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Post-translational modification

In molecular biology, post-translational modification (PTM) is the covalent process of changing proteins following protein biosynthesis. PTMs may involve enzymes or occur spontaneously. Proteins are created by ribosomes, which translate mRNA into polypeptide chains, which may then change to form the mature protein product. PTMs are important components in cell signalling, as for example when prohormones are converted to hormones.

Post-translational modifications can occur on the amino acid side chains or at the protein's C- or N- termini. They can expand the chemical set of the 22 amino acids by changing an existing functional group or adding a new one such as phosphate. Phosphorylation is highly effective for controlling the enzyme activity and is the most common change after translation. Many eukaryotic and prokaryotic proteins also have carbohydrate molecules attached to them in a process called glycosylation, which can promote protein folding and improve stability as well as serving regulatory functions. Attachment of lipid molecules, known as lipidation, often targets a protein or part of a protein attached to the cell membrane.

Other forms of post-translational modification consist of cleaving peptide bonds, as in processing a propeptide to a mature form or removing the initiator methionine residue. The formation of disulfide bonds from cysteine residues may also be referred to as a post-translational modification. For instance, the peptide hormone insulin is cut twice after disulfide bonds are formed, and a propeptide is removed from the middle of the chain; the resulting protein consists of two polypeptide chains connected by disulfide bonds.

Some types of post-translational modification are consequences of oxidative stress. Carbonylation is one example that targets the modified protein for degradation and can result in the formation of protein aggregates. Specific amino acid modifications can be used as biomarkers indicating oxidative damage.

Sites that often undergo post-translational modification are those that have a functional group that can serve as a nucleophile in the reaction: the hydroxyl groups of serine, threonine, and tyrosine; the amine forms of lysine, arginine, and histidine; the thiolate anion of cysteine; the carboxylates of aspartate and glutamate; and the N- and C-termini. In addition, although the amide of asparagine is a weak nucleophile, it can serve as an attachment point for glycans. Rarer modifications can occur at oxidized methionines and at some methylene groups in side chains.

Post-translational modification of proteins can be experimentally detected by a variety of techniques, including mass spectrometry, Eastern blotting, and Western blotting. Additional methods are provided in the section.

Hydrophobic groups for membrane localization

 * myristoylation (a type of acylation), attachment of myristate, a C14 saturated acid
 * palmitoylation (a type of acylation), attachment of palmitate, a C16 saturated acid
 * isoprenylation or prenylation, the addition of an isoprenoid group (e.g. farnesol and geranylgeraniol)
 * farnesylation
 * geranylgeranylation
 * glypiation, glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor formation via an amide bond to C-terminal tail

Cofactors for enhanced enzymatic activity

 * lipoylation (a type of acylation), attachment of a lipoate (C8) functional group
 * flavin moiety (FMN or FAD) may be covalently attached
 * heme C attachment via thioether bonds with cysteines
 * phosphopantetheinylation, the addition of a 4'-phosphopantetheinyl moiety from coenzyme A, as in fatty acid, polyketide, non-ribosomal peptide and leucine biosynthesis
 * retinylidene Schiff base formation

Modifications of translation factors

 * diphthamide formation (on a histidine found in eEF2)
 * ethanolamine phosphoglycerol attachment (on glutamate found in eEF1α)
 * hypusine formation (on conserved lysine of eIF5A (eukaryotic) and aIF5A (archaeal))
 * beta-Lysine addition on a conserved lysine of the elongation factor P (EFP) in most bacteria. EFP is a homolog to eIF5A (eukaryotic) and aIF5A (archaeal) (see above).

Smaller chemical groups

 * acylation, e.g. O-acylation (esters), N-acylation (amides), S-acylation (thioesters)
 * acetylation, the addition of an acetyl group, either at the N-terminus of the protein or at lysine residues. The reverse is called deacetylation.
 * formylation
 * alkylation, the addition of an alkyl group, e.g. methyl, ethyl
 * methylation the addition of a methyl group, usually at lysine or arginine residues. The reverse is called demethylation.
 * amidation at C-terminus. Formed by oxidative dissociation of a C-terminal Gly residue.
 * amide bond formation
 * amino acid addition
 * arginylation, a tRNA-mediation addition
 * polyglutamylation, covalent linkage of glutamic acid residues to the N-terminus of tubulin and some other proteins. (See tubulin polyglutamylase)
 * polyglycylation, covalent linkage of one to more than 40 glycine residues to the tubulin C-terminal tail
 * butyrylation
 * gamma-carboxylation dependent on Vitamin K
 * glycosylation, the addition of a glycosyl group to either arginine, asparagine, cysteine, hydroxylysine, serine, threonine, tyrosine, or tryptophan resulting in a glycoprotein. Distinct from glycation, which is regarded as a nonenzymatic attachment of sugars.
 * O-GlcNAc, addition of N-acetylglucosamine to serine or threonine residues in a β-glycosidic linkage
 * polysialylation, addition of polysialic acid, PSA, to NCAM
 * malonylation
 * hydroxylation: addition of an oxygen atom to the side-chain of a Pro or Lys residue
 * iodination: addition of an iodine atom to the aromatic ring of a tyrosine residue (e.g. in thyroglobulin)
 * nucleotide addition such as ADP-ribosylation
 * phosphate ester (O-linked) or phosphoramidate (N-linked) formation
 * phosphorylation, the addition of a phosphate group, usually to serine, threonine, and tyrosine (O-linked), or histidine (N-linked)
 * adenylylation, the addition of an adenylyl moiety, usually to tyrosine (O-linked), or histidine and lysine (N-linked)
 * uridylylation, the addition of an uridylyl-group (i.e. uridine monophosphate, UMP), usually to tyrosine
 * propionylation
 * pyroglutamate formation
 * S-glutathionylation
 * S-nitrosylation
 * S-sulfenylation (aka S-sulphenylation), reversible covalent addition of one oxygen atom to the thiol group of a cysteine residue

 * S-sulfinylation, normally irreversible covalent addition of two oxygen atoms to the thiol group of a cysteine residue
 * S-sulfonylation, normally irreversible covalent addition of three oxygen atoms to the thiol group of a cysteine residue, resulting in the formation of a cysteic acid residue
 * succinylation addition of a succinyl group to lysine
 * sulfation, the addition of a sulfate group to a tyrosine.

Non-enzymatic modifications in vivo
Examples of non-enzymatic PTMs are glycation, glycoxidation, nitrosylation, oxidation, succination, and lipoxidation.
 * glycation, the addition of a sugar molecule to a protein without the controlling action of an enzyme.
 * carbamylation the addition of Isocyanic acid to a protein's N-terminus or the side-chain of Lys.
 * carbonylation the addition of carbon monoxide to other organic/inorganic compounds.
 * spontaneous isopeptide bond formation, as found in many surface proteins of Gram-positive bacteria.

Non-enzymatic additions in vitro

 * biotinylation: covalent attachment of a biotin moiety using a biotinylation reagent, typically for the purpose of labeling a protein.
 * carbamylation: the addition of Isocyanic acid to a protein's N-terminus or the side-chain of Lys or Cys residues, typically resulting from exposure to urea solutions.
 * oxidation: addition of one or more Oxygen atoms to a susceptible side-chain, principally of Met, Trp, His or Cys residues. Formation of disulfide bonds between Cys residues.
 * pegylation: covalent attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) using a pegylation reagent, typically to the N-terminus or the side-chains of Lys residues. Pegylation is used to improve the efficacy of protein pharmaceuticals.

