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Sue Barker

Susan Barker (born 19 April 1956) is a British former television presenter and professional tennis player. During her playing career, Barker won 15 WTA Tour singles titles, including a major singles title at the 1976 French Open. She reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 3.

Barker started working for the BBC as a tennis presenter in 1993, and the following year began to present coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships; she stepped down from this role after the 2022 Wimbledon Championships. Barker is a former presenter of A Question of Sport.

Early life
Barker was born on 19 April 1956 and raised in Paignton, Devon, and educated at a convent school. In 1966, aged 10, she was picked out as the second of two girls who were to receive tennis coaching from Arthur Roberts, who had coached Angela Mortimer to three Grand Slam titles.

Roberts continued coaching her beyond the selection prize commitment, charging only £1/session to allow her development to continue. Barker's forehand was her strongest and most admired weapon throughout her career, with Roberts describing it as "especially potent".

Advised as a teenager by a visiting LTA coach to change her forehand, Roberts told her not to and he later resigned from the LTA Coaches Association in protest at the advice. Roberts later entered Barker into tournaments on the continent, providing her with a one-way ticket there and telling her to "earn your ticket home". Roberts remained Barker's mentor throughout her career.

Tennis career
Aged 16, and ranked 21st in the WTA rankings, Barker was advised by Roberts to move to the United States for her development. Signed by Mark McCormack's International Management Group (IMG) on her 17th birthday, she moved to an IMG-provided townhouse in Newport Beach, California, where her neighbours included the newly retired Rod Laver, and was coached at the John Wayne Tennis Club.

In 1973 and 1974 she won the Exmouth Open at Exmouth, Devon, on both occasions against Annette Coe. In 1975, Barker won her first top-level singles title and three additional titles. Barker reached her first Grand Slam semi-final in 1975 at the Australian Open. She won the German Open in 1976, beating Renáta Tomanová of Czechoslovakia in the final 6–3, 6–1.

Later in 1976, Barker had the biggest victory of her career by winning the French Open at the age of 20, again defeating Tomanová in the final. After her French Open victory against Tomanová, Barker felt that it would be the first of a number of Grand Slam titles that she would win, but she would not reach another Grand Slam final in her career.

In 1977 Barker won two singles titles in San Francisco and Dallas. She beat Martina Navratilova to reach the Virginia Slims Tour Championships final, where she lost in three sets to Chris Evert. Barker reached the Australian Open semi-final for the second time in 1977 and reached the Wimbledon semi-final that year. She looked set to meet Virginia Wade in the Wimbledon final in 1977, but unexpectedly lost her semi-final against Betty Stöve of the Netherlands.

Years later, Barker said that losing to Stöve was the biggest disappointment of her career and admitted that she was so upset at losing in the 1977 Wimbledon semi-final that she could not bear to watch the final, which was won by Wade.

After an injury-plagued 1978 during which her ranking dropped to World No. 24, she won three singles titles and reached three other finals in 1979. She was named the tour's "Comeback Player of the Year" by her fellow professionals. Barker reached one final in 1980 and won the last singles title of her career at the Brighton International in 1981, finishing the year ranked World No. 16. She won her last doubles title in 1982 at Cincinnati and played her last professional match in 1984.

Barker won 15 singles titles and 12 doubles titles, with wins over Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong, Tracy Austin, Virginia Wade, Maria Bueno, Rosemary Casals, Andrea Jaeger and Pam Shriver. In 2004, recalling her French Open win of 1976, Barker said "I'm still incredibly proud of what I achieved."

Performance timelines

 * " * " – Barker received a bye in the first round.
 * " ^ " – Barker withdrew prior to the match, which is not counted as a loss.

Broadcasting career
After retiring as a tennis player, Barker became a commentator and sports reporter for Australia's Channel 7 in 1985 before anchoring tennis coverage for British Sky Broadcasting from 1990 to 1993. In 1993, Barker joined the BBC and hosted its Wimbledon coverage as a regular guest on Today at Wimbledon with Harry Carpenter. She took over as host of Today at Wimbledon in 1994, and from 2000 until 2022, she anchored the two-week-long broadcast for the network.

Barker has branched out since joining the BBC, becoming one of their chief sports presenters. She was one of the presenters of Grandstand and the presenter of the long-running sports quiz show A Question of Sport (QoS) since 1997, having succeeded David Coleman. She retired as QoS presenter following the BBC's decision to revamp the show, having recorded her last episode in September 2020. She was a host of the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony from 1994 to 2012 before stepping down in 2013.

Barker has hosted BBC Sport's coverage of the Australian Open, the French Open, Queens Club Championships, Eastbourne, the Davis Cup, the ATP World Tour Finals and Wimbledon.

Other sporting events she has hosted have included the Grand National (2000–2007), the Derby (2001–2007), Racing at Ascot and Longchamp (1995–1999), Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury, the Great North Run, World Athletics Championships and European Athletics Championships (1999–2009), BBC Sports Personality of the Year (1994–2012), Commonwealth Games (1994–2010), Summer Olympics (1996–2012) and Winter Olympics (1994–2010).

Barker provided commentary for the 1998 video game Actua Tennis, along with fellow BBC broadcaster Barry Davies.

In June 1999, she co-presented coverage of Prince Edward's wedding to Sophie Rhys-Jones at Windsor alongside Michael Buerk. Barker had introduced Rhys-Jones to Queen Elizabeth II's youngest son at a charity function a few years earlier.

In 2008, Barker and the BBC extended her contract to cover the London 2012 Summer Olympics. It was estimated to be worth £375,000 a year.

In July 2012, the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK received over 40 complaints for a Go Compare advert featuring Barker who was shown firing a large rocket launcher at opera singer Gio Compario (Wynne Evans) in an attempt to kill off the face of the brand. A spokesperson for the ASA said: "Some people think it offensive especially at a time when children are watching. Others think it inappropriate when our security forces are coming under fire on a daily basis. As with all complaints, we are looking into the matter before deciding if we launch a full investigation."

Barker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to sport and broadcasting, Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting and charity and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and charity.

In September 2020, it was announced that Barker would step down from her role as host of BBC game show A Question of Sport after 24 years; she stated that she was "sad to say goodbye". On 9 June 2022, Barker announced she would be stepping down from BBC coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championship after the 2022 finals, which she had covered since 1993.

Barker has since stated that she was dismissed from the show rather than leaving by choice. She alleges that she was asked to put her name to an untrue pre-prepared statement claiming she left of her own accord when this was not the case. Barker accepted the BBC's decision to replace her, which she claimed was because they wished to "refresh" the show. However, she criticised the BBC's handling of the matter, describing this as "insulting" and saying that she felt "slightly damaged" by the experience.

Personal life
At 17 years of age, Barker moved to California. In 1978, she broke off an engagement with Australian tennis player Syd Ball. In an interview the following year, she said: "I realised that Syd wasn't the answer. Underneath, I wasn't happy and I certainly wasn't ready for marriage. I wasn't fair to him or myself." After her engagement was broken off, she had a brief relationship with golfer Greg Norman.

In 1980, Barker was temporarily blinded in her right eye after a large dog in Spain jumped up and bit her. She lost the sight in her eye for five hours and feared that the dog attack would force her to stop playing tennis, which she said "broke her heart".

In 1982, Barker met singer Cliff Richard. Their four-month-long romance attracted considerable media attention after Richard flew to Denmark to watch her play in a tennis match and they were photographed cuddling and holding hands at Wimbledon. In 1988, Richard said of his former romance with Barker: "We were closer than just friends. She's the only person with whom I've had that sort of relationship." He said that one of the things which made up his mind not to marry her was when she got upset because he hadn't told her who he was seeing that day. Richard said: "I suddenly realised that in a marriage you don't live for yourself." Richard said in 2008 that he had come close to asking her to marry him. He said: "I seriously contemplated asking her to marry me, but in the end I realised that I didn't love her quite enough to commit the rest of my life to her."

In 1986 some time after Barker's romance with Richard had ended and she began a brief relationship with tennis player Stephen Shaw, Richard said that he was still a friend of Barker. He said: "We have a mutual respect for each other and that means a lot to me."

In 1988, Barker married landscape gardener and former policeman Lance Tankard. They live in the Cotswolds village of Stanton, Gloucestershire, after moving from a mansion on a 26-acre estate in Godalming, Surrey.

In an interview in 1999, Barker said that during her tennis career she was approached by a lesbian tennis player in the locker room and touched "in a way that didn't feel right". Barker refused to name the female tennis player involved.

In September 2022, Barker featured on Desert Island Discs; Her favourite chosen track was "Harry Hippie" by Bobby Womack, with her choice of book and luxury item given as All In by Billie Jean King and some New Zealand sauvignon blanc wine respectively.

Barker's autobiography Calling the Shots was published in September 2022.

title: Sue Barker


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Lars Ulrich

Lars Ulrich (born 26 December 1963) is a Danish musician who is the drummer and co-founder of American heavy metal band Metallica. Along with James Hetfield, Ulrich has songwriting credits on almost all of the band's songs, and the two of them are the only remaining original members of the band.

The son and grandson respectively of tennis players Torben and Einer Ulrich, he played tennis in his youth and moved to Los Angeles at age 16 to train professionally. However, rather than playing tennis, Ulrich began playing drums. After publishing an advertisement in The Recycler, Ulrich met Hetfield and formed Metallica.

Early life
Ulrich was born into an upper-middle-class family in Gentofte, Denmark; the son of Lone (née Sylvester-Hvid) and tennis player Torben Ulrich. The family lived at Lundevangsvej 12 in Hellerup. His paternal grandfather was tennis player Einer Ulrich. His paternal grandmother, Ulla Meyer, was from a Jewish family; as a result, Ulrich's grandfather was persecuted by the Nazis during World War II. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Ulrich's godfather, and he is a childhood friend of musician Neneh Cherry.

In February 1973, Ulrich's father obtained passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tennis tournaments. When one of the friends could not go, they gave their ticket to the nine-year-old Lars, who was mesmerized by the performance and bought the band's album Fireball the next day. The concert and album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring the start of his music career.

As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit, a Ludwig, from his grandmother around the age of 12 or 13. Ulrich originally intended to follow in his father's footsteps and play tennis, and he moved to Newport Beach, California, in the summer of 1980. Despite being ranked in the top ten tennis players of his age group in Denmark, Ulrich failed to make it into the seven man Corona del Mar High School tennis team, contributing to his decision to focus on music.

