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Upper Hutt

Upper Hutt (Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta) is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.

History
Upper Hutt is in an area originally known as Orongomai and that of the river was Heretaunga (today the name of a suburb of Upper Hutt). The first residents of the area were Māori of the Ngāi Tara iwi. Various other iwi controlled the area in the years before 1840, and by the time the first colonial settlers arrived the area was part of the Te Āti awa rohe.

Orongomai Marae is to the south of the modern city centre.

In 1839, the English colonising company, The New Zealand Company made a purchase from Māori chiefs of about 160,000 acres of land in the Wellington region including Upper Hutt. The Hutt Valley is named after one of the founders of this company. Dealings from the New Zealand Company and following that, the Crown (after the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840), with local Māori regarding the land in Upper Hutt were flawed including not transacting with all the iwi that had claims on the land. Disputes arose and there were skirmishes and warfare in the Hutt Valley in 1846 between troops under Governor George Grey and Māori including chiefs Te Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata, Te Mamaku and iwi including Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Rangatahi, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi.

Richard Barton, who settled at Trentham in 1841 in the area now known as Trentham Memorial Park, was the first European resident. Barton subsequently subdivided his land and set aside a large area that was turned into parkland. James Brown settled in the area that became the Upper Hutt town in 1848.

Having divided the land into 100 acre block, the settlers set about clearing the land of its indigenous forest and turning it into farmland. Sawmillers milled larger trees, such as Totara, for building materials and burned off the remaining scrub and underbrush.

Alarmed by unrest in Taranaki and sightings of local Māori bearing arms, settlers in the Hutt Valley lobbied for the construction of fortifications in Upper and Lower Hutt. The government and the military responded by constructing 2 stockades in the Hutt Valley in 1860. While the stockade in Upper Hutt was manned for 6 months, the threat of hostilities soon passed and neither installation ever saw hostile action.

The railway line from Wellington reached Upper Hutt on 1 February 1876. The line was extended to Kaitoke at the top end of the valley, reaching there on 1 January 1878. The line continued over the Remutaka Ranges to Featherston in the Wairarapa as a Fell railway, opening on 12 October 1878.

Upper Hutt in 1897 was recorded in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand.

By the beginning of March 1914, the area of Upper Hutt controlled by the Upper Hutt Town Board had its own water supply. The supply capacity was increased when the Birchville Dam was built in 1930.

On the evening of 28 March 1914, fire broke out at the Benge and Pratt store in Main Street. An explosion killed 8 of the volunteers fighting the fire and destroyed the building.

For many years, Upper Hutt was a rural service town, supporting the surrounding rural farming and forestry community. Serious urbanisation of the upper Hutt Valley only started around the 1920s, but from the late 1940s onwards, Upper Hutt's population exploded as people moved from the crowded hustle and bustle of inner-city Wellington into a more secluded yet sprawling Hutt Valley. In 1950, Trentham Memorial Park was created with an area of almost 50 hectares. In July 1955, the electrification of the railway line from Wellington to Upper Hutt was completed, allowing fast electric multiple unit trains to replace steam- and diesel-electric-hauled carriage trains. Later in November, the 8.8 km Rimutaka Tunnel opened, bypassing the Remutaka Incline and most of the existing line between Upper Hutt and Featherston, and reducing the time between the two from 2.5 hours to just 40 minutes.

Upper Hutt continued to grow in population and became a city within the Wellington metropolitan area on 2 May 1966 after the Government Statistician certified that the population had reached 20 000, allowing the Town Clerk to make an application for city status.

On 9 April 1976, Upper Hutt became the first area in New Zealand to implement subscriber toll dialling (STD), allowing telephone subscribers to make national calls without operator assistance.

Residential subdivision in areas such as Clouston Park, Maoribank, Tōtara Park and Kingsley Heights continued into the 1980s.

In February 1979 Muhammed Ali came to New Zealand, staying at Upper Hutt.

In the 1980s, significant travel delays were being experienced through Upper Hutt, with State Highway 2 traffic travelling from Lower Hutt and Wellington to central Upper Hutt and further afield to the Wairarapa being funnelled down the two-lane Fergusson Drive and mixing with local traffic through Silverstream and Trentham. With the central government reluctant to fund any road improvements in the area, the Upper Hutt City Council commissioned the construction of a two-laned high-speed bypass along the banks of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River from the Taitā Gorge in the south to Māoribank in the north. River Road, as the road became known, opened in 1987. It promptly ran at full capacity and, after several serious accidents that were a legacy of its origins, it was enlarged and re-engineered to cope with the growing traffic volume. Today, River Road is a median-divided 2+1 road from the Taitā Gorge to Tōtara Park, with two-laned undivided sections over the Moonshine Bridge and from Tōtara Park to Maoribank.

Upper Hutt is in the bed of an ancient river flood plain and as such was prone to flooding. In the 1970s and 1980s, a stop bank was built alongside the eastern side of the river from northern Upper Hutt to the mouth of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River in Lower Hutt to prevent further flooding.

Geography
The Upper Hutt city centre lies approximately 26 km north-east of Wellington. While the main areas of urban development lie along the Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River valley floor, the city extends to the top of the Remutaka Pass to the north-east and into the Akatarawa Valley and rough hill-country of the Akatarawa ranges to the north and north-west, almost reaching the Kāpiti Coast close to Paekākāriki. Centred on the upper (northern) valley of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River, which flows north-east to south-west on its way to Wellington harbour, the flat land widens briefly into a 2500-m-wide floodplain between the Remutaka and Akatarawa Ranges before constricting nine kilometres further downstream at the Taitā Gorge, which separates Upper Hutt from its neighbour, Lower Hutt. The city's main urban area spreads over this plain. A smaller flood plain lies upstream, above the Kaitoke Gorge, but has experienced little urban development.

Climate
Upper Hutt has a temperate climate however due to its sheltered valley location, it generally tends to be warmer than inner city Wellington in the summer and much colder in the winter. It is not uncommon in summer for temperatures to reach the mid-30s Celsius (+/- 95 °F), and in winter, the temperature to drop to as low as −5 °C (about 23 °F) with regular and often heavy frost. Snow generally doesn't fall below 300 m, but in 2011 Upper Hutt sea level snow occurred twice, as part of 2011 New Zealand snowstorms. On 25 July and again between 14 and 16 August, which was the heaviest blizzard in Upper Hutt since 1976 and came as a great novelty to residents. Upper Hutt receives about 1400 mm of rain per year. At 17.5 °C on average, February is the warmest month, while July is the coldest at 8.5 °C.

