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Mongolic languages

The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.

History
The possible precursor to Mongolic is the Xianbei language, heavily influenced by the Proto-Turkic (later, the Lir-Turkic) language.

The stages of historical Mongolic are:
 * Pre-Proto-Mongolic, from approximately the 4th century AD until the 12th century AD, influenced by Shaz-Turkic.
 * Proto-Mongolic, from approximately the 13th century, spoken around the time of Chinggis Khan.
 * Middle Mongol, from the 13th century until the early 15th century or late 16th century, depending on classification spoken. (Given the almost entire lack of written sources for the period in between, an exact cutoff point cannot be established.) Again influenced by Turkic.
 * Classical Mongolian, from approximately 1700 to 1900.
 * Standard Mongolian The standard Mongolian language has been in official use since 1919, and this form of the language is used in the economic, political, and social fields.

Pre-Proto-Mongolic
Pre-Proto-Mongolic is the name for the stage of Mongolic that precedes Proto-Mongolic. Proto-Mongolic can be clearly identified chronologically with the language spoken by the Mongols during Genghis Khan's early expansion in the 1200-1210s. Pre-Proto-Mongolic, by contrast, is a continuum that stretches back indefinitely in time. It is divided into Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic and Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic.

Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic refers to the Mongolic spoken a few centuries before Proto-Mongolic by the Mongols and neighboring tribes like the Merkits and Keraits. Certain archaic words and features in Written Mongolian go back past Proto-Mongolic to Late Pre-Proto-Mongolic (Janhunen 2006).

Relationship with Turkic
Pre-Proto-Mongolic has borrowed various words from Turkic languages.

In the case of Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic, certain loanwords in the Mongolic languages point to early contact with Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric) Turkic, also known as r-Turkic. These loanwords precede Common Turkic (z-Turkic) loanwords and include:
 * Mongolic ikere (twins) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric ikir (versus Common Turkic ekiz)
 * Mongolic hüker (ox) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric hekür (Common Turkic öküz)
 * Mongolic jer (weapon) from Pre-Proto-Bulgaric jer (Common Turkic yäz)
 * Mongolic biragu (calf) versus Common Turkic buzagu
 * Mongolic siri- (to smelt ore) versus Common Turkic siz- (to melt)

The above words are thought to have been borrowed from Oghur Turkic during the time of the Xiongnu.

Later Turkic peoples in Mongolia all spoke forms of Common Turkic (z-Turkic) as opposed to Oghur (Bulgharic) Turkic, which withdrew to the west in the 4th century. The Chuvash language, spoken by 1 million people in European Russia, is the only living representative of Oghur Turkic which split from Proto Turkic around the 1st century AD.

Words in Mongolic like dayir (brown, Common Turkic yagiz) and nidurga (fist, Common Turkic yudruk) with initial *d and *n versus Common Turkic *y are sufficiently archaic to indicate loans from an earlier stage of Oghur (Pre-Proto-Bulgaric). This is because Chuvash and Common Turkic do not differ in these features despite differing fundamentally in rhotacism-lambdacism (Janhunen 2006). Oghur tribes lived in the Mongolian borderlands before the 5th century, and provided Oghur loanwords to Early Pre-Proto-Mongolic before Common Turkic loanwords.

Proto-Mongolic
Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol. An exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- 'do together', which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol.

The languages of the historical Donghu, Wuhuan, and Xianbei peoples might have been related to Proto-Mongolic. For Tabghach, the language of the founders of the Northern Wei dynasty, for which the surviving evidence is very sparse, and Khitan, for which evidence exists that is written in the two Khitan scripts (large and small) which have as yet not been fully deciphered, a direct affiliation to Mongolic can now be taken to be most likely or even demonstrated.

Middle Mongol
The changes from Proto-Mongolic to Middle Mongol are described below.

Consonants
Research into reconstruction of the consonants of Middle Mongol has engendered several controversies. Middle Mongol had two series of plosives, but there is disagreement as to which phonological dimension they lie on, whether aspiration or voicing. The early scripts have distinct letters for velar plosives and uvular plosives, but as these are in complementary distribution according to vowel harmony class, only two back plosive phonemes, */k/, *' (~ *[k], *') are to be reconstructed. One prominent, long-running disagreement concerns certain correspondences of word medial consonants among the four major scripts (UM, SM, AM, and Ph, which were discussed in the preceding section). Word-medial /k/ of Uyghur Mongolian (UM) has not one, but two correspondences with the three other scripts: either /k/ or zero. Traditional scholarship has reconstructed */k/ for both correspondences, arguing that */k/ was lost in some instances, which raises the question of what the conditioning factors of those instances were. More recently, the other possibility has been assumed; namely, that the correspondence between UM /k/ and zero in the other scripts points to a distinct phoneme, /h/, which would correspond to the word-initial phoneme /h/ that is present in those other scripts. /h/ (also called /x/) is sometimes assumed to derive from *, which would also explain zero in SM, AM, Ph in some instances where UM indicates /p/; e.g. debel > Khalkha deel.

The palatal affricates *č, *čʰ were fronted in Northern Modern Mongolian dialects such as Khalkha. was spirantized to in Ulaanbaatar Khalkha and the Mongolian dialects south of it, e.g. Preclassical Mongolian kündü, reconstructed as  'heavy', became Modern Mongolian  (but in the vicinity of Bayankhongor and Baruun-Urt, many speakers will say ). Originally word-final *n turned into /ŋ/; if *' was originally followed by a vowel that later dropped, it remained unchanged, e.g. ' became, but  became. After i-breaking, became phonemic. Consonants in words containing back vowels that were followed by  in Proto-Mongolian became palatalized in Modern Mongolian. In some words, word-final  was dropped with most case forms, but still appears with the ablative, dative and genitive.

Only foreign origin words start with the letter L and none start with the letter R.

Vowels
The standard view is that Proto-Mongolic had . According to this view, ' and ' were pharyngealized to and, then ' and ' were velarized to  and. Thus, the vowel harmony shifted from a velar to a pharyngeal paradigm.  in the first syllable of back-vocalic words was assimilated to the following vowel; in word-initial position it became. ' was rounded to when followed by '. VhV and VjV sequences where the second vowel was any vowel but  were monophthongized. In noninitial syllables, short vowels were deleted from the phonetic representation of the word and long vowels became short; e.g. ' (' becomes, ' disappears) > ' (unstable n drops; vowel reduction) > /jama(n)/ 'goat', and ' (regressive rounding assimilation) > ' (vowel velarization) >  (vowel reduction) > /oms-/ 'to wear'

This reconstruction has recently been opposed, arguing that vowel developments across the Mongolic languages can be more economically explained starting from basically the same vowel system as Khalkha, only with  instead of *[e]. Moreover, the sound changes involved in this alternative scenario are more likely from an articulatory point of view and early Middle Mongol loans into Korean.

Nominal system
"-shaped bracket, and to the right of each such bracket, there are other medium-sized characters|The Secret History of the Mongols which goes back to a lost Mongolian script original is the only document that allows the reconstruction of agreement in social gender in Middle Mongol. ]]

In the ensuing discourse, as noted earlier, the term "Middle Mongol" is employed broadly to encompass texts scripted in either Uighur Mongolian (UM), Chinese (SM), or Arabic (AM).

The case system of Middle Mongol has remained mostly intact down to the present, although important changes occurred with the comitative and the dative and most other case suffixes did undergo slight changes in form, i.e., were shortened. The Middle Mongol comitative -luγ-a could not be used attributively, but it was replaced by the suffix -taj that originally derived adjectives denoting possession from nouns, e.g. mori-tai 'having a horse' became mor ' toj 'having a horse/with a horse'. As this adjective functioned parallel to ügej 'not having', it has been suggested that a "privative case" ('without') has been introduced into Mongolian. There have been three different case suffixes in the dative-locative-directive domain that are grouped in different ways: -a as locative and -dur, -da as dative or -da and -a as dative and -dur as locative, in both cases with some functional overlapping. As -dur seems to be grammaticalized from dotur-a 'within', thus indicating a span of time, the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, -da was lost, -dur was first reduced to -du and then to -d and -a only survived in a few frozen environments. Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian, -ruu, has been innovated from uruγu 'downwards'. Social gender agreement was abandoned.

Verbal system
Middle Mongol had a slightly larger set of declarative finite verb suffix forms and a smaller number of participles, which were less likely to be used as finite predicates. The linking converb -n became confined to stable verb combinations, while the number of converbs increased. The distinction between male, female and plural subjects exhibited by some finite verbal suffixes was lost.

Changes in syntax
Neutral word order in clauses with pronominal subject changed from object–predicate–subject to subject–object–predicate; e.g.