In the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Ulrich states that witnessing a Y&T show was his defining moment in deciding to become a musician. In 1981, he discovered British heavy metal band Diamond Head. He was excited about the band's style of music after purchasing their debut album Lightning to the Nations, and traveled from San Francisco to London to see the band perform live at the Woolwich Odeon. Ulrich remains a fan of Diamond Head and would later mix their album The Best of Diamond Head. Upon returning to the U.S., Ulrich placed an advert in a local classifieds newspaper looking for musicians to start a band with him. James Hetfield replied to the ad, and Metallica was formed.

Metallica
Later in 1981, Ulrich met James Hetfield in Downey, California, and they formed the heavy metal band Metallica upon Ulrich securing a spot in a compilation album of local metal bands named Metal Massacre. He got the band name from a friend, Ron Quintana, who was brainstorming names for a heavy metal fanzine he was creating, and Metallica was one of the options, the other being "Metal Mania." Ulrich encouraged him to choose Metal Mania, and used the name Metallica for himself.

He became known as a pioneer of fast thrash drum beats, featured on many of Metallica's early songs, such as "Metal Militia" from Kill 'Em All, "Fight Fire with Fire" from Ride the Lightning, "Battery" and "Damage Inc." from Master of Puppets and "Dyers Eve" from ...And Justice for All. He has since been considerably influential due to both the popularity of his band, as well as his drum techniques, such as the double bass drum in the song "One" (...And Justice for All) and "Dyers Eve". Since the release of Metallica, Ulrich adopted a less focused and simplified style of drumming, and reduced his kit from a 9-piece to a 7-piece.

Between 1998 and 2002, Ulrich tried running a record label, the Music Company. The company was a joint venture with Metallica accountant Tim Duffy. It failed to catch on and folded in the spring 2002. His voice can be heard in the opening seconds of "Leper Messiah" and he also counts to four in his native Danish on the "St. Anger" music video. To unwind after some gigs, Ulrich listens to jazz.

Napster
In April 2000, Ulrich became a vocal opponent of Napster and file sharing as Metallica filed a lawsuit against the company for copyright infringement and racketeering. In July 2000, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee after Metallica's entire catalogue, including the then-unfinished track "I Disappear" was found to be freely available for download on the service. The case was settled out-of-court, resulting in more than 300,000 Napster users being banned from the service.

Other activities
Ulrich has been an activist in support of expanding access to health care for U.S. citizens, with his family working with the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic of San Francisco, California. He raised $32,000 for the group during a celebrity edition of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Ulrich made his acting debut in the HBO original film Hemingway & Gellhorn, which began filming in March 2011 and was released on 28 May 2012. He made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the film Get Him to the Greek, as the partner of the character Jackie Q. In 2012, Ulrich was the focus of the documentary film Mission to Lars. The film by Kate and Will Spicer concerns their journey with their brother Tom, who lives in a care home in Devon, England and who has Fragile X syndrome, to try to meet Ulrich at one of Metallica's 2009 gigs in California.

Having led a campaign for several years to get his longtime favorite band, Deep Purple, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ulrich delivered the induction speech when the band went into the Hall in 2016. In 2017 Ulrich began hosting a show on Apple Music called It's Electric, which has featured conversations with Joan Jett, Noel Gallagher, Dave Grohl and Jerry Cantrell.

Drumming style
Ulrich's drumming style has changed throughout his career. During the 1980s he was known for his fast, aggressive thrash beats. Unlike most drummers, Ulrich does not have a ride cymbal in his kit and instead favors the China cymbal. He said that he does not like the "ding" sound of the former and prefers the loudness of the latter.

Ulrich consciously simplified his style in the 1990s to support the hard rock-oriented songwriting of Metallica's albums during that period. He restored some of his earlier thrash metal techniques for the band's 2016 album Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, which saw a more aggressive and experimental drumming style from Ulrich.

Equipment
Ulrich endorses Tama drums and hardware. He plays a Starclassic Maple series drum kit, with 10" and 12" rack toms, two 16" floor toms and two 22" bass drums. From 2008 to 2016 he used the kit in orange, and the WorldWired Tour featured the similar kit with a Deeper Purple finish. During the M72 World Tour, the kit is bright yellow with black hardware. With Tama, Ulrich has designed his signature 14×6.5" steel snare drum, model LU1465. Ulrich also endorses Zildjian cymbals, Remo drumheads, and Ahead drumsticks.

Personal life
Ulrich's first marriage was in 1988 to Debbie Jones, a British woman he met on tour, but they divorced in 1990 during the recordings of the Black album. His second marriage was to Skylar Satenstein, an emergency medicine physician, from 1997 to 2004. They had two sons before divorcing. Layne and Myles formed a band called Taipei Houston. Following his divorce from Satenstein, Ulrich dated Danish actress Connie Nielsen from 2004 to 2012. They had one child together. He married American fashion model Jessica Miller in 2015.

Ulrich is a friend of Noel Gallagher and his former band Oasis and claimed Gallagher was his inspiration to give up cocaine in the 2000s. He also has a passion for fine art. In 2002, he sold a painting from his own collection, Self Portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. With a pre-sale price estimate of $5 million, it ultimately sold for triple that at Christie's Auction House.

In 2009, Ulrich revealed he suffered from tinnitus due to many years of touring without the use of any auditory protection.

Ulrich resides in San Francisco, California. He has Danish citizenship only.

Awards and honors
When Ulrich and fellow Metallica members James Hetfield, Jason Newsted, Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, Ulrich was the first Dane to receive the honor.

Ulrich was knighted in his native country of Denmark. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog on 26 May 2017 by Margrethe II.

With Metallica
''All Metallica albums. For a complete list, see Metallica discography''.
 * Kill 'Em All (1983)
 * Ride the Lightning (1984)
 * Master of Puppets (1986)
 * ...And Justice for All (1988)
 * Metallica (1991)
 * Load (1996)
 * Reload (1997)
 * St. Anger (2003)
 * Death Magnetic (2008)
 * Hardwired... to Self-Destruct (2016)
 * 72 Seasons (2023)

Guest appearances

 * Mercyful Fate – In the Shadows (guest on the bonus track "Return of the Vampire ... 1993")

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

title: Lars Ulrich


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Forward the Foundation

Forward the Foundation is a novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, published posthumously in 1993. It is the second of two prequels to the Foundation Series. It is written in a format similar to that of the original book, Foundation, composed of chapters with long intervals in between, although Forward takes place within only one lifetime. Both books were first published as independent short stories in science fiction magazines.

The parallels between Hari Seldon and Isaac Asimov found in this book— the last one written by Asimov before his death— and the focus on Hari Seldon as he grows old and dies, strengthen the idea that Asimov considered Seldon his literary alter ego. Critics such as Josh Wimmer and Alasdair Wilkins have regarded many of the opinions and viewpoints expressed by Seldon in this book as autobiographical. Thus, they say, a detailed reading of Forward the Foundation can shed light on Asimov's inner thoughts at the end of his life.

Like other previous science fiction works by Asimov, the book was a commercial success, becoming a New York Times bestselling work.

Plot
Forward the Foundation continues the chronicles of the life of Hari Seldon, first begun in Prelude to Foundation. The story takes place on Trantor, and begins eight years after the events of Prelude to Foundation. It depicts how Seldon develops his theory of psychohistory from hypothetical concept to practical application, and its application in the Seldon plan.

In the latter years of the reign of Emperor Cleon I, Seldon is dragged into the world of galactic politics by Yugo Amaryl's concern over Seldon's friend Eto Demerzel, known only to Seldon and Dors Venabili as R. Daneel Olivaw. A new political faction threatens Demerzel, and consequently the fate of the Galactic Empire. In the aftermath Demerzel steps down as First Minister, vanishing to attend to other matters in the galaxy. Cleon appoints Seldon, somewhat unwilling, as the new First Minister. After a ten-year period of relative silence on Trantor, the remains of the political faction exploit Trantor's faults in an attempted coup. As a result, the emperor is assassinated, and a military junta takes over for a disastrous decade. Seldon steps down from his government position and resumes leadership of the psychohistory project.

Seldon and others, most notably Yugo Amaryl, finally develop psychohistory to the point that he can initiate what will come to be known as the Seldon Plan, the road map for drastically shortening the interregnum between the First and Second Empires.

Gradually, Seldon loses all those who are close to him. Seldon's consort Dors is killed (or rather destroyed) in an internal plot by an ambitious member of Seldon's own group. His adopted son Raych emigrates with his wife and younger daughter to Santanni, though his elder daughter Wanda remains with Seldon. When a rebellion against the Empire breaks out, Raych sends his wife and younger daughter away on a starship, but he remains behind to defend his university and is killed, and the starship is never seen again. Yugo Amaryl, the second best psychohistory researcher (after Seldon himself), dies in middle age, worn out by his work. Except for his granddaughter Wanda, Seldon is alone in his fight to keep the project going in the face of the Galactic Empire's accelerating decline and lessening government support.

Wanda turns out to be what Seldon calls a "mentalic": someone who can read minds and actually influence people. (Seldon suspects that her father Raych's great likeability is a subconscious use of the same power.) They are able to find a few other mentalics, enabling Seldon to set up a second guardian for the Seldon Plan. Eventually, he secludes Wanda and the others to establish the Second Foundation in secret, which later turns out to be at the same Imperial Library of Trantor. While the public First Foundation concentrates on the physical sciences, the hidden Second's psychohistorians will develop the mental ones by "scholars."

Characters
Below is a list of all the major and minor characters in the book, in order of appearance, with brief descriptions.
 * Hari Seldon head of the Mathematics Department at Streeling University.
 * Wanda, Hari's granddaughter
 * Eto Demerzel, First Minister to the Emperor.
 * Yugo Amaryl a psychohistorian.
 * Laskin (Jo-Jo) Joranum; politician & demagogue, from the planet Nishaya.
 * Gambol Deen Namarti, Joranum's right-hand man.
 * Dors (Venabili) Seldon, Hari's wife.
 * Raych Seldon, Hari's adopted son.

title: Forward the Foundation


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Dorothy Gale

Dorothy Gale is a fictional character created by the American author L. Frank Baum as the protagonist in many of his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's classic 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels. She is also the main character in various adaptations, notably the 1939 film adaptation of the novel, The Wizard of Oz.