Conjugation with other proteins or peptides

 * ubiquitination, the covalent linkage to the protein ubiquitin.
 * SUMOylation, the covalent linkage to the SUMO protein (Small Ubiquitin-related MOdifier)
 * neddylation, the covalent linkage to the Nedd protein
 * ISGylation, the covalent linkage to the ISG15 protein (Interferon-Stimulated Gene 15)
 * pupylation, the covalent linkage to the prokaryotic ubiquitin-like protein

Chemical modification of amino acids

 * citrullination, or deimination, the conversion of arginine to citrulline
 * deamidation, the conversion of glutamine to glutamic acid or asparagine to aspartic acid
 * eliminylation, the conversion to an alkene by beta-elimination of phosphothreonine and phosphoserine, or dehydration of threonine and serine

Structural changes

 * disulfide bridges, the covalent linkage of two cysteine amino acids
 * lysine-cysteine bridges, the covalent linkage of 1 lysine and 1 or 2 cystine residues via an oxygen atom (NOS and SONOS bridges)
 * proteolytic cleavage, cleavage of a protein at a peptide bond
 * isoaspartate formation, via the cyclisation of asparagine or aspartic acid amino-acid residues
 * racemization
 * of serine by protein-serine epimerase
 * of alanine in dermorphin, a frog opioid peptide
 * of methionine in deltorphin, also a frog opioid peptide
 * protein splicing, self-catalytic removal of inteins analogous to mRNA processing

Common PTMs by frequency
In 2011, statistics of each post-translational modification experimentally and putatively detected have been compiled using proteome-wide information from the Swiss-Prot database. The 10 most common experimentally found modifications were as follows:

Common PTMs by residue
Some common post-translational modifications to specific amino-acid residues are shown below. Modifications occur on the side-chain unless indicated otherwise.

Databases and tools

Protein sequences contain sequence motifs that are recognized by modifying enzymes, and which can be documented or predicted in PTM databases. With the large number of different modifications being discovered, there is a need to document this sort of information in databases. PTM information can be collected through experimental means or predicted from high-quality, manually curated data. Numerous databases have been created, often with a focus on certain taxonomic groups (e.g. human proteins) or other features.

List of resources

 * PhosphoSitePlus – A database of comprehensive information and tools for the study of mammalian protein post-translational modification
 * ProteomeScout – A database of proteins and post-translational modifications experimentally
 * Human Protein Reference Database – A database for different modifications and understand different proteins, their class, and function/process related to disease causing proteins
 * PROSITE – A database of Consensus patterns for many types of PTM's including sites
 * RESID – A database consisting of a collection of annotations and structures for PTMs.
 * iPTMnet – A database that integrates PTM information from several knowledgbases and text mining results.
 * dbPTM – A database that shows different PTM's and information regarding their chemical components/structures and a frequency for amino acid modified site
 * Uniprot has PTM information although that may be less comprehensive than in more specialized databases.Image for Wiki 1.jpg
 * The O-GlcNAc Database - A curated database for protein O-GlcNAcylation and referencing more than 14 000 protein entries and 10 000 O-GlcNAc sites.

Tools
List of software for visualization of proteins and their PTMs
 * PyMOL – introduce a set of common PTM's into protein models
 * AWESOME – Interactive tool to see the role of single nucleotide polymorphisms to PTM's
 * Chimera – Interactive Database to visualize molecules

Case examples

 * Cleavage and formation of disulfide bridges during the production of insulin
 * PTM of histones as regulation of transcription: RNA polymerase control by chromatin structure
 * PTM of RNA polymerase II as regulation of transcription
 * Cleavage of polypeptide chains as crucial for lectin specificity

title: Post-translational modification


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General Mills

General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company originally gained fame for being a large flour miller. Today, the company markets many well-known North American brands, including Gold Medal flour, Annie's Homegrown, Lärabar, Cascadian Farm, Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Nature Valley, Totino's, Pillsbury, Old El Paso, Häagen-Dazs, as well as breakfast cereals under the General Mills name, including Cheerios, Wheaties, Chex, Lucky Charms, Trix, Cocoa Puffs and Count Chocula and the other monster cereals.

It is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.

Washburn-Crosby Company
The company can trace its history to the Minneapolis Milling Company, incorporated in 1856. The company was founded by Illinois Congressman Robert Smith, who leased power rights to flour mills operating along the west side of Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Cadwallader C. Washburn acquired the company shortly after its founding and hired his brother William D. Washburn to assist in the company's development. In 1866 the Washburns got into the business themselves, building the Washburn "B" Mill at the falls. At the time, the building was considered to be so large and output so vast that it could not possibly sustain itself. However, the company succeeded, and in 1874 he built the even bigger Washburn "A" Mill.

In 1877, the mill entered a partnership with John Crosby to form the Washburn-Crosby Company, producing winter wheat Flour. That same year Washburn sent William Hood Dunwoody to England to open the market for spring wheat. Dunwoody was successful and became a silent partner.

In 1878, the "A" mill was destroyed in a flour dust explosion along with five nearby buildings, an event known as the Great Mill Disaster. The ensuing fire led to the death of 18 workers. Construction of a new mill began immediately. Not only was the new mill safer but it also was able to produce a higher quality flour after the old grinding stones were replaced with automatic steel rollers, the first ever used.

In 1880, Washburn-Crosby flour brands won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Millers' International Exhibition in Cincinnati, causing them to launch the Gold Medal flour brand.

In 1924, the company acquired a failing Twin Cities radio station, WLAG, renaming it WCCO (from Washburn-Crosby Company).

Founding as General Mills
General Mills itself was created on June 20, 1928, when Washburn-Crosby President James Ford Bell merged Washburn-Crosby with three other mills. In the same year, General Mills acquired the Wichita Mill and Elevator Company of the industrialist Frank Kell of Wichita Falls, Texas. With the sale, Kell acquired cash plus stock in the corporation.

Shares of the new company's stock were first sold on the New York Stock Exchange on November 30, 1928, at $65 per share. The newly merged company paid a dividend in 1928 and has continued the dividend uninterrupted ever since – one of only a few companies to pay a dividend every year since its founding.

Engineering milestones
In the 1930s, General Mills engineer, Thomas R. James, created the puffing gun, which inflated or distorted cereal pieces into puffed-up shapes. This new technology was used in 1937 to create Kix cereal and in 1941 to create Cheerioats (known today as Cheerios). In 1939, General Mills engineer Helmer Anderson created the Anderson sealer. This new device allowed for bags of flour to be sealed with glue instead of just being tied with a string. In 1956, General Mills created the tear-strip for easily opening packages.

Aeronautical Research Division and Electronics Division
In 1946, General Mills established their Aeronautical Research Division with chief engineer Otto C. Winzen. This division developed high altitude balloons in conjunction with the United States Navy Office of Naval Research (ONR), such as the Skyhook balloon.

In 1956, hundreds of General Mills balloons carrying reconnaissance equipment were launched by the United States government under Project Genetrix to surveil Eastern bloc countries, in particular their nuclear capabilities.

The aeronautical work of General Mills done around the time of the Second World War was continued by Raven Industries.

The General Mills Electronics division developed the DSV Alvin submersible, which is notable for being used in investigating the wreck of Titanic among other deep-sea exploration missions.

Merchandising and television
Beginning in 1929, General Mills products contained box top coupons, known as Betty Crocker coupons, with varying point values, which were redeemable for discounts on a variety of housewares products featured in the widely distributed Betty Crocker catalog. The coupons and the catalog were discontinued by the company in 2006.