Kökseü sabraq ügü.le-run ayyi yeke uge ugu.le-d ta ... kee-jüü.y

Kökseü sabraq speak-CVB alas big word speak-PAST you ... say-NFUT

"Kökseü sabraq spoke saying, 'Alas! You speak a great boast....' "

The syntax of verb negation shifted from negation particles preceding final verbs to a negation particle following participles; thus, as final verbs could no longer be negated, their paradigm of negation was filled by particles. For example, Preclassical Mongolian ese irebe 'did not come' v. modern spoken Khalkha Mongolian ireegüi or irsengüi.

Classification
The Mongolic languages have no convincingly established living relatives. The closest relatives of the Mongolic languages appear to be the para-Mongolic languages, which include the extinct Khitan, Tuyuhun, and possibly also Tuoba languages.

Alexander Vovin (2007) identifies the extinct Tabγač or Tuoba language as a Mongolic language. However, Chen (2005) argues that Tuoba (Tabγač) was a Turkic language. Vovin (2018) suggests that the Rouran language of the Rouran Khaganate was a Mongolic language, close but not identical to Middle Mongolian.

Altaic
A few linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic, Tungusic and possibly Koreanic or Japonic as part of the controversial Altaic family.

Following Sergei Starostin, Martine Robbeets suggested that Mongolic languages belong to a "Transeurasian" superfamily also comprising Japonic languages, Korean, Tungusic languages and Turkic languages, but this view has been severely criticized.

Languages
Contemporary Mongolic languages are as follows. The classification and numbers of speakers follow Janhunen (2006), except for Southern Mongolic, which follows Nugteren (2011).

 * Mongolic
 * Dagur (96,000 speakers)
 * Central Mongolic
 * Khamnigan Mongol (2,000 speakers)
 * Buryat (330,000 speakers)
 * Mongolian proper (5.2 million speakers)
 * Peripheral Mongolian (as Ordos)
 * Kalmyk–Oirat (360,000 speakers)
 * Southern Mongolic (part of a Gansu–Qinghai Sprachbund)
 * Shira Yugur (4,000 speakers)
 * Shirongolic
 * Monguor (150,000 speakers)
 * Mongghul/Huzhu Monguor
 * Mangghuer/Minhe Monguor
 * Baoanic
 * Bonan (6,000 speakers)
 * Santa (Dongxiang) (200,000 speakers)
 * Kangjia (1,000 speakers)
 * Moghol (extinct)

In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, while Ordos (and implicitly also Khamnigan) is seen as a variety of Mongolian proper. Within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia (containing everything else) on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolic is to divide it into a Central dialect (Khalkha, Chakhar, Ordos), an Eastern dialect (Kharchin, Khorchin), a Western dialect (Oirat, Kalmyk), and a Northern dialect (consisting of two Buryat varieties).

The broader delimitation of Mongolian may be based on mutual intelligibility, but an analysis based on a tree diagram such as the one above faces other problems because of the close contacts between, for example, Buryat and Khalkha Mongols during history, thus creating or preserving a dialect continuum. Another problem lies in the sheer comparability of terminology, as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy language (kele), dialect (nutuγ-un ayalγu) and Mundart (aman ayalγu).

Rybatzki (2003: 388–389) recognizes the following 6 areal subgroups of Mongolic.
 * Northeastern Mongolic (NE) = Dagur
 * Northern Mongolic (N) = Khamnigan Mongol–Buryat
 * Central Mongolic (C) = Mongol proper–Ordos–Oirat
 * South-Central Mongolic (SC) = Shira Yughur
 * Southeastern Mongolic (SE) = Mongghul–Mangghuer–Bonan–Santa – Kangjia
 * Southwestern Mongolic (SW) = Moghol

Additionally, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology refers to Central Mongolic as "Eastern Mongolic" and classifies the group as follows, using data from Rybatzki (2003) as the basis:

 * Eastern Mongolic
 * Khalkha–Buriat
 * Buriat
 * China Buriat
 * Mongolia Buriat
 * Russia Buriat
 * Mongolian
 * Halh Mongolian
 * Oirad–Kalmyk–Darkhat
 * Peripheral Mongolian
 * Khamnigan

Mixed languages
The following are mixed Sinitic–Mongolic languages.
 * Tangwang (mixed Mandarin–Santa)
 * Wutun (mixed Mandarin–Bonan)

Writing systems

 * The traditional Mongolian script (based on the Old Uyghur alphabet) was first developed for Proto-Mongolic, possibly as early as the 7th century.
 * In 1931, the Mongolian People's Republic adopted a Mongolian version of the Latin alphabet as the official script for Mongolian.
 * Under Soviet influence, in 1941 Mongolia switched to a version of the Russian alphabet called Mongolian Cyrillic.
 * In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to use both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script in official documents by 2025.

title: Mongolic languages


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Hannibal Lecter

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character created by the American novelist Thomas Harris. Lecter is a serial killer who eats his victims. Before his capture, he was a respected forensic psychiatrist; after his incarceration, he is consulted by FBI agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling to help them find other serial killers.

Lecter first appeared in a small role as a villain in Harris' 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon, which was adapted into the film Manhunter (1986), with Brian Cox as Lecter (spelled "Lecktor"). Lecter had a larger role in The Silence of the Lambs (1988); the 1991 film adaptation starred Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hopkins reprised the role for the 2001 adaptation of the 1999 novel Hannibal, which sees Lecter evading recapture, and for a second adaptation of Red Dragon in 2002.

The fourth novel, Hannibal Rising (2006), explores Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer. He was played in the 2007 film adaptation by Gaspard Ulliel. In the NBC television series Hannibal (2013–2015), which focuses on Lecter's relationship with Graham, Lecter was played by Mads Mikkelsen, who won the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television for his performance.

In 2003, Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, was named the greatest villain in American cinema by the American Film Institute. In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the 100 greatest characters of the preceding 20 years. In 2019, Lecter, as portrayed by Mikkelsen, was named the 18th greatest villain in television history by Rolling Stone.

Inspiration
Working as a journalist for Argosy magazine in the 1960s, Thomas Harris traveled to Mexico to interview an American mental patient, Dykes Askew Simmons, who was being detained at Nuevo León State Prison in Monterrey. While jailed, Simmons had been shot by a prison guard, once in each calf, and he was treated by a skilled "prison-doctor" whom Harris had referred to as "Dr. Salazar". Harris described him as a "small, lithe man with dark red hair" who "stood very still" with "a certain elegance about him". A prison guard later informed Harris that Salazar was, in fact, a convicted murderer who could "package his victim in a surprisingly small box". Salazar inspired Harris to create a character with a "peculiar understanding of the criminal mind". Salazar is believed to be Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the last criminal to be condemned to death in Mexico, in 1959. Ballí was a surgeon and physician from an upper-class family who had murdered his colleague and boyfriend, Jesus Castillo Rangel. Ballí had held a towel soaked in chloroform over Rangel’s face, causing him to lose consciousness; Ballí then transferred the body to an adjacent bathroom where he slit Rangel’s throat and drained his body completely of blood before dismembering his corpse. Ballí is suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the countryside during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Harris incorporated some of these details into Buffalo Bill's development as a killer in The Silence of the Lambs.

In her book Evil Serial Killers, Charlotte Greig asserts Lecter was inspired at least in part by the serial killer Albert Fish. Greig also states that, to explain Lecter's pathology, Harris borrowed the possibly apocryphal story of serial killer and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo's brother Stepan being kidnapped and eaten by starving neighbors. The location of the book Hannibal was inspired by the Monster of Florence and while preparing the book, Harris traveled to Italy and was present at the trial of the main suspect, Pietro Pacciani.

Character
Hannibal Lecter is a child of Lithuanian nobility and of the Visconti and Sforza families of Italy, and he is also a cannibalistic serial killer. He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".

In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."

In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter's keeper, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure psychopath" in the film adaptation). In the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says of Lecter, "They don't have a name for what he is". Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explains that he was traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed his beloved sister, Mischa, being murdered and cannibalized by a group of deserting Lithuanian Hilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwittingly ate his sister as well.

All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in the novel). Prior to his capture and imprisonment, he was a member of Baltimore, Maryland's social elite, and a sitting member of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's Board of Directors.

In the novel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter is described through Starling's eyes: "She could see that he was small, sleek; in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own." The novel also reveals that Lecter's left hand has a rare condition called mid-ray duplication polydactyly, i.e. a duplicated middle finger. In Hannibal, he performs plastic surgery on his own face on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter's eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in "pinpoints of red". He has small white teeth and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow's peak. He also has a keen sense of smell; in Red Dragon, he immediately recognizes Will Graham by his brand of aftershave, and in The Silence of the Lambs, he is able to identify through a plexiglass window with small holes the brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. He has an eidetic memory with which he has constructed in his mind an elaborate "memory palace" to relive memories and sensations in rich detail.