In later novels, the Land of Oz steadily becomes more familiar to her than her homeland of Kansas. Dorothy eventually goes to live in an apartment in the Emerald City's palace but only after her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have settled in a farmhouse on its outskirts. Dorothy's best friend Princess Ozma, ruler of Oz, officially makes her a princess of Oz later in the novels.

In literature
In the Oz books, Dorothy is raised by her aunt and uncle in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. Whether Aunt Em or Uncle Henry is Dorothy's blood relative remains unclear. Uncle Henry makes reference to Dorothy's mother in The Emerald City of Oz, possibly an indication that Henry is Dorothy's blood relative. (It is also possible that "Aunt" and "Uncle" are affectionate terms of a foster family and that Dorothy is not related to either of them, although Zeb in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz claims to be Dorothy's second cousin, related through Aunt Em. Little mention is made of what happened to Dorothy's birth parents, other than a passing reference to her mother being dead.)

Along with her small black dog, Toto, Dorothy is swept away by a tornado to the Land of Oz and, much like Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they enter an alternative world filled with talking creatures. In many of the Oz books, Dorothy is the heroine of the story. She is often seen with her best friend and the ruler of Oz, Princess Ozma. Her trademark blue and white gingham dress is admired by the Munchkins because blue is their favorite color and white is worn only by good witches and sorceresses, which indicates to them that Dorothy is a good witch.

Dorothy has several other pets, including her white/pink/purple kitten Eureka, and Billina, a feisty talking hen. Popular in crossword puzzles is Dorothy's cow, Imogene, from the 1902 stage version. While unnamed, this cow is implied in the 1910 film. Eric Shanower's novel, The Giant Garden of Oz, features a cow named Imogene.

Dorothy's last name is never mentioned in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or The Marvelous Land of Oz, the first two Oz books. It is disclosed in the third book, Ozma of Oz (1907). The last name of Gale was originally mentioned in Baum's script for the 1902 Broadway stage version of The Wizard of Oz, in which it was originally a setup for a punning joke. (Dorothy: "I am Dorothy, and I am one of the Kansas Gales." Scarecrow: "That accounts for your breezy manner.")

In the sixth Oz book by Baum, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), when Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are unable to pay the mortgage on the new farmhouse built at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy brings them to live in Oz; the plot features a tour of Oz as a marvelous, utopian land in which they have escaped the troubles of Kansas. She becomes princess of Oz.

Dorothy is an Oz celebrity, having at least a cameo role in thirteen of the fourteen Oz books written by L. Frank Baum; while she did not appear at all in The Marvelous Land of Oz, she is mentioned several times in that story. In the subsequent nineteen Oz books by Ruth Plumly Thompson, Dorothy gets at least a cameo in all except Captain Salt in Oz and The Silver Princess in Oz (in which neither Oz nor any of its inhabitants appear, though they are mentioned). Most of the other books focus on different child protagonists, some Ozites, some from other Nonestican realms, and some from the United States, and as such, her appearances in the main series become more and more limited. In Jack Snow's The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946), Ozma places Dorothy on the throne of Oz while she is away visiting Queen Lurline's fairy band.

The magic of Oz keeps Dorothy young. In The Lost King of Oz (1925), a Wish Way carries Dorothy to a film set in Hollywood, California. She begins to age very rapidly to her late 20s, making up for at least some of the years that have already passed. The Wish Way carries her back to Oz and restores her to her younger self, but she learns then that it would be unwise for her ever to return to the outside world. Baum never states Dorothy's age, but he does write in The Lost Princess of Oz that she is a year younger than Betsy Bobbin and a year older than Trot, whose age was specified as 10 in Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Giant Horse of Oz, putting her at age 11 by the time she comes to live in Oz.

Dorothy has a forthright and take-charge character, exhibiting no fear when she slaps the Cowardly Lion, and organizing the Winkies' rescue mission of her friends who have been dismembered by the winged monkeys. She is not afraid of angering the Wicked Witch of the West, as shown when the Witch stole one of Dorothy's slippers, and in retaliation, Dorothy hurled a bucket of water over her, not knowing water was fatal to the witch. She brazenly rebuffs Princess Langwidere's threat to take her head for her collection — "Well, I b'lieve you won't." (Following Anna Laughlin's portrayal of the character in the popular 1903 Broadway version of The Wizard of Oz, Baum scripts Dorothy to speak in childlike contractions with Ozma of Oz, which she continues to do throughout the series). This aspect of her character was somewhat lessened by her companionship of Ozma, in whom Baum placed the greater level of wisdom and dignity. Yet even this is complicated by her associations with her cousin, Zeb of Hugson's Ranch, a rugged, manly boy who does not take well to Oz and cannot think of anything much more interesting than defeating the Munchkins' wrestling champion, which he proves unable to do.

Thompson's Oz books show a certain intolerance in Dorothy. In The Cowardly Lion of Oz, circus clown Notta Bit More arrives in the Emerald City "disguised" as a traditional witch, and Dorothy immediately starts dumping buckets of water on him without provocation (although she reacted this way on the assumption that the "witch" Notta was an evil witch like her old enemy, the Wicked Witch of the West). In The Wishing Horse of Oz, she makes unsavory comments about the dark coloration Gloma and her subjects take on as a disguise, making them somewhat resemble black people. This behavior is not characteristic of Dorothy in Baum's Oz books. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz, she pushes and slaps through crowds of black Tottenhots to rescue the Scarecrow, whom they are tossing around, but this is more an example of her gumption than any sort of prejudice, as she is otherwise kind and polite to the Tottenhots, and accepts that their ways are different from those who dwell in the Emerald City.

The authorized sequels of Sherwood Smith, The Emerald Wand of Oz and Trouble Under Oz, center on the child characters Dori and Em, who live with their Aunt Susan. All three are indirect descendants of Dorothy, though their specific relationship to her is unclear.

Philip José Farmer's 1982 science-fiction novel A Barnstormer in Oz tells the story of aviator Henry "Hank" Stover — who is not surprised one beautiful spring day in 1923 when he flies his Curtiss Jenny biplane through a strange green cloud and finds himself in Oz. Hank knows that he is in Oz because his mother, Dorothy Gale-Stover, had been there back in 1890 and later told him of her experiences. Farmer's premise is that Dorothy only visited Oz once and told her story to a journalist named Frank Baum. This journalist would later create a series of books from Dorothy's only adventure in Oz. Farmer's Oz is on the brink of both a civil war and an invasion by the United States Army.

Conception
An influence on the creation of Dorothy appears to be the Alice books of Lewis Carroll. Although Baum reportedly found these plots incoherent, he identified their source of popularity as Alice herself, a character with whom child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist for his own books.

Dorothy's character was probably named after Baum's own niece, Dorothy Louise Gage, who died in infancy. Baum's wife was very attached to her and was deeply grieved by her death, so there is speculation that Baum inserted her name into his stories as a memorial. Elements of Dorothy Gale's character are possibly derived from Matilda Joslyn Gage, Dorothy Gage's grandmother. Dorothy Gage is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.

Lee Sandlin writes that L. Frank Baum read a disaster report of a tornado in Irving, Kansas, in May 1879 which included the name of a victim, Dorothy Gale, who was "found buried face down in a mud puddle."

In film
In Baum's 1902 stage musical adaptation, Dorothy was played by Anna Laughlin. In 1908 L. Frank Baum adapted his early Oz novels as The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, with Romola Remus as Dorothy. This was followed by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a motion picture short that Otis Turner, one of the directors of Fairylogue, made without Baum as part of a contract fulfillment. In this 1910 film, Dorothy was played by Bebe Daniels. It was followed by two sequels (the same year), Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz and The Land of Oz, both of which included Dorothy, but whether Daniels participated is unknown. Baum subsequently loosely adapted The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a 1914 motion picture directed by J. Farrell MacDonald titled His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz with Violet MacMillan as Dorothy.

Dorothy does not appear in The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914), although some film books claim that Mildred Harris, who had yet to sign her contract with The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, played the role. The character, is, in fact, eliminated from the film version, although she has a fairly large role in the novel.

Dorothy Dwan portrayed Dorothy in the 1925 film Wizard of Oz. In this film, Aunt Em (Mary Carr) informs her on her eighteenth birthday that she was left on their doorstep and is really a princess of Oz destined to marry Prince Kynd (Bryant Washburn), who has currently lost the throne to Prime Minister Kruel (Josef Swickard), in a storyline similar to that of His Majesty the Scarecrow of Oz, only with Dorothy as the love interest. In the end, the story proves to be the dream of a little girl who has fallen asleep listening to the story of Kynd and Kruel, said to be the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The film also introduced the idea of the farmhands also being the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion, albeit as costumes they don in order to conceal themselves in Oz.

In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was played by Judy Garland, who received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performance. Since she was sixteen years old at the time of filming, Garland's maturing figure was bound into a figure-hiding corset. Since fantasy films generally were unsuccessful at that time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer portrayed Oz as a head-trauma-induced delirium, instead of a real place. Dorothy's characterization in the 1939 film is more of a damsel in distress, somewhat unlike the adventurous, forthright and bold Dorothy of the books, and as one of the first movies to be filmed in Technicolor, the director had the color of the famous magic slippers changed from silver to red because the Ruby slippers were more visually appealing on film.

She is reunited with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, their three farm workers (Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion's alter egos), and Professor Marvel (The Wizard's alter ego) when she awakens from being unconscious at the end of this film, back at home, safe and proclaiming the film's theme and moral: "There's no place like home"  (also fulfilling the numerous foreshadows earlier in the story). While it is implied that Oz is merely Dorothy's dream since she awakens in bed at the end, Dorothy is convinced that her journey was all in fact real.

In Disney's 1985 fantasy adventure film Return to Oz, Dorothy was played by child actress Fairuza Balk.

In the video for Blues Traveler's 1994 hit song "Run-Around", Dorothy tries to get into a club where the band is performing. She is portrayed by actress Diana Marquis.

In Disney's 2013 film Oz the Great and Powerful, Dorothy's maternal origins are hinted at when Annie (Michelle Williams) informs her friend Oscar Diggs that her fiancé's surname is Gale.

Dorothy appears in the animated film Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (which is based on Dorothy of Oz), voiced by Lea Michele.

