed to be unfair and unchivalrous. Andy Kaufman used this to gain notoriety when he created an Intergender Championship and declared it open to any female challenger. This led to a long (worked) feud with Jerry Lawler.
Cathy Davis sued the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) in 1977 because she was denied a boxing license because she was a woman, and the case was decided in her favor later that year, with the judge
invalidating New York State rule number 205.15, which stated, "No woman may be licensed as a boxer or second or licensed to compete in any wrestling exhibition with men." In his opinion the judge cited the precedent set by Garrett v. New York State Athletic Commission (1975), which "found the regulation invalid under the equal protection clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions". The NYSAC filed an appeal of the ruling, but later dropped it.
In the 1980s, mixed tag team matches began to take place, with a male and female on each team and a rule stating that each wrestler could only attack the opponent of the same gender. If a tag was made, the other team had to automatically switch their legal wrestler as well. Despite these restrictions, many mixed tag matches do feature some physical interaction between participants of different genders. For example, a heel may take a cheap shot at the female wrestler of the opposing team to draw a negative crowd reaction. In lucha libre, cheap shots and male-female attacks are not uncommon.
Intergender singles bouts were first fought on a national level in the 1990s. This began with Luna Vachon, who faced men in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and WWF. Later, Chyna became the first female to hold a belt that was not exclusive to women when she won the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Intergender wrestling was uncommon in Impact Wrestling. ODB, had participated in intergender matches and once held the Impact Knockouts Tag Team Championship with Eric Young for a record 478 days. Other notable Impact Knockouts that competed in intergender matches include Scarlett Bordeaux; Tessa Blanchard, who became the first woman to win the Impact World Championship; and Jordynne Grace, who became the inaugural Impact Digital Media Championship.
Midget wrestling
Midget wrestling can be traced to professional wrestling's carnival and vaudeville origins. In recent years, the popularity and prevalence of midgets in wrestling has greatly decreased due to wrestling companies depriving midget divisions of storyline or feud. WWE has made a few attempts to enter this market with their "minis" in the 1990s and the "junior's league" as recent as 2006. It is still a popular form of entertainment in Mexican wrestling, mostly as a "sideshow".
Some wrestlers may have their own specific "mini me", like Mascarita Sagrada, Alebrije has Quije, etc. There are also cases in which midgets can become valets for a wrestler, and even get physically involved in matches, like Alushe, who often accompanies Tinieblas, or KeMonito, who is portrayed as Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre's mascot and is also a valet for Mistico. Dave Finlay was often aided in his matches by a midget known mainly as Hornswoggle while in WWE, who hid under the ring and gave a shillelagh to Finlay to use on his opponent. Finlay also occasionally threw him at his opponents. Hornswoggle was given a run with the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and feuded with D-X in 2009.
Sports entertainment
The term sports entertainment was coined by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) chairman Vince McMahon during the 1980s as a marketing term to describe the industry of professional wrestling, primarily to potential advertisers, although precursors date back to February 1935, when Toronto Star sports editor Lou Marsh described professional wrestling as "sportive entertainment". In 1989, the WWF used the phrase in a case it made to the New Jersey Senate for classifying professional wrestling as "sports entertainment" and thus not subject to regulation like a directly competitive sport.
In subsequent years, WWE began to insist that its talent use "sports entertainment", and not "pro wrestling", to describe its business, to the point that the term was sometimes used in other promotions to generate heat. WWE moved away from this insistence in 2024 after Vince McMahon's departure from the company, but still uses "sports entertainment" in some contexts.
Despite its association with WWE, the term "sports entertainment" is not inherently limited to pro wrestling, and can also encompass other forms of sports-based events. Many represent variants of actual sports, such as exhibition basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. Others modify sport for entertainment purposes, such as many of the various mascot races held at numerous Major League Baseball games in-between innings. Roller derby was presented as a popular form of sports entertainment in the 1970s, though modern versions are legitimate competition.
Regional variations
The U.S./Canada, northwest Europe (the U.K, Germany/Austria and France), Japan and Mexico are four areas worldwide where there is a huge market and high popularity for professional wrestling, but the fictional styles of each region are different, given their independent development for a long period.
Professional wrestling in the U.S. and overlapping into Canada, tends to have a heavy focus on story building and the establishment of characters (and their personalities). There is a story for each match, and even a longer story for successive matches. The stories usually contain characters like faces, heels, and – less often – "tweeners" (antiheroes). It is a "triumph" if the face wins, while it is a "tragedy" if the heel wins. The characters usually have strong and sharp personalities. The opposition between faces and heels is very intense in the story, and the heels may even attack the faces during TV interviews. The relationship between different characters can also be very complex.
Although professional wrestling in Mexico (Lucha libre) also has stories and characters, they are less emphasized. Mexican professional wrestling tradition repeats very usually brutal tactics, specially more aerial holds than professional wrestlers in the U.S. who, more often, rely on power moves and strikes to subdue their opponents. The difference in styles is due to the independent evolution of the sport in Mexico beginning in the 1930s and the fact that wrestlers in the cruiserweight division (Spanish: peso semicompleto) are often the most popular wrestlers in Mexican lucha libre. Wrestlers often execute high flying moves characteristic of lucha libre by utilizing the wrestling ring's ropes to catapult themselves towards their opponents, using intricate combinations in rapid-fire succession, and applying complex submission holds. Lucha libre is also known for its tag team wrestling matches, in which the teams are often made up of three members, instead of two as is common in the U.S.
The style of Japanese professional wrestling (puroresu) is also different. With its origins in traditional American style of wrestling and still being under the same genre, it has become an entity in itself. Despite the similarity to its American counterpart, in that the outcome of the matches remains predetermined, the phenomena are different in the form of the psychology and presentation of the sport. In most of the largest promotions, such as New Japan Pro-Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Noah, it is treated as a full contact combat sport as it mixes hard hitting martial arts strikes with shoot style submission holds, while in the U.S. it is rather more regarded as an entertainment show. Wrestlers incorporate kicks and strikes from martial arts disciplines, and a strong emphasis is placed on submission wrestling, and unlike the use of involved storylines in the U.S., they are not as intricate in Japan; more emphasis is placed on the concept of "fighting spirit", meaning the wrestlers' display of physical and mental stamina are valued a lot more than theatrics. Many of Japan's wrestlers including top stars such as Shinya Hashimoto, Riki Chōshū and Keiji Mutoh came from a legitimate martial arts background and many Japanese wrestlers in the 1990s began to pursue careers in mixed martial arts organizations such as Pancrase and Shooto which at the time retained the original look of puroresu but were actual competitions. Other companies, such as Michinoku Pro Wrestling and Dragon Gate, wrestle in a style similar to Mexican companies like AAA and CMLL. This is known as "Lucharesu".
Much of the more serious style of Japanese wrestling derives from wrestling in Europe, particularly the influence of the traditional style of British wrestling with its stronger emphasis on pure technical skill (particularly chain sequences of counters/reversals/escapes from holds) and high proportion of clean sportsmanly scientific matches between two "blue-eyes" as babyfaces were called there. This spread across mainland Europe (where it was known as "Catch" in non English speaking countries) but in the Mediterranean south it soon died out after an initial flush of popularity, leaving the U.K., France and West Germany/Austria as the three strongholds of European wrestling by the 1980s. In Germany, wrestling shows - particularly major trophy tournaments in Graz, Hamburg, Bremen, Vienna and other cities featuring visiting wrestlers from around the world - were a key part of the celebrations of various cultural festivals. Champion and promoter Otto Wanz maintained strong links with American promotions, frequently importing U.S. talent and even briefly winning the AWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1982. Meanwhile, in both the U.K. and France, national television coverage from the 1950s to the late 1980s made household names of top stars. In the U.K. in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the dominant Joint Promotions underwent a major boom by rebranding as family entertainment centred around superheavyweight lead blue-eye Big Daddy. Eventually however the sheer lopsided nature of his victories over heels alienated fellow wrestlers and adult fans alike to the point where both groups defected in droves to opposition promoter All Star Wrestling which expanded (taking a share of the final two years of TV coverage) until it eclipsed Joint as dominant promotion, a position it still holds in 2024. During the same period, professional wrestling in France moved to a more acrobatic style of action and colourful gimmick-led presentation, as exemplified by lead babyface Flesh Gordon (Gerard Hervé) who had learned his craft in 1970s Mexico. By the beginning of the 1990s in all three countries, local styles of wrestling were largely supplanted in mainstream popular culture by the WWF and WCW. While the traditional styles survive at grassroots level they face stiff competition not only from the major American wrestling corporations but also from homegrown "American style" promotions conforming to the general pattern of the contemporary U.S. independent wrestling scene.
Culture and sociology
Professional wrestling has developed its own unique culture.
Those involved in producing professional wrestling have developed a kind of global fraternity, with familial bonds, shared language and passed-down traditions. New performers are expected to "pay their dues" for a few years by working in lower-profile promotions and working as ring crew before working their way upward. The permanent rosters of most promotions develop a backstage pecking order, with veterans mediating conflicts and mentoring younger wrestlers. For many decades (and still to a lesser extent today) performers were expected to keep the illusions of wrestling's legitimacy alive even while not performing, essentially acting in character any time they were in public. Some veterans speak of a "sickness" among wrestling performers, an inexplicable pull to remain active in the wrestling world despite the devastating effects the job can have on one's life and health.
Fans of professional wrestling have their own subculture, comparable to those of science fiction, video games, or comic books. Those who are interested in the backstage occurrences, future storylines and reasonings behind company decisions read newsletters written by journalists with inside ties to the wrestling industry. These "rags" or "dirt sheets" have expanded into the Internet, where their information can be dispensed on an up-to-the-minute basis. Some have expanded into radio shows.
Some fans enjoy a pastime of collecting recordings of wrestling shows from specific companies, of certain wrestlers, or of specific genres. The internet has given fans exposure to worldwide variations of wrestling they are unable to otherwise see. Since the 1990s, many companies have been founded which deal primarily in wrestling footage. When the WWE purchased both WCW and ECW in 2001, they also obtained the entire past video libraries of both productions and have released many past matches online and on home video.
Like some other sports, fantasy leagues have developed around professional wrestling. Some take this concept further by creating E-feds (electronic federations), where a user can create their own fictional wrestling character, and role-playing storylines with other users, leading to scheduled "shows" where match results are determined by the organizers, usually based on a combination of the characters' statistics and the players' roleplaying aptitude, sometimes with audience voting.
Mainstream popularity
From the first established world championship, the top professional wrestlers have garnered fame within mainstream society. Each successive generation has produced a number of wrestlers who extend their careers into the realms of music, acting, writing, business, politics or public speaking, and are known to those who are unfamiliar with wrestling in general. Conversely, celebrities from other sports or general pop culture also become involved with wrestling for brief periods of time. A prime example of this is The Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection of the 1980s, which combined wrestling with MTV.
Professional wrestling is often portrayed within other works using parody, and its general elements have become familiar tropes and memes in American culture.
Some terminology originating in professional wrestling has found its way into the common vernacular. Phrases such as "body slam", "sleeper hold" and "tag team" are used by those who do not follow professional wrestling. The term "smackdown", popularized by The Rock and SmackDown! in the 1990s, has been included in Merriam-Webster dictionaries since 2007.
Many television shows and films have been produced which portray in-character professional wrestlers as protagonists, such as Ready to Rumble, ¡Mucha Lucha!, Nacho Libre, and the Santo film series. At least two stage plays set in the world of pro wrestling have been produced: The Baron is a comedy that retells the life of an actual performer known as Baron von Raschke. From Parts Unknown... is an award-nominated Canadian drama about the rise and fall of a fictional wrestler. The 2009 South Park episode "W.T.F." played on the soap operatic elements of professional wrestling. One of the lead characters on the Disney Channel series Kim Possible was a huge fan of pro wrestling and actually featured it on an episode (with two former WWE wrestlers voicing the two fictitious wrestlers featured in the episode). The 2008 film The Wrestler, about a washed-up professional wrestler, garnered several Oscar nominations. The 2017 TV series GLOW, based on the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling promotion, gained critical acclaim, including a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Many professional wrestlers have also become mainstream in their own right, including John Cena, Dave Bautista, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, mainly for acting in major films, as well as Chris Jericho and "Macho Man" Randy Savage for their musical ventures.
The 1950 film noir Night and the City, directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney, told the story of a promoter in London trying to make it big, and featured a match involving real professional wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko.
Wrestling has also gained a major following on YouTube, with WWE being the most subscribed wrestling channel and sixth most subscribed channel in the world. Other promotions, such as All Elite Wrestling, Major League Wrestling, Impact Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance have distributed their own weekly programming on the platform.
Measures of popularity
Professional wrestling has become especially prominent in North America, Japan and Europe (especially the United Kingdom). In Brazil, there was a very popular wrestling television program that aired from the 1960s to the early 1980s called Telecatch. High-profile figures in the sport have become celebrities and even cultural icons in their home countries.
Although professional wrestling started out as a small sideshow in traveling circuses and carnivals, today it is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Revenue is drawn from ticket sales, network television broadcasts, pay-per-view broadcasts, branded merchandise and home video. Wrestling was instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery. Annual shows such as WrestleMania, All In, Bound for Glory, Wrestle Kingdom and formerly Starrcade are among the highest-selling pay-per-view programming each year. In modern day, internet programming has been utilized by a number of companies to air web shows, internet pay per views (IPPVs) or on-demand content, helping to generate internet-related revenue earnings from the evolving World Wide Web.
Home video sales dominate the Billboard charts Recreational Sports DVD sales, with wrestling holding anywhere from 3 to 9 of the top 10 spots every week.
Due to its persistent cultural presence and to its novelty within the performing arts, wrestling constitutes a recurring topic in both academia and the media. Several documentaries have been produced looking at professional wrestling, most notably Beyond the Mat directed by Barry W. Blaustein, and Wrestling with Shadows featuring retired wrestler Bret Hart and directed by Paul Jay. There have also been many fictional depictions of wrestling; the 2008 film The Wrestler received several Oscar nominations and began a career revival for its star Mickey Rourke.
Currently, the largest professional wrestling company worldwide is the United States–based WWE, which bought out many smaller regional companies in the late 20th century, as well as primary competitors World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and ECW in early 2001. Other major companies worldwide include All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in the United States, Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) in Mexico; and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan.
Study and analysis
With its growing popularity, professional wrestling has attracted attention as a subject of serious academic study and journalistic criticism. Many courses, theses, essays and dissertations have analyzed wrestling's conventions, content, and its role in modern society. It is often included as part of studies on theater, sociology, performance, and media. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a course of study on the cultural significance of professional wrestling, and anthropologist Heather Levi has written an ethnography about the culture of lucha libre in Mexico.
In the early 20th century, once it became apparent that the "sport" was worked, pro wrestling was looked down on as a cheap entertainment for the uneducated working class, an attitude that still exists to varying degrees today. The French theorist Roland Barthes was among the first to propose that wrestling was worthy of deeper analysis, in his essay "The World of Wrestling" from his book Mythologies, first published in 1957. Barthes argued that it should be looked at not as a scamming of the ignorant, but as spectacle; a mode of theatric performance for a willing, if bloodthirsty, audience. Wrestling is described as performed art which demands an immediate reading of the juxtaposed meanings. The logical conclusion is given least importance over the theatrical performers of the wrestlers and the referee. According to Barthes, the function of a wrestler is not to win: it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him and to give the audience a theatrical spectacle. This work is considered a foundation of all later study.
While pro wrestling is often described simplistically as a "soap opera for males", it has also been cited as filling the role of past forms of literature and theater; a synthesis of classical heroics, commedia dell'arte, revenge tragedies, morality plays, and burlesque. The characters and storylines portrayed by a successful promotion are seen to reflect the current mood, attitudes, and concerns of that promotion's society and can in turn influence those same things. For example, wrestling's high levels of violence and masculinity make it a vicarious outlet for aggression during peacetime. The displays of masculinity often incorporate homoerotic elements, targeting the desires of ostensibly heterosexual male viewers.
Documentary filmmakers have studied
the lives of wrestlers and the effects the profession has on them and their families. The 1999 theatrical documentary Beyond the Mat focused on Terry Funk, a wrestler nearing retirement; Mick Foley, a wrestler within his prime; Jake Roberts, a former star fallen from grace; and a school of wrestling students trying to break into the business. The 2005 release Lipstick and Dynamite, Piss and Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling chronicled the development of women's wrestling throughout the 20th century. Pro wrestling has been featured several times on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. MTV's documentary series True Life featured two episodes titled "I'm a Professional Wrestler" and "I Want to Be a Professional Wrestler". Other documentaries have been produced by The Learning Channel (The Secret World of Professional Wrestling) and A&E (Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows). Bloodstained Memoirs explored the careers of several pro wrestlers, including Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam and Roddy Piper.
Occupational hazards
Although professional wrestling is choreographed, there is a high chance of injury, and even death. Strikes are often stiff, especially in Japan, and in independent wrestling promotions such as Combat Zone Wrestling. The ring is often made out of 2-by-12-inch (5 by 30 cm) timber planks. There have been many brutal accidents, hits and injuries. Many of the injuries that occur in pro wrestling are shoulders, knee, back, neck, and rib injuries. Professional wrestler Davey Richards said in 2015, "We train to take damage, we know we are going to take damage and we accept that."
Some wrestling performers use steroids and suffer from associated health issues. American Congressman Cliff Stearns noted that, in the period from 1985 to 2006, 89 performers had died under the age of 50. In addition to premature mortality, steroid abuse may have been a factor in the 2007 double homicide committed by wrestler Chris Benoit.
Wrestling performers frequently experience real pain during performances. The sociologist R. Tyson Smith attributes wrestlers willingness to endure occupational injury to the substantivism of their socioeconomic viewpoint. From this viewpoint, Smith argues, wrestlers are willing to accept bodily pain by both practicing denialism and the sociologic embedded desire for authenticity, solidarity, and dominance.
See also
History of professional wrestling
Independent circuit
List of professional wrestling video games
Professional wrestling moves (disambiguation)
Terminology
Glossary of professional wrestling terms
Professional wrestling match types
Professional wrestling tag team match types
Professional wrestling tournament
Lists of wrestlers
List of family relations in professional wrestling
List of professional wrestling rosters
Types of professional wrestling
All-in professional wrestling
Backyard wrestling
Fantasy wrestling
Hardcore wrestling
Lucha libre
Modern Freestyle wrestling
Puroresu
Related genres
1950s quiz show scandals
Scripted reality
Docufiction
Radio programs
Live Audio Wrestling
Talksport
Wrestling Observer Live
In fiction
List of wrestling-based comic books
GLOW
The Wrestler
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Catch: The Hold Not Taken (DVD). 2005.
Broderick Chow; Eero Laine; Claire Warden, eds. (2017). Performance and Professional Wrestling. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-93723-9.
Scott M. Beekman (2006). Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America. Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98401-X.
Nat Fleischer (1936). From Milo to Londos.
David Shoemaker (2013). The Squared Circle: Life, Death and Professional Wrestling. Penguin Group. ISBN 978-1-592-40767-5.
Henry Cejudo (2012). Wrestling for Dummies. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-22450-2.
Tim Hornbaker (2015). Capitol Revolution: The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-77090-689-1.
Kurt Andersen (2017). Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. Random House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-588-36687-0.
Lou Thesz; Kit Bauman (2011). Hooker. Crowbar Press. ISBN 978-0-9844090-4-4.
Rudraneil Sengupta (2016). Enter the Dangal. Harper Sport. ISBN 978-93-5029-770-4.
Thomas A. Green, ed. (2001). Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia: Volume One: A–Q. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-556-7.
Further reading
Fargiorgo, Joseph (2014). WWE: Wrestling, Wellness & Entertainment – An Analysis of Work and Health in Professional Wrestling (MA). Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph. Retrieved September 7, 2021 – via The Atrium at University of Guelpgh.
Olson, Cristopher; Reinhard, Carrie Lynn D. (2021). "Wrestling with Eating Disorders: Transmedia Depictions of Body Issues in WWE's Women's Professional Wrestling". In Johnson, Malynnda; Olson, Cristopher (eds.). Normalizing Mental Illness and Neurodiversity in Entertainment Media (1st E-book ed.). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003011668-15. ISBN 978-1-00-301166-8. S2CID 233598773.
Verma, D. S. (2020). Wresting Fans as Players, Performers as Characters: Conceptualizing WWE Storytelling and Production in Terms of Games and Play (Master). Faculty of Humanities Theses, Utrecht University. hdl:1874/399263. Archived from the original on September 7, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2021 – via Utrecht University Repository.
External links
Online World of Wrestling
Pro Wrestling History
Pro-Wrestling Title Histories |
Confucius | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius | [
624
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius#"
] | Confucius (孔子; pinyin: Kǒngzǐ; lit. 'Master Kong'; c. 551 – c. 479 BCE), born Kong Qiu (孔丘), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages, as well as the first teacher in China to advocate for mass education. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the philosophy and teachings of Confucius. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, harmonious social relationships, righteousness, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue.
Confucius considered himself a transmitter for the values of earlier periods which he claimed had been abandoned in his time. He advocated for filial piety, endorsing strong family loyalty, ancestor veneration, the respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives. Confucius recommended a robust family unit as the cornerstone for an ideal government. He championed the Silver Rule, or a negative form of the Golden Rule, advising, "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself."
The time of Confucius's life saw a rich diversity of thought, and was a formative period in China's intellectual history. His ideas gained in prominence during the Warring States period, but experienced setback immediately following the Qin conquest. Under Emperor Wu of Han, Confucius's ideas received official sanction, with affiliated works becoming mandatory readings for career paths leading to officialdom. During the Tang and Song dynasties, Confucianism developed into a system known in the West as Neo-Confucianism, and later as New Confucianism. From ancient dynasties to the modern era, Confucianism has integrated into the Chinese social fabric and way of life.
Traditionally, Confucius is credited with having authored or edited many of the ancient texts including all of the Five Classics. However, modern scholars exercise caution in attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself, for at least some of the texts and philosophy associated with him were of a more ancient origin. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but not until many years after his death.
Name
The name "Confucius" is a Latinized form of the Mandarin Chinese Kǒng Fūzǐ (孔夫子, "Master Kong"), and was coined in the late 16th century by early Jesuit missionaries to China. Confucius's family name was Kong (孔, OC:*kʰˤoŋʔ) and his given name was Qiu (丘, OC:*[k]ʷʰə). His courtesy name, a capping (guan: 冠) given at his coming of age ceremony, and by which he would have been known to all but his older family members, was Zhongni (仲尼, OC:*N-truŋ-s nr[əj]), the "Zhòng" indicating that he was the second son in his family.
Life
Early life
It is thought that Confucius was born on 28 September 551 BCE, in Zou (鄒, in modern Shandong). The area was notionally controlled by the kings of Zhou but effectively independent under the local lords of Lu, who ruled from the nearby city of Qufu. His father Kong He (or Shuliang He) was an elderly commandant of the local Lu garrison. His ancestry traced back through the dukes of Song to the Shang dynasty which had preceded the Zhou. Traditional accounts of Confucius's life relate that Kong He's grandfather had migrated the family from Song to Lu. Not all modern scholars accept Confucius's descent from Song nobility.: 14–15
Kong He died when Confucius was three years old, and Confucius was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai (顏徵在) in poverty. His mother later died at less than 40 years of age. At age 19, he married Lady Qiguan (亓官氏), and a year later the couple had their first child, their son Kong Li (孔鯉). Qiguan and Confucius later had two daughters together, one of whom is thought to have died as a child and one was named Kong Jiao (孔姣).
Confucius was educated at schools for commoners, where he studied and learned the Six Arts.
Confucius was born into the class of shi (士), between the aristocracy and the common people. He is said to have worked in various government jobs during his early 20s, and as a bookkeeper and a caretaker of sheep and horses, using the proceeds to give his mother a proper burial. When his mother died, Confucius (aged 23) is said to have mourned for three years, as was the tradition.
Political career
In Confucius's time, the state of Lu was headed by a ruling ducal house. Under the duke were three aristocratic families, whose heads bore the title of viscount and held hereditary positions in the Lu bureaucracy. The Ji family held the position "Minister over the Masses", who was also the "Prime Minister"; the Meng family held the position "Minister of Works"; and the Shu family held the position "Minister of War". In the winter of 505 BCE, Yang Hu—a retainer of the Ji family—rose up in rebellion and seized power from the Ji family. However, by the summer of 501 BCE, the three hereditary families had succeeded in expelling Yang Hu from Lu. By then, Confucius had built up a considerable reputation through his teachings, while the families came to see the value of proper conduct and righteousness, so they could achieve loyalty to a legitimate government. Thus, that year (501 BCE), Confucius came to be appointed to the minor position of governor of a town. Eventually, he rose to the position of Minister of Crime. The Xunzi says that once assuming the post, Confucius ordered the execution of Shaozheng Mao, another Lu state official and scholar whose lectures attracted the three thousand disciples several times except Yan Hui. Shaozheng Mao was accused of 'five crimes', each worth execution, including 'concealed evilness, stubborn abnormality, eloquent duplicity, erudition in bizarre facts and generosity to evildoers'.
Confucius desired to return the authority of the state to the duke by dismantling the fortifications of the city—strongholds belonging to the three families. This way, he could establish a centralized government. However, Confucius relied solely on diplomacy as he had no military authority himself. In 500 BCE, Hou Fan—the governor of Hou—revolted against his lord of the Shu family. Although the Meng and Shu families unsuccessfully besieged Hou, a loyalist official rose up with the people of Hou and forced Hou Fan to flee to the state of Qi. The situation may have been in favor for Confucius as this likely made it possible for Confucius and his disciples to convince the aristocratic families to dismantle the fortifications of their cities. Eventually, after a year and a half, Confucius and his disciples succeeded in convincing the Shu family to raze the walls of Hou, the Ji family in razing the walls of Bi, and the Meng family in razing the walls of Cheng. First, the Shu family led an army towards their city Hou and tore down its walls in 498 BCE.
Soon thereafter, Gongshan Furao, a retainer of the Ji family, revolted and took control of the forces at Bi. He immediately launched an attack and entered the capital Lu. Earlier, Gongshan had approached Confucius to join him, which Confucius considered as he wanted the opportunity to put his principles into practice but he gave up on the idea in the end. Confucius disapproved the use of a violent revolution by principle, even though the Ji family dominated the Lu state by force for generations and had exiled the previous duke. Creel states that, unlike the rebel Yang Hu before him, Gongshan may have sought to destroy the three hereditary families and restore the power of the duke. However, Dubs is of the view that Gongshan was encouraged by Viscount Ji Huan to invade the Lu capital in an attempt to avoid dismantling the Bi fortified walls. Whatever the situation may have been, Gongshan was considered an upright man who continued to defend the state of Lu, even after he was forced to flee.
During the revolt by Gongshan, Zhong You had managed to keep the duke and the three viscounts together at the court. Zhong You was one of the disciples of Confucius and Confucius had arranged for him to be given the position of governor by the Ji family. When Confucius heard of the raid, he requested that Viscount Ji Huan allow the duke and his court to retreat to a stronghold on his palace grounds. Thereafter, the heads of the three families and the duke retreated to the Ji's palace complex and ascended the Wuzi Terrace. Confucius ordered two officers to lead an assault against the rebels. At least one of the two officers was a retainer of the Ji family, but they were unable to refuse the orders while in the presence of the duke, viscounts, and court. The rebels were pursued and defeated at Gu. Immediately after the revolt was defeated, the Ji family razed the Bi city walls to the ground.
The attackers retreated after realizing that they would have to become rebels against the state and their lord. Through Confucius' actions, the Bi officials had inadvertently revolted against their own lord, thus forcing Viscount Ji Huan's hand in having to dismantle the walls of Bi—as it could have harbored such rebels—or confess to instigating the event by going against proper conduct and righteousness as an official. Dubs suggests that the incident brought to light Confucius' foresight, practical political ability, and insight into human character.
When it was time to dismantle the city walls of the Meng family, the governor was reluctant to have his city walls torn down and convinced the head of the Meng family not to do so. The Zuo Zhuan recalls that the governor advised against razing the walls to the ground as he said that it made Cheng vulnerable to Qi, and cause the destruction of the Meng family. Even though Viscount Meng Yi gave his word not to interfere with an attempt, he went back on his earlier promise to dismantle the walls.
Later in 498 BCE, Duke Ding of Lu personally went with an army to lay siege to Cheng in an attempt to raze its walls to the ground, but he did not succeed. Thus, Confucius could not achieve the idealistic reforms that he wanted including restoration of the legitimate rule of the duke. He had made powerful enemies within the state, especially with Viscount Ji Huan, due to his successes so far. According to accounts in the Zuo Zhuan and the Records of the Grand Historian, Confucius departed his homeland in 497 BCE after his support for the failed attempt of dismantling the fortified city walls of the powerful Ji, Meng, and Shu families. He left the state of Lu without resigning, remaining in self-exile and unable to return as long as Viscount Ji Huan was alive.
Exile
The Shiji stated that the neighboring Qi state was worried that Lu was becoming too powerful while Confucius was involved in the government of the Lu state. According to this account, Qi decided to sabotage Lu's reforms by sending 100 good horses and 80 beautiful dancing girls to the duke of Lu. The duke indulged himself in pleasure and did not attend to official duties for three days. Confucius was disappointed and resolved to leave Lu and seek better opportunities, yet to leave at once would expose the misbehavior of the duke and therefore bring public humiliation to the ruler Confucius was serving. Confucius therefore waited for the duke to make a lesser mistake. Soon after, the duke neglected to send to Confucius a portion of the sacrificial meat that was his due according to custom, and Confucius seized upon this pretext to leave both his post and the Lu state.
After Confucius's resignation, he travelled around the principality states of north-east and central China including Wey, Song, Zheng, Cao, Chu, Qi, Chen, and Cai (and a failed attempt to go to Jin). At the courts of these states, he expounded his political beliefs but did not see them implemented.
Return home
According to the Zuozhuan, Confucius returned home to his native Lu when he was 68, after he was invited to do so by Ji Kangzi, the chief minister of Lu. The Shiji depicts him spending his last years teaching 3000 pupils, with 72 or 77 accomplished disciples that mastered the Six Arts. Meanwhile, Confucius dedicated himself in transmitting the old wisdom by writing or editing the Five Classics.
During his return, Confucius sometimes acted as an advisor to several government officials in Lu, including Ji Kangzi, on matters including governance and crime.
Burdened by the loss of both his son and his favorite disciples, he died at the age of 71 or 72 from natural causes. Confucius was buried on the bank of the Sishui River, to the north of Qufu City in Shandong Province. Starting as a humble tomb, the cemetery of Confucius had been expanded by emperors since the Han Dynasty. To date, the Cemetery of Confucius (孔林) covers an area of 183 hectares with more than 100,000 graves of the Kong descendants, it is included in the World Heritage List for its cultural and architectural value.
Philosophy
In the Analects, Confucius presents himself as a "transmitter who invented nothing". He puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of study, and it is the Chinese character for study (學) that opens the text. Far from trying to build a systematic or formalist theory, he wanted his disciples to master and internalize older classics, so that they can capture the ancient wisdoms that promotes "harmony and order", to aid their self-cultivation to become a perfect man. For example, the Annals would allow them to relate the moral problems of the present to past political events; the Book of Odes reflects the "mood and concerns" of the commoners and their view on government; while the Book of Changesencompasses the key theory and practice of divination.
Although some Chinese people follow Confucianism in a religious manner, many argue that its values are secular and that it is less a religion than a secular morality. Proponents of religious Confucianism argue that despite the secular nature of Confucianism's teachings, it is based on a worldview that is religious. Confucius was considered more of a humanist than a spiritualist, his discussions on afterlife and views concerning Heaven remained indeterminate, and he is largely unconcerned with spiritual matters often considered essential to religious thought, such as the nature of souls.
Ethics
One of the deepest teachings of Confucius may have been the superiority of personal exemplification over explicit rules of behavior. His moral teachings emphasized self-cultivation, emulation of moral exemplars, and the attainment of skilled judgment rather than knowledge of rules. Confucian ethics may, therefore, be considered a type of virtue ethics. His teachings rarely rely on reasoned argument, and ethical ideals and methods are conveyed indirectly, through allusion, innuendo, and even tautology. His teachings require examination and context to be understood. A good example is found in this famous anecdote:
廄焚。子退朝，曰：傷人乎？不問馬。
When the stables were burnt down, on returning from court Confucius said, "Was anyone hurt?" He did not ask about the horses.
This remark was considered a strong manifestation of Confucius' advocacy in humanism.
One of his teachings was a variant of the Golden Rule, sometimes called the "Silver Rule" owing to its negative form:
子貢問曰：有一言而可以終身行之者乎？子曰：其恕乎！己所不欲、勿施於人。
Zi Gong [a disciple] asked: "Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?" The Master replied: "How about 'reciprocity'! Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself."
Often overlooked in Confucian ethics are the virtues to the self: sincerity and the cultivation of knowledge. Virtuous action towards others begins with virtuous and sincere thought, which begins with knowledge. A virtuous disposition without knowledge is susceptible to corruption, and virtuous action without sincerity is not true righteousness. Cultivating knowledge and sincerity is also important for one's own sake; the superior person loves learning for the sake of learning and righteousness for the sake of righteousness.
The Confucian theory of ethics as exemplified in lǐ (禮) is based on three important conceptual aspects of life: (a) ceremonies associated with sacrifice to ancestors and deities of various types, (b) social and political institutions, and (c) the etiquette of daily behavior. Some believed that lǐ originated from the heavens, but Confucius stressed the development of lǐ through the actions of sage leaders in human history. His discussions of lǐ seem to redefine the term to refer to all actions committed by a person to build the ideal society, rather than those conforming with canonical standards of ceremony.
In the early Confucian tradition, lǐ was doing the proper thing at the proper time; balancing between maintaining existing norms to perpetuate an ethical social fabric, and violating them in order to accomplish ethical good. Training in the lǐ of past sages, cultivates virtues in people that include ethical judgment about when lǐ must be adapted in light of situational contexts.
In Confucianism, the concept of li is closely related to yì (義), which is based upon the idea of reciprocity. Yì can be translated as righteousness, though it may mean what is ethically best to do in a certain context. The term contrasts with action done out of self-interest. While pursuing one's own self-interest is not necessarily bad, one would be a better, more righteous person if one's life was based upon following a path designed to enhance the greater good. Thus an outcome of yì is doing the right thing for the right reason.
Just as action according to lǐ should be adapted to conform to the aspiration of adhering to yì, so yì is linked to the core value of rén (仁). Rén consists of five basic virtues: seriousness, generosity, sincerity, diligence, and kindness. Rén is the virtue of perfectly fulfilling one's responsibilities toward others, most often translated as "benevolence", "humaneness", or "empathy"; translator Arthur Waley calls it "Goodness" (with a capital G), and other translations that have been put forth include "authoritativeness" and "selflessness". Confucius's moral system was based upon empathy and understanding others, rather than divinely ordained rules. To develop one's spontaneous responses of rén so that these could guide action intuitively was even better than living by the rules of yì. Confucius asserts that virtue is a mean between extremes. For example, the properly generous person gives the right amount – not too much and not too little.
Politics
Confucius's political thought is based upon his ethical thought. He argued that the best government is one that rules through "rites" (lǐ) and morality, and not by using incentives and coercion. He explained that this is one of the most important analects: "If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good." (Analects 2.3, tr. Legge). This "sense of shame" is an internalization of duty. Confucianism prioritizes creating a harmonious society over the ruler's interests, opposes material incentives and harsh punishments, and downplays the role of institutions in guiding behavior as in Legalism, emphasizing moral virtues instead.
Confucius looked nostalgically upon earlier days, and urged the Chinese, particularly those with political power, to model themselves on earlier examples. In times of division, chaos, and endless wars between feudal states, he wanted to restore the Mandate of Heaven (天命) that could unify the "world" (天下, "all under Heaven") and bestow peace and prosperity on the people. Because his vision of personal and social perfections was framed as a revival of the ordered society of earlier times, Confucius is often considered a great proponent of conservatism, but a closer look at what he proposes often shows that he used (and perhaps twisted) past institutions and rites to push a new political agenda of his own: a revival of a unified royal state, whose rulers would succeed to power on the basis of their moral merits instead of lineage. These would be rulers devoted to their people, striving for personal and social perfection, and such a ruler would spread his own virtues to the people instead of imposing proper behavior with laws and rules.
While Confucius supported the idea of government ruling by a virtuous king, his ideas contained a number of elements to limit the power of rulers. He argued for representing truth in language, and honesty was of paramount importance. Even in facial expression, truth must always be represented. Confucius believed that if a ruler is to lead correctly, by action, that orders would be unnecessary in that others will follow the proper actions of their ruler. In discussing the relationship between a king and his subject (or a father and his son), he underlined the need to give due respect to superiors. This demanded that the subordinates must advise their superiors if the superiors are considered to be taking a course of action that is wrong. Confucius believed in ruling by example, if you lead correctly, orders by force or punishment are not necessary.
Music and poetry
Confucius heavily promoted the use of music with rituals or the rites order. The scholar Li Zehou argued that Confucianism is based on the idea of rites. Rites serve as the starting point for each individual and that these sacred social functions allow each person's human nature to be harmonious with reality. Given this, Confucius believed that "music is the harmonization of heaven and earth; the rites is the order of heaven and earth". Thus the application of music in rites creates the order that makes it possible for society to prosper.
The Confucian approach to music was heavily inspired by the Classic of Poetry and the Classic of Music, which was said to be the sixth Confucian classic until it was lost during the Han dynasty. The Classic of Poetry serves as one of the current Confucian classics and is a book on poetry that contains a diversified variety of poems as well as folk songs. Confucius is traditionally ascribed with compiling these classics within his school. In the Analects, Confucius described the importance of the poetry in the intellectual and moral development of an individual:
Confucius frowned upon globalization encroaching on China, especially with music, and he preached against musical influences from Persians, Greco-Bactrians, and Mongols.
Legacy
Confucius's teachings were later turned into an elaborate set of rules and practices by his numerous disciples and followers, who organized his teachings into the Analects. Confucius's disciples and his only grandson, Zisi, continued his philosophical school after his death. These efforts spread Confucian ideals to students who then became officials in many of the royal courts in China, thereby giving Confucianism the first wide-scale test of its dogma.
Two of Confucius's most famous later followers emphasized radically different aspects of his teachings. In the centuries after his death, Mencius (孟子) and Xunzi (荀子) both composed important teachings elaborating in different ways on the fundamental ideas associated with Confucius. Mencius (4th century BCE) articulated the innate goodness in human beings as a source of the ethical intuitions that guide people towards rén, yì, and lǐ, while Xunzi (3rd century BCE) underscored the realistic and materialistic aspects of Confucian thought, stressing that morality was inculcated in society through tradition and in individuals through training. In time, their writings, together with the Analects and other core texts came to constitute the philosophical corpus of Confucianism.
This realignment in Confucian thought was parallel to the development of Legalism, which held that humanity and righteousness were not sufficient in government, and that rulers should instead rely on statecrafts, punishments, and law. A disagreement between these two political philosophies came to a head in 223 BCE when the Qin state conquered all of China. Li Si, Prime Minister of the Qin dynasty, convinced Qin Shi Huang to abandon the Confucians' recommendation of awarding fiefs akin to the Zhou dynasty before them which he saw as being against to the Legalist idea of centralizing the state around the ruler.
Under the succeeding Han and Tang dynasties, Confucian ideas gained even more widespread prominence. Under Emperor Wu of Han, the works attributed to Confucius were made the official imperial philosophy and required reading for civil service examinations in 140 BCE which was continued nearly unbroken until the end of the 19th century. As Mohism lost support by the time of the Han, the main philosophical contenders were Legalism, which Confucian thought somewhat absorbed, the teachings of Laozi, whose focus on more spiritual ideas kept it from direct conflict with Confucianism, and the new Buddhist religion, which gained acceptance during the Southern and Northern Dynasties era. Both Confucian ideas and Confucian-trained officials were relied upon in the Ming dynasty and even the Yuan dynasty, although Kublai Khan distrusted handing over provincial control to them.
During the Song dynasty, Confucianism was revitalized in a movement known as Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism was a revival of Confucianism that expanded on classical theories by incorporating metaphysics and new approaches to self-cultivation and enlightenment, influenced by Buddhism and Daoism. The most renowned scholar of this period was Zhu Xi (1130-1200CE). There are clear Buddhist and Daoist influences in the Neo-Confucian advocacy of "quiet sitting" (meditation) as a technique of self-cultivation that leads to transformative experiences of insight." In his life, Zhu Xi was largely ignored, but not long after his death, his ideas became the new orthodox view of what Confucian texts actually meant. Modern historians view Zhu Xi as having created something rather different and call his way of thinking Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism held sway in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam until the 19th century.
The works of Confucius were first translated into European languages by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century during the late Ming dynasty. The first known effort was by Michele Ruggieri, who returned to Italy in 1588 and carried on his translations while residing in Salerno. Matteo Ricci started to report on the thoughts of Confucius, and a team of Jesuits—Prospero Intorcetta, Philippe Couplet, and two others—published a translation of several Confucian works and an overview of Chinese history in Paris in 1687. François Noël, after failing to persuade Clement XI that Chinese veneration of ancestors and Confucius did not constitute idolatry, completed the Confucian canon at Prague in 1711, with more scholarly treatments of the other works and the first translation of the collected works of Mencius. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on European thinkers of the period, particularly among the Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Western civilization.
In the modern era Confucian movements, such as New Confucianism, still exist, but during the Cultural Revolution, Confucianism was frequently attacked by leading figures in the Chinese Communist Party. This was partially a continuation of the condemnations of Confucianism by intellectuals and activists in the early 20th century as a cause of the ethnocentric close-mindedness and refusal of the Qing dynasty to modernize that led to the tragedies that befell China in the 19th century.
Confucius's works are studied by scholars in many other Asian countries, particularly those in the Chinese cultural sphere, such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Many of those countries still hold the traditional memorial ceremony every year.
Among Tibetans, Confucius is often worshipped as a holy king and master of magic, divination and astrology. Tibetan Buddhists see him as learning divination from the Buddha Manjushri (and that knowledge subsequently reaching Tibet through Princess Wencheng), while Bon practitioners see him as being a reincarnation of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche, the legendary founder of Bon.
The Ahmadiyya believes Confucius was a Divine Prophet of God, as were Lao-Tzu and other eminent Chinese personages.
According to the Siddhar tradition of Tamil Nadu, Confucius is one of the 18 esteemed Siddhars of yore, and is better known as Kalangi Nathar or Kamalamuni. The Thyagaraja Temple in Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu is home to his Jeeva Samadhi.
In modern times, Asteroid 7853, "Confucius", was named after the Chinese thinker.
Teaching and Disciples
Confucius was regarded as the first teacher who advocated for public welfare and the spread of education in China. Confucius devoted his entire life, from a relatively young age, to teaching. He pioneered private education adopting a curriculum known as the Six Arts, aimed at making education accessible to all social classes, and believed in its power to cultivate character rather than merely vocational skills. Confucius not only made teaching his profession but also contributed to the development of a distinct class of professionals in ancient China—the gentlemen who were neither farmers, artisans, merchants, nor officials but instead dedicated themselves to teaching and potential government service.Feng Youlan (1952). A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol.1 The Period of the Philosophers. George Allen & Unwin Ltd. pp. 47–49. ISBN 978-0-691-02021-1.</ref>
Confucius began teaching after he turned 30, and taught more than 3,000 students in his life, about 70 of whom were considered outstanding. His disciples and the early Confucian community they formed became the most influential intellectual force in the Warring States period. The Han dynasty historian Sima Qian dedicated a chapter in his Records of the Grand Historian to the biographies of Confucius's disciples, accounting for the influence they exerted in their time and afterward. Sima Qian recorded the names of 77 disciples in his collective biography, while Kongzi Jiayu, another early source, records 76, not completely overlapping. The two sources together yield the names of 96 disciples. Twenty-two of them are mentioned in the Analects, while the Mencius records 24.
Confucius did not charge any tuition, and only requested a symbolic gift of a bundle of dried meat from any prospective student. According to his disciple Zigong, his master treated students like doctors treated patients and did not turn anybody away. Most of them came from Lu, Confucius's home state, with 43 recorded, but he accepted students from all over China, with six from the state of Wey (such as Zigong), three from Qin, two each from Chen and Qi, and one each from Cai, Chu, and Song. Confucius considered his students' personal background irrelevant, and accepted noblemen, commoners, and even former criminals such as Yan Zhuoju and Gongye Chang. His disciples from richer families would pay a sum commensurate with their wealth which was considered a ritual donation.
Confucius's favorite disciple was Yan Hui, most probably one of the most impoverished of them all. Sima Niu, in contrast to Yan Hui, was from a hereditary noble family hailing from the Song state. Under Confucius's teachings, the disciples became well learned in the principles and methods of government. He often engaged in discussion and debate with his students and gave high importance to their studies in history, poetry, and ritual. Confucius advocated loyalty to principle rather than to individual acumen, in which reform was to be achieved by persuasion rather than violence. Even though Confucius denounced them for their practices, the aristocracy was likely attracted to the idea of having trustworthy officials who were studied in morals as the circumstances of the time made it desirable. In fact, the disciple Zilu even died defending his ruler in Wey.
Yang Hu, who was a subordinate of the Ji family, had dominated the Lu government from 505 to 502 and even attempted a coup, which narrowly failed. As a likely consequence, it was after this that the first disciples of Confucius were appointed to government positions. A few of Confucius's disciples went on to attain official positions of some importance, some of which were arranged by Confucius. By the time Confucius was 50 years old, the Ji family had consolidated their power in the Lu state over the ruling ducal house. Even though the Ji family had practices with which Confucius disagreed and disapproved, they nonetheless gave Confucius's disciples many opportunities for employment. Confucius continued to remind his disciples to stay true to their principles and renounced those who did not, all the while being openly critical of the Ji family.
In the West
The influence of Confucius has been observed on multiple Western thinkers, including Niels Bohr, Benjamin Franklin, Allen Ginsberg, Thomas Jefferson, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Robert Cummings Neville, Alexander Pope, Ezra Pound, François Quesnay, Friedrich Schiller, Voltaire, and Christian Wolff.
Visual portraits
No contemporary painting or sculpture of Confucius survives, and it was only during the Han dynasty that he was portrayed visually. Carvings often depict his legendary meeting with Laozi. Since that time there have been many portraits of Confucius as the ideal philosopher. An early verbal portrayal of Confucius is found in the chapter "External Things" (外物; Wàiwù) of the book Zhuangzi (莊子; Zhuāngzǐ), finished in about 3rd BCE, long after Confucius's death. The oldest known portrait of Confucius has been unearthed in the tomb of the Han dynasty ruler Marquis of Haihun (died 59 BCE). The picture was painted on the wooden frame to a polished bronze mirror.
In former times, it was customary to have a portrait in Confucius Temples; however, during the reign of Hongwu Emperor (Taizu) of the Ming dynasty, it was decided that the only proper portrait of Confucius should be in the temple in his home town, Qufu in Shandong. In other temples, Confucius is represented by a memorial tablet. In 2006, the China Confucius Foundation commissioned a standard portrait of Confucius based on the Tang dynasty portrait by Wu Daozi.
The South Wall Frieze in the courtroom of the Supreme Court of the United States depicts Confucius as a teacher of harmony, learning, and virtue.
Fictional portrayals
There have been two film adaptations of Confucius' life: the 1940 film Confucius starring Tang Huaiqiu, and the 2010 film Confucius starring Chow Yun-fat.
Memorials
Soon after Confucius's death, Qufu, his home town, became a place of devotion and remembrance. The Han dynasty Records of the Grand Historian records that it had already become a place of pilgrimage for ministers. It is still a major destination for cultural tourism, and many people visit his grave and the surrounding temples. There are also numerous temples dedicated to Confucius and distinguished Confucian scholars. These temples have been used for ceremonies paying tribute to Confucius as a revered Master, honoring his guiding principles that have shaped Chinese society.
Followers of Confucianism have a tradition of holding spectacular memorial ceremonies of Confucius (祭孔) every year, using ceremonies that supposedly derived from Zhou Li (周禮) as recorded by Confucius, on the date of Confucius's birth. In the 20th century, this tradition was interrupted for several decades in mainland China, where the official stance of the Communist Party and the State was that Confucius and Confucianism represented reactionary feudalist beliefs which held that the subservience of the people to the aristocracy is a part of the natural order. All such ceremonies and rites were therefore banned. Only after the 1990s did the ceremony resume. As it is now considered a veneration of Chinese history and tradition, even Communist Party members may be found in attendance.
In Taiwan, where the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) strongly promoted Confucian beliefs in ethics and behavior, the tradition of the memorial ceremony of Confucius (祭孔) is supported by the government and has continued without interruption. While not a national holiday, it does appear on all printed calendars, much as Father's Day or Christmas Day do in the Western world.
In South Korea, a grand-scale memorial ceremony called Seokjeon Daeje is held twice a year on Confucius's birthday and the anniversary of his death, at Confucian academies across the country and Sungkyunkwan in Seoul.
Descendants
Confucius's descendants were repeatedly identified and honored by successive imperial governments with titles of nobility and official posts. They were honored with the rank of a marquis 35 times since Gaozu of the Han dynasty, and they were promoted to the rank of duke 42 times from the Tang dynasty to the Qing dynasty. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang first bestowed the title of "Duke Wenxuan" on Kong Suizhi of the 35th generation. In 1055, Emperor Renzong of Song first bestowed the title of "Duke Yansheng" on Kong Zongyuan of the 46th generation.
During the Southern Song dynasty, the Duke Yansheng Kong Duanyou fled south with the Song Emperor to Quzhou in Zhejiang, while the newly established Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in the north appointed Kong Duanyou's brother Kong Duancao who remained in Qufu as Duke Yansheng. From that time up until the Yuan dynasty, there were two Duke Yanshengs, one in the north in Qufu and the other in the south at Quzhou. An invitation to come back to Qufu was extended to the southern Duke Yansheng Kong Zhu by the Yuan-dynasty Emperor Kublai Khan. The title was taken away from the southern branch after Kong Zhu rejected the invitation, so the northern branch of the family kept the title of Duke Yansheng. The southern branch remained in Quzhou where they live to this day. Confucius's descendants in Quzhou alone number 30,000. The Hanlin Academy rank of Wujing boshi 五經博士 was awarded to the southern branch at Quzhou by a Ming Emperor while the northern branch at Qufu held the title Duke Yansheng. The leader of the southern branch was 孔祥楷 Kong Xiangkai.
In 1351, during the reign of Emperor Toghon Temür of the Yuan dynasty, 54th-generation Kong Shao (孔昭) moved from China to Korea during the Goryeo dynasty, and was received courteously by Princess Noguk (the Mongolian-born queen consort of the future king Gongmin). After being naturalized as a subject of Goryeo, he changed the hanja of his name from "昭" to "紹" (both pronounced so in Korean), married a Korean woman and bore a son (Gong Yeo (Korean: 공여; Hanja: 孔帤), 1329–1397), therefore establishing the Changwon Gong clan (Korean: 창원 공씨; Hanja: 昌原 孔氏), whose ancestral seat was located in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province. In 1794, during the reign of King Jeongjo, the clan then changed its name to Gokbu Gong clan (Korean: 곡부 공씨; Hanja: 曲阜 孔氏) in honor of Confucius's birthplace Qufu (Korean: 곡부; Hanja: 曲阜; RR: Gokbu).
Famous descendants include actors such as Gong Yoo (real name Gong Ji-cheol (공지철)) and Gong Hyo-jin (공효진); and artists such as male idol group B1A4 member Gongchan (real name Gong Chan-sik (공찬식)), singer-songwriter Minzy (real name Gong Min-ji (공민지)), as well as her great aunt, traditional folk dancer Gong Ok-jin (공옥진).
Despite repeated dynastic change in China, the title of Duke Yansheng was bestowed upon successive generations of descendants until it was abolished by the Nationalist government in 1935. The last holder of the title, Kung Te-cheng of the 77th generation, was appointed Sacrificial Official to Confucius. Kung Te-cheng died in October 2008, and his son, Kung Wei-yi, the 78th lineal descendant, died in 1989. Kung Te-cheng's grandson, Kung Tsui-chang, the 79th lineal descendant, was born in 1975; his great-grandson, Kung Yu-jen, the 80th lineal descendant, was born in Taipei on 1 January 2006. Te-cheng's sister, Kong Demao, lives in mainland China and has written a book about her experiences growing up at the family estate in Qufu. Another sister, Kong Deqi, died as a young woman. Many descendants of Confucius still live in Qufu today.
A descendant of Confucius, H. H. Kung, was the Premier of the Republic of China. One of his sons, Kong Lingjie (孔令傑), married Debra Paget who gave birth to Gregory Kung (孔德基).
Confucius's family, the Kongs, have the longest recorded extant pedigree in the world today. The father-to-son family tree, now in its 83rd generation, has been recorded since the death of Confucius. According to the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee (CGCC), he has two million known and registered descendants, and there are an estimated three million in all. Of these, several tens of thousands live outside of China. In the 14th century, a Kong descendant went to Korea, where an estimated 34,000 descendants of Confucius live today. One of the main lineages fled from the Kong ancestral home in Qufu during the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s and eventually settled in Taiwan. There are also branches of the Kong family who have converted to Islam after marrying Muslim women, in Dachuan in Gansu province in the 1800s, and in 1715 in Xuanwei in Yunnan province. Many of the Muslim Confucius descendants are descended from the marriage of Ma Jiaga (馬甲尕), a Muslim woman, and Kong Yanrong (孔彥嶸), 59th generation descendant of Confucius in the year 1480, and are found among the Hui and Dongxiang peoples. The new genealogy includes the Muslims. Kong Dejun (孔德軍) is a prominent Islamic scholar and Arabist from Qinghai province and a 77th generation descendant of Confucius.
Because of the huge interest in the Confucius family tree, there was a project in China to test the DNA of known family members of the collateral branches in mainland China. Among other things, this would allow scientists to identify a common Y chromosome in male descendants of Confucius. If the descent were truly unbroken, father-to-son, since Confucius's lifetime, the males in the family would all have the same Y chromosome as their direct male ancestor, with slight mutations due to the passage of time. The aim of the genetic test was to help members of collateral branches in China who lost their genealogical records to prove their descent. However, in 2009, many of the collateral branches decided not to agree to DNA testing. Bryan Sykes, professor of genetics at Oxford University, understands this decision: "The Confucius family tree has an enormous cultural significance ... It's not just a scientific question." The DNA testing was originally proposed to add new members, many of whose family record books were lost during 20th century upheavals, to the Confucian family tree. The main branch of the family which fled to Taiwan was never involved in the proposed DNA test at all.
In 2013, a DNA test performed on multiple different families who claimed descent from Confucius found that they shared the same Y chromosome as reported by Fudan University.
The fifth and most recent edition of the Confucius genealogy was printed by the CGCC. It was unveiled in a ceremony at Qufu on 24 September 2009. Women are now included for the first time.
References
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
See Richey 2018 and Hutton 2019 for extensive bibliographies
External links
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. "Confucius". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Confucius". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Confucius on In Our Time at the BBC
Multilingual web site on Confucius and the Analects
The Dao of Kongzi, introduction to the thought of Confucius.
Works by Confucius at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Confucius at the Internet Archive
Works by Confucius at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Confucian Analects (Project Gutenberg release of James Legge's Translation)
Core philosophical passages in the Analects of Confucius. |
Qufu | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu | [
624
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu#Geography"
] | Qufu (pronounced [tɕʰý.fû]; Chinese: 曲阜) is a county-level city in southwestern Shandong province, East China. It is located about 130 kilometres (81 mi) south of the provincial capital Jinan and 45 km (28 mi) northeast of the prefectural seat at Jining. Qufu has an area of 815 square kilometers, and a total population of 653,000 inhabitants, of which, 188,000 live in urban areas.
Qufu is best known as the hometown of Confucius, who is traditionally believed to have been born at nearby Mount Ni. The city contains numerous historic palaces, temples and cemeteries. The three most famous cultural sites of the city, collectively known as San Kong (三孔; 'the Three Confucian [sites]', are the Temple of Confucius (Chinese: 孔庙; pinyin: Kǒngmiào), the Cemetery of Confucius (孔林; Kǒnglín), and the Kong Family Mansion (孔府; Kǒngfǔ). Together, these three sites have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. In July 2015, Qufu became the third International Cittaslow in China.
Etymology
The name Qufu literally means "crooked hill", and refers to a mile-long hill that was part of the city during its time as capital of the state of Lu.
Administrative divisions
The city of Qufu is divided into 4 subdistricts, and 8 towns. The city government is located within Lucheng Subdistrict.
History
During the Shang, the area around Qufu was home to the people of Yan, who were counted by the Chinese among the "Eastern Barbarians" or Dongyi. Along with Pugu (around Binzhou) and Xu (along the Huai River), Yan joined the Shang prince Wu Geng and the Three Guards in their failed rebellion against the Duke of Zhou c. 1042 BC. After the rebels' defeat, the Duke launched punitive campaigns against the Dongyi, forcing their submission and placing their territory under loyal nobles. The territory of the Yan became part of the state of Lu, who made Qufu their capital throughout the Spring and Autumn period. This city had walls considerably larger than the present Ming-era fortifications, including more land to the east and north.
During the Tang dynasty and the early days of the Song dynasty, the city was centered around the present-day Temple of Duke Zhou, at the northeastern corner of today's walled city. At 1012, Qufu was renamed to Xianyuan County (仙源县), and relocated to the new site, some 4 km (2.5 mi) east of today's walled city, next to the supposed birthplace of the legendary Yellow Emperor and the tomb of his son Shaohao. A temple in honor of the Yellow Emperor was built there; all that remains today are two giant stelae (the Shou Qiu site).
After the conquest of the northern China by the Jurchens, the new Jin dynasty renamed Xianyuan back to Qufu (in 1142), but the city stayed at its Song location. It was not until the reign of the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming dynasty (1522) that the present-day city wall was built. The site of the city in 1012–1522 is now Jiuxian Village (旧县村).
During the Southern Song dynasty the descendant of Confucius at Qufu, the Duke Yansheng Kong Duanyou fled south with the future Song Emperor Gaozong to Quzhou in Zhejiang, while the newly established Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in the north appointed Kong Duanyou's brother Kong Duancao who remained in Qufu as Duke Yansheng. From that time up until the Yuan dynasty, there were two Duke Yanshengs, one in the north in Qufu and the other in the south at Quzhou. An invitation to come back to Qufu was extended to the southern Duke Yansheng Kong Zhu by the Yuan dynasty emperor Kublai Khan. The title was taken away from the southern branch after Kong Zhu rejected the invitation, so the northern branch of the family kept the title of Duke Yansheng. The southern branch still remained in Quzhou where they lived to this day. Confucius's descendants in Quzhou alone number 30,000. The Hanlin Academy rank of Wujing boshi 五經博士 was awarded to the southern branch at Quzhou by a Ming emperor while the northern branch at Qufu held the title Duke Yansheng. Kong Ruogu (孔若古), also known as Kong Chuan (孔傳) 47th generation was claimed to be the ancestor of the Southern branch after Kong Zhu died by Northern branch member Kong Guanghuang.
In 1948, Qufu played a minor role in the Yanzhou Campaign of the Chinese Civil War.
The artifacts of the historical sites at Qufu suffered extensive damage during the Cultural Revolution when about 200 staff members and students of Beijing Normal University led by Tan Houlan (谭厚兰, 1937–1982), one of the five most powerful student leaders of the Cultural Revolution, came to Qufu and destroyed more than 6000 artifacts as part of destroying Four Olds in November 1966.
Before the wide adoption of Pinyin, the name of the city (often viewed as a county seat, i.e. Qufu xian) was transcribed in English in a variety of ways, such as Ch'ü-fou-hien, Kio-feu-hien, Kio-fou-hien,
Kiu-fu,
Kiuh Fow, Keuhfow, Kufow, and Chufou.
Geography
The small historical center of Qufu is surrounded by the restored Ming-era city wall and rivers/moats. The Drum Tower (Gulou) is in the center of the walled city; the Temple of Confucius (Kong Miao), Confucius Mansion (Kong Fu) and the Temple of Yan Hui (Yan Miao) occupy large sections of the land within the wall.
The Confucius Cemetery (Kong Lin) is located 1.3 km (0.81 mi) to the north of the walled city. The modern downtown is located south of the walled city. There is also a mosque and a thriving Muslim neighborhood and market that is located just outside the west gate of the walled city.
The Qufu train station and major industrial areas are on the east side, a few kilometers east of the historical city. The Shaohao Tomb (少昊陵; Shǎohào Líng) and Shou Qiu historical site (寿丘; Shòu Qiū, the purported birthplace of the legendary Yellow Emperor), are on the eastern outskirts of the modern Qufu as well, near Jiuxian village.
The Si River and the Yi River both pass through the city.
Climate
Qufu has a humid continental climate, bordering on a humid subtropical climate. Qufu experiences an average annual precipitation of 666.3 mm (26.23 in), and an average annual temperature of 13.6 °C (56.5 °F).
Transportation
Rail transport
The original Beijing–Shanghai railway, constructed in the early 20th century, passes through Qufu. For a century, most passengers traveling to or from Qufu, would use the train station at Yanzhou, some 15 km (9.3 mi) to the west.
The Yanshi Railway, which connects Yanzhou and Rizhao as part of the broader Xinshi Railway (新石铁路), passes through the city. A small passenger station operating on the southeast side of the city (35.582860°N 117.025091°E / 35.582860; 117.025091) serves this line.
The north–south Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway, which opened in 2011, runs through Qufu. This line's Qufu East railway station is located a few kilometers south-east of the city (35.556390°N 117.063656°E / 35.556390; 117.063656). Qufu South railway station, on the east–west Rizhao–Lankao high-speed railway, opened in 2021.
Road transport
China National Highway 104 and China National Highway 327 both pass through Qufu.
Monorail
A 12 km (7.5 mi), 12 station monorail to connect Qufu and Zoucheng began construction in the first half of 2017, however construction was halted. A 6.3 km (3.9 mi) section was due to be completed in January 2018 to allow for testing to commence. The complete line was originally due to open in 2018. As of July 2021 the local government hopes to complete the line.
Temple of Confucius (Kong Miao)
Within two years after the death of Confucius, his former house in Qufu was already consecrated as a temple by the Duke of Lu. In 205 BC, Emperor Liu Bang of the Han dynasty was the first emperor to offer sacrifices to the memory of Confucius in Qufu. He set an example for many emperors and high officials to follow. Later, emperors would visit Qufu after their enthronement or on important occasions such as a successful war. In total, 12 different emperors paid 20 personal visits to Qufu to worship Confucius. About 100 others sent their deputies for 196 official visits. The original three-room house of Confucius was removed from the temple complex during a rebuilding undertaken in 611 AD. In 1012 and in 1094, during the Song dynasty, the temple was extended into a design with three sections and four courtyards, around which eventually more than 400 rooms were arranged. Fire and vandalism destroyed the temple in 1214, during the Jin dynasty. It was restored to its former extent by the year 1302 during the Yuan dynasty. Shortly thereafter, in 1331, the temple was framed in an enclosure wall modelled on the Imperial palace. After another devastation by fire in 1499, the temple was finally restored to its present scale. In 1724, yet another fire destroyed the main hall and the sculptures it contained. The subsequent restoration was completed in 1730. Many of the replacement sculptures were again destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. In total, the Temple of Confucius has undergone 15 major renovations, 31 large repairs, and numerous small building measures.
The temple complex is the second largest historical building complex in China (after the Forbidden City)—it covers an area of 16,000 square metres (170,000 sq ft) and has a total of 460 rooms. Because the last major redesign following the fire in 1499 took place shortly after the building of the Forbidden City in the Ming dynasty, the architecture of the Temple of Confucius resembles that of the Forbidden City in many ways. The main part of the temple consists of 9 courtyards arranged on a central axis, which is oriented in the north–south direction and is 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi) in length. The first three courtyards have small gates and are planted with tall pine trees, they serve an introductory function. The first (southernmost) gate is named "Lingxing Gate" after a star in the Great Bear constellation, the name suggests that Confucius is a star from heaven. The buildings in the remaining courtyards form the heart of the complex. They are impressive structures with yellow roof-tiles (otherwise reserved for the emperor) and red-painted walls, they are surrounded by dark-green pine trees to create a color contrast with complementary colors. The main buildings are the Stele Pavilions (e.g., Jin and Yuan dynasties, 1115–1368), the Kuiwen Hall (built in 1018, restored in 1504 during the Ming dynasty and in 1985), the Xing Tan Pavilion (simplified Chinese: 杏坛; traditional Chinese: 杏壇; pinyin: Xìng Tán, Apricot Platform), the De Mu Tian Di Arch, the Dacheng Hall (built in the Qing dynasty), and the Hall of Confucius' Wife. The Dacheng Hall (Chinese: 大成殿; pinyin: Dàchéng diàn, Great Perfection Hall) is the architectural center of the present day complex. The hall covers an area of 54 by 34 metres (177 by 112 ft) and stands slightly less than 32 m (105 ft) tall.
It is supported by 28 richly decorated pillars, each 6 m (20 ft) high and 0.8 m (2 ft 7 in) in diameter and carved in one piece out of local rock. The ten columns on the front side of the hall are decorated with coiled dragons. It is said that these columns were covered during visits by the emperor in order not to arouse his envy. Dacheng Hall served as the principal place for offering sacrifices to the memory of Confucius. In the center of the courtyard in front of Dacheng Hall stands the "Apricot Platform", which commemorates Confucius teaching his students under an apricot tree. Each year at Qufu and at many other Confucian temples a ceremony is held on September 28 to commemorate Confucius' birthday.
Cemetery of Confucius (Kong Lin)
The Cemetery of Confucius (孔林; Kǒng Lín) lies to the north of the town of Qufu. The oldest graves found in this location date back to the Zhou dynasty. The original tomb erected here in memory of Confucius on the bank of the Sishui River had the shape of an axe. In addition, it had a brick platform for sacrifices. The present-day tomb is a cone-shaped hill. Tombs for the descendants of Confucius and additional stela to commemorate him were soon added around Confucius' tomb.
Since Confucius' descendants were conferred noble titles and were given imperial princesses as wives, many of the tombs in the cemetery show the status symbols of noblemen. Tombstones came in use during the Han dynasty, today, there are about 3,600 tombstones dating from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties still standing in the cemetery.
In 1331 construction work began on the wall and gate of the cemetery. In total, the cemetery has undergone 13 renovations and extensions. Eventually, by the late 18th century, the perimeter wall reached a length of 7.5 km (4.7 mi), enclosing an area of 3.6 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi). In this space, the tombs of more than 100,000 descendants of Confucius, who have been buried there over a period of about 2000 years, can be found. The oldest graves date back to the Zhou dynasty, the most recent of which belong to descendants in the 76th and 78th generation.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Kong family cemetery was branded a "reactionary" site and was subject to vandalism and desecration. The tombs of Confucius and his descendants were dug up, looted and flattened. Confucius statue was pulled down and paraded through the streets. According to statistics published after the Cultural Revolution, 100,000 volumes of classical texts were burned, 6,618 cultural artefacts were destroyed or damaged, one thousand stelae were smashed, 5,000 ancient pines were felled and over 2,000 graves were dug up during the period.
The corpse of the 76th Duke of Qufu was removed from its grave, hung naked from a tree in front of the palace and later incinerated.
More than 10,000 mature trees give the cemetery a forest-like appearance. A road runs from the north gate of Qufu to the exterior gate of the cemetery in a straight line. It is 1,266 m (4,154 ft) in length and lined by cypresses and pine trees. Along this road lies the Yan Temple, dedicated to Confucius' favorite student.
Kong Family Mansion (Kong Fu)
The direct descendants of Confucius lived in the Kong family Mansion (孔府; Kǒng Fǔ) located to the east of the temple. They were in charge of tending to the temple and cemetery. In particular, they were in charge of conducting elaborate religious ceremonies on occasions such as plantings, harvests, honoring the dead, and birthdays. The Kong family was in control of the largest private rural estate in China. The first mansion was built in 1038 during the Song dynasty and was originally connected directly to the temple. During a rebuilding in 1377 directed by the first Ming dynasty emperor, it was moved a short distance away from the temple. In 1503, it was expanded into three rows of buildings with 560 rooms and—like the Confucius Temple—9 courtyards. The mansion underwent a complete renovation in 1838 only to perish in a fire 47 years later in 1887. It was rebuilt two years later; the cost of both 19th-century renovations was covered by the Emperor. Today, the mansion comprises 152 buildings with 480 rooms, which cover an area of 12,470 square metres (134,200 sq ft). Its tallest structure is the four-story refuge tower (避难楼; Bìnán Lóu) that was designed as a shelter during an attack but was never used. The family mansion was inhabited by descendants of Confucius until 1937, when Confucius' descendant in the 76th and 77th generations fled to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War and later during the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan, where the head of the family still resides.
The layout of the mansion is traditionally Chinese, it separates official rooms in the front from the residential quarters in the rear. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the buildings according to the seniority, gender, and status of their inhabitants reflects the Confucian principle of order and hierarchy: The most senior descendant of Confucius took up residence in the central of the three main buildings; his younger brother occupied the Yi Gun hall to the east.
Economy
Qufu's economy consists of a number different industries. Agriculture, specifically grain production, is a major industry for the city. The other main industries are food processing, textile, construction materials, chemical, coal mining, pharmacy, paper making and industrial machinery. Qufu has also benefited greatly from tourism, holding a number of cultural festivals and exhibitions, largely centered around Confucius.
Natural resources
The city's main mineral deposits include coal, phosphorus, and limestone.
Education
Qufu Normal University is located in Qufu city, and has an additional campus in Rizhao. The university, founded in 1955, offers 87 undergraduate majors, 25 master's degrees, and 11 doctoral degrees.
Religion
Qufu is a traditional centre of Confucianism, being the area where Confucius was born. The city is home to the holiest Temple of Confucius, to the Mausoleum of Confucius and to the Mansion of the Kong Family. The city also has a branch of the Holy Church of Confucius (孔圣堂; Kǒngshèngtáng) and hosts the headquarters of the Federation of Confucian Culture.
Gallery
The Temple of Confucius
The Temple of Yan Hui
The Cemetery of Confucius
Other sights
See also
Mount Ni, traditionally believed to be the site of the birth of Confucius
Zoucheng, hometown of Mencius
Qu (surname 曲), many people with this surname are from Shandong.
Notes
References
傅崇兰 (Bo Chonglan); 孟祥才 (Meng Xiangcai); 曲英杰 (Qu Yingjie); 吴承照 (Wu Chengzhao) (2002), 曲阜庙城与中国儒学 (Qufu's temples and walled cities and China's Confucianism), Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, ISBN 7-5004-3527-4
External links
Qufu travel guide from Wikivoyage
UNESCO World Heritage Listing
CCTV
Qufu Normal University
Asian Historical Architecture: Qufu
Panoramic photo of Confucius Temple
Photographs of a Confucian Temple ceremony
Confucian website
A photo tour of Qufu from 2008 Archived 2012-12-09 at archive.today |
The_Song_Remains_the_Same_(album) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_Remains_the_Same_(album) | [
625
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_Remains_the_Same_(album)"
] | The Song Remains the Same is the live soundtrack album of the concert film of the same name by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. The soundtrack was recorded 27–29 July 1973 and released on 22 October 1976 on Swan Song Records.
Overview
The recording of the album and the film took place during three nights of concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden, during the band's 1973 North American tour. All songs were recorded by Eddie Kramer using the Wally Heider Mobile Studio truck, and later mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York and Trident Studios in London.
The sleeve design depicts a dilapidated movie house on Old Street film studios in London, where the group rehearsed for their 1973 tour.
Until the album and the film were remastered and re-released in 2007, they featured slightly different track lists:
The soundtrack album included "Celebration Day", which did not appear in the film. The album did not include several songs featured in the film, including "Black Dog", "Since I've Been Loving You", "Heartbreaker", the instrumental "Bron-Yr-Aur" (which appeared on Physical Graffiti), and a hurdy-gurdy piece called "Autumn Lake".
In addition, some of the recordings featured on the album were of different performances from those in the film.
Some tracks recorded at Madison Square Garden were omitted from both the film and the soundtrack album: "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Misty Mountain Hop", "The Ocean", and "Thank You".
2007 reissue
The surviving band members oversaw the remixing and remastering of the original release, and The Song Remains the Same soundtrack album was reissued on CD on 20 November 2007. This coincided with the re-issue of the film, released on HD-DVD, Blu-ray and DVD. The new version of the soundtrack included six songs that were not on the original album release: "Black Dog", "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Misty Mountain Hop", "Since I've Been Loving You", "The Ocean" and "Heartbreaker", plus new liner notes by Cameron Crowe.
With the 2007 re-release of both the album and film, the songs were synchronised so that the full set-list from the concerts was available on both, with each song mixed the same way. Kevin Shirley, who worked on How The West Was Won, was involved in the mixing.
Due to legal complications, the band decided not to change the video portion of the original movie for the re-release. Instead, Shirley created an entirely new mix of the three 1973 Madison Square Garden concerts so that the audio portion of the film would better match the on-screen visuals. The audio on the new CD release was nearly identical to the soundtrack of the new DVD release. One difference was that the songs included on the CDs that were not featured in the original movie were included as bonus tracks on the DVD.
The audio mixes also differed from those found on the 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD. The most obvious example is that "Black Dog" was two minutes longer on the 2003 DVD than on the 2007 releases, two of the four verses being cut from the song.
On 29 July 2008, a four-LP edition of the 2007 re-issue, on 180 gram audiophile vinyl, was released. It was presented in a deluxe archival two-piece box with foil-stamping. It includes a 12-page oversized full-colour booklet with dozens of previously unpublished stills from the film, as well as four individual jackets with new and unique artwork. A special white vinyl edition was also printed in very limited numbers. Just 200 were produced, with only 100 being made available to the public from Led Zeppelin's official website.
2018 reissue
On 7 September 2018, a newly remastered edition of The Song Remains the Same was issued in multiple formats, including a multi-disc, super deluxe boxed set, Blu-ray audio with a hi-resolution stereo and new 5.1 surround mix, 180-gram vinyl, CD, streaming and downloads, including 24-bit/96k hi-res audio files for the first time. This is based on the 2007 version of the soundtrack album and concludes the campaign of reissues of their live albums and deluxe editions of their studio albums that started in 2014.
Critical reception
Upon its initial release in 1976, the album received some mixed reviews, with a number of critics considering it to be over-produced and lumbering. Indeed, the band's members themselves have since expressed a lack of fondness for the recording. Page has admitted that the end product was not the best representation of Led Zeppelin as a live band.
In contrast, the 2007 reissued version received generally much more positive reviews. In a review published in Mojo magazine in December 2007 James McNair gave the album four out of five stars, as did David Cavanagh in Uncut magazine, who wrote:
The sound is vastly improved, as is the playing of the musicians (due to digital re-editing of the three MSG concerts, presumably). Not so much remastered as reconstructed, the 15 tracks (six previously unreleased) showboat, strut and snarl.
Track listing
Original release
2007 reissue
Track 3 features "Bring It On Home" intro
Notes
(*) Not on original soundtrack release
(#) Shorter than the original soundtrack release
(+) Longer than the original soundtrack release
Personnel
Led Zeppelin
Robert Plant – vocals
Jimmy Page – guitars, Theremin
John Paul Jones – bass guitar, Fender Rhodes, Mellotron
John Bonham – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Production
Barry Diament – mastering (original Compact Disc release)
Peter Grant – executive producer
Eddie Kramer – engineering, mixing
Bob Ludwig – remastering (2007 edition)
Jimmy Page – production
Kevin Shirley – remixing (2007 edition)
Packaging
Cameron Crowe – liner notes
George Hardie – record sleeve
Hipgnosis – record sleeve
Charts
Certifications
References
External links
The Song Remains the Same at Discogs (list of releases)
The Garden Tapes – a study of sources of the live material and the edits for release on this album. |
Madison_Square_Garden | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Square_Garden | [
625
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Square_Garden"
] | Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth Avenues from 31st to 33rd Street above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden"; the first two, opened in 1879 and 1890 respectively, were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.
The Garden hosts professional ice hockey, professional basketball, boxing, mixed martial arts, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling, and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's at Herald Square. It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was home to the New York Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017.
Originally called Madison Square Garden Center, the Garden opened on February 11, 1968, and is the oldest major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. It is the oldest arena in the NBA and the second-oldest in the NHL, after Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena. As of 2016, MSG is also the second-busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales. Including its two major renovations in 1991 and 2013, the Garden's total construction cost was approximately $1.1 billion, and it has been ranked as one of the 10 most expensive arena venues ever built. It is part of the Pennsylvania Plaza office and retail complex, named for the railway station. Several other operating entities related to the Garden share its name.
History
Previous Gardens
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of 5th Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in Manhattan. It was named after James Madison, fourth President of the United States.
Two venues called Madison Square Garden were located just northeast of the square, the original Garden from 1879 to 1890, and the second Garden from 1890 to 1925. The first, leased to P. T. Barnum, was demolished in 1890 because of a leaky roof and dangerous balconies that had collapsed, resulting in deaths. The second was designed by noted architect Stanford White. The new building was built by a syndicate that included J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, P. T. Barnum, Darius Mills, James Stillman and W. W. Astor. White gave them a Beaux-Arts structure with a Moorish feel, including a minaret-like tower modeled after Giralda, the bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville, soaring 32 stories, the city's second-tallest building at the time and dominating Madison Square Park. It was 200 feet (61 m) by 485 feet (148 m), and the main hall, which was the largest in the world, measured 200 feet (61 m) by 350 feet (110 m) with permanent seating for 8,000 people and floor space for thousands more. It had a 1,200-seat theater, a concert hall with a capacity of 1,500, the largest restaurant in the city, and a roof garden cabaret. The building cost $3 million. Madison Square Garden II was unsuccessful like the first Garden, and the New York Life Insurance Company, which held the mortgage on it, decided to tear it down in 1925 to make way for a new headquarters building, which would become the landmark Cass Gilbert-designed New York Life Building.