According to The Guardian, before The Silence of the Lambs, films portrayed psychopathic killers as "claw-handed bogeymen with melty faces and rubber masks. By contrast, Lecter was highly intelligent with impeccable manners." Anthony Hopkins, the actor most closely identified with Lecter, said he played him as "ultra sane, very still ... He has such terrifying physical power, and he doesn't waste an ounce of energy. He's so contained. He's all brain." His performance was inspired by HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The critic Roger Ebert elaborated on this comparison: "He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb at logic, deficient in emotions." In the same essay, Ebert wrote: One key to the film's appeal is that audiences like Hannibal Lecter...He may be a cannibal, but as a dinner party guest he would give value for money (if he didn't eat you). He does not bore, he likes to amuse, he has his standards, and he is the smartest person in the movie... He bears comparison, indeed, with such other movie monsters as Nosferatu, Frankenstein... King Kong and Norman Bates. They have two things in common: They behave according to their natures, and they are misunderstood. Nothing that these monsters do is "evil" in any conventional moral sense, because they lack any moral sense. They are hard-wired to do what they do. They have no choice. In the areas where they do have choice, they try to do the right thing.

Red Dragon
In the backstory of the 1981 novel Red Dragon, FBI profiler Will Graham interviews Lecter about one of his patients who was murdered by a serial killer, before intuiting that Lecter is the culprit; he sees the antique medical diagram "Wound Man" in Lecter's office, and remembers that the victim suffered the same injuries depicted in the drawing. Realizing that Graham is on to him, Lecter creeps up behind Graham and stabs him with a linoleum knife, nearly disemboweling him.

Graham survives, but is so traumatized by the incident that he takes early retirement from the FBI. Lecter is charged with a series of nine murders, but is found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the care of Dr. Frederick Chilton, a pompous, incompetent psychiatrist whom he despises, and who subjects him to a series of petty cruelties.

Some years later, Graham comes out of retirement and consults Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname "the Tooth Fairy". Through the classifieds of a tabloid called The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address; Dolarhyde later uses this information to break into Graham's home, stab him in the face, and threaten his family before Graham's wife Molly shoots him dead. At the end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a letter, saying that he hopes Graham "won't be very ugly".

The Silence of the Lambs
In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer, Jame Gumb, known by the nickname "Buffalo Bill". Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an unusual relationship in which he provides her with a profile of the killer and his modus operandi in exchange for details about her unhappy childhood.

Lecter had previously met Gumb, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal this information directly, instead giving Starling vague clues to help her figure it out for herself. In return for Lecter's assistance, the FBI and Chilton arrange for him to be transferred to a federal institution with better living conditions.

Lecter escapes while in transit, however, killing and mutilating his guards and using one of their faces as a mask to fool police and paramedics before killing the latter and escaping. While in hiding, he writes one letter to Starling wishing her well, a second to Barney (his primary orderly at the asylum), thanking him for his courteous treatment, and a third to Chilton, promising gruesome revenge; Chilton disappears soon afterward.

Hannibal
In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and works as a museum curator under the alias "Dr. Fell". One of Lecter's two surviving victims, Mason Verger—a wealthy, sadistic pedophile whom Lecter had brutalized during a court-ordered therapy session, leaving him a horrifically disfigured quadriplegic—offers a huge reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends to feed to wild boars specially bred for the purpose.

Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt Justice Department official and Starling's boss. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's Sardinian henchmen, only to be captured. Starling follows them, intent on apprehending Lecter personally, and is injured in a gunfight with Verger's henchmen. Lecter escapes, thanks to Starling's help, and persuades Verger's younger sister Margot—his former patient, whom Verger had molested and raped years earlier—to kill her brother, promising to take the blame.

Lecter rescues the wounded Starling and takes her to his rented house on the Chesapeake shore to treat her, subjecting her to a regimen of psychoactive drugs in the course of therapy sessions to help her heal from her childhood trauma and her pent-up anger at the injustices of the world. He considers whether his long-dead younger sister Mischa may somehow be able to live again through Starling. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where the guest and first course is Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this night, Starling refuses to let her personality be subsumed, telling Lecter that Mischa's memory can live within him. She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers.

Three years later, former orderly Barney, who had treated Lecter with respect while he was incarcerated in Baltimore, sees Lecter and Starling entering the Teatro Colón opera house in Buenos Aires. Fearing for his life, Barney leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to return. The reader then learns that Lecter and Starling are living together in an "exquisite" Beaux Arts mansion, where they employ servants and engage in activities such as learning new languages and dancing together and building their own respective memory palaces, and is told that "Sex is a splendid structure they add to every day", that the psychoactive drugs "have had no part in their lives for a long time", and that Lecter is "satisfied" with the fact that Mischa cannot return.

Hannibal Rising
Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, Hannibal Rising, after film producer Dino De Laurentiis (who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character) announced an intended film project depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer with or without Harris' help. Harris would also write the film's screenplay.

The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from his birth into a family of the Lithuanian nobility in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a Nazi Stuka bomber attacks a Soviet tank in front of their forest hideaway. Shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi collaborators, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that the collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains.

Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed and unable to speak. He is found and taken back to his family's old castle, which had been converted into a Soviet orphanage, where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean.

He is adopted by his uncle Robert and Robert's Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. Robert dies shortly after adopting Lecter, who forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. During this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age and distinguishing himself.

Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. He kills for the first time as a teenager, using a katana sword beheading a racist fishmonger who insulted Murasaki. He then methodically tracks down, tortures, and murders each of the men who had killed his sister. In the process of taking his revenge, he forsakes his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In film
Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter, although the spelling of Lecter's name was changed to "Lecktor". He was played by actor Brian Cox. Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel.

In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which Lecter was played by actor Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins' Academy Award-winning performance made Lecter into a cultural icon. In 2001, Hannibal was adapted to film, with Hopkins reprising his role. In the film adaptation, the ending is revised: Starling attempts to apprehend Lecter, who escapes after cutting off his own hand to free himself from her handcuffs. In 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this time under its original title, with Hopkins again as Lecter and Edward Norton as Will Graham. Hopkins wrote a screenplay for another sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter. In 2016, Hopkins said, "I made the mistake of doing two more [Hannibal Lecter movies] and I should have only done one."

In late 2006, the novel Hannibal Rising was adapted into a film, which portrayed Lecter's development into a serial killer. In the film, which was finished by 2007, eight-year-old Lecter is portrayed by Aaran Thomas, while Gaspard Ulliel portrays him as a young man. Both the novel and film, as well as Ulliel's performance as Lecter, received generally negative reviews. In an interview Hopkins stated that he was approached about a narrative role in the film but declined the offer.

In television
In February 2012, NBC gave a series order to Hannibal, a television adaptation of Red Dragon to be written and executive-produced by Bryan Fuller. Mads Mikkelsen plays Lecter, opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham. Fuller commented on Mikkelsen's version of Lecter,

"What I love about Mads' approach to the character is that, in our first meeting, he was adamant that he didn't want to do Hopkins or Cox. He talked about the character not so much as 'Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist', but as Satan – this fallen angel who's enamoured with mankind and had an affinity for who we are as people, but was definitely not among us – he was other. I thought that was a really cool, interesting approach, because I love science fiction and horror and – not that we'd ever do anything deliberately to suggest this – but having it subtextually play as him being Lucifer felt like a really interesting kink to the series. It was slightly different than anything that's been done before and it also gives it a slightly more epic quality if you watch the show through the prism of, 'This is Satan at work, tempting someone with the apple of their psyche'. It appealed to all of those genre things that get me excited about any sort of entertainment."

CBS later developed the television series Clarice, based on the character Clarice Starling (from the novels and films) after her graduation from the FBI academy, as a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs set in 1993, starring Rebecca Breeds as Starling. The show does not acknowledge or feature Hannibal Lecter due to complicated rights issues of franchise characters between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Dino de Laurentiis Company; it premiered in 2021.

In other media
Lecter is the subject of the 1998 song "Hannibal (Se) Lectah" by The Skalatones. Lecter is parodied in the 2005 musical Silence! The Musical, with the character being originated by actor Brent Barrett. Lecter was depicted by Epic Rap Battles of History in the episode "Jack the Ripper Vs. Hannibal Lecter", in which Lecter (Lloyd Ahlquist) raps against Jack the Ripper (Dan Bull). Lecter is often mentioned in songs by Detroit rapper Eminem such as "Medicine Ball" and "Underground". In the music video for "You Don't Know", he references Lecter by wearing the character's iconic straitjacket and muzzle, and making lip-licking noises.

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

title: Hannibal Lecter


text:
Schönbrunn

Schönbrunn may refer to:

 * Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria
 * Schönbrunn Station of the Vienna U-Bahn
 * Schönbrunn Zoo in Schönbrunn Palace gardens
 * Schönbrunn (Baden), a municipality in Rhein-Neckar, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
 * Schönbrunn (Fichtelgebirge), a village in the Fichtelgebirge mountains in Bavaria, Germany
 * Schönbrunn im Steigerwald, a municipality in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany
 * Schönbrunn, a district of Floß, Bavaria, Germany
 * Schönbrunn, the former German name of the Prussian town Jabłonów, now in Lubusz Voivodeship, in southwestern Poland.

title: Schönbrunn


text:
Rothamsted Research

Rothamsted Research, previously known as the Rothamsted Experimental Station and then the Institute of Arable Crops Research, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, having been founded in 1843. It is located at Harpenden in the English county of Hertfordshire and is a registered charity under English law.