Dorothy made a cameo appearance in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, voiced by Maya Rudolph. She, Toto, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion find themselves having been transported from the Land of Oz to Harmony Town in the Systar System.

Dorothy appears in the South Korean animated film Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, voiced by Katie DiCicco.

Dorothy will make an appearance in Wicked Part Two (which is based on the 2003 play with the same name), alongside Toto, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion.

In television
A little known version of the original story made for British TV in 1995 starred Denise Van Outen as Dorothy. Among other variations of the story, it featured her as a wealthy, spoiled socialite and the characters using sexual innuendo and cursing. It combined elements from the original books, the 1939 film version and 1985's Return to Oz. At the film's end, she wakes up from having fallen asleep and dismisses her trip to Oz as a crazy dream.

The 2007 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man reworked her into DG, a descendant of Dorothy's, and is played by Zooey Deschanel. In this iteration, the trademark dress is actually a diner waitress uniform; the rest of the time she wears a leather jacket and jeans and rides a motorcycle. When she is taken into Oz, she learns that she is actually the princess of the kingdom of Oz, sent to another world and raised by androids that protect her after her sister was possessed by the spirit of an ancient witch that she unleashed by accident.

In the 2012 TV miniseries Dorothy and the Witches of Oz, Dorothy (played by Paulie Rojas) is shown as an adult writer and starts regaining repressed memories of her actual adventures in the Land of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West plans to conquer the Land of Oz and all of Earth.

Dorothy appears in the ninth season of Supernatural, portrayed by Tiio Horn. This version is Dorothy Baum. Dorothy is a hunter whose father was L. Frank Baum, a member of the Men of Letters. Desperate when it appeared that The Wicked Witch could not be killed, Dorothy used a spell to bind herself and the Wicked Witch, keeping them both trapped in stasis at the Men of Letters bunker for decades. They were finally freed by Sam and Dean Winchester. After Charlie Bradbury killed the Wicked Witch, she and Dorothy went to Oz in order to continue fighting against the Witch's forces.

Dorothy appears in the third and fifth seasons of the TV series Once Upon a Time. In this show, Dorothy is from a fictional version of Kansas and not from Earth (dubbed the Land Without Magic in the show). She is portrayed as an adult by Teri Reeves and as a child by Matreya Scarrwener. Dorothy, caught in her Kansas farmhouse during a raging cyclone, is swept away to Oz. Taken in by the protectors of Oz, the sisterhood of witches, she comes to view them as family. One night, she is confronted by Zelena the Witch of the West (Rebecca Mader), while getting water from a well. Zelena intends to get rid of Dorothy as she believes the girl is destined to usurp her seat in the sisterhood. In defense, Dorothy throws a bucket of water at Zelena; causing the witch to melt. Glinda the Witch of the South (Sunny Mabrey), then appears to offer her to take Zelena's place as the Witch of the West, but Dorothy declines; wishing only to return home. With Glinda's help, she is taken to see the Wizard and given a pair of silver slippers to travel to any world. Dorothy thanks the Wizard of Oz (Christopher Gorham) and proceeds to click the slippers' heels three times to send herself home. Only after the girl's departure, Glinda discovers too late that Zelena masqueraded as the Wizard in order to usher Dorothy out of Oz.

Upon returning to Kansas, Dorothy tells her family about her experiences in Oz. However, her family does not believe her, and attempts to get her admitted into an asylum. Her aunt, Emily Brown (Gina Stockdale) is the only person who believes her, and refuses to let her be admitted. However, Aunt Em dies, gifting Dorothy a puppy named Toto before she does. Years pass, and Dorothy returns to Oz. Learning from the Munchkins that Zelena is still alive and no longer fearing the witch, Dorothy storms the palace in time to stop Zelena from stealing the Scarecrow's (Paul Scheer) brain for a time spell. Dorothy taunts Zelena about having one thing she'll never obtain, the love of the people, as Zelena prepares a fireball to destroy her. Toto, hopping out of the bag, trots up to the palace curtains, while Dorothy ducks to avoid Zelena's fireball, which hits an approaching guard. Toto then tugs a string, causing the curtains to fall on Zelena, who fumbles to get free. While she is occupied, Dorothy escapes the palace with the Scarecrow and her dog. Later, she and her companions hide out in a cottage, but Zelena eventually finds them, after putting a tracking spell on Dorothy's old bicycle. Dorothy does her best to protect the Scarecrow, but Zelena ends up ripping out his brain. Fearlessly standing up to the witch, Dorothy dares Zelena to do her worst, while boasting that she'll never be afraid of her again. Zelena expresses brief interest in her brave attitude, wondering what made her change. In the end, Zelena leaves Dorothy unharmed to let the people of Oz see that, for once, their great hero has failed them.

In Emerald City, Dorothy is an adult when she is taken to Oz, working as a nurse. She is still living with Em and Henry, but here they are identified as her adopted parents, her biological mother having left her with them as a baby and only recently getting back in touch with Dorothy. Months after receiving the letter, Dorothy makes her first official visit to her biological mother when the tornado occurs that takes her to Oz. Faced with an Oz that is increasingly opposed to magic on the Wizard's orders and accused of the death of the Witch of the East - which was initially an accident and later self-defence when the Witch survived her injuries - Dorothy learns more about her true ties to this world as she searches for answers, accompanied by a police German Shepherd she names 'Toto' and the amnesic Lucas. The TV series concludes with her returning to Earth after the wizard's forces are decimated by the Beast Forever, but she is subsequently contacted by Lucas and Toto - both of whom she left behind in Oz - appearing to her in Kansas to ask for help.

Although not a direct adaptation to the literature itself, the 2013 Super Sentai series, Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger features the Deboth Army's members being themed after the characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The then-Joyful Knight Canderrilla is designed with the motif of Dorothy Gale

In the 2017 animated series Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is voiced by Kari Wahlgren who is portrayed as much younger and race swapped. set after the events of the 1939 film, Dorothy is appointed the princess of Oz by Queen Ozma, where she and her friends go on adventures and save the Land of Oz from danger like the tyrannical Nome King and Wilhelmina, the niece of the Wicked Witch of the West who wants to steal the Ruby Slippers to revive her evil aunt.

Wizard101
Dorothy Gale appears as an NPC in the 2008 MMORPG Wizard101. Unlike other adaptations of the character, Dorothy travelled from her family farm in Kansas to Wizard City to become a Balance wizard at Ravenwood School of Magical Arts. In the sidequests "Yellow Brick Road" and "Not in Kansas Anymore", players meet Dorothy in her home, who tells them to go and check on her friends that she was having over for dinner, Mr. Toto and the Tin Man. Mr. Toto tells the player that they are running late due to Tin Man not being able to find his oil can, and asks the player to tell Dorothy that they are just running late as usual.

LEGO Dimensions
Dorothy Gale is one of the non-playable characters that appears in the 2015 toys-to-life video game LEGO Dimensions. While on her way to the Emerald City with Toto and her three companions, they encounter Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle. Batman thinks that the Scarecrow is the supervillain of the same name from his world, though the interrogation is short lived, as Dorothy and her gang are sucked into a vortex where they are captured by the game's central antagonist, Lord Vortech. Lord Vortech imprisons Dorothy and uses the Ruby Slippers as one of the foundation elements needed to create his "perfect world".

Portrayals

 * The Wizard of Oz (1902 stage musical): Anna Laughlin
 * The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908): Romola Remus
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910): Bebe Daniels
 * His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914): Violet MacMillan
 * The Wizard of Oz (1925): Dorothy Dwan
 * The Wizard of Oz (1939): Judy Garland
 * The Rainbow Road to Oz (1957): Darlene Gillespie
 * Tales of the Wizard of Oz (1961): Corinne Conley
 * Return to Oz (1964): Susan Conway (speaking voice), Susan Morse (singing voice)
 * Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde (1971): Zeynep Değirmencioğlu (Ayşecik)
 * Journey Back to Oz (1972): Liza Minnelli (voice)
 * Oz (1976): Joy Dunstan
 * The Wiz (1975): Stephanie Mills
 * The Wiz (1978): Diana Ross
 * The Wizard of Oz: Mari Okamoto (1982 Japanese track), Aileen Quinn (1983 American English track)
 * Return to Oz (1985): Fairuza Balk
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1986 TV series: Sumi Shimamoto (1986 Japanese track), Morgan Hallett (1987 Canadian English track)
 * Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz (1987): Janice Hiromi Kawaye
 * The Wizard of A.I.D.S. (1988): Martha Murphy
 * The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz (1990): Mariko Kouda
 * The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story (1990): Courtney Barilla (as Dorothy Gage and Dorothy Gale)
 * The Wizard of Oz (1991): Liz Georges (voice)
 * The Wizard of Oz: Denise Van Outen British TV version.
 * The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True (1995): Jewel
 * The Oz Kids animated series (1996-1997): Erika Schickel
 * The Wizard of Oz (2001 stage show): Nikki Webster
 * The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005): Ashanti
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's (2007): Lisa Vischer as Junior Asparagus as Darby (replacing Dorothy)
 * Tin Man (TV miniseries) (2007): Zooey Deschanel as DG; Rachel Pattee and Alexis Llewellyn as Young DG; Grace Wheeler as the Grey Gale
 * The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical): Danielle Hope and later Sophie Evans 2012 Toronto production Danielle Wade
 * The Witches of Oz (2011): Paulie Redding
 * Dorothy and the Witches of Oz: Paulie Rojas
 * Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz: Grey DeLisle
 * After the Wizard: Jordan Van Vranken as "Elizabeth Haskins"
 * Supernatural (US TV series): Tiio Horn as "Dorothy" (episode "Slumber Party")
 * Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return: Lea Michele
 * The Wiz Live!: Shanice Williams
 * Once upon a time: Teri Reeves
 * Dorothy Must Die (2014 book): Danielle Paige
 * Lego Dimensions: Laura Bailey
 * Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz: Grey DeLisle
 * Emerald City: Adria Arjona
 * Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz: Kari Wahlgren
 * Lost in Oz: Ashley Boettcher
 * The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part: Maya Rudolph
 * Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs: Katie DiCicco

Impact on LGBTQ community
In the 1950s, the phrase "friend of Dorothy" became used as a slang term for homosexuals. This term is attributed both to American author and fellow gay icon Dorothy Parker, and to Judy Garland's prominent role as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. This gay slang term, also known as "FOD," means a gay man; and more broadly, any LGBTQ person. As such, someone was a friend of Dorothy was a euphemism used for discussing sexual orientation without others knowing its meaning. James Deutsch, program curator with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, examined the origin of the phrase, noting scholars who argued that Garland became a "lodestone" for "gay culture", claimed by the community, and argued that the phrase shows "several of the most important functions of folklore that serve members of the LGBT community." However, Dee Michel, a scholar of Oz, said there are certain beliefs that continue about the connection between the film and LGBTQ people that "persist in spite of a lack of clear historical evidence." Additionally, a Dorothy dollar is described as any business generated by "providing goods and services to the homosexual community."