General Mills became the sponsor of the popular radio show The Lone Ranger in 1941. The show was then brought to television, and, after 20 years, their sponsorship came to an end in 1961.

Beginning in 1959, General Mills sponsored the Rocky and His Friends television series, later known as The Bullwinkle Show. Until 1968, Rocky and Bullwinkle were featured in a variety of advertisements for General Mills. General Mills was also a sponsor of the Saturday-morning cartoons from the Total Television productions studio, including Tennessee Tuxedo. The company also was a sponsor of the ABC western series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian. The company, along with its subsidiary The Program Exchange, backed DiC Entertainment in syndicating the Dennis the Menace animated series based on the comic strip of the same name created by Hank Ketcham in 1986. From 1997 until May 31, 2004, General Mills sponsored and syndicated the first 82 episodes of the original Sailor Moon English dub (the remaining 17 of 82 episodes premiered on Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami in 1998).

Diversification: toys and restaurants
The first venture General Mills took into the toy industry was in 1965. The company bought Rainbow Crafts, which was the manufacturer of Play-Doh. General Mills's purchase of the company was significant because it brought production costs down and tripled the revenue.

In 1967, General Mills bought the Kenner toy company.

General Mills came out with their "monster cereals" in the 1970s. The cereals are now produced and sold seasonally around Halloween.

In 1970, General Mills acquired a five-unit restaurant company called Red Lobster and expanded it nationwide. Soon, a division of General Mills titled General Mills Restaurants developed to take charge of the Red Lobster chain. In 1980, General Mills acquired the California-based Good Earth health food restaurant chain. The company eventually converted the restaurants into other chain restaurants they were operating, such as Red Lobster. In 1982, General Mills Restaurants founded a new Italian-themed restaurant chain called Olive Garden. Another themed restaurant, China Coast, was added before the entire group was spun off to General Mills shareholders in 1995 as Darden Restaurants.

During the same decade, General Mills ventured further, starting the General Mills Specialty Retail Group. They acquired two clothing and apparel companies, Talbots and Eddie Bauer. The acquisition was short-lived. Talbots was purchased by a Japanese company, then known as JUSCO, and the Spiegel company purchased Bauer. Spiegel later declared bankruptcy, yet Bauer still remains, albeit in a smaller presence in the United States today.

From 1976 to 1985, General Mills went to court as the parent company of Parker Brothers, which held the rights on the brand name and gaming idea of the board game Monopoly, claiming that the so-called Anti-Monopoly game of an economics professor infringed their trademark. The dispute extended up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against them, saying that while they have exclusive rights to the game Monopoly, they cannot prevent others from using the word "monopoly" in the name of a game.

In 1985, General Mills's toy division was separated from its parent as Kenner Parker Toys, Inc. There were many potential acquirers of the business but it was floated on the stock exchange with General Mills's shareholders getting equivalent shares in Kenner Parker. This was more tax efficient for General Mills.

Recent history
In 1990, a joint venture with Nestlé S.A. called Cereal Partners was formed which markets cereals (including many existing General Mills cereal brands) outside the US and Canada under the Nestlé name.

In 2001, the company purchased Pillsbury (sans Burger King) from Diageo, although it was officially described as a "merger".

Since 2004, General Mills has been producing more products targeted to the growing ranks of health-conscious consumers. The company has chosen to switch its entire breakfast cereal line to whole grain. The company also started manufacturing their child-targeted cereals with less sugar. General Mills has reduced the level of sugar in all cereals advertised to children to 11 grams per serving.

In April 2011, General Mills announced that it will switch all 1 million eggs it uses each year to cage-free.

General Mills was ranked #181 on the 2012 Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations, 161 in 2015 and was the third-largest food consumer products company in the United States. During June 2012, the company's vice-president for diversity stated that General Mills opposes a Minnesota amendment banning gay marriage, stating that the company values "inclusion". The company received positive feedback for its stand which might attract people to its global workforce.

The company announced in September 2014 that it would acquire organic food producer Annie's Inc. for a fee of around $820 million, as part of its strategy to expand in the US natural foods market. In October 2014, General Mills announced plans to cut 700 to 800 jobs, mostly in U.S., in corporate restructuring planned to be completed by the end of 2015.

In 2015, citing climate change, General Mills promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent over 10 years. In December 2016, the company announced it would be restructuring, splitting into four business groups based on global region, and cutting as many as 600 jobs.

In February 2018, the company entered into the pet products industry, paying $8 billion to buy Blue Buffalo Pet Products, Inc. As of 2018, the company ranked 182nd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.

Having launched its first regenerative agriculture pilot program in March 2019, the company has plans to improve soil health on 1 million acres of farmland by 2030 and has formed a partnership with Regrow Agriculture, a software and data analysis company that uses satellite imagery, weather data, and soil data to measure carbon sequestration in soil.

In February 2020, General Mills was recognized by CDP as a global leader in corporate sustainability and received a place on the CDP "A List" for both climate change and water security.

On May 15, 2021, General Mills announced that it was acquiring Tyson Foods's pet treat business, including True Chews, Nudges and Top Chews, for $1.2 billion. The acquisition was completed on July 7, 2021.

In April 2022, there were increasing news reports and complaints that the company's Lucky Charms cereal was somehow making individuals ill, with the most common complaints being gastrointestinal in nature, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The episodes have not yet resulted in a company- or FDA-initiated recall; an FDA spokesperson said they were investigating approximately 100 reports. These reports came as norovirus was circulating in some areas of the U.S. It is relatively rare for cereals, as opposed to other foods, to be contaminated by microbes, because they must be baked, although it is possible if conditions are unsanitary.

On May 12, 2022, General Mills announced that it was acquiring TNT Crust, a supplier of frozen pizza crusts, from Peak Rock Capital.

On May 25, 2022, General Mills announced that it was selling its Hamburger Helper and Suddenly Salad businesses to Eagle Family Foods Group for $610 million. The sale was completed on July 5, 2022.

On November 9, 2023, General Mills acquired a pet supplement business, Fera Pets, Inc.

Association with "anti-diet" movement
The company has been associated with social media campaigns and education of dieticians promoting the "anti-diet" movement. This activity has been connected with helping to promote some of its own foods, which are high in sugar content.

Change to legal terms
April 2014, the company announced that it had changed its legal terms on its website to introduce an arbitration clause requiring all disputes with General Mills to be resolved in small claims court or arbitration and not as a participant in a class action. The change was made shortly after a judge's March 26, 2014, denial of a motion to dismiss a class action regarding the marketing of the company's Nature Valley brand products. Users would be deemed to accept the terms by interacting with General Mills on its website in various ways, such as downloading coupons, subscribing to newsletters, or participating in Internet forums hosted on the website. The New York Times stated that the agreement could be interpreted to additionally construe purchasing General Mills products at a grocery store or liking the company's Facebook page as assent to the terms; General Mills disclaimed that interpretation, calling it a "mischaracterization". The change in terms resulted in a massive backlash of protests via consumer groups and social media, and General Mills reverted the terms back to the original content after only a few days.

Involvement in Israeli settlements
On 12 February 2020, the United Nations published a database of companies doing business related in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in the occupied Golan Heights. General Mills was listed on the database on account of the activities of its subsidiary General Mills Israel in Israeli settlements in these occupied territories, which some have argued is illegal under international law.