Two of the station's best known and longest-running experiments are the Broadbalk Experiment, planted annually with winter wheat since 1843, and the Park Grass Experiment, a biological study that started in 1856 and has been continuously monitored ever since.

History
The Rothamsted Experimental Station was founded in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes, a noted Victorian era entrepreneur and scientist who had founded one of the first artificial fertilizer manufacturing factories in 1842, on his 16th-century estate, Rothamsted Manor, to investigate the impact of inorganic and organic fertilizers on crop yield.

Lawes had Henry King conduct studies on the application of bone dust to turnip fields between 1836 and 1838. In 1840 he hired Dobson, a chemist. He had experiments conducted with bone ash treated with sulphuric acid and various other mixtures. It is thought that the experiments were at least to some extent influenced by Justus von Liebig who had attended a meeting of the British Association at Liverpool in 1837. Lawes took out patents on manure mixtures and began a factory to manufacture them in 1843, the same year that Joseph Henry Gilbert replaced Dobson who had moved to Australia. Gilbert had trained under Liebig and with Lawes's support, he launched the first of a series of long-term field experiments, some of which still continue. Over 57 years, Lawes and Gilbert established the foundations of modern scientific agriculture and the principles of crop nutrition.

In 1902 Daniel Hall moved from Wye College to become director, taking a lower salary to join an establishment lacking money, staff, and direction. Hall decided that Rothamsted needed to specialise and was eventually successful in obtaining state support for agricultural research. In 1912 E. John Russell, who had come from Wye in 1907, took over as director until 1943, overseeing a major expansion in the 1920s, when Sir William Gammie Ogg took over until 1958 and increasing the number of staff from 140 to 471 and creating new biochemistry, nematology, and pedology departments. The site in Harpenden grew to cover 330 hectare. The current director and CEO is Professor Angela Karp.

Statistical science
Many distinguished scientists have been associated with Rothamsted. In 1919 Russell hired Ronald Fisher to investigate the possibility of analysing the vast amount of data accumulated from the "Classical Field Experiments." Fisher analysed the data and stayed to create the theory of experimental design, making Rothamsted a major centre for research in statistics and genetics. Among his appointments and successors in the Statistics department were Oscar Irwin, John Wishart, Frank Yates, William Cochran, Winifred Mackenzie and John Nelder. Indeed, many consider Rothamsted to be the most important birthplace of modern statistical theory and practice.

Partly through these methods, researchers at Rothamsted have made significant contributions to agricultural science, including the discovery and development of systemic herbicides and pyrethroid insecticides, as well as pioneering contributions to the fields of virology, nematology, soil science and pesticide resistance. During World War II, aiming to increase crop yields for a nation at war, a team under the leadership of Judah Hirsch Quastel developed 2,4-D, still the most widely used weed killer in the world.

Recent history
In 1987, Rothamsted, the Long Ashton Research Station, and Broom's Barn Experimental Station merged to form the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR). The Long Ashton Research Station was closed in 2002, with some of its staff moved to Rothamsted, whilst Broom's Barn is operated as an experimental farm for Rothamsted.

Rothamsted is now operated by a grouping of private organizations under the name of Rothamsted Research and is mainly funded by various branches of the UK government through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Rothamsted Research supports around 350 scientists (including 50 visiting scientists), 150 administrative staff and 60 PhD students.

As well as the Rothamsted site Rothamsted Research operates:
 * Broom's Barn, a 120 ha experimental farm near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, which is the UK's national centre for sugar beet research.
 * North Wyke, 250 ha of grassland near Okehampton, Devon. It provides a "Farm Platform" allowing research teams to conduct experiments on three 25 ha mini-farms. It was formerly part of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research.

Its research programme has five main areas:
 * Delivering Sustainable Wheat: a co-ordinated and collaborative initiative led by the John Innes Centre to address critical challenges in wheat health, yield, and production in order to safeguard the future of this vital crop.
 * Green Engineering: advancing and exploiting understanding of genetic intervention and metabolic regulation to deliver high value plant products and germplasm for health, nutrition, and a more sustainable future.
 * Resilient Farming Futures: combining primary and secondary data, in vivo and in silico experiments, and the development of data science and decision-making tools, to forearm the farming sector and additional stakeholders.
 * Growing Health: Towards healthier agro-ecosystems.
 * AgZero+: supporting the UK’s transition towards home-grown food production that is sustainable, carbon-neutral and has a positive effect on nature (led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology).

It also operates:
 * The Long Term Experiments and e-RA:The oldest continuing agricultural field experiments in the world. Seven of these Long-term Experiments (LTEs) continue today and provide an invaluable resource for scientists.The online e-RA brings the data from the classical and other long-term experiments into an accessible and useable database.
 * The Insect Survey: two national networks for monitoring insect populations in the UK.
 * PHI-base: a database of multiple pathogen-host interactions.

GM protest
In 2012 Rothamsted started testing genetically modified wheat which had been modified to produce an aphid alarm pheromone produced by aphids when under attack to help deter pests. This trial attracted criticism from anti-GM groups and "about 200" people attempted to occupy the site on 27 May 2012. They were prevented by a large police presence and the protest ended peacefully. However one protester did trespass and damage the crop. The protester was later arrested, tried and fined £4,000.

A video appeal by scientists at Rothamsted led to over 6,000 people signing a "Don't destroy research" petition organised by Sense about Science. Sense about Science also organised a question and answer session with scientists. The author Mark Lynas commented that Rothamsted's successful campaign may be a turning point for GMOs.

The results published in 2015 showed that the trial wheat variety was no better than standard wheat varieties in deterring pests.

Directors
Source:
 * John Bennet Lawes (1843-1900)
 * Alfred Daniel Hall (1902-1912)
 * E. John Russell (1912-1943)
 * William Gammie Ogg (1943-1958)
 * Frederick Charles Bawden (1958-1972)
 * Leslie Fowden (1973-1988)
 * Kenneth Treharne (1988-1989)
 * Trevor Lewis (1989-1993)
 * Benjamin J. Miflin (1994-1998)
 * Ian R. Crute (1999-2009)
 * Maurice Moloney (2010-2013)
 * Achim Dobermann (2014-2019)
 * Angela Karp (2020-Present)

Entomologists

 * Horace Francis Barnes
 * Colin Butler
 * Augustus Daniel Imms
 * Carrington Bonsor Williams
 * Kenneth Mellanby
 * Linda M Field

Environmental meteorologists

 * John Monteith
 * Howard Penman

Botanists

 * Winifred Brenchley
 * Mary Dilys Glynne (plant pathologist)
 * Frances Sheffield
 * Katherine Warington

Chemists and biochemists
Some of the chemists associated with Rothamsted can be found by searching Rothamsted on the Biographical Database of the British Chemical Community, 1880-1970.
 * George W. Cooke
 * Edward Mortimer Crowther
 * Michael Elliott
 * Joseph Henry Gilbert
 * Juda Hirsch Quastel
 * Norman Pirie
 * John A. Pickett
 * Robert Warington

Statisticians

 * Frank Anscombe
 * William Cochran
 * Ronald Fisher, statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist.
 * Michael Healy
 * Oscar Irwin
 * John Nelder
 * John Wishart
 * Robert Wedderburn
 * Frank Yates

Geologists and soil scientists

 * John Catt
 * Jackie Stroud

Librarians

 * Donald H. Boalch (1950-1962)

title: Rothamsted Research


text:
The Platters

The Platters are an American vocal group formed in 1952. They are one of the most successful vocal groups of the early rock and roll era. Their distinctive sound bridges the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the new burgeoning genre. The act has gone through multiple line-ups over the years, earning it the branding tag "Many Voices One Name", with the most successful incarnation comprising lead tenor Tony Williams, David Lynch, Paul Robi, founder and naming member Herb Reed, and Zola Taylor. The group had 40 charting singles on the  Billboard Hot 100 between 1955 and 1967, including four number-one hits. In 1990, the Platters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Platters continue to perform around the world with Herb Reed Enterprises (an LLC set up by Reed in response to numerous fake Platters groups) owning the rights and trademark to the name.

Band formation and early years
The Platters formed in Los Angeles in 1951 and were initially managed by Federal Records A&R man Ralph Bass. The original group consisted of teenagers Alex Hodge, his brother Gaynel, Curtis Williams, Joe Jefferson and Cornell Gunter. Ralph Bass replaced Cornell Gunter with Tony Williams, and Herb Reed joined the group in 1953 after his discharge from the Army in December 1952, as replacement for Joe Jefferson, Reed named the group while sitting around the kitchen table at the Hodge's home with the others in the group. He was inspired by Mrs. Hodge placing a plate of cookies on the kitchen table where the group was sitting trying to find a new name. Several 78 rpm records were lying on the table, and as she pushed them aside she said, "They look just like platters." Herb said, "That's it. We'll call outselves The Platters."