Local government
Upper Hutt City Council administers the city with its surrounding rural areas, parks and reserves. Its area is 540 km2, the third-largest area of city council in New Zealand, after Dunedin and Auckland. New Zealand local authorities with a large land area are usually termed districts, but Upper Hutt maintains its status as a city largely because of its high degree of urbanisation.

Upper Hutt was originally administered by the Hutt County Council, which was constituted in 1877. The Town Board was proclaimed on 24 April 1908. Upper Hutt became a Borough on 26 February 1926 and a City on 2 May 1966. On 1 April 1973, the Rimutaka Riding of Hutt County was added to the city. When the Hutt County Council was abolished on 1 November 1988, the city took over administration of the Heretaunga/Pinehaven ward, which was incorporated into the city on 1 November 1989 when the Heretaunga/Pinehaven Community Council was abolished.

Parliamentary representation
Today, Upper Hutt City falls entirely within the boundaries of the Remutaka electorate, currently held by Labour's Chris Hipkins. Upper Hutt was represented by the Heretaunga electorate prior to the introduction of MMP in 1996, when the seat was merged with Eastern Hutt to form Remutaka.

Demographics

Upper Hutt City covers 539.88 km2 and had an estimated population of as of  with a population density of  people per km2. The urban area covers 51.16 km2 and had an estimated population of as of  with a population density of  people per km2.

Upper Hutt City had a population of 45,759 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 1,779 people (4.0%) since the 2018 census, and an increase of 5,580 people (13.9%) since the 2013 census. There were 17,907 dwellings. The median age was 39.1 years (compared with 38.1 years nationally). There were 8,811 people (19.3%) aged under 15 years, 7,731 (16.9%) aged 15 to 29, 21,903 (47.9%) aged 30 to 64, and 7,317 (16.0%) aged 65 or older.

Ethnicities were 78.4% European/Pākehā, 16.7% Māori, 6.5% Pasifika, 11.9% Asian, 1.4% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders, and 1.3% other. People may identify with more than one ethnicity.

Upper Hutt City had a population of 43,980 at the 2018 New Zealand census. There were 15,870 households, comprising 22,140 males and 21,837 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.01 males per female.

The percentage of people born overseas was 21.2, compared with 27.1% nationally.

Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 48.5% had no religion, 38.5% were Christian, 0.9% had Māori religious beliefs, 1.6% were Hindu, 0.4% were Muslim, 0.8% were Buddhist and 2.4% had other religions.

Of those at least 15 years old, 6,987 (19.7%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 6,210 (17.5%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $35,400, compared with $31,800 nationally. 7,173 people (20.2%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 18,582 (52.5%) people were employed full-time, 4,557 (12.9%) were part-time, and 1,434 (4.0%) were unemployed.

Suburbs
The main suburbs of Upper Hutt, from north-east to south-west, include:
 * Te Mārua, Akatarawa, Rimutaka, Parkdale, Emerald Hill, Birchville, Timberlea, Brown Owl, Kaitoke, Maoribank, Ebdentown, Upper Hutt Central, Clouston Park, Mangaroa, Maymorn, Whitemans Valley, Tōtara Park, Kingsley Heights, Elderslea, Wallaceville, Trentham, Heretaunga, Silverstream and Pinehaven.

Developments in the area include Mount Timbale Marua, Marua Downs, Waitoka Estate, Wallaceville Estate, and Riverstone Terraces. A development called The Lanes was proposed but rejected by the Lanes Commissioners appointed by the council. This decision was made as to ensure the maintenance of the significant rural character and amenity in the Mangaroa Valley.

Road
State Highway 2 is the principal highway through Upper Hutt, connecting with Lower Hutt and Wellington's motorway system to the south, and the Wairarapa region via the Remutaka Hill Road to the north.

Fergusson Drive is the main thoroughfare through suburban Upper Hutt, passing through the city centre and connecting to State Highway 2 at Silverstream and Maoribank. It formed part of State Highway 2 before the River Road bypass opened in 1987.

State Highway 58, while only briefly in Upper Hutt itself, intersects with SH 2 a short distance to the south of the boundary of Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt, and provides a link between Upper Hutt and Porirua.

State Highway 1 (as the Transmission Gully Motorway) briefly touches Upper Hutt at the Wainui Saddle (the tripoint of Upper Hutt, Porirua City and the Kāpiti Coast District), but otherwise does not pass through the region.

Bus
Bus services, planned and subsidised by Greater Wellington Regional Council under the Metlink brand, are centred around the Upper Hutt railway station and operate from Monday to Saturday on most routes, with the 110 route between Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt operating 7 days a week. All of the urbanised areas of the city are served by public bus routes, and the rural areas are served by school buses.

Railway
Upper Hutt is on the Hutt Valley Line, Metlink electric trains operated by Transdev Wellington run between 4:30am and 11pm weekdays, (midnight Fridays), 5am till midnight Saturdays and 6am till 11pm Sundays. Service which reaches Waterloo in Lower Hutt in around 20 minutes and Wellington in around 45 minutes. Express peak hour weekday trains reach Wellington in around 38 minutes. Services run every 20 minutes between 6am and 4:30pm weekday and half-hourly Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Evening services run hourly from 8 to 11pm.

The railway continues beyond Upper Hutt to Masterton, becoming the Wairarapa Line, which is not electrified. Masterton is about an hour away by morning and afternoon diesel hauled trains. There are services five times a day each way Monday to Thursday, six on Friday, and twice a day, each way on Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays. A notable feature of this section of railway is the Rimutaka Tunnel, the second-longest railway tunnel in New Zealand, which replaced the Rimutaka Incline in 1955.

There are six railway stations within the boundaries of the city: Silverstream, Heretaunga, Trentham, Wallaceville, Upper Hutt (the main station for the city and outer terminus of electric services), and Maymorn (a request stop on the Wairarapa Line). Upper Hutt's main railway station was originally built in 1876 but has been rebuilt twice, firstly in 1955 and more recently in 2015. The most recent rebuild, jointly funded by NZTA and the Upper Hutt City Council, cost $3.5m and features a coffee bar, public toilets and an upgraded ticket office featuring real-time information of arrivals and departures of trains in a larger waiting room than the 1955 building.

The Blue Mountains Campus at Wallaceville is to be the location for KiwiRail 's national train control centre, which is to move from the Wellington railway station; to house a team of 120 train control team members in a 2700 m2 train control room. It will be next to the rail network.