A third Madison Square Garden opened in a new location, on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, from 1925 to 1968. Groundbreaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925. Designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 249 days by boxing promoter Tex Rickard; the arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built." The arena was 200 feet (61 m) by 375 feet (114 m), with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for boxing.
Demolition commenced in 1968 after the opening of the current Garden, and was completed in early 1969. The site is now the location of One Worldwide Plaza.
Current Garden
In February 1959, former automobile manufacturer Graham-Paige purchased a 40% interest in the Madison Square Garden for $4 million and later gained control. In November 1960, Graham-Paige president Irving Mitchell Felt purchased from the Pennsylvania Railroad the rights to build at Penn Station. To build the new facility, the above-ground portions of the original Pennsylvania Station were torn down.
The new structure was one of the first of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station. It was an engineering feat constructed by Robert E. McKee of El Paso, Texas. Public outcry over the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station structure—an outstanding example of Beaux-Arts architecture—led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The venue opened on February 11, 1968. Comparing the new and the old Penn Station, Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully wrote, "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat."
In 1972, Felt proposed moving the Knicks and Rangers to a then incomplete venue in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Garden was also the home arena for the NY Raiders/NY Golden Blades of the World Hockey Association. The Meadowlands would eventually host its own NBA and NHL teams, the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils, respectively. The New York Giants and Jets of the National Football League (NFL) also relocated there. In 1977, the arena was sold to Gulf and Western Industries. Felt's efforts fueled controversy between the Garden and New York City over real estate taxes. The disagreement again flared in 1980 when the Garden again challenged its tax bill. The arena, since the 1980s, has since enjoyed tax-free status, under the condition that all Knicks and Rangers home games must be hosted at MSG, lest it lose this exemption. As such, when the Rangers have played neutral-site games—even those in New York City, such as the 2018 NHL Winter Classic, they have always been designated as the visiting team. The tax agreement includes an act of God clause, which allowed Knicks and Rangers home games to be played elsewhere during the 2020 NBA Bubble and 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, respectively, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 1984, the four streets immediately surrounding the Garden were designated as Joe Louis Plaza, in honor of boxer Joe Louis, who had made eight successful title defenses in the previous Madison Square Garden.
1991 renovation
In April 1986, Gulf and Western announced that they would build a new Madison Square Garden a few blocks away on the site of present-day Hudson Yards. The plan would cost an estimated $150 million and included the demolition of the 1964 building to replace it with a new office tower development. After years of planning, Gulf and Western decided against building a new arena in favor of a renovation after estimated costs doubled throughout the process.
Garden owners spent $200 million in 1991 to renovate facilities and add 89 suites in place of hundreds of upper-tier seats. The project was designed by Ellerbe Becket. The renovation was criticized for perceived corporatization. Additionally, the renovation made bathrooms larger, expanded menus, added a new ventilation system, replaced all of the seats with new cushioned teal and violet seats, and refurbished both home teams' locker rooms.
In 2000, current MSG owner, James Dolan was quoted as saying that a new arena was being considered as the current building was starting to show its age.
In 2004–2005, Cablevision battled with the City of New York over the proposed West Side arena, which was canceled. Cablevision then announced plans to raze the Garden, replace it with high-rise commercial buildings, and build a new Garden one block away at the site of the James Farley Post Office. Meanwhile, a new project to renovate and modernize the Garden completed phase one in time for the Rangers and Knicks' 2011–12 seasons, though the vice president of the Garden says he remains committed to the installation of an extension of Penn Station at the Farley Post Office site. While the Knicks and Rangers were not displaced, the New York Liberty played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey during the renovation.
Madison Square Garden is the last of the NBA and NHL arenas not to be named after a corporate sponsor.
2011–2013 renovation
Madison Square Garden's $1 billion second renovation took place mainly over three off-seasons. It was set to begin after the 2009–10 hockey/basketball seasons, but was delayed until after the 2010–11 seasons. Renovation was done in phases with the majority of the work done in the summer months to minimize disruptions to the NHL and NBA seasons. While the Rangers and Knicks were not displaced, the Liberty played their home games through the 2013 season at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, during the renovation.
New features include a larger entrance with interactive kiosks, retail, climate-controlled space, and broadcast studio; larger concourses; new lighting and LED video systems with HDTV; new seating; two new pedestrian walkways suspended from the ceiling to allow fans to look directly down onto the games being played below; more dining options; and improved dressing rooms, locker rooms, green rooms, upgraded roof, and production offices. The lower bowl concourse, called the Madison Concourse, remains on the sixth floor. The upper bowl concourse was relocated to the eighth floor and it is known as the Garden Concourse. The seventh floor houses the new Madison Suites and the Madison Club. The upper bowl was built on top of these suites. The rebuilt concourses are wider than their predecessors, and include large windows that offer views of the city streets around the Garden.
Construction of the lower bowl (Phase 1) was completed in 2011. An extended off-season for the Garden permitted some advanced work to begin on the new upper bowl, which was completed in 2012. This advance work included the West Balcony on the tenth floor, taking the place of sky-boxes, and new end-ice 300 level seating. The construction of the upper bowl along with the Madison Suites and the Madison Club (Phase 2) were completed for the 2012–13 NHL and NBA seasons. Phase 3, which involved the construction of the new lobby known as Chase Square, the Chase Bridges on the 10th floor, and the new scoreboard, was completed for the 2013–14 NHL and NBA seasons.
Penn Station renovation controversy
Madison Square Garden is seen as an obstacle in the renovation and future expansion of Penn Station, which expanded in 2021 with the opening of Moynihan Train Hall at the James Farley Post Office, and some have proposed moving MSG to other sites in western Manhattan. On February 15, 2013, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted 36–0 against granting a renewal to MSG's operating permit in perpetuity and proposed a 10-year limit instead in order to build a new Penn Station where the arena is currently standing. Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer said, "Moving the arena is an important first step to improving Penn Station." The Madison Square Garden Company responded by saying that "[i]t is incongruous to think that M.S.G. would be considering moving."
In May 2013, four architecture firms – SHoP Architects, SOM, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro – submitted proposals for a new Penn Station. SHoP Architects recommended moving Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility a few blocks southwest, as well as removing 2 Penn Plaza and redeveloping other towers, and an extension of the High Line to Penn Station. Meanwhile, SOM proposed moving Madison Square Garden to the area just south of the James Farley Post Office, and redeveloping the area above Penn Station as a mixed-use development with commercial, residential, and recreational space. H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture wanted to move the arena to a new pier west of Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, four blocks west of the current station and arena. Then, according to H3's plan, four skyscrapers would be built, one at each of the four corners of the new Penn Station superblock, with a roof garden on top of the station; the Farley Post Office would become an education center. Finally, Diller Scofidio + Renfro proposed a mixed-use development on the site, with spas, theaters, a cascading park, a pool, and restaurants; Madison Square Garden would be moved two blocks west, next to the post office. DS+F also proposed high-tech features in the station, such as train arrival and departure boards on the floor, and apps that would inform waiting passengers of ways to occupy their time until they board their trains. Madison Square Garden rejected the notion that it would be relocated, and called the plans "pie-in-the-sky".
In June 2013, the New York City Council Committee on Land Use voted unanimously to give the Garden a ten-year permit, at the end of which period the owners will either have to relocate or go back through the permission process. On July 24, the City Council voted to give the Garden a 10-year operating permit by a vote of 47–1. "This is the first step in finding a new home for Madison Square Garden and building a new Penn Station that is as great as New York and suitable for the 21st century," said City Council speaker Christine Quinn. "This is an opportunity to reimagine and redevelop Penn Station as a world-class transportation destination."
In October 2014, the Morgan facility was selected as the ideal area for Madison Square Garden to be moved, following the 2014 MAS Summit in New York City. More plans for the station were discussed. Then, in January 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a redevelopment plan for Penn Station that would involve the removal of The Theater at Madison Square Garden, but would otherwise leave the arena intact.
In June 2023, nearing the end of the Garden's ten-year permit granted by the city, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, along with Amtrak and NJ Transit, filed a report stating that MSG is no longer compatible with Penn Station, with the report saying, "MSG's existing configuration and property boundaries impose severe constraints on the station that impede the safe and efficient movement of passengers and restrict efforts to implement improvements, particularly at the street and platform levels." On September 14, 2023, the New York City Council voted 48–0 to renew the operating permit for Madison Square Garden for five years, the shortest-ever granted by the city to the Garden.
Events
Regular events
Sports
Madison Square Garden hosts approximately 320 events a year. It is the home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League, and the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association. Before 2020, the New York Rangers, New York Knicks, and the Madison Square Garden arena itself were all owned by the Madison Square Garden Company. The MSG Company split into two entities in 2020, with the Garden arena and other non-sports assets spun off into Madison Square Garden Entertainment and the Rangers and Knicks remaining with the original company, renamed Madison Square Garden Sports. Both entities remain under the voting control of James Dolan and his family. The arena is also host to the Big East men's basketball tournament and was home to the finals of the National Invitation Tournament from the beginning of its existence up until 2022. It also hosts select home games for the St. John's Red Storm, representing St. John's University in men's (college basketball), and almost any other kind of indoor activity that draws large audiences, such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The Garden was home of the NBA draft and NIT Season Tip-Off, as well as the former New York City home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice; all four events are now held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It served the New York Cosmos for half of their home games during the 1983–84 NASL Indoor season.
Many of boxing's biggest fights were held at Madison Square Garden, including the Roberto Durán–Ken Buchanan affair, the first Muhammad Ali – Joe Frazier bout and the US debut of Anthony Joshua that ended in a huge upset when he was beaten by Andy Ruiz. Before promoters such as Don King and Bob Arum moved boxing to Las Vegas, Nevada, Madison Square Garden was a popular location for boxing. The original 18+1⁄2 ft × 18+1⁄2 ft (5.6 m × 5.6 m) ring, which was brought from the second and third generation of the Garden, was officially retired on September 19, 2007, and donated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame after 82 years of service. A 20 ft × 20 ft (6.1 m × 6.1 m) ring replaced it beginning on October 6 of that same year. The UFC has made Madison Square Garden in recent years and have put on some of the highest grossing PPV events in history.
Pro wrestling
Madison Square Garden has hosted many notable WWE (formerly WWF and WWWF) events. The Garden has hosted three WrestleMania events, including the first edition of the annual marquee event for WWE, as well as the 10th and 20th editions. Madison Square Garden is also one of two venues (the other being Allstate Arena) to host WrestleMania three times.
It also hosted the Royal Rumble in 2000 and 2008; SummerSlam in 1988, 1991 and 1998; as well as Survivor Series in 1996, 2002 and 2011. Multiple episodes of WWE's weekly shows, Raw and SmackDown have been broadcast from the Arena as well.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH) hosted their G1 Supercard supershow at the venue on April 6, 2019. A year later it was announced that New Japan Pro-Wrestling would return to Madison Square Garden alone on August 22, 2020, for NJPW Wrestle Dynasty. In May 2020, NJPW announced that the Wrestle Dynasty show would be postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Concerts
Madison Square Garden hosts more high-profile concert events than any other venue in New York City. It has been the venue for Michael Jackson's Bad World Tour in 1988, George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh, The Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks, John Lennon's final concert appearance during an Elton John concert on Thanksgiving Night in 1974 before his murder in 1980, and Elvis Presley, who gave four sold-out performances in 1972, his first and last ever in New York City. Parliament-Funkadelic headlined numerous sold-out shows in 1977 and 1978. Kiss, who were formed in the arena's city and three of whose members were city-born, did six shows during their second half of the 1970s main attraction peak or "heyday": four sold out winter shows at the arena in 1977 (February 18 and December 14–16), and another two shows only this time in summer for a decade-ender in 1979 (July 24–25). They played their final two shows at the venue on the December 1 and 2, 2023, the 50th anniversary year of their formation. Billy Joel, another city-born and fellow 1970's pop star, played his first Garden show on December 14, 1978, with that month's follow ups on the 15th, 16th and 18th. Led Zeppelin's three-night stand in July 1973 was recorded and released as both a film and album titled The Song Remains The Same. The Police played their final show of their reunion tour at the Garden in 2008.
In the summer of 2017, Phish held a 13 night series of concerts called "The Bakers' Dozen." During which the band played 237 unique songs, repeating none during the entire run. The Garden commemorated "The Bakers' Dozen" by adding a Phish themed banner to the rafters. With their first MSG show taking place on December 30, 1994, Phish has regularly played annual multi night runs, typically around New Year's Eve. As of January 2024, Phish has performed 83 times at MSG.
Elton John once held the all-time record for the greatest number of appearances at the Garden with 64 shows. In a 2009 press release, John was quoted as saying "Madison Square Garden is my favorite venue in the whole world. I chose to have my 60th birthday concert there, because of all the incredible memories I've had playing the venue." A DVD recording was released as Elton 60—Live at Madison Square Garden.
Billy Joel, who holds the record for the greatest number of appearances at the Garden with 134 shows as of February 2023, stated that the site "has the best acoustics, the best audiences, the best reputation, and the best history of great artists who have played there. It is the iconic, holy temple of rock and roll for most touring acts."
The Grateful Dead performed in the venue 53 times from 1979 to 1994, with the first show being held on January 7, 1979, and the last being on October 19, 1994. Their longest run being done in September 1991.
The Who have headlined at the venue 32 times, including a four-night stand in 1974, a five-night stand in 1979, a six-night stand in 1996, and four-night stands in 2000 and 2002. They also performed at The Concert for New York City in 2001.
On March 10, 2020, a 50th-anniversary celebration of The Allman Brothers Band titled 'The Brothers' took place, featuring the five surviving members of the final Allman Brothers lineup and Chuck Leavell. Dickey Betts was invited to participate but his health precluded him from traveling. This was the final concert at the venue before the COVID-19 pandemic forced its closure. Live shows returned to The Garden when the Foo Fighters headlined a show there on June 20, 2021. The show was for a vaccinated audience only and was the first 100 percent capacity concert in a New York arena since the start of the pandemic.
Other events
It hosted the 1976 Democratic National Convention, 1980 Democratic National Convention, 1992 Democratic National Convention, and the 2004 Republican National Convention, and hosted the NFL draft for many years (later held at Garden-leased Radio City Music Hall, now shared between cities of NFL franchises). The Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and several installments of Celebrity Jeopardy! were filmed at MSG in 1999, as well as several episodes of Wheel of Fortune in 1999 and 2013.
The New York City Police Academy, Baruch College/CUNY and Yeshiva University also hold their annual graduation ceremonies at Madison Square Garden. It hosted the Grammy Awards in 1972, 1997, 2003, and 2018 (which are normally held in Los Angeles) as well as the Latin Grammy Awards of 2006.
The group, and Best in Show competitions of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show have been held at MSG every February from 1877 to 2020, which was MSG's longest continuous tenant although this was broken in 2021 as the Westminster Kennel Club announced that the event would be held outdoors for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notable firsts and significant events
The Garden hosted the Stanley Cup Finals and NBA Finals simultaneously on two occasions: in 1972 and 1994. MSG has hosted the following All-Star Games:
NHL All-Star Game: 1973, 1994
NBA All-Star Game: 1998, 2015
WNBA All-Star Game: 1999, 2003, 2006
All American Karate Championships held in 1968 and 1969, both won by Chuck Norris. The 1970 edition was won by Mitchell Bobrow.
UFC held its first event in New York City, UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor, at Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2016. This was the first event the organization held after New York State lifted the ban on mixed martial arts.
Mike Krzyzewski recorded two notable milestones at the arena. In 2011, he surpassed Bob Knight as the winningest coach in NCAA Division I men's basketball history when Duke defeated Michigan State. Four years later, a Duke victory over St. John's gave Coach K his 1,000th career win.
Stephen Curry broke the NBA's all-time three-point scoring record at Madison Square Garden, on December 14, 2021. The Warriors defeated the Knicks 105–96 with Curry recording his 2,977th career three-pointer by the end of the game, eclipsing Ray Allen's 2,973 career total.
Recognition given by Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden Gold Ticket Award
In 1977, Madison Square Garden announced Gold Ticket Awards would be given to performers who had brought in more than 100,000 unit ticket sales to the venue. Since the arena's seating capacity is about 20,000, this would require a minimum of five sold-out shows. Performers who were eligible for the award at the time of its inauguration included Chicago, John Denver, Peter Frampton, the Rolling Stones, the Jackson 5, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Sly Stone, Jethro Tull, The Who, and Yes. Graeme Edge, who received his award in 1981 as a member of The Moody Blues, said he found his gold ticket to be an interesting piece of memorabilia because he could use it to attend any event at the Garden. Many other performers received Gold Ticket Awards between 1977 and 1994.
Madison Square Garden Platinum Ticket Award
Madison Square Garden also gave Platinum Ticket Awards to performers who sold over 250,000 tickets to their shows throughout the years. Winners of the Platinum Ticket Awards include: the Rolling Stones (1981), Elton John (1982), Yes (1984), Billy Joel (1984), the Grateful Dead (1987), and Madonna (2004).
Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame
The Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame honors those who have demonstrated excellence in their fields at the Garden. Most of the inductees have been sports figures, however, some performers have been inducted as well. Elton John was reported to be the first non-sports figure inducted into the MSG Hall of Fame in 1977 for "record attendance of 140,000" in June of that year. For their accomplishment of "13 sell-out concerts" at the venue, the Rolling Stones were inducted into the MSG Hall of Fame in 1984, along with nine sports figures icons, bringing the hall's membership to 107.
Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame
The walkway leading to the arena of Madison Square Garden was designated as the "Walk of Fame" in 1992. It was established "to recognize athletes, artists, announcers and coaches for their extraordinary achievements and memorable performances at the venue." Each inductee is commemorated with a plaque that lists the performance category in which his or her contributions have been made.
Twenty-five athletes were inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1992, a black-tie dinner to raise money to fight multiple sclerosis.
Elton John was the first entertainer to be inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame in 1992.
Billy Joel was inducted at a date after Elton John,
and the Rolling Stones were inducted in 1998. In 2015, the Grateful Dead were inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame along with at least three sports-related figures.
Capacity
The Theater at Madison Square Garden
The Theater at Madison Square Garden seats between 2,000 and 5,600 for concerts and can also be used for meetings, stage shows, and graduation ceremonies. It was the home of the NFL draft until 2005, when it moved to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center after MSG management opposed a new arena for the New York Jets. It also hosted the NBA draft from 2001 to 2010. The theater also occasionally hosts boxing matches.
The fall 1999 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament as well as a Celebrity Jeopardy! competitions were held at the theater. Wheel of Fortune taped at the theater twice in 1999 and 2013. In 2004, it was the venue of the Survivor: All-Stars finale. No seat is more than 177 feet (54 m) from the 30' × 64' stage. The theater has a relatively low 20-foot (6.1 m) ceiling at stage level and all of its seating except for boxes on the two side walls is on one level slanted back from the stage. There is an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) lobby at the theater.
Accessibility and transportation
Madison Square Garden sits directly atop a major transportation hub, New York Penn Station, which is served by Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit commuter rail, as well as Amtrak. The Garden is also accessible via the New York City Subway at the 34th Street–Penn Station (A, C, and E trains) and the 34th Street–Penn Station (1, 2, and 3 trains) stations.
See also
List of indoor arenas by capacity
List of NCAA Division I basketball arenas
Madison Square Garden Bowl, a former outdoor boxing venue in Queens operated by the Garden company
Royal Albert Hall
References
Notes
Sources
McShane, Larry. "Looking Back at 125 Years of Madison Square Garden". New York City. Archived from the original on August 30, 2005. Retrieved August 7, 2005.
"MSG: Corporate Information". Archived from the original on August 6, 2005. Retrieved August 7, 2005.
"Rent The Garden". Archived from the original on March 5, 2005. Retrieved August 7, 2005.
Bagli, Charles V. (September 12, 2005). "Madison Square Garden's Owners Are in Talks to Replace It, a Block West". The New York Times.
Huff, Richard (August 8, 2006). "Arena's the Star of MSG Revamp". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved September 2, 2024.
Anderson, Dave (February 19, 1981). "Sports of the Times; Dues for the City". The New York Times.
"A Garden Built For Tomorrow," Sports Illustrated, January 2, 1967.
Madison Square Garden under construction from the Hagley Digital Archives
External links
Official website
Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corporate website |
AC/DC_discography | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC_discography | [
625
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC_discography#Live_albums"
] | Australian rock band AC/DC have released 18 studio albums, two soundtrack albums, three live albums, one extended play, 57 singles, 11 video albums, 52 music videos and two box sets. Although many AC/DC singles have been released, the band refused to issue any greatest hits albums. Who Made Who, which served as the soundtrack to Stephen King's film Maximum Overdrive, Iron Man 2 and the band's various live recordings are the closest they have issued to such a compilation.
Brothers Angus (lead guitar) and Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar) formed AC/DC in 1973. The band released two albums in Australasia before issuing their first international album, High Voltage in 1976; the Youngs had been joined by vocalist Bon Scott, bass guitarist Mark Evans and drummer Phil Rudd. In 1980, less than a year after the appearance of the successful Highway to Hell, Scott died and was replaced by English singer Brian Johnson, with whom AC/DC released their best-selling album, Back in Black. The album Black Ice, from 2008, reached number one in 29 countries. In 50 years of their career, AC/DC have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, and 83 million in the United States. Back in Black sold 50 million copies worldwide, and became the second best-selling album in history.
Verizon made AC/DC albums available for digital download in 2007; for five years the band refused to release their albums via iTunes, as that company allows downloading of individual tracks. Angus Young observed, "We honestly believe the songs on any of our albums belong together. If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album – and we don't think that represents us musically." However, in November 2012, the band relented and released their entire discography via iTunes. On 30 June 2015, their catalogue appeared on Spotify for the first time, which made their works available for streaming. Their most certified singles in the US are "Thunderstruck" (1990), "Back in Black" (1980), "Highway to Hell" (1979), and "You Shook Me All Night Long" (1980) – each have received Diamond, 7× Platinum, and 6× Platinum and from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2024, respectively. In Australia, "Thunderstruck" (1990) was accredited 10× Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) in 2022.
Albums
Studio albums
Live albums
Soundtrack albums
Box set albums
Extended plays
Singles
Videos
Video albums
Music videos
See also
List of best-selling albums
List of best-selling music artists
Notes
References
Further reading
Dome, Malcolm (1982). AC/DC. Proteus Books. ISBN 978-0-86276-011-3.
Bunton, Richard (1983). AC/DC: Hell Ain't No Bad Place to Be. Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-0082-0.
Holmes, Tim (1986). AC/DC – Monsters of Metal. Ballantine. ISBN 978-0-345-33239-4.
Huxley, Martin (1996). AC/DC: The World's Heaviest Rock. Lightning Source Inc. ISBN 978-0-312-30220-7.
Stenning, Paul (2005). AC/DC: Two Sides to Every Glory. Chrome Dreams. ISBN 978-1-84240-308-2.
External links
AC/DC discography at MusicBrainz
AC/DC discography at Discogs |
If_You_Want_Blood_You%27ve_Got_It | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Want_Blood_You%27ve_Got_It | [
625
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Want_Blood_You%27ve_Got_It"
] | If You Want Blood You've Got It (written as just If You Want Blood) is the first live album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, and their only live album released during Bon Scott's lifetime. It was originally released in the UK and Europe on 13 October 1978, in the US on 21 November 1978, and in Australia on 27 November 1978. The album was re-released in 1994 on Atco Records and in 2003 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series.
Background
The album was released six months after the band's previous studio album Powerage. A 'best-of' package called 12 of the Best had been in the works, but the project was scrapped in favour of a live album. It was recorded during the 1978 Powerage tour and contains songs from T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage. It is the last Bon Scott-era AC/DC album produced by Harry Vanda and George Young, who also produced the band's first five studio releases.
In his 1994 Bon Scott memoir Highway to Hell, author Clinton Walker observes, "Live albums, which tended to be double or triple sets in which songs short in their studio versions were stretched out into extended tedium, were for some reason popular in the seventies. If You Want Blood reversed this tradition... it boasted a blunt ten tracks and, allowing nothing extraneous, got straight to the point, that being raging AC/DC rock and roll."
A concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland on 30 April 1978 was used for the live tracks. The concert is also remembered for the encore, when AC/DC came back on stage dressed in the Scottish football strip, paying homage to Scott's and the Young brothers' homeland.
"This gig summed up what made AC/DC so special live: the energy, the rapport with the crowd and the way those simple yet classic songs took on another life. You hear all of this on If You Want Blood. It's a great reminder of how remarkable the band and their fans were that night." – Tom Russell, DJ
"Dog Eat Dog", performed on the night, was removed from the album release, while the encore – "Fling Thing/Rocker" – was edited, removing "Fling Thing" and cutting out Angus's extended solo, as he did a walk around the audience (with an early version of a wireless guitar lead). This part of the band's concert theatrics later accompanied "Let There Be Rock"; "Rocker" has been performed only a few times since Bon Scott's passing in 1980. The live "Dog Eat Dog" was released as the b-side of the single "Whole Lotta Rosie" in November 1978, but only in Australia. It was rereleased worldwide in 2009 on the two (standard) and three (collectors) CD boxed set compilation Backtracks, featuring Australian-only songs not released internationally at the time, and live b-Sides from 7" and 12" singles. The encores "Fling Thing" and "Rocker" (with a complete guitar solo) appeared only on footage of the concert by a Dutch TV station played at the time, but were eventually released on the Family Jewels DVD.
According to the 2006 book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, the album title was an extension of Scott's response – at the Day on the Green festival in July 1978 – when a journalist asked what they could expect from the band. The singer replied, "Blood." The cover art is from a shoot with Atlantic Records' staff photographer Jim Houghton after the show at Boston's Paradise Theater on 21st August 1978, the idea for which came from Atlantic's art director Bob Defrin. The front cover depicts Angus Young being impaled on stage with a guitar during a performance, while the back depicts a bloodied Young lying facedown on the same stage, though deserted.
A song titled "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" appeared on the next album: the band's US chart breakthrough, Highway to Hell.
Reception
The album was listed at #2 on Classic Rock magazine's readers' poll of "50 Greatest Live Albums Ever". In a 1992 interview with Metal Hammer at the time of the band's second live release, Malcolm Young admitted, "I personally still prefer the old album. We were young, fresh, vital and kicking ass." Greg Prato of AllMusic notes, "While most other rock bands of the era were busy experimenting with disco or creating studio-perfected epics, AC/DC was one of the few specializing in raw and bluesy hard rock, as evidenced by 1978's live set, If You Want Blood You've Got It." Eduardo Rivadavia of Ultimate Classic Rock enthuses, "Other concert records may boast more songs, more Top 40 hits or even more crowd-pleasing gimmicks. But very few can challenge the sheer excitement and reckless abandon captured on AC/DC’s terrific concert document." Carlo Twist of Blender magazine praised the album, saying that "They were always a mighty live act, and this is the sound of AC/DC in Europe just prior to 1979's U.S. breakthrough. The audience's hysteria regularly cuts through the amps, as they howl along to singer Bon Scott's tale of sexually transmitted disease ("The Jack") and punctuate guitarist Angus Young's staccato riffing on "Whole Lotta Rosie." Imagine a punk-rock Chuck Berry played at nosebleed volume."
Concert footage
The entire Glasgow concert was filmed but the complete footage has never been released. Eventually, "Riff Raff" and "Fling Thing/Rocker" segments were made available on the DVD AC/DC Family Jewels, released in 2005. Video footage was also used from the show on Family Jewels using the "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" studio version audio track promotional clip. Segments from the concert (the songs "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation", "Dog Eat Dog" and "Let There Be Rock") were made available on the DVD Plug Me In, released in 2007 (the latter 2 were also released on YouTube in 2013)). "Bad Boy Boogie" was included on the bonus disc on the three-disc edition of Plug Me In.
Track listing
Original concert setlist
All songs written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott except "Fling Thing", which is a Scottish traditional song.
Notes
The song "Gimme a Bullet" was played during sound-check, according to the Official Apollo Theatre website setlist for the show.
"Fling Thing" is the b-side to the original Australian only single of "Jailbreak", but is actually the traditional Scottish folk song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond". The band played it live in Australia and Scotland as a staple part of the encores in the early years, and is replayed on the 1991 album AC/DC Live 2 CD Collectors edition from the Glasgow concert on the Razors Edge World Tour (though this time it is just called "Bonny") and it was re-released in its original form, for the first time since 1976, on the Backtracks boxed set.
This version of "Fling Thing / Rocker (reprise)" - as it was the encore for the concert - is on the Family Jewels DVD, with some of the other songs from this concert, but the entire show has never been seen in its entirety since an original broadcast by a Dutch TV station around the same era.
Personnel
Bon Scott – lead vocals
Angus Young – lead guitar
Malcolm Young – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Cliff Williams – bass guitar, backing vocals
Phil Rudd – drums
Production
Producers: Harry Vanda, George Young
Sound: Mike Scarfe (MHA AUDIO)
Charts
Certifications
References
External links
Lyrics on AC/DC's official website |
The_Apollo,_Glasgow | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo,_Glasgow | [
625
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo,_Glasgow"
] | The Apollo was a music venue at 126 Renfield Street in Glasgow city centre, Scotland. The Apollo operated from 5 September 1973 until closure on 16 June 1985 and was Glasgow's leading music venue during this period. The Apollo was a re-brand of the previous Green's Playhouse in the same building.
History
The Green family owned Green's Playhouse cinema at 126 Renfield Street. It was thought to be the largest cinema in Europe at the time but was in decline. Unicorn Leisure, owned by Frank Lynch and Max Langdown, leased a discothèque named Clouds in the top floor of the building. Unicorn included management of Billy Connolly in their portfolio. On hearing the Green family were considering converting the dis-repaired venue into a bingo hall or demolishing the venue for a completely new development, Unicorn applied to lease the building which they felt had potential as a music venue. They bought a job lot of 3,000 cinema seats and re-upholstered the 'Golden Divans' in the balcony. "Apollo" was chosen as the name of the re-branded venue so to mitigate the cost of letters for which the sign company charged £250 per letter.
The first two concerts at The Apollo were performed by Johnny Cash on 5 & 6 September 1973. The venue was quickly attractive to the public responding to booking of popular performers of the time who spoke favourably of the atmosphere generated by the exuberant crowds. The ballroom operated above the main concert auditorium, originally known as "Clouds", following various name changes that included "Satellite City" and "The Penthouse". The ballroom became a music venue for up-coming and relatively lesser-known contemporary bands, such as Simple Minds, Elvis Costello, Sham 69 and The Rich Kids. These were unable to attract a large enough paying audience to fill the concert venue.
The venue was known for the atmosphere generated by its enthusiastic crowds, a 15 ft 6 in high stage (often exaggerated and misreported) that sloped down towards the audience and "bouncy balcony" designed and built so that it would move up and down. This feature was put to the test by concert-goers, who would jump to get it to bounce. Francis Rossi refers to this on Status Quo's Live!, recorded at the venue: "Those people at the top, on the balcony, [we] can only see you when the lights go up there. Get the balcony to move about a bit and they'll [the sound/road crew] all be running about and shitting themselves. Nice bunch of fellas, but very very scared of balconies!"
Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers said the stage was "the only one in our career where we said if anyone got onstage from the audience, they could stay. They'd earned it." Andy Summers of The Police in his autobiography "One Train Later" wrote "Back in the dressing room, drenched in sweat and sitting among piles of little tartan-wrapped presents, we remarked about the bouncing balcony, amazed that the whole thing didn't collapse." The venue was used for numerous live album recordings (see "Notable Performances" section) and was used as either opening or closing venue by many performers visiting the UK from America. The management team for the Ramones have subsequently said the Apollo was the Ramones' favourite venue.
Despite the Apollo's success as a music venue, the building was in a poor condition and its structure was gradually deteriorating. Maintenance was undertaken only on a "make-do" basis. In mid-1977 the owner of Unicorn Leisure relocated to Florida. The lease for the venue was acquired by the Apollo Leisure Group. The new leaseholders experienced considerable problems with the buildings structural condition and later considered relinquishing the lease in 1978, with Mecca Bingo expressing interest in the acquisition of the building. A successful campaign to preserve the building's status as a music venue included a 100,000 signature petition including support from Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton. The resumption was to herald a seven-year downward spiral until the venue finally closed for business on 16 June 1985. The Style Council were the final performers on the bill. The building was demolished in September 1987 following a fire that rendered the building structurally unsafe.
Such is the high regard that Ozzy Osbourne felt for the place that when he agreed to an interview on Scottish Television he asked that the interview be held in the empty disused site of the old building.
Notable performances
5 & 6 September 1973: Johnny Cash was the first headline act after the theatre had been rebranded and reopened as The Apollo.
October 1973: King Crimson recorded their Apollo performance, much of which was released on 1992's The Great Deceiver.
November 1973: the Apollo was one of three venues used for Roxy Music's 1976 live album Viva!
27-29 October 1976: Status Quo recorded their first live album, Live!, at the Apollo. It won the ‘Classic Album Award’ at the 2012 Classic Rock Roll of Honour awards show. "It's definitely us at our most rocking… you can hear the aggression," observed singer and guitarist Francis Rossi. "And that audience you hear, in Glasgow. You didn't argue with them."
30 April 1978: AC/DC recorded their first live album If You Want Blood You've Got It at the Apollo. The band played their encore dressed in the full Scottish football team strip, celebrating the Scots participation in the upcoming 1978 FIFA World Cup Finals in Argentina. "The atmosphere was incredible," recalled DJ Tom Russell. "When Glasgow takes a band to heart, gigs become magical."
23 December 1978: The Rezillos played their farewell gig and released it as the live album Mission Accomplished... But the Beat Goes On.
November 1979: ABBA performed the last night of their UK tour at the Apollo. It was their last live performance in Britain.
17 December 1979: Paul McCartney and Wings recorded a version of "Coming Up" for the flip side of the single release of the studio version. "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" has since appeared on US versions of the McCartney compilations All the Best! (1987) and Wingspan: Hits and History (2001). The concert featured Campbelltown Pipe Band joining the proceedings during "Mull of Kintyre"
31 December 1979: Blondie played, broadcast live on BBC television's The Old Grey Whistle Test. They were joined on stage by bagpipers for "Sunday Girl".
10–11 June 1980: Progressive rock band Rush recorded songs for their Exit... Stage Left double album at the Apollo (side 2). The Apollo recordings were selected from over 50 reels of two-inch tape Rush accumulated on their Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures tours. The remaining three sides of Exit... Stage Left were recorded in Rush's home country of Canada in 1981.
12 September 1980: Ozzy Osbourne began his post-Black Sabbath touring career, formally starting the Blizzard of Ozz Tour at the Apollo. Osbourne's wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, said of the gig in her autobiography, Extreme: "We were all really, really nervous. In the days of variety, Glaswegians were said to be the most difficult of any audience in Britain, especially on a Friday night, which this was, when they got paid and got pissed. I didn't tell Ozzy - he was nervous enough already, on and off the toilet shaking with stage fright…. Before the doors opened they were lining up round the block, and we were all in shock. The show was unbelievable. At the end, Ozzy knelt down and kissed the stage. 'Thank you, thank you, I love you, love you,' he said, his voice breaking with emotion. And we all cried, the three of us: Ozzy, Randy and me, sobbing with tears of joy, and we could still hear voices from the auditorium calling for more.... He had done it. He had fucking done it."
1981: a recording by The Stranglers for Radio Clyde was released as Live at the Apollo in 2003.
19 February 1982: Alice Cooper ended his Special Forces tour at the Apollo. The show was recorded and played on Radio Clyde. A single released to mark the tour – titled "For Britain Only" – contained three tracks from the Apollo show: "Who Do You Think You Are", "Model Citizen" and "Under My Wheels". The Radio Clyde recording later became an unofficial release in Sweden titled For Glasgow Only. The concert was released on vinyl to celebrate Record Store Day 2020.
April 1982: The Jam played two concerts at the Apollo, the first of which later appeared in Live Jam. At the end of the year they commenced their farewell tour at the Apollo.
30 September 1982: Roxy Music recorded The High Road (EP) at the Apollo.
6 February 1983: Northern Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers played their final gig at the Apollo before reuniting in 1987.
14 February 1984: a Gary Moore broadcast on Radio Clyde contributed four tracks to the live album We Want Moore!.
13 February 1985: Phil Collins performed during The No Jacket Required World Tour.
16 June 1985: The Style Council performed the final concert at the Apollo before it was demolished. The last song played at the venue was their cover of Curtis Mayfield's 'Move On Up'.
After demolition
The Apollo was replaced by a Cineworld building constructed in 2000 and opened a year later on exactly the same site.
A musical was first produced in 2009 titled, I Was There: The Story of The Glasgow Apollo.
The retro website glasgowapollo.com was launched in 2003. As of 2017 the site has received over 12 million hits.
See also
Music of Scotland
Glasgow music scene
List of bands from Glasgow
References
External links
Scottish Cinemas and Theatres - The Apollo archive photographs
Talisman Films Scotland, DVDs of towns in Fife past and present, Ticket stubs from Glasgow Apollo
The Glasgow Apollo Website
You Had To Be There: Memories Of The Glasgow Apollo |
Five_Nights_at_Freddy%27s | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Nights_at_Freddy%27s | [
626
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Nights_at_Freddy%27s"
] | Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF) is a video game series and media franchise created by indie game developer Scott Cawthon. The franchise features ten main video games, several spin-off games, novels, and a film adaptation.
The video game series follows a set of night guards and other characters that try to survive from midnight to 6 a.m. for five levels, called "nights", while fending off attacks from homicidal animatronic characters. Each game is set in a different location connected to a fictional family pizza restaurant franchise named "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza". The core gameplay mechanic involves using tools effectively and managing limited resources to avoid being caught by the animatronics.
Cawthon conceived the idea for the first video game after his family-friendly resource management game, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., was criticized for the resemblance of its characters to frightening animatronics. Responding to this feedback, he developed a horror game that intentionally featured scary animatronics. Released in August 2014, the game's success prompted the development of sequels. Cawthon created most of the games himself using Clickteam Fusion but partnered with Steel Wool Studios to create an open-world game and a virtual reality anthology.
The series has a mixed critical reception, with praise for its storytelling and atmosphere but criticism for its gameplay. It has achieved significant commercial success, with merchandise available internationally. The franchise has also garnered a cult following that produces fan media inspired by it.
History and development
The concept for Five Nights at Freddy's stemmed from the negative reception of Scott Cawthon's earlier game, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., where players said that the main character resembled a "scary animatronic animal." Initially discouraged by the criticism, Cawthon, who had predominantly created Christian-oriented games, leveraged this feedback to develop something intentionally frightening. Five Nights at Freddy's was released on August 8, 2014, via Desura, followed by a Steam release after gaining approval through the crowdsourcing platform Greenlight. The game rapidly gained popularity after being showcased by prominent YouTubers.: 82
The success of Five Nights at Freddy's led to multiple sequels released between 2014 and 2023, and a spin-off game titled FNaF World, launched in January 2016. Cawthon used Clickteam Fusion 2.5 for game development and Autodesk 3ds Max for 3D graphics, enhancing later titles with professional voice actors and original soundtracks. For Help Wanted and Security Breach, Cawthon worked with game development company Steel Wool Studios. In 2015, Cawthon expanded the franchise into literature, announcing a multi-book deal with Scholastic in 2016, which began with The Silver Eyes, released on Amazon Kindle on December 17, 2015 and in paperback on September 27, 2016. This was followed by two additional novels, The Twisted Ones and The Fourth Closet, published in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Gameplay
The Five Nights at Freddy's series consists of psychological horror-themed video games in which the player is usually a night-time employee at a location connected with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a fictional children's restaurant that takes inspiration from family pizza chains like Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza Place. The restaurant has life-size animatronic characters resembling anthropomorphic animals that perform on a show stage, usually for children's parties, but leave their posts and wander the restaurant at night; the guard's job is to watch over them and prevent them from attacking. The animatronics' mobility is stated in the first game to be necessaary for them to continue functioning properly in the morning, though subsequent games reveal they are actually possessed by ghosts.
In Five Nights at Freddy's, the player can control the two security doors connecting their office to the adjacent hallways as a barrier against animatronics in the vicinity. Each night, the player has a power supply that depletes faster when a tool is used. If the power goes out, the player can no longer use any tools and is defenseless against the animatronics unless a shift ends before main animatronic Freddy Fazbear can attack. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 has different tools; there are no protective doors, and the player must instead use an empty animatronic head and flashlight to defend themself against the animatronics. The game introduced a music box which must be remotely wound up on a regular basis to prevent an attack from a particular animatronic. Eight-bit mini-games were introduced, which are played randomly after death and give cryptic clues into the lore.
Five Nights at Freddy's 3 uses a monitor panel, which contains audio, camera, and ventilation. The player must keep certain systems from malfunctioning. These malfunctions can be triggered randomly or by the hallucinations of the animatronics from the first and second games. The ability to seal vents is also added and must be used to prevent the sole tangible animatronic from entering the office. The player can use an audio-based function on the cameras, which triggers a childlike voice to lure Springtrap, the game's only physical animatronic possessed by William Afton's spirit, away from the office. The 8-bit minigames return and are playable after each night if the player completes side tasks such as clicking on a poster or inputting a code into a wall. If the player completes the minigames, they unlock a secret ending.
In Five Nights at Freddy's 4, the gameplay occurs in a bedroom setting, and instead of being a nighttime security guard, the player takes the role of a small child who experiences nightmarish visions of the animatronics due to fearing their real-life counterparts. The player also no longer has access to a camera system. The player has four areas in the bedroom to monitor: two hallway doors on both sides of the room, the closet directly in front of them, and the bed behind them. At the doors, the player must listen for animatronics' breathing, which can determine whether they are near.
If the player hears breathing at the side doors, they close the door and wait for the animatronics to walk away. If they open the doors too early, however, the animatronics jump scare the player. The player must also prevent small animatronics from accumulating on their bed, and prevent an animatronic from entering their closet. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 also introduces a minigame involving a new animatronic, which offers the player a two-hour skip in the next night for completing the minigame.
An elevated control pad is introduced for Sister Location, which can light a room or shock the animatronics. Other mechanics include a second control pad in a breaker room, which controls power to the facility and a flash beacon, which allows the player to see in the dark Funtime Auditorium (a party room) and avoid its animatronic. Sister Location is the only game where the player can move between rooms.
Pizzeria Simulator has business-style gameplay, and the player must spend in-game money to buy features for their pizzeria. A series of minigames can be played by testing the establishment's attractions. After the player has completed this portion of the game, they complete tasks in a room and fend off hostile, previously salvaged animatronics. The gameplay of Pizzeria Simulator shares a number of elements with Five Nights at Freddy's 3, including the importance of ventilation and the ability to distract animatronics with sound.
Ultimate Custom Night is a customizable night, in which fifty animatronics are present and have a maximum AI level of twenty. The game includes many mechanics from the previous games, such as the heater, fan, music box, and power generator. The player can choose which characters they want active for a night, and how active the characters will be.
Help Wanted combines the gameplay of every other game, and turns into a virtual experience for the player. It also introduces several other minigames, in which the gameplay is variant, and also at times has free-roam. Special Delivery features location-based augmented reality gameplay. The player can switch on their camera, and the footage itself is the game's background. The animatronics will try to attack corresponding to the environment. The animatronics generally have cloaking, which leads them to being invisible.
Security Breach holds the open-world aspect to this title allows players to experience a new level of immersion, similar to that of Five Night's at Freddy's 4. Players will also have access to a nifty tool called the Faz-Watch, which allows them to view maps, read messages picked up from random areas on the map, check security cameras for nearby danger, and look at their current objectives. It incorporates Freddy as a helpful companion throughout the game, though he has limited power and must be charged at stations through the map. Players can distract hostile animatronics by knocking things over to get their attention, while they can crouch and hide in various structures to evade them as they follow you throughout the map. Unlike other Five Nights games there are limited save points and there is only a single save station after 6 a.m.
Common elements
Security cameras
In the first, second, third, seventh, eighth, and ninth games, the player has a security-camera system, which observes the animatronic characters. One location can be viewed at a time, and some areas are not visible on the cameras. Most camera feeds are dull, sometimes almost black and white in color, and full of video noise. In the third game, the cameras stop working if their associated system fails. Cameras are used in the fifth game as a mechanic in the fake ending and custom night update, but not in the main game.
Lights
In all games except for the third, lights are used to ward off animatronics or warn the player. Lights in the first, second, fifth, and eighth games are activated with buttons on the walls and illuminate the player's blind spots: the doorway or vent exit, respectively. The lights are similar in the fifth game, but are mounted on a control pad and illuminate the animatronics' rooms. The fifth game also introduced a flash beacon, which is used to orient the player in the third and fifth nights' pitch-black rooms.
Several games include use of a flashlight. In the second game, the flashlight has a finite battery life and cannot be recharged, while in the fourth and seventh games, the battery life is infinite. In the eighth game, the flashlight battery varies depending on the game segment being played. Flashlight battery life is again finite in the ninth game, but can be recharged at various recharge stations throughout the game.
Doors and vents
In the first, fourth, seventh, eighth, and ninth games, doors are a means of defense for the player, and can be closed when an animatronic is near. Vents are featured in the second, third, sixth, and eighth games, as a medium through which animatronics can get to the player. Both doors and vents are again present in the fake ending and custom night update of the fifth game with the same function. Vents are also present in the fifth and ninth games as means for the player to travel through, rather than the animatronics.
Jump scares
Every game in the main series contains jump scares, which end a game in defeat as the animatronics are implied to attack the player off-screen. In most jump scares, an animatronic character suddenly appears in the player's view, followed by a loud screaming or roaring noise. Some jump scares, including those by Golden Freddy (in the first and seventh games), Nightmare, and Nightmarionette (in the fourth game), consist of a single screen with shrill, distorted audio; these jump scares usually crash (or restart) the game. The player must use various tools to prevent being attacked via jump scares and advance through each game.
Minigames
In the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth games, the player gains access to a series of (predominantly eight-bit) minigames randomly after death, or after completing a specific task. The minigames usually relate to a story or event relevant to the game, in a cryptic manner. The minigames in the second game portray homicides mentioned by another worker of the restaurant, and the reason of the animatronics gaining life. The minigames in the third game show the story behind Springtrap's creation. Minigames in the fourth game tell the story of a character who dies in a tragic accident.
There is only one minigame in the fifth game, which depicts the death of animatronic engineer William Afton's daughter. The minigames in the sixth game depict various events in the series, all connected to Afton. In the mobile version of the eighth game, the player can access a minigame called "Princess Quest", which depicts the origins of a character called Vanny; a recreation of these minigames is also featured in the ninth game, with some significant additions.
Story overview
The Five Nights at Freddy's series mainly revolves around a chain of family restaurants under the ownership of Fazbear Entertainment, a company founded by Henry Emily and William Afton. The latter is a robotics engineer who creates a series of animatronic mascots to entertain customers, including Freddy Fazbear, a brown bear and the namesake of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, Bonnie, an indigo rabbit, Chica, a yellow chicken, and Foxy, a red pirate fox. Other notable animatronics include the Puppet, the ghostlike Golden Freddy, Freddy's predecessor Fredbear, and Circus Baby, the mascot of the restaurant's sister location, Circus Baby's Pizza World. William is also a negligent father and child murderer who hides his victims' bodies inside animatronics, which their souls inhabit; he specifically designs Circus Baby to be capable of murdering children, which leads to the accidental death of his own daughter, Elizabeth.
William's direct murder victims start with his co-worker Henry's daughter and expand to include five children visiting the restaurants with their families. Meanwhile, an incident involving William's youngest son being shoved into Fredbear's mouth by his older brother Michael results in the closure of Fredbear's Family Diner, a predecessor location. After accidentally murdering his brother, Michael begins seeking redemption, starting with recovering the remains of his sister. After the closure of a Freddy Fazbear's Pizza location, William dismantles the remaining animatronics in a backroom, releasing the souls that inhabit them who proceed to torment him. Seeking refuge from the ghosts, William hides inside an old yellow rabbit animatronic suit. Shortly after, the suit's mechanisms fail and snap shut, crushing William to death as his soul inhabits the animatronic, becoming a bionic revenant called Springtrap. Some time after, the whole restaurant chain shuts down.
Thirty years later, a horror attraction based on the restaurant chain known as Fazbear's Fright is constructed and leads to Springtrap's excavation; a fire destroys the attraction before it can open to the public. The destruction frees the souls of William's first five victims and destroys the original mascots, though Springtrap escapes. Some time after the fire, Henry lures Springtrap and all animatronics that were not destroyed in Fazbear's Fright into a single pizzeria. With help from Michael, Henry sets fire to the restaurant and destroys every animatronic inside, freeing the souls of the children that inhabited them, including Elizabeth. The fire also kills Henry, Michael, and William. Afterwards, William's soul is trapped and tormented in a personalized hell with all animatronics he created.
Years later, Fazbear Entertainment is re-founded and releases an in-universe virtual reality experience based on the past of the restaurant, in an effort to convince the public the company's previous controversies were merely fiction, while also constructing a new location, the Pizzaplex.
Games
Main series
Five Nights at Freddy's (2014)
Five Nights at Freddy's was released for Microsoft Windows on August 8, 2014, followed by ports for Android and iOS on August 27 and September 11, respectively. A Windows Phone version was also released, but was soon withdrawn due to its downscaled graphics. Ports for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch were released on November 29, 2019, alongside separate releases for Five Nights at Freddy's 2, 3 and 4.
The first game revolves around a character called Mike Schmidt, who begins working as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where the animatronics move at night and supposedly kill anyone they see by stuffing them into a spare animatronic suit. Schmidt is guided by the previous night guard, known as Phone Guy, who assists them in their defense against the animatronics through pre-recorded telephone messages until his death in the fourth night. He explains to Schmidt that the animatronics' mobility is a purposely programmed "free-roaming" mode to prevent the animatronics' servomotors from locking up. He also states that they see any human still in the restaurant as an animatronic endoskeleton without a suit. The player must survive from 12 a.m. to 6 am.
The player cannot leave the room and must use a camera system and two doors with lights to defend themselves from the animatronics, with limited power to use their tools. Various hints and clues imply that, contrary to Phone Guy's explanation, the mobility and hostility of the animatronics results from them being possessed by the vengeful souls of children who were killed at the restaurant. Mike is fired from his job after the seventh night for tampering with the animatronics, body odor, and unprofessionalism.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2014)
Shortly after the release of the first game, Cawthon confirmed rumors about a sequel. He posted a teaser of the sequel on his website one month after the original game's release and continued to post teasers until the sequel's release. A trailer was released on October 21, 2014, introducing new animatronic characters and the absence of doors. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was released for Microsoft Windows on November 10, 2014, earlier than its planned release of December 25. Ports for Android and iOS were released on November 13 and 20, 2014, respectively. A Windows Phone port was also released, but was withdrawn for substandard graphics. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch console ports were released on November 29, 2019.
The gameplay is largely similar to its predecessor. Players must survive a night shift at the "new and improved" Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant from 12 a.m. to 6 am, without being attacked by any of the animatronics that wander from room to room. In addition to the animatronics from the first game, which are depicted in a deteriorated state, the game features several new antagonists, who can be fended off using different tactics. The explanation given for the animatronics' behavior during the game is similar to the one from the first Five Nights at Freddy's. The protagonist is a new character, Jeremy Fitzgerald, who is promoted to daytime security after the sixth night, being replaced by Fritz Smith in the seventh night.
During the game, Phone Guy from the previous game calls Jeremy to give him hints on how to survive each night while talking about the restaurant's history. During these calls, it is revealed that the restaurant has become the subject of a police investigation due to various rumors. It is also possible to access hidden Atari-styled minigames that provide further insight on the restaurant's troubled past, showing a purple figure killing multiple children. On the fifth night, the location is put on lockdown due to an unspecified event. At the end of the game, Jeremy receives a paycheck dated 1987, revealing that the events of the game take place before the first Five Nights at Freddy's, and the restaurant is closed, with a new location set to be opened elsewhere.
Five Nights at Freddy's 3 (2015)
On January 3, 2015, an image was uploaded to Cawthon's website teasing a third entry in the series. Other images followed before a trailer was released on January 26, 2015. On February 15, Cawthon posted on Steam that Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was cancelled after a hacker allegedly leaked the game. This was later revealed as a hoax; the "leaked" download linked to a humorous clone of a previous game of Cawthon's, There is No Pause Button!, in which the main character is depicted wearing the Freddy animatronic head. Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was released for Microsoft Windows on March 3, 2015, with Android and iOS ports following on March 7 and 12, respectively. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch console ports were released on November 29, 2019.
Set thirty years after the events of the first game, its main character works at Fazbear's Fright, a horror attraction based on the long-gone Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The player must defend themselves from the deteriorated animatronic-costume hybrid named Springtrap. Burnt and tattered hallucinations of some of the animatronics from the previous two games appear; and although they cannot kill the player, they can hinder ventilation, sound, and camera systems. Failure to maintain the systems can create many issues for the player, including dysfunctional cameras and the inability to play audio to lure away the animatronic.
The player receives guidance from a founder of the horror attraction for the first two nights and listens to old tape recordings which were found by the attraction's workers for the rest of the nights. The game has two endings: a "good" ending and a "bad" ending. The bad ending reveals that the souls of the murdered children still haunt the animatronics. The good ending is reached by completing secret minigames in which animatronic characters bring a cake to what seems to be a sorrowful child's soul. After completing the secret minigames, the souls of the children are freed.
Five Nights at Freddy's 4 (2015)
On April 27, 2015, Cawthon began posting images on his website teasing another game in the series, which was originally titled Five Nights at Freddy's 4: The Final Chapter. A trailer was released on July 13, 2015, hinting that the game was set in the main character's house. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 was announced with a release date of October 31, 2015. It was pushed forward to August 8 and again to July 23, when the game was unexpectedly released on Microsoft Windows through Steam. Android and iOS ports were released on July 25 and August 3, 2015, respectively. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch console ports were released on November 29, 2019.
The player character is an unknown and unnamed child who has delusions of being attacked by nightmarish versions of the first game's animatronic characters. The player must defend themselves with a flashlight and doors. The game's story is told through minigames, in which an unnamed young boy is bullied by his older brother because of his irrational fear of a restaurant with a yellow animatronic bear and rabbit called Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, respectively. He is guided by a plush version of Fredbear, whom the boy imagines can speak to him when he is alone. The child appears to be ultimately killed by Fredbear in a freak accident. The game had a Halloween update with "nightmare" versions of animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and Halloween-themed reskins for Nightmare Bonnie and Nightmare Chica.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location (2016)
On April 23, 2016, Cawthon posted a teaser image on his website of a clown-like animatronic named Baby from an upcoming game titled Sister Location. Several teaser images of different characters and hints at their origins followed. The trailer for the game was released on Cawthon's YouTube channel, with new animatronics and a new location. The release date was announced as October 7, 2016. Cawthon made a prank release of the game on October 5, apparently releasing a "mature" edition after a decision to delay the game to make it more kid-friendly. The download link led to a clone of Cawthon's previous game, Sit 'N Survive.
Sister Location was released for Microsoft Windows on October 7, 2016, followed by ports for Android on December 22, 2016, and iOS on January 3, 2017, respectively. It was also released on Nintendo Switch in North America on June 18, 2020, and on Xbox One on July 10, 2020. The PlayStation 4 port was released in Europe and North America on July 21 and 22, 2020, respectively.
The player character Michael Afton, nicknamed Mike (jokingly called Eggs Benedict), is a new employee of Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental (a sister company of Fazbear Entertainment that rents animatronics for children's parties). The animatronics were originally intended for Circus Baby's Pizza World, which never opened due to a gas leak. Mike is guided by HandUnit, an AI character similar to the Phone Guy of previous games. HandUnit instructs him about his job, often telling him to disregard safety; the animatronic Baby often gives instructions that contradicts that of HandUnit, but are vital to survival.
The game also has a "custom night", in which the player can use mechanics reminiscent of the first game (such as interactive doors and a camera system) which were absent from the main game, except for a non-canonical ending, titled the "Fake Ending". New minigames are also available, describing Michael's fate after the events of the main game. A cutscene is shown after the "Golden Freddy" custom-night preset, in which Michael speaks to his father, William Afton/Springtrap, in a foreboding way.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator (2017)
In June 2017, Cawthon hinted at the development of a sixth main game in the series. On July 2, 2017, he announced his decision to cancel the game and said that he had been "neglecting other things in [his] life for the sake of trying to keep up with mounting expectations". On December 4, 2017, after teasing the game several days earlier, Cawthon released Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator as freeware on Steam. The game is a business-simulation game in which the player runs a pizzeria, but frequently shifts into the survival-horror vein of the series' other games.
A mobile version for iOS and Android titled FNaF 6: Pizzeria Simulator was released on August 13, 2019. Unlike the PC version, the mobile release, which is developed and published by Clickteam LLC USA, is pay-to-play. A Nintendo Switch and Xbox One port was released on October 31, 2020, with a PlayStation 4 port released on March 31, 2021.
The game's story follows the manager (implied to be Michael Afton) of a new Freddy Fazbear's restaurant run by the mysterious "Cassette Man". Every night, Michael, under Cassette Man's guidance, must salvage one of four decrepit animatronics that were found in the restaurant's back alley, including William / Springtrap (now referred to as "Scraptrap") and Elizabeth / Circus Baby (referred to as "Scrap Baby").
The game has multiple endings depending on how well the player runs the pizzeria and whether they salvaged all the animatronics, but the canon ending has Cassette Man reveal himself as Henry Emily, William's former business partner, and set the restaurant on fire after revealing its true purpose as a trap to lure in the remaining animatronics. The restaurant burns to the ground, seemingly killing the player character, Henry, and all the animatronics, finally releasing the spirits haunting them.
Ultimate Custom Night (2018)
Ultimate Custom Night was originally intended to be a post-launch add-on to Pizzeria Simulator, but was eventually turned into a stand-alone game, releasing on June 27, 2018, as freeware. A mobile port for iOS and Android was released on April 28, 2020, and a console port for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch was released on April 30, 2021. The customizable night contains a total of fifty animatronics from previous games, which allows the player to determine how aggressive they are during the night (similar to the custom nights in earlier games). The player can select the office to play in, unlock cutscenes, and choose from 16 themed game modes available. Although unconfirmed, it has been heavily speculated that the game takes place in some version of Hell or Purgatory, where William Afton, following his death in Pizzeria Simulator, is being continuously tortured by the vengeful spirit of one of his victims.
However, the anthology novel series Fazbear Frights implies that the game is actually Afton's repeating nightmare, and not hell or purgatory. This comes from the fifth book, Bunny Call, which has a story called "The Man in Room 1280" where a burned man is kept alive by a shadow child despite the fact that he should be dead and suffers nightmares. In the following book, Blackbird, the epilogue confirms that the man is actually William Afton. Although it was never confirmed if the Fazbear Frights series is set in the same continuity as the games, Cawthon confirmed that it's supposed to reveal mysteries from the previous games.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted (2019)
On August 18, 2018, Cawthon confirmed on his Steam thread that the next main installment in the Five Nights at Freddy's series would be available as a virtual reality game. On March 25, 2019, during Sony Interactive Entertainment's State of Play live stream announcing several new games for the PlayStation 4, a trailer announcing the game was shown. In the game, the player is a technician repairing a pizzeria's animatronics. From a first-person perspective, they fix the animatronics, solve puzzles and navigate dark hallways while avoiding malfunctioning and hostile animatronics. The game was released on May 28, 2019. A non-VR version of the game was released on December 17, 2019, for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4.
Curse of Dreadbear, a Halloween-themed downloadable content (DLC) pack for Help Wanted was released in three parts, with several "waves" of new minigames released on October 23, October 29, and October 31, 2019, for a total of 10 new minigames. The DLC pack includes new animatronic characters, returning animatronics from previous games, and a Halloween-themed hub. Some of the new stages are re-skinned versions of existent minigames, such as a version of the FNAF 1 minigames called Danger! Keep Out! Notable new game modes include a shooting gallery, a free-roaming corn maze, and an assembly line in which the player must construct an animatronic.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (2021)
On August 8, 2019, on the first game's fifth anniversary, Cawthon posted a new image on his website, teasing the next installment for the series. It shows the "Mega Pizzaplex", a large entertainment complex containing a laser tag arena, an arcade, a cinema and a Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant; in the main square, '80s-style versions of Freddy, Chica, and four completely new animatronics can be seen playing for an excited crowd. On April 21, 2020, the characters' names were leaked from Funko's list of upcoming products, and the title was revealed as Five Nights at Freddy's: Pizza Plex. Scott Cawthon confirmed the leaks via Reddit but revealed that the title was not official. The game was initially scheduled for an early 2021 release, but was delayed to late 2021.
Security Breach was released on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Steam on December 16, 2021. The game's plot revolves around a young boy named Gregory being trapped in a large entertainment complex teeming with murderous animatronics who hunt him down by the orders of Vanny, a mysterious woman in a rabbit costume, while also evading the complex's security guard, Vanessa. Suffering a malfunction that causes him to ignore Vanny's hacking, Freddy assists Gregory in escaping the complex.
A Stadia port was launched on July 1, 2022, ports for Xbox One and Series X/S were released on November 22, 2022, and a Nintendo Switch port was released on April 19, 2023. Free downloadable content titled Ruin was released for PlayStation 5, 4, and Steam on July 25, 2022, with an Xbox One and Series X/S port releasing on April 23, 2024, and a Nintendo Switch port in the works.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 (2023)
On May 24, 2023, during a PlayStation Showcase, Steel Wool Studios announced a direct sequel to Help Wanted titled Help Wanted 2, scheduled for release in December 2023. On November 20, 2023, the gameplay trailer was released on the official Steel Wool Studios YouTube channel, revealing several characters from the game along with the release date of December 14 on PlayStation 5 and Steam. A Meta Quest version of the game was released on May 9, 2024, and the game was launched physically with a flat version on June 20.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic (2025)
An eleventh main installment, Secret of the Mimic, was announced on August 6, 2024, as part of the series' 10th anniversary. The game will center on the Mimic, introduced in Security Breach's Ruin DLC. It will be the third virtual reality game of the series.
Spin-offs
FNaF World (2016)
Cawthon announced a spin-off from his series, FNaF World, on September 15, 2015. Unlike the main series, the game is a role-playing video game using the first four games' animatronic characters. The game is set in a fanciful world where the characters must fight enemies and progress by unlocking perks and items. Originally planned for release on February 2, 2016, Cawthon rescheduled the release for January 22 and released it on January 21.
Players and critics criticized the game for missing key features and being unstable and unfinished, for which Cawthon apologized: "I got too eager to show the things that were finished that I neglected to pay attention to the things that weren't." He decided to remove it from Steam, saying that the game would be improved and later re-released free of charge. Cawthon announced that he asked Valve to refund all purchasers the price of the game.
He released a free version of the game, featuring a 3D overworld and an updated character-selection screen, in February 2016. Cawthon posted a new teaser the following month, with characters such as the main series' Purple Guy and most of the characters from the Halloween update of Five Nights at Freddy's 4. He created minigames for the game's second update, including Foxy Fighters, FOXY.exe, Chica's Magic Rainbow, and FNaF 57: Freddy in Space.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Special Delivery (2019–2024)
An augmented reality game with location-based gameplay, Five Nights at Freddy's: Special Delivery, was announced on September 13, 2019. The game was released for free on iOS and Android on November 25, 2019. Dark Circus: Encore!, DLC for Special Delivery, was released on December 13, 2021.
Its story bridges the gap between Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, and Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, and is told in epistolary format. One series of emails tells of a woman, Ness, triggering red-flag reports with her harmful and offensive search words. The emails eventually reveal that she is under the control of William Afton, and that Ness is Vanny from Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted ("Ness" being short for Vanny's real name "Vanessa"), who was possessed by Afton after encountering a digital form of him while play-testing one of Fazbear's products. Another series of emails tells the story of the employees at Fazbear Entertainment scanning the circuit boards of old animatronics for "The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience".
As of 2023, Five Nights at Freddy's: Special Delivery has been downloaded 40 million times, and has 6.7 million monthly active users.
On February 1, 2024, Illumix announced the closure of Special Delivery. On February 2, the game was no longer available to download on iOS and Android. The game's servers shut down on March 14.
Freddy in Space 2 (2019)
Freddy in Space 2 is a side-scrolling platform shooter game and a sequel to the FNaF 57: Freddy in Space mini-game from FNaF World. It was released for free on December 3, 2019, on Game Jolt. The game was made to promote a "#CancelCancer" charity livestream on YouTube, which was hosted by Matthew Patrick of Game Theorists for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Security Breach: Fury's Rage (2021)
Security Breach: Fury's Rage is a side-scrolling beat 'em up game featuring the main cast of Security Breach (not including Gregory or Vanessa). The game was made to compensate for the release of Security Breach being delayed for a second time and was released for free on Game Jolt on April 28, 2021.
Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space (2023)
Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space is a side-scrolling platform shooter game and a sequel to Freddy in Space 2, it was released on October 18, 2023, under the title FNAF: The Movie: The Game, which was developed by Cawthon, claimed to be a spoiler-heavy tie-in game of the Five Nights at Freddy's film, which was revealed to be Freddy in Space 3 in disguise. It was released for free on Game Jolt.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit (2024)
On January 22, 2024, an adaptation of the Fazbear Frights: Into the Pit anthology novel was leaked to be in development in an upcoming slate of new novels to be released in 2024. The following day, a trailer was leaked online. Later that day, series creator Scott Cawthon made a post on Reddit acknowledging the leaks and stating the game would release for the series' 10th anniversary on August 8. On January 25, 2024, Mega Cat Studios confirmed they were developing the game. The gameplay trailer for the game released June 6. It will be the first installment of the series to be fully in 2D and made with pixel art. The game was accidentally released to Japanese consoles early on August 7, which was repurposed as the new release date. PlayStation and Xbox ports were released on September 27.
Five Laps at Freddy's (2025)
Five Laps at Freddy's is a kart racing game based on characters from Five Nights at Freddy's developed by Clickteam. It was announced on June 19, 2024, to coincide with the series' 10th anniversary. A gameplay trailer was released August 3. A demo of the game was released August 7 and a full release of the game is expected in 2025.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Survival Crew (TBA)
On December 20, 2023, an official Roblox adaptation by the name of Five Nights at Freddy's: Survival Crew was accidentally released in an unfinished state by its developers, Metaverse Team Frights. The game was immediately taken down after major backlash and Cawthon promised the game would be released in a functional state sometime in 2024. In the short time the game was released, players described the gameplay as similar to the cooperative horror game, Dead by Daylight.
Fazbear Fanverse
On August 21, 2020, Cawthon announced his plan to help fund and publish Five Nights at Freddy's games developed by fans, bundled with previous installments in their respective series. Games published under this initiative include the One Night at Flumpty's series, the Five Nights at Candy's series, the Joy of Creation series, and Popgoes Evergreen (including its prologue game). Cawthon stated that these games will come to other platforms, such as mobile and consoles, and may have merchandise created for them. The first game to be released under this initiative was a port of One Night at Flumpty's for Android and iOS on October 31 and November 18, 2020, respectively, followed by two of its sequels later in 2021 on the same platforms. Another game planned to be published under this initiative, Five Nights at Freddy's Plus, a remake of the original game, currently has an uncertain future after the firing of its main developer, Phil Morg following controversies in the games fanbase. The game has since been removed from Steam.
Books
Novel trilogy (2015–2018)
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes (2015)
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes is the first novel by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley. It was published independently on Amazon Kindle on December 17, 2015, and a paperback release by Scholastic followed on September 27, 2016. The novel follows a group of childhood friends who meet in their hometown and discover unnerving secrets about the once-beloved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. According to Cawthon, the novel "expands the mythos and reveals a human element never before seen in the games". Although the novel inhabits the Five Nights at Freddy's universe, the book and the games are not "intended to fit together like two puzzle pieces".
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones (2017)
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones, the second novel by Cawthon and Breed-Wrisley, was discovered on Amazon under Cawthon's name on January 8, 2017. Although the discovery sparked controversy about the book's legitimacy, Cawthon soon confirmed that it was an official publication. The novel, published on June 27, 2017, by Scholastic, involves Charlie, the main character from The Silver Eyes, who is "drawn back into the world of her father's frightening creations" while trying to move on.
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet (2018)
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet, the third novel by Cawthon and Breed-Wrisley, was published on June 26, 2018, by Scholastic. The novel focuses on Charlie's friends, who are searching for the truth behind what happened to Charlie in The Twisted Ones while mysterious events unfold after a new restaurant opens.
Film adaptations
A film adaptation based on the game series was released for streaming on Peacock and theatrically in the United States on October 27, 2023, by Universal Pictures. Directed by Emma Tammi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback, the film stars Josh Hutcherson with Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Matthew Lillard appearing in supporting roles. The film received generally negative reviews from critics but was a commercial success, becoming Blumhouse Productions' highest-grossing film worldwide with over $294 million. A sequel is in development.
Reception
The original Five Nights at Freddy's received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator website Metacritic, assigning the Windows version a score of 78 out of 100. Indie Game Magazine praised the game for its simple take on the horror genre, labeling the game a "fantastic example of how cleverness in design and subtlety can be used to make an experience terrifying". They noted that its artistic direction and gameplay mechanics contributed to a feeling of "brutal tension", but criticized it for taking too long to load when launched.
Omri Petitte for PC Gamer gave Five Nights at Freddy's a score of 80 out of 100, commenting that the game took a "less-is-more" approach to its design, and praising the overall atmosphere for emphasizing the fear and suspense of an approaching threat, rather than the arrival of the threat itself as in other horror-oriented games. However, the gameplay was criticized for becoming repetitive once a player masters it, noting players have "not much more to expect beyond managing battery life and careful timing of slamming doors shut." Ryan Bates of GameRevolution gave the game a 4.5 out of 5, commending the game's minimalistic presentation (particularly its audio design and lack of music) for contributing to the terror of the game, along with its repetitive gameplay that would "[reach] almost OCD-type levels, adding to the tense environment." He opined that the game was "horror done right", but felt it was too short.
Shaun Musgrave of TouchArcade gave a rating of 3.5 out of 5, noting the game's reliance on atmosphere to induce fear, noting that "if the atmosphere doesn't get to you, all that's left is a very simple game of red light-green light." Eurogamer's Jeffrey Matulef called the game "wonderfully creative", and compared the animatronic animals in the game to Weeping Angels due to their ability to only move when they are not being observed.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 received "mixed or average" reviews according to Metacritic, assigning the Windows version a score of 62 out of 100. Omri Petitte for PC Gamer gave Five Nights at Freddy's 2 a score of 70 out of 100, commenting that what he wanted in the sequel "was more mind games and more uncertainty. I wanted the plodding animatronic suits to find me and rip my face off in new and interesting ways. I wanted working legs. What I got was a horror game dipping heavily into deception and subtlety, a wonderfully cruel cocktail of supernatural mystery and jolts of panicked adrenaline. Enjoying the good parts, though, comes with a cost of a frustratingly steep difficulty."
Destructoid gave the game a positive review, saying that "It's absolutely terrifying to know that you could be attacked at any moment from multiple avenues", praising the introduction of new animatronics and mechanics, but also criticizing the jumpscares and called the game "too hard for its own good". In a review for the Nintendo Switch version of the game in 2019, Mitch Vogel of Nintendo Life said, "Five Nights at Freddy's 2 may not necessarily reinvent the wheel, but it still does a fine job of keeping you on the edge of your seat."
Five Nights at Freddy's 3 received "mixed or average" reviews according to Metacritic, assigning the Windows version a score of 68 out of 100. Omri Petitte from PC Gamer gave Five Nights at Freddy's 3 a score of 77 out of 100, praising the reworked camera system, but commented on how the jumpscares from the other animatronics "felt a little stale by the third night." In a more critical review, Nic Rowen from Destructoid gave the game a 6.5 out of 10, saying that even though the game is "by far the most technically proficient and mechanically satisfying installment yet," he criticized Springtrap and Fazbear's Fright for lacking the "charm of the original cast and locations."
Five Nights at Freddy's 4 received "mixed or average" reviews according to Metacritic, assigning the Windows version a score of 51 out of 100. Destructoid criticized the gameplay as being too confusing, and gave the game a review score of 4 out of 10. The Escapist gave the game a positive review score of 4 out of 5 stars saying that they liked the reworked mechanics, darker and emotional storyline, scary jumpscares, and sad ending but noted the game's bugs and glitches. Nadia Oxford of Gamezebo gave it 4 out of 5 stars in her review praising it for its intense environment, creepy sounds and graphics, and jumpscares. She criticized the game for being difficult to survive in certain environments when relying on audio cues and the Android version not containing the story-centric minigames.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location received "mixed or average" reviews from critics according to Metacritic, assigning a score of 62 out of 100. Destructoid rated the game 6/10, while GameCrate rated it 7.50/10. Shelby Watson of The All State gave the game a positive review, citing it to be comparable to the first game's quality, but unlike the first game, never allowing the player to operate the mechanics on muscle memory alone. She writes, "...[E]ach night is so different, it is impossible to get comfortable with the mechanics enough that it feels like second nature. The game changes so much, you are forced to adapt and are always on the edge of your seat, waiting for what is to come." TechRaptor rated the game 9/10, calling it "genuinely terrifying" with a "great storytelling" and praised the voice acting.
Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator received mostly positive reviews. GameCrate called it the "best value in gaming right now", with Rock Paper Shotgun calling it "spooky as hell". The Ball State Daily News also gave a positive review, giving the game a 7.6/10 and calling it "an interesting evolution of the Five Nights [at Freddy's] formula". IGN listed Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator in their top 18 Best Horror Games of 2017.
Ultimate Custom Night received mostly positive reviews. Rock Paper Shotgun deemed the game "an intriguing mess", with PC Gamer calling it "a neat, customisable take on the classic survival horror formula".
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for the PlayStation 4 version according to Metacritic, assigning a score of 80 out of 100; the Nintendo Switch version received "mixed or average" reviews, with Metacritic assigning a score of 53 out of 100. Reviewers praised the game for its effective use of virtual reality and its success in introducing new mechanics while preserving the series' feel and atmosphere while being accessible for players new to the series. However, the game's frequent use of jump scares could make it less scary and more obnoxious over time for some players.
Stuart Gipp at Nintendo Life criticized the Nintendo Switch version of the game and gave it a score of 3 out of 10. The main criticism being that the game had become pointless for having removed the VR mode making it a "sub-par minigame collection" with "limited gameplay" since previous main games were available already for the console, and speculated that the only reason for releasing it for the console were to capitalize on the console's market share. The game is listed as one of PlayStation's "Favorite Horror Games of 2019" on their website and is one of the top 30 best selling VR games on Steam. The game was nominated for the Coney Island Dreamland Award for Best AR/VR Game at the New York Game Awards in 2020.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach received "mixed or average" reviews, according to Metacritic. Jeuxvideo.com gave a mixed review, praising the atmosphere and the originality of certain gameplay sections, but criticizing the bugs and technical issues. The Escapist's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw was more critical of the game, praising the visuals, but criticizing the bugs, design, and restrictive save system. The game was nominated and won Players' Choice December 2021 on PlayStation's official blog.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit received "generally positive" reviews, according to Metacritic. Game Rant praised the game for its story and visuals, while ComicBook.com praised it for its faithfulness to the source material.
Cultural influence
Fandom
Since the release of the first game, popular video creators such as PewDiePie, Markiplier, and Jacksepticeye have garnered millions of views, which helped the games receive additional attention from their playthroughs. In May 2015, YouTube reported that videos of the Five Nights at Freddy's series were the platform's eighth-most-watched playthroughs.
The interpretive, non-linear, and cryptic narrative of Five Nights at Freddy's is a popular topic for fans to discuss and debate. Channels such as The Game Theorists feature Five Nights at Freddy's-related videos with the goal of discovering the lore of the franchise. With over 60 videos and 800 million views combined, Matthew Patrick of The Game Theorists has described the series as "a delightfully incomplete and mysterious story with just enough threads to keep you guessing."
Thousands of fan games have been inspired by the game mechanics of Five Nights at Freddy's. Fan games for the franchise are incredibly common to the point Game Jolt made FNaF games its own genre to avoid overwhelming the site.: 74 Along with fan games, multiple fan songs have been created, including some by The Living Tombstone, each having accumulated hundreds of millions of views. The Living Tombstone's first FNaF song was played in the closing credits of the film adaptation.
Although the Five Nights at Freddy's fandom has been criticized for immaturity, Cawthon defended them and criticized the broader community for what he called an unfair generalization.
In September 2020, a video featuring Jack Black dancing to The Living Tombstone's first Five Nights at Freddy's fan song went viral on the social media platform TikTok. Black had previously appeared on an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in April 2020, wearing a mask headpiece modeled after Glitchtrap, antagonist of Help Wanted and its sequel, where he revealed that he is a fan of the Five Nights at Freddy's series. Black and his son Samuel had previously played Five Nights at Freddy's 4 with Markiplier to promote his own film Goosebumps.
Merchandise
Five Nights at Freddy's merchandise is primarily produced by two companies: Sanshee and Funko. Products include stuffed toys, action figures, posters, clothing, keychains, and stationery, among other things. McFarlane Toys also has a line of Five Nights at Freddy's merchandise, consisting mainly of construction sets; Todd McFarlane called the line "the single largest-selling product, bar none, by a lot that [he's] done in 20-plus years." The merchandise, available internationally, has been a factor in the franchise's success.
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Scott Games
FNAF World
Steel Wool Studios
Illumix
FNAF AR
Clickteam |
Grateful_Dead | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead | [
626
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead#Main_career_(1967–1995)"
] | The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".