In L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz from 1900 to 1920, Dorothy and Ozma were described as being in an intimate friendship. In the series Once Upon a Time, Dorothy, who appears in seasons 3, 5, and 6 of the series, has a relationship with Ruby (Little Red Riding Hood), with the latter awakening her with a kiss in her final episode.

title: Dorothy Gale


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Peter Cartwright

Peter Cartwright may refer to:

 * Peter Cartwright (revivalist) (1785–1872), American revivalist and politician
 * Peter Cartwright (actor) (1935–2013), South African-born British actor
 * Peter Cartwright (lawyer) (1940–2019), husband of the former Governor-General of New Zealand, Silvia Cartwright, and chair of the Broadcasting Standards Authority
 * Peter Cartwright (footballer) (born 1957), English footballer
 * Peter Cartwright (film editor) on The Angelic Conversation
 * Peter Cartwright (ice hockey) in 2011 AIHL season

title: Peter Cartwright


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Caudata

The Caudata are a group of amphibians containing the extant salamanders (the order Urodela) and all extinct species of amphibians more closely related to salamanders than to frogs. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults.

Disagreement exists between different authorities as to the definition of the terms "Caudata" and "Urodela". Some maintain that Urodela should be restricted to the crown group, with Caudata being used for the total group. Others restrict the name Caudata to the crown group and use Urodela for the total group. The former approach seems to be most widely adopted and is used in this article.

Evolution
The origins and evolutionary relationships between the three main groups of amphibians (apodans, urodeles and anurans) is a matter of debate. A 2005 molecular phylogeny, based on rDNA analysis, suggested that the first divergence between these three groups took place soon after they had branched from the lobe-finned fish in the Devonian (around 360 million years ago), and before the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea. The briefness of this period, and the speed at which radiation took place, may help to account for the relative scarcity of amphibian fossils that appear to be closely related to lissamphibians. However, more recent studies have generally found more recent (Late Carboniferous to Early Permian ) age for the basalmost divergence among lissamphibians.

The earliest known fossil salamanders include Kokartus honorarius from the Middle Jurassic of Kyrgyzstan and three species of the apparently neotenic, aquatic Marmorerpeton from England and Scotland of a similar date. Karaurus, Kokartus, and Marmorerpeton are together grouped in the extinct group Karauridae according to the structure of their skull and vertebrae. They looked superficially like robust modern salamanders but lacked a number of anatomical features that characterise all modern salamanders. Karaurus sharovi from the Upper Jurassic of Kazakhstan resembled modern mole salamanders in morphology and probably had a similar burrowing lifestyle.

In 2020, new specimens of the previously enigmatic tetrapod Triassurus from the Middle Triassic of Kyrgyzstan were described, revealing it to be the oldest known caudatan and this conclusion has been supported by subsequent analyses.

The Cryptobranchoidea and the Salamandroidea, also known as Diadectosalamandroidei, are likely sister groups. Some studies suggest that both groups appeared before the end of the Jurassic, the former being exemplified by Chunerpeton tianyiensis, Pangerpeton sinensis, Jeholotriton paradoxus, Regalerpeton weichangensis, Liaoxitriton daohugouensis and Iridotriton hechti, and the latter by Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis. By the Upper Cretaceous, most or all of the living salamander families had probably appeared. However, recent phylogenetic analysis suggest that several fossil species previously thought to represent crown group salamanders may actually represent members of the stem group.

Cryptobranchoidea are sometimes referred to as primitive salamanders whereas Salamandroidea / Diadectosalamandroidei are referred to as advanced salamanders. However, these lables are not necessarily helpful and imply that all members of Cryptobranchoidea are unchanged and represent the ancestral condition which is not supported by the fossil record.

All known extant and extinct (fossil) salamanders fall under the total group Caudata, whereas the common ancestor of all extant salamanders and all of its desendents (extinct and extant) represent the less inclusive crown group Urodela. There are about 758 extant species of salamander.

title: Caudata


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Acorus calamus

Acorus calamus (also called sweet flag, sway or muskrat root, among many other common names ) is a species of flowering plant with psychoactive chemicals. It is a tall wetland monocot of the family Acoraceae, in the genus Acorus. Although used in traditional medicine over centuries to treat digestive disorders and pain, there is no clinical evidence for its safety or efficacy – and ingested calamus may be toxic – leading to its commercial ban in the United States.

Description
Sweet flag is a herbaceous perennial, 2 m tall. Its leaves resemble those of the iris family. Sweet flag consists of tufts of basal leaves that rise from a spreading rhizome. The leaves are erect yellowish-brown, radical, with pink sheathing at their bases, sword-shaped, flat and narrow, tapering into a long, acute point, and have parallel veins. The leaves have smooth edges, which can be wavy or crimped. The sweet flag can be distinguished from iris and other similar plants by the crimped edges of the leaves, the fragrant odor it emits when crushed, and the presence of a spadix.

Only plants that grow in water bear flowers. The solid, triangular flower-stems rise from the axils of the outer leaves. A semi-erect spadix emerges from one side of the flower stem. The spadix is solid, cylindrical, tapers at each end, and is 5 to 10 cm in length. A covering spathe, as is usual with Araceae, is absent. The spadix is densely crowded with tiny greenish-yellow flowers. Each flower contains six petals and stamens enclosed in a perianth with six divisions, surrounding a three-celled, oblong ovary with a sessile stigma. The flowers are sweetly fragrant. In Europe, it flowers for about a month in late spring or early summer, but does not bear fruit. The fruit is a berry filled with mucus, which when ripe falls into the water and disperses by floating. In Asia, it also fruits sparingly, and propagates itself mainly by growth of its rhizome, forming colonies.

The branched, cylindrical, knobby rhizome is the thickness of a human finger and has numerous coarse fibrous roots below it. The exterior is brown and the interior white.

Range and habitat
Sweet flag grows in India, Nepal, central Asia, southern Russia and Siberia, Europe and North America. Habitats include edges of small lakes, ponds and rivers, marshes, swamps, and other wetlands.

Names and etymology
In addition to "sweet flag" and "calamus" other common names include beewort, bitter pepper root, calamus root, flag root, gladdon, myrtle flag, myrtle grass, myrtle root, myrtle sedge, pine root, sea sedge, sweet cane, sweet cinnamon, sweet grass, sweet myrtle, sweet root, sweet rush, sweet sedge and wada kaha.

The generic name is the Latin word acorus, which is derived from the Greek άχόρου (áchórou) of Dioscorides (note different versions of the text have different spellings). The word άχόρου itself is thought to have been derived from the word κόρη (kóri), which means pupil (of an eye), because of the juice from the root of the plant being used as a remedy in diseases of the eye ('darkening of the pupil').

The specific name calamus is derived from Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, meaning "reed"), cognate to Latin culmus ("stalk") and Old English healm ("straw"), Arabic قَلَم (qálam, "pen") and Sanskrit लेखणी (lekhanee, " writing instrument", in turn from Proto-Indo European *kole-mo- (thought to mean "grass" or "reed"). The name "sweet flag" refers to its sweet scent and its similarity to Iris species, which have been commonly known as flags in English since at least the late fourteenth century.

History
The plant was already mentioned in the Chester Beatty papyrus VI dating to approximately 1300 BC. The ancient Egyptians rarely mentioned the plant in medicinal contexts, but it was certainly used to make perfumes.

Initially, Europeans confused the identity and medicinal uses of the Acorus calamus of the Romans and Greeks with their native Iris pseudacorus. Thus the Herbarius zu Teutsch, published at Mainz in 1485, describes and includes a woodcut of this iris under the name Acorus. This German book is one of three possible sources for the same error in the French Le Grant Herbier, written in 1486, 1488, 1498 or 1508, which was also published in an English translation as the Grete Herball by Peter Treveris in 1526; all of these contain the false identification printed in the Herbarius zu Teutsch. William Turner, writing in 1538, describes 'acorum' as "gladon or a flag, a yelowe floure delyce".

The plant was introduced to Britain in the late 16th century. By at least 1596, true Acorus calamus was grown in Britain, as it is listed in The Catalogue, a list of plants John Gerard grew in his garden at Holborn. Gerard notes "It prospereth exceeding well in my garden, but as yet beareth neither flowers nor stalke". Gerard lists the Latin name as Acorus verus, but it is evident there was still doubt about its veracity: in his 1597 herbal he lists the English common name as 'bastard calamus'. Carl O. Sauer reported that the tuber was already being used by North American Indians at the time of European contact.

Taxonomy
There are three cytotypic forms distinguished by chromosome number: a diploid form (2n=24), an infertile triploid form (2n=36), and a tetraploid form (see below). The triploid form is the most common and is thought to have arisen relatively recently in the Himalayan region through hybridisation of the diploid with the tetraploid.

Probably indigenous to most of Asia, the triploid form Acorus calamus var. calamus (also known as var. vulgaris or var. verus) has now been introduced across Europe, Australia, New Guinea, South Africa, Réunion and North America. The tetraploid form Acorus calamus var. angustatus is native throughout Asia, from India to Japan and the Philippines and from Indonesia to Siberia. The diploid form Acorus americanus or Acorus calamus var. americanus is found in northern subarctic North America and scattered disjunct areas throughout the Mississippi Valley. It may not be native to some of these areas, Pre-Columbian populations are thought to have dispersed it across parts of the United States. Other diploids are found in Mongolia, central Siberia (Buryatia), Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan (claimed by India) and northern Himachal Pradesh in India.