Remutaka Incline
To assist with the 1 in 15 grade of the Rimutaka Incline on the Featherston side of the range, the Fell engines that used a raised centre rail to haul trains up the steep grade were employed. The less steep 1 in 40 grades between Upper Hutt and the small settlement and shunting yard at Summit could be managed by ordinary steam locomotives. The only other rolling stock able to traverse the incline unaided were small bus-like Wairarapa railcars, colloquially known as "Tin Hares".

By the 1950s, the Fell system had become too expensive to operate and was closed on 29 October 1955. To replace it, the Rimutaka Tunnel had been constructed, opening on 3 November 1955. In conjunction with the tunnel, the laying of a new route, new bridges and substantial realignment and double-tracking of the rest of the line from Wellington to Trentham had occurred by 26 June 1955.

The course of the incline is open to the public as part of the Remutaka Rail Trail.

Sports and recreation
Walking and mountain-biking is popular along Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River and on the tracks in many parks, including Karapoti (focal point of the annual Karapoti Classic), Kaitoke, Cannon Point Walkway, Tunnel Gully and the Remutaka Rail Trail. Popular team sports include Cricket, Netball, Rugby, Rugby league, Soccer, and Valley Gridiron American football. Expressions Whirinaki Arts and Entertainment Centre is home to Upper Hutt's public art gallery including Golden Homes Gallery and Mitre 10 Mega Create Gallery, these two galleries feature a diverse programme of Local and National exhibitions. The Expressions Whirinaki complex also includes Gillies Group Theatre; the city's performing arts venue, and the civic hall known as Professionals Recreation Hall. Close by is the central library of Upper Hutt Libraries – Ngā Puna Mātauranga o Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta and swimming pool Xtreme.

Upper Hutt is home to the biggest junior football club in New Zealand. The club was formed when Tararua Sports Club Inc and Upper Hutt City Soccer merged to create one club. The club now carries both of the old clubs' names. The club primarily plays its home games at Maidstone Park but also plays at Awakairangi, Harcourt Park and Trentham Memorial Park.

The city has one of New Zealand's largest Inline speed skating clubs, Valley Inline which has many successful skaters and holds the annual Speed King Tour that celebrated its 22nd year in 2012.

Popular recreation sites include:

 * Staglands Wildlife Reserve at Akatarawa
 * Taekwon-Do with United ITF New Zealand at Heretaunga
 * Royal Wellington Golf Club at Heretaunga
 * Te Mārua Golf Club at Te Mārua
 * Wellington Family Speedway at Te Mārua
 * Wellington Naturist Club at Te Mārua
 * Kartsport Wellington Raceway at Kaitoke
 * Wellington Racing Club at Trentham
 * Trentham Memorial Park at Trentham
 * Cannon Point Walkway
 * Birchville Dam
 * Upper Hutt Rugby Football Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt
 * Rimutaka Rugby Football Club at Maoribank, Upper Hutt
 * Upper Hutt United Cricket Club at Trentham, Upper Hutt
 * Upper Hutt City Soccer Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt
 * Harcourt Park diskgolf course at Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt
 * Upper Hutt Roller Skating Club at Upper Hutt
 * Wellington Model Aeroplane Club Inc at Trentham, Upper Hutt
 * Upper Hutt Hockey Club at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt

Primary schools

 * Fraser Crescent School
 * St Brendans School, Heretaunga
 * Trentham School
 * Birchville School
 * Tōtara Park School
 * St Josephs School, City Centre
 * Upper Hutt School
 * Plateau School
 * Silverstream School
 * Mangaroa School
 * Maoribank School
 * Pinehaven School
 * Plateau School
 * Oxford Crescent School
 * Brown Owl Primary School

Intermediate schools

 * Maidstone Intermediate
 * Fergusson Intermediate

Secondary schools

 * Heretaunga College
 * Hutt International Boys' School, Trentham
 * St. Patrick's College, Silverstream
 * Upper Hutt College

Sister-city relationships

 * Mesa, Arizona, United States

title: Upper Hutt


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Roy E. Disney

Roy Edward Disney KCSG (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009 ) was an American businessman. He was the longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, which was founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his father, Roy O. Disney. At the time of his death, he held more than 16 million shares (about 1% of the company), and served as a consultant for the company, as well as director emeritus for the board of directors. During his tenure, he organized ousting of the company's top two executives: Ron W. Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005.

As the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Disney was often compared to his uncle and to his father. In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at $1.2 billion.

Disney was also a celebrated yachtsman, a member of the San Diego Yacht Club best known for his success in the Transpacific Yacht Race and winning the Newport Bermuda Race. Disney died from stomach cancer on December 16, 2009.

Early life and career
Disney was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edna ( Francis; 1890–1984) and Roy O. Disney (1893–1971), the brother of Walt Disney. He graduated from Pomona College in 1951 and first began working for Walt Disney Productions as an assistant director and producer (True-Life Adventure). He continued until 1967, when he was elected to the company's board of directors.

First "Save Disney" campaign (1984)
Disney resigned as an executive from Walt Disney Productions in 1977 over disagreements with corporate decisions. He later said, "I just felt creatively the company was not going anywhere interesting. It was very stifling."

Disney retained a seat on the board of directors until 1984, when he resigned in the midst of a corporate takeover battle. This began a series of events that ultimately led to the replacement of Ron Miller (husband of Walt's daughter Diane Marie Disney) by Frank Wells and Michael Eisner as president and CEO, respectively. While investors were attempting the hostile takeover of Disney with the intention of dismantling the company and selling off its assets, Disney and his attorney and financial advisor Stanley Gold organized a consortium of white knight investors to fend off the takeover attempts. With the introduction of Wells and Eisner, Roy returned to the company as vice chairman and chairman of the animation department, which became Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Partnership with Eisner

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Disney's department produced a number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed films, an era which has been called the "Disney Renaissance". The Lion King, for instance, garnered nearly $1 billion following its release in the summer of 1994 and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Despite this, Disney experienced a marked decline in profits beginning in the late 1990s as it expanded into lower-grossing, though still profitable direct-to-video spin-offs and sequels.