Breakfast cereals
General Mills's breakfast cereals include:

 * Basic 4
 * Boo-Berry
 * Cascadian Farm
 * Cheerios and its variants
 * Chex and its variants
 * Cinnamon Toast Crunch
 * Cocoa Puffs
 * Cookie Crisp
 * Count Chocula
 * Fiber One / Fibre One
 * Franken-Berry
 * French Toast Crunch
 * Gold Flakes
 * Golden Grahams
 * Honey Nut Clusters
 * Kix
 * Lucky Charms
 * Morning Summit
 * Nesquik
 * Oatmeal Crisp
 * Raisin Nut Bran
 * Reese's Puffs
 * Total
 * Trix
 * Wheaties

Some brands are marketed outside the US and Canada by the Cereal Partners joint venture using the Nestlé brand.

Discontinued cereals
General Mills cereals no longer manufactured include:

 * Banana Wackies / Wackies (introduced 1965; discontinued 1968)
 * Baron von Redberry and Sir Grapefellow (introduced 1972, discontinued 1975)
 * Benefit (which contained psyllium, an Indian-grown grain used as a laxative and cholesterol-reducer)
 * Body Buddies (introduced 1979; two flavors, Brown Sugar & Honey and Natural Fruit Flavor)
 * Buc Wheats
 * Buñuelitos ("Sweetened corn puffs with cinnamon and a touch of honey... Traditional south of the border flavor made right here in the U.S.A.")
 * Chocolate Flavor Donutz (introduced 1982; discontinued 1984)
 * Circus Fun (introduced 1986; discontinued 1989)
 * Clackers (introduced 1968; discontinued 1973) - graham cracker-flavored
 * Clusters (introduced 1987)
 * Country Corn Flakes (introduced 1961)
 * Crazy Cow - A chocolate corn cereal which resembles cocoa puffs (introduced 1978, discontinued, 1980)
 * Crispy Wheats 'n Raisins (introduced 1980)
 * E.T. Cereal (introduced 1984, discontinued 1986)
 * Fingos ("The Cereal Made to Eat with Your Fingers")
 * Frosty O's (introduced 1959; discontinued 1979)
 * Fruit Brute (introduced 1974; discontinued 1982)
 * Fruity Yummy Mummy
 * Goodness Pack, an assortment of eight single-serving boxes of different cereals, designed to compete with Kellogg's and Post Cereals assortments
 * Harmony
 * Hi-Pro (introduced 1958; discontinued 1964)
 * Hidden Treasures
 * Ice Cream Cones (vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip flavors; introduced 1987, discontinued same year; briefly reintroduced in 2003)
 * Jets (formerly Sugar Jets; discontinued 1974)
 * Jurassic Park Crunch
 * Kaboom (introduced 1969)
 * Millenios from Cheerios
 * Mr. Wonderful's Surprise ("Only Cereal with a Creamy Chocolate Filling")
 * Monopoly Cereal
 * Neopets Islandberry Crunch (based on the Neopets online virtual pet community)
 * Pac-Man Cereal
 * Peanut Butter Toast Crunch
 * Powdered Donutz (introduced 1981; discontinued 1984)
 * Princess Fairytale Flakes
 * Ripple Crisp
 * Rocky Road
 * S'Mores Grahams / S'Mores Crunch
 * Sprinkle Spangles
 * Star Wars Episode II (based on the 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones)
 * Strawberry Shortcake
 * Sugar Jets (introduced 1954)
 * Sunrise Organic
 * Triples (introduced 1991)
 * Twinkles (introduced 1960; discontinued 1973)
 * USA Olympic Crunch (a tie-in with the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan)
 * Wheat Hearts
 * Wheaties Dunk-a-Balls
 * Wheat Stax (introduced 1966; discontinued 1971) ("Now there's a cereal you can stack")

Baking goods
The company's baking-goods brands include:

 * Betty Crocker
 * Bisquick (now a Betty Crocker brand)
 * Gold Medal Flour
 * Jus-Rol
 * Knack & Back
 * La Salteña
 * Pillsbury
 * V. Pearl

It also produces fruit snacks, including Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, and Fruit Shapes.

Grain snacks
The company's grain-snack brands include:

 * Bugles
 * Cascadian Farms
 * Chex Mix
 * Gardetto's
 * Nature Valley
 * Fiber One / Fibre One bars

Meal products
The company's meal products brands include:

 * Betty Crocker
 * Diablitos Underwood
 * Old El Paso
 * Wanchai Ferry

Organic food
It also produces organic foods, via Cascadian Farm, which they took over when they bought Small Planet Foods, and Muir Glen. More recently, as of 2014, it has purchased Annie's Homegrown.

Other brands
Other company brands include Annie's, Blue Buffalo, Frescarini, Latina, Totino's, Jeno's, Progresso, Colombo, Lärabar, and Yoplait (51%). It also produces Häagen-Dazs ice cream outside of the U.S. and Canada. General Mills acquired the meat-based brand Epic Provisions in 2016.

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

title: General Mills


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Night fighter

A night fighter (later known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor post-Second World War) is a largely historical term for a fighter or interceptor aircraft adapted or designed for effective use at night, during periods of adverse meteorological conditions, or in otherwise poor visibility. Such designs were in direct contrast to day fighters: fighters and interceptors designed primarily for use during the day or during good weather. The concept of the night fighter was developed and experimented with during the First World War but would not see widespread use until WWII. The term would be supplanted by “all-weather fighter/interceptor” post-WWII, with advancements in various technologies permitting the use of such aircraft in virtually all conditions.

During the Second World War, night fighters were either purpose-built night fighter designs, or more commonly, heavy fighters or light bombers adapted for the mission, often employing radar or other systems for providing some sort of detection capability in low visibility. Many night fighters of the conflict also included instrument landing systems for landing at night, as turning on the runway lights made runways into an easy target for opposing intruders. Some experiments tested the use of day fighters on night missions, but these tended to work only under very favourable circumstances and were not widely successful. The war would see the first aircraft ever that was explicitly designed from the outset to function as a night fighter, the Northrop P-61 Black Widow.

Avionics systems were greatly miniaturised over time, allowing the addition of radar altimeter, terrain-following radar, improved instrument landing system, microwave landing system, Doppler weather radar, LORAN receivers, GEE, TACAN, inertial navigation system, GPS, and GNSS in aircraft. The addition of greatly improved landing and navigation equipment combined with radar led to the use of the term all-weather fighter or all-weather fighter attack, depending on the aircraft capabilities. The use of the term night fighter gradually faded away as a result of these improvements making the vast majority of fighters capable of night operation.

Early examples
At the start of the First World War, most combatants had little capability of flying at night, and little need to do so. The only targets that could be attacked with any possibility of being hit in limited visibility would be cities, an unthinkable target at the time. The general assumption of a quick war meant no need existed for strategic attacks.

Things changed on 22 September and 8 October 1914, when the Royal Naval Air Service bombed the production line and hangars of the Zeppelin facilities in Cologne and Düsseldorf. Although defences had been set up, all of them proved woefully inadequate. As early as 1915, a number of B.E.2c aircraft (the infamous "Fokker Fodder") were modified into the first night fighters. After lack of success while using darts and small incendiary bombs to attack Zeppelins from above, ultimately a Lewis gun loaded with novel incendiary ammunition, was mounted at an angle of 45° to fire upwards, to attack the enemy from below. This technique proved to be very effective. After over a year of night Zeppelin raids, on the night of 2–3 September 1916, a BE2c flown by Captain William Leefe Robinson downed the SL 11, the first German airship to be shot down over Britain. This action won the pilot a Victoria Cross and cash prizes totaling £3,500 put up by a number of individuals. This downing was not an isolated victory; five more German airships were similarly destroyed between October and December 1916, and caused the airship campaign to gradually be diminished over the next year with fewer raids mounted.