Currently the taxonomic position of the different forms is contested. The comprehensive taxonomic analysis in Plants of the World Online from 2023 considers all three forms to be distinct varieties of a single species. The Flora of North America publication considers the diploid form to be a distinct species; its analysis differentiates North American diploid forms from triploid and tetraploid varieties, and does not take into account the morphology of Asian forms of the diploid variety. Also, in older literature, the name Acorus americanus may be used indiscriminately for all forms of Acorus calamus occurring in North America, irrespective of cytological diversity (i.e. both the diploid and triploid forms). The treatment in the Flora of China from 2010 considers all varieties to be synonyms of a single taxonomically undifferentiated species, since characteristics that are treated as distinctive in the Flora of North America are subject to morphological overlap in Asian specimens.

The primary morphological distinction between the triploid and the North American forms of the diploid is made by the number of prominent leaf veins, the diploid having a prominent midvein with equally raised secondary veins on both sides, the triploid having a single prominent midvein with the secondary veins barely distinct. According to the Flora of China, there is clear overlap in these characteristics and the different cytotypes are impossible to distinguish morphologically. Triploid plants are infertile and show an abortive ovary with a shrivelled appearance. This form will never form fruit (let alone seeds) and can only spread asexually.

The tetraploid variety is usually known as Acorus calamus var. angustatus Besser. A number of synonyms are known, but some of those are contested as to which variety they belong. It is morphologically diverse, with some forms having very broad and some narrow leaves. It is also cytotypically diverse, with an array of different karyotypes.

Chemistry
Calamus leaves and rhizomes contain a volatile oil that gives a characteristic odor and flavor. Major components of the oil are beta-asarone (as much as 75%), methyl isoeugenol (as much as 40%) and alpha-asarone, saponins, lectins, sesquiterpenoids, lignans, and steroids. Phytochemicals in the plant vary according to geographic location, plant age, climate, species variety, and plant component extracted. Diploids do not contain beta-asarone.

Safety and regulations
A. calamus and products derived from A. calamus (such as its oil) were banned from use as human food or as a food additive in 1968 by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Although limits on consumption in food or alcoholic beverages (115 micrograms per day) were recommended in a 2001 ruling by the European Commission, the degree of safe exposure remained undefined.

Toxicity
Although calamus has been used for its fragrance and ingested, it has not been studied by rigorous clinical research. Individual medical reports of toxicity mention severe nausea and prolonged vomiting over many hours following oral uses. Laboratory studies of its extracts indicate other forms of toxicity, due mainly to the emetic compound β-asarone.

Uses
A. calamus has been an item of trade in many cultures for centuries. It has been used medicinally for a wide variety of ailments, such as gastrointestinal diseases and treating pain, and its aroma makes calamus essential oil valued in the perfume industry. The essence from the rhizome is used as a flavor for foods, alcoholic beverages, and bitters in Europe. It was also once used to make candy.

Food
The young stalks can be pulled when under 30 cm; the inner stems can be eaten raw. The roots can be washed, peeled, cut into small pieces, boiled, and simmered in syrup to make candy.

In herbal medicine
Sweet flag has a long history of use in Chinese, Nepal and Indian herbal traditions. Sweet flag was and is used as an herbal medicine by the Chipewyan people.

Horticulture
This plant is sometimes used as a pond plant in horticulture. There is at least one tetraploid ornamental cultivar known; it is usually called 'Variegatus', but the RHS recommends calling it 'Argenteostriatus'.

Insecticide and antifungal
The asarone from A. calamus, found most abundantly in the dried and pulverized roots, has been identified as having insecticidal properties. β-asarone also exhibits anti-fungal activity by inhibiting ergosterol biosynthesis in Aspergillus niger. However, asarone's toxicity and carcinogenicity in mammals (including humans) means that it may be difficult to develop any practical medications or insecticides based on it.

title: Acorus calamus


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Whale Island

Whale Island is the name of several islands, including:

 * Moutohora Island, also known as Whale Island, New Zealand
 * Whale Island (Alaska), United States
 * Whale Island, Hampshire, United Kingdom
 * Whale Island, an island in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia

Fiction

 * Whale Island (くじら島), an island in the Japanese manga Hunter × Hunter

title: Whale Island


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User talk:Squeezle

Testing 1...2...3...

title: User talk:Squeezle


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Salamandridae

Salamandridae is a family of salamanders consisting of true salamanders and newts. Salamandrids are distinguished from other salamanders by the lack of rib or costal grooves along the sides of their bodies and by their rough skin. Their skin is very granular because of the number of poison glands. They also lack nasolabial grooves. Most species of Salamandridae have moveable eyelids but lack lacrimal glands.

Nearly all salamandrids produce a potent toxin in their skin, with some species being deadly to many other animal species. With a few exceptions, salamandrids have patterns of bright and contrasting colours, most of these are to warn potential predators of their toxicity. They have four well-developed limbs, with four toes on the fore limbs, and (in most cases) five toes on the hind limbs. They vary from 7 to 30 cm in length.

Many species within this family reproduce by method of internal fertilization. Additionally, there are many species-specific courtship rituals that males perform to attract mates. These courtship rituals often employ pheromones to induce mating behavior in females. Pheromones have been discovered to be the driving force behind female mating responses in Alpine newts. These pheromones can induce behavior even when male visual epigamic characters and courtship dances are absent. All species within the genus Lyciasalamandra are viviparous, meaning they give birth to live young, without a tadpole stage. There are some species within the genus Salamandra are known to be viviparous too. Some newts are neotenic, being able to reproduce before they are fully metamorphosed. The females of many species can store sperm for up to 6 months at a time.

Toxicity
The genus Taricha use the poison tetrodotoxin (TTX) that binds and blocks voltage-gated sodium channels (Nav) in nerves and muscles. This blockage causes the cessation of action potentials, leading to paralysis and death. Tetrodotoxin is the most toxic non-protein substance known. The rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) uses tetrodotoxin and is considered the most poisonous species of newt. There are species and sub-species of Taricha that live in concurrent regions with a garter snake (Thamnophis) that has developed a resistance to the TTX poisoning. Species that inhabit regions with resistant Thamnophis snakes have evolved to increase their concentrations of TTX in an evolutionary arms race of predator versus prey.

Phylogeny
Cladograms based on the work of Pyron and Wiens (2011) and modified using Mikko Haaramo

Taxonomy
The genus Salamandrina is the only member of the subfamily Salamandrininae, and the genera Chioglossa, Lyciasalamandra, Mertensiella, and Salamandra are grouped in the subfamily Salamandrinae, with sixteen other genera comprising the subfamily Pleurodelinae. Those with a more thoroughly aquatic lifestyle are referred to as "newts", but this is not a formal taxonomic description.