The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area during the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The band's founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar and vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar and vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, and vocals), Phil Lesh (bass guitar and vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead, originally known as the Warlocks, had played together in various Bay Area ensembles, including the traditional jug band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they changed their name to Grateful Dead, replacing Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who left the band from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. Other official members of the band included Tom Constanten (keyboards from 1968 to 1970), John Perry Barlow (non-performing lyricist from 1971 to 1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards and occasional vocals from 1971 to 1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals from 1972 to 1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards and vocals from 1979 to 1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards and vocals from 1990 to 1995). Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.
After Garcia's death in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as The Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and as The Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band's 50th anniversary in a series of concerts in Santa Clara, California, and Chicago that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.
Despite having only one Top-40 single in their 30-year career, "Touch of Grey (1987)," the Grateful Dead remained among the highest-grossing American touring acts for decades. They gained a committed fanbase by word of mouth and through the free exchange of their live recordings, encouraged by the band's allowance of taping. In 2024, they broke the record for most Top-40 albums on the Billboard 200 chart. Rolling Stone ranked the Grateful Dead number 57 on its 2011 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of all Time". The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and a recording of their May 8, 1977 performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012. In 2024, the four living core members (Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann and Hart) were recognized as part of the Kennedy Center Honors.
Formation (1965–1966)
The Grateful Dead began their career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and members of The Wildwood Boys (Jerry Garcia, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, David Nelson, Robert Hunter, and Norm Van Maastricht). As The Wildwood Boys they played regularly at The Tangent, a folk music coffeehouse operated by Stanford Medical Center doctors Stuart "Stu" Goldstein and David "Dave" Shoenstadt on University Avenue in Palo Alto (1963). As the Warlocks, the band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor, at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, on May 5, 1965, now a Harvest furniture store. The band continued playing bar shows, like Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go in Hayward and, importantly, five sets a night, five nights a week, for six weeks, at the In Room in Belmont as the Warlocks, but quickly changed the band's name after finding out that a different band known as the Warlocks had put out a record under that name. (The Velvet Underground also had to change its name from the Warlocks.)
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Lesh, Garcia "picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial." According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales from a variety of cultures.
The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in San Jose on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests. Scholar Michael Kaler has written that the Dead's participation in the Acid Tests was crucial both to the development of their improvisational vocabulary and to their bonding as a band, with the group having set out to foster an intra-band musical telepathy. Kaler has further pointed out that the Dead's pursuit of a new improvisatory rock language in 1965 chronologically coincided with that same goal's adoption by Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground.
Earlier demo tapes have survived, but the first of over 2,000 concerts known to have been recorded by the band's fans was a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on January 8, 1966. Later that month, the Grateful Dead played at the Trips Festival, a three-day psychedelic rock weekend party and event produced by Ken Kesey, Stewart Brand, and Ramon Sender, that, in conjunction with the Merry Pranksters, brought the nascent hippie movement together for the first time.
Other supporting personnel who joined early included Rock Scully, who heard of the band from Kesey and signed on as manager after meeting them at the Big Beat Acid Test; Stewart Brand, "with his side show of taped music and slides of Indian life, a multimedia presentation" at the Big Beat and then, expanded, at the Trips Festival; and Owsley Stanley, the "Acid King" whose LSD supplied the Acid Tests and who, in early 1966, became the band's financial backer, renting them a house on the fringes of Watts, Los Angeles, and buying them sound equipment. "We were living solely off of Owsley's good graces at that time. ... [His] trip was he wanted to design equipment for us, and we were going to have to be in sort of a lab situation for him to do it", said Garcia.
Main career (1967–1995)
Pigpen era (1967–1972)
One of the group's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29, 1967, at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. The Grateful Dead performed at the event along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, poet Allen Ginsberg, bands Moby Grape and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, donating proceeds to the temple. The band's first LP, The Grateful Dead, was released on Warner Brothers in 1967.
On May 3, 1968, the band played a free concert at Columbia University during the anti–Vietnam War student protests during which students occupied several campus buildings. In order to play, the band, equipment and all, had to be “smuggled” on campus in the back of a bread delivery truck. “We were already jamming away before the security and police could stop us.”
Classically trained trumpeter Phil Lesh performed on bass guitar. Bob Weir, the youngest original member of the group, played rhythm guitar. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan played keyboards, percussion, and harmonica until shortly before his death in 1973 at the age of 27. Garcia, Weir, and McKernan shared the lead vocal duties more or less equally; Lesh sang only a few leads, but his tenor was a key part of the band's three-part vocal harmonies. Bill Kreutzmann played drums, and in September 1967 was joined by a second drummer, New York City native Mickey Hart, who also played a wide variety of other percussion instruments.
1970 included tour dates in New Orleans, where the band performed at The Warehouse for two nights. On January 31, 1970, the local police raided their hotel on Bourbon Street and arrested and charged 19 people with possession of various drugs. The second night's concert was performed as scheduled after bail was posted. Eventually, the charges were dismissed, except those against sound engineer Owsley Stanley, who was already facing charges in California for manufacturing LSD. This event was later memorialized in the lyrics of “Truckin'", a single from American Beauty that reached number 64 on the charts.
Hart took time off from the band in February 1971, after his father, an accountant, absconded with much of the band's money; Kreutzmann was once again as the sole percussionist. Hart rejoined the Grateful Dead for good in October 1974. Tom "TC" Constanten was added as a second keyboardist from 1968 to 1970, to help Pigpen keep up with an increasingly psychedelic sound, while Pigpen transitioned into playing various percussion instruments and vocals.
After Constanten's departure, Pigpen reclaimed his position as sole keyboardist. Less than two years later, in late 1971, Pigpen was joined by another keyboardist, Keith Godchaux, who played grand piano alongside Pigpen's Hammond B-3 organ. In early 1972, Keith's wife, Donna Jean Godchaux, joined the Grateful Dead as a backing vocalist.
Following the Grateful Dead's "Europe '72" tour, Pigpen's health had deteriorated to the point that he could no longer tour with the band. His final concert appearance was June 17, 1972, at the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles; he died on March 8, 1973, of complications from liver damage.
Godchaux era (1972–1979)
Pigpen's death did not slow down the Grateful Dead. With the help of manager Ron Rakow, the band soon formed its own record label, Grateful Dead Records. Later that year, it released its next studio album, the jazz-influenced Wake of the Flood, which became their biggest commercial success thus far. Meanwhile, capitalizing on the album's success, the band soon went back to the studio, and in June 1974 released another album, From the Mars Hotel. Not long after, the Dead decided to take a hiatus from live touring. The band travelled to Europe for a string of shows in September 1974, before performing a series of five concerts at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in October 1974, and delved into various other projects. The Winterland concerts were filmed, and Garcia compiled the footage into The Grateful Dead Movie, a feature-length concert film released in 1977.
In September 1975, the Dead released their eighth studio album, Blues for Allah. The band resumed touring in June 1976, playing multiple dates in small theaters, rather than the stadium shows that had become common, and had exhausted them, in 1974. That same year, they signed with Arista Records, and the new contract produced Terrapin Station in July 1977. The band's tour in the spring of that year is held in high regard by its fans, and its concert of May 8 at Cornell University is often considered one of the best performances of its career. Their September 1977 concert at Raceway Park in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey was attended by 107,019 people and held the record for largest-ticketed concert in the United States by a single act for 47 years.
Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux left the band in February 1979, citing artistic differences.
Mydland/Welnick era (1979–1995)
Following the Godchauxs' departure, Brent Mydland joined as keyboardist and vocalist and was considered "the perfect fit." The Godchauxs then formed the Heart of Gold Band, before Keith died in a car accident in July 1980. Mydland was the keyboardist for the Grateful Dead for 11 years until his death by narcotics overdose in July 1990, becoming the third keyboardist to die.
Shortly after Mydland found his place in the early 1980s, Garcia's health began to decline. He became a frequent smoker of "Persian," a type of heroin, and he gained weight at a rapid pace. He lost his liveliness on stage, his voice was strained, and Deadheads worried for his health. After he began to curtail his opiate usage gradually in 1985, Garcia slipped into a diabetic coma for several days in July 1986, leading to the cancelation of all concerts in the fall of that year. Garcia recovered, the band released In the Dark in July 1987, which became its best-selling studio album and produced its only top-40 single, "Touch of Grey," Also, that year, the group toured with Bob Dylan, as heard on the album Dylan & the Dead.
Mydland died in July 1990 and Vince Welnick, former keyboardist for the Tubes, joined as a band member, while Bruce Hornsby, who had a successful career with his band the Range, joined temporarily as a bridge to help Welnick learn songs. Both performed on keyboards and vocals—Welnick until the band's end, and Hornsby mainly from 1990 to 1992.
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis played five concerts with the band between 1990 and 1994.
The Grateful Dead performed its final concert on July 9, 1995, at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Aftermath (1995–present)
Jerry Garcia died on August 9, 1995. A few months after Garcia's death, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead decided to disband. Since that time, there have been a number of reunions by the surviving members involving various combinations of musicians. Additionally, the former members have also begun or continued individual projects.
In 1998, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart, along with several other musicians, formed a band called the Other Ones, and performed a number of concerts that year, releasing a live album, The Strange Remain, the following year. In 2000, the Other Ones toured again, this time with Kreutzmann but without Lesh. After taking another year off, the band toured again in 2002 with Lesh. That year, the Other Ones then included all four living former Grateful Dead members who had been in the band for most or all of its history. At different times the shifting lineup of the Other Ones also included guitarists Mark Karan, Steve Kimock, and Jimmy Herring, keyboardists Bruce Hornsby, Jeff Chimenti, and Rob Barraco, saxophonist Dave Ellis, drummer John Molo, bassist Alphonso Johnson, and vocalist Susan Tedeschi.
In 2003, the Other Ones, still including Weir, Lesh, Hart, and Kreutzmann, changed their name to the Dead. The Dead toured the United States in 2003, 2004 and 2009. The band's lineups included Jimmy Herring and Warren Haynes on guitar, Jeff Chimenti and Rob Barraco on keyboards, and Joan Osborne on vocals. In 2008, members of the Dead played two concerts, called "Deadheads for Obama" and "Change Rocks".
Following the 2009 Dead tour, Lesh and Weir formed the band Furthur, which debuted in September 2009. Joining Lesh and Weir in Furthur were John Kadlecik (guitar), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), Joe Russo (drums), Jay Lane (drums), Sunshine Becker (vocals), and Zoe Ellis (vocals). Lane and Ellis left the band in 2010, and vocalist Jeff Pehrson joined later that year. Furthur disbanded in 2014.
In 2010, Hart and Kreutzmann re-formed the Rhythm Devils, and played a summer concert tour.
Since 1995, the former members of the Grateful Dead have also pursued solo music careers. Both Bob Weir & RatDog and Phil Lesh and Friends have performed many concerts and released several albums. Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann have also each released a few albums. Hart has toured with his world music percussion ensemble Planet Drum as well as the Mickey Hart Band. Kreutzmann has led several different bands, including BK3, 7 Walkers (with Papa Mali), and Billy & the Kids. Donna Godchaux has returned to the music scene, with the Donna Jean Godchaux Band, and Tom Constanten also continues to write and perform music. All of these groups continue to play Grateful Dead music.
In October 2014, it was announced that Martin Scorsese would produce a documentary film about the Grateful Dead, to be directed by Amir Bar-Lev. David Lemieux supervised the musical selection, and Weir, Hart, Kreutzmann, and Lesh agreed to new interviews for the film. Bar-Lev's four-hour documentary, titled Long Strange Trip, was released in 2017.
"Fare Thee Well"
In 2015, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Hart reunited for five concerts called "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead". The shows were performed on June 27 and 28 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and on July 3, 4 and 5 at Soldier Field in Chicago. The band stated that this would be the final time that Weir, Lesh, Hart, and Kreutzmann would perform together. They were joined by Trey Anastasio of Phish on guitar, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards, and Bruce Hornsby on piano. Demand for tickets was very high. The concerts were simulcast via various media. The Chicago shows have been released as a box set of CDs and DVDs.
Dead & Company
In the fall of 2015, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir joined with guitarist John Mayer, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, and bassist Oteil Burbridge to tour in a band called Dead & Company. Mayer recounts that in 2011 he was listening to Pandora and happened upon the Grateful Dead song "Althea", and that soon Grateful Dead music was all he would listen to. The band played six tours: October–December 2015, June–July 2016, May–July 2017., May–August 2018, and May–July 2019. On October–November 2019 they played 6 dates on the "2019 Fall Fun Run". On December 27 and 28, they played at The Forum in Inglewood (Los Angeles), California as part of their "2019 New Year's Run" tour. On December 30 and 31, they played in their hometown of San Francisco at the Chase Center, featuring a bi-plane that descended from the ceiling of the Chase Center carrying the daughters of Jerry Garcia, Trixie Garcia and her half-sister, Ken Kesey's daughter Sunshine Kesey, dropping rose petals on the audience as they toured the arena.
Barlow died in 2018 and Hunter in 2019.
In 2022, John Mayer announced that Dead & Company's summer 2023 tour will be their last.
Musical style and legacy
The Grateful Dead formed during the era when bands such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones were dominating the airwaves. "The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band", said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing." Former folk-scene star Bob Dylan had recently put out a couple of records featuring electric instrumentation. Grateful Dead members have said that it was after attending a concert by the touring New York City band the Lovin' Spoonful that they decided to "go electric" and look for a "dirtier" sound. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (both of whom had been immersed in the American folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s), were open-minded about the use of electric guitars.
The Grateful Dead's early music (in the mid-1960s) was part of the process of establishing what "psychedelic music" was, but theirs was essentially a "street party" form of it. They developed their "psychedelic" playing as a result of meeting Ken Kesey in Palo Alto, California, and subsequently becoming the house band for the Acid Tests he staged. They did not fit their music to an established category such as pop rock, blues, folk rock, or country & western. Individual tunes within their repertoire could be identified under one of these stylistic labels, but overall their music drew on all of these genres and, more frequently, melded several of them. Bill Graham said of the Grateful Dead, "They're not the best at what they do, they're the only ones that do what they do." Academics Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell argued that the Grateful Dead were "not merely as precursors of prog but as essential developments of progressiveness in its early days". Often (both in performance and on recording) the Dead left room for exploratory, spacey soundscapes.
Their live shows, fed by an improvisational approach to music, were different from most touring bands. While rock and roll bands often rehearse a standard set, played with minor variations, the Grateful Dead did not prepare in this way. Garcia stated in a 1966 interview, "We don't make up our sets beforehand. We'd rather work off the tops of our heads than off a piece of paper." They maintained this approach throughout their career. For each performance, the band drew material from an active list of a hundred or so songs.
The 1969 live album Live/Dead did capture the band in-form, but commercial success did not come until Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both released in 1970. These records largely featured the band's laid-back acoustic musicianship and more traditional song structures. With their rootsy, eclectic stylings, particularly evident on the latter two albums, the band pioneered the hybrid Americana genre.
Beginning in the early 1990s, a new generation of bands became inspired by the Grateful Dead's improvisational ethos and marketing strategy, and began to incorporate elements of the Grateful Dead's live performances into their own shows. These include the nightly alteration of setlists, frequent improvisation, the blending of genres, and the allowance of taping, which would often contribute to the development of a dedicated fanbase. Bands associated with the expansion of the "jam scene" include Phish, The String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, moe., and the Disco Biscuits. Many of these groups began to look past the American roots music that the Grateful Dead drew inspiration from, and incorporated elements of progressive rock, hard rock, and electronica. At the same time, the Internet gained popularity and provided a medium for fans to discuss these bands and their performances and download MP3s. The Grateful Dead, as well as Phish, were one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup.
Musicianship
As the band and its sound matured over thirty years of touring, playing, and recording, each member's stylistic contribution became more defined, consistent, and identifiable. Garcia's lead lines were fluid, supple and spare, owing a great deal of their character to his experience playing Scruggs style banjo, an approach which often makes use of note syncopation, accenting, arpeggios, staccato chromatic runs, and the anticipation of the downbeat.
Garcia had a distinctive sense of timing, often weaving in and out of the groove established by the rest of the band as if he were pushing the beat. His lead lines were also immensely influenced by jazz soloists: Garcia cited Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Pat Martino, George Benson, Al Di Meola, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, and Django Reinhardt as primary influences, and frequently utilized techniques common to country and blues music in songs that called back to those traditions.
Garcia often switched scales in the midst of a solo depending upon the chord changes played underneath, though he nearly always finished phrases by landing on the chord-tones. Jerry most frequently played in the Mixolydian mode, though his solos and phrases often incorporated notes from the Dorian and major/minor pentatonic scales. Particularly in the late 1960s, Garcia occasionally incorporated melodic lines derived from Indian ragas into the band's extended, psychedelic improvisation, likely inspired by John Coltrane and other jazz artists' interest in the sitar music of Ravi Shankar.
Lesh was originally a classically trained trumpet player with an extensive background in music theory, but did not tend to play traditional blues-based bass forms. He often played more melodic, symphonic and complex lines, often sounding like a second lead guitar. In contrast to most bassists in popular music, Lesh often avoids playing the root of a chord on the downbeat, instead withholding as a means to build tension. Lesh also rarely repeats the same bassline, even from performance to performance of the same song, and often plays off of or around the other instruments with a syncopated, staccato bounce that contributes to the Dead's unique rhythmic character.
Weir, too, was not a traditional rhythm guitarist, but tended to play unique inversions at the upper end of the Dead's sound. Weir modeled his style of playing after jazz pianist McCoy Tyner and attempted to replicate the interplay between John Coltrane and Tyner in his support, and occasional subversion, of the harmonic structure of Garcia's voice leadings. This would often influence the direction the band's improvisation would take on a given night. Weir and Garcia's respective positions as rhythm and lead guitarist were not always strictly adhered to, as Weir would often incorporate short melodic phrases into his playing to support Garcia and occasionally took solos, often played with a slide. Weir's playing is characterized by a "spiky, staccato" sound.
The band's two drummers, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, developed a unique, complex interplay, balancing Kreutzmann's steady shuffle beat with Hart's interest in percussion styles outside the rock tradition. Kreuzmann has said, "I like to establish a feeling and then add radical or oblique juxtapositions to that feeling." Hart incorporated an 11-count measure to his drumming, bringing a dimension to the band's sound that became an important part of its style. He had studied tabla drumming and incorporated rhythms and instruments from world music, and later electronic music, into the band's live performances.
The Dead's live performances featured multiple types of improvisation derived from a vast array of musical traditions. Not unlike many rock bands of their time, the majority of the Dead's songs feature a designated section in which an instrumental break occurs over the chord changes. These sections typically feature solos by Garcia that often originate as variations on the song's melody, but go on to create dynamic phrases that resolve by returning to the chord-tones. Not unlike traditional improvisational jazz, they may occasionally feature several solos by multiple instruments within an undecided number of bars, such as a keyboardist, before returning to the melody. At the same time, Dead shows almost always feature a more collective, modal approach to improvisation that typically occurs during segues between songs before the band modulates to a new tonal center. Some of the Dead's more extended jam vehicles, such as "The Other One", "Dark Star", and "Playing in the Band" almost exclusively make use of modulation between modes to accompany simple two-chord progressions.
Lyrical themes
Following the songwriting renaissance that defined the band's early 1970s period, as reflected in the albums Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia's primary lyrical partner, frequently made use of motifs common to American folklore including trains, guns, elements, traditional musical instruments, gambling, murder, animals, alcohol, descriptions of American geography, and religious symbolism to illustrate themes involving love and loss, life and death, beauty and horror, and chaos and order. Following in the footsteps of several American musical traditions, these songs are often confessional and feature narration from the perspective of an antihero. Critic Robert Christgau described them as "American myths" that later gave way to "the old karma-go-round".
An extremely common feature in both Robert Hunter's lyrics, as well as the band's visual iconography, is the presence of dualistic and opposing imagery illustrating the dynamic range of the human experience (Heaven and hell, law and crime, dark and light, etc.). Hunter and Garcia's earlier, more directly psychedelic-influenced compositions often make use of surreal imagery, nonsense, and whimsey reflective of traditions in English poetry. In a retrospective, The New Yorker described Hunter's verses as "elliptical, by turns vivid and gnomic", which were often "hippie poetry about roses and bells and dew". Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally has described Hunter's lyrics as creating "a non-literal hyper-Americana" weaving a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic tapestry in the hopes of elucidating America's national character. At least one of Hunter and Bob Weir's collaborations, "Jack Straw", was inspired by the work of John Steinbeck.
Merchandising and representation
Hal Kant was an entertainment industry attorney who specialized in representing musical groups. He spent 35 years as principal lawyer and general counsel for the Grateful Dead, a position in the group that was so strong that his business cards with the band identified his role as "Czar".
Kant brought the band millions of dollars in revenue through his management of the band's intellectual property and merchandising rights. At Kant's recommendation, the group was one of the few rock 'n roll pioneers to retain ownership of their music masters and publishing rights.
In 2006, the Grateful Dead signed a ten-year licensing agreement with Rhino Entertainment to manage the band's business interests including the release of musical recordings, merchandising, and marketing. The band retained creative control and kept ownership of its music catalog.
A Grateful Dead video game titled Grateful Dead Game – The Epic Tour was released in April 2012 and was created by Curious Sense.
In November 2022, the children's book The ABCs of The Grateful Dead was released. Authorized by the group, it was written by Howie Abrams, illustrated by Michael "Kaves" McLeer, and published by Simon & Schuster.
Sponsorship of 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team
After Lithuania gained its independence from the USSR, the country announced its withdrawal from the 1992 Olympics due to the lack of any money to sponsor participants. But NBA star Šarūnas Marčiulionis, a native Lithuanian basketball star, wanted to help his native team to compete. His efforts resulted in a call from representatives of the Grateful Dead who set up a meeting with the band members. The band agreed to fund transportation costs for the team (about five thousand dollars) along with Grateful Dead designs for the team's jerseys and shorts. The Lithuanian basketball team won the bronze medal and the Lithuanian basketball/Grateful Dead T-shirts became part of pop culture, especially in Lithuania. The incident was covered by the documentary The Other Dream Team.
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers of activity where fans could buy and sell anything from grilled cheese sandwiches to home-made t-shirts and recordings of Grateful Dead concerts.
In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music, and health care to all. It has been said that the band performed "more free concerts than any band in the history of music".
With the exception of 1975, when the band was on hiatus and played only four concerts, Grateful Dead performed many concerts every year, from their formation in April 1965, until July 9, 1995. Initially all their shows were in California, principally in the San Francisco Bay Area and in or near Los Angeles. They also performed, in 1965 and 1966, with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as the house band for the Acid Tests.
In 1967, they toured nationally, including their first performance in New York City. They appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Festival Express train tour across Canada in 1970. They were scheduled to appear as the final act at the infamous Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969, after the Rolling Stones but withdrew after security concerns. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play", staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event.
Their first UK performance was at the Hollywood Music Festival in 1970. Their largest concert audience came in 1973 when they played, along with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band, before an estimated 600,000 people at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. They played to an estimated total of 25 million people, more than any other band, with audiences of up to 80,000 attending a single show. Many of these concerts were preserved in the band's tape vault, and several dozen have since been released on CD and as downloads. The Dead were known for the tremendous variation in their setlists from night to night—the list of songs documented to have been played by the band exceeds 500. The band has released four concert videos under the name View from the Vault. In 1978, they played three nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia.
In a 1991 PBS documentary, segment host Buck Henry attended an August 1991 concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and gleaned some information from some band members about the Grateful Dead phenomenon and its success. At the time, Jerry Garcia stated, "We didn't really invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead, you know what I mean? We were sort of standing in line, and uh, it's gone way past our expectations, way past, so it's, we've been going along with it to see what it's gonna do next." Mickey Hart said, "This is one of the last places in America that you can really have this kind of fun, you know, considering the political climate and so forth." Hart also stated that "the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it's what it can do to your consciousness. We're more into transportation than we are into music, per se, I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation." One of the band's largest concerts took place just months before Garcia's death — at their outdoor show with Bob Dylan in Highgate, Vermont, on June 15, 1995. The crowd was estimated to be over 90,000; overnight camping was allowed and about a third of the audience got in without having purchased a ticket.
Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that they had first played in concert. The band was also famous for its extended musical improvisations, having been described as having never played the same song the same way twice. Their concert sets often blended songs, one into the next, often for more than three songs at a time.
Concert sound systems
The Wall of Sound was a large sound system designed specifically for the band. The band was never satisfied with the house system anywhere they played. After the Monterey Pop Festival, the band's crew 'borrowed' some of the other performers' sound equipment and used it to host some free shows in San Francisco. In their early days, soundman Owsley "Bear" Stanley designed a public address (PA) and monitor system for them. Stanley was the Grateful Dead's soundman for many years; he was also one of the largest suppliers of LSD.
Stanley's sound systems were delicate and finicky, and frequently brought shows to a halt with technical breakdowns. After Stanley went to jail for manufacturing LSD in 1970, the group briefly used house PAs, but found them to be even less reliable than those built by their former soundman. On February 2, 1970, the group contacted Bob Heil to use his system. In 1971, the band purchased their first solid-state sound system from Alembic Studios. Because of this, Alembic would play an integral role in the research, development, and production of the Wall of Sound. The band also welcomed Dan Healy into the fold on a permanent basis that year. Healy would mix the Grateful Dead's live sound until 1993.
Following Jerry Garcia's death and the band's breakup in 1995, their current sound system was inherited by Dave Matthews Band. Dave Matthews Band debuted the sound system April 30, 1996, at the first show of their 1996 tour in Richmond, Virginia.
Tapes
Like several other bands at the time, the Grateful Dead allowed their fans to record their shows. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could, and the eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the sound crew. Eventually, this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of the tapes.
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. "Dick's Picks" is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post. Concert set lists from a subset of 1,590 Grateful Dead shows were used to perform a comparative analysis between how songs were played in concert and how they are listened online by Last.fm members. In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial contributor to increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.
Iconography
Over the years, a number of iconic images have come to be associated with the Grateful Dead. Many of these images originated as artwork for concert posters or album covers.
Skull and Roses
The skull and roses design was composed by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse, who added lettering and color, respectively, to a black and white drawing by Edmund Joseph Sullivan. Sullivan's drawing was an illustration for a 1913 edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Earlier antecedents include the custom of exhibiting the relic skulls of Christian martyrs decorated with roses on their feast days. The rose is an attribute of Saint Valentine, who according to one legend, was martyred by decapitation. Accordingly, in Rome, at the church dedicated to him, the observance of his feast day included the display of his skull surrounded by roses. Kelley and Mouse's design originally appeared on a poster for the September 16 and 17, 1966, Dead shows at the Avalon Ballroom. Later, it was used as the cover for the album Grateful Dead (1971). The album is sometimes referred to as Skull and Roses.
Jester
Another icon of the Dead is a skeleton dressed as a jester and holding a lute. This image was an airbrush painting, created by Stanley Mouse in 1972. It was originally used for the cover of The Grateful Dead Songbook.
"Dancing" Bears
A series of stylized bears who appear to be dancing was drawn by Bob Thomas as part of the back cover for the album History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear's Choice) (1973). Thomas reported that he based the bears on a lead sort from an unknown font. The bear is a reference to Owsley "Bear" Stanley, who recorded and produced the album. Bear himself wrote, "the bears on the album cover are not really 'dancing'. I don't know why people think they are; their positions are quite obviously those of a high-stepping march."
Steal Your Face Skull
Perhaps the best-known Grateful Dead art icon is a red, white, and blue skull with a lightning bolt through it. The lightning bolt skull can be found on the cover of the album Steal Your Face (1976), and the image is sometimes known by that name. It was designed by Owsley Stanley and artist Bob Thomas, and was originally used as a logo to mark the band's equipment.
Dancing Terrapins
The two dancing terrapins first appeared on the cover of the album Terrapin Station (1977). They were drawn by Kelley and Mouse, based on a drawing by Heinrich Kley. Since then these turtles have become one of the Grateful Dead's most recognizable logos.
Uncle Sam Skeleton
The Uncle Sam skeleton was devised by Gary Gutierrez as part of the animation for The Grateful Dead Movie (1977). The image combines the Grateful Dead skeleton motif with the character of Uncle Sam, a reference to the then-recently written song "U.S. Blues", which plays during the animation.
Deadheads
Fans and enthusiasts of the band are commonly referred to as Deadheads. While the origin of the term may be unclear, Dead Heads were made canon by the notice placed inside the Skull and Roses (1971) album by manager Jon McIntire:
DEAD FREAKS UNITE: Who are you? Where are you? How are you?Send us your name and address and we'll keep you informed.Dead Heads, P.O. Box 1065, San Rafael, California 94901.
As each show featured a new setlist and a great deal of improvisation, Deadheads would often follow the band from city to city, attending many shows on a given tour. Many Deadheads speak of being drawn to the culture due to the sense of community that the band's shows tended to foster. Though Deadheads came from a wide array of demographics, many attempted to reproduce the aesthetics and values of the 1960s counterculture and were often stigmatized in the media. Because of the stereotyping of Deadheads as hippies, the band's shows became a common target for officials in the DEA and arrests at shows became common.
As a group, the Deadheads were considered very mellow. "I'd rather work nine Grateful Dead concerts than one Oregon football game," Police Det. Rick Raynor said. "They don't get belligerent like they do at the games." Despite this reputation, in the mid-1990s, as the band's popularity grew, there were a series of minor scuffles occurring at shows that peaked with a large scale riot at the Deer Creek Music Center near Indianapolis in July 1995. This gate crashing incident caused the band to cancel the following night's show. Deadheads who appeared on the scene after the band's 1987 hit single "Touch of Grey", were often disparagingly referred to by older fans as "Touchheads". Beginning in the 1980s, a number of definable sects of Deadheads began to appear on the scene. These included the Wharf Rats, as well as the "spinners", named for whirling-style of dancing and their use of the band's music to facilitate mystical experiences.
Deadheads, particularly those who collected tapes, were known for keeping close records of the band's setlists and for comparing various live versions of the band's songs, as reflected in publications such as the various editions of "Deadbase" and "The Deadhead's Taping Compendium". This practice continues into the 21st century on digital forums and websites such as the Internet Archive, which features live recordings of nearly every available Grateful Dead show and allows users to discuss and review the site's shows.
The band has a number of influential and celebrity fans, including politicians, businesspeople, journalists, and other musicians.
Donation of archives to UC Santa Cruz
On April 24, 2008, members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, along with Nion McEvoy, CEO of Chronicle Books, UC Santa Cruz chancellor George Blumenthal, and UC Santa Cruz librarian Virginia Steel, held a press conference announcing UCSC's McHenry Library would be the permanent home of the Grateful Dead Archive, which includes a complete archival history from 1965 to the present. The archive includes correspondence, photographs, fliers, posters, and several other forms of memorabilia and records of the band. Also included are unreleased videos of interviews and TV appearances that will be installed for visitors to view, as well as stage backdrops and other props from the band's concerts.
Blumenthal stated at the event, "The Grateful Dead Archive represents one of the most significant popular cultural collections of the 20th century; UC Santa Cruz is honored to receive this invaluable gift. The Grateful Dead and UC Santa Cruz are both highly innovative institutions—born the same year—that continue to make a major, positive impact on the world." Guitarist Bob Weir stated "We looked around, and UC Santa Cruz seems the best possible home. If you ever wrote the Grateful Dead a letter, you'll probably find it there!"
Professor of music Fredric Lieberman was the key contact between the band and the university, who let the university know about the search for a home for the archive, and who had collaborated with Mickey Hart on three books in the past, Planet Drum (1990), Drumming at the Edge of Magic (1991), and Spirit into Sound (2006).
The first large-scale exhibition of materials from the Grateful Dead Archive was mounted at the New-York Historical Society in 2010.
Awards
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Grateful Dead No. 57 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
On February 10, 2007, the Grateful Dead received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was accepted on behalf of the band by Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann.
In 2011, a recording of the Grateful Dead's May 8, 1977, concert at Cornell University's Barton Hall was selected for induction into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
Twelve members of the Grateful Dead (the eleven official performing members plus Robert Hunter) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and Bruce Hornsby was their presenter.
In 2024 the band was named as one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. The four living core members (Weir, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann) will receive the award.
Members
Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was often viewed both by the public and the media as the leader or primary spokesperson for the Grateful Dead, but was reluctant to be perceived that way, especially since he and the other group members saw themselves as equal participants and contributors to their collective musical and creative output. Garcia, a native of San Francisco, grew up in the Excelsior District. One of his main influences was bluegrass music, and he also performed—on banjo, one of his other great instrumental loves, along with the pedal steel guitar—in bluegrass bands, notably Old & In the Way with mandolinist David Grisman.
Ned Lagin, a young MIT student and friend of the band, guested with them many times from 1970 through 1975, providing a second keyboard as well as synthesizers. Upon graduating from MIT, he began touring with the band fulltime in 1974, performing sets of electronic music with Phil Lesh, occasionally with Garcia and Kreutzmann, during the band's intermission. The "Ned and Phil" set became a regular fixture of that era, and was featured nearly every night during their Summer '74 and Europe '74 tours, as well as their five-night residency at the Winterland Ballroom during October 1974. Lagin is also featured in The Grateful Dead Movie. During 1974 and 1975, he would also occasionally play entire sets with the band, usually on Garcia's side of the stage, before ending his touring relationship with the band and focusing on his solo music projects, such as his album Seastones, which features several members of the Dead.
Bruce Hornsby never officially joined the band full-time because of his other commitments, but he did play keyboards at most Dead shows between September 1990 and March 1992, and sat in with the band over 100 times in all between 1988 and 1995. He added several Dead songs to his own live shows and Jerry Garcia referred to him as a "floating member" who could come and go as he pleased.
Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow were the band's primary lyricists, starting in 1967 and 1971, respectively, and continuing until the band's dissolution. Hunter collaborated mostly with Garcia and Barlow mostly with Weir, though each wrote with other band members as well. Both are listed as official members at Dead.net, the band's website, alongside the performing members. Barlow was the only member not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Timeline
Discography
See also
Internet Archive – Copyright takedowns
List of Grateful Dead cover versions
References
Further reading
External links
Official website
Grateful Dead at AllMusic
Grateful Dead at IMDb
Live recordings by Grateful Dead at the Internet Archive
FBI Records: The Vault – The Grateful Dead at vault.fbi.gov |
Old_Testament | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament | [
627
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament"
] | The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in Koine Greek.
The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch (which corresponds to the Jewish Torah); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic and "Wisdom books" dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God.
The books that compose the Old Testament canon and their order and names differ between various branches of Christianity. The canons of the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches comprise up to 49 books; the Catholic canon comprises 46 books; and the most common of the Protestant canons comprises 39 books.
There are 39 books common to essentially all Christian canons. They correspond to the 24 books of the Tanakh, with some differences of order, and there are some differences in text. The greater count of books reflects the splitting of several texts (Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets) into separate books in Christian Bibles. The books that are part of the Christian Old Testament but that are not part of the Hebrew canon are sometimes described as deuterocanonical books. In general, Catholic and Orthodox churches include these books in the Old Testament. Most Protestant Bibles do not include the deuterocanonical books in their canon, but some versions of Anglican and Lutheran Bibles place such books in a separate section called Apocrypha. These books are ultimately derived from the earlier Septuagint, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and are also Jewish in origin. Some are also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Content
The Old Testament contains 39 (Protestant), 46 (Catholic), or more (Orthodox and other) books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch (Torah), the historical books, the "wisdom" books and the prophets.
The table below uses the spellings and names present in modern editions of the Christian Bible, such as the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition and the Protestant Revised Standard Version and English Standard Version. The spelling and names in both the 1609–F10 Douay Old Testament (and in the 1582 Rheims New Testament) and the 1749 revision by Bishop Challoner (the edition currently in print used by many Catholics, and the source of traditional Catholic spellings in English) and in the Septuagint differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions which are derived from the Hebrew Masoretic Text.
For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. For the Catholic canon, the Douaic titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. Likewise, the King James Version references some of these books by the traditional spelling when referring to them in the New Testament, such as "Esaias" (for Isaiah).
In the spirit of ecumenism, more recent Catholic translations (e.g. the New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and ecumenical translations used by Catholics, such as the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition) use the same "standardized" (King James Version) spellings and names as Protestant Bibles (e.g. 1 Chronicles as opposed to the Douaic 1 Paralipomenon, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings instead of 1–4 Kings) in those books which are universally considered canonical: the protocanonicals.
The Talmud (the Jewish commentary on the scriptures) in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Nevi'im and Ketuvim. This order is also cited in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:15. The order of the books of the Torah is universal through all denominations of Judaism and Christianity.
The disputed books, included in most canons but not in others, are often called the Biblical apocrypha, a term that is sometimes used specifically to describe the books in the Catholic and Orthodox canons that are absent from the Jewish Masoretic Text and most modern Protestant Bibles. Catholics, following the Canon of Trent (1546), describe these books as deuterocanonical, while Greek Orthodox Christians, following the Synod of Jerusalem (1672), use the traditional name of anagignoskomena, meaning "that which is to be read." They are present in a few historic Protestant versions; the German Luther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version.
Empty table cells indicate that a book is absent from that canon.
Several of the books in the Eastern Orthodox canon are also found in the appendix to the Latin Vulgate, formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
Historicity
Early scholarship
Some of the stories of the Pentateuch may derive from older sources. Scholars such as Andrew R. George point out the similarity of the Genesis flood narrative and the Gilgamesh flood myth. Similarities between the origin story of Moses and that of Sargon of Akkad were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in 1909 and popularized by 20th-century writers, such as H. G. Wells and Joseph Campbell. Jacob Bronowski writes that, "the Bible is ... part folklore and part record. History is ... written by the victors, and the Israelis, when they burst through [Jericho (c. 1400 BC)], became the carriers of history."
Recent scholarship
In 2007, a historian of ancient Judaism Lester L. Grabbe explained that earlier biblical scholars such as Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) could be described as 'maximalist', accepting biblical text unless it has been disproven. Continuing in this tradition, both "the 'substantial historicity' of the patriarchs" and "the unified conquest of the land" were widely accepted in the United States until about the 1970s. Contrarily, Grabbe says that those in his field now "are all minimalists – at least, when it comes to the patriarchal period and the settlement. ... [V]ery few are willing to operate [as maximalists]."
In 2022, archaeologist Avraham Faust wrote that in the 1990s a school known as biblical minimalism rejected the historical value of the Hebrew Bible for the study of ancient Israel during the Iron Age, "but this extreme approach was rejected by mainstream scholarship."
Composition
The first five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and Deuteronomy—reached their present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC), and their authors were the elite of exilic returnees who controlled the Temple at that time. The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings follow, forming a history of Israel from the Conquest of Canaan to the Siege of Jerusalem c. 587 BC. There is a broad consensus among scholars that these originated as a single work (the so-called "Deuteronomistic History") during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC.
The two Books of Chronicles cover much the same material as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC. Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah, was probably finished during the 3rd century BC. Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain two (Catholic Old Testament) to four (Orthodox) Books of the Maccabees, written in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.
These history books make up around half the total content of the Old Testament. Of the remainder, the books of the various prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve "minor prophets"—were written between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, with the exceptions of Jonah and Daniel, which were written much later. The "wisdom" books—Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Song of Songs—have various dates: Proverbs possibly was completed by the Hellenistic time (332–198 BC), though containing much older material as well; Job was completed by the 6th century BC; Ecclesiastes by the 3rd century BC.
Themes
Throughout the Old Testament, God is consistently depicted as the one who created the world. Although the God of the Old Testament is not consistently presented as the only god who exists, he is always depicted as the only God whom Israel is to worship, or the one "true God", that only Yahweh (or YHWH) is Almighty.
The Old Testament stresses the special relationship between God and his chosen people, Israel, but includes instructions for proselytes as well. This relationship is expressed in the biblical covenant (contract) between the two, received by Moses. The law codes in books such as Exodus and especially Deuteronomy are the terms of the contract: Israel swears faithfulness to God, and God swears to be Israel's special protector and supporter. However, The Jewish Study Bible denies that the word covenant (brit in Hebrew) means "contract"; in the ancient Near East, a covenant would have been sworn before the gods, who would be its enforcers. As God is part of the agreement, and not merely witnessing it, The Jewish Study Bible instead interprets the term to refer to a pledge.
Further themes in the Old Testament include salvation, redemption, divine judgment, obedience and disobedience, faith and faithfulness, among others. Throughout there is a strong emphasis on ethics and ritual purity, both of which God demands, although some of the prophets and wisdom writers seem to question this, arguing that God demands social justice above purity, and perhaps does not even care about purity at all. The Old Testament's moral code enjoins fairness, intervention on behalf of the vulnerable, and the duty of those in power to administer justice righteously. It forbids murder, bribery and corruption, deceitful trading, and many sexual misdemeanours. All morality is traced back to God, who is the source of all goodness.
The problem of evil plays a large part in the Old Testament. The problem the Old Testament authors faced was that a good God must have had just reason for bringing disaster (meaning notably, but not only, the Babylonian exile) upon his people. The theme is played out, with many variations, in books as different as the histories of Kings and Chronicles, the prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and in the wisdom books like Job and Ecclesiastes.
Formation
The process by which scriptures became canons and Bibles was a long one, and its complexities account for the many different Old Testaments which exist today. Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, identifies the Old Testament as "a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing." He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC, Jews saw the five books of the Torah (the Old Testament Pentateuch) as having authoritative status; by the 2nd century BC, the Prophets had a similar status, although without quite the same level of respect as the Torah; beyond that, the Jewish scriptures were fluid, with different groups seeing authority in different books.
Greek
Hebrew texts began to be translated into Greek in Alexandria in about 280 BC and continued until about 130 BC. These early Greek translations – supposedly commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus – were called the Septuagint (Latin for 'Seventy') from the supposed number of translators involved (hence its abbreviation "LXX"). This Septuagint remains the basis of the Old Testament in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
It varies in many places from the Masoretic Text and includes numerous books no longer considered canonical in some traditions: 1 Esdras, Judith, Tobit, the books of Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch. Early modern biblical criticism typically explained these variations as intentional or ignorant corruptions by the Alexandrian scholars, but most recent scholarship holds it is simply based on early source texts differing from those later used by the Masoretes in their work.
The Septuagint was originally used by Hellenized Jews whose knowledge of Greek was better than Hebrew. However, the texts came to be used predominantly by gentile converts to Christianity and by the early Church as its scripture, Greek being the lingua franca of the early Church. The three most acclaimed early interpreters were Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus the Ebionite, and Theodotion; in his Hexapla, Origen placed his edition of the Hebrew text beside its transcription in Greek letters and four parallel translations: Aquila's, Symmachus's, the Septuagint's, and Theodotion's. The so-called "fifth" and "sixth editions" were two other Greek translations supposedly miraculously discovered by students outside the towns of Jericho and Nicopolis: these were added to Origen's Octapla.
In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus are examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles. There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon. However, Jerome (347–420), in his Prologue to Judith, claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".
Latin
In Western Christianity or Christianity in the Western half of the Roman Empire, Latin had displaced Greek as the common language of the early Christians, and in 382 AD Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome, the leading scholar of the day, to produce an updated Latin Bible to replace the Vetus Latina, which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint. Jerome's work, called the Vulgate, was a direct translation from Hebrew, since he argued for the superiority of the Hebrew texts in correcting the Septuagint on both philological and theological grounds. His Vulgate Old Testament became the standard Bible used in the Western Church, specifically as the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, while the Churches in the East continued, and continue, to use the Septuagint.
Jerome, however, in the Vulgate's prologues, describes some portions of books in the Septuagint not found in the Hebrew Bible as being non-canonical (he called them apocrypha); for Baruch, he mentions by name in his Prologue to Jeremiah and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon". The Synod of Hippo (in 393), followed by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of Carthage (419), may be the first council that explicitly accepted the first canon which includes the books that did not appear in the Hebrew Bible; the councils were under significant influence of Augustine of Hippo, who regarded the canon as already closed.
Protestant canon
In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers sided with Jerome; yet although most Protestant Bibles now have only those books that appear in the Hebrew Bible, the order is that of the Greek Bible.
Rome then officially adopted a canon, the Canon of Trent, which is seen as following Augustine's Carthaginian Councils or the Council of Rome, and includes most, but not all, of the Septuagint (3 Ezra and 3 and 4 Maccabees are excluded); the Anglicans after the English Civil War adopted a compromise position, restoring the 39 Articles and keeping the extra books that were excluded by the Westminster Confession of Faith, both for private study and for reading in churches but not for establishing any doctrine, while Lutherans kept them for private study, gathered in an appendix as biblical apocrypha.
Other versions
While the Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the Hebrew Bible are the best known Old Testaments, there were others. At much the same time as the Septuagint was being produced, translations were being made into Aramaic, the language of Jews living in Palestine and the Near East and likely the language of Jesus: these are called the Aramaic Targums, from a word meaning "translation", and were used to help Jewish congregations understand their scriptures.
For Aramaic Christians, there was a Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Peshitta, as well as versions in Coptic (the everyday language of Egypt in the first Christian centuries, descended from ancient Egyptian), Ethiopic (for use in the Ethiopian church, one of the oldest Christian churches), Armenian (Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion), and Arabic.
Christian theology
Christianity is based on the belief that the historical Jesus is also the Christ, as in the Confession of Peter. This belief is in turn based on Jewish understandings of the meaning of the Hebrew term Messiah, which, like the Greek "Christ", means "anointed". In the Hebrew Scriptures, it describes a king anointed with oil on his accession to the throne: he becomes "The LORD's anointed" or Yahweh's Anointed.
By the time of Jesus, some Jews expected that a flesh-and-blood descendant of David (the "Son of David") would come to establish a real Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem, instead of the Roman province of Judaea. Others stressed the Son of Man, a distinctly other-worldly figure who would appear as a judge at the end of time. Some expounded a synthesised view of both positions, where a messianic kingdom of this world would last for a set period and be followed by the other-worldly age or World to Come.
Some thought the Messiah was already present, but unrecognised due to Israel's sins; some thought that the Messiah would be announced by a forerunner, probably Elijah (as promised by the prophet Malachi, whose book now ends the Old Testament and precedes Mark's account of John the Baptist). However, no view of the Messiah as based on the Old Testament predicted a Messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of all people. The story of Jesus' death, therefore, involved a profound shift in meaning from the Old Testament tradition.
The name "Old Testament" reflects Christianity's understanding of itself as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of a New Covenant (which is similar to "testament" and often conflated) to replace the existing covenant between God and Israel (Jeremiah 31:31). The emphasis, however, has shifted from Judaism's understanding of the covenant as a racially or tribally based pledge between God and the Jewish people, to one between God and any person of faith who is "in Christ".
See also
New Testament
Biblical and Quranic narratives
List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts
Expounding of the Law
Genealogies of Genesis
Law and Gospel
List of ancient legal codes
Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible
Quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament
Explanatory notes
Citations
General and cited references
Bandstra, Barry L (2004), Reading the Old Testament: an introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Wadsworth, ISBN 978-0-495-39105-0
Barton, John (1997), How the Bible Came to Be, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-25785-9
——— (2001), "Introduction to the Old Testament", in Muddiman, John; Barton, John (eds.), Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-875500-5
Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi, eds. (2014-10-17). The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition. Oxford University Press. p. PT194. ISBN 978-0-19-939387-9.
Berman, Joshua A. (Summer 2006). "God's Alliance with Man". Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation (25). ISSN 0793-6664. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph (1998), "The Pentateuch", in Barton, John (ed.), The Cambridge companion to biblical interpretation, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-48593-7
Boadt, Lawrence (1984), Reading the Old Testament: an introduction, Paulist Press, ISBN 978-0-8091-2631-6
Brettler, Marc Zvi (2005), How to read the Bible, Jewish Publication Society, ISBN 978-0-8276-1001-9
Bultman, Christoph (2001), "Deuteronomy", in Barton, John; Muddiman, John (eds.), Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-875500-5
Coggins, Richard J (2003), "1 and 2 Chronicles", in Dunn, James DG; Rogerson, John William (eds.), Commentary on the Bible, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-3711-0
Coogan, Michael David (2008-11-01). A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context. Oxford University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-19-533272-8..
Crenshaw, James L (2010), Old Testament wisdom: an introduction, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-23459-1
Davies, GI (1998), "Introduction to the Pentateuch", in Barton, John (ed.), Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-875500-5
Dines, Jennifer M (2004), "The Septuagint", Continuum, ISBN 978-0-567-08464-4
Farmer, Ron (1991), "Messiah/Christ", in Mills, Watson E; Bullard, Roger Aubrey (eds.), Mercer dictionary of the Bible, Mercer University Press, ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7
Ferguson, Everett (1996). The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-8028-4189-6.
Gentry, Peter R (2008), "Old Greek and Later Revisors", in Sollamo, Raija; Voitila, Anssi; Jokiranta, Jutta (eds.), Scripture in transition, Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-16582-3
Grabbe, Lester L (2003), "Ezra", in Dunn, James DG; Rogerson, John William (eds.), Commentary on the Bible, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-3711-0
Hasel, Gerhard F (1991), Old Testament theology: basic issues in the current debate, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-0537-9
Hayes, Christine (2006). "Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible): Lecture 6 Transcript". Open Yale Courses. Retrieved 2019-10-31.
Herion, Gary A (2000), "Covenant", in Freedman, David Noel (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2
Jobes, Karen H; Silva, Moises (2005), Invitation to the Septuagint, Baker Academic
Jones, Barry A (2000), "Canon of the Old Testament", in Freedman, David Noel (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible, William B Eerdmans, ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2
Juel, Donald (2000), "Christ", in Freedman, David Noel (ed.), Dictionary of the Bible, William B Eerdmans, ISBN 978-90-5356-503-2
Levine, Amy-Jill (2001). "Covenant and Law, Part I (Exodus 19–40, Leviticus, Deuteronomy). Lecture 10" (PDF). The Old Testament. Course Guidebook. The Great Courses. p. 46.
Lim, Timothy H. (2005). The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McLay, Tim (2003), The use of the Septuagint in New Testament research, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-6091-0
Miller, John W (2004), How the Bible came to be, Paulist Press, ISBN 978-0-8091-4183-8
Miller, John W (1987), Meet the prophets: a beginner's guide to the books of the biblical prophets, Paulist Press, ISBN 978-0-8091-2899-0
Miller, Stephen R. (1994), Daniel, B&H Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-8054-0118-9
Rogerson, John W (2003), "Deuteronomy", in Dunn, James DG; Rogerson, John William (eds.), Commentary on the Bible, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-3711-0
Sailhamer, John H. (1992), The Pentateuch As Narrative, Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-310-57421-7
Schniedewind, William M (2004), How the Bible Became a Book, Cambridge, ISBN 978-0-521-53622-6
Ska, Jean Louis (2009). The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions. Mohr Siebeck. p. 213. ISBN 978-3-16-149905-0.
Soggin, J. Alberto (1987), Introduction to the Old Testament, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-22156-0
Stuart, Douglas (1987), Hosea-Jonah, Thomas Nelson, ISBN 978-0-8499-0230-7
Würthwein, Ernst (1995), The text of the Old Testament: an introduction to the Biblia Hebraica, William B Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-0788-5
Further reading
Anderson, Bernhard. Understanding the Old Testament. ISBN 0-13-948399-3
Bahnsen, Greg, et al., Five Views on Law and Gospel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).
Berkowitz, Ariel; Berkowitz, D'vorah (2004), Torah Rediscovered (4th ed.), Shoreshim, ISBN 978-0-9752914-0-5.
Dever, William G. (2003), Who Were the Early Israelites?, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-0975-9.
Driver, Samuel Rolles (1911). "Bible" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 849–894.
Hill, Andrew; Walton, John (2000), A Survey of the Old Testament (2nd ed.), Grand Rapids: Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-310-22903-2.
Kuntz, John Kenneth (1974), The People of Ancient Israel: an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper & Row, ISBN 978-0-06-043822-7.
Lancaster, D Thomas (2005), Restoration: Returning the Torah of God to the Disciples of Jesus, Littleton \: First Fruits of Zion.
Papadaki-Oekland, Stella (2009), Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, Brepols, ISBN 978-2-503-53232-5.
von Rad, Gerhard (1982–1984), Theologie des Alten Testaments [Theology of the Old Testament] (in German), vol. Band 1–2, Munich: Auflage.
Rouvière, Jean-Marc (2006), Brèves méditations sur la Création du monde [Brief meditations on the creation of the World] (in French), Paris: L'Harmattan.
Salibi, Kamal (1985), The Bible Came from Arabia, London: Jonathan Cape, ISBN 978-0-224-02830-1.
Schmid, Konrad (2012), The Old Testament: A Literary History, Minneapolis: Fortress, ISBN 978-0-8006-9775-4.
Silberman, Neil A; et al. (2003), The Bible Unearthed, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-684-86912-4 (hardback), ISBN 0-684-86913-6 (paperback).
Sprinkle, Joseph 'Joe' M (2006), Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations, Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, ISBN 978-0-7618-3371-0 (clothbound) and ISBN 0-7618-3372-2 (paperback).
External links
Bible gateway. Full texts of the Old (and New) Testaments including the full Roman and Orthodox Catholic canons
Early Jewish Writings, archived from the original on 2018-09-24, retrieved 2018-09-29 – Tanakh
"Old Testament", Écritures, La feuille d'Olivier, archived from the original on 2010-12-07 Protestant Old Testament on a single page
"Old Testament", Reading Room, Canada: Tyndale Seminary. Extensive online Old Testament resources (including commentaries)
Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), Yale University
"Old Testament". Encyclopedia.com. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
Bible, X10 host: Old Testament stories and commentary
Tanakh ML (parallel Bible) – Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the King James Version |
Doctor_Who_season_12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_season_12 | [
627
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_season_12"
] | The twelfth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 28 December 1974 with Tom Baker's first serial Robot, and ended with Revenge of the Cybermen on 10 May 1975.
This is the first season to feature Tom Baker as the fourth incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in his TARDIS, which appears to be a British police box on the outside. He is accompanied by companions Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), continuing from season eleven, and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter), who joins in this season. With Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks having both departed along with Jon Pertwee, new producer Philip Hinchcliffe and new script editor Robert Holmes worked on this series. Letts's last story as producer was Robot, with Hinchcliffe producing the rest of the season. Holmes had previously written for the programme.
Casting
Main cast
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor
Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith
Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan
During production of season eleven, it was known that Jon Pertwee would be leaving his role as the Third Doctor and that a new Fourth Doctor would need to be cast for the part. Tom Baker was an out-of-work actor, working in construction at the time. Baker had been a television and film actor, having major parts in several films including The Vault of Horror (1973) and as the main antagonist in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad the same year. He had written to Bill Slater, the Head of Serials at the BBC, asking for work. Slater suggested Baker to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts who had been looking to fill the part. Letts had been the producer of the series since the early Pertwee serials in 1970. He had seen Baker's work in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and hired him for the part. Baker would continue in his role as the Doctor for seven seasons, longer than any other actor to play the part.
Elisabeth Sladen returned to play the role of companion Sarah Jane Smith throughout the season. Ian Marter joined the cast as Harry Sullivan. The character was created before Baker was cast; there had been discussion of casting an older actor as the Doctor, and so Harry was created as a younger character to handle the action scenes.
Recurring cast
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
John Levene as Warrant Officer Benton
Nicholas Courtney and John Levene reprised their roles as the Brigadier and Warrant Officer Benton respectively in the first serial, Robot. Courtney had begun his role in the Second Doctor story The Web of Fear (1968), where the character was a colonel. Levene had begun in Second Doctor story The Invasion (1968), replacing another actor. Both were members of the military organization United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT). They, along with Sladen, would be the transition cast to carry through from the Third Doctor to the Fourth Doctor, though Robot is the only UNIT story for the twelfth season.
Serials
After Robot, all the serials in this season continue directly one after the other, tracing one single problematic voyage of the TARDIS crew. Despite the continuity, each serial is considered its own standalone story.
The season was initially formatted as the previous Pertwee season had been with three six-part stories and two four-part stories. To this end, the initial structure was to open with the four-part Robot and the four-part Space Station by Christopher Langley followed by three six-parters – Genesis of Terror (later retitled Genesis of the Daleks), Loch Ness, and another six-part story to be determined. Script editor Robert Holmes discussed with Philip Hinchcliffe the possibility of replacing the as-yet undecided six-parter with a four-part story and a two-parter, both with the same production team. The season structure later became two four-part stories (Robot and a replacement for Space Station, The Ark in Space), the new two-parter The Destructors (later retitled The Sontaran Experiment), the six-part Genesis of Terror, and a four-part version of Loch Ness (later retitled Terror of the Zygons and held over for season 13). This decision made The Sontaran Experiment the first two-part story since Season 2's The Rescue. It was also the first to be shot entirely on location since Jon Pertwee's opening story Spearhead from Space in Season 7, and the first to be shot entirely on videotape instead of 16mm film, as was usual for location shooting. As a means of saving money, The Ark in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen were shot on the same sets.
Production
Barry Letts served as producer for Robot, after which he was succeeded by Philip Hinchcliffe. Robert Holmes took over from Terrance Dicks as script editor.
Robot was written by Dicks, who cited King Kong as an influence for the serial. Dicks incorporated several familiar elements from the Third Doctor's first story Spearhead from Space (1970), which helped the audience transition between actors. The Ark in Space was written by Robert Holmes from a story by John Lucarotti that was considered unusable. Letts and Dicks were eager to have Terry Nation return to write the Daleks, but initially found his script too similar to past Dalek adventures. They suggested that he write a Dalek origin story instead, which became Genesis of the Daleks. However, under Hinchcliffe, the serial gained a darker tone.
The sets of The Ark in Space were reused for Revenge of the Cybermen. Genesis of the Daleks was the last serial of the season to be filmed, after Revenge of the Cybermen. This took place in January and February 1975.
Broadcast
The entire season was broadcast from 28 December 1974 to 10 May 1975.
The title sequence for Part One of The Ark in Space was tinted sepia as an experiment, but was not repeated for subsequent episodes.
Home media
VHS releases
Betamax releases
Video 2000 releases
Laserdisc releases
DVD and Blu-ray releases
All releases are for DVD unless otherwise indicated:
(B) indicates a Blu-ray release
In print
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website |
Genesis_of_the_Daleks | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_of_the_Daleks | [
627
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_of_the_Daleks"
] | Genesis of the Daleks is the fourth serial of the twelfth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by Terry Nation and directed by David Maloney, and originally broadcast in six weekly parts from 8 March to 12 April 1975 on BBC1.
In the serial, the alien time traveller the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his travelling companions Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) are directed by the Time Lords to the planet Skaro at the time of the Daleks' creation to prevent them from becoming the dominant race in the universe.
Genesis of the Daleks was originally commissioned under producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks, who believed that the outline submitted by Nation was too similar to his previous Dalek adventures, and encouraged him to explore the origin of the Daleks. The story introduces the Daleks' creator Davros (Michael Wisher), who had a unique visual design. The script was handed to Letts and Dicks' successors, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes, who made changes to the original script which gave it a darker tone. Nation, having intentionally modelled the Daleks on the Nazis, further explored the theme in Genesis. It also addresses the moral issues that come with time travel and genocide. The story was filmed over January and February 1975, with some location filming in a quarry in Betchworth.
Genesis of the Daleks premiered with 10.7 million viewers and concluded five weeks later with 9.1 million, with the least-watched episode being Part Three with 8.5 million viewers. Since its broadcast it has been widely praised as one of the series' best. The story was novelised in 1976 by Dicks, and released as a condensed LP in 1979, before being released on VHS in 1991 and DVD in 2006.
Plot
The Doctor and his companions are intercepted by the Time Lords, who instruct the Doctor to interfere with the creation of the Daleks; and given a Time Ring to return them to his TARDIS when the mission is complete.
The three find themselves on the planet of Skaro. A generations-long war between the Thals and the Kaleds has left the planet inhospitable; except for their two domes. An attack separates them; Sarah meets the Mutos, mutated exiles of both sides, but then are all captured by the Thals. The Doctor and Harry are captured by the Kaleds, their possessions confiscated, and are taken to a bunker to meet the scientific and military elite, including the lead scientist Davros, who unveils the "Mark III travel machine", or "Dalek". Ronson, one of the scientists, secretly tells the Doctor that Davros' experiments are unethical, and the Doctor convinces the leadership to halt them. Learning of Ronson's actions, Davros covertly provides the Thal leaders a chemical formula that can weaken the Kaled dome.
The Doctor and Harry reach the Thal dome and rescue Sarah; missiles strike the Kaled dome, killing all those not in the bunker. Davros accuses Ronson of being the traitor, orders the Daleks to kill him, and convinces the leadership to have his Daleks attack the Thals. The attack kills many Thals; the Doctor, his companions, and the survivors make their way to the bunker and the Doctor instructs them to find a way to destroy it while he and his companions go inside.
Davros captures the Doctor; the other scientists, now aware of his plans, free the Doctor, who then rigs the Dalek incubation room with explosives. As he is about to touch the two exposed wire ends to set them off, he hesitates, questioning whether he has the right to make that decision.
He is relieved to learn that Davros has agreed to allow a vote on the project. The Doctor recovers the Time Ring; as the vote is called, the Daleks return and exterminate the remaining Kaleds. Harry and Sarah escape, while the Doctor returns to set off the explosives, but a Dalek inadvertently sets it off itself. The Doctor escapes before the Thal and Mutos' bomb caves in the bunker, trapping Davros and the Daleks, who then refuse to take orders from a non-Dalek, and seemingly exterminate Davros. While he suspects he has only managed to set back Dalek evolution somewhat, the Doctor considers his mission complete: out of the Daleks' evil, good will always arise to challenge them. He and his companions say goodbye to the survivors and use the Time Ring to return to the TARDIS.
Production
Conception and writing
When planning stories for season 12, producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks felt that it was time for Terry Nation to return to the series and write another Dalek adventure. Letts and Dicks enjoyed the script Nation sent in, but found it too "reminiscent" of many of his previous Dalek stories. The two suggested that Nation instead write an origin story for the Daleks, originally titled Daleks – Genesis of Terror. The serial was commissioned on 1 April 1974, and the scripts accepted on 22 July. The stories lined up for the season were handed over to Letts and Dicks' successors, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes, with whom Genesis of the Daleks gained a darker tone. Holmes was not a fan of frequent appearances by the Daleks, and only allowed the story because it explored their origins. In an aim to make the series more adult, Hinchcliffe wanted the story to be "pacy" and make the Daleks appear more powerful. In a 2006 interview, Dicks said that he does not believe the story would have been much different if he and Letts had been in charge, though he remarked he would have added some lighter moments to soften the "grim" tone. Director David Maloney stated that the images of war at the beginning of the serial were intended to create atmosphere, and he had no intention of losing the younger audience.
The production of Genesis of the Daleks saw several changes from the script. Maloney altered the opening scene to show the soldiers gunned down by machine guns in slow motion. Nation was displeased with the change, and Maloney later felt that the violent addition was "a bit much". Hinchcliffe and Maloney were not keen on the Doctor's original meeting with the Time Lord, which took place in a lush garden, and changed it to the Skaro war-zone which they felt more appropriate. The Thal soldiers were originally supposed to be boys aged 15 or 16 to illustrate the youth of those fighting in the war, but this was later changed to make them appear more mature. In the Genesis of Terror script, Sarah Jane becomes ill in the third episode from radiation poisoning, and Bettan was a male who was introduced in the fourth episode. Part Five originally had more action in the Dalek incubator room and ended with the Doctor's question of whether he had the right to destroy them.
Casting and costumes
Maloney cast John Franklyn-Robbins as the Time Lord because he had worked with him before and intended his character to resemble Death in The Seventh Seal. Hilary Minster, who played a Thal soldier, had also played a Thal in Planet of the Daleks (1973). Minster had been considered for the role of Mogran. Peter Miles previously played Dr. Lawrence in Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970) and Professor Whitaker in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974). Stephen Yardley, who played the Muto Sevrin, later appeared in Vengeance on Varos (1985). During filming of Genesis, Yardley walked into the casting department on his lunch break in costume and asked for a job; because of his costume, they assumed he was a tramp from the street. Dennis Chinnery, who played Gharman, had previously been seen in The Chase (1965) and would later appear in The Twin Dilemma (1984).
The character of Davros was designed by Nation to have created the Daleks in his image, and to also be a "spokesperson" for the Daleks as he felt it was "boring" listening to Daleks giving speeches. The design was inspired by the Mekon, a comic book character with a small body and a large "green, dome-like head" which Hinchcliffe remembered from his childhood. Davros attracted the attention of BBC prosthetics designer John Friedlander who agreed to come off another show to make Davros' mask. The latex mask was moulded to Michael Wisher's face by make-up artist Sylvia James. Wisher could even eat while wearing the mask. Regular latex instead of the more mouldable foam latex was used because the latter was too expensive. The cast and crew regarded Davros' effects as a great technical achievement considering the budget and time period they worked in. Two children visiting Baker at the BBC studios were scared by Wisher in costume; they thought he was a statue at first. When sitting in Davros' Dalek-like base, Wisher wore knee pads and a kilt because trousers were too uncomfortable. To prepare during rehearsals, Wisher acted in a wheelchair with a paper bag over his head that only had slits cut out for his eyes so he would be used to the "disorienting" situation and be able to express himself without using his whole face. Wisher, a heavy smoker, put two holes in the top of the bag so he could smoke underneath it in rehearsals. Wisher also provided some of the voices for the Daleks with Roy Skelton; in some scenes, he was acting to his own pre-recorded dialogue. Stuntman and actor Terry Walsh appeared uncredited in several roles.
Filming and effects
Genesis of the Daleks was the last serial of the twelfth season to be filmed, after Revenge of the Cybermen. As Sarah Jane had been filmed in Revenge wearing a combat costume, it was added into Genesis that the Doctor would hand her the outfit, into which she changes by the next scene. The story was mainly filmed in January 1975, with some studio recording carried into February. Location filming for the serial took place at Betchworth quarry in Surrey, which represented the landscape of Skaro. Having had trouble with the Daleks on location in Planet of the Daleks (1973), Maloney scheduled shooting so that they only appeared in studio scenes. The three active Dalek props used in the serial were originals from the 1960s, and their wear was covered by new paint. Five "dummy" Daleks which could not be operated were also used. Hinchcliffe wanted the Daleks to appear more powerful, and intended to achieve this through low angles and lighting. Duncan Brown, who was responsible for studio lighting, used colours and dark lighting to make the Daleks seem as if they were "emerging from the shadows" and to suggest rather than show the world created to viewers.
The same model was used for both the Kaled and the Thal domes. The gas attack in Part One was achieved through dry ice and green lighting. Some of the Thal guns were re-used props from the First Doctor (William Hartnell) serial Galaxy 4 (1965). The electric trolley used by the Kaleds in Part One worked in tests, but collapsed when Baker and Marter boarded it. The creature Harry and the Doctor glimpse at the end of Part Two was mainly a reused Ice Warrior costume, while the Thal rocket ship was a reused model from The Ambassadors of Death (1970). During the filming of Part Two, Miles and Chinnery had trouble fitting the gun on the Dalek. As a result, the scene had to be filmed in two takes, bridged with a reaction shot of the Doctor. Part Two is unusual in that it is one of the very few episodes not to begin with a reprise, and also the first to end in a freeze frame. A stunt double for Elisabeth Sladen was hired for Sarah's fall from the scaffolding, but Maloney discovered that she would be falling eight feet, while Sladen had fallen ten feet in rehearsals. Maloney ultimately decided to conclude the episode with a freeze frame ending. Maloney would use the freeze frame technique again, most notably with The Deadly Assassin. The third episode overran its 25-minute limit and rather than cut material out the cliffhanger was changed from Davros' speech to the Doctor being electrocuted. The music for the serial was recorded on 3 March 1975 and the dubbing finished the day before Part One aired.
Themes and analysis
Nation, who grew up during World War II, intentionally based the Daleks on the Nazis, and this episode contains many deliberate parallels. The Kaleds dress in uniforms reminiscent of the Nazis and display "fascist salutes". The Kaleds look to "keep [their] race pure" by banishing the Thals and Mutos. Cast and crew members described it as a "warning to the world" about the danger of allowing authoritarianism to take over. Davros has been likened to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler several times, while physical comparisons have also been drawn between the appearance of Nyder and SS chief Heinrich Himmler; aside from the resemblance, both wear insignias and spectacles. As production of the third episode began, the producers decided to play down some of the Nazi symbolism, and took away Nyder's Iron Cross. It briefly reappears in a later scene that was filmed in the first recording block.
Ed Webb and Mark Wardecker, in a paper in Doctor Who and Philosophy, interpreted the Dalek history shown in Genesis of the Daleks as a warning that "scientists will be the one to bring about the ultimate destruction, the ultimate evil, and deliberately so". They also commented that the serial showed that the Daleks were evil by design, rather than evolution. Davros represents a mad scientist who creates a monster that then consumes him. Sarah Honeychurch and Niall Burr, in the same book, wrote that the corruption of the Daleks showed that creatures should not be created with "such limited moral reasoning," and that in our world we cannot "impose our own personal human standards on everybody else".
Genesis of the Daleks also displays a battle between good and evil. Letts enjoyed the fact that the story did not have clear heroes and villains, but rather a conflict of principle. The discussion between the Doctor and Davros about the hypothetical viral weapon demonstrates this. Hinchcliffe described it as the "hero meets antihero" moment, with the two engaged in "intellectual grappling". The episode also presents the "moral dilemma" of whether the Doctor should destroy the Daleks, resulting in the famous "Have I the right?" scene. The Doctor's comparison to knowingly killing a child who would grow up to be a dictator shows how the Doctor's ethics are influenced by his non-linear experience of time. He considers the good things that may come out of the Daleks, such as that "many future worlds would become allies". The Doctor's conclusion that he does not have the right is an example of utilitarian reasoning, and a "duty-based ethical" position. Sladen recalled that Baker took the scene very seriously, almost "agonising" over the dialogue.
Comparisons to other stories have been drawn. The Time Lord who appears at the story's beginning is intentionally costumed to resemble Death in Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal. Gareth Roberts has compared this character to the ghost of Hamlet's father, setting the protagonist (the Doctor) on a violent mission with which he has moral qualms. Martin Wiggins, senior lecturer and fellow at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon, suggests that the Doctor's indecision about destroying the Dalek embryos in the "have I the right?" scene is derived from The Brothers Karamazov.
Broadcast and reception
Genesis of the Daleks was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 8 March to 12 April 1975. Viewership varied from 8 to 10 million; Parts One and Two were watched by audiences of 10.7 and 10.5 million, Parts Three and Four were watched by audiences of 8.5 and 8.8 million, and Parts Five and Six were watched by audiences of 9.8 and 9.1 million. Audience Appreciation Indexes were taken for the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth episodes, scoring 57, 58, 57, and 56 respectively.
At the time of broadcast, there were some complaints about the level of violence portrayed. Mary Whitehouse, of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, complained that Genesis contained "tea-time brutality for tots". Scenes objected to included the depictions of war and Nyder hitting the Doctor. David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker, in their Doctor Who: The Television Companion (1998), recorded a positive reaction from fans in regards to creativity and Davros, though one writer noted the ending did not satisfyingly close the story. The BBC's Audience Research Report concluded, "A little more complex than some Doctor Who adventures, perhaps, and with underlying questions of conscience, the serial had been 'different' it was occasionally felt and, although dismissed in some quarters as far-fetched, long drawn-out, confused and/or predictable, had provided acceptable escapist entertainment for the majority." Howe and Walker themselves described the serial as "well-written and full of new ideas, while still remaining true to the Daleks' roots by effectively equating them with the Nazis", and particularly praised the production values, pacing, and moral dilemma. They considered it to have a few minor flaws, namely Harry being attacked by a giant clam, some "duff" cliffhangers, and "many of the scientist characters serve no other purpose than to act as Dalek-fodder".
In 2010, Mark Braxton of Radio Times awarded the serial a full five stars and hailed it as "Terry Nation's finest hour for the series", suggesting that Davros was "the greatest villain in Doctor Who history". He was also positive towards Dudley Simpson's score and Davros's allies, who were "impeccably written and played" from Nyder to Gharman, but was disappointed that Harry did not have much to do. The A.V. Club reviewer Christopher Bahn noted that it contradicted some aspects of The Daleks but that it "[hit] the emotional target dead-on". He particularly praised Davros and Skaro, but considered the "major problem" with the portrayal of the Daleks was that "we're not given any choice but to view them as psychopathic murderers", and the Doctor came across as a "catastrophically incompetent secret agent". DVD Talk's Stuart Galbraith gave Genesis of the Daleks four out of five stars, calling it a "real fan-pleaser" and writing that Wisher was "superb" as Davros. While noting that the story "is mostly concerned with action and suspense, which it does rather well", he wrote that it "isn't especially original" as it dealt with common time-travel issues, despite doing it in "intelligent ways". In 2009, SFX listed the scene where the Daleks receive their first blaster as the thirteenth scariest moment of Doctor Who. The magazine also named the scene where Harry is attacked by a giant clam as one of the silliest Doctor Who moments, noting "even the best Doctor Who stories have the occasional dropped stitch". Charlie Jane Anders of io9, in a 2010 article, listed the cliffhanger of Episode Four – in which the Doctor is forced to tell Davros how the Daleks will be defeated in the future – as one of the greatest Doctor Who cliffhangers.
Writing for BFI Screenonline, James Donohue thought Genesis of the Daleks "shows the series developing a more complex appreciation of the moral issues surrounding being a monster", but "the plot contrives to prevent the Doctor from having to make the difficult decision himself anyway. He delays Davros' plans, but he does not change the future. Lacking the courage to answer the questions it raises, Genesis shows how challenging, and how infuriating, children's TV can be."
Legacy
Genesis of the Daleks is one of the most widely known serials of the original run as it was repeated often. It was edited into an 85-minute omnibus version and broadcast on BBC1 at 3:00 pm on 27 December 1975, attracting 7.6 million viewers, and also was repeated in two edited 45-minute episodes as part of the "Doctor Who and the Monsters" on 26 July and 2 August 1982, which attracted audiences of 4.9 and 5 million. It was then repeated in its original serial form on BBC Two in 1993 (averaging 2.2 million viewers) and 2000 (averaging 1 to 1.5 million). In a 1998 poll of readers of Doctor Who Magazine, over 2500 voters placed Genesis at the top of a poll to find the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time. In the magazine's 2009 "Mighty 200" poll, asking readers to rank all of the then-made 200 stories, Genesis came in third place, behind The Caves of Androzani (1984) and "Blink" (2007). In a 2014 poll, the magazine's readers again placed the episode in third place. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph named Genesis of the Daleks one of the ten greatest episodes of Doctor Who.
Genesis of the Daleks is the first example in the history of Doctor Who of "outright revisionism"; the creation story of the Daleks is very different from that established in The Daleks (1963), where it was said they evolved from creatures known as Dals, who were once similar to the Thals. Here, the Dals from the original story are changed to Kaleds. The Official Doctor Who and the Daleks Book, co-authored by Terry Nation, suggested that The Daleks took place during the Daleks' 1000-year hibernation following Genesis of the Daleks, and that the Daleks seen in that story were the descendants of Kaled mutants who had sought refuge in the destroyed Kaled city and discovered Davros' prototypes and notes. Russell T Davies, who revived Doctor Who in 2005, suggested that the origins of the Time War, a conflict between the Time Lords and the Daleks which contributed to the storyline of the new series, began with the Time Lords' attempted genocide of the Daleks in Genesis.
Davros is resurrected in Destiny of the Daleks (1979), played by David Gooderson, and appears in the remaining three Dalek stories of the classic series played by Terry Molloy. He has also appeared in the revived series since "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" (2008), played by Julian Bleach. In "The Magician's Apprentice" (2015), footage from the episode is used with its plot based on the Fourth Doctor's moral issue if one has the right to kill a child if they knew "that child would grow up totally evil." Davros' early life is additionally covered in the 2006 Big Finish Productions four-part audio series I, Davros, which saw Miles reprising his role as Nyder in the fourth episode, "Guilt".
Commercial releases
In print
The Target novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Tandem in 1976. It was re-released by Virgin Publishing in 1991, bearing its designated number of 27 in the novelisation range. The Genesis of the Daleks novelisation has the largest print run of any of the original series, selling over 100,000 copies.
Home media
In 1979, the BBC released a condensed audio version of the serial as an LP. In 1988, this recording was reissued on cassette by BBC Audio alongside a later radio play, Slipback. It was subsequently released on CD in a revised and expanded version by BBC Audio paired with Exploration Earth: The Time Machine in 2001. In February 2011, Audio Go reissued the one-hour condensed audio version of the LP as part of their "Vintage Beeb" range.
Genesis of the Daleks was released on VHS by BBC Enterprises in 1991 with The Sontaran Experiment, and again as part of a box set of stories featuring Davros in 2001. It was released on DVD as a two-disc special edition in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide on 10 April 2006 and in the United States by Warner Home Video on 6 June 2006. This DVD is also available as part of the limited edition 2007 release of The Complete Davros Collection box set along with Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks.
A 1080i upscaled remaster of the story was released on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom by BBC Studios as part of the 'Complete Season 12' box set on 11 June 2018, and in the United States by Warner Home Video (as 'Tom Baker: Season One') on 19 June 2018; This release contained both the original 6-episode version and the 85-minute abridged repeat. To promote the release, the repeat version (marketed as a 'Director's Cut') was screened theatrically in the United States via Fathom Events on 11 June 2018.
In November 2020, the story was released as part of the Time Lord Victorious: Road to the Dark Times Blu-ray, along with Planet of the Daleks, The Deadly Assassin, State of Decay, The Curse of Fenric, "The Runaway Bride" and "The Waters of Mars".
References
Bibliography
Chapman, James (2006). Inside the TARDIS: The Worlds of Doctor Who. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84511-163-X.
Howe, David J.; Stammers, Mark; Walker, Stephen James (1992). Doctor Who The Handbook - The Fourth Doctor. London: Doctor Who Books. ISBN 0-426-20369-0.