Disney was concerned about Jeffrey Katzenberg taking too much credit for the success of Disney's early 1990s releases. When Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994, Michael Eisner refused to promote Katzenberg to the vacated position of president. Eisner recalled, "Roy [Walt Disney's nephew and a force on Disney's board who Eisner says "could be a troublemaker"], who did not like him at all — I forget the reason, but Jeffrey probably did not treat him the way that Roy would have wanted to be treated — said to me, 'If you make him the president, I will start a proxy fight.'" Tensions between Katzenberg, Eisner and Disney resulted in Katzenberg's resignation from the company that October. Katzenberg launched a lawsuit against Disney to recover money he felt he was owed and settled out of court for an estimated $250 million.

On October 16, 1998, in a surprise presentation made at the newly unveiled Disney Legends Plaza at the company's headquarters, Eisner presented Disney with the Disney Legends Award. Disney's pet project was the film Fantasia 2000, a sequel to his uncle's 1940 animated movie Fantasia. Walt Disney had planned a sequel to the original movie, but it was not finally released until December 17, 1999, after nine years of production under Disney. Like its predecessor, the film combined high-quality contemporary animation and classical music, but also suffered at the US box office.

Second "Save Disney" campaign (2003–2005)
After relations with Eisner began to sour, Disney's influence began to wane as important executive posts were filled by those friendly to Eisner. When the board of directors rejected Disney's request for an extension of his term as a member, he announced his resignation on November 30, 2003, citing "serious differences of opinion about the direction and style of management" in the company. He issued a letter criticizing Eisner's alleged mismanagement, neglect of the studio's animation division, failures with ABC, timidity in the theme-park business, corporate mentality in the executive structure turning the Walt Disney Company into a "rapacious, soul-less" conglomerate, and refusal to establish a clear succession plan.

After his resignation, Disney helped establish the website SaveDisney.com, intended to oust Michael Eisner and his supporters from their positions and revamp the Walt Disney Company. On March 3, 2004, at the company's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising 43% of shareholders, predominantly rallied by Disney and fellow former board member Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the re-election of Eisner to the corporate board of directors. This vigorous opposition, unusual in major public corporations, persuaded the board to replace Eisner as chairman with George J. Mitchell; he did, however, remain as chief executive. This "Save Disney" campaign regarded Mitchell himself unfavorably, and in the same election, 25% of shareholders opposed Mitchell's re-election to the board.

As criticism of Eisner intensified in the wake of the shareholder meeting, his position became increasingly tenuous, culminating on March 13, 2005, with the announcement of Eisner's resignation as CEO effective September 30, one year before his contract would expire. On July 8, Roy and the Walt Disney Company agreed to "put aside their differences." Roy rejoined the board as a nonvoting director emeritus and consultant. Roy and Gold consequently shut down their SaveDisney.com website effective August 7 that year.

As announced, on September 30, Eisner resigned as both chief executive and a member of the board. Severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as use of a corporate jet, a Gold Pass, and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Bob Iger, Eisner's long-time lieutenant who had been effectively running the company, now assumed the title of CEO. One of Roy Disney's stated reasons for engineering his second "Save Disney" initiative had been Eisner's well-publicized disputes with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, with whom Disney had produced such animated hits as Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo, which were critically acclaimed and financially successful for both partners. Iger quickly repaired the estrangement, and on January 24, 2006, the company announced the acquisition of Pixar in an all-stock deal worth $7.4 billion. This deal made Jobs, best known as co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc, Disney's largest shareholder with 7% of all outstanding shares and gave him a new seat on Disney's board of directors. Eisner, who retained 1.7% of shares, became Disney's second-largest shareholder, followed by Roy Disney, with 1% of shares. Disney's second "Save Disney" campaign against Eisner was chronicled by James B. Stewart in his best-selling book DisneyWar.

Other work

 * Disney was a trustee of the California Institute of the Arts, another institution founded by his uncle Walt.
 * He appeared as himself in a voice cameo in an episode of the animated show Mickey Mouse Works (later shown on House of Mouse) in which Mickey accidentally sent him an angry fax meant for Mortimer Mouse.
 * In 1998, he executive produced The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, written by Ray Bradbury and directed by Stuart Gordon.
 * Shamrock Holdings, which Disney owned and Stanley Gold ran as CEO, is an investment company which managed Disney's personal investments.

Personal life
Disney held several sailing speed records, including the Los Angeles to Honolulu monohull time record. He set it on his boat Pyewacket in July 1999 (7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds).

On January 19, 2007, after beginning a relationship with Leslie DeMeuse, Disney (then 77 years old) filed for divorce from his wife, Patricia (then 72), citing "irreconcilable differences", according to court documents. The couple, married 52 years, had been living apart, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court filing. They had four adult children, Abigail Disney, Susan Disney Lord, Tim Disney (a documentary film producer),   and Roy Patrick Disney (step-father of Charlee Corra).

In 2008, Disney married DeMeuse, a CSTV producer, and Emmy winner of various sailing documentaries.

Death
Disney died of stomach cancer on December 16, 2009, 43 years after his uncle died, and 4 days shy of 38 years after his father's death, at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California. He was 79 years old, and had been battling the disease for over a year. He was cremated after his funeral service, and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.

Honors
On January 4, 1998, Pope John Paul II made Disney a Knight Commander of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory the Great.

On January 1, 2000, Disney participated as the grand marshal of the 111th Rose Parade.

On April 26, 2008, Disney received an honorary doctorate from the California Maritime Academy "for his many contributions to the state and the nation, including international sailing."

The animation studio building at the Walt Disney Studios, in Burbank, California, was rededicated as the "Roy E. Disney Animation Building" on May 7, 2010.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Roy E. Disney


text:
Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, including "Sweet Caroline". He has also acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.

Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York City to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's.    His parents were Rose (née Rapoport; 1918–2019) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond (1917–1985), a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn, he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." Also in their class was chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer. After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School  and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.

For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs", he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".

Diamond also used his newly developed skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer after graduation working as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.

Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about $0 per week, in ), and he dropped out of college to accept it.

1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting", he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides positive reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "Clown Town" / "At Night"; Billboard gave a laudatory review to "Clown Town", and Cashbox was complimentary to both sides, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.

Diamond wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that", he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (equivalent to $0 in ). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".

Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the other versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.

"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were Lulu, Cliff Richard and the English hard-rock band Deep Purple.

In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.

Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads", starting in 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on Just for You. Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.

In March 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was in late 1968 with Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the early 1969 follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.

1970s
In mid 1969, Diamond moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007, Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour in a Memphis hotel to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.

In 1971, Diamond played seven sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."

In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing ten shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in LA." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [showing] Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time was said to have the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.