Because of airships' limitations, the Luftstreitkräfte began to introduce long-range heavy bombers, starting with the Gotha G.IV aircraft that gradually took over the offensive. While their early daylight raids in May 1917 were able to easily evade the weak defenses of London, the strengthening of the home defence fighter force led to the Germans switching to night raids from 3 September 1917. To counter night attacks, Sopwith Camel day fighters were deployed in the night fighter role. The Camels' Vickers guns were replaced by Lewis guns mounted over the wings, as the flash from the Vickers tended to dazzle the pilot when they were fired, and synchronised guns were considered unsafe for firing incendiary ammunition. Further modification led to the cockpit being moved rearwards. The modified aircraft were nicknamed the "Sopwith Comic". To provide suitable equipment for Home Defence squadrons in the north of the UK, Avro 504K trainers were converted to night fighters by removing the front cockpit and mounting a Lewis gun on the top wing.

Interwar period
With little money to spend on development, especially during the Great Depression, night-fighting techniques changed little until just prior to World War II.

In the meantime, aircraft performance had improved tremendously; compared to their First World War counterparts, modern bombers could fly about twice as fast, at over twice the altitude, with much greater bomb loads. They flew fast enough that the time between detecting them and the bombers reaching their targets left little time to launch interceptors to shoot them down. Higher altitude bombers also required extremely large and heavy antiaircraft guns to attack them, badly limiting the number of guns available. At night, or with limited visibility, these problems were compounded. The widespread conclusion was that "the bomber will always get through", and the Royal Air Force invested almost all of their efforts in developing a night bomber force, with the Central Flying School responsible for one of the most important developments in the period by introducing "blind flying" training.

The Spanish Republican Air Force used some Polikarpov I-15s as night fighters. Pilot José Falcó had equipped his fighter with a radio receiver for land-based guidance for interception. One of the I-15s configured for night operations, fitted with tracer and explosive .30 rounds, scored a daylight double victory against Bf 109s in the closing stages of the war.

Nevertheless, some new technologies appeared to offer potential ways to improve night-fighting capability. During the 1930s, considerable development of infrared detectors occurred among all of the major forces, but in practice, these proved almost unusable. The only such system to see any sort of widespread operational use was the Spanner Anlage system used on the Dornier Do 17Z night fighters of the Luftwaffe. These were often also fitted with a large IR searchlight to improve the amount of light being returned.

Immediately prior to the opening of the war, radar was introduced operationally for the first time. Initially, these systems were unwieldy, and development of IR systems continued. Realizing that radar was a far more practical solution to the problem, Robert Watson-Watt handed the task of developing a radar suitable for aircraft use to 'Taffy' Bowen in the mid-1930s. In September 1937, he gave a working demonstration of the concept when a test aircraft was able to detect three Home Fleet capital ships in the North Sea in bad weather.

The promising implications of the test were not lost on planners, who reorganised radar efforts and gave them increased priority. This led to efforts to develop an operational unit for aircraft interception (AI). The size of these early AI radars required a large aircraft to lift them, and their complex controls required a multiperson crew to operate them. This naturally led to the use of light bombers as the preferred platform for aircraft interception radars, and in May 1939, the first experimental flight took place, on a Fairey Battle.

Second World War
The war opened on 1 September 1939, and by this time, the RAF were well advanced with plans to build a radar – then called 'RDF' in Britain – equipped night-fighter fleet. The Aircraft Interception Mk. II radar (AI Mk. II) was being fitted experimentally to a small number of Bristol Blenheim aircraft, having been selected for this role as its fuselage was sufficiently roomy to accommodate the additional crew member and radar apparatus; the first prototype system went into service in November 1939, long before the opening of major British operations. These early systems had significant practical problems, and while work was underway to correct these flaws, by the time the Blitz opened in August 1940, the night fighter fleet was still in its infancy.

Through this period, the RAF experimented with many other aircraft and interception methods in an effort to get a working night fighter force. One attempt to make up for the small number of working radars was to fit an AI to a Douglas Havoc bomber which also carried a searchlight in its nose. These Turbinlite aircraft were intended to find the targets and illuminate them with the searchlight, allowing Hurricanes adapted for night flying to shoot them down visually. This proved almost impossible to arrange in practice, and the Cat Eye fighters had little luck during the closing months of 1940. The Turbinlite squadrons were disbanded in early 1943.

By early 1941, the first examples of a production-quality radar, AI Mk. IV, were beginning to arrive. This coincided with the arrival of the Beaufighter, which offered significantly higher performance than the pre-war Blenheims; it was the highest performance aircraft capable of carrying the bulky early aircraft interception radars used for night fighter operations, and quickly became invaluable as a night fighter. Over the next few months, more and more Beaufighters arrived and the success of the night fighters roughly doubled every month until May, when the Luftwaffe ended their bombing efforts. Although night bombing never ended, its intensity was greatly decreased, giving the RAF time to introduce the AI Mk. VIII radar working in the microwave band, and the de Havilland Mosquito to mount it. This combination remained the premier night fighter until the end of the war.

As the German effort wound down, the RAF's own bombing campaign was growing. The Mosquitos had little to do over the UK, so a number of squadrons were formed within No. 100 Group RAF and fitted with special systems, such as Perfectos and Serrate, for homing-in on German night fighters. The British also experimented with mounting pilot-operated AI Mark 6 radar sets in single-seat fighters, and the Hurricane II C(NF), a dozen of which were produced in 1942, became the first radar-equipped, single-seat night fighter in the world. It served with 245 and 247 Squadrons briefly and unsuccessfully before being sent to India to 176 Squadron, with which it served until the end of 1943. A similarly radar-equipped Hawker Typhoon was also developed, but no production followed.

German aircraft interception radar efforts at this point were about two years behind the British. Unlike in Britain, where the major targets lay only a few minutes' flight time from the coast, targets in Germany after the occupation of France in 1940 were far from Allied airbases, which gave German air defenses long times to deal with intruding bombers. Instead of airborne radar, they relied on ground-based systems; the targets would first be picked up by radar assigned to a "cell", the radar would then direct a searchlight to "paint" the target, allowing the fighters to attack them without on-board aids. The searchlights were later supplanted with short-range radars that tracked both the fighters and bombers, allowing ground operators to direct the fighters to their targets. By July 1940, this system was well developed as the Kammhuber Line, and proved able to deal with the small raids by isolated bombers the RAF was carrying out at the time.

At the urging of R.V. Jones, the RAF changed their raid tactics to gather all of their bombers into a single "stream". This meant that the ground-based portion of the system was overwhelmed; with only one or two searchlights or radars available per "cell", the system was able to handle perhaps six interceptions per hour. By flying all of the bombers over a cell in a short period, the vast majority of the bombers flew right over them without ever having been plotted, let alone attacked. German success against the RAF plummeted, reaching a nadir on 30/31 May 1942, when the first 1,000-bomber raid attacked Cologne, losing only four aircraft to German night fighters.