Lewis, Courtland; Smithka, Paula, eds. (2010). Doctor Who and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8126-9688-2.
External links
Genesis of the Daleks at BBC Online
Genesis of the Daleks at the BFI's Screenonline
Genesis of the Daleks (TV story) on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
BBC – Watch interview with Elisabeth Sladen talking about Genesis Of The Daleks
Target novelisation
Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database |
Naruto_Shippuden_the_Movie:_The_Lost_Tower | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Shippuden_the_Movie:_The_Lost_Tower | [
628
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Shippuden_the_Movie:_The_Lost_Tower"
] | Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower (Japanese: 劇場版 NARUTO（ナルト） 疾風伝 ザ・ロストタワー, Hepburn: Gekijōban Naruto Shippūden: Za Rosuto Tawā) is a 2010 Japanese animated action-adventure fantasy film based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga and anime series. It was released on July 31, 2010. Along with the film, a comical short feature named Naruto, the Genie, and the Three Wishes!! (劇場版NARUTO-ナルト-そよ風伝 ナルトと魔神と3つのお願いだってばよ！！, Gekijōban Naruto Soyokazeden: Naruto to mashin to mitsu no onegai dattebayo!!) was also shown. The theme song "if" is performed by Kana Nishino. The film was released in North America on September 17, 2013 by Viz Media.
Plot
Assigned a mission to capture a missing-nin named Mukade, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, Yamato and Sai wield chakra-knives. At the one thousand-year-old desert city ruins of Loran, they confront Mukade attempting to dominate the Ninja World with the power of the Ryūmyaku (the Ley Line in English), an ancient chakra flowing deep underground. He breaks the seal created by Minato Namikaze to unleash the Ryūmyaku's power creating a light that engulfs Naruto and Yamato, before Sai and Sakura ride on an ink bird and attempt to escape.
Naruto and Yamato are sent twenty years into the past. When Naruto awakens from this time slip, he meets the queen of Loran, Sāra. It is later revealed that Mukade traveled to the past six years before Naruto and changed his name to Anrokuzan, the minister of Loran who had killed Sāra's mother Sēramu. Naruto agrees to protect Sāra, after Anrokuzan declares about the kidnapped citizens and creates to summon the "Puppet Ninja Forces". Minato, Shibi Aburame, Chōza Akimichi, and Kakashi Hatake, on their own mission to stop Anrokuzan, appear to support the heroes.
While they rescue Sara's people and Naruto holds Minato's kunai, Sāra recalls her memory about Sēramu's lullaby. Anrokuzan uses the parts of the tower to become a giant defensive puppet. Minato and Naruto use their regenerative chakra enough to create the legendary Super Rasengan. After Sāra disables Anrokuzan's technique, Minato exposes Anrokuzan's weak spot and Naruto destroys it. As Yamato and Kakashi rescue Naruto and Sāra, Minato uses the kunai to completely seal off the power. Just as the heroes vanish from the past, Minato erases all of their memories to keep history unchanged.
With Mukade/Anrokuzan gone, Sakura and Sai reunite with Naruto and Yamato in the present. As they are about to leave the ruins, they run into Queen Sāra's daughter, who kept the old chakra blade that belonged to Naruto. She informs that it was given to her mother by a "Hero in a Dream". Naruto recognizes his blade, reaches out to his back where he usually keeps his blade, but it is not there, and is left dumbfounded. However, Sakura pinches his ear and accuses him for having a dream.
Cast
Home media
The film was released on DVD on April 27, 2011.
References
External links
Official Japanese website
Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower at IMDb
Official TV Tokyo website
Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower at Anime News Network's encyclopedia |
Naruto_Uzumaki | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki | [
628
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki"
] | Naruto Uzumaki (Japanese: うずまき ナルト, Hepburn: Uzumaki Naruto) () is the titular protagonist of the manga Naruto, created by Masashi Kishimoto. He is a ninja from the fictional Hidden Leaf Village (Japanese: 木ノ葉隠れ, Hepburn: konohagakure). As a boy, Naruto is ridiculed and ostracized on account of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox—a malevolent creature that attacked Konohagakure—that was sealed away in his body. Despite this, he aspires to become his village's leader, the Hokage, in order to receive their approval. His carefree, optimistic, and boisterous personality enables him to befriend other Konohagakure ninja, as well as ninja from other villages. Naruto appears in the series' films and in other media related to the franchise, including video games and original video animations (OVA), as well as the sequel Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, where he is the Hokage, and his son, Boruto Uzumaki, is the protagonist.
When creating Naruto for the initial part of the series, Kishimoto kept the character "simple and stupid", while giving him many attributes of an ideal hero. Kishimoto gave Naruto a dark side by adding tragedy to the character's past. He has revised Naruto's image many times, providing the character with simple clothes to fit the young demography. Kishimoto changed his design for Part II of the storyline, which starts two-and-a-half years after Part I. Naruto is voiced by Junko Takeuchi in the original animated series and Maile Flanagan in the English adaptations.
Merchandise based on Naruto includes figurines and keychains. Naruto's character development has been praised by anime and manga publications and has drawn scholarly attention. Although some initially saw him as a typical manga and anime protagonist comparable to those in other shōnen manga, others have praised his personality and character development as he avoids stereotypes typically seen in similar media. The character has also been the subject of researches in literature, making him stand out in fiction based on his traits and growth.
Creation and conception
Original concept and influences
During the 1990s, new manga author Masashi Kishimoto sought to write a one-shot chapter that would feature Naruto as a chef, but this version never made it to print. Kishimoto originally wanted to make Naruto a child who could transform into a fox, so he created a one-shot of Naruto for the summer 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump magazine based on the idea. When comparing both the Naruto one-shot and his other work, Karakuri, Kishimoto realized that former's title character was more appealing than the lead of Karakuri. Kishimoto reflects Naruto's "honest" smile was well received in contrast to the sly look the main character from Karakuri had. Following the success of another one-shot, Mario, Kishimoto started working on the Naruto series where he wanted to reuse the title character from his earlier one-shot. Kishimoto wrote the first two chapters to show his appeal to the readers and then focus on the other protagonists despite difficulties. Following the second chapter, Kishimoto introduced the other protagonists but as bad relationships including with Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto's constant reject crushes at Sakura Haruno. The manga story was planned to show Naruto's coming-of-age through multiple fights and looked forward to seeing the conclusion.
For the serialized version, Kishimoto incorporated traits he felt made an ideal hero in the creation of Naruto: a straightforward way of thinking, a mischievous side, and attributes possessed by Goku from the Dragon Ball franchise. Aiming to keep Naruto "simple and stupid", Although Goku was a major influence to Naruto, Kishimoto was more attracted by Dragon Ball character Krillin as he comes across as more human than the protagonist for displaying flaws that made the readers easier to accept in a similar fashion to his mentor Iruka Umino. Kishimoto avoided modeling him after anyone in particular, instead conceiving of him as naïve with a dark side resulting from his harsh past. Despite this, he is always optimistic, a trait Kishimoto said makes this character unique. By and large, Naruto's personality is childish; the creator tried to convey this trait in his illustrations. Kishimoto notes as an example of this the cover of volume 10, where Kishimoto depicts Naruto mimicking a turtle as a child might do. Naruto was Kishimoto's first published manga, and he focused on making Naruto's facial expressions consistent in difficult situations. He commented: "It's rather awkward to talk about what makes Naruto appealing to audiences, but I think his being a knucklehead gives him an appeal." He believed it was Naruto's losses that made readers identify with him, although he wanted Naruto not to feel defeat again, which was his primary aim when writing the series. Kishimoto has said that Naruto's burning desire to be a ninja was based on his own ambition to succeed as a manga artist. As the series went on, Kishimtoto wrote the older incarnations of Naruto to be naive idealists due to how Naruto was written to continuously avoid repeating previous mistakes. However, at the same time Kishimoto wrote him as a sign of hope, something important in regard to the series' audience.
In the original Japanese versions of Naruto, Naruto often ends his sentences with the addendum "-ttebayo" (which achieves an effect similar to ending a sentence with "you know?" in English). Kishimoto wanted to give Naruto a childlike catchphrase, and "dattebayo" came to mind; he believed that the phrase complements Naruto's character, and served as a verbal tic that portrayed him in a brattish manner. Throughout the first episodes of the English dub version, "dattebayo" and "-ttebayo" were replaced with the phrase "Believe it!", both to mirror the effect, and to match the character's lip movements, although later in the English dub Naruto stopped saying "Believe it" and the phrase was replaced with "You Know?".
Development
After fans likened Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura to the three main characters from Harry Potter fantasy books, Kishimoto noted that both trios began their careers in a classroom, though he added that the similarity was unintentional. During the series' publication, Kishimoto married and had children. This influenced how he viewed Naruto's character. Naruto met his parents, and learned of their sacrifices in order to help him to control the Fox inside him so that he could protect their world. As a result, Naruto appreciated his life more and learned that his parents loved him, something the author wanted the character to feel based on his own experience as a father. In the first chapters of the series, Kishimoto did not conceive the idea that Naruto would be the son of Minato Namikaze. However, as time passed on, the manga author made touches to Minato's face shown in the Hokage Mountain in Konoha to make them more similar to Naruto with an emphasis on their spiky hairs. However, in order to reduce too many similarities, Kushina Uzumaki's character was made to look like Naruto's face.
Out of all the student-teacher relationships Kishimoto has created in the Naruto series, the one between Naruto and Jiraiya is his favorite. Right before Jiraiya's death in his fight against Pain in his last moments, he discovers the origin of Pain's multiple bodies and uses his last forces to send that message as a piece of advice to Naruto so that Naruto could defeat him in his place. This arc was the most difficult one to write; he felt this because Naruto truly forgave his enemy. Instead of having the protagonist kill the enemy he hates as happens in other series, Kishimoto found the idea of the two characters interacting and settling their differences more challenging. This had a major impact on the writer, and he decided to have Naruto forgive Sasuke during their final fight in a similar manner as he interacted with Nagato. Kishimoto felt the need to create a story arc that would emphasize the tragedy of wars, leading to the final arc which would include a war. The principal reason for this was a significant difference between the two main characters, Naruto who had no knowledge of wars, and Sasuke who was a victim of one; his entire clan had been annihilated to avoid a potential civil war. As a result, Kishimoto created Nagato as a war victim who would Jiraiya, and act as Naruto's nemesis so he would understand the tragedy that Sasuke had experienced. As a result, Naruto's coming-of-age would have been completed in this arc and the final arc where Naruto deals with world war and develops a vision of the shinobi world as well as how he should handle the conflict.
In 2013, when Naruto was reaching its climax, Kishimoto envisioned the idea of Naruto becoming a father. This resulted in the creation of Boruto Uzumaki, Naruto and Hinata's first child. Kishimoto wanted Boruto to act like his father, but at the same time, have differences between each other. Despite not wishing to reveal much about Boruto due to developments of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, he added that Boruto is not as direct as Naruto. In the 2015 film Boruto: Naruto the Movie, Kishimoto developed Boruto and Naruto's relationship from his relationship with his sons. In portraying the adult Naruto, Kishimoto did not want to make the character to give a cool impression in contrast to his younger days as a war hero because Naruto being a strong father figure to Boruto would be too boring for the narrative. Instead, Kishimoto wanted the film to depict the father and son relationship between Boruto and Naruto. Similarly, Chengxi Huang wanted to properly display Naruto's facial expression during this scene as stating that while Naruto has grown up ever since his introduction, his gentle smile was the same. Manga author Mikio Ikemoto claimed the scene in which Naruto helps his son to create a large Rasengan was his favorite at the time of drawing Boruto as across this moment he had to draw Naruto's past to the point he "felt the weight of NARUTO series and its long history behind it."
Rivalry
Early in the making of the series, Kishimoto had poor faith in the manga as he believes the series was lacking something to become popular. After being recommended by his editor to give the protagonist a rival, Kishimoto wrote Sasuke with influences from Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk manga which was famous for dealing with rivalries. When first introducing Sasuke, Kishimoto wrote him as a rival who never noticed Naruto. However, as the series continued, Naruto became strong enough to finally be recognized by Sasuke as a rival. He also intended for both of them to be brother-like due to the fact both characters suffered loneliness, something which made the readers relate to them as he noted through fan letters. By Part I's ending, the bond between Naruto and Sasuke was weakened as a result of their fight but still expected from the time when the Sasuke accepted Naruto as an equal. Kishimoto compared Sasuke and Naruto to the concept of yin and yang because of their notable differences. When one of the two progressed, Kishimoto made sure the other did too. During the climax of Part I, Naruto and Sasuke engage in a mortal fight which was directed by Atsushi Wakabayashi from Pierrot. In an interview, the director claimed that the animation was based on a journey to Lake Mashu from Hokkaido to come up with new ideas. Wakabayashi aimed for the characters to move stilted based on storyboards he made, leading to entertaining sequences. When Naruto becomes berserker due to the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's influence, Norio Matsumoto aimed to make Naruto behave like a beast with Wakabayashi aiming to make Naruto look like an equal to his rival. The staff was inspired by the 1970s series like the boxing series Ashita no Joe, most notably its lead character, Joe Yabuki, who was often seen as an underdog the audience rooted for. However, the team still worked carefully to make the two ninjas be equals without overpowering each other.
Before the serialization began, Kishimoto had decided the ending would feature a fight between Naruto and Sasuke. He wanted the conflict to end with Naruto forgiving Sasuke as he had forgiven Nagato while also aiming it as their final battle in the manga. In regard to the fight, Kishimoto wanted to focus on hand-to-hand combat rather than ninja techniques. Anime staff Chengxi Huang said the animated adaptation of this fight, the group worked carefully to depict the action in every scene by showing changes on Sasuke and Naruto's clothes and hair. Huang added he felt fatigue by working so much into this fight due to reaching 70 successive cuts at a time.
The final fight between Sasuke and Naruto was considered one biggest challenges by the staff from Pierrot as it took an entire month to adapt it from the manga. Director Hiroyuki Yamashita elected himself in charge of the battle which left most of the anime members relieved due to his experience. For the scenario, Pierrot received assistance from the CyberConnect2 develop who had already adapted this battle through the fighting game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. There was a need to make every movement in the fight to look realistic, giving Sasuke a scary look as well the hair movement in order to express the idea of both fighters willing to do anything to kill each other, which confused some due to Naruto's wish to avoid this fate. The final clash between Sasuke's Chidori and Naruto's Rasengan moves involved references from other scenes of the series to give the viewer a bigger emotional impact. The staff noted that following this fight, Sasuke's face became calmer despite his initial look, giving room to explore his redemption. A symbolism Kishimoto used in the series' finale following the final battle was Naruto returning Sasuke his original bandana representing how their bonds are tied again and no longer have a reason to kill each other.
Love interests
Naruto's romantic partner was decided during the early stages of the manga. Since Hinata Hyuga always respected Naruto, even before the series' beginning, even before his academy mentor Iruka Umino, Kishimoto felt they were meant to be. This angered his wife who wanted Naruto to marry Sakura Haruno. When Sakura was introduced, Kishimoto did not think of her as Naruto's future wife, as he saw them as being just friends and teammates, although once Hinata had appeared, the author thought of forming a love triangle between the three characters. He later regretted the love triangle as he considered Naruto a fighting series with little focus on romance, and he reiterated that "it was all about Naruto and Hinata getting married from an early stage."
When seeing the staff's work to focus a film on Naruto's relationship with Hinata, The Last: Naruto the Movie, Kishimoto decided to oversee the project. Nevertheless, he enjoyed seeing Naruto and Hinata's romantical scenes he did not write. In regard to Naruto's rank which remains as the lowest one, Genin, due to Naruto spending most of his Part II's time fighting and training, Kishimoto decided Naruto would skip the following ranks to become the Hokage, which he felt was appealing. In the making of The Last: Naruto the Movie, Hinata makes a red scarf for Naruto. This was based on how Kishimoto's wife actually once did which brought laughs to the staff developing the film.
Screenwriter Maruo Kyozuka said that he wanted to depict a love triangle between Naruto, Hinata and Toneri Otsutsuki in the film. Although Naruto is initially clueless about Hinata's feelings for him, during the film he begins to acknowledge and respond to them. Hinata's character was also developed in the film, with Kyozuka saying that she had to put aside her feelings for Naruto to accept Toneri's proposal so she could find Hanabi. During this scene, Kyozuka wanted to depict Naruto at his lowest after his rejection by Hinata. He then returned Naruto to his brave self, with the character resolving to continue his mission regardless of the cost. Animator Chengxi Huang behind multiple Naruto series took a liking to this couple ever since he started working in Naruto Shippuden, often aiming to draw scenes of the two and most notably a scene from the final arc when Hinata slaps Naruto to calm him following the death of Neji Hyuga. In the making of the film, he thanked Kishimoto for accepting to do The Last where the couple was explored furthermore. He looked at their adult selves as an appealing married couple but had to remove a video he made that received backlash for being inappropriate for the demographic.
Design
Although a real ninja wears blue to be inconspicuous, Kishimoto gave Naruto an orange jumpsuit to fit the shōnen genre. His wardrobe is based on clothing that Kishimoto wore when he was younger. According to him, a pre-existing design would not have made Naruto unique, whereas something original would have made him too distinctive. Because Naruto is associated with spirals in terms of objects he uses, the designer incorporated swirl patterns into the costume. Initial illustrations depicted Naruto in boots, but Kishimoto replaced these with sandals, because he enjoys drawing toes. The goggles Naruto used to wear were replaced with a hitai-ite, or shinobi headband, because they were too time-consuming to draw. One of the most difficult design choices was the color palette of Naruto's outfit. The orange in his costume makes Naruto pop and the blue parts are complementary. Kishimoto apologized to the anime staff for Naruto's design, as he considered it too difficult to animate.
Kishimoto was satisfied with his character having blond hair and blue eyes, something rarely seen in Japanese anime or manga. This also appealed to an international readership, something the editor of the American magazine Shonen Jump has noted. Of all his series' characters, Kishimoto most identified with Naruto. When asked why Naruto's favorite food was ramen instead of kitsune udon, Kishimoto said that he himself likes eating ramen. In the Naruto: Clash of Ninja video game series, Naruto is playable in various stages of the Demon Fox's manifestation, characterized by a red chakra. Kishimoto took inspiration from the games' presentation of these forms, imitating one of them for the manga cover of volume 26.
When designing Naruto for his Part II appearance, Kishimoto changed his character's clothing to an orange and black top, orange pants, and black sandals. He also gave him a red cape with black flames at the bottom when fighting Pain, a member of the Akatsuki. He drew Naruto's forehead-protector wider to make his eyebrows easier to draw, something that had bothered him with his previous design. He also noted that Naruto's pants made the character look too childish. To remedy this, Kishimoto designed them to roll up, giving him a more mature appearance. He gave Naruto this look in order to make him stand out during action scenes.
For the events of the film The Last: Naruto the Movie (2014) as well as the final episodes of Naruto: Shippuden, Naruto was given a young adult appearance. His hair was made shorter, while his height was expanded notably in contrast to his Part II design. He was given two different outfits, a casual look consisting of an orange shirt as well as a design consisting of a black shirt with orange pants specifically meant for his missions. Due to his growth, Naruto wears a different headband, while his new ninja appearance was created with the purpose of being able to carry weapons more easily. Nevertheless, both looks keep the character's spiralling logo that was carried from his late mother's gone group, the Uzumaki clan.
Voice actors
Although a male voice actor was sought for the Japanese adaptation of the Naruto role, the actress Junko Takeuchi was chosen instead over many male applicants. Before recording the first episode, Takeuchi noticed several lines from the script that ended with exclamation marks, which helped her to define Naruto's voice. She noted difficulties in transitioning from the young Naruto to the older Naruto in the animated adaptation of Part II. She had to record the first episode of Part II when Naruto's character was older and more mature only one week after voicing the younger, immature character. Nine years after first voicing the character, while still finding it tough to voice Naruto, Takeuchi's opinion of him changed with her feeling he was "a very reliable young man." She admired his ability to prioritize and calmly make important decisions, and believes these traits will inspire viewers worldwide.
In regard to Naruto's growth Takeuchi was happy with the story and had hoped that Naruto would end up in a relationship with Hinata. Takeuchi was reminded of Naruto's late godfather, Jiraiya, when she read the script. She thought that although Naruto's declaration of love was the most important part of the character's growth, his true nature had not changed at that point. Satisfied with the story, Takeuchi thought that the audience would agree with her view. For the film Boruto: Naruto the Movie, Takeuchi was surprised with how Naruto has grown up ever since she first voiced him, not only in the idea of age or new job but also the fact that he has become a father. As a result, she befriended Yūko Sanpei, voice actress behind Boruto. Takeuchi felt the writing for the adult Naruto was different from his younger days as his mannerism had changed too, joking that she never saw such growth in the story when first voicing him. As a result, she mentions having had some inner complications with how she should show the character's growth.
The producers of the English version of the anime stated that Naruto was the most difficult character to cast, adding that Maile Flanagan "has Naruto down, from the mischievous side, that precocious 12-year-old we learn to love, to the serious side." Flanagan avoided listening to Junko Takeuchi's performance as she did not want to imitate it, stating she wanted to develop her own voice for the character. Her performance has been praised as showing Naruto's brashness and later growth in confidence. In a 2014 interview, Flanagan claimed she had never heard of Naruto before her audition. She looked the show up after being chosen and felt the release of the English dub would be popular. She is recognized more for her work voicing Naruto than from other roles she has done in her career, although some fans did not expect that Naruto would be voiced by a woman. Flanagan and Amanda C. Miller (Boruto) found the two family members similar in nature despite having different backgrounds. Flanagan was surprised by how her character changed across the years but felt he was still the same for her, finding challenging to voice Naruto again when coming back to voice the younger Naruto. In regard to the change of tone, Flanagan was surprised by the fact that the dubbers did not replace her despite Naruto's age but felt it was something common in Japanese series.
Synopsis
Introduced as a young orphan boy of 12 years with blond, spiky hair and blue eyes, Naruto Uzumaki graduates as a ninja from Konohagakure while bonding with his teacher Iruka Umino. Naruto seeks attention as he was ridiculed during his childhood. To be accepted and respected, he resolves to become Konohagakure's Hokage and surpass all previous leaders, no matter the difficulties. While becoming a ninja, Naruto forms friendships that he initially lacked, linking some of them to family relationships. Although Naruto sometimes finds himself unable to accomplish the tasks he proposes to do, other characters believe that he will be an excellent Hokage because of his positive impact on their lives. As an adult, Naruto claims that the Konohagakure village became his family due to his job of being the new Hokage, something he learned from the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi. As a result, he initially suffered a poor relationship with his son, Boruto, due to the little time he spends with his bloodline family.
Appearances
In Naruto
Part I
Naruto is an orphan who has a dangerous fox-like entity known as Kurama the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed within his body by his father, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze, the leader of Konoha's ninja force, at the cost of his own life and that of his wife, Kushina Uzumaki. This possession led to Naruto being ridiculed frequently by the rest of Konoha; being associated with him was considered taboo. As a youth, Naruto makes jokes and plays pranks to attract attention. Desiring what he lacked in his early life, Naruto dreams of becoming a Hokage himself with the hope that it will bring him the villagers' recognition and respect. In an attempt to become a ninja, Naruto is horrified to learn of his Jinchuriki nature, but finds acceptance from his teacher Iruka Umino, whom he views as a father. After learning the powerful Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu, an ability to create physical copies of the user, Naruto becomes a ninja. He joins a ninja group under the leadership of Kakashi Hatake where he made friends with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. These are his classmates who are also assigned to Team 7: Sasuke Uchiha, with whom he has had a rivalry since they first met at the ninja academy, and Sakura Haruno who he has a crush on which is not reciprocated by her as she is infatuated with Sasuke.
While being examined to increase his ninja rank, Naruto meets the legendary ninja Jiraiya and learns how to summon toads to aid him in battle, and to control part of the Nine Tails's chakra energy. The exams are interrupted by the invasion of Konohagakure by the criminal Orochimaru and the ninja of Sunagakure. Naruto defeats the sand village's One Tail Jinchuriki Gaara and convinces him there is a better way to live. Shortly afterward, Naruto discovers the Akatsuki, a criminal organization that seeks to extract the Nine-Tails from his body. Though Jiraiya drives them off during this first meeting, learning its member Itachi is both Sasuke's brother, and the man who killed their family, the Akatsuki still plan to kidnap Naruto. While accompanying Jiraiya to find a new village leader, Naruto also learns the Rasengan (螺旋丸, lit. spiral sphere, English manga: "Spiral Chakra Sphere"), a sphere of chakra for offensive purposes. When Sasuke leaves the village to join Orochimaru's forces to obtain the power to kill Itachi, Naruto on his insistence and promise to Sakura becomes part of a rescue team to retrieve him. Naruto and Sasuke ultimately have a one-on-one battle, and after a close battle, Sasuke comes out as the victor. He, however can not bring himself to kill Naruto and instead leaves. The two go their separate ways, but Naruto does not give up on Sasuke, leaving with Jiraiya for two and half years to prepare himself for his next encounter with Sasuke and the Akatsuki.
Part II
After his two and a half years of training, Naruto returns to Konoha (the Leaf Village) and begins to deal more actively with the Akatsuki threat by saving Gaara from their clutches. To fight them, Naruto trains with Kakashi to infuse the Rasengan with his own wind-element chakra, creating the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken (風遁・螺旋手裏剣, Fūton: Rasenshuriken) attack that proves instrumental in the downfall of the Akatsuki member Kakuzu. Despite being targeted by the Akatsuki, Naruto dedicates himself to finding and retrieving Sasuke, who eventually disposes of Orochimaru and starts acting on his vengeance-driven whims. Over time, though resisting the urge to use the creature's power, the Nine Tails's influence over him expands to the point where he begins to lose his rationality as more chakra manifests in the form of tails to the point the Tailed Beast can take control of his body. This ultimately causes him to go on a rampage, destroying everything in his path.
After learning that Jiraiya has been killed by the Akatsuki leader, Pain, Naruto prepares for a future encounter by learning toad-style Senjutsu (仙術, lit. "sage techniques"), a power-enhancing ability involving the gathering of natural energy through stillness, while also perfecting Naruto's Rasenshuriken in the process. When they face off, Naruto is pinned to the ground with iron rods and loses control of the Fox's chakra when his Hinata Hyuga nearly dies protecting him. At that time, Naruto meets his father Minato Namikaze within his subconscious and learns about his status as the Fourth Hokage and him being the one who sealed the Fox so that Naruto could use it to defeat the Akatsuki founder Tobi who was behind the Fox's attack on Konohagakure. With Minato stopping the Fox, Naruto regains control of his body, and defeats Pain. Learning that both are Jiraiya's students, Naruto convinces him to quit Akatsuki, seeking to take Jiraiya's path to create a better ninja world.
When Naruto discovers Sasuke's plan to attack the Leaf Village, he decides to confront him in a battle which could end both their lives should Naruto be unable to save him. He prepares himself for the upcoming fight by becoming a student under the vessel of the Eight-Tails, Killer B, to take full control of Kurama's powers. He succeeds with help from his late mother, Kushina Uzumaki, who placed a chakra imprint of herself within the seal so when the time comes, she could have a chance to see her son again. When Naruto learns that all his comrades are battling Tobi's army to protect him, he takes Killer B to join him in the battle, eventually cooperating with Kurama. As he fights, Naruto meets Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of the Six Paths, who grants him enhanced Senjutsu known as the Six Paths Senjutsu. After he and Sasuke join forces to face both Tobi and Madara who are using the Ten-Tails, they have to seal a bigger threat named Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, who is in her Ten-Tails form. After defeating and sealing Kaguya with the cooperation of the rest of Team 7, Naruto ends up having to fight Sasuke due to their conflicting views regarding the ninja world's future. As both end up losing an arm, Naruto and Sasuke reconcile. He receives a new arm created from the First Hokage's cells later. Years later, Naruto is married to Hinata with whom he has had two children – Boruto and Himawari Uzumaki. He becomes the Seventh Hokage (七代目火影, Nanadaime Hokage) in the epilogue.
In the Boruto series
In the spin-off manga Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring, Naruto and his allies go to defeat a new Akatsuki organization led by the so-called Uchiha known as Shin Uchiha, as Sasuke fears Kaguya's allies might try to attack them. In Boruto: Naruto the Movie (2015), which takes place after the series' epilogue, Naruto's Hokage status strains his relationship with his son Boruto as his duties often kept him from his family. During the ninja examinations, Naruto is abducted by Kaguya's clanmates, Momoshiki and Kinshiki, and then saved by his son Boruto, Sasuke, and the Kage, before helping his son to destroy Momoshiki. Across this fight, Naruto and Boruto reconcile. In Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, the manga starts in a distant future where Naruto is implied to be dead or missing in action by an enemy of Boruto, Kawaki. In the anime before Boruto became a ninja, Naruto often made appearances with his new family. In the manga, a younger Kawaki is adopted by Naruto when the teenager becomes a fugitive from the group Kara. Naruto clashes with the members from Kara to protect his children, to which the village fears the Ōtsutsuki clan planning to attack again through Kara's members as well like Boruto and Kawaki who share a cursed mark known as Karma. In the fight against Kara's leader Isshiki Ōtsutsuki, Naruto and Kurama combine their chakra together at the cost of their possible death. In the aftermath, Kurama reveals that he lied to Naruto about this combination,knowing that he would refuse to use their newfound power if it meant that Kurama would die, and he goes to the afterlife. Naruto continues to fight against the remaining Kara members. Kawaki's desire to protect Naruto results in sending him alongside Hinata to another dimension where the two will be trapped without aging until he believes the current fights are over.
In light novels
Naruto also appears in the epilogue light novels of the series. In the first one, despite still not having obtained his prosthetic arm, goes on a mission with his friend Sai to capture a dangerous ninja named Garyō. In the second one, he allies with Sunagakure ninja Temari's team to find the missing Shikamaru Nara who made a promise to him to work together once Naruto became the Hokage. He makes a brief appearance in Sakura Hiden where he and Hinata try to aid Sakura from a group of enemies. In Sasuke Hiden, he sends a message to Sasuke, which convinces him to return to Konohagakure. In the final one, Konoha Hiden, Naruto marries Hinata after asking his former mentor, Iruka Umino, to the place of his father for the wedding. A novel by Mirei Miyamoto focuses on Naruto's life as a father. Another novel, Naruto Retsuden, explores Naruto having falling to an illness as a result of relying on Kurama's chakra across his entire life.
In other media
As the series' title character, Naruto appears in every movie in the series. He typically appears as the lead character on a mission with comrades from Konohagakure. Naruto: Shippūden the Movie marks the first appearance of Naruto in his Part II form. In Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie, an alternate version of the character named Menma appears as the main antagonist of the film.
In The Last: Naruto the Movie, which takes place after the events of the series, Naruto faces Toneri Otsutsuki; at the movie's climax, Naruto and Hinata enter a relationship that eventually leads to their marriage. Kishimoto, the film's chief story supervisor, admitted that he was embarrassed writing romance scenes in the series. However, upon watching Naruto and Hinata share their first kiss, he felt a mixture of satisfaction and sadness due to the two characters' growth since Naruto's beginning; they had become like his own children.
Naruto also appears in all four OVAs produced for the series: helping his friend Konohamaru Sarutobi find a four-leaf clover in the first, escorting a ninja to his village and fighting the criminal who stole the village's "Hero's Water" in the second, participating in a tournament in the third, and working with Team 7 in the fourth. He appears as a supporting character in the spin-off manga titled Rock Lee and his Ninja Pals where his fellow Konohagakure ninja Rock Lee is the main character.
Naruto is a playable character in the Naruto video games. In several titles, it is possible to access a special version of him enhanced with the power from the Nine-Tailed Fox. In several games from the Ultimate Ninja series he is playable with his own versions of Rock Lee and Might Guy's techniques while wearing their costumes. Naruto Shippūden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX marks the first appearance of Naruto in his Part II form in a video game. For the series' 10th anniversary, Masashi Kishimoto drew an illustration of Naruto as Hokage. This portrayal of Naruto later appears as a secret character in the game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Naruto also appears in the iOS and Android mobile game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Blazing. He appears in several crossover video games that feature Naruto fighting against characters from other manga; these games include: Battle Stadium D.O.N, Jump Super Stars, and Jump Ultimate Stars. A Naruto avatar made a guest appearance in the MMORPG Second Life for a Jump Festa promotion titled Jumpland@Second Life. In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z Naruto's costume appears as an alternate costume for Goku. Outside Naruto, the character also appeared in the first popularity poll from the manga My Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi. When the Naruto manga ended, Eiichiro Oda drew a cover of a One Piece manga chapter where Naruto is seen eating with the One Piece characters. Naruto was added to Fortnite Battle Royale in November 2021.
Naruto also makes an appearance in Live Spectacle Naruto (2015) and Live Spectacle Naruto: Song of the Akatsuki (2017), two stage plays based on the manga. Naruto is played by Koudai Matsouka.
Reception
Characterization and themes
Naruto's character has received mostly positive critical response in printed and online publications. Praise was given by Joseph Szadkowski of The Washington Times who noted that Naruto "has become a pop-culture sensation." Naruto's character was analyzed by GameSpot's Joe Dodson who noted that despite having an "ideal" life, he still suffered from severe isolation, although he was praised for his optimistic personality by Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network (ANN). Writers for Mania Entertainment labeled him a "good lead character" with good overall development despite certain problems at the beginning. Christina Carpenter of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews disagreed with other writers, noting that while Naruto is a "likable enough scamp", his type of character has been done before in many anime and manga series. Yukari Fujimoto, a professor at Meiji University, sees Naruto himself as the manga's weakness. Manga author Nobuhiro Watsuki compared Naruto with Himura Kenshin and Monkey D. Luffy due to how they follow the ideals of not killing their opponents. My Hero Academia author Kōhei Horikoshi praised the portrayal of Naruto in the manga for his parallels with Sasuke with an early example being the protagonist's inferiority complex over his teammate for feeling weaker which leads to him stabbing himself in the hand to remember not to run away from his fears.
Writing for Popular Culture in Counseling, Psychotherapy, and Play-Based Interventions, Lawrence Rubin states that while Naruto has an optimistic and hyperactive personality, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox (Kurama) within his body symbolizes his negative emotions. He comments that Naruto has a malevolent attitude when dealing with intense conflicts and emotions. He also states that Naruto would use Kurama's chakra for battles he can not handle with his own chakra. Rubin further notes that the more Naruto uses Kurama's chakra, the more he puts his comrades and himself in danger. Rubin feels the reason Naruto is a troublemaker is because some villagers avoid him and others mistreat him. He states that children growing up in the real world who have development issues can relate to his character. Rubin states that the search for acceptance, and being acknowledged by his peers is what motivates Naruto to keep going until he reaches his life's goal, becoming the Hokage. Rubin feels that Naruto's fights with enemies who try to bring harm to the Leaf Village further motivate him to become a powerful shinobi, and a "complete and mature person." Rubin concludes that Naruto's character development is similar to that of a modern American hero, the type who accidentally becomes better during a series and is able to build or restore peace.
Christopher A. Born, writing for DOAJ journal ASIANetwork Exchange, regards Naruto as a complex post-modern hero, showing "great heart." From Naruto's beginning, Born comments that the character is a nuisance, suggesting Naruto is the very definition of the word, given how he is characterized in the series, including how he interacts, and his behavior. Born argues that Naruto as a whole shows Confucian values, and that Naruto himself unsettles harmony in society. Amy Plumb, a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, states that Kishimoto used the mythology of the kitsune for Naruto's development throughout the series. She notes that at the beginning of the series, Naruto was a prankster and always causing trouble, the same as the kitsune. Plumb describes the Kyuubi (Demon) seal on Naruto's stomach as a catalyst for how he develops. Writing for Manga's Cultural Crossroads, Omote Tomoyuki compliments Naruto's character, saying that he has great ambition to achieve a tragic destiny. He comments how the character has matured over the course of the series, stating how after he became a shinobi, he had let go of his childish ways that happened in the beginning of the series, and how he rarely joked around in Part II of the series when he became a teenager. Franziska Ehmcke, professor of Japanese studies at Cologne University, theorized that Naruto was named after whirlpools of the sea landscape of the Awa no Naruto, and compared his behavior to that natural feature, as both figures have uncontrollable energy within them. Mike Hale compared Naruto to Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, praising the series' portrayal of childhood loneliness. Rik Spanjers regards Naruto's childishness as one of his strengths because it gives him a well of resoluteness from which to draw on in his goal to end the ninja wars. A study which looked at if readers could predict character types based on physical cues regarded Naruto as an ENFP (Myers-Briggs) character type, impulsive and spontaneous, finding a foil in the ISTJ-type Sasuke.
Analysing Naruto's coming-of-age story, The Lawrentian found that Naruto's development embodies the idea of Bildungsroman, the idea of how importance is Naruto's growth across the narrative needed to move on the arc. Due to lacking parenting as a result of his parents' age during his birth, Naruto's personality starts fragile. Unaware of them, Naruto seeks to accomplish his mother's wish of becoming a hero and leader of the village, the Hokage. While initially portrayed as a weak character, Naruto finds strength in his mentors Kakashi and Jiraiya, another element common element in Bildungsroman as well as his connections with Sakura and Sasuke. As a result of losing Jiraiya, Naruto seeks to accomplish his mentor's wish of ending wars and the cycling of hatred, making Kishimoto capable of embodying the character more with the reader while maturing in the process. As a result, The Lawrentian finds that Naruto's character fills the concept of Bildungsroman, something other fictional characters fail to accomplish.
Tejal Suhas Bagwe from Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Masters of Arts in English describes Jiraya's death as the "loss of innocence" Naruto goes through paralleling his life with Gaara, Sasuke or Madara. However, unlike these three characters who seek revenge and chaos for their losses, Naruto instead chooses another path derivative from these types of narrative, becoming more unique. Another aspect noted by the writer in regard to Naruto's character is how he becomes Kurama's companion despite the creature bearing hatred towards mankind for being used, resulting into multiple references to Japanese mythology based on its name and the new skills Naruto acquires when befriending the fox. Similarly, Anime News Network stated that thanks to Naruto's newfound pacifism when dealing with his quest of revenge and the rejection to violence, the story managed to become a "masterpiece". Antônio Guilherme Bernardes Galletti from University of São Paulo notes Boruto: Naruto the Movie becomes complex when the protagonist learns of the shinobi code his father and master use which was also compared to the samurais' bushido while developing a sense of individuality when deciding what to do with his life when growing up.
Relationships
His relationships with the other characters was described as appealing by IGN's Charles White and Jason Van Horn, most notably through his rivalry with Sasuke, as it shows "signs of maturity" in Naruto. However, his wish to retrieve Sasuke after the end of Part I was criticised because of his subsequent suffering. In a poll by Japanese pollster Charapedia, Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry reached the top place. Jacob Hope Chapman of ANN listed Naruto and Sasuke as one of "Anime's Fiercest Frenemies" considering their similarities and how they become friends after a mortal battle. His romantic involvement with other characters led to disputes as there were fans in favour of his relationship with Sakura Haruno, while others preferred Hinata Hyuga. His romance with Hinata in the film The Last earned multiple positive reactions from the media. Some critics wished The Last could be condensed so that their relationship was the focus of the movie. In Charapedia polls, his love confession towards Hinata remained as one of the most popular ones. On a similar note, both McNulty and Andy Hanley from UK Anime Network enjoyed Naruto's relationship with his son Boruto due to the differences in their childhoods and how that becomes the focus of the film Boruto. His role in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations was praised for his more mature personality as well as his relationship with the young Kawaki. Leroy Douresseaux expected Kawaki will have a major impact in Boruto's life in regard to his way of fighting.
Combat
Kimlinger of Anime News Network said that while Naruto's initial fight scenes are lacking conviction when compared to others, his encounter with Gaara is one of his best moments because its tactics surpassed most shōnen stereotypes. ANN's Theron Martin and Mania Entertainment's Justin Rich made similar comments. The character's final fight against Sasuke at the end of Part I attracted similar responses, due to the fighting styles employed, and the character development resulting from their rivalry. The enormous physical changes caused by the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox have also been the focus of critics, as Naruto's loss of control causes him to become a bigger threat to his loved ones than other series' antagonists. Carlo Santos of ANN commented on the character's growth in Part II, specifically his fight against Pain in which Naruto's comments on peace, and the means by which it is achieved, touch on philosophical themes never seen in a shōnen series. Chris Beveridge of Mania Entertainment noted a change in Naruto's attitude as he acts calmly and more seriously than in previous story arcs. Naruto's new Senjutsu style was praised, as was his careful preparation for the fight against Pain, which resulted in a detailed display of his skills. In regard to Naruto's fight against Sasuke, writers once again found depth in the handling of the rivals while also bringing a satisfying ending to the series. Amy McNulty of ANN also praised their final fight, expressing amazement at how brutal some scenes were since Naruto had become more of a pacifist than previous story arcs.
Cultural impact
In every official Weekly Shōnen Jump popularity poll of the series, Naruto ranks in the top five characters and took the first place twice. In a poll from Anime! Anime!, Naruto and Sasuke as one of the best rivals turned into allies. and although he is a flawed and somewhat limited character by himself, that stubborn optimism of his makes for some great storytelling with other characters." In a Japanese TV special from August 2017, Naruto was voted as the 13th "strongest hero" from the Heisei Era. In the 2009 Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Awards, Junko Takeuchi won Best Voice Actress (Japanese) for her work as Naruto. He continuously appeared in IGN polls and the 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition.
The character has inspired other works including .hack's protagonist, Kite. and Yuji Itadori from Jujutsu Kaisen; its author, Gege Akutami, enjoyed the story of how Naruto deals with a demon-like creature inside his body and decided to give Itadori a similar aura when eating the remains of the demon Ryomen Sukuna whom he carries a poor relationship. CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama also participated in the 2012 Paris Marathon while cosplaying as Naruto to celebrating the release of a new video game. Matsuyama also said that Naruto's Rasenshuriken was his favorite technique in the entire series due to its sounds as well as how the character executes it. Upon seeing the final fight between Naruto and Sasuke in Storm 4, Matsuyama felt emotional over seeing the final fight between Naruto and Sasuke. Matsuyama further reflected the anime's 133rd episode to be one of his favorites not only for the action sequences between Naruto and Sasuke but also the emotional value displayed.
Olympic medalist Usain Bolt expressed his love for Naruto and the Naruto series several times through Instagram posts. The Shanghai New World mall made an announcement in the beginning of 2019 that it plans on opening an indoor theme park on its 11th floor which will be called "Naruto World". The theme park was 7,000 square meters in size and will be based on the Naruto manga. An officially authorized Ichiraku Ramen ramen noodle shop, based on Ichiraku Ramen from the anime, opened up in Shanghai's Global Harbor shopping mall in 2019. In June 2019, a life-size statue designed by Testuya Nishio was developed for display at the Wonder Festival 2019 Shanghai event. For the 2020 Summer Olympics, Naruto's image was used as a character to represent the event.
Naruto has had an influence on hip-hop music. Many rappers, both underground and mainstream have sprinkled Naruto references throughout their songs. Rapper Ski Mask the Slump God starts off the first verse of his song Catch me Outside with a reference to Naruto and his ninetails mode. Some artists go so far as revolving the theme of their entire album around Naruto, such as Dave's album Six Paths. in Dave's song Wanna Know (Remix) the track art is a direct reference to Naruto. It features the title in the Naruto font and color scheme. Singer Diana Garnet expressed her pleasure at recording one of the ending theme songs for the animated series of Naruto Shippuden stating that not only she has been a fan of the series ever since she was younger, but was also motivated by Naruto's character because of his determination not to give up no matter what challenge he faced. Similarly, in an analysis involving stereotypes of African Americans created by the British newspaper The Guardian, Naruto's character is viewed as relatable character due to prejudicial treatment the character receives early in the series. As a result, Naruto's life achievements he makes across the narrative, ending to his portrayal as the Seventh Hokage are seen as inspiring by the audience.
Allega Frank from Polygon noted that during the start of both the manga and anime Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, multiple fans were worried in regard to a flashforward; in this sequence an older Boruto is facing an enemy named Kawaki who implies Naruto might be dead so his fate left them worried. In poll from 2021, Naruto was voted as the second best character from Boruto: Naruto Next Generations behind his son. In the Crunchyroll Awards from 2022, Naruto was nominated for "Best Fight" against Isshiki in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.
References
External links
Media related to Naruto Uzumaki at Wikimedia Commons |
Jiraiya_(Naruto) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiraiya_(Naruto) | [
628
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiraiya_(Naruto)"
] | Jiraiya (自来也) is a fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. Introduced in the series' first part, he was a student of Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi and one of the three "Legendary Great Three Students of the God Shinobi"(Legendary Sanin)—along with Orochimaru and Lady Tsunade, his former teammates. Jiraiya appears as a perverted old man who occasionally returns to the village Konohagakure, reporting the activities of Orochimaru and the organization Akatsuki. Referred to as the "Toad Sage" and "Pervy Sage", he mentors Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze and later becomes the godfather and mentor of Minato's son, Naruto Uzumaki.
Jiraiya appears in two Naruto films, and as a playable character in most of the franchise's video games. Various pieces of merchandise based on him have been released. He has received positive critical reception. Reviewers have praised Jiraiya's introduction in the story and his relation with Naruto as his mentor. Out of all student-teacher relationships in Naruto, Jiraiya and Naruto's are the ones Kishimoto liked the most. He served as a strong father-figure to Naruto.
Creation and conception
Manga author Masashi Kishimoto first conceived Jiraiya's name based on Kabuki. He conceptualized him as a wizard with frog-like traits. He gave him an incisive and energetic speech pattern specific to old Kabuki plays. Kishimoto stated that Jiraiya "makes everything more colorful" since he is one of the few characters who enjoy talking. Regarding the bonds in the story, Kishimoto highlighted the importance of the character's death during his fight against Pain; this remark was made since, in his last moments, Jiraiya manages to discover the origin of Pain's multiple bodies and uses his last forces to send a message to Naruto Uzumaki in which he explains how Pain can be defeated. Kishimoto felt he had done a good job of establishing Jiraiya's last moments. He commented that out of all the master-pupil relationships he had created in the Naruto series, the bond between Naruto and Jiraiya is his favorite, stating that drawing their interactions was "worthwhile". Jiraiya was one of the characters that resonated the most with the author alongside Naruto, Sasuke Uchiha, and Haku.
At the 2015 New York Comic-Con, when asked which character besides Naruto is his favorite, Kishimoto chose Jiraiya. Due to the fans' preference, Kishimoto drew a sketch of Jiraiya in front of the audience at the event. He stated he felt nostalgic since this was the first time he had drawn Jiraiya or any other character in the series for a while. However, Kishimoto did not remember how to draw Jiraiya initially, and thus he used a person among the spectators who was cosplaying Jiraiya as a reference. After being asked which character's point of view he would choose to tell the story from instead of Naruto's if given the possibility, Kishimoto listed Jiraiya as one of his choices. He elaborated on this by stating Jiraiya was not very knowledgeable at a young age, feeling that this aspect would have created an interesting contrast with Jiraiya's "not so much arrogant, but overconfident, blusterous, and very, very skilled" adult self and that the story presenting Jiraiya's development would have been "fun to draw". Kishimoto further mentioned that jutsu was still in the process of developing during Jiraiya's childhood, and he felt this would have been an engaging subject to depict in the series. Jiraiya is played by Hōchū Ōtsuka in the series' original animated adaptation, while David Lodge voices him in the English dub.
David Lodge stated that Jiraiya is one of viewers' "favorite characters". When questioned if he is frequently asked to voice Jiraiya in new features since the character is a part of such a popular franchise, he answered affirmatively. Lodge stated that besides being known as the "Toad Sage" due to controlling frogs, Jiraiya is also known as the "Pervy Sage", considering this a "big deal" in Japan due to such content being classified as sensitive. He stated that in the United States, a lot of the things regarding the "Pervy Sage" part had to be restricted. Lodge said that Jiraiya was the best character he had ever played due to having "so many dimensions"; he elaborated by mentioning that while Jiraiya can be "crazy", he can also be a "very serious, philosophical, wise sage". He characterized this aspect of Jiraiya's personality as "fun". He said he had "such a good time" playing Jiraiya, stating he managed to "delve into a character that is more than one-dimensional" in the process of voicing him. Lodge also stated he has "a huge fanbase" for Jiraiya's character. He commented that Jiraiya is his favorite character, characterizing him as "such a grand scope character".
Appearances
In Naruto
Jiraiya is a ninja from the village of Konohagakure trained by Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. He becomes known as the "Toad Sage" and also "Pervy Sage" due to his training under the Great Toad Sage in the field of Senjutsu (仙術, lit. "sage techniques"), enabling him to summon toads as allies during battles. The Great Toad Sage also informs Jiraiya of a prophecy that he will mentor a child who will either save the world or destroy it. As he grows older, Jiraiya and his two teammates, Orochimaru and Tsunade, are collectively referred to as the "Legendary Sannin" owing to their exemplary ninja abilities allowing them to survive a fight against Hanzo—Amegakure's dictator—during the Second Great Ninja War. Soon after, Jiraiya encounters a trio of Amegakure orphans consisting of Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan, training the three in ninjutsu to protect themselves before returning to the Land of Fire. At that time, Jiraiya considered Nagato to be the child from the Great Toad Sage's prophecy.
For most of his adult life, though loyal to Konohagakure, Jiraiya often leaves his hometown to explore the world. Sometime later, Jiraiya becomes a mentor to Minato Namikaze, the future Fourth Hokage, who dies due to sealing the Nine-Tailed Fox inside his newborn son, Naruto Uzumaki. Jiraiya makes only sporadic appearances, returning to Konohagakure after long absences to report on information he has learned throughout his travels. During his first appearance in the series' Part I, Jiraiya takes the time to train Naruto, teaching him his own signature abilities and trying to help him learn how to control Kurama. When his teacher, Hiruzen, who has resumed his duty as the Third Hokage since Minato's death, dies during an invasion by Orochimaru, Jiraiya is offered the position of Hokage. Despite this, Jiraiya thinks his inability to prevent Orochimaru from becoming a criminal makes him unworthy of the responsibility and instead offers to search for Tsunade so that she can take the position instead—a task he eventually succeeds at. After Naruto's flawed attempt to retrieve Sasuke Uchiha, Jiraiya decides to take the boy for two and a half years of training to make him strong enough to bring Sasuke back and to protect himself from the Akatsuki organization.
In Part II, Jiraiya returns to inform Kakashi Hatake and Yamato about the threat Naruto can become under the Nine-Tails's influence by telling them of his near-death experiences when the youth used only a fraction of Kurama's power. To keep Naruto from participating in Team 7's new Sasuke-related mission, Jiraiya offers to train him again and takes Naruto to Yugakure, the Village Hidden in Boiling Water. After entrusting Naruto with the key to Kurama's seal, Jiraiya begins investigating the Akatsuki's leader, Pain. His investigation leads him to battle Pain, whom he recognizes to be Nagato using the corpses of Yahiko and five other ninja he met in his journey. At the battle's conclusion, while reflecting on his life, Jiraiya realizes that Naruto is the boy foretold in the prophecy. Due to this, remembering it was his first novel that inspired Minato to name his son after the book's protagonist, Jiraiya musters the strength to send a message able Nagato's Paths of Pain, along with a disabled Animal Path, to Naruto and the rest of Konohagakure to give them an edge. While Pain kills Jiraiya, he concludes that Naruto will be a hero.
In other media
Jiraiya makes an appearance in two Naruto films, Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Bonds (2008) and Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Will of Fire (2009). He is a playable character in most Naruto video games, including the Clash of Ninja series, the Ultimate Ninja series, and the Path of the Ninja series. In the first Ultimate Ninja game (2003), he only appears as a support to Naruto during his special techniques. In the Path of the Ninja RPG series, he is a character who can be spoken to for information and support. In Ultimate Ninja 2 (2004), he is an available character and has been given variations of the Rasengan, fire techniques, and toads summoning techniques. In Path of the Ninja 2 (2006), he is not only a character in the storyline, but a "secret" acquirable character that can be added to the team as a fully active member.
Reception
Jiraiya has appeared in several of the main Shōnen Jump popularity polls. In the second and third, he ranked in the top ten. In the fourth poll, he ranked 11th. In the last poll conducted in 2011, Jiraiya was placed 16th. Merchandise based on Jiraiya has also been released, including action figures, key chains, and headbands similar to his. Naruto's Japanese voice actress, Junko Takeuchi, was reminded of Jiraiya's close relationship with Naruto when reading the script of The Last: Naruto the Movie.
Several manga, anime, and video game reviewers have praised the character of Jiraiya. Davey Jones of ActiveAnime regarded Jiraiya's training with Naruto as good comic relief and stated that the two characters are similar. AnimeonDVD's Justin Rich praised Jiraiya's introduction in the series, describing him as a funny character. Jason Van Horn of IGN commented on Jiraiya's relationship with Naruto, writing that "they share so much in common". Matt Shingleton of DVDTimes viewed Jiraiya as "the greatest character Masashi Kishimoto [had] ever created in this series" and further said that "besides the fact he fills the comical pervert archetype [he is] one of the strongest characters in the series and just about everything about him is rough and unpredictable". Jason Thompson praised the character's Sage Mode, commenting that it would make a good cosplay. He also expressed shock at the character's death while fighting Pain, considering him a sympathetic person. Luke Carroll of Anime News Network enjoyed David Lodge's role as Jiraiya's English voice actor. Hiroshi Matsuyama found that Jiraiya's death had a major impact in his work as a game designer in the Naruto games due to his previous works from .hack never actually had a death in the narrative with the exception being Harold who is already dead during the .hack series.
In 2010, Shueisha published the first novel Jiraiya wrote, which was inspired by his student Nagato and prompted Minato and Kushina Uzumaki to name their son after its protagonist. The novel is titled Naruto: Tales of a Gutsy Ninja (Naruto―ナルト―ド根性忍伝, Naruto: Dokonjō Ninden) and follows the fictional character Naruto Musasabi. Naruto tries to track down his former comrade, Renge Momoashi, and unravel a mysterious conspiracy involving the destruction of a nearby village. In 2015, Shueisha released Jiraiya's second novel, Naruto: The Tale of the Utterly Purehearted Shinobi (Naruto -ナルト- ド純情忍伝, Naruto: Dojunjō Ninden), which presents a battle between two fighters who appear to be related.
References
External links
Media related to Jiraiya (Naruto) at Wikimedia Commons |
Devon_McDonald | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devon_McDonald | [
629
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devon_McDonald"
] | Devon Linton McDonald (born November 8, 1969) is a former professional American football player who played linebacker for three seasons for the Indianapolis Colts and one season for the Arizona Cardinals. McDonald later played for the Tampa Bay Storm in the Arena Football League (AFL).
Early life and college
McDonald played linebacker at Kennedy High School in Paterson, New Jersey. He then went on to play linebacker for the University of Notre Dame where he was team captain as a senior and an Honorable Mention All-American 1992. He was a member of the 1988 national championship football squad. He was named co-MVP in the 1993 Cotton Bowl.
Professional football
McDonald was the Colts ' fourth round draft pick in the 1993 NFL Draft. He played both outside linebacker and on special teams during his 3 seasons with the Colts. Devon was named the Colts Special Team Player of the Year in 1994. The fans of the Colts named Devon “Unsung Hero of the Year” in 1993. He was then signed by the Cardinals in 1996 and played with them for one season. McDonald then played with the Tampa Bay Storm for 2 seasons from 2000 to 2002.
Family
Devon McDonald has a twin brother Ricardo McDonald who played linebacker for University of Pittsburgh from 1988-1992 and then went on to play professionally for the Cincinnati Bengals, Chicago Bears, and the Denver Broncos. Devon has a nephew (Ricardo McDonald's son) Maurice McDonald who currently plays Linebacker for Tennessee State University. Devon McDonald's younger cousin Lennox Gordon played collegiately for University of New Mexico and went on to play professionally for the Indianapolis Colts and the Buffalo Bills. Devon's oldest nephew Maurice McDonald played wide receiver for University of Maine from 2009-2012. His (Devon McDonald's) niece Brittany McDonald played basketball for Tulane University from 2010-2013. Devon's eldest daughter Jazzmine McDonald who played for Indiana University from 2013-2016.
Personal life
McDonald lives with his wife, Shereasher, and 2 daughters. He is an ordained minister who is active with Sports World Ministries., an organization that speaks to students about life choices.
== References == |
Ricardo_McDonald | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_McDonald | [
629
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_McDonald"
] | Ricardo Milton McDonald (born November 8, 1969) is a former linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) that played for the Cincinnati Bengals, Chicago Bears, and the Denver Broncos. He was drafted by the Bengals in the fourth round of the 1992 NFL Draft. He played college football for the University of Pittsburgh under head coach Mike Gottfried and Paul Hackett.
He played for Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey under Coach Barrett 'Barry' Rosser. Joe Louis Clark was the school's Principal during his attendance there, as depicted in the film Lean on Me.
Family Tree
Ricardo has a twin brother Devon McDonald who played linebacker for University of Notre Dame under Coach Lou Holtz. He went on to play professionally for the Indianapolis Colts and the Arizona Cardinals. Ricardo has a son named Maurice McDonald who currently played linebacker for Tennessee State University under Head Coach Eddie George and also played linebacker for Albany State University under head coach Quinn Gray. His younger cousin Lennox Gordon played collegiately for University of New Mexico. He went on to play professionally for the Indianapolis Colts and the Buffalo Bills. Ricardo's Nephew Maurice McDonald played Wide receiver for University of Maine from 2009 to 2012. McDonald's eldest daughter Brittany McDonald played basketball for Tulane University from 2010 to 2013. He also has a niece, Jazzmine McDonald who played for Indiana University from 2013 to 2016.
== References == |
317th_Fighter-Interceptor_Squadron | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/317th_Fighter-Interceptor_Squadron | [
630
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/317th_Fighter-Interceptor_Squadron"
] | The 317th Fighter Interceptor Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit, last assigned to Aerospace Defense Command, at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, where it was inactivated on 31 December 1969.
The squadron was first activated as the 317th Fighter Squadron during World War II. After training in the United States, it deployed to North Africa. In combat operations in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. It was withdrawn from combat from September to December 1943 while it equipped with different aircraft and moved from Africa to Italy. It earned two Distinguished Unit Citations before returning to the United States for inactivation.
The squadron returned to service as an air defense unit in 1947, serving in that role until inactivated in 1969.
History
World War II
The squadron was first organized at Mitchel Field, New York on 3 August 1942 as one of the three original squadrons of the 325th Fighter Group, but moved the same day to Hillsgrove Army Air Field, Rhode Island. It equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawks and trained for combat at Hillsgrove until late January 1943, when it began to deploy overseas.
The squadron arrived in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in February and was established at its first combat station, Tafaraoui Airfield, Algeria by 28 February 1943. It flew its first combat mission on 17 April. It escorted medium bombers. It flew strafing missions and flew sweeps over the Mediterranean Sea from bases in Algeria and Tunisia. The squadron participated in the defeat of Axis forces in Tunisia. It participated in the reduction of Pantelleria and in Operation Husky, the invasion and conquest of Sicily. On 30 July, the 325th Group used diversionary tactics to lure a superior number of enemy planes into the air over Sardinia, destroying more than half of them. The squadron was awarded its first Distinguished Unit Citation for this action. In late September 1943, the squadron was withdrawn from combat to convert to Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and prepare to move to the Italian peninsula.
By early December 1943, the squadron began to operate its Thunderbolts from Foggia Airfield, Italy, flying its first mission with the new plane on 14 December. However, it only operated the P-47 for a short period, converting to North American P-51 Mustangs in March 1944, and moving to Lesina Airfield, Italy on the 29th of the month. However, on 30 January it flew its "T-Bolts" more than 300 miles at very low altitude to make a surprise attack on German interceptors defending airdromes near Villorba. The severe losses it inflicted on the defending forces enabled heavy bombers to attack vital targets in the area without encountering serious opposition. This action resulted in the second award of the Distinguished Unit Citation to the squadron.
It escorted the heavy bombers of Fifteenth Air Force on long range missions against the Daimler Benz factory in Berlin, the Messerschmitt factory in Regensburg and oil refineries near Vienna. It also flew escort for attacks on other targets, such as airfields and marshalling yards and lines of communication in Italy, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania. It also protected reconnaissance aircraft and strafed trains, vehicles and airfields. The squadron continued operations until May 1945. The 317th was credited with the destruction of 209 enemy aircraft in air to air combat. After V-E Day, it moved to Vincenzo Airfield, Italy, remaining there until October, when it returned to the United States and was inactivated at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey on 28 October.
Air Defense Command
In May 1947, the squadron was reactivated at Mitchel Field, New York and equipped with Northrop P-61 Black Widows. it moved to Moses Lake Air Force Base, Washington, the squadron was re-equipped with the new North American F-82 Twin Mustang in October 1948. The squadron was assigned for the defense of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington. One month later it was reassigned to Hamilton Air Force Base, California, and in April 1950, returned to McChord Air Force Base, Washington.
In 1951. the squadron was redesignated as the 317th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, a component of the 25th Air Division, Air Defense Command, During the period between 1947 and 1956. the 317th flew the F-82. the Lockheed F-94 Starfire, and the North American F-86D Sabre interceptor. In 1955 and 1956, at Vincent Air Force Base, Yuma, Arizona, flying the F-86D, the 317th engaged in airborne rocket competition, breaking all records previously set. In August 1956 the squadron was selected as the best air defense unit in the Air Force and was awarded the Hughes Trophy, In addition, the squadron received its first Outstanding Unit Award for high combat readiness for the period of 1953 through 1956. In November 1956, the 317th began transitioning into the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger.
Alaskan Air Command
In November 1956, the 317th began transitioning into the F-102A Delta Dagger, becoming the second squadron to receive the new delta-winged supersonic aircraft. In August 1957, the 317th was reassigned in force, to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, where it assumed air defense mission of the southern portion of Alaska and the northwestern approaches to the United States.
In the summer of 1960. the 449th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was inactivated and Ladd Air Force Base was closed. leaving the entire Alaska air defense mission to the 317th. To carry out this mission, the squadron was authorized 40 aircraft and 60 pilots. The squadron received its second Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for maintaining full combat readiness during and after the 1964 Alaska earthquake on 27 March 1964.
In the summer of 1965, the 317th was reduced to 29 aircraft and the manning reduced accordingly, but the air defense mission remained the same. In October 1965, the squadron was awarded the Hughes Trophy for the second time, and a third Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for combat readiness.
In December 1969, due to budget reductions, the 317th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was inactivated.
Lineage
Constituted as the 317th Fighter Squadron on 24 June 1942
Activated on 3 August 1942.
Inactivated on 28 October 1945
Activated on 25 August 1947
Redesignated 317th Fighter Squadron (All Weather)' on 10 May 1948
Redesignated 317th Fighter-All Weather Squadron on 20 January 1950
Redesignated 317th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron on 1 May 1951
Inactivated on 31 December 1969
Assignments
Stations
Aircraft
Awards and campaigns
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
Cornett, Lloyd H; Johnson, Mildred W (1980). A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization, 1946–1980 (PDF). Peterson AFB, CO: Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1983) [1961]. Air Force Combat Units of World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-02-1. LCCN 61060979. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1982) [1969]. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-405-12194-6. LCCN 70605402. OCLC 72556. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
Newton, Wesely P. Jr.; Senning, Calvin F. (1963). "USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft, World War II, USAF Historical Study No. 85" (PDF). Research Studies Institute, USAF Historical Division, Air University. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
Pape, Garry R.; Campbell, John M.; Campbell, Donna (1991). Northrop P-61 Black Widow: The Complete History and Combat Record. Minneapolis, MN: Motorbooks International. ISBN 978-0-879385-09-5.
Watkins, Robert A. (2009). Insignia and Aircraft Markings of the U.S. Army Air Force In World War II. Vol. IV, European-African-Middle Eastern Theater of Operations. Atglen,PA: Shiffer Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7643-3401-6.
"AF Pamphlet 900-2, Unit Decorations, Awards and Campaign Participation Credits" (PDF). Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force Index. 15 June 1971. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
"AF Pamphlet 900-2, Unit Decorations, Awards and Campaign Participation Credits, Vol II" (PDF). Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force. 30 September 1976. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
"ADCOM's Fighter Interceptor Squadrons". The Interceptor. 21 (1). Aerospace Defense Command: 5–11, 26–31, 40–45, 54–59. January 1979. |
United_States_Air_Force | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force | [
630
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force"
] | The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.
The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense and is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As directed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force, certain Air Force components are assigned to unified combatant commands. Combatant commanders are delegated operational authority of the forces assigned to them, while the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force retain administrative authority over their members.
Along with conducting independent air operations, the United States Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field. As of 2020, the service operates approximately 5,500 military aircraft and approximately 400 ICBMs. The world's largest air force, it has a $179.7 billion budget and is the second largest service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, with 321,848 active duty airmen, 147,879 civilian personnel, 68,927 reserve airmen, 105,104 Air National Guard airmen, and approximately 65,000 Civil Air Patrol auxiliarists.
Mission, vision, and functions
Missions
According to the National Security Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 502), which created the USAF:
In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned. It shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war.
Section 9062 of Title 10 US Code defines the purpose of the USAF as:
to preserve the peace and security, and provide for the defense, of the United States, the Territories, Commonwealths, and possessions, and any areas occupied by the United States;
to support national policy;
to implement national objectives;
to overcome any nations responsible for aggressive acts that imperil the peace and security of the United States.
Core missions
The five core missions of the Air Force have not changed dramatically since the Air Force became independent in 1947, but they have evolved and are now articulated as air superiority, global integrated ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The purpose of all of these core missions is to provide what the Air Force states as global vigilance, global reach, and global power.
Air superiority
Air superiority is "that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, air, and special operations forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force" (JP 1-02).
Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) is defined as "offensive operations to destroy, disrupt, or neutralize enemy aircraft, missiles, launch platforms, and their supporting structures and systems both before and after launch, but as close to their source as possible" (JP 1-02). OCA is the preferred method of countering air and missile threats since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source and typically enjoys the initiative. OCA comprises attack operations, sweep, escort, and suppression/destruction of enemy air defense.
Defensive Counter-Air (DCA) is defined as "all the defensive measures designed to detect, identify, intercept, and destroy or negate enemy forces attempting to penetrate or attack through friendly airspace" (JP 1-02). In concert with OCA operations, a major goal of DCA operations is to provide an area from which forces can operate, secure from air and missile threats. The DCA mission comprises both active and passive defense measures. Active defense is "the employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy" (JP 1-02). It includes both ballistic missile defense and airborne threat defense and encompasses point defense, area defense, and high-value airborne asset defense. Passive defense is "measures taken to reduce the probability of and to minimize the effects of damage caused by hostile action without the intention of taking the initiative" (JP 1-02). It includes detection and warning; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense; camouflage, concealment, and deception; hardening; reconstitution; dispersion; redundancy; and mobility, counter-measures, and stealth.
Airspace control is "a process used to increase operational effectiveness by promoting the safe, efficient, and flexible use of airspace" (JP 1-02). It promotes the safe, efficient, and flexible use of airspace, mitigates the risk of fratricide, enhances both offensive and defensive operations, and permits greater agility of air operations as a whole. It both deconflicts and facilitates the integration of joint air operations.
Global integrated ISR
Global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is the synchronization and integration of the planning and operation of sensors, assets, and processing, exploitation, dissemination systems across the globe to conduct current and future operations.
Planning and directing is "the determination of intelligence requirements, development of appropriate intelligence architecture, preparation of a collection plan, and issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies" (JP 2-01, Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations). These activities enable the synchronization and integration of collection, processing, exploitation, analysis, and dissemination activities/resources to meet information requirements of national and military decision-makers.
Collection is "the acquisition of information and the provision of this information to processing elements" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to obtain required information to satisfy intelligence needs (via use of sources and methods in all domains). Collection activities span the Range of Military Operations (ROMO).
Processing and exploitation is "the conversion of collected information into forms suitable to the production of intelligence" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to transform, extract, and make available collected information suitable for further analysis or action across the ROMO.
Analysis and production is "the conversion of processed information into intelligence through the integration, evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of all source data and the preparation of intelligence products in support of known or anticipated user requirements" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to integrate, evaluate, and interpret information from available sources to create a finished intelligence product for presentation or dissemination to enable increased situational awareness.
Dissemination and integration is "the delivery of intelligence to users in a suitable form and the application of the intelligence to appropriate missions, tasks, and functions" (JP 2-01). It provides the ability to present information and intelligence products across the ROMO enabling understanding of the operational environment to military and national decision-makers.
Rapid global mobility
Rapid global mobility is the timely deployment, employment, sustainment, augmentation, and redeployment of military forces and capabilities across the ROMO. It provides joint military forces the capability to move from place to place while retaining the ability to fulfill their primary mission. Rapid Global Mobility is essential to virtually every military operation, allowing forces to reach foreign or domestic destinations quickly, thus seizing the initiative through speed and surprise.
Airlift is "operations to transport and deliver forces and materiel through the air in support of strategic, operational, or tactical objectives" (Annex 3–17, Air Mobility Operations). The rapid and flexible options afforded by airlift allow military forces and national leaders the ability to respond and operate in a variety of situations and time frames. The global reach capability of airlift provides the ability to apply US power worldwide by delivering forces to crisis locations. It serves as a US presence that demonstrates resolve and compassion in humanitarian crisis.
Air refueling is "the refueling of an aircraft in flight by another aircraft" (JP 1-02). Air refueling extends presence, increases range, and serves as a force multiplier. It allows air assets to more rapidly reach any trouble spot around the world with less dependence on forward staging bases or overflight/landing clearances. Air refueling significantly expands the options available to a commander by increasing the range, payload, persistence, and flexibility of receiver aircraft.
Aeromedical evacuation is "the movement of patients under medical supervision to and between medical treatment facilities by air transportation" (JP 1-02). JP 4-02, Health Service Support, further defines it as "the fixed wing movement of regulated casualties to and between medical treatment facilities, using organic and/or contracted mobility airframes, with aircrew trained explicitly for this mission." Aeromedical evacuation forces can operate as far forward as fixed-wing aircraft are able to conduct airland operations.
Global strike
Global precision attack is the ability to hold at risk or strike rapidly and persistently, with a wide range of munitions, any target and to create swift, decisive, and precise effects across multiple domains.
Strategic attack is defined as "offensive action specifically selected to achieve national strategic objectives. These attacks seek to weaken the adversary's ability or will to engage in conflict, and may achieve strategic objectives without necessarily having to achieve operational objectives as a precondition" (Annex 3–70, Strategic Attack).
Air Interdiction is defined as "air operations conducted to divert, disrupt, delay, or destroy the enemy's military potential before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces, or to otherwise achieve JFC objectives. Air Interdiction is conducted at such distance from friendly forces that detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of friendly forces is not required" (Annex 3-03, Counterland Operations).
Close Air Support is defined as "air action by fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces" (JP 1-02). This can be as a pre-planned event or on demand from an alert posture (ground or airborne). It can be conducted across the ROMO.
The purpose of nuclear deterrence operations (NDO) is to operate, maintain, and secure nuclear forces to achieve an assured capability to deter an adversary from taking action against vital US interests. In the event deterrence fails, the US should be able to appropriately respond with nuclear options. The sub-elements of this function are:
Assure/Dissuade/Deter is a mission set derived from the Air Force's readiness to carry out the nuclear strike operations mission as well as from specific actions taken to assure allies as a part of extended deterrence. Dissuading others from acquiring or proliferating WMD and delivering them contributes to promoting security and is also an integral part of this mission. Moreover, different deterrence strategies are required to deter various adversaries, whether they are a nation state, or non-state/transnational actor. The Air Force maintains and presents credible deterrent capabilities through successful visible demonstrations and exercises that assure allies, dissuade proliferation, deter potential adversaries from actions that threaten US national security or the populations, and deploy military forces of the US, its allies, and friends.
Nuclear strike is the ability of nuclear forces to rapidly and accurately strike targets which the enemy holds dear in a devastating manner. If a crisis occurs, rapid generation and, if necessary, deployment of nuclear strike capabilities will demonstrate US resolve and may prompt an adversary to alter the course of action deemed threatening to our national interest. Should deterrence fail, the President may authorize a precise, tailored response to terminate the conflict at the lowest possible level and lead to a rapid cessation of hostilities. Post-conflict, regeneration of a credible nuclear deterrent capability will deter further aggression. The Air Force may present a credible force posture in either the Continental United States, within a theater of operations, or both to effectively deter the range of potential adversaries envisioned in the 21st century. This requires the ability to engage targets globally using a variety of methods; therefore, the Air Force should possess the ability to induct, train, assign, educate and exercise individuals and units to rapidly and effectively execute missions that support US NDO objectives. Finally, the Air Force regularly exercises and evaluates all aspects of nuclear operations to ensure high levels of performance.
Nuclear surety ensures the safety, security and effectiveness of nuclear operations. Because of their political and military importance, destructive power, and the potential consequences of an accident or unauthorized act, nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon systems require special consideration and protection against risks and threats inherent in their peacetime and wartime environments. In conjunction with other entities within the Departments of Defense or Energy, the Air Force achieves a high standard of protection through a stringent nuclear surety program. This program applies to materiel, personnel, and procedures that contribute to the safety, security, and control of nuclear weapons, thus assuring no nuclear accidents, incidents, loss, or unauthorized or accidental use (a Broken Arrow incident). The Air Force continues to pursue safe, secure and effective nuclear weapons consistent with operational requirements. Adversaries, allies, and the American people must be highly confident of the Air Force's ability to secure nuclear weapons from accidents, theft, loss, and accidental or unauthorized use. This day-to-day commitment to precise and reliable nuclear operations is the cornerstone of the credibility of the NDO mission. Positive nuclear command, control, communications; effective nuclear weapons security; and robust combat support are essential to the overall NDO function.
Command and control
Command and control is "the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission. Command and control functions are performed through an arrangement of personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, and procedures employed by a commander in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling forces and operations in the accomplishment of the mission" (JP 1-02). This core function includes all of the C2-related capabilities and activities associated with air, cyberspace, nuclear, and agile combat support operations to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objectives.
At the strategic level command and control, the US determines national or multinational security objectives and guidance, and develops and uses national resources to accomplish these objectives. These national objectives in turn provide the direction for developing overall military objectives, which are used to develop the objectives and strategy for each theater.
At the operational level command and control, campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, sustained, and assessed to accomplish strategic goals within theaters or areas of operations. These activities imply a broader dimension of time or space than do tactics; they provide the means by which tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic and operational objectives.
Tactical Level Command and Control is where individual battles and engagements are fought. The tactical level of war deals with how forces are employed, and the specifics of how engagements are conducted and targets attacked. The goal of tactical level C2 is to achieve commander's intent and desired effects by gaining and keeping offensive initiative.
History
The origins of the United States Air Force can be traced back to the Union Army Balloon Corps of the American Civil War. The Union Balloon Corps, established by aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, provided aerial reconnaissance for the Union Army. This early use of balloons for military purposes marked the beginning of modern aerial warfare and set the stage for the development of the United States Air Force.
The U.S. War Department created the first antecedent of the U.S. Air Force, as a part of the U.S. Army, on 1 August 1907, which through a succession of changes of organization, titles, and missions advanced toward eventual independence 40 years later. In World War II, almost 68,000 U.S. airmen died helping to win the war, with only the infantry suffering more casualties. In practice, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was virtually independent of the Army during World War II, and in virtually every way functioned as an independent service branch, but airmen still pressed for formal independence. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed on 26 July 1947, which established the Department of the Air Force, but it was not until 18 September 1947, when the first secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington, was sworn into office that the Air Force was officially formed as an independent service branch.
The act created the National Military Establishment (renamed Department of Defense in 1949), which was composed of three subordinate Military Departments, namely the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the newly created Department of the Air Force. Prior to 1947, the responsibility for military aviation was shared between the Army Air Forces and its predecessor organizations (for land-based operations), the Navy (for sea-based operations from aircraft carriers and amphibious aircraft), and the Marine Corps (for close air support of Marine Corps operations). The 1940s proved to be important for military aviation in other ways as well. In 1947, Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his X-1 rocket-powered aircraft, beginning a new era of aeronautics in America.
Antecedents
The predecessor organizations in the Army of today's Air Force are:
Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps (1 August 1907 – 18 July 1914)
Aviation Section, Signal Corps (18 July 1914 – 20 May 1918)
Division of Military Aeronautics (20 May 1918 to 24 May 1918)
U.S. Army Air Service (24 May 1918 to 2 July 1926)
U.S. Army Air Corps (2 July 1926 to 20 June 1941) and
U.S. Army Air Forces (20 June 1941 to 18 September 1947)
21st century
During the early 2000s, two USAF aircraft procurement projects took longer than expected, the KC-X and F-35 programs. As a result, the USAF was setting new records for average aircraft age.
Since 2005, the USAF has placed a strong focus on the improvement of Basic Military Training (BMT) for enlisted personnel. While the intense training has become longer, it also has shifted to include a deployment phase. This deployment phase, now called the BEAST, places the trainees in a simulated combat environment that they may experience once they deploy. While the trainees do tackle the massive obstacle courses along with the BEAST, the other portions include defending and protecting their base of operations, forming a structure of leadership, directing search and recovery, and basic self aid buddy care. During this event, the Military Training Instructors (MTI) act as mentors and opposing forces in a deployment exercise. In November 2022, the USAF announced that it will discontinue BEAST and replace it with another deployment training program called PACER FORGE.
In 2007, the USAF undertook a Reduction-in-Force (RIF). Because of budget constraints, the USAF planned to reduce the service's size from 360,000 active duty personnel to 316,000. The size of the active duty force in 2007 was roughly 64% of that of what the USAF was at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. However, the reduction was ended at approximately 330,000 personnel in 2008 in order to meet the demand signal of combatant commanders and associated mission requirements. These same constraints have seen a sharp reduction in flight hours for crew training since 2005 and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Personnel directing Airmen's Time Assessments.