In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in The New York Times stated: "Neil Diamond's one-man show seemed, on the face of it, to be a brash idea. One-man shows have traditionally been associated with talents like Judy Garland and Danny Kaye. But Mr. Diamond is clearly a brash young man and one with both the musical track record and the performance macho to bring it off...He needn't worry about comparisons with the likes of Garland and Kaye."

After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no live performances until 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.

In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about $ million per album in ). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."

Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 Love at the Greek concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.

Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.

He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s until approximately 2007.

In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.

In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".

Diamond was paid $650,000 (about $ million in ) by the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."

He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.

In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.

His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.

In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it". When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.

1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three top-10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which has emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.

The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.

The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water". For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."

Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label (by then called MCA Records), for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.

Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.

In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, British band UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.

1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H. W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.

The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.

The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pittsburgh Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.

2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)

In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.

On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel, who had been singing the song dressed as Diamond, was "arrested" for impersonating the singer.

Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert. In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the US in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.

On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.

Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.

Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.

On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.

2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.

The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project. Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.

In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.

On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 on the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.

In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn't your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."

In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."

In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.

In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.

On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2021, the New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the month-long run in Boston. Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his Bang Records, Columbia Records, and Capitol recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.

On June 18, 2022, Diamond sang "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th-inning stretch of a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. In a surprise appearance, he was joined by Will Swenson, who portrays Diamond in the musical A Beautiful Noise.

Retirement from touring
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would stop touring after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."

On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched 12000 acre of land.

In popular culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The Bad Scene' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.

In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with a Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.

In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band; Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.

In recent times, fans of the England national football team sing Sweet Caroline since Tony Parry (Wembley DJ) played it after England had defeated Germany at Wembley in Euro 2020. He said "I thought Sweet Caroline went slightly better than Three Lions in the post-match sing-song."

Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters. The couple separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.

On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons. The marriage ended in 1994 or 1995.

In 1996, Diamond began a relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during his struggle with chronic back pain.

On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining: There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.

Filmography

 * Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
 * The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
 * Saving Silverman appearing as himself
 * Keeping Up With The Steins appearing as himself
 * Trevor Noah: Where Was I appearing as himself (2023)

title: Neil Diamond


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Amanda Levens

Amanda Kay Levens (born January 24, 1979) is an American women's college basketball coach. She is currently the head coach at the University of Nevada. Previously, she was hired as head coach at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) in 2008, when the school began a five-year transition to the NCAA's Division I. From 2012 to 2017, she was associate head coach at Arizona State before being hired at Nevada as head coach.

Early life and education
Born in Belvidere, Illinois, Levens graduated from Belvidere High School in 1997. At Belvidere High, she was a three-time All State and Amateur Athletic Union All-American honoree in basketball.

In the fall of 1997, Levens enrolled at Old Dominion University and began playing at point guard for the Old Dominion Monarchs. In her first season in 1997–98, Levens played in 29 games and averaged 3.1 points as Old Dominion made a run to the Sweet 16 round of the 1998 NCAA tournament. Then in 1998–99, Levens started 23 of 32 games, averaging 21.0 minutes and 6.7 points. Old Dominion made a second straight Sweet 16 appearance in the 1999 NCAA Tournament.

After two seasons at Old Dominion, Levens transferred to Arizona State University, where she was a star member of the Sun Devils. At Arizona State, she broke the school's season records for most three-point shots made, with 60 in 2001 and free throws, with 167 in 2002. In her Arizona State career, Levens scored 1,020 points, an average of 15.9 points per game; dished out 240 assists, a 3.8 per game average; and recovered 218 rebounds for 3.4 per game. In both seasons at ASU, she was a member of the All Pac-10 First Team, and she received an honorable mention on the 2002 Associated Press All-America Team. After graduating from Arizona State with a bachelor's degree in history, Levens signed a free agent contract with the Charlotte Sting of the Women's National Basketball Association, but she was released before the regular season began. In 2007 she earned her master's degree in educational leadership from Nevada.

College playing statistics
Source

Nevada assistant (2003–2008)
From 2003 to 2008, Levens was an assistant coach for the women's basketball program headed by Kim Gervasoni at the University of Nevada.

SIU Edwardsville (2008–2012)
In April 2008, she was selected as the fourth head coach of the SIU Edwardsville Cougars. SIUE joined the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) in 2008 and played its first full conference schedule in the 2011–12 season. Prior to that first season, Leven's Cougars were picked by the league's coaches to finish eighth of the eleven teams. After SIUE finished the season in third place, with a conference record of 12 wins and 4 losses, Levens was named the 2012 Ohio Valley Conference Women's Basketball Coach of the Year. Although the Cougars would not be eligible for OVC or NCAA post-season competition until the 2012–13 season, they were invited to play in the 2012 Women's Basketball Invitational (WBI) tournament.

Arizona State assistant (2012–2017)
On April 20, 2012, Levens returned to Arizona State as associate head coach under Charli Turner Thorne. During her five-year tenure as the top assistant, Arizona State appeared in the Sweet 16 of the 2015 NCAA tournament and won the 2015–16 Pac-12 Conference regular season title.

Nevada (2017–present)
On March 31, 2017, Levens returned to Nevada to be head coach, following the retirement of Jane Albright.

Inheriting a team that finished 11–19 the previous season, Levens led Nevada to a 19–17 record and appearance in the 2018 Women's Basketball Invitational semifinals. The 19 wins were the most for any Nevada first-year head coach in program history. However, with an inexperienced roster with six freshmen and only four experienced returning players, Nevada went 12–19 in 2018–19.

In 2019–20, Nevada improved to 15–16. Then in 2020–21, with the season shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nevada finished 13–9, including a 9–7 record and fifth place finish in the Mountain West Conference standings, the best under Levens. Nevada improved further in 2021–22 with a 20–13 record, including 11–6 in Mountain West games for a third place tie in conference standings, and an appearance in the 2022 Women's Basketball Invitational third place game.

However, the 2022–23 Nevada team had just half as many wins at 10–21, finishing eighth in the Mountain West standings at 6–12 in conference play.

Personal life
In 2015, Levens adopted two boys, aged four and three at the time. Levens married Ashley Elliott, an assistant coach on her staff, in 2019.

title: Amanda Levens


text:
Ealhmund of Kent

Ealhmund was King of Kent in 784. He is reputed to be the father of King Egbert who was King of Wessex and, later, King of Kent. Asser's The Life of King Alfred identifies him as the son of Eafa.