In 1942, the Germans first started deploying the initial B/C low UHF-band version of the Lichtenstein radar, and in extremely limited numbers, using a 32-dipole element Matratze (mattress) antenna array. This late date, and slow introduction, combined with the capture of a Ju 88R-1 night fighter equipped with it in April 1943 when flown to RAF Dyce, Scotland, by a defecting Luftwaffe crew, allowed British radio engineers to develop jamming equipment to counter it. A race developed with the Germans attempting to introduce new sets and the British attempting to jam them. The early Lichtenstein B/C was replaced by the similar UHF-band Lichtenstein C-1, but when the German night fighter defected and landed in Scotland in April 1943, that radar was quickly jammed. The low VHF-band SN-2 unit that replaced the C-1 remained relatively secure until July 1944, but only at the cost of using huge, eight-dipole element Hirschgeweih (stag's antlers) antennae that slowed their fighters as much as 25 mph, making them easy prey for British night fighters that had turned to the offensive role. The capture in July 1944 of a Ju 88G-1 night fighter of NJG 2 equipped with an SN-2 Lichtenstein set, flown by mistake into RAF Woodbridge, revealed the secrets of the later, longer-wavelength replacement for the earlier B/C and C-1 sets.

The Luftwaffe also used single-engined aircraft in the night-fighter role, starting in 1939 with the Arado Ar 68 and early Messerschmitt Bf 109 models, which they later referred to as Wilde Sau (wild boar). In this case, the fighters, typically Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, were equipped only with a direction finder and landing lights to allow them to return to base at night. For the fighter to find their targets, other aircraft, which were guided from the ground, would drop strings of flares in front of the bombers. In other cases, the burning cities below provided enough light to see their targets. Messerschmitt Bf 109G variants had G6N and similar models fitted with FuG 350 Naxos "Z" radar receivers for homing in on the 3-gigahertz band H2S emissions of RAF bombers – the April 1944 combat debut of the American-designed H2X bomb-aiming radar, operating at a higher 10 GHz frequency for both RAF Pathfinder Mosquitos and USAAF B-24 Liberators that premiered their use over Europe, deployed a bombing radar that could not be detected by the German Naxos equipment. The Bf 109G series aircraft fitted with the Naxos radar detectors also were fitted with the low- to mid-VHF band FuG 217/218 Neptun active search radars, as were Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-6/R11 aircraft: these served as radar-equipped night-fighters with NJGr 10 and NJG 11. A sole Fw 190 A-6 Wk.Nr.550214 fitted with FuG 217 is a rare survivor.

The effective Schräge Musik offensive armament fitment was the German name given to installations of upward-firing autocannon mounted in large, twin-engined night fighters by the Luftwaffe and both the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and Imperial Japanese Army Air Service during World War II, with the first victories for the Luftwaffe and IJNAS each occurring in May 1943. This innovation allowed the night fighters to approach and attack bombers from below, where they were outside the bomber crew's field of view. Few bombers of that era carried defensive guns in the ventral position. An attack by a Schräge Musik-equipped fighter was typically a complete surprise to the bomber crew, who would only realise that a fighter was close by when they came under fire. Particularly in the initial stage of operational use until early 1944, the sudden fire from below was often attributed to ground fire rather than a fighter.

Rather than nighttime raids, the US Army Air Forces were dedicated to daytime bombing over Germany and Axis allies, that statistically were much more effective. The British night-bombing raids showed a success rate of only one out of 100 targets successfully hit. At the urging of the British, who were looking to purchase US-made aircraft, US day fighters were initially adapted to a night role, including the Douglas P-70 and later Lockheed P-38M "Night Lightning". The only purpose-built night fighter design deployed during the war, the American Northrop P-61 Black Widow was introduced first in Europe and then saw action in the Pacific, but it was given such a low priority that the British had ample supplies of their own designs by the time it was ready for production. The first USAAF unit using the P-61 did not move to Britain until February 1944; operational use did not start until the summer, and was limited throughout the war. Colonel Winston Kratz, director of night-fighter training in the USAAF, considered the P-61 as adequate in its role, "It was a good night fighter. It did not have enough speed".

The United States Navy (USN) Project Affirm was established at Naval Air Station Quonset Point on 18 April 1942 to develop night fighting equipment and tactics. Aircraft selection was limited to single-engine, single-seat planes by the requirement to be capable of operating from aircraft carriers. Urgency for the night-fighting role increased when Japanese aircraft successfully harassed naval forces on night raids in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese Navy had long screened new recruits for exceptional night vision, using the best on their ships and aircraft instead of developing new equipment for this role. VF(N)-75 was established as the first USN night fighter squadron on 10 April 1943. Six pilots with six aircraft were sent to the South Pacific on 1 August 1943. A Night Fighter Training Unit (NFTU) was established at Charlestown, Rhode Island, on 25 August 1943 using radar-equipped Douglas SBD Dauntless training aircraft to allow instructors to accompany student pilots. USN carrier-launched fighter combat missions began in January 1944 with six-plane detachments of single-engined Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair fighters fitted with compact, microwave-band radar sets in wing-mounted pods. The specially trained night fighter and torpedo planes of Night Air Group 41 (NAG-41) began flying from USS Independence (CVL-22) in August 1944. NAG-41 achieved full night status on 1 October 1944 in time to participate in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Night fighter patrols effectively countered kamikaze attacks timed to arrive during twilight conditions at dawn or dusk. In several cases these USN aircraft were used on raids of their own.

Postwar
Even while the war raged, the jet engine so seriously upset aircraft design that the need for dedicated jet-powered night fighters became clear. Both the British and Germans spent some effort on the topic, but as the Germans were on the defensive, their work was given a much higher priority. The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first operational jet fighter in the world, was adapted to the role, such as the installation of on-board FuG 218 Neptun high-VHF band radar and Hirschgeweih ("stag's antlers") antennae; intercepts were generally or entirely made using Wilde Sau methods, rather than AI radar-controlled interception. Several Me 262 pilots were able to attain a high number of kills in the type such as Oberleutnant Kurt Welter, who claimed a total of 25 Mosquitos downed during nighttime missions.

Other forces did not have the pressing need to move to the jet engine; Britain and the US were facing enemies with aircraft of even lower performance than their existing night fighters. However, the need for new designs was evident, and some low-level work started in the closing stages of the war, including the US contract for the Northrop F-89 Scorpion. When the Soviet plans to build an atomic bomb became known in the west in 1948, this project was still long from being ready to produce even a prototype, and in March 1949, they started development of both the North American F-86D Sabre and Lockheed F-94 Starfire as stop-gap measures. All of these fighters entered service during the early 1950s.

In the Korean War, after the Starfire proved to be ineffective against the latest Soviet-supplied aircraft, Marine Corps Douglas F3D Skyknights shot down six aircraft, including five Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s without loss, as the MiG-15s lacked radar to shoot down individual fighters, though they were effective against bomber formations at night.

During the immediate postwar era, the RAF launched studies into new fighter designs, but gave these projects relatively low priority. By the time of the Soviet bomb test, the night-fighter design was still strictly a paper project, and the existing Mosquito fleet was generally unable to successfully intercept the Tupolev Tu-4 bomber it was expected to face. This led to rushed programs to introduce new, interim night-fighter designs; these efforts led to several night-fighter versions of ubiquitous Gloster Meteor to replace the Mosquitos during the early 1950s. A similar conversion of the de Havilland Vampire was also introduced; this was originally developed by the company as a private venture and initially ordered by Egypt, instead the RAF took over the order to serve an interim measure between the retirement of the Mosquito night fighter and the Meteor night fighter's introduction. These types were also widely exported; Meteor night fighters were acquired by France, Syria, Egypt and Israel amongst others.