In June 1953, Gunter left to join The Flairs and was replaced by lead vocalist Tony Williams. The band then released two singles with Federal Records, under the management of Bass, but found little success. Bass then asked his friend, music entrepreneur, and songwriter Buck Ram, to coach the group in the hope of getting a hit record. Ram made some changes to the lineup, most notably the addition of female vocalist Zola Taylor and, in autumn 1954, the replacement of Alex Hodge by Paul Robi.

Under Ram's guidance, The Platters recorded eight songs for Federal in the R&B/gospel style, scoring a few minor regional hits on the West Coast, and backed Williams' sister, Linda Hayes. One song recorded during their Federal tenure, "Only You (And You Alone)", originally written by Ram for the Ink Spots, was deemed unreleasable by the label, though copies of this early version do exist.

Despite their lack of chart success, The Platters were a profitable touring group, successful enough that the Penguins, coming off their #8 single "Earth Angel", asked Ram to manage them as well. With the Penguins in hand, Ram was able to parlay Mercury Records' interest into a 2-for-1 deal. To sign the Penguins, Ram insisted, Mercury also had to take The Platters. The Penguins would never have a hit for the label.

Charting hits
Convinced by Jean Bennett and Tony Williams that "Only You" had potential, Ram had The Platters re-record the song during their first session for Mercury. Released in the summer of 1955, it became the group's first Top Ten hit on the pop charts and topped the R&B charts for seven weeks. The follow-up, "The Great Pretender", with lyrics written in the washroom of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas by Buck Ram, exceeded the success of their debut and became The Platters' first national #1 hit. "The Great Pretender" was also the act's biggest R&B hit, with an 11-week run atop that chart. In 1956, The Platters appeared in the first major motion picture based around rock and roll, Rock Around the Clock, and performed both "Only You" and "The Great Pretender".

The Platters' unique vocal style had touched a chord in the music-buying public. A string of hit singles followed, including three more national #1 hits and more modest chart successes such as "I'm Sorry" (#11) and "He's Mine" (#23) in 1957, "Enchanted" (#12) in 1959, and "(You've Got) The Magic Touch" (#4) in 1956. The Platters soon hit upon the successful formula of updating older standards, such as "My Prayer", "Twilight Time", "Harbor Lights", "To Each His Own", "If I Didn't Care", and Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". This latter release caused a small controversy after Kern's widow expressed concern that her late husband's composition would be turned into a "rock and roll" record. It topped both the American and British charts in the Platters-style arrangement.

The Platters differed from most other groups of the era because Ram had the group incorporated in 1956 as Five Platters, Inc (FPI). Each member of the group received a 20% share in the stock, full royalties, and their Social Security was paid. As group members left one by one, Ram and his business partner, Jean Bennett, bought their stock, which they claimed gave them ownership of the "Platters" name. A court later ruled, however, that "FPI was a sham used by Mr. Ram to obtain ownership in the name the 'Platters', and FPI's issuance of stock to the group members was "illegal and void because it violated California corporate securities law."

The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in its inaugural year of 1998. The Platters were the first rock and roll era group to have a Top Ten album in the United States. They were also the only act to have three songs included on the American Graffiti soundtrack that fueled an oldies revival already underway in the early to mid-1970s: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Great Pretender", and "Only You (and You Alone)". The group had four top 100 compilation albums in the Australian top 100 between 1975 and 1986.

Changing line-up
The line-up in 1952 included lead vocalist Cornell Gunter, Herb Reed, Alex Hodge, Joe Jefferson, and David Lynch. Soon, Gunter was replaced by tenor Tony Williams.

The band's second manager Ram decided to build the group around Williams's distinctive and versatile voice and his ability to bring life to Ram's songs. Within a year, Alex Hodge and Jefferson were also out and replaced by Paul Robi, and a woman, Zola Taylor. The details of baritone Hodge's departure are muddy; author Peter A. Grendysa says Ram fired Alex Hodge in October 1954 after having been accused of possession of marijuana. Bookers and the record company were told that Hodge was let go for bouncing a 15-dollar check. The resulting line-up, the one remembered for some of the group's timeless hits, lasted until 1960.

As a group, The Platters began to have difficulties with the public after 1959, when the four male members were arrested in Cincinnati on drug and prostitution charges. Although no one was convicted, their professional reputation was seriously damaged and US radio stations started removing their records from playlists, forcing the group to rely more heavily on European bookings.

In 1960, lead vocalist Williams left to pursue a solo career and was replaced by tenor Sonny Turner. Mercury refused to issue further Platters releases without Williams on lead vocals, provoking a lawsuit between the label and manager Ram. As a result, the label spent two years releasing old Williams-era material until the group's contract lapsed.

The group's line-up splintered further: in 1964 Taylor left and was consecutively replaced by Beverly Hansen Harris, Barbara Randolph and, in 1965, by Sandra Dawn. 1965 also saw the departure of Robi, who was replaced by Nate Nelson, former lead voice of the Flamingos. In 1967, baritone Bob White toured with group until 1971.

This splintering of the group's line-up led to wrangling over The Platters' name, with injunctions, non-compete clauses, and multiple versions of the act touring at the same time. Williams, Robi, and Taylor led their own Platters' groups and for a short while, Taylor, Robi, and Lynch joined forces as "The Original Platters" with Williams-clone Johnny Barnes as their lead singer.

To distinguish his group from the offshoots started by former members, Ram added his name to that of the group. The "Buck Ram Platters", built to showcase his songs, were signed to Musicor Records and enjoyed a short chart renaissance in 1966–67, with the comeback singles "I Love You 1000 Times", "With This Ring", and the Motown-influenced "Washed Ashore". Sonny Turner sang the lead on these three records, with Reed, Lynch, Nelson, and Dawn completing the group. Nelson left the group in 1967. Dawn, who left in 1969, was replaced by Regina Koco, who stayed with the group until 1983.

Also, in 1969, Reed, the final member of the original Platters, resigned from the group to start his own group, Herb Reed and Sweet River. After his group's demise, Reed performed under the name Herb Reed and The Platters. Nelson also worked with this group until suffering a fatal heart attack in 1984.

After Reed's departure, Ram illegally continued to promote his own Platters group. Turner left in 1970 and was replaced by Monroe Powell, who remained a constant member from 1970 to 1995, amid many other line-up changes. Tony Williams formed his version of The Platters in 1971 and announced a worldwide tour. In 1995, a dispute between Powell and manager Jean Bennett (who had purchased Personality Productions, the booking/management arm of the Platters' business, from Ram in 1966) led to the two parting ways. At the time, the group's line-up was in limbo, leaving one person, Kenn Johnson, as the only other group member. Powell and Johnson continued touring as "The Platters", with Bennett hiring five new singers to be the "Buck Ram Platters".

Despite Ram and Bennett's assertions, it was later determined that Five Platters Inc., and Jean Bennett never had legitimate rights to The Platters name.

Legal battles
A profusion of legal challenges ensued among the many groups of Platters. Those looking to hear the classic lineup of songs had their pick of approved, disputed, and substituted Platters, including Sonny Turner's, Zola Taylor's, Ritchie Jones' (member 1984–85), Milton Bullock's (member 1967–70), Paul Robi's (managed by his widow), Jean Bennett's "Buck Ram Platters", Monroe Powell's, Herb Reed's, and several other groups with no current ties to the original group. Many had once contained former members who were now retired or deceased.

Powell, who had been touring under the Platters' name, was sued by Bennett for breach of employment contract. Bennett and Powell later reached an agreement that Powell would be able to tour, but only as "The Platters featuring Monroe Powell". In 1994, Jean Bennett fraudulently used the name for a show at the Sahara Casino in Las Vegas; that show ran for 15 years.

Shortly before Robi succumbed to pancreatic cancer on February 1, 1989, he won a long court battle against Ram's estate and was awarded compensation and the right to use the Platters' name. Those rights were stripped from Robi's widow in 1997, and required her to destroy all Platters' promotional material, and the exclusive right to tour as "The Platters" was awarded to Reed. A series of rulings in 1999, 2002, and 2004 gave Bennett and The Five Platters, Inc,, the only entity who had used the name consistently since 1954, the common law right to the name. The 2002 case legally rescinded Reed's exclusive trademark rights, and the trademark was returned to the Five Platters, Inc. and Bennett.