Biography
He is not known to have struck any coins, and the only contemporary evidence of him is an abstract of a charter dated 784, in which Ealhmund granted land to the Abbot of Reculver. In this charter he is identified as Ealmundus rex Canciæ. By the following year Offa of Mercia seems to have been ruling directly, as he issued a charter without any mention of a local king.

General consensus among historians is this is the same Ealhmund found in two pedigrees in the Winchester (Parker) Chronicle, compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great. The genealogical preface to this manuscript, as well as the annual entry (covering years 855–859) describing the death of Æthelwulf, both make King Egbert of Wessex the son of an Ealhmund, who was son of Eafa, grandson of Eoppa, and great-grandson of Ingild, the brother of King Ine of Wessex, and descendant of founder Cerdic, and therefore a member of the House of Wessex (see House of Wessex family tree). A further entry has been added in a later hand to the 784 annal, reporting Ealhmund's reign in Kent.

Finally, in the Canterbury Bilingual Epitome, originally compiled after the Norman conquest of England, a later scribe has likewise added to the 784 annal not only Ealhmund's reign in Kent, but his explicit identification with the father of Egbert.

Historian Heather Edwards has suggested that Ealhmund was probably a Kentish royal scion, whose pedigree was forged to give his son Egbert the descent from Cerdic requisite to reigning in Wessex.

title: Ealhmund of Kent


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Mia St. John

Mia Rosales St. John (born June 24, 1967) is an American professional boxer and former World Boxing Council (WBC) champion in the super welterweight division. She is also the IBA and IFBA lightweight champion. She is also a model, businesswoman, and taekwondo champion.

Early life
St. John, a Mexican-American with family roots in Zacatecas, Mexico, was born in San Francisco, California. She attended California State University, Northridge, earning a degree in psychology. While a student, she compiled a taekwondo record of 27–1, was awarded a black belt, and worked as a model to fund her education.

She married actor Kristoff St. John. They had two children, son Julian (1989–2014) and daughter Paris. The marriage ended in divorce.

Professional boxing career
At the age of 29, St. John decided to become a professional boxer. In her first bout on February 14, 1997, she knocked out Angelica Villain in 54 seconds of the first round, earning her the nickname "The Knockout."

St. John, whose first manager was Art Lovett, in partnership with his brother Stewart Lovett, would eventually sign a contract with Don King and then Top Rank Boxing, and was featured on the undercard of Oscar De La Hoya bouts. She had 23 fights and won 22 with one draw, 3 KOs and 9 TKOs. All fights were four-rounders and most were televised gaining her national attention. St. John was crowned the "Queen of the Four-Rounders", a title she hated. St. John's opponents were selected by Top Rank without her input.

After her twentieth bout, St. John was injured in a skiing accident that threatened possible amputation of one of her legs. She underwent two operations to remove a blood clot.

In November 1999, St. John appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine and in an 11-page pictorial. She wanted to show that she was a feminine woman as well as an athlete. Critical of her career, the boxing press added the term "Busty Bunny Boxer" in describing St. John.

St. John did not renew her contract with Top Rank in 2001, becoming her own manager and promoter. On November 9, 2001, she lost her first fight to Rolanda Andrews with a TKO in the second round, St. John's first contest after parting with Top Rank.

Eduardo and Roberto Garcia
St. John turned to trainers Eduardo and Roberto Garcia to learn proper punching techniques, footwork, and defensive strategies. St. John won her next four bouts, one by TKO.

On December 6, 2002, St. John fought top boxer Christy Martin. Martin had a record of 44 wins, 2 losses, and 2 draws. The press laughed at the match-up and predicted St. John would be knocked out early in the bout. St. John, coming up two weight classes, lost the bout but fought toe-to-toe with Martin all ten rounds for a credible performance.

WBC, IFBA and IBA lightweight championships
On June 12, 2005, and after 47 professional bouts and 9 years, St. John was given a title bout with Liz Drew. St. John won by unanimous decision, earning the International Female Boxers Association lightweight world title. She followed this win with a unanimous decision over Donna Biggers in August, winning the IBA continental lightweight title.

St. John has fought all over the world, including Beijing, China, where she won her IBA Championship. After accumulating an unheard of boxing record of nearly 60 pro fights, on June 14, 2008, St. John fulfilled her dream of fighting in her mother's home country of Mexico. She fought one of the toughest fights of her career and became the WBC international boxing champion of the world at the age of 40.

In November 2008, she was awarded by the Governor of Zacatecas, Mexico, an outstanding achievement award for her role in sports and humanitarianism. The WBC also presented her with the 2008 "WBC Goodwill Ambassador" Award.

In November 2010, Rep. Grace Napolitano joined St. John and LA Laker Ron Artest for an official mental health and suicide prevention training at Napolitano's district office in Santa Fe Springs. Artest and St. John have joined Napolitano to promote the Mental Health in Schools Act, legislation she authored which would increase federal funding for mental health therapists in schools.

She also spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where President Barack Obama made a speech at the CHCI's annual Gala.

As well as Congress, St. John speaks in schools and juvenile halls on the importance of education and overcoming hardship. She speaks of her own battles with mental illness, addiction, poverty and overcoming it all, to become a three time international boxing champion.

On August 14, 2012, St. John fought Christy Martin in a long-awaited rematch. Her dream of sixteen years finally materialized and at the age of 45, she captured the WBC super welter weight championship of the world.

On November 10, 2012, St. John was defeated by Tiffany Junot in Bakersfield, California, losing her WBC Female Super Welterweight Championship in a unanimous decision.

On April 14, 2016, St. John had her last boxing bout in New Zealand on the Kali Reis vs. Maricela Cornejo undercard as the curtain call. This was her retirement bout, winning by TKO in the 4th round.

In August 2018, St. John admitted to the use of prohibited substances including steroids and masking agents in preparation for around 20 bouts, stating that "everyone does it and everyone in boxing knows it."

MMA career
On January 26, 2008, in Honolulu, Hawaii, St. John's fighting career took yet another turn. "Returning to her roots" in the martial arts, she competed in her first mixed martial arts (MMA) contest and, with a combination of kicks and punches, defeated her opponent Rhonda Gallegos with a first-round knockout.

Mixed martial arts record

 * Win
 * align=center| 1–0
 * Rhonda Gallegos
 * KO (punches)
 * X-1 Champions
 * January 26 2008
 * align=center|1
 * align=center|0:44
 * Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
 * }
 * }
 * }

title: Mia St. John


text:
Cowardice

Cowardice is a trait wherein excessive fear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger. It is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowardice is known as a coward.