Both the Meteor and Vampire conversions were rapidly followed by a more capable night fighter in the form of the de Havilland Venom, the first model of which having been introduced during 1953. More advanced night fighter models of the Venom would follow, as well as of the navalised de Havilland Sea Venom, which served with the Royal Navy along with other operators. An advanced night-fighter design was eventually introduced to RAF service in 1956 in the form of the Gloster Javelin, a delta wing aircraft capable of performing rapid ascents and attaining an altitude of 45,000 feet. However, due to rapid advances in aircraft capabilities, the Javelin quickly became considered to be outdated and the type was retired during 1968. In Canada, Avro Canada developed its own night fighter, the CF-100 Canuck, which entered service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during 1952.

Into the 1960s, night fighters still existed as a separate class of aircraft. However, as they continued to grow in capability, radar-equipped interceptors could take on the role of night fighters, thus the class went into decline. Examples of these latter-day interceptor/night-fighters include the Avro Arrow, Convair F-106 Delta Dart, and English Electric Lightning.

During this transition period, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was offered to the US Navy; at the time, the Vought F-8 Crusader had already been accepted as a "day" dogfighter, while the subsonic McDonnell F3H Demon was the Navy's all-weather fighter. The Phantom was developed as the Navy's first supersonic, all-weather, radar-equipped fighter armed with radar-guided missiles. However, compared to early air-superiority designs such as the F-100 or F-8, the massive Phantom, nevertheless, had enough raw power from its twin J79 engines to prove adaptable as the preferred platform for tangling with agile MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters over the skies of Vietnam, as well as replacing the US Air Force Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart for continental interception duties and the Republic F-105 Thunderchief as a medium fighter-bomber. The need for close-in dogfighting spelled the end for the specialised Grumman F-111B, which was armed only with long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles for fleet defense against bombers. The Navy instead developed the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, which on top of the heavy Phoenix, retained the Phantom's versatility and improved agility for dogfighting. The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle was also an interceptor with enhanced agility, but did not carry the Phoenix in preference to the role of an air-superiority fighter.

The reduced size and costs of avionics have allowed even smaller modern fighters to have night-interception capability. In the US Air Force's lightweight fighter program, the F-16 was originally envisaged as inexpensive day fighter, but quickly converted to an all-weather role. The similar McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in its CF-18 variant for the RCAF, was ordered with a 0.6 Mcd night-identification light to enhance its night-interception capabilities.

First World War

 * Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 Night fighter
 * Sopwith Camel "Comic" Night fighter
 * Sopwith 1½ Strutter Night fighter
 * Supermarine Nighthawk

Germany

 * Arado Ar 68E-1
 * Dornier Do 217J/N
 * Focke-Wulf Ta 154
 * Heinkel He 219
 * Junkers Ju 88C/G
 * Messerschmitt Bf 110D/F-4/G-4
 * Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a/U2, B-1a/U1
 * Focke-Wulf Fw 189 A-1
 * Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-5/R11

Italy

 * Fiat CR.42CN Falco
 * CANT Z.1018/CN "Leone"
 * Caproni-Vizzola F-5/CN
 * Reggiane Re.2001CN Serie I, II, III "Falco"

Japan

 * Aichi S1A Denko
 * Kawasaki Ki-45 KAIc
 * Mitsubishi Ki-46-III KAI
 * Mitsubishi Ki-109
 * Nakajima C6N1-S
 * Nakajima J1N1-S
 * Yokosuka D4Y2-S
 * Yokosuka P1Y1-S

Hungary/Romania

 * FIAT CR.42 "Falco"
 * MÁVAG Héja
 * Messerschmitt Bf 109F
 * Messerschmitt Bf 110G-4d
 * Messerschmitt Me 210Ca-1/N

Soviet Union

 * Petlyakov Pe-3bis
 * Yakovlev Yak-9M PVO

United Kingdom

 * Douglas Havoc (US-built)
 * Douglas Havoc (Turbinlite) (US-built)
 * Boulton Paul Defiant Mk II
 * Bristol Beaufighter
 * Bristol Blenheim Mk IF
 * de Havilland Mosquito NF series
 * Fairey Firefly NF Mk 5
 * Supermarine Spitfire

United States

 * Douglas P-70
 * Bristol Beaufighter (British supplied)
 * Grumman F6F-3E/F6F-3N/F6F-5N Hellcat
 * Lockheed P-38M "Night Lightning"
 * Northrop P-61 Black Widow
 * Vought F4U-2/F4U-4E/F4U-4N Corsair

France

 * Mureaux 114/CN2
 * Morane-Saulnier M.S. 408/CN
 * Potez 631 C3/N

Canada

 * Avro Canada CF-100

United Kingdom

 * de Havilland Mosquito NF 36/38
 * de Havilland Sea Hornet NF 21
 * de Havilland Vampire NF 10/54
 * de Havilland Venom NF 2/2A/3/51/54
 * Gloster/Armstrong-Whitworth Meteor NF 11/12/14
 * Gloster Javelin

United States

 * Douglas F3D Skyknight
 * Grumman F7F-1N/2N Tigercat
 * Lockheed F-94 Starfire
 * McDonnell F2H-2N/F2H-4 Banshee
 * McDonnell F-101 Voodoo
 * North American F-82F/G/H Twin Mustang
 * North American F-86D/K/L Sabre
 * Northrop F-89 Scorpion
 * Vought F4U-5N/F4U-5NL Corsair/Goodyear FG-1E Corsair

title: Night fighter


text:
Thomas Overbury

Sir Thomas Overbury (baptized 1581 – 14 September 1613) was an English poet and essayist, also known for being the victim of a murder which led to a scandalous trial. His poem A Wife (also referred to as The Wife), which depicted the virtues that a young man should demand of a woman, played a large role in the events that precipitated his murder.

Background
Thomas Overbury was born near Ilmington in Warwickshire, a son of the marriage of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton-on-the-Hill, Gloucester, and Mary Palmer. In the autumn of 1595 he became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford. He took his degree of BA in 1598, by which time he had already been admitted to study law in the Middle Temple in London. He soon found favour with Sir Robert Cecil, travelled on the Continent, and began to enjoy a reputation for an accomplished mind and free manners.

Robert Carr
About 1601, whilst on holiday in Edinburgh, he met Robert Carr, then an obscure page to the Earl of Dunbar. A great friendship was struck up between the two youths, and they came up to London together. Carr's early history is obscure, and it is probable that Overbury secured an introduction to court before his young associate contrived to do so. At all events, when Carr attracted the attention of James I in 1606 by breaking his leg in the tilt-yard, Overbury had for some time been servitor-in-ordinary to the king.

Knighted by James in June 1608, from October 1608 to August 1609, he traveled in the Netherlands and France, staying in Antwerp and Paris; he spent at least some of this time with his contemporary, the Puritan theologian Francis Rous.

Upon his return he began following Carr's fortunes very closely. When the latter was made Viscount Rochester in 1610, the intimacy seems to have been sustained. With Overbury's aid, the young Carr caught the eye of the King, and soon became his favourite and his lover. Overbury had the wisdom and Carr had the king's ear into which to pour it. The combination took Carr swiftly up the ladder of power. Soon he was the most powerful man in England next to Robert Cecil.

Court intrigues and death

After the death of Cecil in 1612, the Howard party, consisting of Henry Howard, Thomas Howard, his son-in-law Lord Knollys, and Charles Howard, along with Sir Thomas Lake, moved to take control of much of the government and its patronage. The powerful Carr, unfit for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend, Overbury, for assistance with government papers, fell into the Howard camp, after beginning an affair with the married Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk.