Family SALAMANDRIDAE

 * Subfamily Pleurodelinae
 * Genus Calotriton - two species
 * Calotriton arnoldi Carranza & Amat, 2005
 * Calotriton asper (Dugès, 1852)
 * Genus Cynops (fire belly newts) - ten species
 * Cynops chenggongensis Kou and Xing, 1983
 * Cynops cyanurus Liu, Hu, and Yang, 1962
 * Cynops ensicauda (Hallowell, 1861)
 * Cynops fudingensis Wu, Wang, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010
 * Cynops glaucus Yuan, Jiang, Ding, Zhang, and Che, 2013
 * Cynops orientalis (David, 1873)
 * Cynops orphicus Risch, 1983
 * Cynops pyrrhogaster (Boie, 1826)
 * Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905)
 * Cynops yunnanensis Yang, 1983
 * Genus Echinotriton - three species
 * Echinotriton andersoni (Boulenger, 1892)
 * Echinotriton chinhaiensis (Chang, 1932)
 * Echinotriton maxiquadratus Hou, Wu, Yang, Zheng, Yuan, and Li, 2014
 * Genus Euproctus - two species
 * Euproctus montanus (Savi, 1838)
 * Euproctus platycephalus (Gravenhorst, 1829)
 * Genus Ichthyosaura - one species
 * Ichthyosaura alpestris (Laurenti, 1768)
 * Genus Laotriton - one species
 * Laotriton laoensis (Stuart & Papenfuss, 2002)
 * Genus Lissotriton - ten species
 * Lissotriton boscai (Lataste, 1879)
 * Lissotriton graecus (Wolterstorff, 1906)
 * Lissotriton helveticus (Razoumovsky, 1789)
 * Lissotriton italicus (Peracca, 1898)
 * Lissotriton kosswigi (Freytag, 1955)
 * Lissotriton lantzi (Wolterstorff, 1914)
 * Lissotriton maltzani (Boettger, 1879)
 * Lissotriton montandoni (Boulenger, 1880)
 * Lissotriton schmidtleri (Raxworthy, 1988)
 * Lissotriton vulgaris (Linnaeus, 1758)
 * Genus Neurergus - five species
 * Neurergus barani Öz, 1994
 * Neurergus crocatus Cope, 1862
 * Neurergus derjugini (Nesterov, 1916)
 * Neurergus kaiseri Schmidt, 1952
 * Neurergus strauchii (Steindachner, 1887)
 * Genus Notophthalmus - three species
 * Notophthalmus meridionalis (Cope, 1880)
 * Notophthalmus perstriatus (Bishop, 1941)
 * Notophthalmus viridescens (Rafinesque, 1820)
 * Genus Ommatotriton - three species
 * Ommatotriton nesterovi (Litvinchuk, Zuiderwijk, Borkin, and Rosanov, 2005)
 * Ommatotriton ophryticus (Berthold, 1846)
 * Ommatotriton vittatus (Gray, 1835)
 * Genus Pachytriton - ten species
 * Pachytriton airobranchiatus Li, Yuan, Li, and Wu, 2018
 * Pachytriton archospotus Shen, Shen, and Mo, 2008
 * Pachytriton brevipes (Sauvage, 1876)
 * Pachytriton changi Nishikawa, Matsui, and Jiang, 2012
 * Pachytriton feii Nishikawa, Jiang, and Matsui, 2011
 * Pachytriton granulosus Chang, 1933
 * Pachytriton inexpectatus Nishikawa, Jiang, Matsui, and Mo, 2011
 * Pachytriton moi Nishikawa, Jiang, and Matsui, 2011
 * Pachytriton wuguanfui Yuan, Zhang, and Che, 2016
 * Pachytriton xanthospilos Wu, Wang, and Hanken, 2012
 * Genus Paramesotriton - fourteen species
 * Paramesotriton aurantius Yuan, Wu, Zhou, and Che, 2016
 * Paramesotriton caudopunctatus (Liu and Hu, 1973)
 * Paramesotriton chinensis (Gray, 1859)
 * Paramesotriton deloustali (Bourret, 1934)
 * Paramesotriton fuzhongensis Wen, 1989
 * Paramesotriton guangxiensis (Huang, Tang, and Tang, 1983)
 * Paramesotriton hongkongensis (Myers and Leviton, 1962)
 * Paramesotriton labiatus (Unterstein, 1930)
 * Paramesotriton longliensis Li, Tian, Gu, and Xiong, 2008
 * Paramesotriton maolanensis Gu, Chen, Tian, Li, and Ran, 2012
 * Paramesotriton qixilingensis Yan, Zhao, Jiang, Hou, He, Murphy, and Che, 2014
 * Paramesotriton wulingensis Wang, Tian, and Gu, 2013
 * Paramesotriton yunwuensis Wu, Jiang, and Hanken, 2010
 * Paramesotriton zhijinensis Li, Tian, and Gu, 2008
 * Genus Pleurodeles - three species
 * Pleurodeles nebulosus (Guichenot, 1850)
 * Pleurodeles poireti (Gervais, 1836)
 * Pleurodeles waltl Michahelles, 1830
 * Genus Taricha - four species
 * Taricha granulosa (Skilton, 1849)
 * Taricha rivularis (Twitty, 1935)
 * Taricha sierrae (Twitty, 1942)
 * Taricha torosa (Rathke, 1833)
 * Genus Triturus (crested newts) - nine species
 * Triturus anatolicus Wielstra & Arntzen, 2016
 * Triturus carnifex (Laurenti, 1768)
 * Triturus cristatus (Laurenti, 1768)
 * Triturus dobrogicus (Kiritzescu, 1768)
 * Triturus ivanbureschi Arntzen & Wielstra, 2013
 * Triturus karelinii (Strauch, 1870)
 * Triturus macedonicus (Karaman, 1922)
 * Triturus marmoratus (Latreille, 1800)
 * Triturus pygmaeus (Wolterstorff, 1905)
 * Genus Tylototriton (crocodile newts) - twenty-five species
 * Tylototriton anguliceps Le, Nguyen, Nishikawa, Nguyen, Pham, Matsui, Bernardes, and Nguyen, 2015
 * Tylototriton anhuiensis Qian, Sun, Li, Guo, Pan, Kang, Wang, Jiang, Wu, and Zhang, 2017
 * Tylototriton asperrimus Unterstein, 1930
 * Tylototriton broadoridgus Shen, Jiang, and Mo, 2012
 * Tylototriton dabienicus Chen, Wang, and Tao, 2010
 * Tylototriton hainanensis Fei, Ye, and Yang, 1984
 * Tylototriton himalayanus Khatiwada, Wang, Ghimire, Vasudevan, Paudel, and Jiang, 2015
 * Tylototriton kachinorum Zaw, Lay, Pawangkhanant, Gorin, and Poyarkov, 2019
 * Tylototriton kweichowensis Fang and Chang, 1932
 * Tylototriton liuyangensis Yang, Jiang, Shen, and Fei, 2014
 * Tylototriton lizhengchangi Hou, Zhang, Jiang, Li and Lu, 2012
 * Tylototriton ngarsuensis Grismer, Wood, Quah, Thura, Espinoza, Grismer, Murdoch, and Lin, 2018
 * Tylototriton notialis Stuart, Phimmachak, Sivongxay, and Robichaud, 2010
 * Tylototriton panhai Nishikawa, Khonsue, Pomchote, and Matsui, 2013
 * Tylototriton podichthys Phimmachak, Aowphol, and Stuart, 2015
 * Tylototriton pseudoverrucosus Hou, Gu, Zhang, Zeng, and Lu, 2012
 * Tylototriton shanjing Nussbaum, Brodie, and Yang, 1995
 * Tylototriton shanorum Nishikawa, Matsui, and Rao, 2014
 * Tylototriton taliangensis Liu, 1950
 * Tylototriton uyenoi Nishikawa, Khonsue, Pomchote, and Matsui, 2013
 * Tylototriton verrucosus Anderson, 1871
 * Tylototriton vietnamensis Böhme, Schöttler, Nguyen, and Köhler, 2005
 * Tylototriton wenxianensis Fei, Ye, and Yang, 1984
 * Tylototriton yangi Hou, Zhang, Zhou, Li, and Lu, 2012
 * Tylototriton ziegleri Nishikawa, Matsui, and Nguyen, 2013
 * Subfamily Salamandrinae
 * Genus Chioglossa - one species
 * Chioglossa lusitanica Bocage, 1864
 * Genus Lyciasalamandra - seven species
 * Lyciasalamandra antalyana (Başoğlu and Baran, 1976)
 * Lyciasalamandra atifi (Başoğlu, 1967)
 * Lyciasalamandra billae (Franzen and Klewen, 1987)
 * Lyciasalamandra fazilae (Başoğlu and Atatür, 1975 "1974")
 * Lyciasalamandra flavimembris (Mutz and Steinfartz, 1995)
 * Lyciasalamandra helverseni (Pieper, 1963)
 * Lyciasalamandra luschani (Steindachner, 1891)
 * Genus Mertensiella - one species
 * Mertensiella caucasica (Waga, 1876)
 * Genus Salamandra (fire salamanders) - seven species
 * Salamandra algira Bedriaga, 1883
 * Salamandra atra Laurenti, 1768
 * Salamandra corsica Savi, 1838
 * Salamandra infraimmaculata Martens, 1885
 * Salamandra lanzai Nascetti, Andreone, Capula, and Bullini, 1988
 * Salamandra longirostris Joger and Steinfartz, 1994
 * Salamandra salamandra (Linnaeus, 1758)
 * Subfamily Salamandrininae
 * Genus Salamandrina- two species
 * Salamandrina perspicillata (Savi, 1821)
 * Salamandrina terdigitata (Bonnaterre, 1789)

Fossil record
Salamandrids have a substantial fossil record spanning most of the Cenozoic. The oldest known fossils date from the Thanetian (Paleocene), but these, and most other known fossil salamandrids apparently belong to the crown group. The sole known stem-salamandrid is Phosphotriton sigei, from the Quercy Phosphorites Formation, which apparently dates from the Middle to Late Eocene.

title: Salamandridae


text:
Combat Zone, Boston

"Combat Zone" was the name given in the 1960s to the adult entertainment district in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Centered on Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street, the area was once the site of many strip clubs, peep shows, X-rated movie theaters, and adult bookstores. It had a reputation for crime, including prostitution.

In 1974, in an attempt to contain the spread of adult businesses, the Boston Redevelopment Authority officially designated the Combat Zone as the city's adult entertainment district. For a variety of reasons, such as rising property values and the introduction of home video technology, most of the adult businesses in the area have since closed, and the "Combat Zone" moniker has become obsolete.

Etymology
The name "Combat Zone" was popularized through a series of exposé articles on the area Jean Cole wrote for the Boston Daily Record in the 1960s. The moniker described an area that resembled a war zone both because of its well-known crime and violence, and because many soldiers and sailors on shore leave from the Charlestown (Boston) Navy Yard frequented the many strip clubs and brothels while in uniform.

History
The Combat Zone began to form in the early 1960s, when city officials razed the West End and former red light district at Scollay Square, near Faneuil Hall, to build the Government Center urban renewal project. Displaced Scollay Square denizens relocated to the lower Washington Street area because it was only half a mile away, the rents were low, and the residents of nearby Chinatown lacked the political power to keep them out. Originally, there was an attempt to name the area Liberty Tree Neighborhood after the Liberty Tree that once stood in the area, but the name did not catch on.

Lower Washington Street was already part of Boston's entertainment district with a number of movie theaters, bars, delicatessens, and restaurants that catered to night life. It was located between the classic, studio-built movie palaces such as the RKO Keith's and Paramount theatres and the stage theatres such as the Colonial on Boylston Street. With the closing of the burlesque theatres in Scollay Square, many of the bars began to feature go-go dancers and, later, nude dancers. During the 1970s, when laws against obscenity were relaxed, many of the cinemas then screening second-run films began screening adult movies.

Peak years: Mid-1960s – late 1970s

During the Combat Zone's heyday, some of the larger strip clubs were Naked i Cabaret (famous for its animated neon sign which superimposed an eye over a woman's crotch), Club 66, the Teddy Bear Lounge, and the Two O'Clock Club. Besides the strip clubs and X-rated movie theaters, numerous peep shows and adult bookstores lined most of Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street. In 1976, The Wall Street Journal called the area "a sexual Disneyland".

The prevailing attitude towards homosexuality at the time was one of intolerance. Lower Washington Street, by contrast, was known for many years as the "Gay Times Square". As the area changed, that nickname fell out of circulation, but the Combat Zone's relatively open atmosphere still attracted many LGBT people. Popular gathering spots included the Playland Café on Essex Street, the Stuart Theater on Washington Street, and many others. Nearby Park Square and Bay Village were home to several gay and drag bars, such as the Punch Bowl and Jacques Cabaret.

The Combat Zone's detractors often grouped homosexuals, transvestites, prostitutes, strippers, purveyors of adult books and films, and drug dealers together under an umbrella of perceived immorality. Jeremiah Murphy wrote in a 1973 Boston Globe article about the Combat Zone, "Now it is almost 3 a.m. and the gay bars have closed and the fags and hookers and pimps and pushers roam the streets." In a 1974 Boston Herald article, representatives of the Sack Theater Chain called the Combat Zone "Satan's playground" and "a malignancy comprisedof [sic] pimps, prostitutes, erotica, and merchants of immorality" whose growth had to be removed. As late as 1984 the Globe was referring to certain theaters in the Zone as "notorious gathering places for homosexuals".

The Combat Zone was also recognized as being racially diverse at a time when other Boston neighborhoods were relatively segregated. In his memoir, Jonathan Tudan recalls the tension in his Tremont Street building over news of an impending police raid in 1969. Along with the drug dealers and prostitutes, he writes, "mixed-race couples shacking up have begun to nervously doubt their freedom."

Prostitution

LaGrange Street, a small one-way street which runs between Washington and Tremont Streets, was the principal gathering spot for street prostitutes. Most congregated near "Good Time Charlie's" at 25 LaGrange Street. The Pilgrim Theater, one of the last old time burlesque houses, was the site of a political scandal in December 1974 when the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur Mills, seemingly inebriated, appeared on stage with stripper Fanne Foxe, "The Argentine Firecracker". The Pilgrim then ceased to feature live shows, instead focusing on X-rated movies, and became a cruising site for men to have (paid or unpaid) sex with men.