As the opposite of bravery, which many historical and current human societies reward, cowardice is seen as a character flaw that is detrimental to society and thus the failure to face one's fear is often stigmatized or punished.

Etymology
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word coward came into English from the Old French word coart (modern French couard), which is a combination of the word for "tail" (Modern French queue, Latin cauda) and an agent noun suffix. It would therefore have meant "one with a tail", which may conjure an image of an animal displaying its tail in flight of fear ("turning tail"), or a dog's habit of putting its tail between its legs when it is afraid. Like many other English words of French origin, this word was introduced in the English language by the French-speaking Normans, after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

The English surname Coward (as in Noël Coward), however, has the same origin and meaning as the word "cowherd".

In German, the word translates into "Feigling" and "Weichei", the latter of which translates back to "soft egg" in literal.

Military law
Acts of cowardice have long been punishable by military law, which defines a wide range of cowardly offenses, including desertion in face of the enemy and surrendering to the enemy against orders. The punishment for such acts is typically severe, ranging from corporal punishment to the death sentence.

The United States military codes of justice define cowardice in combat as a crime punishable by death.

Generally, cowardice was punishable by execution during World War I, and those who were caught were often court-martialed and, in many cases, executed by firing squad. British soldiers executed for cowardice were often not commemorated on war memorials, and their families often did not receive benefits and had to endure social stigma. However, many decades later, those soldiers all received posthumous pardons in the UK Armed Forces Act 2006 and have been commemorated with the Shot at Dawn Memorial. Unlike British, Canadian, French, German, and Russian forces, the U.S. military tried soldiers for cowardice, but never followed through with execution while German commanders were less inclined to use execution as a form of punishment.

Considerable controversy was generated by military historian S.L.A. Marshall, who claimed that 75% of U.S. combat troops in World War II never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even while under direct threat. Author Dave Grossman attempted to explain these findings in his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Marshall's findings were later challenged as mistaken or even fabricated,  and were not replicated in a more rigorous study of Canadian troops in World War II.

title: Cowardice


text:
User:Mr Cellophane

Cellophane, Mr Cellophane  Should have been my name, Mr. Cellophane. 'Cause you look right though me, Walk right by me, and never know I'm there.

title: User:Mr Cellophane


text:
Culebra Air Services

Culebra Air Services, established in 1998 as Air Culebra, is a small Puerto Rican airline company that operates out of the island of Culebra, in Puerto Rico, and the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, in San Juan. As of 2015, the airline is owned by pilot, captain Matthew Mulvey.

Destinations
Using small propeller engine airplanes, the airline flies charter flights all around the Caribbean, and to The Bahamas as well. From The Bahamas, it flies to the eastern part of the United States. Culebra Air Services also performs regularly scheduled passenger seat's airline duties with flights between Culebra, San Juan, Vieques and, formerly, to Fajardo, all in Puerto Rico.

Fleet
As of 2020, the airline owned 3 PA23 Piper Aztec Twin aircraft.

title: Culebra Air Services


text:
Hannes Alfvén

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995 ) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves. He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.

Education
Alfvén received his PhD from the University of Uppsala in 1934. His thesis was titled "Investigations of High-frequency Electromagnetic Waves."

Early years
In 1934, Alfvén taught physics at both the University of Uppsala and the Nobel Institute for Physics (later renamed the Manne Siegbahn Institute of Physics ) in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1940, he became professor of electromagnetic theory and electrical measurements at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In 1945, he acquired the nonappointive position of Chair of Electronics. His title was changed to Chair of Plasma Physics in 1963. From 1954 to 1955, Alfvén was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1967, after leaving Sweden and spending time in the Soviet Union, he moved to the United States. Alfvén worked in the departments of electrical engineering at both the University of California, San Diego and the University of Southern California.

Later years
In 1991, Alfvén retired as professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, San Diego and professor of plasma physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Alfvén spent his later adult life alternating between California and Sweden. He died at the age of 86.

Research
In 1937, Alfvén argued that if plasma pervaded the universe, it could then carry electric currents capable of generating a galactic magnetic field. After winning the Nobel Prize for his works in magnetohydrodynamics, he emphasized that:

"In order to understand the phenomena in a certain plasma region, it is necessary to map not only the magnetic but also the electric field and the electric currents. Space is filled with a network of currents which transfer energy and momentum over large or very large distances. The currents often pinch to filamentary or surface currents. The latter are likely to give space, as also interstellar and intergalactic space, a cellular structure."

His theoretical work on field-aligned electric currents in the aurora (based on earlier work by Kristian Birkeland) was confirmed in 1967, these currents now being known as Birkeland currents.

British scientist Sydney Chapman was a strong critic of Alfvén. Many physicists regarded Alfvén as espousing unorthodox opinions R. H. Stuewer noting that "... he remained an embittered outsider, winning little respect from other scientists even after he received the Nobel Prize..." and was often forced to publish his papers in obscure journals. Alfvén recalled:

"When I describe [plasma phenomena] according to this formalism most referees do not understand what I say and turn down my papers. With the referee system which rules US science today, this means that my papers are rarely accepted by the leading US journals."

Alfvén played a central role in the development of:

 * Plasma physics
 * Charged particle beams
 * Interplanetary medium
 * Magnetospheric physics
 * Magnetohydrodynamics
 * Solar phenomena investigation (such as the solar wind)
 * Aurorae science

In 1939, Alfvén proposed the theory of magnetic storms and auroras and the theory of plasma dynamics in the Earth's magnetosphere. This was the paper rejected by the U.S. journal Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity.

Applications of Alfvén's research in space science include:

 * Van Allen radiation belt theory
 * Reduction of the Earth's magnetic field during magnetic storms
 * Magnetosphere (protective plasma covering the Earth)
 * Formation of comet tails
 * Formation of the Solar System
 * Dynamics of plasmas in the galaxy
 * Physical cosmology

Alfvén's views followed those of the founder of magnetospheric physics, Kristian Birkeland. At the end of the nineteenth century, Birkeland proposed (backed by extensive data) that electric currents flowing down along the Earth's magnetic fields into the atmosphere caused the aurora and polar magnetic disturbances.