In January 2006, Las Vegas based G.E.M. Group, Inc. presented Bennett with a contract to buy the assets of "the singing group The Platters." G.E.M. then took Personality Productions, Inc. (Bennett's separate management company) corporate records and files and attempted to take the company's phone numbers. There was an immediate disagreement between Bennett and G.E.M., which filed a lawsuit to attain certain corporate assets, Bennett's personal property and the assets of the 1950s"singing group The Platters." The case was dismissed for lack of action on G.E.M.s part. In June 2006, G.E.M. entered into an agreement with Sonny Turner, who'd been the lead singer of the Platters from 1960 to 1970. Turner had not been able to bill himself as "The Platters" since 1972 due to a legal injunction. However, Turner later sued G.E.M.

In 2007, Reed discussed the abundance of touring Platters groups: "I have to laugh because when you ask me how I feel about it, I'm irate, I'm infuriated. ... I've lost 25 weeks of work a year."

Herb Reed died in June 2012 at 83. Reed was the only group member to appear on every original Platters recording through 1969. Sonny Turner, who replaced Tony Williams in late 1959, performed as Sonny Turner, former lead singer of The Platters. Sonny brought The Platters back to the charts in 1966 with the hits, "I Love You 1000 Times", "With This Ring", and "Washed Ashore". He died on January 13, 2022.

In 2011, Herb Reed and his companies obtained judgments declaring that his rights to the name were superior to all others, including Five Platters Inc. and Jean Bennett. In March 2014, although Reed had passed away in 2012, Herb Reed's companies were granted a judgment finding they had superior rights to the name "The Platters" over Larry Marshak and his companies, who claimed to have received rights through FPI and/or Tony Williams In April 2014, Reed's company obtained a judgment against the World Famous Platters requiring them to identify themselves as a "Tribute to the Platters" or a "Salute to the Platters".

In June 2014, Herb Reed's companies obtained a judgment against former singer Monroe Powell for trademark infringement. The Nevada district court granted Reed summary judgment, awarding him over $59,000 in damages (from US and international tour performances) and permanent injunctive relief, preventing Powell from using the "Platters" name without using the words "tribute" or "salute".

In 2016, Herb Reed Enterprises LLC was awarded a trademark from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the exclusive use of the Platters name. Reed's legacy is maintained by Frederick J. Balboni Jr., Reed's manager, veteran broadcast journalist, music promoter, and the owner of Massachusetts-based Balboni Communications Group LLC and Herb Reed Enterprises LLC.

Original lineup (1952-1953)

 * Cornell Gunter
 * Alex Hodge
 * Herb Reed
 * Curtis Williams
 * Joe Jefferson

Federal lineup (1953–1954)

 * Tony Williams Lead singer
 * Alex Hodge
 * Herb Reed
 * David Lynch
 * Zola Taylor

Mercury Classic lineup (1955–1959)

 * Tony Williams Lead singer
 * Herb Reed
 * David Lynch
 * Paul Robi
 * Zola Taylor

Mercury lineup (1959–1965)

 * Sonny Turner Lead singer
 * Herb Reed
 * Paul Robi
 * Zola Taylor
 * David Lynch
 * Barbara Randolph

Musicor lineup (1966–1970)

 * Sonny Turner Lead singer
 * Herb Reed
 * Paul Robi
 * David Lynch
 * Nate Nelson
 * Sandra Dawn
 * Bob White

Official lineup

 * Lance Bernard Bryant
 * Jovian Ford
 * Candace C. Culcleasure
 * Omar Ross
 * Omar Ross

title: The Platters


text:
Talk:The Platters

Untitled
Is that the same "Only You" as in the list of cover versions? If so, it should be corrected there I think. KF 19:48 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Serious Overhaul
This article was a real mess. I can't believe somebody hadn't done something with it, so I did. Be bold, people! 66.168.219.210 05:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations & References
See Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the  tags Nhl4hamilton (talk) 04:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

A First
I think this was the first #1 (Pop) hit by a black artist in the rock'n'roll era. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.60.105 (talk) 10:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

david lynch
the david lynch link leads to the wrong david lynch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.233.79.39 (talk) 18:06, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Replacement image needed for infobox
I'm going to look around for some other images. This band was served delicious ballads by Buck Ram (a great songwriter) - "Twilight Time" or "You'll Never Know" (torch songs at their best) are great 50s songs.

I like this group so when I get a chance I'll come back and work on this article.

Sluffs (talk) 15:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I've replaced the image and moved previous image down the article. I'll rewrite the opening as well as highlight the wonderful Buck Ram songs. Not Tin Pan Alley so much - more a continuation of Torch Songs from 1920s musical stage shows (no TV then so musical theater was the thing to do and sheet music spread the songs countrywide though Platters obviously belong in the period or television and radio they were essentially a continuation (or summation) of all that had gone before on stage)

Sluffs (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Broken links in infobox
The links for Members and Past members don't work. Unable to correct. Sorry. RaqiwasSushi (talk) 12:24, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:22, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The Platters performing.jpg

Gaynel Hodge
In response to these edits, details of Gaynel Hodge's involvement in the formation of the Platters are set out here, here, here, here, etc. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Discography section
Someone has made a editing mistake, causing the Discography section being hidden. I am not skilled to correct this. Anyone else: please do. 109.37.128.90 (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It looks OK to me... Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:35, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Merge Tony Williams (singer)?
The article for Tony Williams should probably be merged into this one. 162 etc. (talk) 21:04, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

 * Oppose. There are sufficient sources for a freestanding article - such as this, this, this - and he also had a solo career (admittedly, less successfully).  As the singer of iconic songs such as "Only You" and "The Great Pretender", he deserves a separate article.  Obviously, the existing article needs to be developed.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)  PS: ... which I've now started to do.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Well-known enough (IMO) and with coverage, outside of his work with The Platters for a standalone article to exist. Eagleash (talk) 21:07, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Closing, given the consensus not to merge. Klbrain (talk) 08:30, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Bob White is missing from the members list
Your article has left out a member of the Platters named Bob White. I know this to be true because Bob White was my father and I remember him being a member of the group. Please follow this link to his memoir where he talks about Buck Ram, Zola, Paul Robi and other members of the band. How he joined the band and traveled with the group. The book also provides several pictures of him performing with the band and in several promotional photos. Please add Bob White to your page. Alanastribling (talk) 21:03, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:The Platters


text:
The Fronde

The Fronde were a series of civil wars in the Kingdom of France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The government of the young King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the noble regional court assemblies (parlements), as well as much of the French population, and managed to subdue them all. The dispute started when the government of France issued seven fiscal edicts, six of which were to increase taxation. The parlements resisted, questioned the constitutionality of the king's actions, and sought to check his powers.

The Fronde was divided into two campaigns, the Parlementary Fronde and the Fronde of the Princes. The timing of the outbreak of the Parlementary Fronde, directly after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) that ended the Thirty Years' War, was significant. The nuclei of the armed bands that terrorized parts of France under aristocratic leaders during that period had been hardened in a generation of war in Germany, where troops still tended to operate autonomously. Louis XIV, impressed as a young ruler with the experience of the Fronde, came to reorganize French fighting forces under a stricter hierarchy, whose leaders ultimately could be made or unmade by the king. Cardinal Mazarin blundered into the crisis but came out well ahead at the end. The Fronde represented the final attempt of the French nobility to confront the king, and ended in its humiliation. In the long run, the Fronde served to strengthen royal authority, but weakened the national economy. The Fronde facilitated the emergence of absolute monarchy.

The Spanish Empire promoted the Fronde to the point that without its support, it would have had a more limited character; it benefited from the internal upheaval in France, as it contributed to the Spanish military's renewed success in its war against the French between 1647 and 1653, so much so that the year 1652 could be considered a Spanish annus mirabilis. However, following the end of the Fronde and an English intervention on the side of France, the course of the war largely changed in France's favour, and it ultimately achieved some territorial gains in the Peace of the Pyrenees.

Name
The French word fronde means "sling"; Parisian crowds used slings to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin. Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, attributes the usage to a witticism in Book II of his Memoirs: "Bachaumont once said, in jest, that the Parlement acted like the schoolboys in the Paris ditches, who fling stones [frondent, that is, fling using slings], and run away when they see the constable, but meet again as soon as he turns his back." He goes on to state that emblems based on that nickname became quite popular and were placed on hats, fans and gloves and even were baked onto bread.

Origins
The insurrection did not start with revolutionary goals but aimed to protect the ancient liberties from royal encroachments and to defend the established rights of the parlements – courts of appeal rather than legislative bodies like the English parliaments – and especially the right of the Parlement of Paris to limit the king's power by refusing to register decrees that ran against custom. The liberties under attack were feudal, not of individuals but of chartered towns, where they defended the prerogatives accorded to offices in the legal patchwork of local interests and provincial identities that was France. The Fronde in the end provided an incentive for the establishment of royalist absolutism, since the disorders eventually discredited the feudal concept of liberty.

The pressure that saw the traditional liberties under threat came in the form of extended and increased taxes as the Crown needed to recover from its expenditures in the recent wars. The costs of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) constrained Mazarin's government to raise funds by traditional means, the impôts, the taille, and the occasional aides. The nobility refused to be so taxed, based on their old liberties, or privileges, and the brunt fell upon the bourgeoisie.