On 5 June 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accepted the resignations of both the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General T. Michael Moseley. In his decision to fire both men Gates cited "systemic issues associated with... declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance". Left unmentioned by Gates was that he had repeatedly clashed with Wynne and Moseley over other important non-nuclear related issues to the service. This followed an investigation into two incidents involving mishandling of nuclear weapons: specifically a nuclear weapons incident aboard a B-52 flight between Minot AFB and Barksdale AFB, and an accidental shipment of nuclear weapons components to Taiwan. To put more emphasis on nuclear assets, the USAF established the nuclear-focused Air Force Global Strike Command on 24 October 2008, which later assumed control of all USAF bomber aircraft.
On 26 June 2009, the USAF released a force structure plan that cut fighter aircraft and shifted resources to better support nuclear, irregular and information warfare. On 23 July 2009, The USAF released their Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Flight Plan, detailing Air Force UAS plans through 2047. One third of the planes that the USAF planned to buy in the future were to be unmanned. According to Air Force Chief Scientist, Greg Zacharias, the USAF anticipates having hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicles (also known as remotely-piloted vehicles, or RPAs) by the 2030s and recoverable hypersonic RPAs aircraft by the 2040s. The USAF intends to deploy a Sixth-generation jet fighter by the mid-2030s.
On 22 October 2023, the USAF conducted its first-ever trilateral exercise with the South Korean and Japanese air forces near the Korean Peninsula. On 29 November 2023, a USAF Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey crashed in the Japan island of Yakushima killing 1 airman.
In 2024, citing the Supreme Court's ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Air Force refused to comply with an EPA order that they develop a cleanup plan for drinking water around Tucson, Arizona after the region's groundwater was contaminated by PFAS runoff from nearby Air Force bases.
Conflicts
The United States Air Force has been involved in many wars, conflicts and operations using military air operations. The USAF possesses the lineage and heritage of its predecessor organizations, which played a pivotal role in U.S. military operations since 1907:
Mexican Expedition as Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps
World War I as Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and United States Army Air Service
World War II as United States Army Air Forces
Cold War
Korean War
Vietnam War
Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations (CHECO)
Operation Eagle Claw (1980 Iranian hostage rescue)
Operation Urgent Fury (1983 US invasion of Grenada)
Operation El Dorado Canyon (1986 US Bombing of Libya)
Operation Just Cause (1989–1990 US invasion of Panama)
Gulf War (1990–1991)
Operation Desert Shield (1990–1991)
Operation Desert Storm (1991)
Operation Southern Watch (1992–2003 Iraq no-fly zone)
Operation Deliberate Force (1995 NATO bombing in Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Operation Northern Watch (1997–2003 Iraq no-fly zone)
Operation Desert Fox (1998 bombing of Iraq)
Operation Allied Force (1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia)
Afghanistan War (2001–2021)
Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–2014)
Operation Freedom's Sentinel (2015–2021)
Iraq War (2003–2011)
Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–2010)
Operation New Dawn (2010–2011)
Operation Odyssey Dawn (2011 Libyan no-fly zone)
Operation Inherent Resolve (2014–present: intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)
In addition since the USAF dwarfs all other U.S. and allied air components, it often provides support for allied forces in conflicts to which the United States is otherwise not involved, such as the 2013 French campaign in Mali.
Humanitarian operations
The USAF has also taken part in numerous humanitarian operations. Some of the more major ones include the following:
Berlin Airlift (Operation Vittles), 1948–1949
Operation Safe Haven, 1956–1957
Operations Babylift, New Life, Frequent Wind, and New Arrivals, 1975
Operation Provide Comfort, 1991
Operation Sea Angel, 1991
Operation Provide Hope, 1992–1993
Operation Provide Promise, 1992–1996
Operation Unified Assistance, December 2004 – April 2005
Operation Unified Response, 14 January 2010 – 22 March 2010
Operation Tomodachi, 12 March 2011 – 1 May 2011
Culture
The culture of the United States Air Force is primarily driven by pilots, at first those piloting bombers (driven originally by the Bomber Mafia), followed by fighters (Fighter Mafia).
In response to a 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accepted in June 2009 the resignations of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General T. Michael Moseley. Moseley's successor, General Norton A. Schwartz, a former airlift and special operations pilot, was the first officer appointed to that position who did not have a background as a fighter or bomber pilot. The Washington Post reported in 2010 that General Schwartz began to dismantle the rigid class system of the USAF, particularly in the officer corps.
In 2014, following morale and testing/cheating scandals in the Air Force's missile launch officer community, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James admitted that there remained a "systemic problem" in the USAF's management of the nuclear mission.
Daniel L. Magruder Jr. defines USAF culture as a combination of the rigorous application of advanced technology, individualism and progressive airpower theory. Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr. adds that the U.S. Air Force's culture also includes an egalitarianism bred from officers perceiving themselves as their service's principal "warriors" working with small groups of enlisted airmen either as the service crew or the onboard crew of their aircraft. Air Force officers have never felt they needed the formal social "distance" from their enlisted force that is common in the other U.S. armed services. Although the paradigm is changing, for most of its history, the Air Force, completely unlike its sister services, has been an organization in which mostly its officers fought, not its enlisted force, the latter being primarily a rear echelon support force. When the enlisted force did go into harm's way, such as crew members of multi-crewed aircraft, the close comradeship of shared risk in tight quarters created traditions that shaped a somewhat different kind of officer/enlisted relationship than exists elsewhere in the military.
Cultural and career issues in the U.S. Air Force have been cited as one of the reasons for the shortfall in needed UAV operators. In spite of demand for UAVs or drones to provide round the clock coverage for American troops during the Iraq War, the USAF did not establish a new career field for piloting them until the last year of that war and in 2014 changed its RPA training syllabus again, in the face of large aircraft losses in training, and in response to a GAO report critical of handling of drone programs. Paul Scharre has reported that the cultural divide between the USAF and US Army has kept both services from adopting each other's drone handling innovations.
Many of the U.S. Air Force's formal and informal traditions are an amalgamation of those taken from the Royal Air Force (e.g., dining-ins/mess nights) or the experiences of its predecessor organizations such as the U.S. Army Air Service, U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Army Air Forces. Some of these traditions range from "Friday Name Tags" in flying units to an annual "Mustache Month". The use of "challenge coins" dates back to World War I when a member of one of the aero squadrons bought his entire unit medallions with their emblem, while another cultural tradition unique to the Air Force is the "roof stomp", practiced by Airmen to welcome a new commander or to commemorate another event, such as a retirement.
Organization
Administrative organization
The Department of the Air Force is one of three military departments within the Department of Defense, and is managed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense. The senior officials in the Office of the Secretary are the Under Secretary of the Air Force, four Assistant Secretaries of the Air Force and the General Counsel, all of whom are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The senior uniformed leadership in the Air Staff is made up of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
The directly subordinate commands and units are named Field Operating Agency (FOA), Direct Reporting Unit (DRU), and the currently unused Separate Operating Agency.
The Major Command (MAJCOM) is the superior hierarchical level of command. Including the Air Force Reserve Command, as of 30 September 2006, USAF has ten major commands. The Numbered Air Force (NAF) is a level of command directly under the MAJCOM, followed by Operational Command (now unused), Air Division (also now unused), Wing, Group, Squadron, and Flight.
Air Force structure and organization
Headquarters, United States Air Force (HQ USAF):
The major components of the U.S. Air Force, as of 28 August 2015, are the following:
Active duty forces
57 flying wings and 55 non-flying wings
nine flying groups, eight non-flying groups
134 flying squadrons
Air Force Reserve Command
35 flying wings
four flying groups
67 flying squadrons
Air National Guard
89 flying wings
101 flying squadrons
The USAF, including its Air Reserve Component (e.g., Air Force Reserve + Air National Guard), possesses a total of 302 flying squadrons.
Installations
Operational organization
The organizational structure as shown above is responsible for the peacetime organization, equipping, and training of air units for operational missions. When required to support operational missions, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) directs the Secretary of the Air Force (SECAF) to execute a Change in Operational Control (CHOP) of these units from their administrative alignment to the operational command of a Regional Combatant commander (CCDR). In the case of AFSPC, AFSOC, PACAF, and USAFE units, forces are normally employed in-place under their existing CCDR. Likewise, AMC forces operating in support roles retain their componency to USTRANSCOM unless chopped to a Regional CCDR.
Air Expeditionary Task Force
"Chopped" units are referred to as forces. The top-level structure of these forces is the Air Expeditionary Task Force (AETF). The AETF is the Air Force presentation of forces to a CCDR for the employment of Air Power. Each CCDR is supported by a standing Component Numbered Air Force (C-NAF) to provide planning and execution of air forces in support of CCDR requirements. Each C-NAF consists of a Commander, Air Force Forces (COMAFFOR) and AFFOR/A-staff, and an Air Operations Center (AOC). As needed to support multiple Joint Force Commanders (JFC) in the CCMD's Area of Responsibility (AOR), the C-NAF may deploy Air Component Coordinate Elements (ACCE) to liaise with the JFC. If the Air Force possesses the preponderance of air forces in a JFC's area of operations, the COMAFFOR will also serve as the Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC).
Commander, Air Force Forces
The Commander, Air Force Forces (COMAFFOR) is the senior USAF officer responsible for the employment of air power in support of JFC objectives. The COMAFFOR has a special staff and an A-Staff to ensure assigned or attached forces are properly organized, equipped, and trained to support the operational mission.
Air Operations Center
The Air Operations Center (AOC) is the JFACC's Command and Control (C2) center. Several AOCs have been established throughout the Air Force worldwide. These centers are responsible for planning and executing air power missions in support of JFC objectives.
Air Expeditionary Wings/Groups/Squadrons
The AETF generates air power to support CCMD objectives from Air Expeditionary Wings (AEW) or Air Expeditionary Groups (AEG). These units are responsible for receiving combat forces from Air Force MAJCOMs, preparing these forces for operational missions, launching and recovering these forces, and eventually returning forces to the MAJCOMs. Theater Air Control Systems control employment of forces during these missions.
Personnel
The classification of any USAF job for officers or enlisted airmen is the Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC).
AFSCs range from officer specialties such as pilot, combat systems officer, special tactics, nuclear and missile operations, intelligence, cyberspace operations, judge advocate general (JAG), medical doctor, nurse or other fields, to various enlisted specialties. The latter range from flight combat operations such as loadmaster, to working in a dining facility to ensure that Airmen are properly fed. There are additional occupational fields such as computer specialties, mechanic specialties, enlisted aircrew, communication systems, cyberspace operations, avionics technicians, medical specialties, civil engineering, public affairs, hospitality, law, drug counseling, mail operations, security forces, and search and rescue specialties.
Beyond combat flight crew personnel, other combat USAF AFSCs are Special Tactics Officer, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Combat Rescue Officer, Pararescue, Security Forces, Combat Control, Tactical Air Control Party, Special Operations Weather Technician.
Nearly all enlisted career fields are "entry level", meaning that the USAF provides all training. Some enlistees are able to choose a particular field, or at least a field before actually joining, while others are assigned an AFSC at Basic Military Training (BMT). After BMT, new enlisted airmen attend a technical training school where they learn their particular AFSC. Second Air Force, a part of Air Education and Training Command, is responsible for nearly all enlisted technical training.
Training programs vary in length; for example, 3M0X1 (Services) has 29 days of tech school training, while 3E8X1 (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) is one year of training with a preliminary school and a main school consisting of over ten separate divisions, sometimes taking students close to two years to complete. Officer technical training conducted by Second Air Force can also vary by AFSC, while flight training for aeronautically rated officers conducted by AETC's Nineteenth Air Force can last well in excess of one year.
USAF rank is divided between enlisted airmen, non-commissioned officers, and commissioned officers, and ranges from the enlisted Airman Basic (E-1) to the commissioned officer rank of General (O-10), however in times of war officers may be appointed to the higher grade of General of the Air Force. Enlisted promotions are granted based on a combination of test scores, years of experience, and selection board approval while officer promotions are based on time-in-grade and a promotion selection board. Promotions among enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers are generally designated by increasing numbers of insignia chevrons. Commissioned officer rank is designated by bars, oak leaves, a silver eagle, and anywhere from one to five stars. General of the Air Force Henry "Hap" Arnold is the only individual in the history of the US Air Force to attain the rank of five-star general.
As of 30 June 2017, 70% of the Air Force is White, 15% Black and 4.8% Asian. The average age is 35 and 21% of its members are female.
Commissioned officers
The commissioned officer ranks of the USAF are divided into three categories: company grade officers, field grade officers, and general officers. Company grade officers are those officers in pay grades O-1 to O-3, while field grade officers are those in pay grades O-4 to O-6, and general officers are those in pay grades of O-7 and above.
Air Force officer promotions are governed by the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980 and its companion Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act (ROPMA) for officers in the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard. DOPMA also establishes limits on the number of officers that can serve at any given time in the Air Force. Currently, promotion from second lieutenant to first lieutenant is virtually guaranteed after two years of satisfactory service. The promotion from first lieutenant to captain is competitive after successfully completing another two years of service, with a selection rate varying between 99% and 100%. Promotion to major through major general is through a formal selection board process, while promotions to lieutenant general and general are contingent upon nomination to specific general officer positions and subject to U.S. Senate approval.
During the board process, an officer's record is reviewed by a selection board at the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. At the 10 to 11-year mark, captains will take part in a selection board to major. If not selected, they will meet a follow-on board to determine if they will be allowed to remain in the Air Force. Promotion from major to lieutenant colonel is similar and occurs approximately between the fourteen year and the fifteen year mark, where a certain percentage of majors will be in zone (i.e., "on time") or above zone (i.e., "late") for promotion to lieutenant colonel. This process will repeat at the 18-year mark to the 21-year mark for promotion to full colonel.
The Air Force has the largest ratio of general officers to total strength of all of the U.S. Armed Forces and this ratio has continued to increase even as the force has shrunk from its Cold War highs.
Warrant officers
Although provisions were made in Title 10 of the United States Code for the Secretary of the Air Force to appoint warrant officers, the Air Force had not used warrant officer grades for many years, and, along with the Space Force, were the only U.S. Armed Services not to do so until 2024. The Air Force inherited warrant officer ranks from the Army at its inception in 1947. The Air Force stopped appointing warrant officers in 1959, the same year the first promotions were made to the new top enlisted grade, Chief Master Sergeant. The remaining warrant officers were slowly phased out.
The last active duty Air Force warrant officer, CWO4 James H. Long, retired in 1980, and the last Air Force Reserve warrant officer, CWO4 Bob Barrow, retired in 1992. Upon his retirement, he was honorarily promoted to CWO5, the only person in the Air Force ever to hold this grade. Since Barrow's retirement, the Air Force warrant officer ranks, while still authorized by law, were not used.
It was announced at the AFA Warfare Symposium on 12 February 2024, that warrant officer ranks in the cyber and information technology fields would be reintroduced, beginning in FY25. It was stated that this effort was to retain talent in these technical fields for airmen who did not wish to pursue a leadership path. The Air Force initially wanted a class of 30 warrant officers that would begin training by the summer 2024. By the end of July 2024, 78 Airmen were selected to be among the first Air Force warrant officers in over 66 years, more than double than originally estimated. The 78 Airmen will be spread out across three training classes, with the first starting in October 2024.
Enlisted airmen
Enlisted airmen have pay grades from E-1 (entry level) to E-9 (senior enlisted). While all USAF personnel, enlisted and officer, are referred to as airmen, in the same manner that all Army personnel, enlisted and officer, are referred to as soldiers, the term also refers to the pay grades of E-1 through E-4, which are below the level of non-commissioned officers (NCOs). Above the pay grade of E-4 (i.e., pay grades E-5 through E-9) all ranks fall into the category of NCO and are further subdivided into "NCOs" (pay grades E-5 and E-6) and "senior NCOs" (pay grades E-7 through E-9); the term "junior NCO" is sometimes used to refer to staff sergeants and technical sergeants (pay grades E-5 and E-6).
The USAF, along with the US Space Force, are the only branches of the U.S. military where NCO status is achieved when an enlisted person reaches the pay grade of E-5. In all other branches, NCO status is generally achieved at the pay grade of E-4 (e.g., a corporal in the Army and Marine Corps, Petty Officer Third Class in the Navy and Coast Guard). The Air Force mirrored the Army from 1976 to 1991 with an E-4 being either a senior airman wearing three stripes without a star or a sergeant (referred to as "buck sergeant"), which was noted by the presence of the central star and considered an NCO. Despite not being an NCO, a senior airman who has completed Airman Leadership School can be a supervisor according to the AFI 36–2618.
Uniforms
The first USAF dress uniform, in 1947, was dubbed and patented "Uxbridge blue" after "Uxbridge 1683 blue", developed at the former Bachman-Uxbridge Worsted Company. The current service dress uniform, which was adopted in 1994, consists of a three-button coat with decorative pockets, matching trousers, and either a service cap or flight cap, all in Shade 1620, "Air Force blue" (a darker purplish-blue). This is worn with a light blue shirt (shade 1550) and shade 1620 herringbone patterned necktie. Silver "U.S." pins are worn on the collar of the coat, with a surrounding silver ring for enlisted airmen. Enlisted airmen wear sleeve rank on both the jacket and shirt, while officers wear metal rank insignia pinned onto the epaulet loops on the coat, and Air Force blue slide-on epaulet loops on the shirt. USAF personnel assigned to base honor guard duties wear, for certain occasions, a modified version of the standard service dress uniform that includes silver trim on the sleeves and trousers, with the addition of a ceremonial belt (if necessary), service cap with silver trim and Hap Arnold Device (instead of the seal of the United States worn on the regular cap), and a silver aiguillette placed on the left shoulder seam and all devices and accoutrements.
The Airman Combat Uniform (ACU) in the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) replaced the previous Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) on 1 October 2018.
Awards and badges
In addition to basic uniform clothing, various badges are used by the USAF to indicate a billet assignment or qualification-level for a given assignment. Badges can also be used as merit-based or service-based awards. Over time, various badges have been discontinued and are no longer distributed.
Training
All enlisted Airmen attend Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for 7+1⁄2 weeks. Individuals who have prior service of over 24 months of active duty in the other service branches who seek to enlist in the Air Force must go through a 10-day Air Force familiarization course rather than enlisted BMT, however prior service opportunities are severely limited.
Officers may be commissioned upon graduation from the United States Air Force Academy, upon graduation from another college or university through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program, or through the Air Force Officer Training School (OTS). OTS, located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama since 1993, in turn encompasses two separate commissioning programs: Basic Officer Training (BOT), which is for officer candidates for the Regular Air Force and the Air Force Reserve; and the Academy of Military Science (AMS), which is for officer candidates of the Air National Guard.
The Air Force also provides Commissioned Officer Training (COT) for officers of all three components who are direct-commissioned into medicine, law, religion, biological sciences, or healthcare administration. COT is fully integrated into the OTS program and today encompasses extensive coursework as well as field exercises in leadership, confidence, fitness, and deployed-environment operations.
Air Force Fitness Test
The US Air Force Fitness Test (AFFT) is designed to test the abdominal circumference, muscular strength/endurance and cardiovascular respiratory fitness of airmen in the USAF. As part of the Fit to Fight program, the USAF adopted a more stringent physical fitness assessment; the new fitness program was put into effect on 1 June 2010. The annual ergo-cycle test which the USAF had used for several years had been replaced in 2004. In the AFFT, Airmen are given a score based on performance consisting of four components: waist circumference, the sit-up, the push-up, and a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) run. Airmen can potentially earn a score of 100, with the run counting as 60%, waist circumference as 20%, and both strength tests counting as 10% each. A passing score is 75 points. Effective 1 July 2010, the AFFT is administered by the base Fitness Assessment Cell (FAC), and is required twice a year. Personnel earning a score over 90% may test once a year. Additionally, only meeting the minimum standards on each one of these tests will not get you a passing score of 75%, and failing any one component will result in a failure for the entire test.
Aircraft inventory
The U.S. Air Force has a total force of approximately 5,500 aircraft. Of these, an estimated 4,131 are in active service. Until 1962, the Army and Air Force maintained one system of aircraft naming, while the U.S. Navy maintained a separate system. In 1962, these were unified into a single system heavily reflecting the Army and Air Force method. For more complete information on the workings of this system, refer to United States military aircraft designation systems. The various aircraft of the Air Force include:
A – Attack
The attack aircraft of the USAF are designed to attack targets on the ground and are often deployed as close air support for, and in proximity to, U.S. ground forces. The proximity to friendly forces require precision strikes from these aircraft that are not always possible with bomber aircraft. Their role is tactical rather than strategic, operating at the front of the battle rather than against targets deeper in the enemy's rear. Current USAF attack aircraft are operated by Air Combat Command, Pacific Air Forces, and Air Force Special Operations Command. On 1 August 2022, USSOCOM selected the Air Tractor-L3Harris AT-802U Sky Warden as a result of the Armed Overwatch program, awarding an indefinite quantity contract (IDIQ) to deliver as many as 75 aircraft.
A-10C Thunderbolt II
A-29 Super Tucano
AC-130J Ghostrider
OA-1K Sky Warden
B – Bomber
US Air Force bombers are strategic weapons, primarily used for long range strike missions with either conventional or nuclear ordnance. Traditionally used for attacking strategic targets, today many bombers are also used in the tactical mission, such as providing close air support for ground forces and tactical interdiction missions. All Air Force bombers are under Global Strike Command.
The service's B-2A aircraft entered service in the 1990s, its B-1B aircraft in the 1980s and its current B-52H aircraft in the early 1960s. The B-52 Stratofortress airframe design is over 60 years old and the B-52H aircraft currently in the active inventory were all built between 1960 and 1962. The B-52H is scheduled to remain in service for another 30 years, which would keep the airframe in service for nearly 90 years, an unprecedented length of service for any aircraft. The B-21 is projected to replace the B-52 and parts of the B-1B force by the mid-2020s.
B-1B Lancer
B-2A Spirit
B-52H Stratofortress
C – Cargo/Transport
Cargo aircraft are typically used to deliver troops, weapons and other military equipment by a variety of methods to any area of military operations around the world, usually outside of the commercial flight routes in uncontrolled airspace. The workhorses of the USAF airlift forces are the C-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, and C-5 Galaxy. The CV-22 is used by the Air Force for special operations. It conducts long-range, special operations missions, and is equipped with extra fuel tanks and terrain-following radar. Some aircraft serve specialized cargo and transport roles such as executive or embassy support (C-12), Antarctic support (LC-130H), and AFSOC support (C-27J and C-146A). Although most of the US Air Force's cargo aircraft were specially designed with the Air Force in mind, some aircraft such as the C-12 Huron (Beechcraft Super King Air) and C-146 (Dornier 328) are militarized conversions of existing civilian aircraft. Transport aircraft are operated by Air Mobility Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, and United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa.
C-5M Galaxy
C-12C, C-12D, C-12F and C-12J Huron
C-17A Globemaster III
C-130H, LC-130H, and WC-130H Hercules
C-130J and C-130J-30 Super Hercules
C-146A Wolfhound
CV-22B Osprey
E – Special Electronic
The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent an advantage in the EMS and ensure friendly, unimpeded access to the EM spectrum portion of the information environment. Electronic warfare aircraft are used to keep airspaces friendly, and send critical information to anyone who needs it. They are often called "the eye in the sky". The roles of the aircraft vary greatly among the different variants to include electronic warfare and jamming (EC-130H), psychological operations and communications (EC-130J), airborne early warning and control (E-3), airborne command post (E-4B), range control (E-9A), and communications relay (E-11A, EQ-4B).
E-3B, E-3C and E-3G Sentry
E-4B "Nightwatch"
E-9A Widget
E-11A
EC-130H Compass Call
EC-130J Commando Solo
F – Fighter
The fighter aircraft of the USAF are small, fast, and maneuverable military aircraft primarily used for air-to-air combat. Many of these fighters have secondary ground-attack capabilities, and some are dual-roled as fighter-bombers (e.g., the F-16 Fighting Falcon); the term "fighter" is also sometimes used colloquially for dedicated ground-attack aircraft, such as the F-117 Nighthawk. Other missions include interception of bombers and other fighters, reconnaissance, and patrol. The F-16 is currently used by the USAF Air Demonstration squadron, the Thunderbirds, while a small number of both man-rated and non-man-rated F-4 Phantom II are retained as QF-4 aircraft for use as full-scale aerial targets (FSATs) or as part of the USAF Heritage Flight program. These extant QF-4 aircraft are being replaced in the FSAT role by early model F-16 aircraft converted to QF-16 configuration. The USAF had 2,025 fighters in service as of September 2012.
F-15C and F-15D Eagle
F-15E Strike Eagle
F-15EX Eagle II
F-16C, F-16D Fighting Falcon
F-22A Raptor
F-35A Lightning II
H – Search and rescue
These aircraft are used for search and rescue and combat search and rescue on land or sea. The HC-130N/P aircraft are being replaced by newer HC-130J models. HH-60W are replacement aircraft for "G" models that have been lost in combat operations or accidents. New HH-60W helicopters are under development to replace both the "G" and "W" model Pave Hawks. The Air Force also has four HH-60U "Ghost Hawks", which are converted "M" variants. They are based out of Area 51.
HC-130N and HC-130P Combat King
HC-130J Combat King II
HH-60G, HH-60U and HH-60W Pave Hawk
K – Tanker
The USAF's KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft are based on civilian jets. The USAF aircraft are equipped primarily for providing the fuel via a tail-mounted refueling boom, and can be equipped with "probe and drogue" refueling systems. Air-to-air refueling is extensively used in large-scale operations and also used in normal operations; fighters, bombers, and cargo aircraft rely heavily on the lesser-known "tanker" aircraft. This makes these aircraft an essential part of the Air Force's global mobility and the U.S. force projection. The KC-10A Extender was retired in 2024. The KC-46A Pegasus began to be delivered to USAF units in 2019.
KC-46A Pegasus
KC-135R and KC-135T Stratotanker
M – Multi-mission
Specialized multi-mission aircraft provide support for global special operations missions. These aircraft conduct infiltration, exfiltration, resupply, and refueling for SOF teams from improvised or otherwise short runways. The MC-130J is currently being fielded to replace "H" and "P" models used by U.S. Special Operations Command. The MC-12W is used in the "intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance" (ISR) role.
Initial generations of RPAs were primarily surveillance aircraft, but some were fitted with weaponry (such as the MQ-1 Predator, which used AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles). An armed RPA is known as an "unmanned combat aerial vehicle" (UCAV).
MC-12W Liberty
MC-130H Combat Talon II
MC-130J Commando II
MQ-9B Reaper
R – Reconnaissance
The reconnaissance aircraft of the USAF are used for monitoring enemy activity, originally carrying no armament. Although the U-2 is designated as a "utility" aircraft, it is a reconnaissance platform. The roles of the aircraft vary greatly among the different variants to include general monitoring, ballistic missile monitoring (RC-135S), electronic intelligence gathering (RC-135U), signal intelligence gathering (RC-135V/W), and high altitude surveillance (U-2).
Several unmanned remotely controlled reconnaissance aircraft (RPAs), have been developed and deployed. Recently, the RPAs have been seen to offer the possibility of cheaper, more capable fighting machines that can be used without risk to aircrews.
RF-4E Phantom II
RC-135S Cobra Ball
RC-135U Combat Sent
RC-135V and RC-135W Rivet Joint
RQ-4B Global Hawk
RQ-11 Raven
RQ-170 Sentinel
U-2S "Dragon Lady"
T – Trainer
The Air Force's trainer aircraft are used to train pilots, combat systems officers, and other aircrew in their duties.
T-1A Jayhawk
T-6A Texan II
T-38A, (A)T-38B and T-38C Talon
T-41D Mescalero
T-51A
T-53A Kadet II
TC-135W
TH-1H Iroquois
TU-2S Dragon Lady
TG – Trainer gliders
Several gliders are used by the USAF, primarily used for cadet flying training at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
TG-15A
TG-15B
TG-16
U – Utility
Utility aircraft are used basically for what they are needed for at the time. For example, a Huey may be used to transport personnel around a large base or launch site, while it can also be used for evacuation. These aircraft are all around use aircraft.
U-28A Draco
UH-1N Iroquois
UV-18B Twin Otter
V – VIP staff transport
These aircraft are used for the transportation of Very Important Persons (VIPs). Notable people include the president, vice president, cabinet secretaries, government officials (e.g., senators and representatives), the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other key personnel.
VC-25A (two used as Air Force One)
C-21A Learjet
C-32A and C-32B (used as Air Force Two)
C-37A Gulfstream V and C-37B Gulfstream G550
C-40B and C-40C
W – Weather reconnaissance
These aircraft are used to study meteorological events such as hurricanes and typhoons.
WC-130J Hurricane Hunter
WC-135C and WC-135W Constant Phoenix
Undesignated foreign aircraft
CN-235-100 (427th Special Operations Squadron)
Grob G 120TP
Mil Mi-17 (OPFOR training)
See also
Notes
References
External links
Official
Official USAF site
Air Force Blue Tube page on youtube.com
Other
Searchable database of Air Force historical reports
USAF emblems
USAF Communications Troops
Members of the US Air Force on RallyPoint
Aircraft Investment Plan, Fiscal Years (FY) 2011–2040, Submitted with the FY 2011 Budget
National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force: Report to the President and the Congress of the United States
Works by or about United States Air Force at the Internet Archive |
Estadio_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADn_Olaeta | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADn_Olaeta | [
631
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadio_Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%ADn_Olaeta"
] | Estadio José Martín Olaeta is a football stadium located in the city of Rosario of Santa Fe Province, Argentina. The stadium is owned and operated by C.A. Argentino. It has a capacity of 8,500 spectators and was inaugurated in 1944.
The stadium was named after José Martín Olaeta, president of the club what promoted Argentino's affiliation to Argentine Football Association (AFA) in 1944, as part of being behind the construction of the venue. It has two grandstands, one cement-built and another wooden-built. Olaeta is regarded as the most important executive in club's history.
It was declared "City of Rosario Heritage Site" in 2012. The statement said "the stadium's heritage value is not its architectural style but what this means for its neighbors and club members".
History
The first Club Argentino stadium was located on Boulevard Avellaneda and Gorriti streets, in Barrio Refinería, then moving to Gorriti and Iguazú street in Barrio Industrial. When the institution requested affiliation to AFA in 1943, the observers requested the club to build a grandstand to fulfil the AFA's regulations for official competitions. Club executives decided to buy one of the boundaries lands to make the refurbishments requested. As the land's owner refused to sell his property, Olaeta (then president of the club) decided to acquire a land in the north side of the city, on Víctor Mercante street, where the stadium was finally built, and affiliation was accepted by the AFA.
Club Atlético Argentino made their debut in tournaments organised by AFA in the 1944 Torneo de Ascenso (then the second division of Argentine football) playing its first match vs All Boys, on 15 April 1944, which was also the first match held in Estadio Olaeta.
== References == |
1944_in_Argentina | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_in_Argentina | [
631
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_in_Argentina"
] | Events from the year 1944 in Argentina.
Incumbents
President: Pedro Pablo Ramírez (until 25 February); Edelmiro Julián Farrell (from 25 February)
Vice president: vacant (until 8 July); Juan Perón (from 8 July)
Governors
Buenos Aires Province:
until 5 January: Faustino J. Legón
5 January-5 May: Julio O. Ojea
5 May-19 July: Luis García Mata
19 July-27 December: Juan Carlos Sanguinetti
from 27 December: Roberto M. Vanetta
Mendoza Province: Aristóbulo Vargas Belmonte
Vice Governors
Buenos Aires Province: vacant
Events
January
15 January – 1944 San Juan earthquake, produces nearly 7000 deaths, 12000 injured and destroyed the 90% of building in the city
22 January – Juan Perón and Eva Perón met during a fundraising for the aforementioned earthquake.
February
Pedro Ramírez resigns as president, being replaced by Edelmiro Farrell
March
Bernardo Houssay, Juan Lewis and Eduardo Menendez establish the Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental
April
May
June
Juan Perón is appointed vice president.
The United States and Britain remove their ambassadors from Argentina.
July
August
The United States confiscate Argentine gold located in the US, and forbid commerce with Argentina.
September
October
Sanction of the Rural laborer statute
November
16 November: First issue of the Rico Tipo comic book
December
Unknown date
Ongoing
Argentina keeps a neutral stance in World War II, amid foreign pressure to join the war
Births
9 May – Paulina Vinderman, poet and translator
2 July – Vicente de la Mata, footballer
25 September – Susana Viau, journalist
date unknown – Susana Giménez, model, actress and TV presenter
Deaths
15 November - Cayetano Santos Godino, serial killer (born 1896)
See also
List of Argentine films of 1944
References
Bibliography
Romero, Luis Alberto (2010). 1940-1949. Buenos Aires: Clarín. ISBN 978-987-07-0874-2. |
Damon_Wayans | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Wayans | [
632
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Wayans"
] | Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. (; born September 4, 1960) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, and writer. He performed as a comedian and actor throughout the 1980s, including a year-long stint on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. He later became a writer and performer on Fox's sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990–1992), on his animated series Waynehead (1996–1997) and on his TV series Damon (1998). Since then, he has starred in a number of films and television shows, some of which he has co-produced or co-written, including Mo Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Bulletproof, and the sitcom My Wife and Kids. From 2016 to 2019, he starred as Roger Murtaugh in the Fox television series Lethal Weapon. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers.
Early life
Wayans was born in Harlem in New York City, the son of Elvira Alethia (Green), a homemaker, singer and social worker, and Howell Stouten Wayans, a supermarket manager. He has five sisters—Elvira, Vonnie, Nadia, Kim and Diedra—and four brothers—Keenen, Marlon, Shawn and Dwayne. He was club footed as a child.
This attribute would also be given to his character in My Wife and Kids, and his character on the short lived cartoon series Waynehead. Wayans attended Murry Bergtraum High School.
Career
Damon started doing stand-up comedy in 1982. His earliest film appearance was a brief cameo as an effeminate hotel employee in the Eddie Murphy film of 1984, Beverly Hills Cop. From 1985 to 1986, he appeared on Saturday Night Live as a featured player, before getting fired after just eleven episodes for improvising during a live sketch, playing his character as a flamboyant gay cop instead of a straight cop. Wayans later claimed that he wanted to be fired due to lack of creative freedom and screen time. Wayans further explained that Lorne Michaels did not want Wayans to do too much too soon and began drawing comparisons to Eddie Murphy who had just left the show. He also appeared in the syndicated television series Solid Gold during the 1980s as a comedian.
With his brother Keenen, Wayans created the Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color, which had a mostly African-American cast. The show went on the air in April 1990. It continued running until May 1994, although Wayans left the show in 1992 to pursue a film career.
After In Living Color, he starred in films such as Mo' Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Celtic Pride, Bulletproof, and The Great White Hype, and wrote and starred in the film Blankman. He also appeared in Janet Jackson's video "The Best Things in Life Are Free" and was considered for the role of The Riddler in Batman Forever (the role went to Jim Carrey, his co star from In Living Color and Earth Girls Are Easy).
In October 1996, he produced Waynehead, a short lived cartoon for The WB, loosely based on his own childhood growing up in a large family, starring a poor boy with a club foot. The show only lasted a season due to poor ratings. From 1997 to 1998, he was the executive producer of 413 Hope St., a short lived drama on the FOX network starring Richard Roundtree and Jesse L. Martin.
In March 1998, he starred in the short lived comedy television series Damon, in which he played a detective from Chicago. It aired on Fox. In 1999, his The New York Times bestselling book Bootleg, with co author David Asbery was published; it is a humorous compilation of his observations about family.
In October 2000, he was the lead in Spike Lee's Bamboozled. Wayans starred in the ABC comedy series My Wife and Kids from March 2001 to May 2005. He also was a co-creator of the short lived ABC sitcom Rodney starring Rodney Carrington and Jennifer Aspen that ran from 2004–2006. In the end of 2006, he produced and starred in the Showtime sketch comedy series The Underground, which also featured his son, Damon Jr. He also hosted the June 2006 BET Awards.
In 2011, he also added author of a serious fictional novel to his credits with "Red Hats" which is the story of a suicidal sixty five-year-old woman who finds friendship and happiness, when she joins the Red Hat Society. As of 2014, Wayans continues to perform stand-up comedy and has developed apps with his company of freelancers "MIMS" (Money in My Sleep). The company created applications such as Flick Dat, Diddeo and VHedz.
On November 12, 2015, at the Irvine Improv, Damon Wayans announced his retirement from stand up commencing December 2015. In September 2016, he was cast as Roger Murtaugh in the television version of Lethal Weapon, a role originated by Danny Glover in the film series. On October 3, 2018, it was reported that Wayans would leave Lethal Weapon after filming of the first thirteen episodes of Season 3 wrapped. Lethal Weapon officially ended in February 2019, after three seasons.
Damon Wayans will return to television in the fall of 2024 with his son Damon Jr. on the CBS sitcom Poppa's House.
Awards and honors
Wayans received four Emmy awards nominations for his acting and writing in In Living Color.
For his role in My Wife and Kids, he won the 2002 People's Choice Awards for Favorite Male Performer in a New TV Series, and received four International Press Academy "Golden Satellite Award" nominations.
Personal life
Wayans was married to Lisa Thorner; they divorced in 2000. He has four children with Thorner: sons Damon Wayans Jr. and Michael Wayans and daughters Cara Mia Wayans and Kyla Wayans. He is also a grandfather. He is the uncle of Damien Dante Wayans, Chaunté Wayans and Craig Wayans.
Wayans was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in January 2013.
In September 2015, Wayans defended comedian Bill Cosby following sexual assault accusations against him, saying "It's a money hustle... Forty years – listen, how big is his penis that it gives you amnesia for 40 years? If you listen to them talk, they go, 'Well, the first time...' The first time? Bitch, how many times did it happen? Just listen to what they're saying and some of them really is unrape-able. I look at them and go, 'You don't want that. Get outta here.'"
Filmography
Film
Television
Documentary
References
External links
Damon Wayans at IMDb
Twit.tv's Triangulation Episode 175 Damon Wayans |
Saturday_Night_Live_season_11 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_season_11 | [
632
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_season_11"
] | The eleventh season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 9, 1985, and May 24, 1986.
The season marked Lorne Michaels' return to SNL as showrunner after a five-year hiatus. Michaels hired new cast members, but instead of his usual approach of recruiting from comedy clubs and improv groups, he cast established names such as Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack. Due to their relative inexperience in comedy, the new cast failed to connect with audiences.
The show also featured a frustrated writing crew (including future Simpsons writers Jon Vitti, George Meyer, and John Swartzwelder), who didn't know how to write sketches for such an eclectic cast. The season was plagued by harsh criticism, low ratings, and rumors of a possible cancellation. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff planned to cancel SNL after its season finale in May 1986; Michaels, however, pleaded with Tartikoff to let the show go on. Most of the cast was let go for the following season, with only Dunn, Lovitz and Miller along with featured player Brown returning, making it one of the more notable cast overhauls alongside season 6 and season 20.
Cast
With Dick Ebersol's cast and writers gone, Michaels hired Academy Award nominee Randy Quaid, best known for his work in The Last Detail and National Lampoon's Vacation; as well as Joan Cusack and Robert Downey Jr. Part of the reasoning that Michaels chose younger performers was due to SNL's original audience, which comprised baby boomers, now nearing middle age, meaning that producers and NBC executives needed to appeal to a younger audience.
Danitra Vance was added along with stand-up comedians Dennis Miller and Damon Wayans, and improv comedians Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz. Terry Sweeney, who had been a writer on season 6 of SNL, was added to the cast, making him the first openly gay male cast member. Don Novello returned as his popular Father Guido Sarducci character. Writer A. Whitney Brown was also added to the cast midseason and Al Franken returned in the finale. Miller became the new anchor for Weekend Update. Despite the season's negative reception, Lovitz would gain popularity with characters like the Pathological Liar and Master Thespian.
According to a recent interview with short-term cast member Dan Vitale, actress Anjelica Huston was nearly hired as a cast member this season. Huston, a friend of Lorne's, was begged to join the show as a cast member; instead she co-hosted the season finale with Billy Martin.
Incidents
Notable moments of the season included when Chevy Chase hosted the show. Chase was not popular with the cast and crew and, according to the book Live From New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, Chase pitched an idea for a sketch that featured openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney as a person with AIDS who is weighed by a doctor to see how much weight he lost.
Cast roster
bold denotes Weekend Update anchor
Writers
This season's writers were A. Whitney Brown, Tom Davis, Jim Downey, Al Franken, Jack Handey, Lanier Laney, Carol Leifer, George Meyer, Lorne Michaels, Don Novello, Michael O'Donoghue, R. D. Rosen, Herb Sargent, Suzy Schneider, Robert Smigel, John Swartzwelder, Terry Sweeney, Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch. The head writer was Jim Downey. Downey and Sargent were the only writers from the previous season to return to the show.
Episodes
References
Works cited
Shales, Tom; Miller, James Andrew (2002). Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0316781466. |
In_Living_Color | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Living_Color | [
632
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Living_Color"
] | In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series that originally ran on Fox from April 15, 1990, to May 19, 1994. Keenen Ivory Wayans created, wrote and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Television and was taped at stage 7 at the Metromedia Square on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
The title of the series was inspired by the NBC announcement of broadcasts being presented "in living color" during the 1960s, prior to mainstream color television. It also refers to the fact that most of the show's cast was African Americans, unlike other popular sketch comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live, whose casts were mostly white at the time. In Living Color portrayed a form of irreverent Black humor in a time when mainstream American tastes regarding Black comedy on television had been set by inoffensive family-friendly shows such as The Cosby Show, causing an eventual feud for control between Fox executives and the Wayans.
Other members of the Wayans family—Damon, Kim, Shawn, and Marlon—had regular roles, while brother Dwayne frequently appeared as an extra. The show also starred several previously unknown comedians and actors, including Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, Kelly Coffield Park, and T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh. The show introduced Jennifer Lopez and Carrie Ann Inaba as members of In Living Color's dance troupe The Fly Girls, with actress Rosie Perez serving as choreographer. The show was immensely popular in its first two seasons, capturing more than a 10-point Nielsen rating; in the third and fourth seasons, ratings faltered as the Wayans brothers fell out with the Fox network's leadership over creative control and rights.
The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series in 1990. The series gained international prominence for its bold move and its all-time high ratings gained by airing a live, special episode as a counterprogram for the halftime show of U.S. leader CBS's live telecast of Super Bowl XXVI, prompting the National Football League to book A-list acts for future game entertainment, starting with Michael Jackson the following year. In 2018, a history of the show, Homey Don't Play That! by David Peisner, was released by 37 INK, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Episodes
Cast
Cast members
Guest stars
Chris Rock appeared (as a "special guest star") in a number of sketches in the fifth season, and reprised his "Cheap Pete" character from I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. In the early years of In Living Color, Rock was parodied as being "the only African American cast member on Saturday Night Live" (despite Tim Meadows and Ellen Cleghorne appearing on the program at the time). In an SNL episode honoring Mother's Day, Rock's mother states that she is disappointed in him for not trying out for In Living Color, to which Rock states he is happy with his job on SNL.
Other recurring guest stars in the fifth season include Nick Bakay (for The Dirty Dozens sketches) and Peter Marshall (for several editions of East Hollywood Squares). Rapper Biz Markie also appeared in various roles as a guest star in the fifth season, such as being in drag as Wanda the Ugly Woman's sister or as "Dirty Dozens" contestant Damian "Foosball" Franklin. Ed O'Neill made a cameo appearance as Al Bundy in a "Dirty Dozens" segment.
Production
Early history
Following Keenen Ivory Wayans' success with Hollywood Shuffle and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Fox approached Wayans to offer him his own show. Wayans wanted to produce a variety show similar to Saturday Night Live, but with a cast of people of color that took chances with its content. Fox gave Wayans a lot of freedom with the show, although Fox executives were a bit concerned about the show's content prior to its television debut.
In announcing its debut, Fox described In Living Color as a "contemporary comedy variety show". In its preview, the Christian Science Monitor warned that its, "raw tone may offend some, but it does allow a talented troupe to experiment with black themes in a Saturday Night Live-ish format." Keenen Ivory Wayans said, "I wanted to do a show that reflects different points of view. We've added an Asian and a Hispanic minority to the show. We're trying in some way to represent all the voices. ... Minority talent is not in the system and you have to go outside. We found Crystal doing her act in the lobby of a theater in Chicago. We went beyond the Comedy Stores and Improvs, which are not showcase places for minorities."
The first episode aired on Sunday, April 15, 1990, following an episode of Married... with Children. The first episode was watched by 22.7 million people, making it the 29th-most-viewed show for the week.
The Miami Herald said the show was as "smart and saucy as it is self-aware" and "audacious and frequently tasteless, but terrific fun". The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "the fastest, funniest half-hour in a long time". The Seattle Times said it had "the free-wheeling, pointed sense of humor that connects with a large slice of today's audience". The Columbus Dispatch described it as a "marvelously inventive" show that has "catapulted television back to the cutting edge".
Description
The sketch comedy show helped launch the careers of comedians/actors Jim Carrey (then credited as "James Carrey"), one of only two white members of the original cast; Jamie Foxx, who joined the cast in the third season; and David Alan Grier (an established theater actor who had worked in Keenen Ivory Wayans' 1988 motion picture I'm Gonna Git You Sucka).
The series strove to produce comedy with a strong emphasis on modern African American subject matter. It became renowned for parody, especially of race relations in the United States. For instance, Carrey was frequently used to ridicule white musicians such as Snow and Vanilla Ice, who performed in genres more commonly associated with Black people. The Wayans themselves often played exaggerated Black ghetto stereotypes for humor and effect. A sketch parodying Soul Train mocked the show as Old Train, suggesting the show (along with its host, Don Cornelius) was out of touch and only appealed to the elderly and the dead. When asked about the show's use of stereotypes of Black culture for comedy, Wayans said, "Half of comedy is making fun of stereotypes. They only get critical when I do it. Woody Allen has been having fun with his culture for years, and no one says anything about it. Martin Scorsese, his films basically deal with the Italian community, and no one ever says anything to him. John Hughes, all of his films parody upscale white suburban life. Nobody says anything to him. When I do it, then all of a sudden it becomes a racial issue. You know what I mean? It's my culture, and I'm entitled to poke fun at the stereotypes that I didn't create in the first place. I don't even concern myself with that type of criticism, because it's racist in itself."
Prominent skits:
"The Homeboy Shopping Network", featuring Damon and Keenan as streetwise criminals operating an unlicensed, Home Shopping Network-style shopping network out of the back of their van to sell stolen goods.
"Fire Marshal Bill", featuring Carrey as an unhinged, dangerously incompetent fire marshal.
"Men on Film", featuring Damon and Grier as effeminate Black film critics with exaggerated physical motions, such as "two snaps up".
"Homey D. Clown", featuring Damon as a misanthropic, verbally abusive clown doing demeaning entertainment gigs for low pay as part of his prison release program.
"East Hollywood Squares", featuring many of the cast in a ghetto parody of the game show Hollywood Squares.
"Benita Buttrell", featuring Kim Wayans as an untrustworthy neighborhood gossip.
Parodies of Arsenio Hall (who was popular on his own show at the time) by Keenan Wayans.
"Calhoun Tubbs", a blues singer (played by Grier) who sang extremely short songs (about 10 seconds each) at the slightest provocation.
Opening credits
For the first episode, an exotic-looking logo was used for the opening credits. However, after the band Living Colour claimed in a lawsuit that the show stole the band's logo and name, the logo was changed to one with rather plain-type letters of three colors. The show title itself is a homage to the NBC Peacock tag line, "The following program is brought to you in living color" from the 1960s when television was transitioning from black & white to color TV.
In the first two seasons, the opening sequence was set in a room covered with painters' tarps. Each cast member, wearing black-and-white, played with brightly colored paint in a different way (throwing paintballs at the camera by hand, spray painting the lens, using a roller to cover the camera lens, etc.). The sequence ended with a segue to a set built to resemble the rooftop of an apartment building, where the show's dancers performed a routine and opened a door to let Keenen Ivory Wayans greet a live audience.
For the third and fourth seasons, an animated sequence and different logo were used. Cast members were superimposed over pictures hanging in an art gallery and interacted with them in different ways (spinning the canvas to put it right-side up, swinging the frame out as if it were a door, etc.). The final image was of the logo on a black canvas, which shattered to begin the show. The fifth season retained the logo, but depicted the cast members on various signs and billboards around a city (either New York or Chicago), ending with the logo displayed on a theater marquee. The main title sequences were created by Klasky-Csupo, best known for Rugrats and produced by Robert Jason with some graphics by Beau Tardy.
The hip-hop group Heavy D & the Boyz performed two different versions of the opening theme. One version was used for the first two seasons and remixed for the fifth, while the other was featured in the third and fourth seasons.
Live musical performances
In Living Color was known for its live music performances, which started in Season 2 with Queen Latifah as their first performer (appearing again in the third season). Additional musical acts who appeared were Heavy D, Public Enemy, Kris Kross, En Vogue, Eazy-E, Da Youngsta's, Monie Love, Onyx, 3rd Bass, MC Lyte, Arrested Development, Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Tupac Shakur, Father MC, Gang Starr, The Pharcyde, Simple E, Us3, Digable Planets, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Nice & Smooth, Wreckx-n-Effect, A.D.O.R., Redman, Showbiz and A.G., Patra, Naughty by Nature, Lords of the Underground, Prince Markie Dee, A Tribe Called Quest, Color Me Badd and Leaders of the New School.
The Fly Girls
The show employed an in-house dance troupe known as the "Fly Girls". The original lineup consisted of Carrie Ann Inaba (who became a choreographer and judge on Dancing with the Stars), Cari French, Deidre Lang, Lisa Marie Todd, Barbara Lumpkin and Michelle Whitney-Morrison. Rosie Perez was the choreographer for the first four seasons. The most notable former Fly Girl was future actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, who joined the show in its third season.
Throughout the show's run, the Fly Girls frequently performed a dance routine to lead into commercial breaks and/or during the closing credits. In the first two seasons, they also performed a routine that immediately followed the opening sequence. Music was provided by an in-house DJ – Shawn Wayans (credited as SW-1) in the first two seasons, then DJ Twist from season 3 onward.
The Fly Girls would sometimes be used as extras in sketches, or as part of an opening gag. In one sketch, they were shown performing open-heart surgery (in the sketch, the girls are dancing in order to pay their way through medical school). Another routine featured the three original female cast members dancing off-beat during the introduction of the show, when it was revealed that the regular Fly Girls were all bound and gagged and breaking through the door where Keenan Ivory Wayans enters.
Three of the Fly Girls also appeared in the eleventh episode of Muppets Tonight's second season in 1997.
Wayans family departures
Keenen Ivory Wayans stopped appearing in sketches in 1992 after the end of the third season, over disputes with Fox about the network censoring the show's content and rerunning early episodes without his consultation. Wayans feared that Fox would ultimately decrease the syndication value of In Living Color.
The Wayans protested on the Christmas live special by wearing shades, caps and not participating at the end of the closing credits as Jamie Foxx sang This Christmas.
Damon went on to pursue a movie career around the same time, though he made occasional return appearances during the fourth season. In season four (1992–1993), Keenen appeared only in the season opener, though he remained the executive producer and thus stayed in the opening credits until the thirteenth episode. Marlon, who joined the show that same year, left shortly after Keenen resigned as producer. Shawn and Kim tried to leave as well, but they were contractually obligated to stay. Both left at the end of the fourth season.
Broadcast and syndication
Originally produced by 20th Television on Fox, the series was in reruns on local affiliates for a few years, but has since become a longstanding mainstay on FX and FXX, which had been sister channels to Fox prior to being acquired by The Walt Disney Company. In syndication, the series is distributed by Disney-ABC Domestic Television.
Reruns have also aired on MTV2, VH1, NuvoTV, Fusion TV, BET, and Centric, while the series previously aired on Aspire and TV One as of September 2020.
Unlike past runs on FX and the Viacom Media Networks, the FXX cut of episodes are mostly uncut and censored. The music video parodies and spoken references to licensed songs have been reinstated, but the "Bolt 45" sketch, the "drop the soap" line, and the "Men on Football" sketch with the adlibbed lines about Richard Gere's and Carl Lewis's alleged homosexuality are still edited (though the facial ejaculation shot on "Men on Fitness" was reinstated), along with a line from the season five sketch "Fire Marshall Bill at the Magic Show" that makes reference to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (the missing line is, "That's what they said about the World Trade Center, son. But me and my friend Abdul and a couple of pounds of plastique explosives showed them different." Bill's laugh and his catchphrase "Lemme show ya somethin'" was also cut abruptly), due to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Best of In Living Color aired on MyNetworkTV from April 16 to June 18, 2008. Hosted by David Alan Grier, it was a retrospective featuring classic sketches, along with cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. The show aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 pm Eastern/7:30 pm Central, after MyNetworkTV's sitcom Under One Roof.
Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has released all five seasons of In Living Color on DVD in Region 1. Due to music licensing issues, some sketches have been edited to remove any and all mention of licensed songs, from characters waxing lyrical to entire performances (including the music video parodies and some of the Fly Girl dancing interstitials). Additionally, the "Bolt 45" sketch (which aired once on May 5, 1990) was omitted, and the "soap" portion of the "drop the soap" line in the second "Men on Film" sketch has been muted.
Reception
Ratings
1990–91: #62 (10.5 rating)
1991–92: #42 (12.2 rating)
1992–93: #53 (10.4 rating)
1993–94: #90 (7.6 rating)
Awards
Image Awards 1994 for Outstanding Variety Series
Image Awards 1992 for Outstanding Comedy Series
PGA Awards 1992 for Most Promising Producer in Television: Keenen Ivory Wayans
People's Choice Award 1991 for Favorite New TV Comedy Series Tied with The Simpsons (1989)
TV Land Awards 2012 for Groundbreaking Show: Shared with whole cast
Primetime Emmy Award 1990 for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series
Crossovers
At the 2006 BET Awards when the show returned from one of its commercial breaks, the show's host Damon Wayans played a character very reminiscent to "Men on ..." critic Blaine Edwards
In Living Color alums Damon Wayans, Jim Carrey, and David Alan Grier reprised some of their In Living Color characters on Saturday Night Live:
Damon Wayans, a featured player during that show's eleventh season, hosted an episode from SNL's 20th season in 1995, where he brought on two of his famous In Living Color characters: homeless wino Anton Jackson and gay film critic Blaine Edwards. In the latter sketch, David Alan Grier made a surprise on-set appearance as Antoine Merriweather; Grier himself would also host SNL on December 9, 1995 (season 21) and January 18, 1997 (season 22), but did not reprise any of his In Living Color characters during those respective episodes.
Jim Carrey auditioned to be one of the repertory members on SNL's ill-fated 1980–1981 season, but was dropped in favor of Charles Rocket (who later appeared in the 1988 film Earth Girls Are Easy and the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber with Carrey). Carrey also auditioned for the 1985–1986 season (season 11), but backed out after seeing a man threatening to jump from 30 Rockefeller Center, believing that the stress of working on Saturday Night Live would drive Carrey to suicide. Carrey hosted the season finale of SNL's 21st season in 1996, where he impersonated Fire Marshal Bill during the monologue. Carrey's most recent hosting stint, in October 2014, involved a Carrey family reunion sketch in which Cecily Strong plays Carrey's aunt, who is modeled after Fire Marshal Bill.
Jamie Foxx reprised his role as Wanda in a short segment at the 2009 BET Awards.
In 1997, three of the Fly Girls also appeared in the eleventh episode of Muppets Tonight's second season.
In the 1997 film Liar Liar, Jim Carrey reprised his "Fire Marshal Bill" character (albeit with no lines) in the background of one of the closing scenes.
The February 10, 2001 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Jennifer Lopez included a sketch where Lopez "reunited" with the Fly Girls (played by Rachel Dratch, Jerry Minor and Tracy Morgan).
Attempted revival
In 2011, there were plans to make a revival of the original series that featured a new cast, characters, and sketches. The pilot episodes were hosted and executive produced by original series creator and cast member Keenen Ivory Wayans. In early 2012, Tabitha and Napoleon D'umo were hired as the choreographers. They cast the new line-up of The Fly Girls and shot pilot episodes for the show which were set to air on Fox, like the original. However, on January 8, 2013, Keenen Ivory Wayans confirmed the reboot had been canceled because he and Fox did not feel that the show was sustainable after one season.
Reported cast members included Cooper Barnes, Jennifer Bartels, Sydney Castillo, Josh Duvendeck, Jermaine Fowler, Ayana Hampton, Kali Hawk, and Lil Rel Howery. In addition, featured cast members were Henry Cho, Melanie Minichino, and Chris Leidecker. Members of the new Fly Girls included Christina Chandler, Tera Perez, Lisa Rosenthal, Katee Shean, and Whitney Wiley.
Many of the cast members of the revival (Bartels, Fowler, and Howery) went on to create the TruTV sketch show Friends of the People.
Legacy
Singer Bruno Mars paid tribute to the television program in the music video for his single "Finesse".
See also
References
External links
In Living Color at IMDb
Clips and Skits from the Show
In Living Color streaming episodes on TheWB |
List_of_In_Living_Color_episodes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Living_Color_episodes | [
632
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Living_Color_episodes"
] | This article lists the episodes of the television show In Living Color during its five-season run.
Series overview
Episodes
This list is considered far from complete. Some sketches may have been omitted due to lack of evidence. Sources of the sketch titles shown below come from the DVD collection and the televised version shown on Fox, FX, FXX, BET, Centric, Aspire, and Fusion TV.
Season 1 (1990)
Season 2 (1990–91)
Season 3 (1991–92)
Season 4 (1992–93)
Season 5 (1993–94)
Live performances
Season 2
Queen Latifah
Monie Love
Heavy D & the Boyz
3rd Bass
D-Nice
Nikki D
Rich Nice
Leaders of the New School
Another Bad Creation
KRS-One
Public Enemy with Ice Cube
The Afros
Season 3
Leaders of the New School
Nice & Smooth
Big Daddy Kane
Queen Latifah
A Tribe Called Quest
Color Me Badd
Eric B. & Rakim
Shabba Ranks with Maxi Priest
Black Sheep
Kris Kross
Jodeci
Heavy D & the Boyz with 2Pac and Flavor Flav
MC Lyte
Season 4
Redman
Gang Starr with Nice & Smooth
A.D.O.R.
Grand Puba
Wreckx-n-Effect with Teddy Riley
Pete Rock & CL Smooth
Mary J. Blige
Jamie Foxx
Digable Planets
Father MC
Another Bad Creation
Arrested Development
Naughty by Nature
Heavy D & the Boyz
Prince Markie Dee & The Soul Convention
Da Youngsta's
Showbiz and A.G. with Dres
Onyx
The Pharcyde
Season 5
Guru with N'Dea Davenport
Leaders of the New School
Lords of the Underground
Us3
Patra with Lyn Collins
Simple E
Eazy-E with Dresta and B.G. Knocc Out
Souls of Mischief
Boss
Meshell Ndegeocello
To Be Continued
== References == |
1994_FIFA_World_Cup | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_FIFA_World_Cup | [
633
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_FIFA_World_Cup"
] | The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States was chosen as the host by FIFA on July 4, 1988. Despite soccer's relative lack of popularity in the host nation, the tournament was the most financially successful in World Cup history. It broke tournament records with overall attendance of 3,587,538 and an average of 68,991 per game, figures that stand unsurpassed as of 2022, despite the expansion of the competition from 24 to 32 teams starting with the 1998 World Cup.
Brazil was crowned the winner after defeating Italy 3–2 in a penalty shootout at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, near Los Angeles, after the game had ended 0–0 after extra time. It was the first World Cup final to be decided on penalties. The victory made Brazil the first nation to win four World Cup titles. There were three new entrants in the tournament: Greece, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia; Russia also appeared as a separate nation for the first time, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and for the first time since 1938, a unified Germany took part in the tournament. It was also the defending champion, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Bulgaria. It was the first World Cup where three points were awarded for a victory instead of two and also the first with the back-pass rule. This was done to encourage a more attacking style of soccer as a response to the criticism of the defensive tactics and low-scoring matches of the 1990 World Cup. This resulted in an average of 2.71 goals per match, compared to 2.21 in 1990.
Background and preparations
Bidding process
Three nations bid to host the event: United States, Brazil, and Morocco. The vote was held in Zurich on July 4, 1988 (Independence Day in the United States), and only took one round with the United States bid receiving a little over half of the votes by the FIFA Executive Committee members. FIFA hoped that by staging the world's most prestigious tournament there, it would lead to a growth of interest in the sport.
An inspection committee also found that the proposed Brazilian stadiums were deficient, while the Moroccan bid relied on the construction of nine new stadiums. Conversely, all the proposed stadiums in the United States were already built and fully functioning; U.S. Soccer spent $500 million preparing and organizing the tournament, far less than the billions other countries previously had spent and subsequently would spend on preparing for this tournament. The U.S. bid was seen as the favorite and was prepared in response to losing the right to be the replacement host for the 1986 tournament following Colombia's withdrawal.
One condition FIFA imposed was the creation of a professional soccer league – Major League Soccer was founded in 1993 and began operating in 1996. There was some initial controversy about awarding the World Cup to a country where soccer was not a nationally popular sport, and at the time, in 1988, the U.S. no longer had a professional league; the North American Soccer League, established in 1967, had folded in 1984 after attendance faded. The success of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, particularly the soccer tournament that drew 1.4 million spectators throughout the event, also contributed to FIFA's decision.
The United States had previously bid to host the 1986 FIFA World Cup, after Colombia withdrew as the host nation in November 1982 because of economic concerns. Despite a presentation led by former North American Soccer League players Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer, as well as former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the executive committee selected Mexico. There were proposals by FIFA to introduce larger goals and breaks after every quarter instead of just at halftime in order to appease U.S. television advertisers. These proposals were met with resistance, and ultimately rejected.
Venues
The games were played in nine cities across the contiguous United States. All stadiums had a capacity of at least 53,000 and were occupied by professional or college American football teams.
Other host city candidates included Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tampa, as well as smaller communities such as Annapolis, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; Corvallis, Oregon; and New Haven, Connecticut. Some sites, including Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami and Candlestick Park in San Francisco, were rejected because of conflicts with Major League Baseball. Stanford Stadium, 30 miles (48 km) southeast of San Francisco, and the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, were picked (the Miami Orange Bowl, another Miami venue, required major renovations to meet tournament standards).
The Rose Bowl hosted the most matches with eight, four of them in the knockout stage, including the final. Giants Stadium hosted seven games including a semifinal; Foxborough Stadium, Stanford Stadium, and the Cotton Bowl hosted six games each, and Soldier Field, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, and the Citrus Bowl hosted five games each. Pontiac Silverdome, the first indoor stadium used in a World Cup, hosted the least number of matches, four group-stage games. The Silverdome was also the only venue of the nine used that did not host knockout round games.
Because of the large area of the continental United States, the game locations were often far apart. Some teams in Groups A and B had to travel from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Detroit and back again, covering 2,300 miles (3,700 km) and four time zones. Teams in Groups C and D only played in Boston, Chicago, and Dallas—a trip from Boston to Dallas is 2,000 miles (3,200 km), but only covers two time zones; Chicago is in the same time zone as Dallas but is still 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away from both Dallas and Boston. Teams in Groups E and F had it a bit easier—they played exclusively in East Coast cities and stayed in the same time zone. A few teams, such as Cameroon and Colombia, did not have to cross the country to play games.
The variety of climates in different cities across the United States also sometimes made playing conditions challenging. Aside from the oceanic coolness of Boston (Foxborough), the Mediterranean climate of San Francisco (Stanford), and occasionally the coolness of Chicago, as they had been in Mexico in 1970 and 1986 most matches were played in hot and/or humid conditions, thanks to nearly all of the games being scheduled to be played during the day instead of at night to suit a time difference compromise for television in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; this had always been done every time a World Cup was held in the Americas. Although playing in the mostly dry heat and smoggy conditions of Los Angeles (Pasadena) and the mixture of heat and humidity of Washington and New Jersey sometimes proved to be difficult, the cities with the most consistently oppressive conditions were Orlando and Dallas in the South, because of the combination of heat and extreme humidity. The Floridian tropical climate of Orlando meant all games there were played in temperatures of 95 °F (35 °C) or above with dew points above 70 or more (the temperature there during the group stage game between Mexico and Ireland was 105 °F (41 °C)) due to the mid-day start times. Dallas was not much different: in the humid heat of a Texas summer, temperatures exceeded 100 °F (38 °C) during mid-day, when games there were staged in the open-type Cotton Bowl meant that conditions were just as oppressive there as they were in Orlando. Detroit also proved to be difficult: the Pontiac Silverdome did not have a working cooling system and because it was an air-supported stadium, the air could not escape through circulation, so temperatures inside the stadium would climb past 90 °F (32 °C) with 40% humidity. United States midfielder Thomas Dooley described the Silverdome as "the worst place I have ever played at".
Since the tournament, Pontiac Silverdome, Giants Stadium, and Foxboro Stadium have been demolished, and RFK Stadium is slated for demolition by 2023. Stanford Stadium, the Cotton Bowl, the Citrus Bowl (now Camping World Stadium), and Soldier Field have all been moderately or heavily modified. The Rose Bowl is the only largely unmodified stadium used for this tournament.
Participating teams and officials
Qualification
Three teams—one African, one Asian, and one European—made their debuts at the 1994 tournament. Nigeria qualified from the African zone alongside Cameroon and Morocco as CAF was granted three spots as a result of the strong performances by African teams in 1986 and 1990. In the Asian zone, Saudi Arabia qualified for the first time by topping the final round group ahead of South Korea as both edged out Japan, which was close to making its own World Cup debut, but was denied by Iraq in what became known as the "Agony of Doha". In the European zone, Greece made its first World Cup appearance after topping a group from which Russia also qualified, competing independently for the first time after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The defending champion, West Germany, was united with its East German counterpart, representing the unified Germany for the first time since the 1938 World Cup. Norway qualified for the first time since 1938, Bolivia for the first time since 1950 (and the last time as of 2022), and Switzerland for the first time since 1966. Norway's 56-year gap between appearances in the final tournament equaled Egypt's record in the previous tournament as the longest. This record was later broken when Wales qualified for the 2022 tournament after a 64-year absence. Mexico had its first successful qualification campaign since 1978, failing to qualify in 1982, qualifying as host in 1986, and being banned for the Cachirules scandal in 1990.
The qualification campaigns of both Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were affected by political events. The nation of Czechoslovakia dissolved in 1993, completing its qualifying group under the name "Representation of Czechs and Slovaks" (RCS), but failed to qualify for the finals, having been edged out by Romania and Belgium in Group 4. Yugoslavia (which was supposed to play in Group 5) was suspended from international competition in 1992 as part of United Nations sanctions against the country as a result of the Yugoslav Wars. The sanctions were not lifted until 1994, by which time it was no longer possible for the team to qualify. Chile's suspension from the 1990 FIFA World Cup, following the forced interruption of its qualification game against Brazil, extended to the 1994 qualifiers as well.
This was the first World Cup since World War II in which none of the UK Home Nations of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales qualified (they withdrew their FIFA memberships between 1928 and 1946, during the first three tournaments), with England (finishing third behind Norway and Netherlands in Group 2) missing out after having finished fourth in the 1990 tournament, and Scotland (who finished fourth in Group 1) failing to qualify for the first time since 1970. France, which had been already designated as host of the 1998 tournament, also missed out following surprise home losses to Israel and Bulgaria. This was the second World Cup in a row for which France had failed to qualify, and the last one to date not to feature England, France, and Japan. Other notable absentees were 1986 and 1990 Round of 16 participants Uruguay, UEFA
Euro 1992 champions Denmark, Poland, Portugal, and Hungary.
List of qualified teams
The following 24 teams, shown with their pre-tournament FIFA World Ranking (in parentheses) from June 1994, qualified for the final tournamentː
Squads
Teams were selected following usual FIFA rules with 22 players. Greece, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Spain were the only countries that had all their players coming from domestic teams, while the Republic of Ireland and Nigeria had no players from domestic teams. Saudi Arabia was the only team with no players from European teams.
Referees
Draw
Seeding and drawing
The FIFA Organizing Committee upheld the tradition to seed the host (United States) and defending champion (Germany), along with the other four teams ranked in the top five based on their results obtained in the last three FIFA World Cups. The newly introduced FIFA World Ranking was not used as part of the calculated ranking for the seeding in this World Cup, as FIFA considered it to be too new. Despite that it was not used in any way, for comparison purposes the teams' pre-tournament FIFA World ranking position from June 1994 are shown in parentheses, followed by the official and used ranking (OR) position determined by the results obtained in the last three world cups.
The six top-seeded teams, were allocated in pot 1 and would be drawn into the first position of the six groups playing in the group stage. The remaining 18 teams were allocated into three pots based on geographical sections, with the: six qualified teams from Africa and Americas in pot 2, the top-6 ranked European teams in pot 3, while pot 4 comprised the 7th-10th best qualified European teams along with the two qualified Asian teams.
The principle of the draw was that each of the six drawn groups would have one team drawn respectively from pot 1, 2, 3 and 4; while respecting the following geographical limitations:
At least two European teams from UEFA in all groups, with one group having three European teams.
United States and Mexico could not be drawn in the same group, because only one CONCACAF team per group.
Brazil and Argentina could not be drawn with another South American team, because only one CONMEBOL team per group.
As all qualified Asian teams from AFC were in pot 4, and all qualified African teams from CAF in pot 2, this automatically ensured only allowing maximum one Asian team and maximum one African team per group, as part of the normal draw procedure - without needing to observe special restricting sub-rules for them.
The draw took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center and was televised live on December 19, 1993, on ESPN in the United States & Eurosport in all Europe with English language commentary on the latter channel by Scottish sportscaster Archie Macpherson. The draw presenters were Dick Clark and Faye Dunaway.
Ahead of the draw, the FIFA Organizing Committee had decided to allocate the top-seeded first group position A1 for the United States as the host, C1 for defending champion Germany, and E1 for the Italian team, which had requested to play most of its group matches at Giants Stadium in New York. The three other top-seeded teams would be located at the first position of either group B/D/F, with the decision largely depending on the identity of the other drawn group members for the seeded teams. Therefore, this last decision would only be made by a secret vote made by the FIFA Organizing Committee a few minutes after all teams had been drawn for all groups, and the decision would only be announced as the last step of the televised draw event. To make this procedure possible, the six drawn groups would during the draw be given the colors green, orange, white, black, pink and blue; and the closing remarks at the event would then reveal the group letters represented by the colors. The six groups from A to F would play their group matches in the following nine cities:
Group A and B played in Detroit, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Group C and D played in Chicago, Dallas, and Boston.
Group E and F played in New York, Washington DC, and Orlando.
Procedure for the draw:
Pot 1 was used to draw the six top-seeded teams into the first position of the six groups designated by the colors green, orange, white, black, pink and blue. Group letters behind each color would only be decided by a following secret FIFA Organizing Committee vote, and only be revealed after the draw had been completed. Although the committee had already predetermined ahead of the draw that: the United States should play in group A, Germany should play in group C, and Italy should play in group E.
Pot 2 was used to draw one team to each of the six colored groups, with the draw conducted in the color order from left to right (green, orange, white, black, pink, blue); while this order however at the same time had to respect the following restricted geographical rules:
Rule 1: First two drawn non South American teams shall irrespectively of the color order, first be drawn into the two groups led by a South American team, in order to avoid the possibility for these groups later to be drawn by a second South American team.
Rule 2: First drawn South American team or one of the last two African teams shall irrespectively of the color order, first be drawn into the group led by the CONCACAF team, the United States, in order to avoid the possibility for this group later to be drawn by the second CONCACAF team Mexico.
Rule 3: One of the two South American teams or one of the last two African teams shall irrespectively of the color order, first be drawn into the first available open group being led by a European team, in order to avoid the meeting of two South American teams in the same group.
Rule 4: Mexico can not be drawn together with the United States as they are both CONCACAF teams, so Mexico will be grouped with the first still open available group being led by a European or South American team, as per the color order.
Pot 3 was used to draw one European team to each of the six colored groups, with the draw conducted in the color order from left to right (green, orange, white, black, pink, blue).
Pot 4 was used to draw one European/Asian team to each of six colored groups, with the draw conducted in the color order from left to right (green, orange, white, black, pink, blue). However, in order to respect the geographical rule that five of the groups shall have two European teams - and the rule that three European teams is only allowed in one group, the color order will be skipped subject to these allocation rules:
Rule 1: All drawn Asian (AFC) teams would not be drawn into any of the three groups led by a top-seeded CONCACAF/CONMEBOL team (United States/Brazil/Argentina), but would instead only be allowed to join a group being led by a top-seeded European team.
Rule 2: All drawn European (UEFA) teams, shall first be drawn into the three groups led by a top-seeded CONCACAF/CONMEBOL team (United States/Brazil/Argentina), until the point of time when only European team(s) remain to be drawn from the last pot 4.
The exact group position number for the teams (2, 3 or 4) in each colored group, were also drawn immediately from six special group bowls, after each respective team had been drawn from pot 2, 3 and 4.
Group letters behind each color (green, orange, white, black, pink and blue) would finally be decided by a final secret FIFA Organizing Committee vote, being announced as the last part of the televised event.
The draw was officiated by FIFA general-secretary Sepp Blatter. Teams were drawn by German legend Franz Beckenbauer, heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield and comedian and actor Robin Williams. Numbers for placement in the group were drawn by actor Beau Bridges, Women's World Cup champion Michelle Akers, model Carol Alt, artist Peter Max, racecar driver Mario Andretti and Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics Mary Lou Retton.
Results of the draw
In each group, the teams played three games, one against each of the other teams. After completion of the group stage, the best two teams in each group, as well as the four best-ranked third-place teams, advanced to the round of 16 in the knockout stage. This format was identical to the tournament structure used in 1986 and 1990 except that a win now earned three points instead of two, to encourage more attacking play.
Summary
The format of the competition stayed the same as in the 1990 World Cup: 24 teams qualified, divided into six groups of four. Sixteen teams would qualify for the knockout phase: the six group winners, the six group runners-up, and the four third-placed teams with the best records. This was the last time this format was used, due to the expansion of the finals tournament in 1998 to 32 teams. FIFA introduced three rule changes for this tournament to encourage attacking play: three points awarded for a win in a group stage match instead of two, a relaxed offside rule and a ban on picking up back-passes to goalkeepers. The number of goals increased to 2.73 per game from the record-low of 2.21 in 1990.
The tournament saw the end of Diego Maradona's World Cup career, having played in the 1982, 1986, and 1990 World Cups, and leading Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title and the final of the 1990 World Cup. Maradona was expelled from the tournament by FIFA after he failed a drug test that uncovered ephedrine, a weight-loss drug, in his blood. Colombia, despite high expectations due to their style and impressive qualifying campaign, failed to advance from the round robin. The team was dogged by influence from betting syndicates and drug cartels, with coach Francisco Maturana receiving death threats over squad selection. After scoring an own goal for the United States and effectively eliminating Colombia from the competition, defender Andrés Escobar was shot to death on his return to Colombia outside a bar in a Medellín suburb 10 days later, possibly in retaliation for his mistake.
Bulgaria was one of the biggest surprises of the tournament. The Bulgarians had never won a game in five previous World Cup appearances, but, led by Hristo Stoichkov, who would eventually share the tournament lead in scoring, they presented a formidable challenge for the title. The team won two of their three group games to qualify for the second round, where they advanced after a 3–1 penalty shootout win over Mexico. They then faced reigning world champions Germany in the quarterfinals, where goals from Stoichkov and Letchkov gave them a 2–1 victory. Bulgaria went on to finish in fourth place after losing to Italy in the semifinals and Sweden in the third-place game.
The host nation United States, after a 23rd-place finish in the 1990 tournament, advanced to the second round as one of the best third-place teams. They were eliminated in the Round of 16 in a 1–0 defeat to Brazil on Independence Day.
Brazil's win over the hosts helped take them to the final against Italy. Brazil's path was relatively smooth as they never trailed over 270 minutes of the knockout stage, defeating the Netherlands in the quarterfinals and Sweden in the semis after the aforementioned win over the hosts. The Italians meanwhile had made hard work of reaching the final. During the group stage, Italy struggled and narrowly advanced to the next round, despite losing 1–0 to the Republic of Ireland. Italian playmaker Roberto Baggio, who as the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon D'Or holder, was expected to be one of the stars of the tournament, had not yet scored a goal. During the Round of 16 games against Nigeria, Italy was trailing 1–0 in the dying minutes when Baggio scored the tying goal, forcing the game into extra time. He scored again with a penalty kick to send Italy through. Baggio carried the Italians from there, scoring the game-winning goal in the quarterfinal against Spain, and both goals in Italy's semifinal victory over Bulgaria.
The third-place playoff was set between Bulgaria and Sweden, the team which scored more goals than any other in this World Cup with 15 over seven matches. These teams had also previously met in the qualifying group. Sweden won, 4–0. Swedish forward Tomas Brolin was named to the All-star team.
The final game at the Rose Bowl was tense but devoid of scoring chances. It was the second time in 24 years that the two nations had met in a final. After 120 goalless minutes, the World Cup was decided for the first time by a penalty shootout. After four rounds, Brazil led 3–2, and Baggio, playing injured, had to score to keep Italy's hopes alive. He missed by shooting it over the crossbar, and the Brazilians were crowned champions for the fourth time. After the game ended, Vice President Al Gore hosted the awarding ceremony by handing Brazilian captain Dunga the prestigious trophy; the Brazil national team dedicated the title to the deceased Formula One motor racing champion and countryman Ayrton Senna, who had died two and a half months prior.
The tournament's Golden Boot went jointly to Bulgaria's Stoichkov and Oleg Salenko of Russia, the latter becoming the first player to score five goals in a game, coming in a 6–1 victory against Cameroon. Both players scored six goals in the tournament. Brazilian striker Romário, with five goals, won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player.