Areas of technology benefiting from Alfvén's contributions include:

 * Particle accelerators
 * Controlled thermonuclear fusion
 * Hypersonic flight
 * Rocket propulsion
 * Reentry braking of space vehicles

Contributions to astrophysics:

 * Galactic magnetic field (1937)
 * Identified nonthermal synchrotron radiation from astronomical sources (1950)

Alfvén waves (low frequency hydromagnetic plasma oscillations) are named in his honor, and propagate at the Alfvén speed. Many of his theories about the solar system were verified as late as the 1980s through external measurements of cometary and planetary magnetospheres. However, Alfvén himself noted that astrophysical textbooks poorly represented known plasma phenomena:

"A study of how a number of the most used textbooks in astrophysics treat important concepts such as double layers, critical velocity, pinch effects, and circuits is made. It is found that students using these textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of these concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been well known for half a century (e.g, double layers, Langmuir, 1929; pinch effect, Bennet, 1934)."

Alfvén reported that of 17 of the most used textbooks on astrophysics, none mention the pinch effect, none mentioned critical ionization velocity, only two mentioned circuits, and three mentioned double layers.

Alfvén believed the problem with the Big Bang was that astrophysicists tried to extrapolate the origin of the universe from mathematical theories developed on the blackboard, rather than starting from known observable phenomena. He also considered the Big Bang to be a myth devised to explain creation. Alfvén and colleagues proposed the Alfvén–Klein model as an alternative cosmological theory to both the Big Bang and steady state theory cosmologies.

Personal life
Alfvén was married for 67 years to his wife Kerstin (1910–1992). They raised five children, one boy and four girls. Their son became a physician, while one daughter became a writer and another a lawyer in Sweden. The writer was Inger Alfvén and is well known for her work in Sweden. The composer Hugo Alfvén was Hannes Alfvén's uncle.

Alfvén studied the history of science, oriental philosophy, and religion. On his religious views, Alfven was irreligious and critical of religion. He spoke Swedish, English, German, French, and Russian, and some Spanish and Chinese. He expressed great concern about the difficulties of permanent high-level radioactive waste management." Alfvén was also interested in problems in cosmology and all aspects of auroral physics, and used Schröder's well known book on aurora, Das Phänomen des Polarlichts. Letters of Alfvén, Treder, and Schröder were published on the occasion of Treder's 70th birthday. The relationships between Hans-Jürgen Treder, Hannes Alfvén and Wilfried Schröder were discussed in detail by Schröder in his publications.

Alfvén died on 2 April, 1995 at Djursholm aged 86.

Awards and honours
The Hannes Alfvén Prize, awarded annually by the European Physical Society for outstanding contributions in plasma physics, is named after him. The asteroid 1778 Alfvén is named in his honour.

Awards

 * Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1967)
 * Nobel Prize in Physics (1970) for his work on magnetohydrodynamics
 * Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute (1971)
 * Lomonosov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1971)
 * Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1980
 * William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union (1988) for his work on comets and plasmas in the Solar System
 * Member of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
 * Member of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences
 * Life fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
 * Member of European Physical Society
 * Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962)
 * Member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences
 * Contributor to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
 * Member of the International Academy of Science
 * Member of the Indian National Science AcademyElected member of the American Philosophical Society (1971)

Alfvén was one of the few scientists who was a foreign member of both the United States and Soviet Academies of Sciences.

Selected bibliography
For full list of publications see.

 * Books

 * Cosmical Electrodynamics, International Series of Monographs on Physics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950. (See also 2nd Ed. 1963, co-authored with Carl-Gunne Fälthammar.)
 * Worlds-Antiworlds: Antimatter in Cosmology (1966).
 * The Great Computer: A Vision (1968) (a political-scientific satire under the pen name Olof Johannesson; publ. Gollancz, ISBN 0-575-00059-7).
 * Atom, Man, and the Universe: A Long Chain of Complications, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1969.
 * Living on the Third Planet, authored with Kerstin Alfvén, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1972. ISBN 0-7167-0340-8.
 * Cosmic Plasma, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Vol. 82 (1981) Springer Verlag. ISBN 90-277-1151-8
 * Schröder, Wilfried, and Hans Jürgen Treder. 2007. Theoretical physics and geophysics: Recollections of Hans-Jürgen Treder (1928–2006). Potsdam: Science Editions.

 * Articles

 * On the cosmogony of the solar system I (1942) | Part II | Part III
 * Interplanetary Magnetic Field (1958)
 * On the Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields (1961)
 * On the Filamentary Structure of the Solar Corona (1963)
 * Currents in the Solar Atmosphere and a Theory of Solar Flares (1967)
 * On the Importance of Electric Fields in the Magnetosphere and Interplanetary Space (1967)
 * Jet Streams in Space (1970)
 * Evolution of the Solar System (1976) with Gustaf Arrhenius (NASA book)
 * Double radio sources and the new approach to cosmical plasma physics (1978) (PDF)
 * Interstellar clouds and the formation of stars with Per Carlqvist (1978) (PDF)
 * Energy source of the solar wind with Per Carlqvist (1980) (PDF) A direct transfer of energy from photospheric activity to the solar wind by means of electric currents is discussed.
 * Electromagnetic Effects and the Structure of the Saturnian Rings (1981) (PDF)
 * A three-ring circuit model of the magnetosphere with Whipple, E. C. and Jr.; McIlwain (1981) (PDF)
 * The Voyager 1/Saturn encounter and the cosmogonic shadow effect (1981) (PDF)
 * Origin, evolution and present structure of the asteroid region (1983) (PDF)
 * On hierarchical cosmology (1983) (PDF) Progress in lab studies of plasmas and on their methods of transferring the results to cosmic conditions.
 * Solar system history as recorded in the Saturnian ring structure (1983) (PDF)
 * Cosmology – Myth or science? (1984) (PDF)
 * Cosmogony as an extrapolation of magnetospheric research (1984) (PDF)

title: Hannes Alfvén


text:
User talk:Mr Cellophane

It's good, isn't it? Grand, isn't it? Great, isn't it? Swell, isn't it? Fun, isn't it? Nowadays

There's men, everywhere Jazz, everywhere Booze, everywhere Life. everywhere Joy, everywhere Nowadays

You can like the life you're livin' You can live the life you like You can even marry Harry But mess around with Ike And that's Good, isn't it? Grand, isn't it? Great, isn't it? Swell, isn't it? Fun, isn't it? But nothing stays

In fifty years or so It's gonna change, you know But, oh, it's heaven Nowadays

title: User talk:Mr Cellophane