The movement soon degenerated into factions, some of which attempted to overthrow Mazarin and to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu (in office 1624–1642), who had taken power for the crown from great territorial nobles, some of whom became leaders of the Fronde. When Louis XIV became king in 1643, he was only a child, so France was ruled by Anne of Austria and though Richelieu had died the year before, his policies continued to dominate French life under his successor Cardinal Mazarin. Most historians consider that Louis's later insistence on absolutist rule and depriving the nobility of actual power was a result of those events in his childhood. The term frondeur was later used to refer to anyone who suggested that the power of the king should be limited and has now passed into conservative French usage to refer to anyone who shows insubordination or engages in criticism of the powers in place.

First Fronde, the Parlementary Fronde (1648–1649)
In May 1648 a tax levied on judicial officers of the Parlement of Paris provoked not merely a refusal to pay but also a condemnation of earlier financial edicts and a demand for the acceptance of a scheme of constitutional reforms framed by a united committee of the parlement (the Chambre Saint-Louis), composed of members of all the sovereign courts of Paris.

The military record of the Parlementary Fronde is almost blank. In August 1648, feeling strengthened by the news of Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé's victory at Lens (20 August 1648), Mazarin suddenly arrested the leaders of the parlement, whereupon Paris broke into insurrection and barricaded the streets.

The noble faction demanded the calling of an assembly of the Estates General, which had last been convoked in 1615. The nobles believed that in the Estates-General, they could continue to control the bourgeois element, as they had in the past.

The royal faction, having no army at its immediate disposal, had to release the prisoners and to promise reforms; on the night of 22 October, it fled from Paris. However France's signing of the Peace of Westphalia (Treaty of Münster, 24 October 1648) allowed the French army to return from the frontiers, and by January 1649, Condé had put Paris under siege. The two warring parties signed the Peace of Rueil (11 March 1649) after little blood had been shed. The Parisians, though still and always anti-cardinalist, had refused to ask for Spanish aid, as proposed by their princely and noble adherents under Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti, and having no prospect of military success without such aid, the noble party submitted to the government and received concessions.

Second Fronde, the Fronde of the Princes (1650–1653)
From then on the Fronde became a story of intrigues, half-hearted warfare in a scramble for power and control of patronage, losing all trace of its first constitutional phase. The leaders were discontented princes and nobles: Gaston, Duke of Orleans (the king's uncle); the great Louis II, Prince de Condé and his brother Armand, Prince of Conti; Frédéric, Duke of Bouillon, and his brother Henri, Viscount of Turenne. To those must be added Gaston's daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier (La grande Mademoiselle); Condé's sister, Madame de Longueville; Madame de Chevreuse; and the astute intriguer Jean François Paul de Gondi, the future Cardinal de Retz. The military operations fell into the hands of war-experienced mercenaries, led by two great, and many lesser, generals.

January 1650 – December 1651
The peace of Rueil lasted until the end of 1649. The princes, received at court once more, renewed their intrigues against Mazarin. On 14 January 1650, Cardinal Mazarin, having come to an understanding with Monsieur Gondi and Madame de Chevreuse, suddenly arrested Condé, Conti, and Longueville. This time, it was Turenne, before and afterwards the most loyal soldier of his day, who headed the armed rebellion. Listening to the promptings of Madame de Longueville, he resolved to rescue her brothers, particularly Condé, his old comrade in the battles of Freiburg and Nördlingen.

Turenne hoped to do that with Spanish assistance; a powerful Spanish army assembled in Artois under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands, but peasants of the countryside rose against the invaders; the royal army in Champagne was in the capable hands of César de Choiseul, comte du Plessis-Praslin, who counted 52 years of age and 36 of war experience; and the little fortress of Guise successfully resisted the archduke's attack.

At that point Mazarin drew upon Plessis-Praslin's army for reinforcements to be sent to subdue the rebellion in the south forcing the royal general to retire. Then Archduke Leopold Wilhelm decided that he had spent enough of King Philip IV of Spain's money and men in the French quarrel. His regular army withdrew into winter quarters, and left Turenne to deliver the princes with a motley host of Frondeurs and Lorrainers. Plessis-Praslin by force and bribery secured the surrender of Rethel on 13 December 1650 and Turenne, who had advanced to relieve the place, fell back hurriedly. But he was a terrible opponent, and Plessis-Praslin and Mazarin himself, who accompanied the army, had many misgivings as to the result of a lost battle. The marshal chose nevertheless to force Turenne to a decision, and the Battle of Blanc-Champ (near Sommepy-Tahure) or Rethel was the consequence.

Both sides were at a standstill in strong positions, Plessis-Praslin doubtful of the trustworthiness of his cavalry, but Turenne was too weak to attack, when a dispute for precedence arose between the French Guards Regiment and the Picardie regiment. The royal infantry had to be rearranged in order of regimental seniority, and Turenne, seeing and desiring to profit by the attendant disorder, came out of his stronghold and attacked with the greatest vigour. The battle (15 December 1650) was severe and for a time doubtful, but Turenne's Frondeurs gave way in the end, and his army, as an army, ceased to exist. Turenne himself, undeceived as to the part he was playing in the drama, asked and received the young king's pardon, and meantime the court, with the maison du roi and other loyal troops, had subdued the minor risings without difficulty (March–April 1651).

Condé, Conti, and Longueville were released, and by April 1651 the rebellion had everywhere collapsed. Then followed a few months of hollow peace and the court returned to Paris. Mazarin, an object of hatred to all the princes, had already retired into exile. His absence left the field free for mutual jealousies, and for the remainder of the year anarchy reigned in France.

December 1651 – February 1653
In December 1651, Cardinal Mazarin returned to France with a small army. The war began again, and this time, Turenne and Condé were pitted against each other.

After that campaign, the civil war ceased, but in the several other campaigns of the Franco-Spanish War that followed, the two great soldiers were opposed to one another, Turenne as the defender of France, Condé as a Spanish invader.

The début of the new Frondeurs took place in Guyenne (February–March 1652), while their Spanish ally, the archduke Leopold Wilhelm, captured various northern fortresses. On the Loire, where the centre of gravity was soon transferred, the Frondeurs were commanded by intriguers and quarrelsome lords, until Condé's arrival from Guyenne. His bold leadership made itself felt in the Bléneau (7 April 1652) in which a portion of the royal army was destroyed, but fresh troops came up to oppose him. From the skillful dispositions made by his opponents, Condé felt the presence of Turenne and broke off the action. The royal army did likewise. Condé invited the commander of Turenne's rearguard to supper, chaffed him unmercifully for allowing the prince's men to surprise him in the morning, and by way of farewell remarked to his guest, "Quel dommage que de braves gens comme nous se coupent la gorge pour un faquin" ("It's too bad decent people like us are cutting our throats for a scoundrel")—an incident and a remark that displayed the feudal arrogance which ironically led to the iron-handed absolutism of Louis XIV.

After Bléneau, both armies marched to Paris to negotiate with the parlement, de Retz and Mlle de Montpensier, while the archduke took more fortresses in Flanders, and Charles, duke of Lorraine, with an army of plundering mercenaries, marched through Champagne to join Condé. As to the latter, Turenne maneuvered past Condé and planted himself in front of the mercenaries, and their leader, not wishing to expend his men against the old French regiments, consented to depart with a money payment and the promise of two tiny Lorraine fortresses.

A few more manœuvers, and the royal army was able to hem in the Frondeurs in the Faubourg St. Antoine (2 July 1652) with their backs to the closed gates of Paris. The royalists attacked all along the line and won a signal victory in spite of the knightly prowess of the prince and his great lords, but at the critical moment Gaston's daughter persuaded the Parisians to open the gates and to admit Condé's army. She herself turned the guns of the Bastille on the pursuers. An insurrectionist government appeared in Paris and proclaimed Monsieur lieutenant-general of the realm. Mazarin, feeling that public opinion was solidly against him, left France again, and the bourgeois of Paris, quarreling with the princes, permitted the king to enter the city on 21 October 1652. Mazarin returned unopposed in February 1653.

Spanish Fronde

The Fronde as a civil war was now over. On a large scale, the disgusted with the princes, came to look to the king's party as the party of order and settled government, and thus the Fronde prepared the way for the absolutism of Louis XIV. The Franco-Spanish war continued in Flanders, Catalonia, and Italy wherever a Spanish and a French garrison were face to face, and Condé, with the remnant of his army, openly and defiantly entered the service of the king of Spain. The "Spanish Fronde" was almost purely a question of thr war.