State Representative Barney Frank made a name for himself in the mid-1970s as a political defender of the Combat Zone. Frank took a libertarian view on vice, bucking the consensus that the area needed to be "cleaned up". At the same time he wanted to prevent the Zone's adult businesses from spreading into the affluent Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighborhoods where they might disturb his constituents. In 1975, with the support of Boston Police Commissioner Robert DiGrazia, Frank introduced a bill that would have legalized the sex-for-hire business but kept it quarantined in a red light district, which would be moved to Boston's Financial District. The Financial District was not populated at night, unlike the areas abutting the Combat Zone.

The Combat Zone had other supporters. Boston Mayor Kevin White was in favor of allowing adult businesses to operate within defined boundaries, as was conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. In 1975, White made headlines when he made an unannounced tour of the Combat Zone, visiting several establishments where he went largely unrecognized. When approached by a prostitute on LaGrange Street, White replied, "Thank you, I'm too old."

Many Combat Zone prostitutes, both male and female, were minors. In 1975, 97 girls under the age of 17 were arrested in the Combat Zone for prostitution. A spokesperson for the Boston Police Department called that "the tip of the iceberg", explaining that minors were more often charged with being a Child in Need of Services. Audrey Morrissey, a former underage Combat Zone prostitute who went on to become the associate director of a victims' service agency, recalled that in her day, underage prostitutes were held responsible for what would now be considered a crime against them, while johns were rarely arrested.

Other crime
The Combat Zone had a reputation for violent crime which, while not unfounded, was sensationalized by the press. In April 1975, Police Superintendent Joseph M. Jordan (who later became the Commissioner) told reporters that Boston's most "troublesome" police districts were Districts 2 (Roxbury), 3 (Mattapan) and 4 (Back Bay/South End). The Combat Zone was in District 1.

Street crime in the Combat Zone was commonly attributed to the blighting influence of adult businesses, despite the fact that the area had been a skid row before their arrival. As a 1977 Time magazine article put it, "Violence has followed the vice." Newspaper reporters routinely suggested that adult businesses in the Combat Zone were connected to organized crime. Although those rumors were largely unsubstantiated, at least one establishment did have such a connection: Jay's Lounge on Tremont Street, owned by mob boss Gennaro Angiulo. The murder of Andrew Puopolo in the Combat Zone, in November 1976, led to Commonwealth v. Soares, the seminal Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case barring racial discrimination in jury selection.

The area also had a problem with police corruption, according to a 1976 Special Investigations Unit report on Police District One. The report alleged that "a direct relationship existed between ... the highest ranking member of the District One command staff and the Angiulo family during the period in question ... the unusual police service attending the Angiulo funeral can only be explained as an act of respect and fealty to an organized crime overlord by the deputy superintendent." According to the report, officers ignored organized crime and confined themselves to arresting low-level offenders such as street bookies, prostitutes, and drug users. District One was allegedly the center of a major gambling syndicate, but officers who worked there refused to investigate, fearing reprisal by their superiors. The Combat Zone was also reputedly a center for illegal gun sales.

Another controversial practice that was common in the Combat Zone was drink solicitation. In violation of Boston's "mingling" regulations, dancers and hostesses at some bars were paid to socialize with customers and encourage them to buy drinks. Bars were occasionally raided and shut down for "B-girl activity".

Zoning

In 1974, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the state's obscenity laws unconstitutional, city officials feared that Boston was about to become a "mecca of pornography". The Boston Redevelopment Authority tried to contain the spread of adult businesses by designating the Combat Zone as the official adult entertainment district. This district was exempted from the usual ban on flashing neon signs. At the same time, the BRA made ambitious plans to improve the area's aesthetics. That year, funding was approved for Liberty Tree Park, a small park near the site of the historic Liberty Tree, as "the first step in improving the Combat Zone."

Boston was the first American city to establish a specific zone for adult entertainment. Most cities, such as Detroit, used zoning regulations to disperse adult businesses and prevent them from forming a district.

Although adult entertainment was confined to the Combat Zone, buildings in the Combat Zone were not used exclusively for that purpose. Residents lived in furnished apartments, single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs), homeless shelters, and a retired merchant marines' home. Urban renewal plans tended to overlook these residents, and the buildings were eventually demolished or converted to other uses. Saint Francis House on Boylston Street, a daytime shelter for the homeless, is still in operation.

Demise
The Combat Zone's demise can be attributed to a number of factors. Among them are the rising property values that made the downtown locations more attractive to real estate developers, the closure of the Charlestown (Boston) Navy Yard, the spread of AIDS, and the introduction of home video and the Internet, which made it possible to view adult movies and other erotica at home without going to a red light district.

Another factor was the city's ambivalence towards the area: despite the BRA's plans to improve the Combat Zone, the area suffered from municipal neglect. Throughout the mid-1970s, the city neglected the Zone's streetlights, policing, and garbage pickup, fostering an atmosphere of urban blight and criminality. Street prostitutes became bolder, often picking pockets and robbing passersby. In 1976, just before leaving office, Police Commissioner Robert DiGrazia released a 572-page Special Investigations Unit report to the press documenting widespread police corruption, neglect, and brutality in the Zone. Just two weeks later, the highly publicized murder of the Harvard football player Andrew Puopolo focused attention on crime in the area.

Years of grassroots activism by neighboring Chinatown residents, aggressive police work, use of bureaucratic procedures to discourage adult businesses, and massive urban renewal projects instigated by the BRA have helped to stem crime and close most of the adult businesses. All that remains of the former Combat Zone are two small strip clubs, Centerfolds and the Glass Slipper, along LaGrange Street, and a few adult book and video stores on Washington and Kneeland streets. Street prostitution has moved to other parts of town.

A new Emerson College dormitory (and eventual relocation of the entire campus), Suffolk University administrative offices, a relocated branch of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, a new $300 million development which includes a Ritz-Carlton Hotel and a Loews cinema, and a renovated Boston Opera House all opened in the area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2006 a luxury apartment tower, the Archstone Boston Common, was erected at the corner of Washington and Beach streets. The historic Hayden Building on Washington Street, once home to an adult movie theater and a gay bathhouse, was renovated in 2013 and now houses luxury apartments and retail space.

Notable performers
Chesty Morgan, an exotic dancer known for her 73-inch bust, regularly performed at the Pilgrim Theater. In August 1974, the theater's owner claimed, "She was like a god out of the heavens for us. She saved the theater and I hope she can do it again."

Princess Cheyenne, another celebrated exotic dancer, performed at the Naked i in the 1970s and 1980s.

Sylvia Sidney, "Boston's most (in)famous drag queen", regularly performed at clubs in the Combat Zone. Sidney was named for the actress Sylvia Sidney.

Comedian Jay Leno got his start doing stand-up in the Two O'Clock Club and the Teddy Bare Lounge in the Combat Zone.

Jazz musicians Sabby Lewis, Dick Wetmore, and Bull Moose Jackson played regularly at the Gilded Cage on Boylston Street in the 1960s. The Gilded Cage was destroyed in 1966 when a leaking gas main exploded in the nearby Paramount Hotel, causing a five-alarm fire that killed 11 people.

Before the demolition of Scollay Square, there was already at least one strip bar in what would later become known as the Combat Zone: Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille at 25 Essex Street. Many notable jazz musicians played there in the 1940s and early 1950s, including Quincy Jones, Ruby Braff, Sam Rivers, Herb Pomeroy, and others. Entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. sang and danced there when he lived in Boston.

The Silver Dollar Bar, which later became the Two O'Clock, was Frank O'Hara's favorite bar when he studied at Harvard. Like Izzy Ort's, it was a live music venue as well as a popular hangout for sailors. Among others, George Wein, Nat Pierce, Ray Perry, and Fat Man Robinson played there.

Art
In 2010, the Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston (now the Miller Yezerski Gallery) hosted an exhibit titled "Boston Combat Zone: 1969-1978", featuring black-and-white photographs by Roswell Angier, Jerry Berndt, and John Goodman. At the opening, several former Combat Zone entertainers were critical of what they saw as an overemphasis on the area's negative aspects.

Games
The Combat Zone is portrayed in Fallout 4 as an explorable area. In the video game, which is set in a post-apocalyptic fictional Boston, the "Combat Zone" takes on a literal meaning as an area for human barbed wire steel cage matches.

Literature
In his first novel, A Case of Need (1968), a medical thriller/mystery novel set in the late 1960s Boston, the physician-turned-author Michael Crichton vividly describes the Combat Zone itself, the types and preponderance of injuries and diseases treated by the local public hospital, Boston City (which, he wrote, was sometimes referred to as "Boston Shitty"), and the opportunities working and training there presented to medical professionals, despite Boston City's low status relative to the city's other hospitals, to see and treat cases they might not be exposed to elsewhere. The novel was adapted into the film The Carey Treatment (1972).

Part 3 of Lynda Hull's seven-part poem, "Suite for Emily" (1993), describes the Combat Zone. Hull, an award-winning poet, lived for a time in Boston's Chinatown.

Stephen King mentions the Combat Zone in his novels The Stand (1978), Cujo (1981), Blaze (2007), and 11/22/63 (2011).

Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels often have his protagonist spending time in the Combat Zone.

In David Foster Wallace's encyclopedic novel Infinite Jest (1996), the characters Pemulis and Struck are alleged patrons of the Combat Zone after the district's relocation to "east of the Common".

Movies
In Martin Scorsese's 2006 film The Departed, characters portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon are surveilled by that of Leonardo DiCaprio in a Combat Zone adult-film theater owned by Nicholson's character based on Whitey Bulger.

Music
"Lightning Strikes" by Aerosmith (1982) mentions the Combat Zone, as does the 1980 song "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel.

Television
An episode of the Boston-set television series Cheers ("Showdown, Part 1" (1983)) includes a moment when Ernie Pantusso invites Sam Malone to the Combat Zone, to see "a girlie show". In a subsequent episode ("How Do I Love Thee?... Let Me Call You Back" (8 Dec. 1983)), the gang returns to the bar after a night at the Combat Zone led by Carla.

title: Combat Zone, Boston