Despite the controversy, the U.S. staged a hugely successful tournament, with an average attendance of nearly 70,000, surpassing the 1966 FIFA World Cup average attendance of 51,000, thanks to the large seating capacities of the stadiums in the United States in comparison to the generally smaller venues of Europe and Latin America. To this day, the total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the highest in World Cup history, despite the expansion of the competition from 24 to 32 teams at the 1998 World Cup in France.
Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony of the World Cup was held on June 17 at Chicago's Soldier Field. The ceremony was emceed by Oprah Winfrey, who introduced Diana Ross: she gave a musical performance. Ross was also intended to score a penalty at the beginning of her performance, with the goal then splitting in two as part of a pre-orchestrated stunt. Instead, she kicked the ball wide to the left, missing the goal, but the goalposts collapsed anyway in accordance with the stunt plans. In addition, Daryl Hall and Jon Secada also gave musical performances. It was officially opened by then-President Bill Clinton.
Group stage
Times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−4) (East Rutherford, Foxborough, Orlando, Pontiac and Washington), Central Daylight Time (UTC−5) (Chicago and Dallas), and Pacific Daylight Time (UTC−7) (Pasadena and Stanford).
In the following tables:
Pld = total games played
W = total games won
D = total games drawn (tied)
L = total games lost
GF = total goals scored (goals for)
GA = total goals conceded (goals against)
GD = goal difference (GF−GA)
Pts = total points accumulated
Group A
The Group A game between the United States and Switzerland was the first to take place indoors, played under the roof at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Following the tournament, Colombian defender Andrés Escobar was shot dead on his return to Colombia, possibly in retaliation, after his own goal had contributed to his country's elimination.
Victories against Colombia and the United States (in front of a crowd of 93,869) were enough to see Romania through as group winners, despite a 4–1 hammering by Switzerland in between. The magnitude of that victory allowed Switzerland to move ahead of the United States on goal difference, although the hosts qualified for the second round as one of the best third-placed teams.
Switzerland's 4–1 victory over Romania came nearly 40 years to the date of Switzerland's last World Cup victory, also a 4–1 victory, on that occasion over Italy. The United States' 2–1 victory over Colombia was its first World Cup victory since June 29, 1950, when it upset England 1–0 in the 1950 World Cup.
Group B
Group B produced two of the four semifinalists of this World Cup — Brazil and Sweden — and was also one of the two groups in which only two, rather than three, sides progressed to the second round. The match between the two eliminated teams, Cameroon and Russia, broke two World Cup records. Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first – and remains the only – man to score five goals in a single World Cup game as Russia won 6–1. The goals also ensured that Salenko finished the tournament joint-top scorer with six goals, having previously bagged one against Sweden. Cameroon left a mark too as Roger Milla, at the age of 42, became the oldest World Cup goalscorer of all time, as he grabbed his side's consolation goal in the game. The result was not enough to take Russia through following losses to Brazil and Sweden. Brazil beat Cameroon, and then confirmed the top spot with a draw to Sweden.
The Swedes also progressed, finishing in second place with five points. Sweden's 3–1 victory over Russia was the nation's first World Cup victory since July 3, 1974. Russia failed to progress to the second round for the second time (accounting for the Soviet Union's results four years before), while Cameroon failed to repeat their surprise performance from the previous tournament.
Group C
As was the case with Group B, Group C would only send two teams into the Round of 16 as Spain and defending champions Germany progressed to round two. Coming from two goals down with four minutes left to snatch a 2–2 draw against Spain, the South Koreans very nearly eclipsed that feat against Germany when they came from 3–0 down to lose narrowly 3–2. In spite of these comebacks, South Korea was held to a 0–0 draw against Bolivia in their other group game when a win would have seen them through. Spain's late implosion against the South Koreans effectively decided that it would be Germany who won the group and not them.
Germany, who defeated Bolivia 1–0 in the tournament's opening game, finished with seven points. Spain had to settle for second place despite leading in all three games.
Despite Bolivia finishing last in the group, Erwin Sanchez made team history after scoring the nation's first World Cup goal in a 3–1 loss to Spain. Prior to 1994, Bolivia had never scored in either of their previous appearances at the 1930 and 1950 World Cups.
Group D
Tournament favorites Argentina led by Diego Maradona collected a maximum of six points from their opening two games after dominating Greece 4–0 in Foxboro with a Gabriel Batistuta hattrick before winning a close match against a formidable Nigeria with a 2–1 victory on the same field four days later; despite this Argentina finished third in the group. Nigeria had been very impressive on their World Cup debut, and despite the narrow loss to Argentina, had emerged as group winners following victories against Bulgaria and Greece, the latter in which Nigeria doubled its lead late on a goal from Daniel Amokachi – a goal that would allow Nigeria to top its group. Maradona only played with Argentina during their first two games, both in Foxborough (playing Greece and Nigeria and scoring his last ever World Cup goal against the former); he was thrown out of the tournament after testing positive for ephedrine.
Having qualified for the tournament through a last-gasp goal against France, Bulgaria surprised many people, as the nation had never even won a game at the World Cup finals prior to this tournament. Despite losing its opening game 3–0 to Nigeria, Bulgaria came back in style with a 4–0 win over neighbor Greece (who had suffered exactly the same fate five days earlier against Argentina), and a 2–0 win against Argentina saw them advance. Argentina had actually been winning the group going into injury time, while Bulgaria played the last 25 minutes with 10 men; however, a 91st-minute header from Nasko Sirakov meant that Argentina dropped two places and finished third. Nigeria won the group on goal difference. Bulgaria's victory over Argentina earned them second place.
Group E
Group E remains the only group in World Cup history in which all four teams finished with the same points. All four teams even had the same goal difference. It began at Giants Stadium where Ray Houghton's chip ensured a shock Irish victory over the then-three-time champions Italy by 1–0, as well as gaining a measure of revenge for the previous World Cup, in which Italy both hosted and eliminated Ireland at the quarterfinal stage. The next day in Washington, Norway played its first World Cup game since 1938 and Kjetil Rekdal's goal five minutes from time proved decisive in an equally tense encounter as Norway beat Mexico.
In the second round of group play, Luis García's double had Mexico 2–0 up and in control of the game before a disagreement on the touchline resulted in fines for both Republic of Ireland's manager, Jack Charlton, and their striker John Aldridge. Aldridge was able to regain concentration in time to score six minutes from the end of the game to make it 2–1. Despite their loss, Aldridge's goal proved crucial to Ireland in the final group standings.
During the previous day at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, Italy's World Cup hopes seemed to be diminishing fast as goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca was sent off with the game still at 0–0. Yet despite this, Italy was still able to salvage an important 1–0 victory. Norway would ultimately pay a price for their inability to take advantage of Pagliuca's dismissal. With the four teams level on points, the final two group games would each have to finish as draws for things to stay that way. Republic of Ireland made it through after a dreary 0–0 draw with Norway; while Massaro and Bernal traded strikes as Italy and Mexico played to a 1–1 draw.
Those results meant that Mexico won the group on goals scored, with three in the group. With Ireland and Italy also progressing having finished with identical records, the Irish team qualified as second place as a result of their victory against the Italians. Norway's shortcomings in attack ultimately let them down, and they exited the tournament with only one goal.
Group F
Just as happened to Argentina in Group D, Belgium endured the same fate in Group F. Despite winning both of its first two matches 1–0 against Morocco and neighbors Netherlands, Belgium finished third as, in an upset, it lost to tournament newcomers Saudi Arabia 1–0 in the third game. During that game, Saudi player Saaed Al-Owairan ran from his own half through a maze of Belgian players to score the game's only goal.
Saudi Arabia advanced through to the Round of 16 as well, having also defeated Morocco 2–1. The Netherlands endured a somewhat nervier experience. The opening 2–1 victory against Saudi Arabia was followed by the 1–0 loss against Belgium before another 2–1 victory against Morocco, with Bryan Roy scoring the winner a mere 12 minutes from time, saw the Dutch win the group having scored more goals than Belgium and beaten Saudi Arabia. Morocco, despite losing all three of their group games, did not leave without a fight, as each of their losses were by just a single goal, 1–0 to Belgium, 2–1 to Saudi Arabia, and 2–1 to the Netherlands.
Ranking of third-placed teams
Knockout stage
Bracket
Round of 16
Quarterfinals
Semifinals
Third place playoff
Final
Statistics
Goalscorers
Hristo Stoichkov and Oleg Salenko received the Golden Boot for scoring six goals. In total, 141 goals were scored by 81 players, with only one of them credited as an own goal.
6 goals
Hristo Stoichkov
Oleg Salenko
5 goals
Romário
Roberto Baggio
Jürgen Klinsmann
Kennet Andersson
4 goals
Gabriel Batistuta
Florin Răducioiu
Martin Dahlin
3 goals
2 goals
1 goal
Own goals
Andrés Escobar (against the United States)
Awards
All-star team
The All-star team is a squad consisting of the eleven most impressive players at the 1994 World Cup, as selected by FIFA's Technical Study Group.
Final standings
After the tournament, FIFA published a ranking of all teams that competed in the 1994 World Cup finals based on progress in the competition, overall results and quality of the opposition.
Disciplinary statistics
Total number of yellow cards: 235
Average yellow cards per game: 4.52
Total number of red cards: 15
Average red cards per match: 0.29
First yellow card of the tournament: Jürgen Kohler – Germany against Bolivia
First red card of the tournament: Marco Etcheverry – Bolivia against Germany
Fastest yellow card from kick off: 1 minute – Sergei Gorlukovich – Russia against Sweden
Fastest yellow card after coming on as substitute: 2 minutes – Daniel Borimirov – Bulgaria against Greece (introduced in the 82nd minute)
Latest yellow card in a game without extra time: 90 minutes – José Luis Caminero – Spain against Bolivia, Yuri Nikiforov – Russia against Cameroon, Mohamed Al-Deayea – Saudi Arabia against Morocco
Latest yellow card in a game with extra time: 108 minutes – Basarab Panduru – Romania against Sweden
Fastest dismissal from kick off: 21 minutes – Gianluca Pagliuca – Italy against Norway
Fastest dismissal of a substitute: 3 minutes – Ion Vlădoiu – Romania against Switzerland (introduced in the 80th minute)
Latest dismissal in a game without extra time: 89 minutes – Gustavo Quinteros – Bolivia against Germany
Latest dismissal in a game with extra time: 101 minutes – Stefan Schwarz – Sweden against Romania
Least time difference between two yellow cards given to the same player: 21 minutes – Fernando Clavijo – United States against Brazil (booked in the 64th minute and again in the 85th minute)
Most yellow cards (team): 23 – Bulgaria
Most red cards (team): 2 – Bolivia, Bulgaria, Italy, Sweden
Fewest yellow cards (team): 5 – Cameroon
Most yellow cards (player): 4 – Zlatko Yankov
Most red cards (player): 1 – Fernando Clavijo, Luis Cristaldo, Marco Etcheverry, Luis García, Sergei Gorlukovich, Emil Kremenliev, Leonardo, Miguel Ángel Nadal, Gianluca Pagliuca, Stefan Schwarz, Rigobert Song, Jonas Thern, Tsanko Tsvetanov, Ion Vlădoiu, Gianfranco Zola
Most yellow cards (match): 10 – Mexico vs Bulgaria
Most red cards (match): 2 – Mexico vs Bulgaria
Fewest yellow cards (match): 1 – Netherlands vs Republic of Ireland
Most cards in one match: 10 yellow cards and 2 red cards – Mexico vs Bulgaria
Symbols
Mascot
The official mascot of this World Cup was "Striker, the World Cup Pup", a dog wearing a red, white and blue soccer uniform with a ball. Striker was designed by the Warner Bros. animation team. A dog was picked as the mascot because dogs are a popular domestic pet in the United States.
Match ball
The official match ball was "Questra", manufactured by Adidas. Following the convention of the addition of decorations to the established Adidas Tango style since the Azteca and the Etrusco Unico, this one featured space-themed decorations, not only due to its name, but that 1994 marked the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in which the first Moon landing took place, which is considered to be one of the most important moments in the history of the host country and the world.
Music
The official song was "Gloryland".
Aftermath and legacy
Although USA '94 marked the seventh time FIFA hosted the World Cup in the Americas (after being held in Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and twice by Mexico in 1970 and 1986), the United States became the first host in the Americas outside of the Latin American spectrum, and the first in the Anglosphere outside of England.
The game between the United States and Switzerland at the Pontiac Silverdome on June 18 was the first to be played indoors in World Cup history: grass was grown by Michigan State University and was the first time since 1965 (the failed attempt at the Astrodome) that natural turf was used in an indoor stadium in the United States. To date, only Sapporo Dome in 2002 and Arena AufSchalke in 2006 have subsequently hosted indoor games in World Cup history.
Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first player to score five goals in a single World Cup finals game in his country's group stage win over Cameroon. Cameroon's Roger Milla also scored a goal in the same game, becoming the oldest player to score a goal in a World Cup. At 42, he was also the oldest player to appear in a World Cup, a record held until 2014, when Faryd Mondragón (43 years, 3 days) of Colombia broke the record in their game against Japan at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In turn, goalkeeper Essam El Hadary (45 years, 161 days) of Egypt would surpass Mondragón against Saudi Arabia, in the Volgograd Arena, Volgograd, Russia, on June 25, 2018. However, Milla remains the oldest outfield player to perform in the World Cup.
For the first time, during the entering of the players onto the field, the FIFA Anthem, composed by Franz Lambert, was played.
Gianluca Pagliuca of Italy became the first goalkeeper to be sent off in a World Cup game, dismissed for handling outside his area against Norway.
Brazil's eleven goals in their seven games was a record for the lowest average goals scored per game for any World Cup-winning side, but this record was broken by Spain's eight goals in 2010. The three goals Brazil conceded in those seven games was at the time also the lowest average goals conceded per game, although this was subsequently surpassed by France in 1998, Italy in 2006, and Spain in 2010.
The finals were the first time FIFA decided to experiment with the style of jerseys worn by officials, forgoing the traditional black. They could choose between burgundy, yellow or silver shirts depending on what was necessary to avoid a clash of colors with the two competing teams. This custom has since been followed, but with black shirts added as an option later.
The finals were also the first time that players had their shirt numbers printed on the center front (or on the right or left breast, in Morocco's and Russia's case respectively) of the shirt, as well as their names printed on the back of their jerseys in a World Cup, just as other American sports did, to make their identification easier for sportscasters. This custom followed from Euro 92, and has continued ever since (although numbers printed on the center front had been experimented during the 1991 FIFA U-20 World Cup held in Portugal).
The finals were the first to award 3 points for a win in the group stage to motivate teams to play an attacking style.
In disciplinary matters, for the first time yellow cards accumulated in the group stage were wiped clean after its completion, and players started with a clean slate at the start of the knockout stage. Previously, players were suspended for one game if accumulating two yellow cards throughout the tournament. Now, players were suspended for one game after accumulating two yellow cards in the group stage, or two yellow cards in the knockout stage. This was in response to the situation in 1990, where players such as Claudio Caniggia and Paul Gascoigne were suspended for the later games.
The 1994 World Cup revolutionized television coverage of sports in the United States and then worldwide through the sponsored scoreboard and game clock that were constantly shown on screen throughout the game. Being fully privately-funded, television sports coverage in the United States had long relied upon commercial breaks, a feature suitable for sports such as baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and American football (which all have breaks in the action), but long considered incompatible with soccer, due to the long stretches of uninterrupted play. Led by Fox Sports, which debuted its NFL coverage about a month following the completion of the World Cup, virtually every television network included their version of the scoreboard clock by the decade's end.
The 1994 World Cup final was the first (and to date only) goalless final in World Cup history. It was also the first to be decided by a penalty shootout, followed by the 2006 and 2022 finals.
This was the last World Cup in which games other than the last two in each group were played simultaneously, although this only happened once in this tournament: Saudi Arabia vs. Morocco and Belgium vs. Netherlands in Group F. From France '98 onwards, each game in the first two rounds of group play and the whole knockout stage have been played separately to maximize television audiences.
This was the last World Cup featuring 24 nations, and the last in which third-placed teams were still able to progress to the round of 16. From 1998 on, there were 32 nations, with only the top two in each group progressing.
This was the first and the last World Cup in which both teams taking part in the third-place game, Sweden and Bulgaria, received bronze medals from FIFA, although only the winner was credited with finishing third.
See also
Soccer in the United States
1999 FIFA Women's World Cup – a first Women's World Cup hosted by the United States
2003 FIFA Women's World Cup – a second Women's World Cup hosted by the United States
Copa América Centenario – First edition of the Copa América hosted within the United States
2024 Copa América – Second edition of the Copa América hosted within the United States
2026 FIFA World Cup – an upcoming tournament to be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
References
External links
1994 FIFA World Cup USA, FIFA.com
1994 World Cup details RSSSF
FIFA Technical Report (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3) and (Part 4)
The event at SVT's open archive (in Swedish) |
Cotton_Bowl_(stadium) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Bowl_(stadium) | [
633
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Bowl_(stadium)"
] | The Cotton Bowl is an outdoor stadium in Dallas, Texas, United States. Opened in 1930 as Fair Park Stadium, it is on the site of the State Fair of Texas, known as Fair Park.
The Cotton Bowl was the longtime home of the annual college football post-season bowl game known as the Cotton Bowl Classic, after which the stadium is named. Starting on New Year's Day 1937, it hosted the first 73 editions of the game, through January 2009; the game was moved to AT&T Stadium in Arlington in January 2010. The stadium also hosts the Red River Rivalry, the annual college football game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns, and formerly, the First Responder Bowl.
The stadium has been home to many football teams over the years, including: SMU Mustangs (NCAA), Dallas Cowboys (NFL; 1960–1971), Dallas Texans (NFL) (1952), Dallas Texans (AFL; 1960–1962), and soccer teams, the Dallas Tornado (NASL; 1967–1968), and FC Dallas (MLS; as the Dallas Burn 1996–2004, as FC Dallas 2005). It was also one of the nine venues used for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. As of 2022, it is the largest stadium by capacity in the United States without a professional or college team as a regular tenant.
It became known as "The House That Doak Built," due to the immense crowds that SMU running back Doak Walker drew to the stadium during his college career in the late 1940s.
In their seventh season, the Cowboys hosted the Green Bay Packers for the NFL championship at the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1967. The college bowl game that year included SMU and was played the day before, New Year's Eve, which required a quick turnaround to transform the field. The two games were filled to its 75,504 capacity, but both home teams lost to the visitors.
Artificial turf was installed in 1970 and removed in 1993 in preparation for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The elevation of the playing field is approximately 450 feet (140 m) above sea level.
History
Construction began on Fair Park Stadium in 1930 on the same site as the wooden football stadium before known as Fair Park Stadium. Completed that year, the first game in the stadium was between Dallas-area high schools in October 1930. The original stadium–the lower half of the current facility–was built for a cost of $328,000 and seated 45,507 spectators. The name was officially changed to the Cotton Bowl in 1936.
In 1948, a second deck was added to the west side, increasing capacity to 67,000. The east side was double-decked the following year, increasing capacity to 75,504. These decks were added to respond to the demand for fans to watch SMU halfback Doak Walker, leading the Cotton Bowl to be known as "the house that Doak built." The superstructure was also built at this time, creating the distinctive facade for the stadium. In 1968, chair-backs were installed, reducing capacity to 72,032. In 1970, the Cotton Bowl installed an AstroTurf surface, which remained until 1993.
In 1950, as a way to break the Texas League record for opening-day attendance, Richard Burnett got permission to play in the Cotton Bowl, which at the time could hold as many as 75,000. In order to draw a big crowd, he wanted a lineup of former stars to don Dallas Eagles uniforms and face one Tulsa hitter in the top of the first inning. Most of the retired stars were cool to the idea, except for then-current Dallas Eagles manager Charlie Grimm. When the legendary Ty Cobb agreed to come to Dallas, the others followed his lead. Preceding the game was a parade through downtown Dallas. "It was the pre-game show that got 'em", bellowed Dizzy Dean by way of self-congratulation. "Cobb, Cochrane, Home Run Baker, Speaker, and Ol' Diz in Dallas duds." The 54,151 who showed up were lucky enough to see Ty Cobb hit several balls into the stands, just to show he could still handle the bat. The Kilgore College Rangerettes drill team performed on the field prior to the game. Texas governor Allan Shivers threw out the first pitch. Defensively, the old-timer lineup of the Eagles were: Duffy Lewis in left field, Cobb in center field, Texas native Tris Speaker in right field, Frank "Home Run" Baker at third base, Travis Jackson at shortstop, Charlie Gehringer at second base, manager Grimm at first base, Mickey Cochrane at catcher, and former Houston Buffaloes star pitcher Dizzy Dean on the mound. Dean walked the leadoff batter for Tulsa, Harry Donabedian, on a 3–2 count, and then the regular Dallas players took the field. Dean got into an orchestrated rhubarb and was tossed from the game. The attendance figure still stands as the largest in Texas League history and second largest in the history of the minor leagues.
The Cotton Bowl hosted six matches of the 1994 World Cup. To meet FIFA requirements for these games the stadium field was widened, the press box was enlarged and natural grass was re-installed. The playing surface has remained natural grass ever since. Capacity was decreased to 71,615 in 1994 and to 68,252 in 1996. The Stadium also hosted the Gold Cup Soccer Matches in 1993.
In the 2000s (decade), the renewed dominance of both the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns created a new interest in their rivalry, and the stadium. Temporary stands were erected in each end zone to increase seating for these games from just over 68,000 to 90,000.
In November 2006, the city of Dallas and the State Fair of Texas finally agreed on funding for a long-planned $50 million renovation, with $30 million of this amount from a city bond. Thus, in April 2007, the schools signed a contract to play at the Cotton Bowl through 2015, coupled with a $57 million fund for upgrades and improvements to the aging stadium. The 2008 Red River Showdown was held on October 11.
The 2008 renovations include the expansion of the seating capacity of the stadium from 68,252 to 92,100, mostly through the complete encircling of the second deck, new media and VIP facilities, a new scoreboard and video screen, updated restrooms and concession areas, lighting, utility and sound upgrades and the replacement of all the stadium's seats. A new record for attendance was set when 96,009 fans attended the 2009 Texas vs. Oklahoma football game.
The renovation was also intended to increase the chances of the Cotton Bowl Classic becoming a part of the Bowl Championship Series. However, the renovation was not enough to prevent the Cotton Bowl Classic from moving out of its namesake stadium after the 2009 game. Dallas' occasionally cold January weather had been a longstanding concern for the game, and was believed to have precluded any prospect of adding it to the BCS even after the expansion. (The Cotton Bowl Classic would eventually be added to the "New Year's Six" College Football Playoff bowls after the game moved to what is now AT&T Stadium.)
On January 1, 2020, the NHL Winter Classic was held at the Cotton Bowl. Over 85,000 attended the match between the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators.
On December 6, 2023, it was announced the Red River Rivalry would stay in the Cotton Bowl through 2036. It was also announced with the single largest investment into the stadium from the city of Dallas with an estimated $140 million two-year renovation.
Stadium usage
The Cotton Bowl has been used by a number of teams in several sports throughout its history, and has hosted three collegiate bowl games. The Cotton Bowl has also hosted large music concerts, including the inaugural Texxas Jam and other similar events.
American football
Cotton Bowl Classic
From 1937 to 2009, the Cotton Bowl hosted the Cotton Bowl Classic, an annual NCAA Division I bowl game. Beginning in 2010, the bowl game has been played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. From 1941 to 1994, the Southwest Conference champion would play in the bowl game; since 1997, the first postseason of the Big 12 Conference, its second-place team has competed against an SEC team in the Cotton Bowl Classic.
Dallas Texans (NFL)
The first professional football team in Texas was the Dallas Texans of the National Football League in 1952. Plagued by financial hardship and poor play, the Texans lasted only one season. The team played four games in the Cotton Bowl before going bankrupt, being taken over by the league, and finishing the season as a traveling team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys called the Cotton Bowl home for 12 seasons, from the team's formation in 1960 until 1971. The 1966 NFL Championship Game between the Cowboys and Green Bay Packers was played in the Cotton Bowl. After playing their first two home games in 1971 at the Cotton Bowl, the Cowboys opened Texas Stadium in Irving on October 24.
Dallas Texans (AFL)
The Dallas Texans of the American Football League used the stadium all three of their seasons in Dallas (1960–1962), sharing it with the NFL Cowboys. Following the Texans' 1962 AFL Championship season, owner Lamar Hunt moved the franchise to Kansas City, Missouri and renamed it the Chiefs.
First Responder Bowl
From January 2011 until 2018, the Cotton Bowl was the home of the First Responder Bowl, an annual college football bowl game. The game was tentatively named the "Dallas Football Classic" prior to TicketCity being announced as the bowl game's first title sponsor. The game was called the "TicketCity Bowl" for the first two match ups. On October 4, 2012, the name changed again to the "Heart of Dallas Bowl" for eight seasons before changing to the "First Responder Bowl" for the 2018 season. In 2019 the game was relocated to Gerald J. Ford Stadium at Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas, to accommodate the 2020 NHL Winter Classic. While originally a temporary measure, the game has remained at Ford Stadium in succeeding years.
The game has had bowl tie-ins with the Big 12 Conference in 2011, Conference USA in 2012, and the Big Ten Conference in both 2011 and 2012. The inaugural game saw the Texas Tech Red Raiders defeat the Northwestern Wildcats, 45–38.
Red River Rivalry
The annual college football game between the University of Texas at Austin Longhorns and the University of Oklahoma Sooners, also known before 2005 as the Red River Shootout, is played at the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair of Texas, instead of on either school's campus. Ticket sales are equally divided between the two schools, and the fans are split on the 50-yard line. Following the 2023 game, the Longhorns have a record of 63–51–5 against the Sooners.
SMU Mustangs
The Cotton Bowl served as the home for the SMU Mustangs football team for two periods in the program's history. SMU played at least a few games at the Cotton Bowl from 1932 onward. They gradually moved more of their home games there during the 1930s and 1940s, as it was double the size of their on-campus stadium, Ownby Stadium. The Mustangs moved there permanently in 1948 due to Doak Walker's popularity. The Mustangs played at the Cotton Bowl until 1978, when they moved to Texas Stadium.
The Cotton Bowl also served as home to SMU in the 1990s, after the team served the NCAA death penalty due to numerous recruiting violations, and spent the first six years after their return at Ownby Stadium. Games moved back to campus in 2000 with the completion of Gerald J. Ford Stadium.
State Fair Classic
In addition to the Red River Rivalry, the Grambling State University Tigers and the Prairie View A&M University Panthers play each other at the Cotton Bowl in the State Fair Classic. This game often occurs the weekend before the Texas-OU Red River Rivalry game. It is a neutral site for both teams; Grambling State is located in northern Louisiana and Prairie View A&M is located about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Houston. The halftime show, the "Battle of the Bands", is arguably more eagerly anticipated than the game itself. The State Fair Classic is heavily marketed in the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex, with local hip hop stations encouraging a large turnout among the region's African-American community. The State Fair Classic is currently the largest FCS football game in Texas.
Texas State Fair Classic Showdown
In 2016, the Texas State Fair in conjunction with the City of Dallas announced an expansion of games played during the state fair for 2018 and 2019. Following the Red River Rivalry weekend, the Texas Southern University Tigers played against the Southern University Jaguars. The game was on a neutral site for both teams, Texas Southern University is centrally located in Houston and Southern University is located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (South Louisiana). The two schools are long-time SWAC rivals and have nationally recognized marching bands.
Texas high school football
The Cotton Bowl has a long history of hosting Texas high school football games. From the early days of the stadium, it was used for playoff and championship games. In 1945 and 1967, the stadium hosted two of the largest audiences to ever see a Texas high school football game. In 2011 and 2012, it played host to the North Texas Football Classic to kick off those seasons.
Powderpuff football
Blondes vs. Brunettes powderpuff football games are played in cities across the United States. Proceeds from the event are donated to The Alzheimer's Association. The annual contests were started by Sara Allen Abbott whose father, Texas State Representative Joseph Hugh Allen, died of Alzheimer's disease in 2008. Looking for a way to raise funds for The Alzheimer's Association, Abbott organized a powderpuff football game in tribute to her father, a lifelong football fan. The games are currently played in over 20 cities throughout the United States. The increasing popularity of the game in the Dallas area resulted in moving the 2012 game to the Cotton Bowl where it could accommodate a larger crowd.
Association football
1994 FIFA World Cup
2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup
On July 29, 2014, the Cotton Bowl hosted a soccer match between Real Madrid and A.S. Roma which was part of the 2014 International Champions Cup and AS Roma won the match 1–0. It also hosted 6 matches of the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Other international matches
Dallas Tornado
Early in their existence, the Dallas Tornado played two seasons of professional soccer in the Cotton Bowl. They spent their inaugural year, 1967, as a franchise of the United Soccer Association and 1968 as members of the North American Soccer League in the Cotton Bowl. For the Tornado, a wider field was installed that required several storm drains to be moved. The team moved to P.C. Cobb Stadium for the 1969 season and played at four more venues in the Dallas area before they folded after the 1981 season.
Dallas Burn
The Dallas Burn, a founding member of Major League Soccer (MLS), played at the Cotton Bowl for their first seven seasons between 1996 and 2002. Their first match, played in front of 27,779 spectators on April 14, 1996, was a 1–0 win against the San Jose Clash. The Burn paid $15,000 per match at the Cotton Bowl and lacked control over scheduling and concession sales; the team drew an average attendance of roughly 12,000 to 15,000 until they moved in 2003 to Dragon Stadium in Southlake, Texas.
The Burn (later renamed FC Dallas) returned to the Cotton Bowl for the 2004 and 2005 seasons while preparing to open their own stadium in Frisco. Their final regular season match at the Cotton Bowl was a 2–2 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes on July 3, 2005. FC Dallas later returned to the Cotton Bowl for a doubleheader with a Mexico–Colombia international friendly on September 30, 2009. The event drew 51,012 spectators to the stadium. FC Dallas would not return to the Cotton Bowl until 2024 when they played a preseason friendly against Inter Miami CF, whose popularity had surged following the signing of Lionel Messi.
Dallas Trinity FC
Dallas Trinity FC, a women's professional soccer team and founding member of the USL Super League, currently plays at the Cotton Bowl. Their first home game was an exhibition match against FC Barcelona Femení on August 30, 2024, followed by their home season opener against DC Power FC on September 7, 2024.
Ice hockey
NHL Winter Classic
The 2020 NHL Winter Classic was held at the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 2020. The game was hosted by the Dallas Stars against the Nashville Predators; the Dallas Stars won. It was the first Winter Classic appearance for both teams. It also marked the first outdoor NHL game to be hosted in a southern state. The Stars defeated the Predators in a 4–2 comeback victory. Recorded attendance was 85,630, the second highest ever for an NHL game.
Concerts
Music
The stadium has also been a venue for a number of historic concerts, most notably that which featured then 21-year-old Elvis Presley, which took place on October 11, 1956, and attracted what was then the largest audience in Texas history for an outdoor concert, in excess of 27,000.
Many consecutive summers of huge concerts, featuring several artists, began in July 1978, with the 1st annual Texxas Jam, which sold out with over 80,000 attendees. For crowd control purposes, ticket sales for any future Cotton Bowl General Admission floor seating was limited, and Jams following the 1978 Jam, never reached 80,000 for that reason. Each Texxas Jam had a unique lineup of major artists chosen by the promoter. Over the years, the Texxas Jam featured some of the top-billed headliner artists of the day, including Aerosmith, Heart, Deep Purple, Boston, Journey, Ted Nugent, Scorpions, Loverboy, Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Blue Öyster Cult, Sammy Hagar, Nazareth, Styx, Foghat, Santana, The Eagles & Triumph, among others.
The annual events came to an end in the summer of 1988, when Van Halen headlined the "Monsters Of Rock" Tour.
U2 played here during the first leg of the Popmart Tour
Since then, the stadium has continued to be used as a major concert venue; Eric Clapton held his first three-day Crossroads Guitar Festival there in 2004.
South Korean boy band BTS was set to perform at the stadium on May 9–10, 2020 as part of their Map of the Soul Tour; however, the shows were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Rolling Stones have played 7 shows at the Cotton Bowl July 6, 1975, October 31, 1981, November 1, 1981, November 10, 1989, November 11, 1989, November 18, 1994, and November 2, 2021.
Drum Corps
The Cotton Bowl hosted both the 1971 VFW National Championships and the 1991 Drum Corps International World Championships.
In popular culture
Football game scenes from the 1977 film Semi-Tough were filmed in the Cotton Bowl.
The stadium was featured in a 1981 episode of Dallas where J. R. Ewing meets Dusty Farlow.
In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, two young men are on their way to the Cotton Bowl when they are killed.
The Cotton Bowl is featured in the 1983 Marvel promotional comic book Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas.
The rock band Journey recorded two videos in the 1980s in the Cotton Bowl.
The daytime scenes from the video "I Won't Forget You" by the rock band Poison were recorded during the 1987 Texxas Jam on June 20, 1987, in front of over 80,000 people.
The rock band Rush played their first concert in the Cotton Bowl in 1979 at Texxas Jam, and again in 1984.
The 2009 television reality series 4th and Long filmed the majority of its material at the Cotton Bowl.
In the 1984 Emmy Award-winning made-for-TV film The Jesse Owens Story, made by Paramount Pictures, the Cotton Bowl was used as the Berlin Olympic Stadium for the 1936 Olympics. A local flag maker had to make large Nazi flags and banners to cover up Cotton Bowl emblems and other Texas State Fair items to give the impression that the film took place in Berlin, Germany in 1936.
In 2010, a commercial for McDonald's was filmed at the Cotton Bowl. The commercial featured Donald Driver, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers.
A 2010 episode of The Good Guys, entitled "Dan on the Run," culminated at the Cotton Bowl.
The WCCW Cotton Bowl Extravaganza was an annual professional wrestling supercard promoted by Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling / World Class Wrestling Association. It was held in October every year from 1984 through 1988.
The stadium was the location of the Texas High School State Championship game with the East Dillon Lions in the series finale of Friday Night Lights.
Sources
"Baseball in the Lone Star State: Texas League's Greatest Hits", Tom Kayser and David King, Trinity University Press 2005
"Storied Stadiums: Baseball History Through Its Ballparks", Curt Smith, c.2001
See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Dallas County, Texas
List of Dallas Landmarks
Lists of stadiums
References
External links
Satellite image at Google Maps |
Dallas | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas | [
633
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas"
] | Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the most populous city in and seat of Dallas County with portions extending into Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. With a 2020 census population of 1,304,379, it is the ninth-most populous city in the U.S. and the third-most populous city in Texas after Houston and San Antonio. Located in the North Texas region, the city of Dallas is the main core of the largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States and the largest inland metropolitan area in the U.S. that lacks any navigable link to the sea.
Dallas and nearby Fort Worth were initially developed as a product of the construction of major railroad lines through the area allowing access to cotton, cattle, and later oil in North and East Texas. The construction of the Interstate Highway System reinforced Dallas's prominence as a transportation hub, with four major interstate highways converging in the city and a fifth interstate loop around it. Dallas then developed as a strong industrial and financial center and a major inland port, due to the convergence of major railroad lines, interstate highways, and the construction of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. In addition, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) operates rail and bus transit services throughout the city and its surrounding suburbs.
Dominant sectors of its diverse economy include defense, financial services, information technology, telecommunications, and transportation. The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex hosts 23 Fortune 500 companies, the second-most in Texas and fourth-most in the United States, and 11 of those companies are located within Dallas city limits. Over 41 colleges and universities are located within its metropolitan area, which is the most of any metropolitan area in Texas. The city has a population from a myriad of ethnic and religious backgrounds and is one of the largest LGBT communities in the U.S. WalletHub named Dallas the fifth-most diverse city in the United States in 2018.
History
Indigenous tribes in North Texas included the Caddo, Tawakoni, Wichita, Kickapoo and Comanche. Spanish colonists claimed the territory of Texas in the 18th century as a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Later, France also claimed the area but never established much settlement. In all, six flags have flown over the area preceding and during the city's history: those of France, Spain, and Mexico, the flag of the Republic of Texas, the Confederate flag, and the flag of the United States of America.
In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain defined the Red River as the northern boundary of New Spain, officially placing the future location of Dallas well within Spanish territory. The area remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain, and the area was considered part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. In 1836, Texians, with a majority of Anglo-American settlers, gained independence from Mexico and formed the Republic of Texas.
Three years after Texas achieved independence, John Neely Bryan surveyed the area around present-day Dallas. In 1839, accompanied by his dog and a Cherokee he called Ned, he planted a stake in the ground on a bluff located near three forks of the Trinity River and left. Two years later, in 1841, he returned to establish a permanent settlement named Dallas. The origin of the name is uncertain. The official historical marker states it was named after Vice President George M. Dallas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, this is disputed. Other potential theories for the origin include his brother, Commodore Alexander James Dallas, as well as brothers Walter R. Dallas and James R. Dallas. A further theory gives the ultimate origin as the village of Dallas, Moray, Scotland, similar to the way Houston, Texas, was named after Sam Houston, whose ancestors came from the Scottish village of Houston, Renfrewshire.
The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845 and Dallas County was established the following year. Dallas was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1856. In the mid-1800s, a group of French Socialists established La Réunion, a short-lived community, along the Trinity River in what is now West Dallas.With the construction of railroads, Dallas became a business and trading center and was booming by the end of the 19th century. It became an industrial city, attracting workers from Texas, the South, and the Midwest. The Praetorian Building in Dallas of 15 stories, built in 1909, was among the first skyscrapers west of the Mississippi and the tallest building in Texas for some time. It marked the prominence of Dallas as a city. A racetrack for thoroughbreds was built and their owners established the Dallas Jockey Club. Trotters raced at a track in Fort Worth, where a similar drivers club was based. The rapid expansion of population increased competition for jobs and housing.
In 1910, a white mob of hundreds of people lynched a black man, Allen Brooks, accused of raping a little girl. The mob tortured Brooks, then killed him at the downtown intersection of Main and Akard by hanging him from a decorative archway inscribed with the words "Welcome Visitors". Thousands of Dallasites came to gawk at the torture scene, collecting keepsakes and posing for photographs.
In 1921, the Mexican president Álvaro Obregón along with the former revolutionary general visited Downtown Dallas's Mexican Park in Little Mexico; the small park was on the corner of Akard and Caruth Street, site of the current Fairmont Hotel. The small neighborhood of Little Mexico was home to a Latin American population that had been drawn to Dallas by factors including the American Dream, better living conditions, and the Mexican Revolution.During World War II, Dallas was a major manufacturing center for military automobiles and aircraft for the United States and Allied forces. Over 94,000 jeeps and over 6,000 military trucks were produced at the Ford plant in East Dallas. North American Aviation manufactured over 18,000 aircraft at their plant in Dallas, including the T-6 Texan trainer, P-51 Mustang fighter, and B-24 Liberator bomber.
On November 22, 1963, United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Downtown Dallas. The upper two floors of the building from which the Warren Commission reported assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy have been converted into a historical museum covering the former president's life and accomplishments. Kennedy was pronounced dead at Dallas Parkland Memorial Hospital just over 30 minutes after the shooting.
On July 7, 2016, multiple shots were fired at a Black Lives Matter protest in Downtown Dallas, held against the police killings of two black men from other states. The gunman, later identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, began firing at police officers at 8:58 p.m., killing five officers and injuring nine. Two bystanders were also injured. This marked the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the September 11 attacks. Johnson told police during a standoff that he was upset about recent police shootings of black men and wanted to kill whites, especially white officers. After hours of negotiation failed, police resorted to a robot-delivered bomb, killing Johnson inside Dallas College El Centro Campus. The shooting occurred in an area of hotels, restaurants, businesses, and residential apartments only a few blocks away from Dealey Plaza.
Geography
Dallas is situated in the Southern United States, in North Texas. It is the county seat of Dallas County and portions of the city extend into neighboring Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. Many suburbs surround Dallas; three enclaves are within the city boundaries—Cockrell Hill, Highland Park, and University Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 385.8 square miles (999.3 km2); 340.5 square miles (881.9 km2) of Dallas is land and 45.3 square miles (117.4 km2) of it (11.75%) is water. Dallas makes up one-fifth of the much larger urbanized area known as the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, in which one quarter of all Texans live.
Architecture
Dallas's skyline has twenty buildings classified as skyscrapers, over 490 feet (150 m) in height. Despite its tallest building not reaching 980 feet (300 m), Dallas does have a signature building in Bank of America Plaza which is lit up in neon but falls outside the top two hundred tallest buildings in the world. Although some of Dallas's architecture dates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the notable architecture in the city is from the modernist and postmodernist eras. Iconic examples of modernist architecture include Reunion Tower, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial, I. M. Pei's Dallas City Hall and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. Good examples of postmodernist skyscrapers are Fountain Place, Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, JPMorgan Chase Tower, and Comerica Bank Tower. Downtown Dallas also has residential offerings in downtown, some of which are signature skyline buildings.
Several smaller structures are fashioned in the Gothic Revival style, such as the Kirby Building, and the neoclassical style, as seen in the Davis and Wilson Buildings. One architectural "hotbed" in the city is a stretch of historic houses along Swiss Avenue, which has all shades and variants of architecture from Victorian to neoclassical. The Dallas Downtown Historic District protects a cross-section of Dallas commercial architecture from the 1880s to the 1940s.
Neighborhoods
The city of Dallas is home to many areas, neighborhoods, and communities. Dallas can be divided into several geographical areas which include larger geographical sections of territory including many subdivisions or neighborhoods, forming macroneighborhoods.
Central Dallas
Central Dallas is anchored by Downtown Dallas, the center of the city, along with Oak Lawn and Uptown, areas characterized by dense retail, restaurants, and nightlife. Downtown Dallas has a variety of named districts, including the West End Historic District, the Arts District, the Main Street District, Farmers Market District, the City Center Business District, the Convention Center District, and the Reunion District. This area includes Uptown, Victory Park, Harwood, Oak Lawn, Dallas Design District, Trinity Groves, Turtle Creek, Cityplace, Knox/Henderson, Greenville, and West Village.
East Dallas
East Dallas is the location of Deep Ellum, an arts area close to Downtown, the Lakewood neighborhood (and adjacent areas, including Lakewood Heights, Wilshire Heights, Lower Greenville, Junius Heights, and Hollywood Heights/Santa Monica), Vickery Place and Bryan Place, and the architecturally significant neighborhoods of Swiss Avenue and Munger Place. Its historic district has one of the largest collections of Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired prairie-style homes in the United States. In the northeast quadrant of the city is Lake Highlands, one of Dallas's most unified middle-class neighborhoods.
Oak Cliff
Southwest of Downtown lies Oak Cliff. Once a separate city founded in the mid-1800s, Oak Cliff was annexed in 1903 by Dallas. As one of the oldest areas in Dallas, the hilly North Oak Cliff is home to 5 of the 13 conservation districts in Dallas including the architecturally significant Kessler Park neighborhood and trendy Bishop Arts District.
South Dallas
South Dallas is the location of Cedars, and Fair Park, where the annual State Fair of Texas is held from late September through mid-October. Also located here is Exposition Park, Dallas, noted for having artists, art galleries, and bars along tree-lined Exposition Avenue.
South Side Dallas is a popular location for nightly entertainment. The neighborhood has undergone extensive development and community integration. What was once an area characterized by high rates of poverty and crime is now one of the city's most attractive social and living destinations.
Further east, in the southeast quadrant of the city, is the large neighborhood of Pleasant Grove. Once an independent city, it is a collection of mostly lower-income residential areas stretching to Seagoville in the southeast. Though a city neighborhood, Pleasant Grove is surrounded by undeveloped land on all sides. Swampland and wetlands separating it from South Dallas are part of the Great Trinity Forest, a subsection of the city's Trinity River Project, newly appreciated for habitat and flood control.
Districts
Topography
Dallas and its surrounding area are mostly flat. The city lies at elevations ranging from 450 to 550 feet (137 to 168 m) above sea level. The western edge of the Austin Chalk Formation, a limestone escarpment (also known as the "White Rock Escarpment"), rises 230 feet (70 m) and runs roughly north–south through Dallas County. South of the Trinity River, the uplift is particularly noticeable in the neighborhoods of Oak Cliff and the adjacent cities of Cockrell Hill, Cedar Hill, Grand Prairie, and Irving. Marked variations in terrain are also found in cities immediately to the west in Tarrant County surrounding Fort Worth, as well as along Turtle Creek north of Downtown.
Dallas, like many other cities, was founded along a river. The city was founded at the location of a "white rock crossing" of the Trinity River, where it was easier for wagons to cross the river in the days before ferries or bridges. The Trinity River, though not usefully navigable, is the major waterway through the city. Interstate 35E parallels its path through Dallas along the Stemmons Corridor, then south alongside the western portion of Downtown and past South Dallas and Pleasant Grove, where the river is paralleled by Interstate 45 until it exits the city and heads southeast towards Houston. The river is flanked on both sides by 50 feet (15 m) tall earthen levees to protect the city from frequent floods.
Since it was rerouted in the late 1920s, the river has been little more than a drainage ditch within a floodplain for several miles above and below Downtown, with a more normal course further upstream and downstream, but as Dallas began shifting towards postindustrial society, public outcry about the lack of aesthetic and recreational use of the river ultimately gave way to the Trinity River Project, which was begun in the early 2000s.
The project area reaches for over 20 miles (32 km) in length within the city, while the overall geographical land area addressed by the Land Use Plan is approximately 44,000 acres (180 km2) in size—about 20% of the land area in Dallas. Green space along the river encompasses approximately 10,000 acres (40 km2), making it one of the largest and diverse urban parks in the world.
White Rock Lake and Joe Pool Lake are reservoirs that comprise Dallas's other significant water features. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, White Rock Lake Park is a popular destination for boaters, rowers, joggers, and bikers, as well as visitors seeking peaceful respite from the city at the 66-acre (267,000 m2) Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, on the lake's eastern shore. White Rock Creek feeds into White Rock Lake and then exits into the Trinity River southeast of Downtown Dallas. Trails along White Rock Creek are part of the extensive Dallas County Trails System.
Bachman Lake, just northwest of Love Field Airport, is a smaller lake also popularly used for recreation. Northeast of the city is Lake Ray Hubbard, a vast 22,745-acre (92 km2) reservoir in an extension of Dallas surrounded by the suburbs of Garland, Rowlett, Rockwall, and Sunnyvale. To the west of the city is Mountain Creek Lake, once home to the Naval Air Station Dallas (Hensley Field) and a number of defense aircraft manufacturers.
North Lake, a small body of water in an extension of the city limits surrounded by Irving and Coppell, initially served as a water source for a nearby power plant but is now being targeted for redevelopment as a recreational lake due to its proximity to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a plan the lake's neighboring cities oppose.
Climate
Dallas has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa, Trewartha: Cfhk) characteristic of the Southern Plains of the United States. It also has both continental and tropical characteristics, characterized by a relatively wide annual temperature range for the latitude. Located at the lower end of Tornado Alley, it is prone to extreme weather, tornadoes, and hailstorms.
Summers in Dallas are very hot with high humidity, although extended periods of dry weather often occur. July and August are typically the hottest months, with an average high of 96.0 °F (36 °C) and an average low of 76.7 °F (25 °C). Heat indices regularly surpass 105 °F (41 °C) due to elevated humidity during the summer months, making the summer heat almost unbearable. The all-time record high is 113 °F (45 °C), set on June 26 and 27, 1980 during the Heat Wave of 1980 at nearby Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Winters in Dallas are usually mild, with occasional cold spells. The average date of first frost is November 12, and the average date of last frost is March 12. January is typically the coldest month, with an average daytime high of 56.8 °F (14 °C) and an average nighttime low of 37.3 °F (3 °C). The normal daily average temperature in January is 47.0 °F (8 °C) but sharp swings in temperature can occur, as strong cold fronts known as "Blue Northers" pass through the Dallas region, forcing temperatures below the 40 °F (4 °C) mark for several days at a time and often between days with high temperatures above 80 °F (27 °C). Snow accumulation is seen in the city in about 70% of winter seasons, and snowfall generally occurs 1–2 days out of the year for a seasonal average of 1.5 inches (4 cm). Some areas in the region, however, receive more than that, while other areas receive negligible snowfall or none at all. The all-time record low temperature within the city is −3 °F (−19 °C), set on January 18, 1930. The temperature at nearby Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport reached −2 °F (−19 °C) on February 16, 2021, during the February 2021 North American winter storm.
Spring and autumn are transitional seasons with moderate and pleasant weather. Vibrant wildflowers (such as the bluebonnet, Indian paintbrush and other flora) bloom in spring and are planted around the highways throughout Texas. Springtime weather can be quite volatile, but temperatures themselves are mild. Late spring to early summer also tends to be the most humid, with humidity levels frequently exceeding 75%. The weather in Dallas is also generally pleasant from late September to early December and on many winter days. Autumn often brings more storms and tornado threats, but they are usually fewer and less severe than in spring.
Each spring, cold fronts moving south from the North collide with warm, humid air streaming in from the Gulf Coast, leading to severe thunderstorms with lightning, torrents of rain, hail, and occasionally, tornadoes. Over time, tornadoes have probably been the most significant natural threat to the city, as it is near the heart of Tornado Alley.
A few times each winter in Dallas, warm and humid air from the south will override cold, dry air, resulting in freezing rain or ice and causing disruptions in the city if the roads and highways become slick. Temperatures reaching 70 °F (21 °C) on average occur on at least four days each winter month. Dallas averages 26 annual nights at or below freezing, with the winter of 1999–2000 holding the record for the fewest freezing nights with 14. During this same span of 15 years, the temperature in the region has only twice dropped below 15 °F (−9 °C), though it will generally fall below 20 °F (−7 °C) in most (67%) years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture places Dallas in Plant Hardiness Zone 8b. However, mild winter temperatures in the past 15 to 20 years had encouraged the horticulture of more cold-sensitive plants such as Washingtonia filifera and Washingtonia robusta palms, nearly all of which died off during the February 2021 North American winter storm. According to the American Lung Association, Dallas has the 12th highest air pollution among U.S. cities, ranking it behind Los Angeles and Houston. Much of the air pollution in Dallas and the surrounding area comes from a hazardous materials incineration plant in the small town of Midlothian and from cement plants in neighboring Ellis County.
The average daily low in Dallas is 57.4 °F (14 °C), and the average daily high is 76.9 °F (25 °C). Dallas receives approximately 39.1 inches (993 mm) of rain per year. The record snowfall for Dallas was 11.2 inches (28 cm) on February 11, 2010.
Demographics
Dallas is the ninth-most-populous city in the United States and third in Texas after the cities of Houston and San Antonio. Its metropolitan area encompasses one-quarter of the population of Texas, and is the largest in the Southern U.S. and Texas followed by the Greater Houston metropolitan area. At the 2020 United States census the city of Dallas had 1,304,379 residents, an increase of 106,563 since the 2010 United States census. However, as of July 1, 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Dallas in first years since the 2020 census lost 4,835 people, leaving the city with a population of 1,299,544.
There were 524,498 households at the 2020 estimates, up from 2010's 458,057 households, out of which 137,523 had children under the age of 18 living with them. Approximately 36.2% of households were headed by married couples living together, 57.2% had a single householder male or female with no spouse present, and 35.6% were classified as non-family households with the householder living alone. In 2010, 33.7% of all households had one or more people under 18 years of age, and 17.6% had one or more people who were 65 years of age or older. The average household size in 2020 was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.41. In 2018, the owner-occupied housing rate was 40.2% and the renter-occupied housing rate was 59.8%. At the 2010 census, the city's age distribution of the population showed 26.5% under the age of 18 and 8.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31.8 years. In 2010, 50.0% of the population was male and 50.0% was female. In 2020, the median age 32.9 years; for every 100 females, there were 98.4 males.
According to the 2020 American Community Survey, the median income for a household in the city was $54,747; families had a median household income of $60,895; married-couple families $81,761; and non-families $45,658. In 2003–2007's survey, male full-time workers had a median income of $32,265 versus $32,402 for female full-time workers. The per capita income for the city was $25,904. About 18.7% of families and 21.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.6% of those under age 18 and 13.4% of those aged 65 or over. Per 2007's survey, the median price for a house was $129,600; by 2020, the median price for a house was valued at $252,300, with 54.4% of owner-occupied units from $50,000 to $299,999.
The 2022 Point-In-Time Homeless Count found there were 4,410 homeless people in Dallas. According to the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance Continuum of Care 2022 Homeless Count & Survey Independent Analysis, "approximately 1 of 3 (31%) those experiencing homelessness were found on the streets or in other places not meant for human habitation."
The region surrounding Dallas is a habitat for mosquitoes, creating a pest problem for humans. Dallas and the surrounding area is sprayed regularly to control mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus.
Race and ethnicity
Dallas's population was historically predominantly White (non-Hispanic Whites made up 82.8% of the population in 1930), but its population has diversified due to immigration and white flight over the 20th century. Since then, the non-Hispanic White population has declined to less than one-third of the city's population. According to the 2010 U.S. census, 50.7% of the population was White (28.8% non-Hispanic White), 24.8% was Black or African American, 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 2.9% Asian, and 2.6% from two or more races; 42.4% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino American origin (they may be of any race).
At the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 estimates, 29.1% were non-Hispanic White 24.3% Black and African American, 0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, 3.7% Asian, and 1.4% from two or more races. Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders made up a total of 312 residents according to 2019's census estimates, down from 606 in 2017. Hispanic or Latino Americans of any race made up 41.2% of the estimated population in 2019. Among the Hispanic or Latino American population in 2019, 34.6% of Dallas was Mexican, 0.4% Puerto Rican, 0.2% Cuban and 6.0% other Hispanic or Latino American. In 2017's American Community Survey estimates among the demographic 35.5% were Mexican, 0.6% Puerto Rican, 0.4% Cuban, and 5.4% other Hispanic or Latino. By 2020, Hispanic or Latino Americans of any race continued to constitute the largest ethnic group in the city proper, reflecting nationwide demographic trends.
The Dallas area is a major living destination for Mexican Americans and other Hispanic and Latino American immigrants. The southwestern portion of the city, particularly Oak Cliff is chiefly inhabited by Hispanic and Latino American residents. The southeastern portion of the city Pleasant Grove is chiefly inhabited by African American and Hispanic or Latino American residents, while the southern portion of the city is predominantly black. The west and east sides of the city are predominantly Hispanic or Latino American; Garland also has a large Spanish-speaking population. North Dallas has many enclaves of predominantly white, black and especially Hispanic or Latino American residents.
The Dallas area is also a major living destination for Black and African Americans primarily due to its strong and diverse economy. Between 2010 and 2020, the Dallas area had the second-most new Black and African American residents only behind the Atlanta area and slightly above the Houston area. The notable influx of African Americans is partly due to the New Great Migration. There is a significant number of people from the Horn of Africa, immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.
The Dallas–Fort-Worth metroplex had an estimated 70,000 Russian-speakers (as of November 6, 2012) mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Bloc. Included in this population are Russians, Russian Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldavians, Uzbek, Kirghiz, and others. The Russian-speaking population of Dallas has continued to grow in the sector of "American husbands-Russian wives". Russian DFW has its own newspaper, The Dallas Telegraph.
In addition, Dallas and its suburbs are home to a large number of Asian Americans including those of Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, and other heritage. Among large-sized cities in the United States, Plano, the northern suburb of Dallas, has the 6th largest Chinese American population as of 2016. The Plano-Richardson area in particular had an estimated 30,000 Iranian Americans in 2012. With so many immigrant groups, there are often multilingual signs in the linguistic landscape. According to U.S. Census Bureau data released in December 2013, 23 percent of Dallas County residents were foreign-born, while 16 percent of Tarrant County residents were foreign-born. The 2018 census estimates determined that the city of Dallas's foreign-born population consisted of 25.4% naturalized citizens and 74.6% non-citizens.
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Recognized for having one of the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations in the nation, Dallas and the Metroplex are widely noted for being home to a vibrant and diverse LGBT community. Throughout the year there are many well-established but quite small compared to other cities LGBT events held in the area, most notably the annual Alan Ross Texas Freedom (Pride) Parade and Festival in June which draws approximately 50,000. For decades, the Oak Lawn and Bishop Arts districts have been known as the epicenters of LGBT culture in Dallas.
Religion
Christianity is the most prevalently practiced religion in Dallas and the wider metropolitan area according to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center (78%), and the Public Religion Research Institute's 2020 study (77%). There is a large Protestant Christian influence in the Dallas community, though the city of Dallas and Dallas County have more Catholic than Protestant residents, while the reverse is usually true for the suburban areas of Dallas and the city of Fort Worth.
Dallas has been called the "Prison Ministry Capital of the World" by the prison ministry community. It is a home for the International Network of Prison Ministries, the Coalition of Prison Evangelists, Bill Glass Champions for Life, Chaplain Ray's International Prison Ministry, and 60 other prison ministries.
Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches are prominent in many neighborhoods and anchor two of the city's major private universities (Southern Methodist University and Dallas Baptist University). Dallas is also home to two evangelical seminaries: the Dallas Theological Seminary and Criswell College. Many Bible schools including Christ For The Nations Institute are also headquartered in the city. The Christian creationist apologetics group Institute for Creation Research is headquartered in Dallas. According to the Pew Research Center, evangelical Protestantism constituted the largest form of Protestantism in the area as of 2014. The largest single evangelical Protestant group were Baptists. The largest Baptist denomination was the Southern Baptist Convention, followed by the historically black National Baptist Convention USA. African-initiated Protestant churches including Ethiopian Evangelical churches can be found throughout the metropolitan area.
The Catholic Church is also a significant religious organization in the Dallas area and operates the University of Dallas, a liberal-arts university in the Dallas suburb of Irving. The Cathedral Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe in the Arts District is home to the second-largest Catholic church membership in the United States and overseas, consisting over 70 parishes in the Dallas Diocese. The Society of Jesus operates the Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. Dallas is also home to numerous Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches including Saint Seraphim Cathedral, see of the Orthodox Church in America's Southern Diocese. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Ecumenical Patriarchate) has one parish in the city of Dallas.
The city is home to a sizable Latter Day Saint community. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has twenty-three stakes throughout Dallas and surrounding suburbs. The organization built the Dallas Texas Temple, the first temple in Texas, in the city in 1984. Jehovah's Witnesses also have a large number of members throughout the Dallas metropolitan division. In addition, there are several Unitarian Universalist congregations, including First Unitarian Church of Dallas, founded in 1899. A large community of the United Church of Christ exists in the city. The most prominent UCC-affiliated church is the Cathedral of Hope, a predominantly LGBT-affirming church.
Dallas's Jewish population of 50,000-75,000 is the largest of any city in Texas. Since the establishment of the city's first Jewish cemetery in 1854 and its first congregation (which would eventually be known as Temple Emanu-El) in 1873, Dallasite Jews have been well represented among leaders in commerce, politics, and various professional fields in Dallas and elsewhere. Furthermore, a large Muslim community exists in the north and northeastern portions of Dallas, as well as in the northern Dallas suburbs. The oldest mosque in Dallas is Masjid Al-Islam just south of Downtown.
Dallas has a large Buddhist community. Immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have all contributed to the Buddhist population, which is concentrated in the northern suburbs of Garland, Plano and Richardson. Numerous Buddhist temples dot the Metroplex including The Buddhist Center of Dallas, Lien Hoa Vietnamese Temple of Irving, and Kadampa Meditation Center Texas and Wat Buddhamahamunee of Arlington. A large and growing Hindu Community lives in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Most live in Collin County and the northern portions of Dallas County. Over 28 Hindu Temples exist in the area. Some notable ones include the DFW Hindu Temple, the North Texas Hindu Mandir, Radha Krishna Temple, Dallas and Karya Siddhi Hanuman Temple. There are also at least three Sikh Gurudwaras in this metropolitan area. For irreligious people, the Winter Solstice Celebration is held in the Metroplex although some of its participants are also neo-pagans and New Agers.
Crime
According to the FBI, a city to city comparison of crime rates can be misleading, because recording practices vary from city to city, citizens report different percentages of crimes from one city to the next, and the actual number of people physically present in a city is unknown. With that in mind, Dallas has one of the top 10 crime rates in Texas and its crime rate is higher than the national average.
Since 2020, Dallas' murder rate has seen a notable increase. In 2020, Dallas recorded 251 murders which was a 20-year high. By 2022 it decreased to 214 but then increased to 246 in 2023. As of 2020, the gang presence in Dallas has grown significantly and is heavily responsible for the spike in crime. Dallas leaders have made crime reduction a major priority.
Economy
In its beginnings, Dallas relied on farming, neighboring Fort Worth's Stockyards, and its prime location on Native American trade routes to sustain itself. Dallas' key to growth came in 1873 with the construction of multiple rail lines through the city. As Dallas grew and technology developed, cotton became its boon and by 1900, Dallas was the largest inland cotton market in the world, becoming a leader in cotton gin machinery manufacturing.
By the early 1900s, Dallas was a hub for economic activity all over the Southern United States and was selected in 1914 as the seat of the Eleventh Federal Reserve District. By 1925, Texas churned out more than 1⁄3 of the nation's cotton crop, with 31% of Texas cotton produced within a 100-mile (160 km) radius of Dallas. In the 1930s, petroleum was discovered east of Dallas, near Kilgore. Dallas' proximity to the discovery put it immediately at the center of the nation's petroleum market. Petroleum discoveries in the Permian Basin, the Panhandle, the Gulf Coast, and Oklahoma in the following years further solidified Dallas' position as the hub of the market.
The end of World War II left Dallas seeded with a nexus of communications, engineering, and production talent by companies such as Collins Radio Corporation. Decades later, the telecommunications and information revolutions still drive a large portion of the local economy. The city is sometimes referred to as the heart of "Silicon Prairie" because of a high concentration of telecommunications companies in the region, the epicenter of which lies along the Telecom Corridor in Richardson, a northern suburb of Dallas. The Telecom Corridor is home to more than 5,700 companies including Texas Instruments (headquartered in Dallas), Nortel Networks, Alcatel Lucent, AT&T, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Nokia, Rockwell Collins, Cisco Systems, T-Mobile, Verizon Communications, and CompUSA (which is now headquartered in Miami, Florida). Texas Instruments, a major manufacturer, employs 10,400 people at its corporate headquarters and chip plants in Dallas.
In the 1980s Dallas was a real estate hotbed, with the increasing metropolitan population bringing with it a demand for new housing and office space. Several of Downtown Dallas' largest buildings are the fruit of this boom, but over-speculation, the savings and loan crisis and an oil bust brought the 1980s building boom to an end for Dallas as well as its sister city Houston. Between the late 1980s and the early 2000s, central Dallas went through a slow period of growth. However, since the early 2000s the central core of Dallas has been enjoying steady and significant growth encompassing both repurposing of older commercial buildings in Downtown Dallas into residential and hotel uses, as well as the construction of new office and residential towers. The opening of Klyde Warren Park, built across Woodall Rodgers Freeway seamlessly connecting the central Dallas CBD to Uptown/Victory Park, has acted synergistically with the highly successful Dallas Arts District, so both have become catalysts for significant new development in central Dallas.
The residential real estate market in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex has not only been resilient but has once again returned to a boom status. Dallas and the greater metro area have been leading the nation in apartment construction and net leasing, with rents reaching all-time highs. Single family home sales, whether pre-owned or new construction, along with home price appreciation, were leading the nation since 2015.
A sudden drop in the price of oil, starting in mid-2014 and accelerating throughout 2015, has not significantly affected Dallas and its greater metro area due to the highly diversified nature of its economy. Dallas and the metropolitan region continue to see strong demand for housing, apartment and office leasing, shopping center space, warehouse and industrial space with overall job growth remaining very robust. Oil-dependent cities and regions have felt significant effects from the downturn, but Dallas's growth has continued unabated, strengthening in 2015. Significant national headquarters relocations to the area (as exemplified by Toyota's decision to leave California and establish its new North American headquarters in the Dallas area) coupled with significant expansions of regional offices for a variety of corporations and along with company relocations to Downtown Dallas helped drive the boom in the Dallas economy.
The Dallas–Fort Worth area has one of the largest concentrations of corporate headquarters for publicly traded companies in the United States. Fortune Magazine's 2022 annual list of the Fortune 500 in America indicates the city of Dallas had 11 Fortune 500 companies,. and the DFW region as a whole had 23. As of 2022, Dallas–Fort Worth represents the second-largest concentration of Fortune 500 headquarters in Texas and fourth-largest in the United States, behind the metropolitan areas of Houston (24), Chicago (35) and New York (62).
In 2008, AT&T relocated their headquarters to Downtown Dallas; AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the world and was the ninth largest company in the nation by revenue for 2017. Additional Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Dallas in order of ranking include Energy Transfer Equity, CBRE (which moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to Dallas in 2020), Tenet Healthcare, Southwest Airlines, Texas Instruments, Jacobs Engineering, HollyFrontier, Dean Foods, and Builders FirstSource. In October 2016, Jacobs Engineering, one of the world's largest engineering companies, relocated from Pasadena, California to Downtown Dallas.
Nearby Irving is home to six Fortune 500 companies of its own, including McKesson, the country's largest pharmaceutical distributor and listed at number seven overall on the 2021 Fortune 500 list, Fluor (engineering), Kimberly-Clark, Celanese, Michaels Companies, and Vistra Energy. Plano is home to an additional four Fortune 500 companies, including J.C. Penney, Alliance Data Systems, Yum China, and Dr. Pepper Snapple. Fort Worth is home to two Fortune 500 companies, including American Airlines, the largest airline in the world by revenue, fleet size, profit, passengers carried and revenue passenger mile and D.R. Horton, the largest homebuilder in America. Westlake, TX, north of Fort Worth, now has two Fortune 500 companies: Financial services giant, Charles Schwab, and convenience store distributor, Core-Mark. One Fortune 500 company, GameStop, is based in Grapevine.
Additional major companies headquartered in Dallas and its metro area include Comerica, which relocated its national headquarters to Downtown Dallas from Detroit in 2007, NTT DATA Services, Regency Energy Partners, Atmos Energy, Neiman Marcus, AECOM, Think Finance, 7-Eleven, Brinker International, Primoris Services, AMS Pictures, id Software, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Chuck E. Cheese's, Zale Corporation, and Fossil, Inc. Many of these companies—and others throughout the DFW metroplex—comprise the Dallas Regional Chamber. Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's largest breast cancer organization, was founded and is headquartered in Dallas.
In addition to its large number of businesses, Dallas has more shopping centers per capita than any other city in the United States and is also home to the second shopping center ever built in the United States, Highland Park Village, which opened in 1931. Dallas is home of the two other major malls in North Texas, the Dallas Galleria and NorthPark Center, which is the second largest mall in Texas. Both malls feature high-end stores and are major tourist draws for the region.
According to Forbes magazine's annual list of "The Richest People in America" published September 21, 2011, the city is home to 17 billionaires, up from 14 in 2009. In 2009 (with 14 billionaires) the city placed sixth worldwide among cities with the most billionaires.
Dallas is the third most popular destination for business travel in the United States, and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center is one of the largest and busiest convention centers in the country, at over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2), and the world's single-largest column-free exhibit hall. VisitDallas is the 501(c)(6) organization contracted to promote tourism and attract conventions but an audit released in January 2019 cast doubts on its effectiveness in achieving those goals.
Arts and culture
Arts and museums
The Arts District in the northern section of Downtown is home to several arts venues and is the largest contiguous arts district in the United States. Notable venues in the district include the Dallas Museum of Art; the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, home to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Wind Symphony; the Nasher Sculpture Center; and the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art.
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, also in Downtown Dallas, is a natural history and science museum. Designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects, the 180,000-square-foot (17,000 m2) facility has six floors and stands about 14 stories high.
Venues that are part of the AT&T Dallas Center for the Performing Arts include Moody Performance Hall, home to the Dallas Chamber Symphony; the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, home to the Dallas Theater Center and the Dallas Black Dance Theater; and the Winspear Opera House, home to the Dallas Opera and Texas Ballet Theater.
Not far north of the area is the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University. In 2009, it joined up with Madrid's Prado Museum for a three-year partnership. The Prado focuses on Spanish visual art and has a collection of Spanish art in North America, with works by de Juanes, El Greco, Fortuny, Goya, Murillo, Picasso, Pkensa, Ribera, Rico, Velasquez, Zurbaran, and other Spaniards.
These works, as well as non-Spanish highlights like sculptures by Rodin and Moore, have been so successful of a collaboration that the Prado and Meadows have agreed upon an extension of the partnership.
The Institute for Creation Research operates the ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History, a creationism museum, in Dallas. The former Texas School Book Depository, from which, according to the Warren Commission Report, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963, has served since the 1980s as a county government office building, except for its sixth and seventh floors, which house the Sixth Floor Museum.
The American Museum of the Miniature Arts is at the Hall of State in Fair Park. The Arts District is also home to DISD's Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a magnet school that was recently expanded. City Center District, next to the Arts District, is home to the Dallas Contemporary.
Deep Ellum, immediately east of Downtown, originally became popular during the 1920s and 1930s as the prime jazz and blues hot spot in the South. Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, and Bessie Smith played in original Deep Ellum clubs such as the Harlem and the Palace. Today, Deep Ellum is home to hundreds of artists who live in lofts and operate in studios throughout the district alongside bars, pubs, and concert venues.
A major art infusion in the area results from the city's lax stance on graffiti, and a number of public spaces, including tunnels, sides of buildings, sidewalks, and streets, are covered in murals. One major example, the Good-Latimer tunnel, was torn down in late 2006 to accommodate the construction of a light rail line through the site.
Like Deep Ellum before it, the Cedars neighborhood to the south of Downtown has also seen a growing population of studio artists and an expanding roster of entertainment venues. The area's art scene began to grow in the early 2000s with the opening of Southside on Lamar, an old Sears Roebuck and Company warehouse converted into lofts, studios, and retail.
Current attractions include Gilley's Dallas and Poor David's Pub. Dallas Mavericks owner and local entrepreneur Mark Cuban purchased land along Lamar Street near Cedars Station in September 2005, and locals speculate he is planning an entertainment complex for the site.
South of the Trinity River, the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff is home to a number of studio artists living in converted warehouses. Walls of buildings along alleyways and streets are painted with murals, and the surrounding streets contain many eclectic restaurants and shops.
Dallas has an Office of Cultural Affairs as a department of the city government. The office is responsible for six cultural centers throughout the city, funding for local artists and theaters, initiating public art projects, and running the city-owned classical radio station WRR. The Los Angeles-class submarine USS Dallas was planned to become a museum ship near the Trinity River after her decommissioning in September 2014, but this has since been delayed. It will be taken apart into massive sections in Houston and be transported by trucks to the museum site and will be put back together.
Libraries
The city is served by the Dallas Public Library system. The system was created by the Dallas Federation of Women's Clubs with efforts spearheaded by then president May Dickson Exall. Her fundraising efforts led to a grant from philanthropist and steel baron Andrew Carnegie, which allowed the library system to build its first branch in 1901.
Today, the library operates 30 branch locations throughout the city, including the 8-story J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in the Government District of Downtown.
Places of interest
Cuisine
Dallas is known for its barbecue, authentic Mexican, and Tex-Mex cuisine. Famous products of the Dallas culinary scene include the Frozen margarita machine by restaurateur Mariano Martinez in 1971.
Events
The State Fair of Texas has been held annually at Fair Park since 1886, and generates an estimated $50 million to the city's economy annually. The Red River Shootout, a football game that pits the University of Texas at Austin against the University of Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, also brings significant crowds to the city. The city also hosts the State Fair Classic and Heart of Dallas Bowl at the Cotton Bowl.
Other festivals include several Cinco de Mayo celebrations hosted by the city's large Mexican American population and a Saint Patrick's Day parade along Lower Greenville Avenue, Juneteenth festivities, Taste of Dallas, the Deep Ellum Arts Festival, the Greek Food Festival of Dallas, the annual Halloween event "The Wake", and two annual events on Halloween, including a Halloween parade on Cedar Springs Road and a "Zombie Walk" held in Downtown Dallas in the Arts District.
With the opening of Victory Park, WFAA began hosting an annual New Year's Eve celebration in AT&T Plaza that the television station hoped would be reminiscent of celebrations in New York's Times Square; New Year's Eve 2011 set a new record of 32,000 people in attendance.
After the discontinuance of the "Big D NYE" festivities a few years later, a new end-of-year event was started downtown, with a big fireworks show put on at Reunion Tower, which has since aired on KXAS and other TV stations around the state and region. Also, several Omni hotels in the Dallas area host large events to welcome in the new year, including murder mystery parties, rave-inspired events, and other events.
Sports
Downtown Dallas is home to two major league sports teams that play at the American Airlines Center: the Dallas Mavericks (NBA), who won the NBA Championship in 2011, and the Dallas Stars (NHL), who won the Stanley Cup in 1999. Nearby Arlington is home to the Dallas Cowboys (NFL), who play at the AT&T Stadium and have won five Super Bowls, the Texas Rangers (MLB), who play at Globe Life Field and won the World Series in 2023, and the Dallas Wings (WNBA), who play at College Park Center. MLS team FC Dallas plays at Toyota Stadium in Frisco and won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 1997 and 2016. Additionally, there are several minor league and college sports programs in the area.
Since joining the league as an expansion team in 1960, the Cowboys have enjoyed substantial success, advancing to eight Super Bowls and winning five. The Cowboys are financially the most valuable sports franchise in the world, worth approximately $4 billion. In 2009, they relocated to their new 80,000-seat stadium in Arlington, which was the site of Super Bowl XLV and is set to host the most matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The Cowboys are currently part of the East Division of the National Football Conference (NFC).
The Texas Rangers won the American League pennant in 2010, 2011 and 2023, and won the World Series in 2023. The franchise relocated from Washington D.C. in 1972. They play in the West Division of the American League.
The Dallas Mavericks joined the league as an expansion team in 1980. They won their first National Basketball Association championship in 2011 led by Dirk Nowitzki. They play in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference.
The Dallas Stars moved to North Texas in 1993 as a relocation from the former team, the Minnesota North Stars. The Stars have won eight division titles in Dallas, two Presidents' Trophies as the top regular season team in the NHL, the Western Conference championship three times, and in 1998–99, the Stanley Cup. The team plays in the Central Division of the Western Conference.
FC Dallas play at Toyota Stadium (formerly FC Dallas Stadium and Pizza Hut Park), a stadium that opened in 2005. They currently play in MLS's Western Conference. The team was originally called the Dallas Burn and used to play in the Cotton Bowl. Although FC Dallas has not yet won a MLS Cup, they won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 1997 and 2016 and the Supporters' Shield in 2016. Previously, the Dallas Tornado played in the North American Soccer League from 1968 to 1981.
The Dallas Wings came to The Metroplex in 2016 after relocating from Tulsa.
There are many notable minor league teams in the Dallas-Fort Worth. The Allen Americans are a professional ice hockey team headquartered at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas, which currently plays in the ECHL. They are the minor league affiliate of the NHL's Seattle Kraken. The team was founded in 2009 in the Central Hockey League(CHL). They have won 4 straight championships, 2 in the CHL (2012–13, 2013–14) and 2 in the ECHL(2014–15, 2015–16).
The Dallas Renegades are a professional football team in the relaunched XFL that plays their home games at Globe Life Park, the former home of the Texas Rangers.
The Dallas Sidekicks (2012) are an American professional indoor soccer team based in Allen, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. They play their home games in the Credit Union of Texas Event Center. The team is named after the original Dallas Sidekicks that operated from 1984 to 2004. The MLS-affiliated North Texas SC team is a member of MLS Next Pro and plays in Frisco at Toyota Stadium; it is the reserve team of FC Dallas. The Dallas Mavericks own an NBA G League team, the Texas Legends.
Rugby is a developing sport in Dallas and Texas in general. The multiple clubs, ranging from men's and women's clubs to collegiate and high school, are part of the Texas Rugby Football Union. Dallas was one of only 16 cities in the United States included in the Rugby Super League, represented by Dallas Harlequins. In 2020, Major League Rugby announced the Dallas Jackals as a new franchise. Australian rules football is also growing in Dallas. The Dallas Magpies, founded in 1998, compete in the United States Australian Football League.
The only Division I sports program within the Dallas political boundary is the Dallas Baptist University Patriots baseball team. Although outside the city limits, the Mustangs of Southern Methodist University are in the enclave of University Park. Neighboring cities Fort Worth, Arlington, and Denton are home to the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, UT Arlington Mavericks, and University of North Texas Mean Green respectively. The Dallas area hosted the Final Four of the 2014 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament at AT&T Stadium. The college Cotton Bowl Classic football game was played at the Cotton Bowl through its 2009 game, but has moved to AT&T Stadium.
The Red River Showdown is an American college football rivalry game played annually at the Cotton Bowl Stadium during the second weekend of the State Fair of Texas in October. The game is played by the Oklahoma Sooners football team of the University of Oklahoma and the Texas Longhorns football team of the University of Texas at Austin. The 10,000-capacity Forester Stadium, which is used mainly for football and soccer, is also located in Dallas.
Parks and recreation
Dallas maintains and operates 406 parks on 21,000 acres (85 km2) of parkland.
The city's parks contain 17 separate lakes, including White Rock and Bachman lakes, spanning a total of 4,400 acres (17.81 km2). In addition, Dallas is traversed by 61.6 miles (99.1 km) of biking and jogging trails, including the Katy Trail, and is home to 47 community and neighborhood recreation centers, 276 sports fields, 60 swimming pools, 232 playgrounds, 173 basketball courts, 112 volleyball courts, 126 play slabs, 258 neighborhood tennis courts, 258 picnic areas, six 18-hole golf courses, two driving ranges, and 477 athletic fields as of 2013.
Fair Park
Dallas's flagship park is Fair Park. Built in 1936 for the Texas Centennial Exposition world's fair, Fair Park is the world's largest collection of Art Deco exhibit buildings, art, and sculptures; Fair Park is also home to the State Fair of Texas, the largest state fair in the United States. In November 2019, consultants presented to the public a master plan to revitalize the area.