In 1653, France was so exhausted that neither invaders nor defenders were able to gather supplies to enable them to take the field until July. At one moment, near Péronne, Condé had Turenne at a serious disadvantage but could not galvanize Spanish General Count Fuensaldaña, who was more solicitous to preserve his master's soldiers than to establish Condé as mayor of the palace to the king of France and the armies drew apart again without fighting. In 1654 the principal incident was the siege and relief of Arras. On the night of 24/25 August the lines of circumvallation drawn round that place by the prince were brilliantly stormed by Turenne's army and Condé won equal credit for his safe withdrawal of the besieging corps under cover of a series of bold cavalry charges led by himself as usual, sword in hand.

In 1655, Turenne captured the fortresses of Landrecies, Condé and St Ghislain. In 1656 the prince of Condé avenged the defeat of Arras by storming Turenne's circumvallation around Valenciennes (16 July) but Turenne drew off his forces in good order. The campaign of 1657 was uneventful and is only to be remembered because a body of 6,000 English infantry, sent by Oliver Cromwell in pursuance of his treaty of alliance with Mazarin, took part in it. The presence of the English contingent and its purpose of making Dunkirk a new Calais, to be held by England forever, gave the next campaign a character of certainty and decision which was entirely wanting in the rest of the war.

Dunkirk was besieged promptly in great force and when Don Juan of Austria and Condé appeared with the relieving army from Fumes, Turenne advanced boldly to meet them. The Battle of the Dunes, fought on 14 June 1658, was the first real trial of strength since the battle of the Faubourg St Antoine. Successes on one wing were compromised by failure on the other but in the end Condé drew off with many losses, the success of his cavalry charges having entirely failed to make good the defeat of the Spanish right wing among the dunes.

Here the "red-coats" made their first appearance on a continental battlefield, under the leadership of Sir William Lockhart, Cromwell's ambassador at Paris. They astonished both armies by the stubborn fierceness of their assaults. Dunkirk fell and was handed over to the English Protectorate, as promised, flying the St George's Cross until Charles II sold it to Louis XIV in 1662.

A last desultory campaign followed in 1659—the twenty-fifth year of a conflict between France and Spain which had begun during the Thirty Years' War—and the peace of the Pyrenees was signed on 5 November. On 27 January 1660 the prince asked and obtained at Aix-en-Provence the forgiveness of Louis XIV. The later careers of Turenne and Condé were as obedient subjects of their sovereign.

In French

 * Amable Guillaume Prosper Brugière, baron de Barante, ''Le Parlement de Paris et vie de M. Molé (Paris, 1859)
 * Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz
 * Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin (Paris, 1878–1906)
 * Louis Madelin, La Fronde (Paris: Flammarion, 1931)

title: The Fronde


text:
Mongolian

Mongolian may refer to:

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 * Mongolian idiocy, now more commonly referred to as Down syndrome

title: Mongolian


text:
LaVern Baker

Delores LaVern Baker (born Delores Evans; November 11, 1929 – March 10, 1997) was an American rhythm and blues singer who had several hit records on the pop charts in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were "Tweedle Dee" (1955), "Jim Dandy" (1956), and "I Cried a Tear" (1958).

Baker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. The Hall remarked that her "fiery fusion of blues, jazz and R&B showcased her alluring vocals and set the stage for the rock and roll surge of the Fifties". From 1955 to 1965, 20 of her songs made the R&B charts. Over the years, Elvis Presley recorded eight Baker songs.

Early life
Born in Chicago as Delores Evans, she was raised in nearby Calumet City. Under her mother's new surname, McMurley, Delores – on December 23, 1948, at age, in Cook County, Illinois – married Eugene Williams.

Career
Baker began singing in Chicago clubs such as the Club DeLisa in 1946, often billed as Little Miss Sharecropper, and first recorded under that name in 1949, leading to a recording deal with that title for National Records in 1951, shortly before it folded. She changed her name briefly to Bea Baker when recording for Okeh Records in 1951, switched to Delores Baker, and then was billed as LaVern Baker when she sang with Todd Rhodes and his band in 1952.

In 1953, she signed with Atlantic Records as a solo artist, her first release being "Soul on Fire". Her first hit came in early 1955, with the Latin-tempo "Tweedle Dee", which reached number 4 on the R&B chart and number 14 on the national US pop chart. It sold over one million copies. Georgia Gibbs recorded a note-for-note cover of the song, which reached number 1; subsequently Baker made an unsuccessful attempt to sue her for $250,000 and petitioned Congress to consider such covers copyright violations,  citing Gibbs and Vickie Young as copying her arrangement and vocal style. Her request spurred Charles Diggs to lead a Congressional investigation into song theft.

In 1955, Baker was the second most-played female artist in the United States after Etta James and she had a succession of hits on the R&B charts over the next couple of years with her backing group, the Gliders, including "Bop-Ting-a-Ling" (number 3 R&B), "Play It Fair" (number 2 R&B), and "Still" (number 4 R&B). She experienced success with both pop and R&B artists and she was one of the key musicians creating cross-over success for R&B. At the end of 1956, she had another hit with "Jim Dandy" (number 1 R&B, number 17 pop), which sold over one million copies and was certified as a gold disc. More hits followed for Atlantic, including the follow-up "Jim Dandy Got Married" (number 7 R&B), "I Cried a Tear" (number 2 R&B, number 6 pop in 1958, with sax by King Curtis), "I Waited Too Long" (number 5 R&B, number 3 pop, written by Neil Sedaka), "Saved" (number 17 R&B, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller), and "See See Rider" (number 9 R&B in 1963). In 1958, she was one of the best-selling artists for Atlantic, on a short list of musicians who never sold less than 50,000 units and by 1961, she had three million-selling singles: "I Cried a Tear", "Tweedle Dee", and "Jim Dandy". In addition to singing, she did some work with Ed Sullivan and Alan Freed on TV and in films, including Rock, Rock, Rock and Mr. Rock & Roll. In 1964, she recorded the Bessie Smith tribute album LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith. She then left Atlantic for Brunswick Records, for which she recorded the album Let Me Belong to You.

Baker toured Australia in 1957 as part of Lee Gordon's Big Show, performing with a number of rock 'n' roll bands including Bill Haley and the Comets. She also toured the West Indies, raising her international profile and becoming one of the most popular musicians in Jamaica.

In 1966, Baker recorded "Think Twice", a duet single with Jackie Wilson. The controversial song featured raunchy lyrics considered inappropriate for airplay at that time or even today. Three versions were recorded, one of which is the version with the raunchy lyrics.

After divorcing Eugene Williams in the fall of 1958, Baker married the comedian Slappy White February 19, 1959, in Baltimore. After the couple divorced in 1969, Baker signed on for a USO tour. She became seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia after a trip to Vietnam. While recovering at the U.S. naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, a friend recommended that she stay as the entertainment director at the Marine Corps Staff NCO club there. She remained there for 22 years, returning to the United States after the base was closed in 1991.

In 1988, she performed at Madison Square Garden for Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary. She then worked on the soundtracks of the films Shag (1989), Dick Tracy (1990) and A Rage in Harlem (1991), all of which were issued on CD. She performed a song for Alan Parker's film Angel Heart (1987), which appeared on the original vinyl soundtrack album but was not included on the later CD issue for contractual reasons.

In 1990, she made her Broadway debut, replacing Ruth Brown as the star of the hit musical Black and Blue at Brown's suggestion. In 1991, Rhino Records released the album Live in Hollywood, recorded at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill as well as Soul on Fire, a compilation of her Atlantic hits. In 1992, she recorded the album Woke Up This Morning for DRG Records. She continued performing after both legs were amputated because of complications due to diabetes in 1994. Baker made "Jump into the Fire," her last recording, for the 1995 Harry Nilsson tribute CD For the Love of Harry on the Music Masters label. She continued to perform live after the loss of her legs and in ailing health, she sang at a benefit concert honoring her in late 1996 that helped pay for her recent medical bills.

In 1990, Baker was among the first group of eight recipients of the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 1991, she became the second female solo artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following Aretha Franklin in 1987. Her song "Jim Dandy" was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll and was ranked number 343 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2020, Baker was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame

Death
Baker died of cardiovascular disease on March 10, 1997, at the age of 67. She was buried in an unmarked plot in Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens, New York. Local historians raised funds for a headstone, which was erected on May 4, 2008.

Albums

 * LaVern (1956)
 * LaVern Baker (1957)
 * LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith (1958)
 * Precious Memories: LaVern Baker Sings Gospel (1959)
 * Blues Ballads (1959)
 * Saved (1961)
 * Richard Rodgers’ No Strings. An After‐Theatre Version (1962, with Chris Connor, Herbie Mann, and Bobby Short)
 * See See Rider (1963)
 * Let Me Belong to You (1970)
 * Side A
 * "Pledging My Love"
 * "Let Me Belong to You"
 * "I'm the One to Do It"
 * "Baby"
 * "Born to Lose"
 * Side B
 * "Call Me Darling"
 * "Love Is Ending"
 * "Baby Don't You Do It"
 * "I Need You So"
 * "Play It Fair"
 * Woke Up This Mornin' (1992)

title: LaVern Baker