Overbury was from the first violently opposed to the affair, pointing out to Carr that it would be hurtful to his preferment, and that Frances Howard, even at this early stage in her career, was already "noted for her injury and immodesty." But Carr was now infatuated, and he repeated to the Countess what Overbury had said. It was at this time, too, that Overbury wrote, and circulated widely in manuscript his poem A Wife, which was a picture of the virtues which a young man should demand in a woman before he has the rashness to marry her. Lady Essex believed that Overbury's object in writing this poem was to open the eyes of his friend to her defects. The situation now turned into a deadly duel between the mistress and the friend. The Countess tried to manipulate Overbury into seeming to be disrespectful to the queen, Anne of Denmark who took offence. Her chamberlain, Viscount Lisle, wrote in November 1612 that Overbury was allowed to come to court, but not in the queen's sight, or into her side of the royal lodgings.

James I offered Overbury an assignment as ambassador, probably to the court of Michael of Russia, relations with Russia being at that time a potential issue between those who favoured a strongly pro-Protestant and anti-Catholic foreign policy, and those, centred on the Howards, who favoured accommodation with Catholic powers on the Continent; there were political reasons of international policy as well as personal ones involving the King's jealousy of Overbury's relationship with Carr, to persuade James to send the former away and also a private interest for Carr and Northampton to urge the offer upon him. Overbury declined, possibly because he felt tricked into it by Carr (precisely because refusing would ensure that Overbury would be imprisoned), possibly because Overbury sensed the urgency to remain in England and at his friend's side. James I was so irate at Overbury's arrogance in declining the offer that he had him thrown into the Tower of London on 22 April 1613, where he died on 14 September.

Beginnings of scandal
The Howards won James's support for an annulment of Frances's marriage to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, on grounds of impotence, to free her to remarry. With James's assistance, the marriage was duly annulled on 25 September 1613, despite Essex's opposition to the charge of impotence. The commissioners judging the case reached a 5–5 verdict, so James quickly appointed two extra judges guaranteed to vote in favour, an intervention which aroused public censure. When, after the annulment, Thomas Bilson (son of Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, one of the added commissioners) was knighted, he was given the nickname "Sir Nullity Bilson". There were also rumours that the commission was tricked into believing that Frances was still virgo intacta.

The marriage two months later of Frances Howard and Robert Carr, now the Earl of Somerset, was the court event of the season, celebrated in verse by John Donne. The Howards' rise to power seemed complete.

Rumours of foul play in Overbury's death began circulating. Almost two years later, in September 1615, and as James was in the process of replacing Carr with new favourite George Villiers, the governor of the Tower sent a letter to the King, informing him that one of the warders had been bringing the prisoner "poisoned food and medicine."

James showed a disinclination to delve into the matter, but the rumours refused to go away. Eventually, they began hinting at the King's own involvement, forcing him to order an investigation. The details of the murder were uncovered by Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon who presided over the trial.

Trial
In the celebrated trials of the six accused in late 1615 and early 1616 that followed, evidence of a plot came to light. It was very likely that Overbury was the victim of a 'set-up' contrived by the Earls of Northampton and Suffolk, with Carr's complicity, to keep him out of the way during the annulment proceedings. Overbury knew too much of Carr's dealings with Frances and, motivated by a deep political hostility to the Howards, opposed the match with a fervour that made him dangerous. The Queen had sown discord between the friends, calling Overbury Carr's "governor".

It was not known at the time, and it is not certain now, how much Carr participated in the first crime, or if he was ignorant of it. Lady Essex, however, was not satisfied with having had Overbury shut up; she was determined that "he should return no more to this stage." She had Sir William Wade, the honest Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, removed to make way for a new Lieutenant, Sir Gervase Helwys; and a gaoler, Richard Weston, of whom it was ominously said that he was "a man well acquainted with the power of drugs", was set to attend on Overbury. Weston, afterwards aided by Mrs Anne Turner, the widow of a physician, and by an apothecary called Franklin, plied Overbury with sulfuric acid in the form of copper vitriol.

It cannot have been difficult for the conspirators to secure James's compliance because he disliked Overbury's influence over Carr. John Chamberlain (1553–1628) reported at the time that the King "hath long had a desire to remove him from about the lord of Rochester [Carr], as thinking it a dishonour to him that the world should have an opinion that Rochester ruled him and Overbury ruled Rochester". Overbury had been poisoned.

Frances Howard admitted a part in Overbury's murder, but her husband did not. Fearing what Carr might say about him in court, James repeatedly sent messages to the Tower pleading with him to admit his guilt in return for a pardon. "It is easy to be seen that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being, in some sort, accessory to his crime".

In late May 1616, the couple were found guilty and sentenced to death for their parts in this conspiracy. Nevertheless, they remained prisoners in the Tower until eventually released in 1622 and pardoned.

Four accomplices – Richard Weston, Anne Turner, Gervaise Helwys and Simon Franklin – were found guilty prior to that in 1615 and, lacking powerful connections, were hanged.

The implication of the King in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity.

Literary and cultural references

 * Overbury's poem, A Wife, was published in 1614 (see 1614 in poetry), and ran through six editions within a year, the scandal connected with the murder of the author greatly aiding its success. It was abundantly reprinted within the next sixty years, and it continued to be one of the most widely popular books of the 17th century. Combined with later editions of A Wife, and gradually adding to its bulk, were Characters (first printed in the second of the 1614 editions), The Remedy of Love (1620; see 1620 in poetry), and Observations in Foreign Travels (1626). Later, much that must be spurious was added to the gathering snowball of Overbury's works.
 * Hic Mulier, an anonymous pamphlet published in 1620 in opposition to 'masculine' behaviour in females during the reign of James VI and I, quotes from A Wife, identified only through a marginal reference to S.T.O.
 * The Court and Character of King James, a gossipy and partisan memoir, published in 1650 by a longstanding courtier, Sir Anthony Weldon
 * Tragic stage play, Sir Thomas Overbury, by Richard Savage 1723
 * Jean Plaidy's Murder in the Tower in 1964 tells of the love triangle between Overbury, Carr and Lady Francis Howard.
 * For an alternative account of the trial, see Anne Somerset's Unnatural Murder (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997).
 * Marjorie Bowen wrote a fictionalised account of the case and trial in The King's Favourite.
 * Rafael Sabatini's novel about the rise and fall of Robert Carr, The King's Minion (1930), argues Overbury's poisoning was ordered by James I and carried out by his personal physician after the failed attempts by Lady Essex and her conspirators.
 * The dramatist John Ford wrote a lost work titled Sir Thomas Overbury's Ghost, containing the history of his life and untimely death (1615). Its nature is uncertain, but Ford scholars have suggested it may have been an elegy, prose piece or pamphlet.
 * Nathaniel Hawthorne mentions Overbury's murder in his book The Scarlet Letter.
 * Charles Mackay devoted much of the chapter on "The Slow Poisoners" in the second volume of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds to Overbury's death and the various fates of his murderers.
 * Miriam Allen deFord wrote The Overbury Affair, which involves events during the reign of James I of Britain surrounding the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. The book received a 1961 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book.
 * Brian Harris QC offers a radical new approach to the poisoning conspiracy and suggests that Overbury may not have died at the hands of Frances Howard. See Passion, Poison and Power, Wildy, Simmonds & Hill, 2010; (ISBN 9780854900770)
 * Elizabeth Fremantle (writing as E. C. Fremantle) wrote a fictional treatment of the story in The Poison Bed.
 * Lucy Jago's A Net for Small Fishes (Bloomsbury 2021) is a highly praised fictional account, focusing on Frances Howard and Anne Turner’s relationship

title: Thomas Overbury