Klyde Warren Park
Named after Klyde Warren, the young son of billionaire Kelcy Warren, Klyde Warren Park was built above Woodall Rodgers Freeway and connects Uptown and Downtown, specifically the Arts District. Klyde Warren Park is home to an amphitheater, jogging trails, a children's park, a dog park, a putting green, croquet, ping pong, chess, an outdoor library, and two restaurants. Food trucks give another option of dining and are lined along the park's Downtown side. There are also weekly planned events, including yoga, Zumba, skyline tours, tai chi, and meditation. Klyde Warren Park is home to a free trolley stop on Olive St., which riders can connect to Downtown, McKinney Avenue, and West Village.
Turtle Creek Parkway park
Built in 1913, Turtle Creek Parkway park is a 23.7-acre (9.6 ha) linear park in between Turtle Creek and Turtle Creek Boulevard in the aptly named Turtle Creek neighborhood. Archaeological surveys discovered dart points and flint chips dating 3,000 years to 1,000 BCE. This site was later discovered to be home to Native Americans who cherished the trees and natural spring water. The park is across Turtle Creek from Kalita Humphreys Theater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Lake Cliff Park
Opened on July 4, 1906, Lake Cliff Park was called "the Southwest's Greatest Playground". The park was home to an amusement park, a large pool, waterslides, the world's largest skating rink, and three theaters, the largest being the 2,500-seat Casino Theater. After the streetcar bridge that brought most of the park visitors collapsed, Lake Cliff Park was sold. The Casino Theater moved and the pool was demolished after a polio scare in 1959. The pool was Dallas's first municipal pool.
Reverchon Park
In 1935, Dallas purchased 36 acres (15 ha) from John Cole's estate to develop Reverchon Park. Reverchon Park was named after botanist Julien Reverchon, who left France to live in the La Reunion colony, which was founded in the mid-1800s and was situated in present-day West Dallas. Reverchon Park was planned to be the crown jewel of the Dallas park system and was even referred to as the "Central Park" of Dallas. Improvements were made throughout the years, including the Iris Bowl, picnic settings, a baseball diamond, and tennis courts. The Iris Bowl celebrated many Greek pageants, dances, and other performances. The Gill Well was installed for nearby residents and drew people all across Texas who wanted to experience the water's healing powers. The baseball diamond was host to a 1953 exhibition game for the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians.
Trinity River Project
As part of the ongoing Trinity River Project, the Great Trinity Forest, at 6,000 acres (24 km2), is the largest urban hardwood forest in the United States and is part of the largest urban park in the United States. The Trinity River Audubon Center is a new addition to the park. Opened in 2008, it serves as a gateway to many trails and other nature-viewing activities in the area. The Trinity River Audubon Center is the first LEED-certified building built by the City of Dallas Parks and Recreation Department.
Katy Trail
Named after its former railroad name, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (or "MKT" Railroad), the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) stretch of railroad was purchased by the city of Dallas and transformed into the city's premier trail. Stretching from Victory Park, the 30-acre (12 ha) Katy Trail passes through the Turtle Creek and Knox Park neighborhoods and runs along the east side of Highland Park. The trail ends at Central Expressway, but extensions are underway to extend the trail to the White Rock Lake Trail in Lakewood.
Preserves
Dallas hosts three of the twenty-one preserves of the extensive 3,200 acres (13 km2) Dallas County Preserve System. The Joppa Preserve, the McCommas Bluff Preserve, and the Cedar Ridge Preserve are within the Dallas city limits. The Cedar Ridge Preserve was known as the Dallas Nature Center, but the Audubon Dallas group now manages the 633-acre (2.56 km2) natural habitat park on behalf of the city of Dallas and Dallas County. The preserve sits at an elevation of 755 feet (230 m) above sea level and offers a variety of outdoor activities, including 10 miles (16 km) of hiking trails and picnic areas.
Dallas Zoo
The city is also home to Texas's first and largest zoo, the 106-acre (0.43 km2) Dallas Zoo, which opened at its current location in 1888.
Government
Local representation
The city uses a council-manager government, with Eric Johnson serving as mayor, T.C. Broadnax serving as city manager, and 14 council members serving as representatives to the 14 council districts in the city. This organizational structure was contested by some in favor of a strong-mayor city charter, only to be rejected by Dallas voters. In 1969, Anita N. Martínez become the first Latin American to sit as a councilwoman in Dallas's city council.
In the 2017–2018 fiscal year, the city's total budget (the sum of operating and capital budgets) was $3.3 billion. The city has seen a steady increase in its budget due to sustained growth: the budget was $1.7 billion in 2002–2003, $1.9 billion in 2003–2004, $2.0 billion in 2004–2005, and $2.2 billion in 2005–2006.
Federal and state representation
National and state legislators representing Dallas:
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which exercises original jurisdiction over 100 counties in North and West Texas, convenes in the Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse in the Government District of Downtown. The same building additionally houses United States Bankruptcy and Magistrate Courts and a United States Attorney office. Dallas also is the seat of the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas.
Politics
Since 2023, Dallas has been the largest city in the United States with a Republican mayor after Eric Johnson switched parties after winning re-election. He ran and was elected as a Democrat. However, the city is normally a Democratic stronghold, with over 69% of voters supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and 67% of voters supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election (excluding write-ins). Democratic voters dominate the majority of the city, especially the central urban core and southern sectors, with Republicans spreading a sliver of suburban neighborhoods in North Dallas. In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, 57% of Dallas voters voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush. Dallas County was closely divided, with 50% of voters voting for Bush and 49% voting for Kerry. Results in the 2008 and 2012 elections favored Barack Obama, with the 44th President receiving 57% of Dallas County voters in both years, with greater margins in the city of Dallas. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, approximately 66% of Dallas voters voted for Hillary Clinton, with 28% of city voters voting for Donald Trump. Dallas County as a whole saw 61% of voters voting for Clinton, with 35% support for Trump. In 2004, Lupe Valdez was elected Dallas County Sheriff. An open lesbian, Valdez was the only female sheriff in the state of Texas until her resignation. Despite controversies in her handling of county jails, she won re-election in 2008 with a 10-point victory over Republican challenger Lowell Cannaday.
Education
There are 337 public schools, 89 private schools, 38 colleges, and 32 libraries in Dallas. Dallas–Fort Worth is also home to six Nobel Laureates.
Colleges and universities
The Dallas area has a high number of colleges and universities. In addition to those in the city, the surrounding cities also have a number of universities, colleges, trade schools, and other educational institutions. The following describes the universities and their proximity to the city:
The Texas Legislature defines all areas in Dallas County and in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District as being in the service area of Dallas College (formerly Dallas County Community College District or DCCCD). Areas in Collin County are assigned to Collin College.
Colleges and universities within Dallas city limits
UT Southwestern Medical Center ("UTSW") is a prominent academic medical center north of downtown Dallas in the Southwestern Medical District. Six Nobel laureates have been among its faculty, and UTSW was ranked #1 in the world among healthcare institutions in biomedical sciences by Nature in 2019. The main teaching hospital of the university. UTSW is part of the University of Texas System.
Texas Woman's University has operated a nursing school in Dallas at Parkland Memorial Hospital since 1966. The T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences-Dallas Center (IHSD) was opened in 2011 and is a purpose-built educational facility that replaced the building TWU had used since 1966. TWU also operated an occupational therapy school at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas from 1977 through 2011 before consolidating those functions into the new IHSD building at Parkland.
Paul Quinn College is a private, historically black college in southeast Dallas. Originally located in Waco, Texas, it moved to Dallas in 1990 and is housed on the campus of the former Bishop College, another private, historically black college. Dallas billionaire and entrepreneur Comer Cottrell Jr., founder of ProLine Corporation, bought the campus of Bishop College and bequeathed it to Paul Quinn College in 1990 making it the only historically black college in the Dallas area.
The University of North Texas at Dallas is along Houston School Road. In 2009 UNT at Dallas became the first public university within Dallas city limits. The University of North Texas System requested approval from the Texas Legislature and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for the state's first new public law school in more than 40 years. The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law was planned to be based at the Old Municipal Building in Downtown Dallas.
Dallas Baptist University is a private university in the Mountain Creek area of southwest Dallas. Originally in Decatur, Texas, the school moved to Dallas in 1965. The school enrolls over 5,600 students, and offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees. Popular subjects include Biblical studies, business, and music degrees. DBU has been recognized by the National Council on Teacher Quality for their high-quality teacher preparatory degrees. The school also maintains an Intensive English Program for international students wishing to enhance their knowledge of the English language. The campus is a Tree Campus USA and is recognized as one of the most beautiful university campuses in the Southwest U.S. The school has also become nationally recognized for its baseball team which has made several playoff runs.
Dallas Theological Seminary, also within the city limits, is recognized as one of the leading seminaries in Evangelical Protestantism. Situated 3 miles (5 km) east of Downtown Dallas, it has over 2,000 graduate students and has graduated over 12,000 alumni.
Criswell College is within two blocks of Dallas Theological Seminary. Criswell was started by First Baptist Church of Dallas in the early 1970s.
Dallas College (formerly Dallas County Community College District), the 2-year educational institution of Dallas County, has seven campuses throughout the area with branches in Dallas as well as the surrounding suburbs.
Colleges and universities within Dallas County
Southern Methodist University is a private, coeducational university in University Park, an independent city that, together with the adjacent town of Highland Park, Dallas surrounds entirely. SMU was founded in 1911 by the Southern Methodist Church, and is now run by R. Gerald Turner.
The University of Texas at Dallas is a part of the University of Texas System. It is in the city of Richardson, about 15 miles (24 km) north of Downtown Dallas. It is in the heart of the Telecom Corridor. UT Dallas is an R1 or Tier-1 University, classified by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education as a doctoral-granting university with the highest research activity. The university has many collaborative research relationships with UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The University of Dallas, in the suburb of Irving, is an enclave of Roman Catholicism in the majority Protestant religious landscape of Dallas–Fort Worth. St. Albert the Great Dominican Priory and Holy Trinity Seminary are on campus, while the Cistercian Monastery and Cistercian Preparatory School are just north of the UD campus across Texas State Highway 114. The Highlands School, a PK–12 Legionary school, is just west of the UD campus and connects to campus by jogging trails. As a center for religious study, the Cistercian Monastery continues to be notable for scholastic developments in theology.
Located in Downtown Dallas, El Centro College is the flagship institution of the Dallas County Community College District. El Centro first opened its campus doors in 1966 and now enrolls over 10,000 students. El Centro was the first college of the DCCCD to offer a nursing program and has established relationships with several top-notch hospitals in the Dallas area. The college is also the only campus within DCCCD that offers a Food & Hospitality Program as well as renowned programs in fashion design and fashion marketing.
University Research Center
Texas A&M-Dallas Research and Extension Center
Other area colleges and universities
Primary and secondary schools
Most areas in the city of Dallas are within the Dallas Independent School District, the 12th-largest school district in the United States and second largest in Texas. The school district operates independently of the city and enrolls over 161,000 students. As of 2003 DISD has the majority of K–12 students in the city of Dallas, and a proportionately larger number of students who are not non-Hispanic white. One of the district's magnet schools, the School for the Talented and Gifted in Oak Cliff.
A few areas of Dallas also extend into other school districts in Dallas County, including Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Coppell, Duncanville, Garland, Highland Park, Irving, Mesquite, and Richardson. Portions of Dallas in Collin County are in Plano ISD, and portions of Dallas in Denton County are in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD. The Wilmer-Hutchins Independent School District once served portions of southern Dallas, but it was shut down for the 2005–2006 year. WHISD students started attending other Dallas ISD schools during that time. Following the close, the Texas Education Agency consolidated WHISD into Dallas ISD. In 2003 Royce Hanson, author of Civic Culture and Urban Change: Governing Dallas, stated that the Plano, Richardson, and Wilmer-Hutchins school districts were the "most significant" of the public school students with students in Dallas who were not in Dallas ISD.
Many school districts in Dallas County, including Dallas ISD, were formerly served by a governmental agency called Dallas County Schools. The system provided busing and other transportation services, access to a massive media library, technology services, strong ties to local organizations for education/community integration, and staff development programs.
Private schools
Students from Dallas attend many private schools in Dallas, and in nearby areas. These schools include:
Media
Dallas has several local newspapers, magazines, television stations and radio stations that serve the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, which is the fifth-largest media market in the United States. Dallas has one major daily newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, which was founded in 1885 by A. H. Belo and is A. H. Belo's flagship newspaper.
The Dallas Times Herald, started in 1888, was the Morning News' major competitor until Belo purchased it on December 8, 1991, and closed the paper down the next day. Other daily newspapers are Al Día, a Spanish-language paper published by Belo, and a number of ethnic newspapers printed in languages such as Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.
Other publications include the Dallas Weekly and the Elite News, all weekly news publications. The Dallas Observer and the North Texas Journal are also alternative weekly newspapers. The Dallas Morning News formerly had a weekly publication, Neighborsgo, which came out every Friday and focused on community news. Readers could post stories and contribute content to the website.
D Magazine is a notable monthly magazine about business, life, and entertainment in Dallas–Fort Worth. Local visitor magazines include "WHERE Magazine" and "Travelhost"–available at hotel desks or in guest rooms. In addition, the park cities and suburbs such as Plano also have their own community newspapers. Also, THE Magazine covers the contemporary arts scene.
In terms of the larger metro area, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is another major daily newspaper, covering Fort Worth's metropolitan division. It also publishes a major Spanish-language newspaper for the entire metro area known as La Estrella. To the north of Dallas and Fort Worth, the Denton Record-Chronicle primarily covers news for the city of Denton and Denton County.
Area television stations affiliated with the major broadcasting networks (network O&O's highlighted in bold) include KDFW 4 (Fox), KXAS 5 (NBC), WFAA 8 (ABC) (which for many years was owned by Belo alongside the Morning News), KTVT 11 (CBS), KERA 13 (PBS), KUVN 23 (UNI), KDFI 27 (MNTV), KDAF 33 (The CW), and KXTX 39 (TMD). KTXA 21 is an independent station formerly affiliated with the now-defunct UPN network.
Over 101 radio stations operate within range of Dallas. The city of Dallas operates WRR 101.1 FM, the area's main classical music station, from city offices in Fair Park. Its original sister station, licensed as WRR-AM in 1921, is the oldest commercially operated radio station in Texas and the second-oldest in the United States, after KDKA (AM) in Pittsburgh. KKDA, an urban contemporary station, and KRNB, an urban adult contemporary station, are owned independently by Service Broadcasting Corporation.
Because of the city's central geographical position and lack of nearby mountainous terrain, high-power class A medium-wave stations KRLD and WBAP can broadcast as far as southern Canada at night and can be used for emergency messages when broadcasting is down in other major metropolitan areas in the United States.
Slavic Voice of America media group serves Russian-speaking Americans out of Dallas. Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (HBC), the largest company in the Spanish-language radio station business, is based in Dallas. In 2003, HBC was acquired by Univision and became Univision Radio Inc., but the radio company remains headquartered in the city.
Infrastructure
Public safety
The Dallas Police Department provides most policing in Dallas. The Dallas chief of police is Eddie Garcia. The police headquarters are in the Cedars neighborhood of southern Dallas.
Emergency medical services and fire protection in the city are provided by the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department. The Dallas Fire & Rescue chief is Dominique Artis. The department operates the Dallas Firefighter's Museum built in 1907 along Parry Avenue near Fair Park. Dallas's oldest remaining fire station building still stands at the corner of McKinney Ave. and Leonard and was built in 1892. It was the home of Engine Co. Number 1, and is now a picture framing shop.
Health care
Dallas has many hospitals and several medical research facilities within its city limits. One major research center is the Dallas Medical District with the UT Southwestern Medical Center in the Stemmons Corridor, along with the affiliated UT Southwestern Medical School. The health care complex includes within its bounds Parkland Memorial Hospital, Children's Medical Center, William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital (formerly St. Paul University Hospital), and the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital.
Dallas also has a VA hospital in the southern portion of the city, the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The center is home to a Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy (CMOP), part of an initiative by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide mail-order prescriptions to veterans using computerization at strategic locations throughout the United States.
Other hospitals in the city include Baylor University Medical Center in East Dallas, Methodist Dallas Medical Center in Oak Cliff, Methodist Charlton Medical Center near Duncanville, Medical City Dallas Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital in North Dallas, and the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Oak Lawn.
Utilities
Dallas is served by Dallas Water Utilities, which operates several waste treatment plants and pulls water from several area reservoirs. Several companies maintain the city's electric system, including Stream Energy, Cirro Energy and Oncor Electric Delivery, whose parent company, Energy Future Holdings Corporation, has headquarters in the city.
The city offers garbage pickup and recycling service weekly through its Sanitation Services department. Telephone networks, broadband internet, and cable television service are available from several companies, including AT&T, Spectrum, and Verizon FiOS.
Transportation
Like many other major cities in the United States, the automobile is the primary mode of local transportation, though efforts have been made to increase the availability of alternative modes of transportation, including the construction of light rail lines, biking and walking paths, wide sidewalks, a trolley system, and buses. Walk Score ranked Dallas the twenty-third most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States in 2011.
In 2009, 78.5% of Dallas (city) commuters drive to work alone. The 2009 mode share for Dallas (city) commuters are 10.7% for carpooling, 3.9% for transit, 1.9% for walking, and .1% for cycling. In 2015, the American Community Survey estimated modal shares for Dallas (city) commuters of 75.4% for driving alone, 12.8% for carpooling, 3.5% for riding transit, 1.9% for walking, and .2% for cycling.
The city of Dallas has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 10.2 percent of Dallas households lacked a car, and decreased to 9.1 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Dallas averaged 1.59 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.
Highways
Dallas is at the confluence of four major interstate highways—Interstates 20, 30, 35E, and 45. The Dallas area freeway system is set up in the popular hub-and-spoke system, shaped much like a wagon wheel. Starting from the center of the city, a small freeway loop surrounds Downtown, followed by the I-635 loop about 10 miles (16 km) outside Downtown, and ultimately the tolled President George Bush Turnpike.
Inside these freeway loops are other boulevard- and parkway-style loops, including Loop 12 and Belt Line Road. Another beltway around the city upwards of 45 miles (72 km) from Downtown is under plan in Collin County.
Radiating out of Downtown Dallas' freeway loop are the spokes of the area's highway system—Interstates 30, 35E, and 45, US 75, US 77, US 175, SH Spur 366, the Dallas North Tollway, SH 114, US 80, and US 67. Other major highways around the city include SH 183 and Spur 408.
The recently completed interchange at the intersection of Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway (I-635) and the Central Expressway (US 75) has five stacks and is aptly called the High Five Interchange. It is one of the few five-level interchanges in Dallas and is one of the largest freeway interchanges in the United States.
The following is a list of the freeways and tollways in the Dallas-Fort Worth area:
Airports
Two commercial airports serve Dallas: Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field. In addition, Dallas Executive Airport (formerly Redbird Airport), serves as a general aviation airport for the city, and Addison Airport functions similarly just outside the city limits in the suburb of Addison. Two more general aviation airports are about 35 miles (56 km) north of Dallas in McKinney, and another two are in Fort Worth, on the west side of the metroplex. Alliance Airport, in far North Fort Worth, is a cargo reliever airport to DFW Airport and general aviation facility.
DFW Airport is in the suburbs slightly north of and equidistant to Downtown Fort Worth and Downtown Dallas. In terms of size, DFW International is the largest airport in the state, the second largest in the United States, and ninth largest in the world; DFW International Airport is larger than the island of Manhattan.
In terms of traffic, DFW Airport is the busiest airport in the state, fourth-busiest in the United States, and eleventh-busiest in the world. The headquarters of American Airlines, the largest air carrier in the world ahead of United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, is less than one mile (1.6 km) from DFW Airport within Fort Worth's city limits. Similarly, Love Field is within Dallas's city limits, about 6 miles (10 km) northwest of Downtown, and is headquarters to Southwest Airlines, the largest domestic airline in the United States.
Transit systems
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is the Dallas-area public transportation authority that provides rail, buses and HOV lanes to commuters. DART began operating the first light rail system in Texas in 1996, and it is now the largest operator of light rail in the US. Today, the system is the seventh-busiest light rail system in the country with approximately 55 stations on 72 miles (116 km) of light rail, and 10 stations on 35 miles (56 km) of commuter rail. It includes four light rail lines and a commuter line: the Red Line, the Blue Line, the Green Line, the Orange Line, and the Trinity Railway Express.
The Red Line travels through Oak Cliff, South Dallas, Downtown, Uptown, North Dallas, Richardson and Plano, while the Blue Line goes through Oak Cliff, Downtown, Uptown, East Dallas, Lake Highlands, and Garland. The Red and Blue lines are conjoined between 8th & Corinth Station in Oak Cliff through Mockingbird Station in North Dallas. The two lines service Cityplace Station. The Green Line serves Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Love Field Airport, Stemmons Corridor, Victory Park, Downtown, Deep Ellum, Fair Park, South Dallas, and Pleasant Grove.
The Orange Line initially operated as a peak-service line providing extra capacity on portions of the Green and Red Lines (Bachman Station on the Green Line, through the Downtown transit mall, to Parker Road Station on the Red Line making a "U"-shape). However, the first stage of the Orange Line opened on December 6, 2010, extending its west end from Bachman to Belt Line Station in Irving. The second and final phase opened in August 2014 and provided DFW Airport with rail service. DFW Airport Terminal A station is the terminus for the Orange Line and connects Skylink.
This provides passengers the convenience of disembarking the DART rail, proceeding to security check-in and immediately boarding Skylink to be quickly transported to their desired terminal. The Blue Line has also been extended by 4.5 miles (7.2 km) to serve Rowlett at the Rowlett Park & Ride facility.
In August 2009, the Regional Transportation Council agreed to seek $96 million in federal stimulus dollars for a trolley project in Dallas and Fort Worth. The Oak Cliff Transit Authority took the lead with leaders envisioning a streetcar line that would link Union Station and the Dallas Convention Center in Downtown to Oak Cliff, Methodist Medical Center, and the Bishop Arts District via the Houston Street Viaduct.
Dallas was awarded a $23 million TIGER grant towards the $58 million Dallas Streetcar Project in February 2010.
In addition to light rail, Amtrak's Texas Eagle also serves Union Station, providing daily service east to Chicago and west to San Antonio, and thrice-weekly service west to Los Angeles. The Trinity Rail Express terminates at Union Station and T&P Station.
Notable people
International relations
The city of Dallas has worked to build Sister & Friendship City relationships around the globe. These relationships help create and strengthen partnerships between Dallas and the international community. The program aims to build global cooperation at the municipal level by promoting cultural understanding and stimulating economic development between Dallas and its foreign counterparts.
Sister cities
Dallas's sister cities are:
Friendship cities
Dallas has friendly relations with:
See also
List of museums in North Texas
National Register of Historic Places listings in Dallas County, Texas
Texas Triangle
USS Dallas, 3 ships
2015 attack on Dallas police
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Official website
Dallas from the Handbook of Texas Online
Dallas Public Library Search Results for Dallas County |
September_Declaration | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Declaration | [
634
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Declaration"
] | The September Declaration (Dutch: Septemberverklaring) is the annual government policy statement of Flanders in the form of a speech by the Minister-President of Flanders to the members of the Flemish Parliament. The Declaration, drafted by the Flemish Government, informs Parliament (and citizens) about the general state of Flemish society, and the main policy and budget plans for the next year.
The September Declaration is held annually on the fourth Monday in September, which is where its name comes from. The speech is more or less comparable to the Speech from the Throne in the Netherlands or the State of the Union in the United States. A more elaborate discussion of the plans commences the next Wednesday.
The Policy Statement (Dutch: Beleidsverklaring) in the Belgian Federal Parliament by the federal government is held about two weeks later, on the second Wednesday in October.
References
External links
Past September Declarations |
Speech_from_the_throne | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_from_the_throne | [
634
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_from_the_throne#Netherlands"
] | A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or their representative, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened. The address sets forth the government's priorities for its legislative agenda, for which the cooperation of the legislature is sought. The speech is often accompanied by formal ceremony. It is often held annually, although in some places it may occur more or less frequently, whenever a new session of the legislature is opened.
Historically, when monarchs exercised personal influence and overall decision-making in government, a speech from the throne would outline the policies and objectives of the monarch; the speech was usually prepared by the monarch's advisers, but the monarch supervised the drafting of the speech at least to some extent and exercised final discretion as to its content. In modern constitutional monarchies, whether by law or by convention, the head of state or their representative reads the speech from the throne, but it is prepared by the ministers in cabinet.
Of contemporary European monarchies today, this traditional event is held in the United Kingdom, where it is also known as the King's Speech (or Queen's Speech if the reigning monarch is female); the Netherlands, on Prince's Day; and Norway. In other countries the monarch may or may not attend the opening of the country's legislature; they may also give a speech, but these speeches, in contrast, do not outline any government agenda.
Many republics have adopted a similar practice in which the head of state, often a president, addresses the legislature; in the United States, the president makes an annual State of the Union address, in the Philippines the president makes an annual State of the Nation Address. In parliamentary republics where the president is merely a ceremonial figurehead, these speeches are often similar in tone to the throne speech of a constitutional monarchy, whereas in presidential systems such as the U.S. the speeches are somewhat different in that the president exercises personal discretion over the content but the principle of separation of powers means the legislature is not obligated to follow whatever agenda (if any) may be contained in such a speech.
Commonwealth realms
Terminology
In the United Kingdom, the speech is known as His Majesty's Most Gracious Speech, the Gracious Address, or, less formally, the King's Speech (or Queen's Speech, when the reigning monarch is female). In Canada, it is known as the Speech from the Throne (often shortened to Throne Speech) (in French: Discours du Trône). Since 1973, the lieutenant governor of Quebec has delivered a short inaugural address termed the Allocution, after which the premier reads his or her Discours d'ouverture (Opening Speech), called the Message inaugural from 1974 to 1984.
In Hong Kong, the governor's address was termed the Policy Address during Chris Patten's governorship. In the Irish Free State, the governor-general delivered the Governor-General's Address to Dáil Éireann; only two were ever given, in 1922 and 1923.
History
In the Commonwealth realms, the speech from the throne is an oration that forms part of a ceremony marking the opening of parliament. Some records indicate the ceremony has taken place since the Middle Ages, while others place its origins in the 16th century, when England was still an absolute monarchy. The speech explained to parliament the reasons it was summoned and sometimes set out the sovereign's policies and objectives. The monarch would sometimes speak to parliament in person; Edward III (in 1365), Richard II, and Edward IV did so to both houses of parliament on multiple separate occasions.
However, various other figures gave the oration on the sovereign's behalf: between 1347 and 1363, it was read by the chief justice; in 1401 by the chief justice of the Common Pleas; in 1344, 1368, 1377 (speaking for a presiding Edward III), 1399, and 1422, by the archbishop of Canterbury; and in 1343, 1363, and, usually after 1368, by the lord chancellor who was then the prolocutor, or chairman of the House of Lords. It was given on his behalf by the bishop of Winchester in 1410; in 1453 and 1467, the bishop of Lincoln; the bishop of Rochester in 1472; and the keeper of the Privy Seal in 1431. It may have been written by or with the input of the king's or queen's advisers, but, the monarch, as supreme governor, was the principal author.
Modern times
Today, within the tenets of constitutional monarchy, the speech is written by the sitting cabinet, with or without the reader's participation, and outlines the legislative programme for the new parliamentary session. Due to the parliamentary tradition of the sovereign being barred from the lower chamber, in those realms possessing a bicameral parliament, the ceremony takes place in the legislature's upper chamber, with members of both houses in attendance. In unicameral parliaments, the speech is read in the one legislative chamber. Unusually, in the Irish Free State, the speech was delivered in the lower house of its bicameral parliament.
In the United Kingdom, the speech is typically read by the reigning sovereign at the State Opening of Parliament. Traditions surrounding the opening and the speech go back to the 16th century; the present ceremony dates from 1852, when the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt after the 1834 fire. The ceremony now usually occurs annually, usually in November or December, or soon after a general election. The monarch may, however, appoint a delegate to perform the task in his or her place. Elizabeth II did this during her pregnancies in 1959 and 1963, delivered instead by Lord Chancellor; and again due to ill health in 2022, delivered instead by Prince Charles (now Charles III) who, along with Prince William, were acting as Counsellors of State.
In those countries that share with the UK the same person as their respective sovereign, the speech from the throne will usually be read on the monarch's behalf by his or her viceroy, the governor-general, although the monarch may deliver the address in person: Queen Elizabeth II read the Throne Speech in the Parliament of New Zealand in 1954, 1963, 1970, 1974, 1977, 1986, and 1990, the Parliament of Australia in 1954 and 1974, and the Parliament of Canada in 1957 and 1977. Another member of the royal family may also perform this duty, such as when, on 1 September 1919, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) read the Speech From the Throne in the Canadian parliament. On two occasions, the administrator of the Government delivered the address to the Parliament of Canada: 16 May 1963 and 30 September 1974.
In the Australian states, the relevant governor reads the speech, though the Australian monarch may also perform the task: Queen Elizabeth II opened the parliaments of some of the Australian states in 1954 and of New South Wales in 1992. In almost all the Canadian provinces, the relevant lieutenant governor delivers the speech; it is uncertain whether the Canadian monarch can do the same in any legislature of a Canadian province. In Quebec, however, the speech is referred to as the "Opening Address" (French: Allocution d'ouverture). In each of the Canadian territories, the commissioner reads the Throne Speech or Opening Address to the legislature.
In British overseas territories that have instituted this practice, the relevant governor delivers the speech. A throne speech is not typical in the devolved legislatures within the United Kingdom; the nearest equivalent is a statement of the legislative agenda of the executive branch, usually given by a first minister. However, the British monarch often undertakes visits and speaks to the devolved bodies in a less official capacity. During her reign Queen Elizabeth II was present and gave an address at all openings of the Scottish parliament, usually speaking reflectively upon its accomplishments and wishing the institution well for its coming term rather than considering the plans of the executive.
It is considered improper for the audience, including members of parliament, to show support or disapproval for any content of the speech while it is being read: that is reserved to the debate and vote that follows in legislative chambers or chamber. In 1998 in the UK, when the Queen read out the proposed House of Lords Act 1999, Labour Party MPs briefly interrupted it by vocalising support while Conservative peers responded with "shame!". Protest, though, has been expressed during a throne speech, such as when, in 2011, Brigette DePape, a page in the Canadian Senate, interrupted Governor General David Johnston's reading of the Speech From the Throne by standing and holding a sign calling for the then Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to be stopped.
Address in reply
Formally, the motion that follows the speech merely calls on parliament to thank the monarch or viceroy via an Address in Reply. The debate is, however, often wide-ranging, exploring many aspects of the government's proposed policies, and spread over several days. When the Address in Reply is eventually voted on, the poll is held to constitute a motion of confidence in the government, which, if lost, would result in the end of that government's mandate. In some legislatures, this discussion and vote is preceded by a symbolic raising of other matters, designed to highlight the independence of parliament from the Crown; a practice that originated after King Charles I was tried and executed by parliament. In the British House of Commons, the other business raised is by tradition the Outlawries Bill, while the House of Lords reads the Select Vestries Bill; neither proceeds past the first reading. In the House of Commons of Canada, the bill considered is Bill C-1, an Act Respecting the Administration of Oaths of Office, while in the Senate, it is Bill S-1, an Act Relating to Railways. The texts of these two bills have nothing to do with either oaths of office or railways; instead, they contain near-identical wordings that explain their pro forma function. In Australia and New Zealand, by contrast, no pro forma bills are introduced; there, the respective houses of representatives instead consider some brief and non-controversial business items before debating the Address in Reply.
Other countries
Japan
In Japan, the emperor makes only a short speech of greeting during the National Diet opening ceremony; he does not refer to any government policies, instead allowing the Prime Minister to address political matters, as in the contemporary cases in Sweden and Denmark.
Malaysia
Malaysia also has the same practice, with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong making such an address to the Parliament of Malaysia in joint session during its state opening yearly every March.
Morocco
In accordance with the constitution, the king addresses parliament at the beginning of its yearly session on the second Friday of October. The speech may only be made legally binding if it is read before both houses of parliament. Additionally, the monarch addresses the nation on the anniversaries of his accession (Throne Day), the Revolution of the King and the People and the Green March.
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the speech from the throne is held annually on the third Tuesday in September, which is called Prinsjesdag (Prince's Day). Article 65 of the constitution states that "A statement of the policy to be pursued by the Government is given by or on behalf of the King before a joint session of the two Houses of the States General that is held every year on the third Tuesday in September or on such earlier date as may be prescribed by Act of Parliament."
The monarch travels from Noordeinde Palace by coach to the Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) in the Binnenhof of The Hague to read the speech before a joint session of the States General. Following the speech, the president of the joint session calls out 'Long live the King!’ after which the monarch is greeted with three cheers. The monarch and his retinue leave and the joint session is declared to be closed. The monarch returns to the palace in the coach and, along with other members of the royal house, appears on the palace balcony. Following the 1983 revision of the constitution, a parliamentary session changed from lasting a year to lasting for four years. As a result, the speech no longer marks the opening of a session of parliament but the start of a new parliamentary year.
Norway
In Norway, the monarch is required by article 74 of the constitution to preside over the opening of a session of the Storting (which happens every October) after it has been declared to be legally constituted by the president of the Storting. The monarch delivers the speech before parliamentarians in the chamber of the Storting. The heir to the throne also regularly accompanies the monarch.
Upon the monarch's arrival in the chamber, the members of the Storting stand and the first verse of the royal anthem, Kongesangen, is sung. The monarch is handed the speech by the prime minister and proceeds to deliver the speech while all remain standing. Afterwards, the monarch and members take their seats and the Report on the State of the Realm, an account of the government achievement of the past year, is read (traditionally in Nynorsk), customarily by the youngest member of the government present.
The members and monarch rise and the monarch is presented with the report by the prime minister and the monarch returns the speech and report to the president. The president gives some remarks and closes with "May God preserve our King and country", joined by other members of the Storting and the first verse of the national anthem is then sung. After the monarch and his retinue have left, the meeting is adjourned and the speech and report are first debated at the subsequent sitting.
Spain
In Spain, speeches from the throne used to be practiced before the declaration of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. With the restoration of the Spanish monarchy in 1975, the monarch still opens parliament but no longer gives a "speech from the throne". The monarch gives a speech but it does not focus on or direct government policy.
Sweden
In Sweden, the practice of having a speech from the throne given by the monarch was held until 1974, coinciding with the rewrite of the constitution of Sweden which removed formal involvement of the monarch in the legislative process. The old opening of the legislature was called "The Solemn Opening of the Riksdag" (Swedish: Riksdagens högtidliga öppnande) and was full of symbolism. The speech was given before the Riksdag in the Hall of State at the Royal Palace. The King would be seated on the Silver Throne as he gave his speech.
Prior to 1907, the monarch and the princes of the royal blood would also wear their royal and princely robes and their crowns and coronets. After Oscar II's death, his successor, Gustav V was not crowned, and thus did not wear the crown when opening the Riksdag. Instead, the crown and sceptre would be placed on cushions beside the throne and the robe would be draped on the throne.
After the abolition of the opening ceremony at the palace, last held in 1974 and only once during the reign of Carl XVI Gustaf, the opening is now held at the Riksdag chamber in the presence of the monarch and his family. It is still the monarch who officially opens the annual session but he no longer gives a "speech from the throne"; the monarch is invited by the Speaker and delivers an introductory speech and then declares the session open. After the speech, the Prime Minister delivers a statement of the upcoming government agenda (Swedish: Regeringsförklaring) for the forthcoming legislative year is made.
Thailand
In Thailand, the monarch makes a speech at a joint session in the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, advising the National Assembly in their work.
Republics
Many republics also hold a yearly event in which the president gives a speech to a joint session of the legislature, such as the State of the Union address given by the president of the United States and in most U.S. states, where the governor gives a similar State of the State address. Similarly, the president of the Philippines gives the State of the Nation Address. Often such are on or near the first day of the legislature's new session. However, in theory, rather than just outline the priorities for the coming year, the head of state is supposed to provide a report to the legislature on what the country's condition is, hence the term State of the Nation.
Historical speeches
See also
Opening of the Canadian parliament
State of the Nation (disambiguation)
National Day Rally
Royal Christmas Message
References
External links
Canada
Speech from the Throne
Parliament of Canada records of past Speeches from the Throne and Motions for Address in Reply
United Kingdom
Queen's Speech in the UK Parliament 2021 – GOV.UK
Queen's Speech in the UK Parliament December 2019 – GOV.UK
Queen's Speech in the UK Parliament October 2019 – GOV.UK
Queen's Speech in the UK Parliament 2017 – GOV.UK
Queen's Speech in the UK Parliament 2016 – GOV.UK
All speeches in Parliament by the Queen – They Work For You |
Prinsjesdag | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prinsjesdag | [
634
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prinsjesdag#History"
] | Prinsjesdag (English: Prince's Day) is the day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the States-General of the Netherlands (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) to give the Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede), similar to the annual State of the Union in the United States or the British State Opening of Parliament. This speech sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session.
The occasion is prescribed by the constitution, article 65 of which states: "A statement of the policy to be pursued by the Government shall be given by or on behalf of the King or the Queen before a joint session of the two Houses of the States-General that shall be held every year on the third Tuesday in September or on such earlier date as may be prescribed by Act of Parliament." Article 105, paragraph 2 of the Constitution adds that this coincides with the submission of the budget.
After the speech from the throne, the budget is later presented to the House of Representatives by the Minister of Finance.
Speech from the Throne
The first part of Prinsjesdag is the Speech from the Throne at the assembly of the States-General in the Ridderzaal.
At around 12:30 on Prinsjesdag, the members of the Senate and House of Representatives enter the Ridderzaal.
They sit opposite and to the left and right of the throne. The ministers and state secretaries sit to the left of the throne. Behind them sit members of the Council of State, the government’s highest advisory body. They all sit in the enceinte, an area enclosed by unobtrusive wooden barriers symbolising that the head of state is in conference with Parliament.
Outside the enceinte are seats for the other High Councils of State, senior civil servants, high-ranking officers of the armed forces, senior members of the judiciary, the King’s or the Queen's Commissioner of the province of South Holland, the mayor of The Hague and specially invited guests.
At the stroke of one, the King or the Queen, normally accompanied by other members of the Royal House, leaves Noordeinde Palace in the Golden Coach (Glass Coach sometimes) for the Binnenhof, escorted by court dignitaries and a military escort of honour. Outside the palace stand an escort of honour and a military band.
As the King or the Queen arrives at the Binnenhof, a band by the steps strikes up the Wilhelmus (national anthem). The King and other members of the Royal House salute the colour of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps (the most ancient regiment in the Dutch armed forces) and mount the Ridderzaal’s steps, above which hangs a canopy.
The president of the Senate presides over the joint session. Shortly before 13:00, he opens the meeting and then appoints a number of ushers from among the members of the two Houses to escort the King and his entourage. On this occasion, male MPs wear their most formal dress, while female MPs try to outdo each other with extravagant hats.
The ushers receive the King or the Queen and the members of the Royal House at the entrance to the Ridderzaal. The president of the joint session then announces the arrival of the head of state: a signal for all those present to stand. The King or the Queen then proceeds to the throne, from where he delivers his Speech from the Throne. In his capacity of (formal) head of the Government he announces the plans for the new parliamentary year. The King's or the Queen's Speech is not written by the King, but by the Prime Minister and the cabinet.
When the Speech is finished, the speaker of the Senate proclaims "Leve de koning!" ("Long live the King!") or "Leve de koningin!" ("Long live the Queen!") which is answered by everyone present with "Hoera! Hoera! Hoera!" This brings an end to the joint session of the two houses. The ushers escort the King and members of the Royal House to the door. The president then closes the session.
When the King or the Queen leaves the Ridderzaal, the escort of honour again forms in the Binnenhof, and the procession returns to Noordeinde Palace where he traditionally salutes the gathered crowd from the balcony.
Proposal of the next year's budget
After lunch, the Minister of Finance proposes the next year's national budget and the Budget Memorandum (the Miljoenennota) to the House of Representatives. Since 1947, the budget submitted is carried in a special briefcase in imitation of the British Budget Day tradition. The current briefcase was made in 1964 and has printed on it in Dutch: "Third Tuesday of September". Due to the size of the case, it probably contains only a part of the entire memorandum.
General debates
The presentation is followed by a cycle of parliamentary debates on the budget. It starts with the general political debate (Dutch: algemene politieke beschouwingen), where the Prime Minister speaks on behalf of the government with parliamentary group leaders. A week later, the House debates with the minister and state secretaries of Finance during the general financial debate (Dutch: algemene financiële beschouwingen). Afterwards, the budget of every ministry is discussed in parliamentary committees. It is the most important moment for parliamentary policy making, as MPs can amend the budget to finance specific plans.
History
In the 18th century, Prinsjesdag was one of the country's most popular public holidays and was originally used to celebrate the birthday of Prince William V on 8 March.
Between 1780 and 1797 — known as the Patriot era, leading up to the Batavian Revolution — the day was used for demonstrations of loyalty to the House of Orange, which is probably why the current name was chosen in the 19th century for the ceremonial opening of parliament.
Historically, the constitution has stated that the opening of parliament should take place on a fixed date. The opening of parliament was originally held on the first Monday in November in the first half of the 19th century, and then the third Monday in October, but when a constitutional revision introduced annual budgets in 1848, more time was needed to debate the budget, so the date was brought forward a month. Monday was considered inappropriate, because many parliamentarians in distant parts of the country needed to leave their homes on Sunday to make it to The Hague in time, so in 1887 Prinsjesdag was moved to Tuesday.
Throughout the years 1815 to 1904, the speech from the throne was given in the assembly room of the House of Representatives, but it was moved back to the Hall of Knights after an extensive restoration of the building at the start of the 20th century.
The pomp and circumstance is still very much part of the day.
See also
State of the Nation (disambiguation) – for similar speeches in other countries
References
External links
Prinsjesdag, the third Tuesday in September |
Connor_McDavid | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connor_McDavid | [
635,
672
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connor_McDavid",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connor_McDavid"
] | Connor Andrew McDavid (born January 13, 1997) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Born and raised in Richmond Hill, Ontario, the Oilers selected him first overall in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. McDavid is often regarded as one of the best players in the world, and his offensive dominance has drawn comparisons to players such as Sidney Crosby.
McDavid spent his childhood playing ice hockey against older children. Coached by his father, McDavid won four Ontario Minor Hockey Association championships with the York Simcoe Express, but he left the team in 2011 to join the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL). There, McDavid was named the GTHL Player of the Year and the winner of the Tim Adams Memorial Trophy. He was granted exceptional player status in 2012 by Hockey Canada, which allowed him to begin playing junior ice hockey at the age of 15. The Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) selected him first overall in that year's draft, and he played there until 2015. McDavid's OHL career concluded with a 2014–15 season in which he recorded 120 points and received a number of OHL and Canadian Hockey League (CHL) awards, including the Red Tilson Trophy, Wayne Gretzky 99 Award, and CHL Player of the Year awards. McDavid also represented Canada at several international competitions during this time, winning gold medals at the 2013 IIHF World U18 Championships and 2015 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
After finishing his junior hockey career, McDavid joined the Oilers for their 2015–16 season. Despite missing three months of his rookie season due to a fractured clavicle, he was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team and was a finalist for the Calder Memorial Trophy. The following year, the Oilers appointed 19-year-old McDavid the youngest captain in NHL history. Recording 100 points during the 2016–17 season, at the age of 20, McDavid became the second youngest player to win the Art Ross Trophy for the leading scorer in the NHL. He was also awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award, and was selected to the NHL First All-Star Team. Although the Oilers missed the Stanley Cup playoffs during the next two seasons, McDavid scored 41 goals in consecutive years. He injured his knee in the final game of the 2018–19 season but underwent a nonsurgical rehabilitation process that allowed him to return in time for the start of the 2019–20 season. In 2020–21, despite the COVID-19 pandemic shortening the NHL season to only 56 games, McDavid recorded 100 points for the fourth time in his career. In 2023–24, McDavid captained the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Finals, their first since 2006. McDavid went on to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, becoming only the sixth player, and first since Jean-Sébastien Giguère in 2003, to win the award despite not winning the Stanley Cup.
He is a four-time NHL First Team All-Star, a five-time recipient of the Art Ross Trophy, a four-time winner of the Ted Lindsay Award, a three-time recipient of the Hart Memorial Trophy, and the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy winner for 2022–23 as the league's leading goal-scorer. His opponents have praised his speed on the ice, and McDavid has won Fastest Skater at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition four times. He is one of only two players – after fellow Oilers captain Wayne Gretzky in 1982 – to unanimously win the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player.
Early life
McDavid was born on January 13, 1997, in Richmond Hill, Ontario. His mother, Kelly, played one year of recreational ice hockey as a child before turning her attention towards skiing, while his father, Brian, was a high school ice hockey player and dedicated Boston Bruins fan. McDavid began playing hockey around the age of three, practicing on rollerblades in the family basement. He began playing organized youth hockey the next year, as his parents lied about his age to allow him to play with five-year-olds. When he was six, the local youth hockey association in his hometown of Newmarket forbade McDavid to play against older children, and his parents, believing that he would be "bored out of his mind" in house league hockey, enrolled him in an Aurora, Ontario, hockey program. From there, he won four Ontario Minor Hockey Association championships with the York Simcoe Express, a team coached by his father. In 2009, McDavid participated in the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with his York Simcoe team, which also featured future professional ice hockey player Sam Bennett.
In 2011, McDavid left the Express for the Toronto Marlboros of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL), the team that he and his father had defeated in the previous year's Ontario Hockey Federation championship. The decision came at a social cost, as he lost many of the friends that he had made with York Simcoe. He won the GTHL Player of the Year Award in 2012 after scoring 33 goals and recording 39 assists in 33 regular season games. McDavid added another 19 points (11 goals and eight assists) in seven OHL Cup games, the most by any player since Sam Gagner recorded 17 points in five games during the 2005 tournament. Although he received the Tim Adams Memorial Trophy as the tournament MVP, McDavid's team was defeated 2–1 in the OHL Cup final by the Mississauga Rebels.
Playing career
Junior
Although McDavid contemplated playing NCAA Division I hockey, he ultimately decided to enter the junior ice hockey circuit as an adolescent rather than waiting to begin a college career. McDavid applied for exceptional player status through Hockey Canada, and after passing through evaluations of his athleticism, academics, and maturity, he was allowed to enter the junior hockey draft at the age of 15 rather than 16. He was only the third Ontario Hockey League (OHL) player to be granted such an exception, following John Tavares in 2005 and Aaron Ekblad in 2011. On April 7, 2012, the Erie Otters selected McDavid first overall in the 2012 OHL Priority Selection, and he signed with the team that June. As the first overall selection in that year's OHL draft, McDavid was the recipient of the 2012 Jack Ferguson Award.
McDavid joined the Otters for the 2012–13 season, where he scored his first OHL goal on September 21, in an 8–2 loss to the London Knights. That October, he was named the OHL Rookie of the Month after recording at least one point in all 10 games he played. He took home the award again in November with a rookie-leading 17 points in 13 games. That same month, McDavid became the youngest OHL player ever to participate in the Subway Super Series. In January and February, the physical toll of moving from minor to junior hockey, as well as frustration playing for the last-place Otters, limited McDavid's effectiveness on the ice, and his scoring began to slow. On March 10, 2013, despite the Otters falling 6–4 to the Owen Sound Attack, McDavid picked up his 37th assist of the season, setting a franchise record for rookie assists. It was also his 62nd point of the season, tying with Tim Connolly for the most rookie points in Otters history. He went on to record four more points in the regular season, breaking Connolly's record. McDavid finished his rookie season with 25 goals and 41 assists in 63 regular season games, second in scoring to Nikolay Goldobin among all OHL rookies. In addition to being named to the OHL First All-Rookie Team, McDavid took home the 2013 Emms Family Award for OHL rookie of the year. He was also a finalist for CHL Rookie of the Year, a title which ultimately went to Valentin Zykov of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar.
In contrast to their poor finish during the previous season, the Otters opened the 2013–14 season with 25 points in their first 15 games, including a 10-game winning streak. During this stretch, McDavid personally had five goals and 28 points, three points behind OHL leader and teammate Connor Brown. He was named the OHL Player of the Month in October and received another Subway Super Series selection, appearing as the youngest player in the tournament for the second year in a row. After experiencing two consecutive four-point outings in an 11–2 win against the Plymouth Whalers and 6–1 victory over the Windsor Spitfires in March, McDavid was named both the OHL and CHL Player of the Week. Later that week, his 25th goal of the season helped the Otters to reach 100 points as a team for the first time since 2001. He finished the regular season fourth in the OHL with 99 points (28 goals and 71 assists) in 56 games. His 20 penalty minutes, meanwhile, were the lowest among the top 12 scorers in the league, and McDavid was awarded the William Hanley Trophy for the most sportsmanlike player in the OHL. With a 92 per cent average at McDowell High School, McDavid both won the 2014 Bobby Smith Trophy for the OHL's Scholastic Player of the Year and was named the 2014 CHL Scholastic Player of the Year. He was also named to the OHL Second All-Star Team alongside Otters defenceman Adam Pelech and coach Kris Knoblauch. The Otters, meanwhile, finished the regular season second in the OHL, and McDavid added an additional four goals and 19 points in 14 postseason games before Erie fell to the Guelph Storm in the Western Conference finals.
The Otters named McDavid their captain for the 2014–15 season during training camp. McDavid recorded at least one point in all but one of the first 18 games of the season and led the OHL with 51 points before breaking his hand in a fight with Bryson Cianfrone of the Mississauga Steelheads on November 11. McDavid had already recorded a goal and assist at the time of his injury, giving him a Gordie Howe hat trick, but was forced to miss both the Subway Super Series and several regular season games. He missed six weeks of the regular OHL season, first to injury and then international competition, before returning on January 8 for a 4–3 defeat from the Sarnia Sting. Shortly after his return, McDavid was named the captain of Team Cherry at the 2015 CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game; teammate Dylan Strome was selected to captain Team Orr. After recording his first OHL hat-trick on February 25 against the Guelph Storm, McDavid recorded his 100th point of the season with a goal and assist against the Owen Sound Attack. He was the fourth OHL player that season to reach 100 points, doing so in only 38 games due to his injury, and was named OHL Player of the Month for February. He finished the regular season with 44 goals and 120 points in 47 games, with at least one point in all but two of those games, and he led the OHL with a +60 plus–minus rating.
At the end of the 2014–15 season, McDavid received a number of awards from the OHL and CHL. In addition to winning the Bobby Smith Trophy and CHL Scholastic Player of the Year for the second consecutive year, he was also named to the OHL First All-Star Team, received the Red Tilson Trophy for the most outstanding player in the OHL, the CHL Player of the Year title, and the CHL Top Draft Prospect Award. Although the Otters were defeated in the J. Ross Robertson Cup finals by the Oshawa Generals, McDavid recorded 21 goals and 49 points in 20 postseason games, including two goals and six points in five championship series games, and received the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award for the most valuable player in the OHL playoffs. With five individual OHL awards in his three-year career, McDavid also finished his junior hockey tenure as the most decorated player in league history. Altogether, McDavid had 285 points in his career with the Otters, 24 fewer than franchise leader Brad Boyes, and led the franchise with 188 assists.
Professional (2015–present)
2015–2020: Injury–shortened rookie season, starting Oilers captaincy, team disappointments
The Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL), who were coming off of a 24–44–14 season, selected McDavid first overall in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. On July 3, 2015, he signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the team; the total deal was worth $11.3 million, including up to $3.775 million annually in bonus incentives. He made his NHL debut on October 9, 2015, nearly scoring twice but stopped by Brian Elliott both times in a 3–1 loss to the St. Louis Blues. His first goal came five days later in his third NHL game, when McDavid scored on Kari Lehtonen in the second period of a 4–2 loss to the Dallas Stars. On November 3, in his 13th NHL game, McDavid suffered a fractured left clavicle after a collision into the boards with Brandon Manning and Michael Del Zotto of the Philadelphia Flyers. At the time of the injury, he had five goals and 12 points through those 13 games. He missed a total of 37 games with the injury, by which point the Oilers had fallen well out of playoff contention, but returned on February 3 with a goal and two assists in Edmonton's 5–1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. On February 11, while facing his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, McDavid was involved in all five of the Oilers' points: in addition to scoring twice, he also had assists on every part of Jordan Eberle's hat trick. That single-game performance helped boost McDavid to tenth overall in NHL rookie scoring at that point, despite playing in only his 19th game of the 2015–16 season. Despite appearing in only 45 games due to injury, McDavid finished his rookie season with 16 goals and 32 assists, fourth in rookie scoring. He was third place in Calder Memorial Trophy voting, behind Shayne Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers and winner Artemi Panarin of the Chicago Blackhawks, and all three players were named to the 2015–16 NHL All-Rookie Team.
On October 5, 2016, the Oilers named McDavid their captain for the 2016–17 season. At 19 years and 266 days old, McDavid became the youngest captain in NHL history, unseating Gabriel Landeskog, who was 20 days older when he became captain of the Colorado Avalanche in September 2012. After a 10-game goal drought early in the season, McDavid recorded his first NHL hat-trick on November 19 in a 5–2 victory over the Dallas Stars. The following month, on December 18, 2016, he scored his first shootout goal against Ben Bishop to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3–2. With two assists against the New Jersey Devils on January 13, McDavid became the first player to reach 50 points during the 2016–17 season. Five days later, he recorded his 100th NHL point with an assist on Zack Kassian's goal against the Florida Panthers. He reached the milestone in only 92 games, following Wayne Gretzky (61 games) and Blair MacDonald (85) as the third-fastest Oiler to reach 100 career points. With a league-leading 16 goals and 56 points halfway through the season, McDavid earned his first NHL All-Star Game selection in 2017, playing on the same line as Anaheim Ducks rival forward Ryan Kesler for the Pacific Division team. He also won Fastest Skater at the NHL All-Star Skills Competition with a time of 13.02 seconds. In the final regular season game of the year, McDavid recorded two assists to finish the season with 100 points. In doing so, he became the youngest player (just four months past his 20th birthday) to win the Art Ross Trophy for the NHL scoring leader since a 19-year-old Sidney Crosby won in the 2006–07 season. Playing in all 82 games of the season, McDavid recorded 30 goals and 70 assists for 100 points, with at least one point in 59 games and a 14-game point streak to close out the regular season.
The Oilers ended a 10-year playoff drought on March 29, 2017, when they defeated the Los Angeles Kings to clinch a berth in the 2017 playoffs. McDavid scored his first NHL postseason goal short-handed in the Oilers' 2–0 shutout win over the San Jose Sharks in the opening-round series. Edmonton defeated the Sharks in six games of the best-of-seven series and went on to face the Anaheim Ducks in the second round. That series went to seven games, with the Oilers falling 2–1 in the winner-takes-all match. McDavid added five goals and nine points in 13 playoff games before elimination. Once the Stanley Cup playoffs concluded, McDavid was honoured at the 2017 NHL Awards with the Hart Memorial Trophy for the most valuable player in the NHL, the Ted Lindsay Award for the most outstanding player as decided by the National Hockey League Players' Association, and a selection to the NHL First All-Star Team at centre.
On July 5, 2017, McDavid signed an eight-year, $100 million contract extension with the Oilers, which went into effect at the beginning of the 2018–19 season. His second hat-trick, meanwhile, came in the first game of the 2017–18 season, when McDavid scored every Edmonton goal in their 3–0 shutout of the Calgary Flames. With a team-leading 14 goals and 45 points by the halfway point of the season, McDavid won the fan vote to captain the Pacific Division at the 2018 NHL All-Star Game, his second such selection. He successfully defended his Fastest Skater title at the Skills Competition, completing the course in 13.454 seconds to narrowly defeat Brayden Point of the Tampa Bay Lightning. On February 5, shortly after the All-Star Game, McDavid had his first NHL four-goal game with a 6–2 win over the Lightning, breaking Edmonton's 0-for-17 power play cold streak in the process. McDavid's third hat-trick of the season came on February 18, when he broke both the Oilers' six-game losing streak and the Colorado Avalanche's 10-game at-home winning streak. While the Oilers finished the season well outside of playoff contention, finishing 17 points behind the Avalanche in the wild-card race, McDavid set career highs with 41 goals and 108 points along with 67 assists, and he led the NHL with 84 even-strength points. Although his team's poor performance left McDavid out of serious contention for the Hart Trophy, he became the first player to receive the Art Ross Trophy in back-to-back years since Jaromír Jágr in 2000 and 2001. McDavid additionally took home the Ted Lindsay Award and was named to the NHL First All-Star Team.
With a point in all nine of the Oilers' first goals of the 2018–19 season, McDavid broke Adam Oates's record, set in 1986–87, when Oates was involved in the Detroit Red Wings' first seven goals of the season. With an overtime goal against Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Cam Ward on October 28, McDavid became the first Oiler to record at least 17 points through the first 10 games of an NHL season since Mark Messier in 1989–90. On December 13, with two assists in his 240th NHL game, McDavid became the ninth player to reach 300 points before his 22nd birthday and tied Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins as the 21st century NHL player to reach the milestone in the fewest games. While serving as the Pacific Division captain at his third consecutive NHL All-Star Game, McDavid set an NHL record with his third Fastest Skater victory, defeating Jack Eichel and Mathew Barzal with a speed of 13.378 seconds. On February 22, McDavid received a two-game suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety for what was deemed an illegal check to the head of New York Islanders defenceman Nick Leddy. He finished the season with a career-tying 41 goals, as well as a career-high 75 assists and 116 points, and he came in third behind Sidney Crosby and Nikita Kucherov in Hart Trophy voting. McDavid also received his third NHL First All-Star Team selection, finishing ahead of Crosby in voting for centre. On April 6, 2019, the final game of the season, McDavid crashed into the Calgary Flames' net at a velocity of over 40 km/h (25 mph), slamming his left knee into the post. He was diagnosed with a complete tear of the posterior cruciate ligament and popliteus muscle, tears to both the medial and lateral meniscus, and a tibial plateau fracture. With the Oilers already eliminated from possible playoff contention, McDavid elected not to undergo surgery but to participate in an extensive rehabilitation program that would allow him to return in time for the beginning of the 2019–20 season. The season also saw significant developments for the Oilers as a team, with general manager Peter Chiarelli sacked midway through in January 2019 after years of criticism for his inability to assemble a competitive team around McDavid. Subsequently, Ken Holland was hired as the team's new general manager.
McDavid started the 2019–20 season as the NHL First Star of the Week with 12 points through the first five games of the year, all of which the Oilers came back from behind to win. With the first goal of his hat-trick against the Anaheim Ducks on November 10, McDavid reached 400 NHL points in 306 games, joining Sidney Crosby as the only other active NHL player to reach the milestone in that many games. It was also 64 days before his 23rd birthday, making McDavid the eighth player to record 400 points before turning 23. Five days later, McDavid recorded another hat-trick as part of a career-high six-point game against the Colorado Avalanche. Although he reached 50 points on December 1 in a 3–2 win against the Vancouver Canucks, McDavid's scoring pace began to slow after his pair of hat tricks: he recorded 48 points in the first 25 games of the season but only 10 in the next nine, a stretch which also included four pointless outings. McDavid made his fourth All-Star Game appearance in 2020 as captain of the Pacific Division. He was kept from a fourth consecutive Fastest Skater win by Mathew Barzal, who finished the course in 13.175 seconds, ahead of McDavid's 13.215-second lap.
With their February 9 outing against the Nashville Predators, during which Draisaitl scored twice and McDavid had an assist, the pair became the first teammates to reach 30 goals and 80 points apiece in 55 games since Mario Lemieux and Jaromír Jágr with the Pittsburgh Penguins during the 1996–97 season. McDavid injured his knee in a collision with Dante Fabbro during the second period of that game, and although the knee itself did not suffer any serious damage, MRI scans revealed a quadriceps injury. He missed six games before returning on February 23 for a three-point outing in the Oilers' 4–2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. By the time that the NHL indefinitely suspended the season on March 12 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, McDavid had 34 goals, 63 assists and 97 points in 64 games. When the NHL returned to play that July for the 2020 playoffs, McDavid was one of 31 skaters that the Oilers took into their quarantine bubble. He added an additional five goals and nine points in four postseason games before the Chicago Blackhawks eliminated the Oilers in the qualifying round. That included a postseason hat-trick in Game 2 to help the Oilers to a 6–3 win.
2020–present: Rising team contention, Rocket Richard Trophy win and Conn Smythe Trophy
On January 14, 2021, in the second game of the pandemic-shortened 2020–21 season, McDavid scored the first hat-trick of any player that year as the Oilers won 5–2 against the Vancouver Canucks. With eight goals and 14 assists in the first 11 games of the season, McDavid joined Wayne Gretzky as the only Oilers in history to reach 20 points in 11 games during back-to-back seasons, a feat for which he was named the NHL North Division Star of the Month for January. His 500th career point came on an assist against the Winnipeg Jets on February 17. The point came in McDavid's 369th NHL game, tying Sidney Crosby as the eighth-fastest player to reach the milestone. Four days later, he had a natural hat-trick and a five-point game in a 7–1 rout of the Calgary Flames. He won the North Division Star of the Month again for March after recording 23 points in 14 games, including an 11-game point streak between March 6 and 29. On May 9, 2021, in only the 53rd game of the pandemic-shortened season, McDavid reached his 100th point of the year in a four-point outing against the Canucks. He was the first player to reach the milestone in so few games since Mario Lemieux during the 1995–96 season. He finished the season with 33 goals and a league-leading 72 assists for a league-leading 105 points in all 56 games, 21 more than runner-up and teammate Leon Draisaitl, and took home his third career Art Ross Trophy. At the end of the regular season, he was named to his fourth NHL First All-Star Team, won his third Ted Lindsay Award, and joined Wayne Gretzky as the only players in the 97-year history of the award to win the Hart Memorial Trophy by unanimous selection.
The Oilers were unexpectedly swept by the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the 2021 playoffs, with McDavid recording only one goal and three assists in the four-game series. The officiating standards during the playoffs subsequently became a public point of contention, with McDavid joining many fans and commentators in saying that referees allowed the Jets' players to foul him with impunity. It was noted that McDavid did not draw a single penalty during the series against the Jets, and had only drawn one in the preceding year's playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks. McDavid asked that referees "call the rule book, that's what it's there for."
McDavid began the 2021–22 season on a 17-game point streak, which came to an end on November 23, 2021, in a 4–1 loss to the Dallas Stars. It was the eighth-longest point streak to begin a season in NHL history and the third-longest for the Oilers, behind Wayne Gretzky's 51- and 30-game streaks in 1983–84 and 1982–83, respectively. While the Oilers started the season with a franchise-best 9–1 record, McDavid and Draisaitl became the first pair of Edmonton teammates to individually reach 20 points within the first 10 games of the season since Gretzky and Jari Kurri in 1984–85. After an excellent start to the season, both the Oilers and McDavid began suffering a marked decline in results, culminating in a 2–11–2 stretch of games in December and January. By early February they had dropped out of a playoff spot. Amidst extensive media discussion of the Oilers' lack of depth scoring and questionable goaltending, general manager Holland fired coach Dave Tippett and replaced him with Jay Woodcroft, previously the coach of the Oilers AHL affiliate Bakersfield Condors.
McDavid was once again selected as the captain of the Pacific Division team at the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, where he was upset by Jordan Kyrou of the St. Louis Blues in the Fastest Skater competition. The Oilers recovered their form under Woodcroft, finishing the season in second place in the Pacific Division to qualify for the playoffs after posting the third-best points percentage in the league after the coaching change with a 26–9–3 record. McDavid finished the season with 44 goals, 79 assists and 123 points in 80 games to secure his fourth career Art Ross Trophy. This point total was eight points more than runner-up Johnny Gaudreau of the Calgary Flames and Jonathan Huberdeau of the Florida Panthers, who both finished with 115 points. McDavid was again named a finalist for both the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award.
The Oilers advanced in the 2022 playoffs to meet the Los Angeles Kings, seen as favourites to advance beyond the first round for only the second time in McDavid's career. The Kings proved a greater challenge than many had expected, and after five games led the series 3–2. With the Oilers facing elimination in Game 6 in Los Angeles, McDavid led the team to victory, posting a goal and two assists in a game-leading 24:02 minutes of ice time to force Game 7. Two days later, McDavid had a primary assist on Cody Ceci's game-winning goal, before burying a backhand shot in the final minutes to secure a 2–0 Oilers win and clinch the series. McDavid's four goals and 10 assists led the league in the first round of the playoffs, and he became only the second player in history to record six multi-point games in a single playoff series. The Oilers drew the Calgary Flames in the second round, the first playoff "Battle of Alberta" in 31 years. With two goals and four assists in the first two games of the second round, McDavid hit 20 career playoff points in the fewest games of any player in 30 years. McDavid scored the series-clinching goal in overtime in Game 5 to send the Oilers to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 2006. The Oilers were ultimately defeated by the top-seeded Colorado Avalanche, the eventual Stanley Cup champions, in a four game sweep, bringing the postseason to an end. With 10 goals and 23 assists for a total of 33 points, he led all players in scoring in the 2022 playoffs. He became the first player since Peter Forsberg in 2002 to first in scoring without playing in the final round.
On October 12, 2022, during the Oilers' 2022–23 season opener against the Vancouver Canucks, McDavid scored a hat-trick and increased his total career points to 700. This made him the sixth-fastest player in NHL history to reach the milestone, and the fastest player since the 1980s. In a season marked by increased scoring generally across the league, McDavid once again led the league in points from the beginning, this time while also scoring goals at the highest pace of his career thus far. On January 22, McDavid scored his 40th goal of the season in a win over the Vancouver Canucks, becoming the fastest NHL player to notch 40 goals in a season since Pavel Bure during the 1999–2000 season. McDavid reached 800 career points against the Philadelphia Flyers in a February 21 game, the fifth-fastest pace of any player in league history. That game was the first of four consecutive two-goal games that saw him reach the 50-goal mark for the first time in a single season on February 27. He notched a fifth consecutive two-goal game on March 1, becoming only the fifth player in league history to do so. With a goal and an assist in a game against the Ottawa Senators on March 14, he reached 129 points on the season, surpassing Nikita Kucherov's 21st-century record set four years prior. He then reached the 60-goal mark for the first time in his career on March 22, scoring the game-winning goal in overtime against the Arizona Coyotes. He was only the fourth player to do so in the 21st century, and, in 72 games, reached it faster than anyone since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. McDavid scored his 64th goal on April 8, which made him the sixth player in NHL history to hit the 150-point threshold, whilst leading the league in goals for the first time in his career. He finished the season with 64 goals and 153 points, winning his fifth (and third consecutive) Art Ross Trophy and, for the first time in his career, earning the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy for leading the NHL in goal-scoring. He was the first Oiler to win the Richard Trophy, and the first to lead the NHL in goals since Gretzky in 1986–87. His 64 goals were one short of Alexander Ovechkin's post-lockout record of 65 in the 2007–08 season. His 153 points were the most for a player since Lemieux in 1996, and the fourth-most for any player in NHL history, behind Gretzky, Lemieux and Steve Yzerman. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation dubbed it "the season of the century." He was once again named finalist for both the Hart Memorial Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award. Winning both awards, he finished the season with four individual player trophies. He received 195 of 196 first-place votes for the Hart Trophy, narrowly missing a second unanimous win.
The Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division and sixth in the league, qualifying for the 2023 playoffs. They drew the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the second consecutive year, entering as the favourite to advance. The Oilers ousted the Kings in six games, with McDavid and Draisaitl again credited as dominant forces in the contest, and moved to face the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round. The second round matchup attracted media attention due to the presence of Jack Eichel on the Golden Knights roster, as Eichel had been drafted second overall in the same year as McDavid and was viewed at the time as a potential career rival, though the narrative had largely faded in the following years due to neither party's interest in establishing further tension, Eichel's original Buffalo Sabres team from 2015 to 2021 not achieving much success, and the Sabres being in a different division and conference than the Oilers. The Oilers were ultimately defeated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights in a six-game series, bringing their postseason to an end.
In the summer 2023 off-season, the Oilers hired Jeff Jackson, McDavid's longtime agent, to serve as the CEO of hockey operations. McDavid vowed that it would be "Cup or bust" for the team going into the 2023–24 season. The team had a "disastrous" start to the season, winning only two of their first ten games and sitting second-to-last in the NHL. McDavid missed games due to injury in this period, and at the same point was tied for 57th in league scoring. On November 12, the team fired coach Woodcroft and replaced him with Kris Knoblauch, who had previously been McDavid's coach with the Erie Otters. At the time of the coaching change, the Oilers had a 3–9–1 record. The Athletic remarked that the hirings of Jackson and Knoblauch "have put the spotlight squarely on McDavid," given their prior relations to him. The team's fortunes soon revived under Knoblauch, and McDavid saw his scoring surge. On April 15, 2024, McDavid recorded his 100th assist of the 2023–24 season on a goal by Zach Hyman in a 9–2 win over the San Jose Sharks to become the first NHL player in over three decades and the fourth player in NHL history (alongside Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr) to achieve the feat. After ending the season with 32 goals and 100 assists for 132 points in 76 games, McDavid and the Oilers would eliminate the Los Angeles Kings in the first round for the third straight season in five games, the Vancouver Canucks in seven games and the Dallas Stars in six games in the third round to help clinch the Oilers first appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals since 2006. After losing the first three games of the series against the Florida Panthers, McDavid led the team on a comeback to avert elimination with a historic scoring surge in the next two games. In game four, he registered his 32nd assist of the playoffs on a goal by Dylan Holloway, breaking Wayne Gretzky's record for most assists in one playoff year in an 8–1 victory. Following a dominant performance in which he scored four points during a 5-3 victory in the fifth game, McDavid achieved a historic feat by becoming the first player in NHL history to achieve back-to-back games with four points or more in the Stanley Cup Finals. Additionally, he also holds the record for most points accumulated over two games in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Oilers forced the series to seven games, but were ultimately defeated. McDavid was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason. He was the sixth person from the losing finalist team to receive the award, only the second forward (after Reggie Leach in 1976) to do so, and the first person since Jean-Sébastien Giguère of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003.
International play
Junior
McDavid's international ice hockey career began with the 2013 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, where he led the sixth-place Team Ontario with nine points in five games, including two goals and an assist in their 7–6 tournament-ending loss to Team Pacific. Despite his team's disappointing performance, McDavid was named to the tournament all-star team. The next year, a 16-year-old McDavid was the youngest player in the 2013 IIHF World U18 Championships in Sochi. Playing for the Canada men's national under-18 ice hockey team, he skated on a line with Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett, recording two goals and two assists in Canada's 4–1 opening-round win over Slovakia. He led the tournament in scoring with eight goals and 14 assists, including a hat-trick during Canada's 6–0 quarterfinal win over the Czech Republic. Canada defeated the United States team 3–2 in the gold medal match, breaking Team USA's four-year championship streak, and McDavid was named both the Best Forward and Tournament MVP after the win.
In 2014, McDavid became the sixth 16-year-old in history to join the Canadian junior team for that year's World Junior Ice Hockey Championship. Although McDavid recorded a goal and three assists in the tournament, he went pointless in the last three games and spent most of the bronze medal match, in which Canada fell 2–1 to Russia, on the bench. He rejoined the team for the 2015 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Canada, serving as an alternate captain and as the only 17-year-old on a team that was otherwise 19 years of age. Canada took the gold medal in the tournament, defeating Russia 5–4 in the championship match, and McDavid's 11 points (three goals and eight assists) tied Sam Reinhart and Nic Petan for first in the tournament. He was named to the media all-star team at the end of the championships.
Senior
McDavid first joined the Canadian senior team for the 2016 IIHF World Championship in Russia. Although he had eight assists in the tournament, McDavid did not score a goal until the gold-medal match against Finland, who the Canadians shut out 2–0 to win the tournament. McDavid's was the only goal of the game until the final second, when Matt Duchene scored in an empty net. That same year, McDavid was named captain of Team North America, a team of Canadian and United States players aged 23 or under, at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. Centreing a line with Auston Matthews and Mark Scheifele, McDavid had three assists in six games during the pre-tournament and round robin stages of the World Cup. Team North America was eliminated after the round-robin portion of the tournament, with Russia winning the tiebreaker. Two years later, McDavid was named captain of Team Canada at the 2018 IIHF World Championship in Denmark, where he recorded five goals and 13 points through the opening rounds of the tournament. With a 4–1 loss to the United States team in the bronze medal game, Canada finished the World Championship without a medal for the first time since 2014. McDavid, who was joined by Oilers teammates Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Darnell Nurse, finished the tournament third in scoring with five goals and 17 points in 10 games. McDavid intended to play for Canada again at the 2019 IIHF World Championship, but suffered a leg injury at the end of the NHL season that kept him from participating.
McDavid was one of the first three players named to the Canadian roster for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, joining Sidney Crosby and Alex Pietrangelo. In December 2021, however, the NHL declared that no players would be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games, citing COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the league. McDavid, who had already missed a chance to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics due to financial concerns from the NHL, was upset with the league's decision, saying, "It's always been a dream of mine to play at the Olympics since I was a little kid. So to have that kind of squashed as we were getting close was disappointing."
Player profile
Nicknamed "McJesus", McDavid is considered by fellow players, fans, and sportswriters to be one of the best players in the modern era of the NHL, with frequent comparisons to elite offensive players such as Sidney Crosby. Responding to a 2017 survey from the Associated Press, defenceman Seth Jones described McDavid as "what Crosby was when he was 20", while Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask said that McDavid "just skates and he stick handles and it's something I've never seen before as a goalie". Between 2016 and 2021, McDavid ranked first in TSN Hockey's preseason fan poll of the top 50 players in the NHL. The NHLPA also voted McDavid the best forward in the league in both 2019 and 2020. In 2021, McDavid joined Gretzky as the only players to unanimously win the Hart Memorial Trophy, as voted by members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association.
Through his first five seasons in the NHL, McDavid's 1.34 points per game have been on par with Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. When asked by ESPN in 2016 what made McDavid such a strong player, several, including Auston Matthews, Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton, and Brendan Gallagher, mentioned his speed on the ice. John Tavares praised McDavid's adaptability, while defenceman Cam Fowler said, "I don't think there's a specific way to shut him down." In 2021, Gretzky praised McDavid's increased maturity and physicality compared to previous seasons, saying, "His body language is that he doesn't want to lose, and it's infectious through the hockey club." Despite the praise for the offensive aspects of his game, McDavid has received criticism from sports journalists for his defensive elements, particularly his high rate of turning over the puck to his opponents while in the Oilers' defensive zone.
Personal life
McDavid met his wife, interior designer Lauren Kyle, in 2016 after they were set up on a blind date by Kyle's cousin and McDavid's then-teammate. The pair live with their dog, a miniature Bernedoodle named Lenard, and own a house together in Edmonton. After photos of the house were featured in EDify magazine in 2020 and video tour was recorded in 2021 for Architectural Digest, the minimalist design and the poor view of the Edmonton River Valley outside became an Internet meme. McDavid and Kyle became engaged on June 22, 2023, and got married on July 27, 2024, in Muskoka, Ontario. The wedding was featured in Vogue. Edmonton Oilers teammates Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse were two of his groomsmen.
As a sports fan in Ontario, McDavid was a dedicated childhood fan of Mats Sundin and the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team. He described his childhood bedroom as "pretty embarrassing" for its volume of Maple Leafs memorabilia. In 2023, he stated that he "likes watching players more than teams", and named the Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins as the two teams he most enjoys watching for that reason. Outside of hockey, he supports the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Blue Jays game in 2016.
On June 21, 2017, Electronic Arts revealed that McDavid would be the cover athlete for NHL 18, their annual installment of the NHL video game series. Additionally, McDavid's unique skating style inspired the Real Player Motion technology used in NHL 19, in which player size and other attributes affect their skating speed and power. In 2022, McDavid was one of several Canadian athletes to appear on boxes of Cheerios cereal as part of their "Be the Cheer" promotion, in which customers could write personalized messages to athletes competing at the Olympic Games. That same year, McDavid became the first active professional athlete to serve as a brand ambassador for sports betting company BetMGM.
Philanthropy
McDavid is involved in charitable efforts with Edmonton's indigenous community and has raised $85,000 to help indigenous children play sports. He is also involved in a shuttle program to help sick kids.
Career statistics
Regular season and playoffs
Career statistics derived from Elite Prospects.
Bold indicates led league.Bold italics indicate NHL record.
International
Awards, honours, and records
Awards and honours
Records
Most individual awards given to any OHL player (5)
Youngest captain in NHL history (19 years, 266 days at time of appointment)
Most points on consecutive goals to begin an NHL season (9, in 2018–19 season)
Most assists in one playoff year (34, 2024 NHL playoffs)
Only player to record back-to-back 4-point or more games in the Stanley Cup Finals (2024 Stanley Cup Finals)
Most points over a two-game stretch in the Stanley Cup Finals (8, 2024 Stanley Cup Finals)
References
Further reading
Robson, Dan (October 7, 2024). "'The sun will rise': Connor McDavid's summer of healing". The Athletic. Retrieved October 7, 2024.
External links
Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Eliteprospects.com, or Eurohockey.com, or Hockey-Reference.com, or The Internet Hockey Database
Connor McDavid player profile at Ontario Hockey League |
1996%E2%80%9397_Detroit_Red_Wings_season | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_Detroit_Red_Wings_season | [
635
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_Detroit_Red_Wings_season"
] | The 1996–97 Detroit Red Wings season was the 71st National Hockey League season in Detroit, Michigan. The highlight of the Red Wings season was winning the Stanley Cup, their first since 1955.
Off-season
On July 23, 1996, Detroit Red Wings President Bill Evo resigned his position after serving just ten months at the team's helm. The Nickname "Hockeytown" was coined to launch the start of a five-year marketing campaign.
Regular season
The "HOCKEYTOWN" logo, a Red Wings logo overlapped with the term "HOCKEYTOWN," was shown over center ice starting this season and was still there as of 2022.
A season highlight was Sergei Fedorov's five-goal performance on December 26, 1996, in a game against the Washington Capitals. The Red Wings won 5–4 in overtime. Fedorov's fifth goal of the game came at 2:39 of the overtime period.
On February 8, 1997, coach Scotty Bowman achieved his 1000th victory as an NHL head coach against his previous team, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
On March 26, 1997, the Red Wings–Avalanche brawl continued to fuel the rivalry between the teams. Detroit won that game 6–5 in overtime.
Season standings
Note: CR = Conference rank; GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against; Pts = Points Bolded teams qualified for the playoffs.
Divisions: CEN – Central, PAC – Pacific
bold – Qualified for playoffs; p – Won Presidents' Trophy
Playoffs
The Red Wings won the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, their first Stanley Cup since the 1954–55 NHL season.
Six days after winning the Stanley Cup, tragedy struck when defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov, and massage therapist Sergei Mnatsakanov were involved in a limousine accident. The driver, who later said he fell asleep, had a suspended license for previous drunk driving convictions.
Schedule and results
Regular season
Playoffs
Player statistics
Scoring
Position abbreviations: C = Center; D = Defense; G = Goaltender; LW = Left wing; RW = Right wing
† = Joined team via a transaction (e.g., trade, waivers, signing) during the season. Stats reflect time with the Red Wings only.
‡ = Left team via a transaction (e.g., trade, waivers, release) during the season. Stats reflect time with the Red Wings only.
Goaltending
Awards and records
Awards
Vladimir Konstantinov was the runner-up for the James Norris Memorial Trophy.
Milestones
Transactions
Retirement
Draft picks
Detroit's picks at the 1996 NHL entry draft.
Notes
The Red Wings acquired this pick as the result of a trade on April 4, 1995 that sent Mike Sillinger and Jason York to Anaheim in exchange for Stu Grimson, Mark Ferner and this pick.
The Red Wings third-round pick went to the Boston Bruins as the result of a trade on August 17, 1995 that sent David Shaw to Tampa Bay in exchange for this pick (80th overall).
Tampa Bay previously acquired this pick as the result of a trade on August 17, 1995 that sent Marc Bergevin and Ben Hankinson to Detroit in exchange for Shawn Burr and this pick.
Notes
== References == |
List_of_vetoed_United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vetoed_United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions | [
636
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vetoed_United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions#Resolutions"
] | This is a list of United Nations Security Council Resolutions that have been vetoed by one of the five permanent members of the Security Council since 16 February 1946.
Resolutions
Republic of China
The lone veto ever cast by the Republic of China, blocking the General Assembly membership of Mongolia, was not its own resolution and does not appear in the above table. Instead, the membership applications of 18 countries were being discussed, and the Soviet Union initially demanded 18 different resolutions in the order they applied (which would place Albania and Mongolia first). Other Security Council members objected, and the President of the Security Council (New Zealand) offered a compromise where all 18 applicants would be in one resolution, but each applicant would be voted on separately as though it were an amendment, followed by a larger vote on the whole resolution. The Soviet Union agreed to the compromise on the condition that it was worded so that the General Assembly had to either admit all 18 countries or none of them.
However, after the Republic of China vetoed the amendment containing Mongolia, the Soviet Union cast 13 more vetoes on all the remaining applicants except those in Eastern Europe. The larger vote on the whole resolution, now containing only four Eastern European countries, then failed without veto as the Soviet Union was the only member to vote in favour.
See also
United Nations
United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council veto power
Vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria
References
Notes
Further reading
Melling, Graham; Dennett, Anne (2017-12-01). "The Security Council veto and Syria: responding to mass atrocities through the "Uniting for Peace" resolution". Indian Journal of International Law. 57 (3): 285–307. doi:10.1007/s40901-018-0084-9. ISSN 2199-7411.
Sellen, Keith L. (1992). "The United Nations Security Council veto in the new world order". Military Law Review. 138: 187+. |
List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union | [
636
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union"
] | During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a de facto leader who would not always necessarily be head of state or even head of government but would lead while holding an office such as Communist Party General Secretary. Under the 1977 Constitution, the chairman of the Council of Ministers was the head of government and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the head of state. The office of the chairman of the Council of Ministers was comparable to a prime minister in the First World whereas the office of the chairman of the Presidium was comparable to a president. In the ideology of Vladimir Lenin, the head of the Soviet state was a collegiate body of the vanguard party (as described in What Is to Be Done?).
Following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the 1920s, the post of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union, because the post controlled both the Communist Party and, via party membership, the Soviet government. Often the general secretary also held high positions in the government. The post of general secretary lacked clear guidelines of succession, so after the death or removal of a Soviet leader the successor needed the support of the Political Bureau (Politburo), the Central Committee, or another government or party apparatus to both take and stay in power. The President of the Soviet Union, an office created in March 1990, replaced the general secretary as the highest Soviet political office.
Contemporaneously to the establishment of the office of the president, representatives of the Congress of People's Deputies voted to remove Article 6 from the Soviet constitution which stated that the Soviet Union was a one-party state controlled by the Communist Party which in turn played the leading role in society. This vote weakened the party and its hegemony over the Soviet Union and its people. Upon death, resignation, or removal from office of an incumbent president, the Vice President of the Soviet Union would assume the office, though the Soviet Union dissolved before this was actually tested. After the failed coup in August 1991, the vice president was replaced by an elected member of the State Council of the Soviet Union.
Summary
Vladimir Lenin was voted the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union (Sovnarkom) on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets. At the age of 53, his health declined from the effects of two bullet wounds, later aggravated by three strokes which culminated with his death in 1924. Irrespective of his health status in his final days, Lenin was already losing much of his power to Joseph Stalin. Alexei Rykov succeeded Lenin as chairman of the Sovnarkom, and although he was de jure the most powerful person in the country, in fact, all power was concentrated in the hands of the "troika" – the union of three influential party figures: Grigory Zinoviev, Joseph Stalin, and Lev Kamenev. Stalin continued to increase his influence in the party, and by the end of the 1920s, he became the sole dictator of the USSR, defeating all his political opponents. The post of general secretary of the party, which was held by Stalin, became the most important post in the Soviet hierarchy.
Stalin's early policies pushed for rapid industrialisation, nationalisation of private industry and the collectivisation of private plots created under Lenin's New Economic Policy. As leader of the Politburo, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power by 1938 after the Great Purge, a series of campaigns of political murder, repression and persecution. On 22 June 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, but by December the Soviet Army managed to stop the attack just shy of Moscow. On Stalin's orders, the Soviet Union launched a counter-attack on Nazi Germany, which finally succeeded in 1945. Stalin died in March 1953 and his death triggered a power struggle in which Nikita Khrushchev after several years emerged victorious against Georgy Malenkov.
Khrushchev denounced Stalin on two occasions, first in 1956 and then in 1962. His policy of de-Stalinisation earned him many enemies within the party, especially from old Stalinist appointees. Many saw this approach as destructive and destabilizing. A group known as Anti-Party Group tried to oust Khrushchev from office in 1957, but it failed. As Khrushchev grew older, his erratic behaviour became worse, usually making decisions without discussing or confirming them with the Politburo. Leonid Brezhnev, a close companion of Khrushchev, was elected the first secretary the same day of Khrushchev's removal from power. Alexei Kosygin became the new premier, and Anastas Mikoyan kept his office as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. On the orders of the Politburo, Mikoyan was forced to retire in 1965, and Nikolai Podgorny took over the office of chairman of the Presidium. The Soviet Union in the post-Khrushchev 1960s was governed by a collective leadership. Henry Kissinger, the American National Security Advisor, mistakenly believed that Kosygin was the leader of the Soviet Union and that he was at the helm of Soviet foreign policy because he represented the Soviet Union at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference. The "Era of Stagnation", a derogatory term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev, was a period marked by low socio-economic efficiency in the country and a gerontocracy ruling the country. Yuri Andropov (aged 68 at the time) succeeded Brezhnev in his post as general secretary in 1982. In 1983, Andropov was hospitalized and rarely met up at work to chair the politburo meetings due to his declining health. Nikolai Tikhonov usually chaired the meetings in his place. Following Andropov's death fifteen months after his appointment, an even older leader, 72-year-old Konstantin Chernenko, was elected to the general secretariat. His rule lasted for little more than a year until his death thirteen months later on 10 March 1985.
At the age of 54, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the general secretariat by Politburo on 11 March 1985. In May 1985, Gorbachev publicly admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequate living standards, being the first Soviet leader to do so while also beginning a series of fundamental reforms. From 1986 to around 1988, he dismantled central planning, allowed state enterprises to set their own outputs, enabled private investment in businesses not previously permitted to be privately owned, and allowed foreign investment, among other measures. He also opened up the management of and decision-making within the Soviet Union and allowed greater public discussion and criticism, along with the warming of relationships with the West. These twin policies were known as perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", though it varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency"), respectively. The dismantling of the principal defining features of Soviet communism in 1988 and 1989 in the Soviet Union led to the unintended consequence of the Soviet Union breaking up after the failed August 1991 coup led by Gennady Yanayev.
List of leaders
The following list includes those who held the top leadership position of the Soviet Union from its founding in 1922 until its 1991 dissolution. † denotes leaders who died in office.
List of troikas
On four occasions the Soviet Union was governed by a council known as a troika (i.e."triumvirate"), whereby policymaking depended on the consensus of three chief figures within the Politburo. The instances were: 1) the 2- to 3-year period between Vladimir Lenin's incapacitation and Joseph Stalin's leadership; 2) the three months following Stalin's death; 3) the years between Nikita Khrushchev's fall and Leonid Brezhnev's consolidation of power; and 4) the ailing Konstantin Chernenko's tenure as General Secretary.
See also
Index of Soviet Union-related articles
List of heads of state of the Soviet Union
List of presidents of the Russian Federation
Premier of the Soviet Union
Vozhd
President of Russia
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
External links
Succession of Power in the USSR from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
Heads of State and Government of the Soviet Union (1922–1991) |
Joseph_Stalin | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin | [
636
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin"
] | Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing as part of a collective leadership, Stalin consolidated power to become dictator by the 1930s; he formalized his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he established became known as Stalinism.
Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction through robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution, Stalin joined the governing Politburo. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin assumed leadership of the country. Under Stalin, the doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the party's ideology. His Five-Year Plans led to agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 1930–33. Stalin's Great Purge used the Gulag system of forced labour camps to eliminate those deemed "enemies of the working class".
Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements. In 1939, his regime signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany, enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, leading Stalin to join the Allies. Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and territories from Finland and Romania amid the war, established Soviet-aligned governments in Central and Eastern Europe. Following the war, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension known as the Cold War. Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction and the first Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign, culminating in the "doctors' plot". Stalin's rule was marked by forced transfers of entire populations. Before, during, and after World War II, various social classes and ethnic groups were accused of being anti-Soviet and deported to remote parts of the country as collective punishment. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced his rule and initiated the "de-Stalinisation" of Soviet society.
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, for whom Stalin was a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has notably retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who established the Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely, his totalitarian government has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, executions, and famines which caused the deaths of millions.
Early life
Stalin's birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili. His father, Besarion Jughashvili, was a shoemaker and his mother, Keke Geladze, was a house cleaner. He was born and raised in the Georgian town of Gori, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Stalin attended school there before moving to Tiflis to join Tiflis Theological Seminary with the aim of becoming a priest. While a student at the seminary, he embraced Marxism and became an avid follower of Vladimir Lenin. After being marked by the Okhrana for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and was involved in various criminal activities.
He became one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus, organizing paramilitaries, spreading propaganda and raising money through bank robberies and extortion. Stalin was captured and exiled to Siberia numerous times but often escaped. He became one of Lenin's closest associates, which helped him rise to the heights of power after the Russian Revolution. In 1913, Stalin was exiled to Siberia and remained in exile until the February Revolution of 1917 led to the overthrow of the emperor. According to Oleg Khlevniuk, Stalin "filled an important role [in the October Revolution]", and Stephen Kotkin similarly noted Stalin had been "in the thick of events".
In Lenin's government
1917–18: Rise to power
On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of the new government, the Council of People's Commissars ("Sovnarkom"). Stalin supported Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Socialist Revolutionary Party, although a coalition was formed with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Stalin became part of an informal leadership group alongside Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Yakov Sverdlov. Stalin's office was near Lenin's in the Smolny Institute, and he, along with Trotsky, had direct access to Lenin without an appointment.
Although less publicly prominent than Lenin or Trotsky, Stalin's importance within the Bolshevik ranks grew. He co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers, and co-chaired the committee drafting a constitution for the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. He supported Lenin's formation of the Cheka security service and the subsequent Red Terror, arguing state violence was an effective tool for capitalist powers. Unlike some Bolsheviks, Stalin never expressed concern about the Cheka's rapid expansion and the Red Terror.
Having left his role as Pravda editor, Stalin was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities. He took Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary, later marrying her. In November 1917, he signed the Decree on Nationality, granting ethnic minorities the right to secession and self-determination, although the Bolsheviks hoped they would not desire independence. He later traveled to Helsingfors to meet with the Finnish Social Democrats, granting Finland's request for independence in December. His department funded schools in minority languages. Socialist revolutionaries accused Stalin's talk of federalism and national self-determination as a front for Sovnarkom's centralising policies.
Due to the ongoing First World War, the government relocated to the Kremlin in March 1918. Stalin supported Lenin's push to sign an armistice with the Central Powers, despite the cost in territory. He believed this was necessary as he doubted Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. Lenin eventually persuaded the Bolsheviks, leading to the March 1918 signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ceded vast territories. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries withdrew from the coalition government over the issue. The ruling RSDLP was renamed the Russian Communist Party.
1918–1921: Military command
After the Bolsheviks seized power, both right and left-wing armies rallied against them, generating the Russian Civil War. In May 1918, amid a dwindling food supply, Sovnarkom sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn to take charge of food procurement in Southern Russia. Eager to prove himself as a commander, he took control of regional military operations. He also befriended two military figures, Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, who would form the nucleus of his support base. Stalin sent large numbers of Red Army troops into battle against the region's anti-Bolshevik White armies, resulting in heavy losses; Lenin was concerned by this costly tactic. In Tsaritsyn, Stalin commanded the local Cheka branch to execute suspected counter-revolutionaries, often without trial, and purged the military and food collection agencies of middle-class specialists, whom he also executed. His use of state violence was at a greater scale than most Bolshevik leaders approved of; for instance, he ordered several villages to be torched to ensure compliance with his food procurement program.
In December 1918, Stalin was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops based there. He returned to Moscow between January and March 1919, before being assigned to the Western Front at Petrograd. When the Red Third Regiment defected, he ordered the public execution of captured defectors. In September, he returned to the Southern Front. During the war, he proved his worth to the Central Committee, displaying willingness to take on responsibility in conflict situations. At the same time, he disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. He was reprimanded by Lenin at the 8th Party Congress for employing tactics which resulted in the deaths of Red Army soldiers. In November 1919, the government nonetheless awarded him the Order of the Red Banner for his wartime service.
The Bolsheviks won the Russian Civil War by the end of 1919. By that time, Sovnarkom had turned its attention to spreading proletarian revolution abroad, forming the Communist International in March 1919; Stalin attended its inaugural ceremony. Although Stalin did not share Lenin's belief that Europe's proletariat were on the verge of revolution, he acknowledged that Soviet Russia remained vulnerable. In December 1918, he drew up decrees recognising Marxist-governed Soviet republics in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia; during the civil war these Marxist governments were overthrown and the Baltic countries became fully independent of Russia, an act Stalin regarded as illegitimate. In February 1920, he was appointed to head the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate; that same month he was also transferred to the Caucasian Front.
Following earlier clashes between Polish and Russian troops, the Polish–Soviet War broke out in early 1920, with the Poles invading Ukraine and taking Kiev on 7 May. On 26 May, Stalin was moved to Ukraine. The Red Army retook Kiev on 10 June and soon forced the troops back into Poland. On 16 July, the Central Committee decided to take the war into Polish territory. Lenin believed that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russians against Józef Piłsudski's Polish government. Stalin had cautioned against this, believing that nationalism would lead the Polish working-classes to support their government's war effort. He also believed that the Red Army was ill-prepared to conduct an offensive war. Stalin lost the argument, after which he accepted Lenin's decision. Along the Southwest Front, he became determined to conquer Lvov; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders in early August to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky's forces that were attacking Warsaw.
In mid-August 1920, the Poles repulsed the Russian advance, and Stalin returned to Moscow to attend the Politburo meeting. Mikhail Tukhachevsky blamed Stalin for his defeat at the Battle of Warsaw. In Moscow, Lenin and Trotsky also blamed him for his behaviour in the Polish–Soviet War. Stalin felt humiliated; on 17 August, he demanded demission from the military, which was granted on 1 September. At the 9th Bolshevik Conference in late September, Trotsky accused Stalin of "strategic mistakes". Trotsky claimed that Stalin sabotaged the campaign by disobeying troop transfer orders. Lenin joined Trotsky in criticising him. Stalin felt disgraced and his antipathy toward Trotsky increased. The Polish–Soviet War ended on 18 March 1921, when a peace treaty was signed in Riga.
1921–1923: Lenin's final years
The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under its domination; in February 1921 it invaded the Menshevik-governed Georgia, while in April 1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Turkestan to reassert state control. As People's Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each ethnic group should have the right to self-expression, facilitated through "autonomous republics" within the Russian state in which they could oversee various regional affairs. In taking this view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism, while others accused him of remaining too Russocentric.
Stalin's native Caucasus posed a particular problem because of its highly multi-ethnic mix. Stalin opposed the idea of separate autonomous republics, arguing that these would likely oppress ethnic minorities within their respective territories; instead, he called for a Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair. In mid-1921, Stalin returned to the South Caucasus, calling on Georgian communists to avoid the chauvinistic Georgian nationalism which marginalised the Abkhazian, Ossetian, and Adjarian minorities in Georgia. On this trip, Stalin met his son Yakov, and brought him back to Moscow; Nadezhda had given birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily, in March 1921.
After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia, in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; as a result, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms: the New Economic Policy (NEP). There was also internal turmoil in the Communist Party, as Trotsky led a faction calling for abolition of trade unions; Lenin opposed this, and Stalin helped rally opposition. Stalin also agreed to supervise the Department of Agitation and Propaganda in the Central Committee Secretariat. At the 11th Party Congress in 1922, Lenin nominated Stalin as the party's new General Secretary. Although concerns were expressed that adopting this new post would give him too much power, Stalin was appointed to the position. For Lenin, it was advantageous to have a key ally in this crucial post.
In May 1922, a massive stroke left Lenin partially paralysed. Residing at his Gorki dacha, Lenin's main connection to Sovnarkom was through Stalin. Lenin twice asked Stalin to procure poison so that he could commit suicide. Despite this comradeship, Lenin disliked what he referred to as Stalin's "Asiatic" manner and told his sister Maria that Stalin was "not intelligent". Lenin and Stalin argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov's view that doing so was impractical. Another disagreement came over the Georgian affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of a Transcaucasian one.
They also disagreed on the nature of the Soviet state; Lenin called for establishment of a new federation named the "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia". Stalin believed this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians, instead arguing that ethnic minorities would be content as "autonomous republics" within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism" while Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". A compromise was reached, in which the federation would be renamed the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). The USSR's formation was ratified in December 1922; although officially a federal system, all major decisions were taken by the governing Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow.
Their differences also became personal; Lenin was particularly angered when Stalin was rude to his wife Krupskaya during a telephone conversation. In the final years of his life, Krupskaya provided governing figures with Lenin's Testament. These criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power, suggesting that Stalin should be removed from the position of general secretary. Some historians have questioned whether Lenin ever produced these, suggesting instead that they may have been written by Krupskaya; Stalin, however, never publicly voiced concerns about their authenticity. Most historians consider the document to be an accurate reflection of Lenin's views. According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov, Lenin "in general leaned towards a collegial leadership, with Trotsky in the first position".
Consolidation of power
1924–1927: Succeeding Lenin
Lenin died in January 1924. Stalin took charge of the funeral and was a pallbearer. The Politburo embalmed Lenin's corpse and placed it within a mausoleum in Red Square. It was incorporated into a growing personality cult devoted to Lenin, with Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" that year. To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist, Stalin gave 9 lectures at Sverdlov University on the Foundations of Leninism. During the 13th Party Congress in 1924, Lenin's Testament was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him, and he was retained in the position. According to Boris Bazhanov, Stalin was jubilant over Lenin's death while "publicly putting on the mask of grief".
As General Secretary, Stalin had a free hand in making appointments to his own staff. Favouring new party members from proletarian backgrounds to the "Old Bolsheviks" who tended to be middle class university graduates, he ensured he had loyalists dispersed across the regions. Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries, and the desire for promotion led many provincial figures to seek to impress Stalin. Stalin developed close relations with the trio at the heart of the secret police: Felix Dzerzhinsky, Genrikh Yagoda, and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. In his private life, he divided his time between his Kremlin apartment and a dacha at Zubalova; his wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926.
In the wake of Lenin's death, a power struggle emerged to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky. Stalin saw Trotsky — whom he personally despised — as the main obstacle to his dominance. While Lenin had been ill Stalin, with Kamenev and Zinoviev had formed an unofficial Triumvirate (known by its Russian name Troika), an alliance aimed at Trotsky. Although Zinoviev was concerned about Stalin's growing authority, he rallied behind him at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a faction known as the Left Opposition. The Left Opposition believed the NEP conceded too much to capitalism; Stalin was called a "rightist" for his support of the policy. Stalin built up a retinue of supporters in the Central Committee, while the Left Opposition were gradually removed from their positions of influence. He was supported in this by Bukharin, who believed that the Left Opposition's proposals would plunge the Soviet Union into instability.
In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev, removing their supporters from key positions. In 1925, the two moved into open opposition to Stalin and Bukharin. At the 14th Party Congress in December, they launched an unsuccessful attack against Stalin's faction. Stalin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing factionalism, and thus instability. In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky's supporters to form the United Opposition against Stalin; in October they agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views. The factionalist arguments continued, with Stalin threatening to resign in October and December 1926, and again in December 1927. In October 1927, Zinoviev and Trotsky were removed from the Central Committee; the latter was exiled to Kazakhstan and deported from the country in 1929. Some United Opposition members who were repentant were later returned to government.
Stalin was now the party's supreme leader, although he was not the head of government, a task he entrusted to ally Vyacheslav Molotov. Other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, with Stalin ensuring his allies ran state institutions. At this point "Stalin was the leader of the oligarchs but he was far from a dictator". His growing influence was reflected in naming of locations after him; in June 1924 the Ukrainian mining town of Yuzovka became Stalino, and in April 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad on the order of Mikhail Kalinin and Avel Enukidze. In 1926, Stalin published On Questions of Leninism. Here, he argued for the concept of "socialism in one country", which he presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective. It nevertheless clashed with established Bolshevik views that socialism could only be achieved globally through the process of world revolution.
1927–1931: Dekulakisation, collectivisation, and industrialisation
Economic policy
The Soviet Union lagged behind the industrial development of Western countries, and there had been a shortfall of grain; 1927 produced only 70% of grain produced in 1926. Stalin's government feared attack from other countries. Many communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach; they had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as "kulaks" and small business owners or "NEPmen". Stalin turned against the NEP, which put him on a course to the "left" even of Trotsky or Zinoviev.
In early 1928, Stalin travelled to Novosibirsk, where he alleged that kulaks were hoarding grain and ordered them be arrested and their grain confiscated, with Stalin bringing much of the grain back to Moscow with him in February. At his command, grain procurement squads surfaced across West Siberia and the Urals, with violence breaking out between these squads and the peasantry. Stalin announced that both kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into releasing their harvest. Bukharin and other Central Committee members were angry they had not been consulted about this measure. In January 1930, the Politburo approved the liquidation of the kulak class who were exiled to other parts of the country or concentration camps. By July 1930, over 320,000 households had been affected by the de-kulakisation policy. According to biographer Dmitri Volkogonov, de-kulakisation was "the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country."
In 1929, the Politburo announced the mass collectivisation of agriculture, establishing both kolkhozy collective farms and sovkhoz state farms. Stalin barred kulaks from joining these collectives. Although officially voluntary, many peasants joined the collectives out of fear they would face the fate of the kulaks. By 1932, about 62% of households involved in agriculture were part of collectives, and by 1936 this had risen to 90%. Many collectivised peasants resented the loss of their private farmland, and productivity slumped. Famine broke out in many areas, with the Politburo frequently ordering distribution of emergency food relief to these regions.
Armed peasant uprisings against dekulakisation and collectivisation broke out in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Southern Russia, and Central Asia, reaching their apex in March 1930; these were suppressed by the army. Stalin responded with an article insisting that collectivisation was voluntary and blaming violence on local officials. Although he and Stalin had been close for many years, Bukharin expressed concerns and regarded them as a return to Lenin's old "war communism" policy. By mid-1928, he was unable to rally sufficient support in the party to oppose the reforms. In November 1929 Stalin removed him from the Politburo.
Officially, the Soviet Union had replaced the "irrationality" and "wastefulness" of a market economy with a planned economy organised along a long-term and scientific framework; in reality, Soviet economics were based on ad hoc commandments issued often to make short-term targets. In 1928, the first five-year plan was launched, its main focus on boosting heavy industry; it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932. The USSR underwent a massive economic transformation. New mines were opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed, and work on the White Sea–Baltic Canal began. Millions of peasants moved to the cities, although urban house building could not keep up with the demand. Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery.
Many of major construction projects, including the White Sea–Baltic Canal and the Moscow Metro, were constructed largely through forced labour. The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers increasing their authority and receiving privileges; Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism. To promote intensification of labour, medals and awards as well as the Stakhanovite movement were introduced. Stalin's message was that socialism was being established in the USSR while capitalism was crumbling amid the Wall Street crash. His speeches and articles reflected his utopian vision of the Soviet Union rising to unparalleled heights of human development, creating a "new Soviet person".
Cultural and foreign policy
In 1928, Stalin declared that class war between the proletariat and their enemies would intensify as socialism developed. He warned of a "danger from the right". The first major show trial in the USSR was the Shakhty Trial of 1928, in which middle-class "industrial specialists" were convicted of sabotage. From 1929 to 1930, show trials were held to intimidate opposition: these included the Industrial Party Trial, Menshevik Trial, and Metro-Vickers Trial. Aware that the ethnic majority may have concerns about being ruled by a Georgian, he promoted ethnic Russians throughout the state hierarchy and made Russian compulsory throughout schools, albeit to be used in tandem with local languages in areas with non-Russian majorities. Nationalist sentiment among ethnic minorities was suppressed. Conservative social policies were promoted to enhance social discipline and boost population growth; this included a focus on strong family units and motherhood, re-criminalisation of homosexuality, restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the Zhenotdel women's department.
Stalin desired a "cultural revolution", entailing both creation of a culture for the "masses" and wider dissemination of previously elite culture. He oversaw proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy. Socialist realism was promoted throughout the arts, while Stalin wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. He expressed patronage for scientists whose research fitted within his preconceived interpretation of Marxism; for instance, he endorsed the research of agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko despite the fact that it was rejected by the majority of Lysenko's scientific peers as pseudo-scientific. The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified, with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists. Priests, imams, and Buddhist monks faced persecution. Many religious buildings were demolished, most notably Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Palace of the Soviets. Religion retained an influence over the population; in the 1937 census, 57% of respondents were willing to admit to being religious.
Throughout the 1920s, Stalin placed a priority on foreign policy. He personally met with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, both of whom were impressed with him. Through the Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over Marxist parties elsewhere; initially, Stalin left the running of the organisation largely to Bukharin. At its 6th Congress in July 1928, Stalin informed delegates that the main threat to socialism came from non-Marxist socialists and social democrats, whom he called "social fascists"; Stalin recognised that in many countries, the social democrats were the Marxist-Leninists' main rivals for working-class support. This preoccupation with opposing rival leftists concerned Bukharin, who regarded the growth of fascism and the far right across Europe as a greater threat. After Bukharin's departure, Stalin placed the Communist International under the administration of Dmitry Manuilsky and Osip Piatnitsky.
In 1929, Stalin's son Yakov unsuccessfully attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest and narrowly missing his heart; his failure earned the contempt of Stalin, who is reported to have brushed off the attempt by saying "He can't even shoot straight." His relationship with Nadezhda was strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. In November 1932, after a group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women, Nadezhda shot herself. Publicly, the cause of death was given as appendicitis; Stalin also concealed the real cause of death from his children. Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder.
1932–1939: Major crises
Famine
Within the Soviet Union, civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government was widespread. Social unrest in urban areas led Stalin to ease some economic policies in 1932. In May 1932, he introduced kolkhoz markets where peasants could trade surplus produce. Penal sanctions became harsher; a decree in August 1932 made the theft of even a handful of grain a capital offense. The second five-year plan had reduced quotas from the first, focusing more on living conditions, housing, and consumer goods production. Emphasis on armament production increased after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933.
The Soviet Union experienced a major famine in 1932–33, with 5–7 million deaths. The worst affected areas were Ukraine, Southern Russia, Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus. Historians debate whether the famine was intentional; no documents show Stalin explicitly ordered starvation. Poor weather led to bad harvests in 1931 and 1932, compounded by years of declining productivity.
Rapid industrialization policies, neglect of crop rotation, and failure to build reserve grain stocks exacerbated the famine. Stalin blamed hostile elements and sabotage among peasants; the government provided limited food aid to famine-stricken rural areas, prioritizing urban workers. In effect, Stalin valued the progress of Soviet industrialization over peasant lives. Grain exports declined heavily. Stalin did not acknowledge his policies' role in the famine, which was concealed from foreign observers.
Ideological and foreign affairs
In 1935–36, Stalin oversaw a new constitution with liberal features designed as propaganda. He declared that "socialism, the first phase of communism, has been achieved." In 1938, the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), was released, which biographer Robert Conquest called the "central text of Stalinism". Authorised Stalin biographies were also published, though Stalin preferred to be seen as the embodiment of the Communist Party, rather than have his life story explored. During the late 1930s, Stalin placed "a few limits on the worship of his own greatness". By 1938, Stalin's inner circle had gained a degree of stability.
Seeking better international relations, in 1934 the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, from which it had previously been excluded. Stalin initiated confidential communications with Hitler in October 1933, shortly after the latter came to power. Stalin admired Hitler, particularly his manoeuvres to remove rivals within the Nazi Party in the Night of the Long Knives. Stalin nevertheless recognised the threat posed by fascism and sought to establish better links with the liberal democracies of Western Europe; in May 1935, the Soviets signed a treaty of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia. At the Communist International's 7th Congress, held in July–August 1935, the Soviet government encouraged Marxist-Leninists to unite with other leftists as part of a popular front against fascism.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, the Soviets sent military aid to the Republican faction faction, including 648 aircraft and 407 tanks, along with 3,000 Soviet troops and 42,000 members of the International Brigades. Stalin took a personal involvement in the Spanish situation. Germany and Italy backed the Nationalist faction, which was ultimately victorious in March 1939. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937, the Soviet Union and China signed a non-aggression pact. Stalin aided the Chinese Communist Party as they had suspended their civil war with the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists and formed the desired United Front against Japanese aggression.
The Great Terror
Stalin's approach to state repression was often contradictory. In May 1933, he released many convicted of minor offences, ordering the security services not to enact further mass arrests and deportations. In September 1934, he launched a commission to investigate false imprisonments; that same month he called for the execution of workers at the Stalin Metallurgical Factory accused of spying for Japan. However, after Sergey Kirov was murdered in December 1934, Stalin became increasingly concerned about assassination threats, and state repression intensified. Stalin issued a decree establishing NKVD troikas which could mete out rulings without involving the courts. In 1935, he ordered the NKVD to expel suspected counterrevolutionaries from urban areas; over 11,000 were expelled from Leningrad alone in early 1935. In 1936, Nikolai Yezhov became head of the NKVD.
Stalin orchestrated the arrest and execution of opponents in the Communist Party and the Central Committee. The first Moscow Trial in August 1936 saw Kamenev and Zinoviev executed. The second trial took place in January 1937, and the third in March 1938, with Bukharin and Rykov executed. } By late 1937, all remnants of collective leadership were gone from the Politburo, which was now effectively under Stalin's control. There were mass expulsions from the party, with Stalin ordering foreign communist parties to purge anti-Stalinist elements.
Repressions intensified further from December 1936 until November 1938, known as the Great Purge. In May 1937, Stalin ordered the arrest of most military Supreme Command members, and mass arrests followed. By late 1937, purges extended beyond the party to the wider population. In July 1937, the Politburo ordered a purge of "anti-Soviet elements" in society, targeting anti-Stalin Bolsheviks, former Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, priests, ex-White Army soldiers, and common criminals. Stalin and Yezhov signed Order No. 00447 in July 1937, listing 268,950 people for arrest, with 75,950 executed. Stalin initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groups— among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese — through internal or external exile. Approximately 1.6 million people were arrested, 700,000 shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture.
During the 1930s and 1940s, NKVD groups assassinated defectors and opponents abroad; in August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, eliminating Stalin's last major opponent. These purges replaced most of the old guard with younger officials loyal to Stalin. Party functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate themselves with Stalin, to avoid becoming victims. Such functionaries often carried out more arrests and executions than their quotas set by government.
Stalin initiated all key decisions during the Terror, personally directing many operations. Historians debate his motives, noting his personal writings from the period were "unusually convoluted and incoherent", filled with claims about enemies encircling him. He feared a domestic fifth column in the event of war with Japan and Germany, particularly after right-wing forces overthrew the leftist Spanish government. The Great Terror ended when Yezhov was replaced by Lavrentiy Beria, a fellow Georgian completely loyal to Stalin. Yezhov was arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940. The Terror damaged the Soviet Union's reputation abroad, particularly among leftist sympathizers. As it wound down, Stalin sought to deflect responsibility, blaming its "excesses" and "violations of law" on Yezhov. According to historian James Harris, the purges were driven by an excessive fear of counterrevolution.
World War II
1939–1941: Pact with Nazi Germany
As a Marxist–Leninist, Stalin considered conflict between competing capitalist powers inevitable; after Nazi Germany annexed Austria and then part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he recognised a war was looming. He sought to maintain Soviet neutrality, hoping that a German war against France and Britain would lead to Soviet dominance in Europe. Militarily, the Soviets also faced a threat from the east, with Soviet troops clashing with the expansionist Japanese in the latter part of the 1930s. Stalin initiated a military build-up, with the Red Army more than doubling between January 1939 and June 1941, although in its haste to expand many of its officers were poorly trained. Between 1940 and 1941 he also purged the military, leaving it with a severe shortage of trained officers when war broke out.
As Britain and France seemed unwilling to commit to an alliance with the Soviet Union, Stalin saw a better deal with the Germans. On 3 May 1939, Stalin replaced his western-oriented foreign minister Maxim Litvinov with Vyacheslav Molotov. Germany began negotiations with the Soviets, proposing that Eastern Europe be divided between the two powers. Stalin saw this as an opportunity both for territorial expansion and temporary peace with Germany. In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact with Germany, a non-aggression pact negotiated by Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. A week later, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the UK and France to declare war on Germany. On 17 September, the Red Army entered eastern Poland, officially to restore order amid the collapse of the Polish state. On 28 September, Germany and the Soviet Union exchanged some of their newly conquered territories; Germany gained the linguistically Polish-dominated areas of Lublin Province and part of Warsaw Province while the Soviets gained Lithuania. A German–Soviet Frontier Treaty was signed shortly after, in Stalin's presence. The two states continued trading, undermining the British blockade of Germany.
The Soviets further demanded parts of eastern Finland, but the Finnish government refused. The Soviets invaded Finland in November 1939, yet despite numerical inferiority, the Finns kept the Red Army at bay. International opinion backed Finland, with the Soviets being expelled from the League of Nations. Embarrassed by their inability to defeat the Finns, the Soviets signed an interim peace treaty, in which they received territorial concessions from Finland. In June 1940, the Red Army occupied the Baltic states, which were forcibly merged into the Soviet Union in August; they also invaded and annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, parts of Romania. The Soviets sought to forestall dissent in these new East European territories with mass repressions. One of the most noted instances was the Katyn massacre of April and May 1940, in which around 22,000 members of the Polish armed forces, police, and intelligentsia were executed.
The speed of the German victory over and occupation of France in mid-1940 took Stalin by surprise. He increasingly focused on appeasement with the Germans to delay any conflict with them. After the Tripartite Pact was signed by Axis Powers Germany, Japan, and Italy in October 1940, Stalin proposed that the USSR also join the Axis alliance. To demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, in April 1941 the Soviets signed a neutrality pact with Japan. Although de facto head of government for a decade and a half, Stalin concluded that relations with Germany had deteriorated to such an extent that he needed to deal with the problem as de jure head of government as well: on 6 May, Stalin replaced Molotov as Premier of the Soviet Union.
1941–1942: German invasion
In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, initiating the war on the Eastern Front. Despite intelligence agencies repeatedly warning him of Germany's intentions, Stalin was taken by surprise. He formed a State Defense Committee, which he headed as Supreme Commander, as well as a military Supreme Command (Stavka), with Georgy Zhukov as its Chief of Staff. The German tactic of blitzkrieg was initially highly effective; the Soviet air force in the western borderlands was destroyed within two days. The German Wehrmacht pushed deep into Soviet territory; soon, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic states were under German occupation, and Leningrad was under siege; and Soviet refugees were flooding into Moscow and surrounding cities. By July, Germany's Luftwaffe was bombing Moscow, and by October the Wehrmacht was amassing for a full assault on the capital. Plans were made for the Soviet government to evacuate to Kuibyshev, although Stalin decided to remain in Moscow, believing his flight would damage troop morale. The German advance on Moscow was halted after two months of battle in increasingly harsh weather conditions.
Going against the advice of Zhukov and other generals, Stalin emphasised attack over defence. In June 1941, he ordered a scorched earth policy of destroying infrastructure and food supplies before the Germans could seize them, also commanding the NKVD to kill around 100,000 political prisoners in areas the Wehrmacht approached. He purged the military command; several high-ranking figures were demoted or reassigned and others were arrested and executed. With Order No. 270, Stalin commanded soldiers risking capture to fight to the death describing the captured as traitors; among those taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans was Stalin's son Yakov, who died in their custody. Stalin issued Order No. 227 in July 1942, which directed that those retreating unauthorised would be placed in "penal battalions" used as cannon fodder on the front lines. Amid the fighting, both the German and Soviet armies disregarded the law of war set forth in the Geneva Conventions; the Soviets heavily publicised Nazi massacres of communists, Jews, and Romani. Stalin exploited Nazi anti-Semitism, and in April 1942 he sponsored the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) to garner global Jewish support for the Soviet war effort.
The Soviets allied with the United Kingdom and United States; although the U.S. joined the war against Germany in 1941, little direct American assistance reached the Soviets until late 1942. Responding to the invasion, the Soviets intensified their industrial enterprises in central Russia, focusing almost entirely on production for the military. They achieved high levels of industrial productivity, outstripping that of Germany. During the war, Stalin was more tolerant of the Russian Orthodox Church, allowing it to resume some of its activities and meeting with Patriarch Sergius in September 1943. He also permitted a wider range of cultural expression, notably permitting formerly suppressed writers and artists like Anna Akhmatova and Dmitri Shostakovich to disperse their work more widely. The Internationale was dropped as the country's national anthem, to be replaced with a more patriotic song. The government increasingly promoted Pan-Slavist sentiment, while encouraging increased criticism of cosmopolitanism, particularly the idea of "rootless cosmopolitanism", an approach with particular repercussions for Soviet Jews. Comintern was dissolved in 1943, and Stalin encouraged foreign Marxist–Leninist parties to emphasise nationalism over internationalism to broaden their domestic appeal.
In April 1942, Stalin overrode Stavka by ordering the Soviets' first serious counter-attack, an attempt to seize German-held Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. This attack proved unsuccessful. That year, Hitler shifted his primary goal from an overall victory on the Eastern Front to the goal of securing the oil fields in the southern Soviet Union crucial to a long-term German war effort. While Red Army generals saw evidence that Hitler would shift efforts south, Stalin considered this to be a flanking move in a renewed effort to take Moscow. In June 1942, the German Army began a major offensive in Southern Russia, threatening Stalingrad; Stalin ordered the Red Army to hold the city at all costs. This resulted in the protracted Battle of Stalingrad. In December 1942, he placed Konstantin Rokossovski in charge of holding the city. In February 1943, the German troops attacking Stalingrad surrendered. The Soviet victory there marked a major turning point in the war; in commemoration, Stalin declared himself Marshal of the Soviet Union.
1942–1945: Soviet counter-attack
By November 1942, the Soviets had begun to repulse the important German strategic southern campaign and, although there were 2.5 million Soviet casualties in that effort, it permitted the Soviets to take the offensive for most of the rest of the war on the Eastern Front. Germany attempted an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets. By the end of 1943, the Soviets occupied half of the territory taken by the Germans from 1941 to 1942. Soviet military industrial output also had increased substantially from late 1941 to early 1943 after Stalin had moved factories well to the east of the front, safe from German invasion and aerial assault.
In Allied countries, Stalin was increasingly depicted in a positive light over the course of the war. In 1941, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert to celebrate his birthday, and in 1942, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year". When Stalin learned that people in Western countries affectionately called him "Uncle Joe" he was initially offended, regarding it as undignified. There remained mutual suspicions between Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who were together known as the "Big Three". Churchill flew to Moscow to visit Stalin in August 1942 and again in October 1944. Stalin scarcely left Moscow throughout the war, with Roosevelt and Churchill frustrated with his reluctance to travel to meet them.
In November 1943, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran, a location of Stalin's choosing. There, Stalin and Roosevelt got on well, with both desiring the post-war dismantling of the British Empire. At Tehran, the trio agreed that to prevent Germany rising to military prowess yet again, the German state should be broken up. Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed to Stalin's demand that the German city of Königsberg be declared Soviet territory. Stalin was impatient for the UK and U.S. to open up a Western Front to take the pressure off of the East; they eventually did so in mid-1944. Stalin insisted that, after the war, the Soviet Union should incorporate the portions of Poland it occupied pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, which Churchill opposed. Discussing the fate of the Balkans, later in 1944 Churchill agreed to Stalin's suggestion that after the war, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia would come under the Soviet sphere of influence while Greece would come under that of the West.
In 1944, the Soviet Union made significant advances across Eastern Europe toward Germany, including Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in the Byelorussian SSR against the German Army Group Centre. In 1944, the German armies were pushed out of the Baltic states (with the exception of the Ostland), which were then re-annexed into the Soviet Union. As the Red Army reconquered the Caucasus and Crimea, various ethnic groups living in the region—the Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushi, Karachai, Balkars, and Crimean Tatars—were accused of having collaborated with the Germans. Using the idea of collective responsibility as a basis, Stalin's government abolished their autonomous republics and between late 1943 and 1944 deported the majority of their populations to Central Asia and Siberia. Over one million people were deported as a result of the policy.
In February 1945, the three leaders met at the Yalta Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill conceded to Stalin's demand that Germany pay the Soviet Union 20 billion dollars in reparations, and that his country be permitted to annex Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in exchange for entering the war against Japan. An agreement was also made that a post-war Polish government should be a coalition consisting of both communist and conservative elements. Privately, Stalin sought to ensure that Poland would come fully under Soviet influence. The Red Army withheld assistance to Polish resistance fighters battling the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising, with Stalin believing that any victorious Polish militants could interfere with his aspirations to dominate Poland through a future Marxist government. Although concealing his desires from the other Allied leaders, Stalin placed great emphasis on capturing Berlin first, believing that this would enable him to bring more of Europe under long-term Soviet control. Churchill was concerned that this was the case and unsuccessfully tried to convince the U.S. that the Western Allies should pursue the same goal.
1945: Victory
In April 1945, the Red Army seized Berlin, Hitler killed himself, and Germany surrendered in May. Stalin had wanted Hitler captured alive; he had his remains brought to Moscow to prevent them becoming a relic for Nazi sympathisers. Many Soviet soldiers engaged in looting, pillaging, and rape, both in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe. Stalin refused to punish the offenders.
With Germany defeated, Stalin switched focus to the war with Japan, transferring half a million troops to the Far East. Stalin was pressed by his allies to enter the war and wanted to cement the Soviet Union's strategic position in Asia. On 8 August, in between the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet army invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria and defeated the Kwantung Army. These events led to the Japanese surrender and the war's end. Soviet forces continued to expand until they occupied all their territorial concessions, but the U.S. rebuffed Stalin's desire for the Red Army to take a role in the Allied occupation of Japan.
At the Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, Stalin repeated previous promises that he would refrain from a "Sovietization" of Eastern Europe. Stalin pushed for reparations from Germany without regard to the base minimum supply for German citizens' survival, which worried Harry Truman and Churchill who thought that Germany would become a financial burden for Western powers. He also pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, and a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. Germany was divided into four zones: Soviet, U.S., British, and French, with Berlin itself—located within the Soviet area—also subdivided thusly.
Post-war era
1945–1947: Post-war reconstruction and famine
After the war, Stalin was—according to Service—at the "apex of his career". Within the Soviet Union he was widely regarded as the embodiment of victory and patriotism. His armies controlled Central and Eastern Europe up to the River Elbe. In June 1945, Stalin adopted the title of Generalissimo, and stood atop Lenin's Mausoleum to watch a celebratory parade led by Zhukov through Red Square. At a banquet held for army commanders, he described the Russian people as "the outstanding nation" and "leading force" within the Soviet Union, the first time that he had unequivocally endorsed the Russians over other Soviet nationalities. In 1946, the state published Stalin's Collected Works. In 1947, it brought out a second edition of his official biography, which eulogised him to a greater extent than its predecessor. He was quoted in Pravda on a daily basis and pictures of him remained pervasive on the walls of workplaces and homes.
Despite his strengthened international position, Stalin was cautious about internal dissent and desire for change among the population. He was also concerned about his returning armies, who had been exposed to a wide range of consumer goods in Germany, much of which they had looted and brought back with them. In this he recalled the 1825 Decembrist Revolt by Russian soldiers returning from having defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars. He ensured that returning Soviet prisoners of war went through "filtration" camps as they arrived in the Soviet Union, in which 2,775,700 were interrogated to determine if they were traitors. About half were then imprisoned in labour camps. In the Baltic states, where there was much opposition to Soviet rule, de-kulakisation and de-clericalisation programs were initiated, resulting in 142,000 deportations between 1945 and 1949. The Gulag system of forced labour camps was expanded further. By January 1953, three per cent of the Soviet population was imprisoned or in internal exile, with 2.8 million in "special settlements" in isolated areas and another 2.5 million in camps, penal colonies, and prisons.
The NKVD were ordered to catalogue the scale of destruction during the war. It was established that 1,710 Soviet towns and 70,000 villages had been destroyed. The NKVD recorded that between 26 and 27 million Soviet citizens had been killed, with millions more being wounded, malnourished, or orphaned. In the war's aftermath, some of Stalin's associates suggested modifications to government policy. Post-war Soviet society was more tolerant than its pre-war phase in various respects. Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to retain the churches it had opened during the war. Academia and the arts were also allowed greater freedom than they had prior to 1941. Recognising the need for drastic steps to be taken to combat inflation and promote economic regeneration, in December 1947 Stalin's government devalued the rouble and abolished the ration-book system. Capital punishment was abolished in 1947 but re-instituted in 1950.
Stalin's health was deteriorating, and heart problems forced a two-month vacation in the latter part of 1945. He grew increasingly concerned that senior political and military figures might try to oust him; he prevented any of them from becoming powerful enough to rival him and had their apartments bugged with listening devices. He demoted Molotov, and increasingly favoured Beria and Malenkov for key positions. In 1949, he brought Nikita Khrushchev from Ukraine to Moscow, appointing him a Central Committee secretary and the head of the city's party branch. In the Leningrad Affair, the city's leadership was purged amid accusations of treachery; executions of many of the accused took place in 1950.
In the post-war period there were often food shortages in Soviet cities, and the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947. Sparked by a drought and ensuing bad harvest in 1946, it was exacerbated by government policy towards food procurement, including the state's decision to build up stocks and export food internationally rather than distributing it to famine-hit areas. Current estimates indicate that between one million and 1.5 million people died from malnutrition or disease as a result. While agricultural production stagnated, Stalin focused on a series of major infrastructure projects, including the construction of hydroelectric plants, canals, and railway lines running to the polar north. Much of this was constructed by prison labour.
1947–1950: Cold War policy
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British Empire declined, leaving the U.S. and USSR as the dominant world powers. Tensions among these former Allies grew, resulting in the Cold War. Although Stalin publicly described the British and U.S. governments as aggressive, he thought it unlikely that a war with them would be imminent, believing that several decades of peace was likely. He nevertheless secretly intensified Soviet research into nuclear weaponry, intent on creating an atom bomb. Still, Stalin foresaw the undesirability of a nuclear conflict, saying in 1949 that "atomic weapons can hardly be used without spelling the end of the world." He personally took a keen interest in the development of the weapon. In August 1949, the bomb was successfully tested in the deserts outside Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. Stalin also initiated a new military build-up; the Soviet army was expanded from 2.9 million soldiers, as it stood in 1949, to 5.8 million by 1953.
The U.S. began pushing its interests on every continent, acquiring air force bases in Africa and Asia and ensuring pro-U.S. regimes took power across Latin America. It launched the Marshall Plan in June 1947, with which it sought to undermine Soviet hegemony throughout Eastern Europe. The U.S. also offered financial assistance to countries as part of the Marshall Plan on the condition that they opened their markets to trade, aware that the Soviets would never agree.
The Allies demanded that Stalin withdraw the Red Army from northern Iran. He initially refused, leading to an international crisis in 1946, but one year later Stalin finally relented and moved the Soviet troops out. Stalin also tried to maximise Soviet influence on the world stage, unsuccessfully pushing for Libya—recently liberated from Italian occupation—to become a Soviet protectorate. He sent Molotov as his representative to San Francisco to take part in negotiations to form the United Nations, insisting that the Soviets have a place on the Security Council. In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an international military alliance of capitalist countries. Within Western countries, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the "most evil dictator alive" and compared to Hitler. According to his daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva she "remembered her father saying after [the war]: Together with the Germans we would have been invincible"
In 1948, Stalin edited and rewrote sections of Falsifiers of History, published as a series of Pravda articles in February 1948 and then in book form. Written in response to public revelations of the 1939 Soviet alliance with Germany, it focused on blaming the Western powers for the war. He also erroneously claimed that the initial German advance in the early part of the war, during Operation Barbarossa, was not a result of Soviet military weakness, but rather a deliberate Soviet strategic retreat. In 1949, celebrations took place to mark Stalin's seventieth birthday (although he was 71 at the time,) at which Stalin attended an event in the Bolshoi Theatre alongside Marxist–Leninist leaders from across Europe and Asia.
Eastern Bloc
After the war, Stalin sought to retain Soviet dominance across Eastern Europe while expanding its influence in Asia. Cautiously regarding the responses from the Western Allies, Stalin avoided immediately installing Communist Party governments across Eastern Europe, instead initially ensuring that Marxist-Leninists were placed in coalition ministries. In contrast to his approach to the Baltic states, he rejected the proposal of merging the new communist states into the Soviet Union, rather recognising them as independent nation-states.
He was faced with the problem that there were few Marxists left in Eastern Europe, with most having been killed by the Nazis. He demanded that war reparations be paid by Germany and its Axis allies Hungary, Romania, and the Slovak Republic. Aware that these countries had been pushed toward socialism through invasion rather than by proletarian revolution, Stalin referred to them not as "dictatorships of the proletariat" but as "people's democracies", suggesting that in these countries there was a pro-socialist alliance combining the proletariat, peasantry, and lower middle-class.
Churchill observed that an "Iron Curtain" had been drawn across Europe, separating the east from the west. In September 1947, a meeting of East European communist leaders was held in Szklarska Poręba, Poland, from which was formed Cominform to co-ordinate the Communist Parties across Eastern Europe and also in France and Italy. Stalin did not personally attend the meeting, sending Zhdanov in his place. Various East European communists also visited Stalin in Moscow. There, he offered advice on their ideas; for instance, he cautioned against the Yugoslav idea for a Balkan Federation incorporating Bulgaria and Albania. Stalin had a particularly strained relationship with Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito due to the latter's continued calls for a Balkan federation and for Soviet aid for the communist forces in the ongoing Greek Civil War. In March 1948, Stalin launched an anti-Tito campaign, accusing the Yugoslav communists of adventurism and deviating from Marxist–Leninist doctrine. At the second Cominform conference, held in Bucharest in June 1948, East European communist leaders all denounced Tito's government, accusing them of being fascists and agents of Western capitalism. Stalin ordered several assassination attempts on Tito's life and even contemplated an invasion of Yugoslavia itself.
Stalin suggested that a unified, but demilitarised, German state be established, hoping that it would either come under Soviet influence or remain neutral. When the U.S. and UK remained opposed to this, Stalin sought to force their hand by blockading Berlin in June 1948. He gambled that the Western powers would not risk war, but they airlifted supplies into West Berlin until May 1949, when Stalin relented and ended the blockade. In September 1949 the Western powers transformed Western Germany into an independent Federal Republic of Germany; in response the Soviets formed East Germany into the German Democratic Republic in October. In accordance with their earlier agreements, the Western powers expected Poland to become an independent state with free democratic elections. In Poland, the Soviets merged various socialist parties into the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), and vote rigging was used to ensure that the PZPR secured office. The 1947 Hungarian elections were also rigged by Stalin, with the Hungarian Working People's Party taking control. In Czechoslovakia, where the communists did have a level of popular support, they were elected the largest party in 1946. Monarchy was abolished in Bulgaria and Romania. Across Eastern Europe, the Soviet model was enforced, with a termination of political pluralism, agricultural collectivisation, and investment in heavy industry. It was aimed at establishing economic autarky within the Eastern Bloc.
Asia
In October 1949, Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong took power in China. With this accomplished, Marxist governments now controlled a third of the world's land mass. Privately, Stalin revealed that he had underestimated the Chinese Communists and their ability to win the civil war, instead encouraging them to make another peace with the KMT. In December 1949, Mao visited Stalin. Initially Stalin refused to repeal the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945, which significantly benefited the Soviet Union over China, although in January 1950 he relented and agreed to sign a new treaty between the two countries. Stalin was concerned that Mao might follow Tito's example by pursuing a course independent of Soviet influence, and made it known that if displeased he would withdraw assistance from China; the Chinese desperately needed said assistance after decades of civil war.
At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States divided up the Korean Peninsula, formerly a Japanese colonial possession, along the 38th parallel, setting up a communist government in the north and a pro-Western, anti-communist government in the south. North Korean leader Kim Il Sung visited Stalin in March 1949 and again in March 1950; he wanted to invade the south and although Stalin was initially reluctant to provide support, he eventually agreed by May 1950. The North Korean Army launched the Korean War by invading South Korea in June 1950, making swift gains and capturing Seoul. Both Stalin and Mao believed that a swift victory would ensue. The U.S. went to the UN Security Council—which the Soviets were boycotting over its refusal to recognise Mao's government—and secured international military support for the South Koreans. U.S. led forces pushed the North Koreans back. Stalin wanted to avoid direct Soviet conflict with the U.S., convincing the Chinese to aid the North.
The Soviet Union was one of the first nations to extend diplomatic recognition to the newly created state of Israel in 1948, in hopes of obtaining an ally in the Middle East. When the Israeli ambassador Golda Meir arrived in the USSR, Stalin was angered by the Jewish crowds who gathered to greet her. He was further angered by Israel's growing alliance with the U.S. After Stalin fell out with Israel, he launched an anti-Jewish campaign within the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. In November 1948, he abolished the JAC, and show trials took place for some of its members. The Soviet press engaged in vituperative attacks on Zionism, Jewish culture, and "rootless cosmopolitanism", with growing levels of anti-Semitism being expressed across Soviet society. Stalin's increasing tolerance of anti-Semitism may have stemmed from his increasing Russian nationalism or from the recognition that anti-Semitism had proved a useful mobilising tool for Hitler and that he could do the same; he may have increasingly viewed the Jewish people as a "counter-revolutionary" nation whose members were loyal to the U.S. There were rumours, although they have never been substantiated, that Stalin was planning on deporting all Soviet Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan, eastern Siberia.
1950–1953: Final years
In his later years, Stalin was in poor health. He took increasingly long holidays; in 1950 and again in 1951 he spent almost five months on holiday at his Abkhazian dacha. Stalin nevertheless mistrusted his doctors; in January 1952 he had one imprisoned after they suggested that he should retire to improve his health. In September 1952, several Kremlin doctors were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill senior politicians in what came to be known as the doctors' plot; the majority of the accused were Jewish. He instructed the arrested doctors to be tortured to ensure confession. In November, the Slánský trial took place in Czechoslovakia as 13 senior Communist Party figures, 11 of them Jewish, were accused and convicted of being part of a vast Zionist-American conspiracy to subvert Eastern Bloc governments. That same month, a much publicised trial of accused Jewish industrial wreckers took place in Ukraine. In 1951, he initiated the Mingrelian affair, a purge of the Georgian branch of the Communist Party which resulted in over 11,000 deportations.
From 1946 until his death, Stalin only gave three public speeches, two of which lasted only a few minutes. The amount of written material that he produced also declined. In 1950, Stalin issued the article "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics", which reflected his interest in questions of Russian nationhood.
In 1952, Stalin's last book, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, was published. It sought to provide a guide to leading the country after his death. In October 1952, Stalin gave an hour and a half speech at the Central Committee plenum. There, he emphasised what he regarded as leadership qualities necessary in the future and highlighted the weaknesses of various potential successors, particularly Molotov and Mikoyan. In 1952, he also eliminated the Politburo and replaced it with a larger version which he called the Presidium.
Death, funeral and aftermath
On 1 March 1953, Stalin's staff found him semi-conscious on the bedroom floor of his Kuntsevo Dacha. He had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. He was moved onto a couch and remained there for three days. He was hand-fed using a spoon, given various medicines and injections, and leeches were applied to him. Stalin died on 5 March 1953. According to Svetlana, it had been "a difficult and terrible death". An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral haemorrhage and that his cerebral arteries were severely damaged by atherosclerosis. It has been conjectured that Stalin was murdered; Beria has been suspected of poisoning him, but no firm evidence has appeared. According to a theory developed by historians Vladimir Naumov and Jonathan Brent, Stalin was poisoned with warfarin, most likely by Beria.
Stalin's death was announced on 6 March. His body was embalmed, and then displayed in Moscow's House of Unions for three days. The crowds of people coming to view the body were so large and disorganised that many people were killed in a crowd crush. At the funeral on 9 March, Stalin's body was laid to rest in Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square; hundreds of thousands attended. That month featured a surge in arrests for "anti-Soviet agitation", as those celebrating Stalin's death came to police attention. The Chinese government instituted a period of official mourning for Stalin's death. A memorial service in his honour was also held at St George the Martyr, Holborn in London.
Stalin left neither a designated successor nor a framework within which a peaceful transfer of power could take place. The Central Committee met on the day of his death, after which Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev emerged as the party's dominant figures. The system of collective leadership was restored, and measures introduced to prevent any one member from attaining autocratic domination. The collective leadership included eight senior members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, namely Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Anastas Mikoyan. Reforms to the Soviet system were immediately implemented. Economic reform scaled back the mass construction projects, placed a new emphasis on house building, and eased the levels of taxation on the peasantry to stimulate production. The new leaders sought rapprochement with Yugoslavia and a less hostile relationship with the U.S., and they pursued a negotiated end to the Korean War in July 1953. The doctors who had been imprisoned were released and the anti-Semitic purges ceased. A mass amnesty for certain categories of convicts was issued, halving the country's inmate population, while the state security and Gulag systems were reformed, with torture being banned in April 1953.
Political ideology
Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of 15, and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life; according to Kotkin, Stalin held "zealous Marxist convictions", while Montefiore suggested that Marxism held a "quasi-religious" value for Stalin. Although he never became a Georgian nationalist, during his early life elements from Georgian nationalist thought blended with Marxism in his outlook. Stalin believed in the need to adapt Marxism to changing circumstances; in 1917, he declared that "there is dogmatic Marxism and there is creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter". Volkogonov believed that Stalin's Marxism was shaped by his "dogmatic turn of mind", suggesting that this had been instilled in the Soviet leader during his education in religious institutions. According to scholar Robert Service, Stalin's "few innovations in ideology were crude, dubious developments of Marxism".
As a Marxist and an anti-capitalist, Stalin believed in an inevitable "class war" between the world's proletariat and bourgeoisie. He believed that the working classes would prove successful in this struggle and would establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, regarding the Soviet Union as an example of such a state. He also believed that this proletarian state would need to introduce repressive measures against foreign and domestic "enemies" to ensure the full crushing of the propertied classes, and thus the class war would intensify with the advance of socialism. As a propaganda tool, the shaming of "enemies" explained all inadequate economic and political outcomes, the hardships endured by the populace, and military failures.
Stalin adhered to the Leninist variant of Marxism. In his book, Foundations of Leninism, he stated that "Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution". He claimed to be a loyal Leninist, although was—according to Service—"not a blindly obedient Leninist". Stalin respected Lenin, but not uncritically, and spoke out when he believed that Lenin was wrong. During the period of his revolutionary activity, Stalin regarded some of Lenin's views and actions as being the self-indulgent activities of a spoiled émigré, deeming them counterproductive for those Bolshevik activists based within the Russian Empire itself. After the October Revolution, they continued to have differences. Khlevniuk nevertheless believed that the pair developed a "strong bond" over the years, while Kotkin suggested that Stalin's friendship with Lenin was "the single most important relationship in Stalin's life". After Lenin's death, Stalin relied heavily on Lenin's writings—far more so than those of Marx and Engels—to guide him in the affairs of state. Stalin adopted the Leninist view on the need for a revolutionary vanguard who could lead the proletariat rather than being led by them.
Stalin viewed nations as contingent entities which were formed by capitalism and could merge into others. Ultimately, he believed that all nations would merge into a single, global community, and regarded all nations as inherently equal. In his work, he stated that "the right of secession" should be offered to the ethnic minorities of the Russian Empire, but that they should not be encouraged to take that option. He was of the view that if they became fully autonomous, then they would end up being controlled by the most reactionary elements of their community. Stalin's push for Soviet westward expansion into eastern Europe resulted in accusations of Russian imperialism.
Personal life and characteristics
Ethnically Georgian, Stalin grew up speaking Georgian, It has been argued his ancestry was genetically Ossetian, but he never acknowledged an Ossetian identity. He remained proud of his Georgian identity, and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. Some colleagues described him as "Asiatic", and he supposedly said that "I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian". Service noted that Stalin "would never be Russian" and never tried to pretend he was. Montefiore was of the view that "after 1917, [Stalin] became quadri-national: Georgian by nationality, Russian by loyalty, internationalist by ideology, Soviet by citizenship."
Described as a poor orator, Stalin's style was "simple and clear, without flights of fancy, catchy phrases or platform histrionics". He rarely spoke before large audiences and preferred to express himself in writing. Stalin's mustached face was pock-marked from smallpox during childhood; this was airbrushed from published photographs. He was born with a webbed left foot, and his left arm had been injured in childhood which left it shorter than his right and lacking in flexibility. Stalin was a lifelong smoker, who smoked both a pipe and cigarettes. Publicly, Stalin lived relatively plainly, with simple and inexpensive clothing and furniture.
As leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin typically awoke around 11 am, with lunch being served between 3–5 pm and dinner no earlier than 9 pm; he then worked late. He often dined with other Politburo members and their families. As leader, he rarely left Moscow unless to go to a dacha for holiday; he disliked travel, and refused to by plane. His choice of favoured holiday house changed, although he holidayed in south USSR every year from 1925 to 1936 and 1945 to 1951. He had a dacha at Zubalova, 35 km outside Moscow, although ceased using it after Nadezhda's 1932 suicide. After 1932, he favoured holidays in Abkhazia, being a friend of its leader, Nestor Lakoba. In 1934, his new Kuntsevo Dacha was built; 9 km from the Kremlin, it became his primary residence. In 1935, he began using a new dacha provided by Lakoba at Novy Afon; in 1936, he had the Kholodnaya Rechka dacha built on the Abkhazian coast, designed by Miron Merzhanov.
Personality
Stalin was regarded as an exceptional individual from childhood, according to both hostile and friendly accounts. He possessed a complex mind, remarkable self-control, and excellent memory. Stalin was a diligent worker with a keen interest in learning; as a leader, he meticulously scrutinized details, from film scripts to military plans. His private and working lives were intertwined. Despite his limited formal education, Stalin's intellectual capacity was considerable, though was sometimes susceptible to charlatans like Trofim Lysenko.
Stalin's personality was multifaceted, allowing him to play different roles depending on the audience, and he was skilled in deception. His appointment as General Secretary is attributed to his manipulation of Lenin's fears of a party split. Historians have noted Lazar Kaganovich's description of "several Stalins" to understand his complex character. Stalin was an effective organizer with a strategic mind, and judged others by their inner strength and cleverness. Although he could be rude, Stalin rarely raised his voice; however, as his health deteriorated, he became unpredictable and bad-tempered. He could be charming and enjoyed cracking jokes when relaxed.
Stalin lacked compassion, possibly exacerbated by imprisonment and exile, though he occasionally showed kindness to strangers, even during the Great Terror. He could be self-righteous, resentful, and vindictive, often holding grudges for years. By the 1920s, he had become suspicious and conspiratorial, prone to believing in plots against him and international conspiracies. While he never attended torture sessions or executions, Stalin took pleasure in degrading and humiliating people and kept even close associates in a state of "unrelieved fear". Stalin's brutality marked him as a "natural extremist", and Service suggested he had tendencies toward a paranoid and sociopathic personality disorder. However, Geoffrey Roberts argued Stalin was not a psychopath but an emotionally intelligent and feeling intellectual. Other historians linked his brutality to his commitment to the survival of the Soviet Union and Marxist–Leninist ideology. In contrast, E.A. Rees believed it was psychopathy that bred Stalin's tyranny, citing a 1927 diagnosis by neuropathologist Vladimir Bekhterev that described him as a "typical case of severe paranoia".
Stalin had a keen interest in the arts. He protected certain Soviet writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, even when their work was criticized as harmful to his regime. Stalin enjoyed classical music, owned around 2,700 records, and often attended the Bolshoi Theatre in the 1930s and 40s. His taste was conservative, favoring classical drama, opera, and ballet over what he dismissed as experimental "formalism", and disliked avant-garde in the visual arts too. He was a voracious reader with over 20,000 books, with little fiction.
His favorite subject was history, followed by Marxist theory and fiction. Stalin was considered an effective debater who often quoted Marx and Engels. He kept up with debates in historical studies, particularly those related to Russian, Mesopotamian, ancient Roman, and Byzantine history. He was especially interested in the reigns of Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great. An autodidact, Stalin claimed to read as many as 500 pages a day. Lenin was his favorite author, but he read, and appreciated, works by Trotsky and other adversaries. Stalin enjoyed watching films, particularly at night, in cinemas installed in the Kremlin and his dachas. He liked Westerns, though his favorite films were Volga-Volga and Circus.
Stalin was an accomplished billiards player, and collected watches. He enjoyed practical jokes, such as placing a tomato on the chairs of Politburo members. At social events, Stalin encouraged singing and drinking, hoping others would drunkenly reveal secrets to him. Stalin had a love of flowers from infancy, and became a keen gardener. His Volynskoe suburb had a 20-hectare (50-acre) park, to which Stalin devoted much attention.
Stalin's rise to absolute power has been the subject of much debate. Some historians attribute his success to personal qualities, while others emphasize the growth of Soviet bureaucracy, which Trotsky argued served as a power base for Stalin. The premature deaths of Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov are seen as key factors in Stalin's rise. Peter Kenez believed Trotsky could have removed Stalin with Lenin's testament, but acquiesced to the collective decision not to publish it.
Relationships and family
Friendship was important to Stalin, and he used it to gain and maintain power. Kotkin observed that Stalin "generally gravitated to people like himself: parvenu intelligentsia of humble background". Stalin's friendships "meandered between love, admiration, and venomous jealousy". According to Boris Bazhanov, Stalin's one-time secretary, "Women didn't interest him. His own woman [Alliluyeva] was enough for him, and he paid scant attention to her." However, Montefiore noted that in his early life Stalin "rarely seems to have been without a girlfriend". Montefiore described Stalin's favoured types as "young, malleable teenagers or buxom peasant women", who would be supportive and unchallenging. Stalin "regarded women as a resource for sexual gratification and domestic comfort".
Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. According to Montefiore, theirs was "a true love match"; Volkogonov suggested that she was "probably the one human being he had really loved". When she died, Stalin allegedly said: "This creature softened my heart of stone." However, Russian historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko wrote that Stalin was physically abusive to her. They had a son, Yakov, who often frustrated and annoyed Stalin. Yakov had a daughter, Galina, before fighting for the Red Army in the Second World War. He was captured by the German Army and committed suicide.
In 1914, Stalin, aged 35, had a relationship with Lidia Pereprygina, then 14, who became pregnant with Stalin's child. In December 1914, Pereprygia gave birth to their child, although the infant died soon after. In 1916, Pereprygina was pregnant again. She allegedly gave birth to their son, named Alexander Davydov, in around April 1917. Stalin later came to know of the child's existence but showed no interest in him.
Stalin's second wife was Nadezhda Alliluyeva; theirs was not an easy relationship, they often fought. They had two biological children—a son, Vasily, and daughter, Svetlana—and adopted another son, Artyom Sergeev, in 1921. It is unclear if Stalin ever had a mistress during or after this marriage. She suspected he was unfaithful, and committed suicide in 1932. Stalin regarded Vasily as spoiled and often chastised his behaviour; as Stalin's son, Vasily was swiftly promoted through the Red Army and allowed a lavish lifestyle. Conversely, Stalin had an affectionate relationship with Svetlana during her childhood, and was very fond of Artyom. He disapproved of Svetlana's suitors and husbands, putting a strain on their relationship. After the Second World War, he made little time for his children and his family played a decreasingly important role in his life. After Stalin's death, Svetlana changed her surname to Alliluyeva, and defected to the U.S.
After Nadezhda's death, Stalin became increasingly close to his sister-in-law Zhenya Alliluyeva; Montefiore believed they were lovers. There are unproven rumours that from 1934 onward he had a relationship with his housekeeper Valentina Istomina. Montefiore claimed Stalin had at least two illegitimate children, although he never recognised them as being his. One, Konstantin Kuzakov, taught philosophy at the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, but never met Stalin. The other, Alexander, was the son of Lidia Pereprygina; he was raised as the son of a peasant fisherman and the Soviet authorities made him swear never to reveal Stalin was his biological father. Stalin was complicit with the persecution of relatives of his former wives such as Maria and Alexander Svanidze who were arrested and eliminated during the Great Purge.
Legacy
The historian Robert Conquest stated that Stalin perhaps "determined the course of the twentieth century" more than any other individual. Biographers like Service and Volkogonov have considered him an outstanding and exceptional politician; Montefiore labelled Stalin as "that rare combination: both 'intellectual' and killer", a man who was "the ultimate politician" and "the most elusive and fascinating of the twentieth-century titans". According to historian Kevin McDermott, interpretations of Stalin range from "the sycophantic and adulatory to the vitriolic and condemnatory." For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, he is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer; for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder.
According to Service, Stalin strengthened and stabilised the Soviet Union. In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power, one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride. Under his rule, the average Soviet life expectancy grew due to improved living conditions, nutrition and medical care as mortality rates also declined. Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. Conversely, the historian Vadim Rogovin argued that the Great Terror which had gained traction in 1937 "caused losses to the communist movement both in the USSR and throughout the world from which the movement has not recovered to this very day". Similarly, Khrushchev believed his widespread purges of the "most advanced nucleus of people" among the Old Bolsheviks and leading figures in the military and scientific fields had "undoubtedly" weakened the nation.
Stalin's necessity for the Soviet Union's economic development has been questioned, and it has been argued that Stalin's policies from 1928 onwards may have only been a limiting factor. Stalin's Soviet Union has been characterised as a totalitarian state, with Stalin its authoritarian leader. Various biographers have described him as a dictator, an autocrat, or accused him of practising Caesarism. Montefiore argued that while Stalin initially ruled as part of a Communist Party oligarchy, the Soviet government transformed from this oligarchy into a personal dictatorship in 1934, with Stalin only becoming "absolute dictator" between March and June 1937, when senior military and NKVD figures were eliminated. According to Kotkin, Stalin "built a personal dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship." In both the Soviet Union and elsewhere he came to be portrayed as an "Oriental despot". Dmitri Volkogonov characterised him as "one of the most powerful figures in human history."
McDermott nevertheless cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes"—promoted in the fiction of writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman, and Anatoly Rybakov—that portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent tyrant who controlled every aspect of Soviet life. Service similarly warned of the portrayal of Stalin as an "unimpeded despot", noting that "powerful though he was, his powers were not limitless", and his rule depended on his willingness to conserve the Soviet structure he had inherited. Kotkin observed that Stalin's ability to remain in power relied on him having a majority in the Politburo at all times. Khlevniuk noted that at various points, particularly when Stalin was old and frail, there were "periodic manifestations" in which the party oligarchy threatened his autocratic control. Stalin denied to foreign visitors that he was a dictator, stating that those who labelled him such did not understand the Soviet governance structure.
A vast literature devoted to Stalin has been produced. During Stalin's lifetime, his approved biographies were largely hagiographic in content. Stalin ensured that these works gave very little attention to his early life, particularly because he did not wish to emphasise his Georgian origins in a state numerically dominated by Russians. Since his death many more biographies have been written, although until the 1980s these relied largely on the same sources of information. Under Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet administration various previously classified files on Stalin's life were made available to historians, at which point Stalin became "one of the most urgent and vital issues on the public agenda" in the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Union in 1991, the rest of the archives were opened to historians, resulting in much new information about Stalin coming to light, and producing a flood of new research.
Leninists remain divided in their views on Stalin; some view him as Lenin's authentic successor, while others believe he betrayed Lenin's ideas by deviating from them. The socio-economic nature of Stalin's Soviet Union has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of state socialism, state capitalism, bureaucratic collectivism, or a totally unique mode of production. Socialist writers like Volkogonov have acknowledged that Stalin's actions damaged "the enormous appeal of socialism generated by the October Revolution".
Death toll
With a high number of excess deaths occurring under his rule, Stalin has been labelled "one of the most notorious figures in history". As the majority of excess deaths under Stalin were not direct killings, the exact number of victims of Stalinism is difficult to calculate due to lack of consensus among scholars on which deaths can be attributed to the regime. Stalin has also been accused of genocide in the cases of forced population transfer of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union and the famine in Ukraine. Under Stalin, the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 in 1935.
Official records reveal 799,455 documented executions in the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1953; 681,692 of these were carried out between 1937 and 1938. According to historian Michael Ellman, the number of deaths during the purge is 950,000 to 1.2 million. Archival data shows that 1,053,829 perished in the Gulag system from 1934 to 1953, though current historical consensus is that between 1.5 and 1.7 million died as a result of their incarceration. About 6.3 million people were affected by mass deportations between 1930 and 1952, of which an estimated 1 to 1.5 million died. Historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft and Ellman attribute roughly 3 to 3.5 million deaths to Stalin's regime. R. W. Davies estimate famine deaths at 5.5–6.5 million while scholar Steven Rosefielde gives a number of 8.7 million. In 2011, historian Timothy D. Snyder summarised that Stalin's regime was responsible for 9 million deaths, with 6 million of these being deliberate killings. According to Rogovin, 80–90% of the members of the Central Committee were annihilated.
In the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states
Shortly after his death, the Soviet Union went through a period of de-Stalinization. Malenkov denounced the Stalin personality cult, which was subsequently criticised in Pravda. In 1956, Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech", titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", to a closed session of the Party's 20th Congress. There, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for both his mass repression and his personality cult. He repeated these denunciations at the 22nd Party Congress in October 1962. In October 1961, Stalin's body was removed from the mausoleum and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, the location marked by a bust. Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd.
Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation process ended when he was replaced as leader by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964; the latter introduced a level of re-Stalinisation within the Soviet Union. In 1969 and again in 1979, plans were proposed for a full rehabilitation of Stalin's legacy but on both occasions were halted due to fears of damaging the USSR's public image. Mikhail Gorbachev saw the total denunciation of Stalin as necessary for the regeneration of Soviet society. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Boris Yeltsin continued Gorbachev's denunciation of Stalin but added to it a denunciation of Lenin. His successor Vladimir Putin did not seek to rehabilitate Stalin but emphasised the celebration of Soviet achievements under Stalin's leadership rather than the Stalinist repressions. In October 2017, Putin opened the Wall of Grief memorial in Moscow, noting that the "terrible past" would neither be "justified by anything" nor "erased from the national memory". In a 2017 interview, Putin added that while "we should not forget the horrors of Stalinism", the excessive demonisation of Stalin "is a means to attack [the] Soviet Union and Russia". In recent years, the government and general public of Russia has been accused of rehabilitating Stalin.
In a 2021 poll, 70% of Russians indicated they had a mostly/very favourable view of Stalin.
See also
European interwar dictatorships
List of places named after Joseph Stalin
List of statues of Joseph Stalin
Explanatory notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
Academic books and journals
Magazines, newspapers and websites
External links
Stalin Library (with all 13 volumes of Stalin's works and "volume 14")
Library of Congress: Revelations from the Russian Archives
Electronic archive of Stalin's letters and presentations
Stalin digital archive
Joseph Stalin Newsreels // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive
Stalin Biography from Spartacus Educational
A List of Key Documentary Material on Stalin
Stalinka: The Digital Library of Staliniana
Newspaper clippings about Joseph Stalin in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.