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Friendster

Friendster is a social network originally based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003. Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages, and comments with other members via profiles and networks. It is considered one of the original social networks.

After the launching of Friendster as a social gaming platform in June 2011, the number of registered users reached over 115 million. The company operated mainly from four Asian countries: the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, and over 90% of the site's traffic came from Asia. As of 2008, Friendster had more monthly unique visitors than any other social network in Asia. Friendster remained notably popular in Indonesia through 2012.

The company suspended services in 2015, citing "the evolving landscape in our challenging industry" and lack of engagement by the online community, and ceased trading in 2018.

History
Friendster was founded by Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams in 2002, before MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2004), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. Friendster.com went live in 2003 and was adopted by 3 million users within the first few months.

Friendster was one of the first of these sites to attain over 1 million members, although it was preceded by several other smaller social networking sites such as SixDegrees.com (1997) and Makeoutclub (1999).

The name Friendster is a portmanteau of "friend" and Napster. Napster at the time was a controversial peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that was launched in 1999; by 2000, "Napster" was practically a household name, thanks to several high-profile lawsuits filed against it that year. The original Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California, and was privately owned. Friendster was based on the "Circle of Friends" social network technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon. Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004, when it was overtaken by MySpace in terms of page views, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Publications including Time, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly and Spin wrote about Friendster's success, and the founder appeared on magazine covers and late-night talk shows. Friendster's rapid success inspired a generation of niche social networking websites, including Dogster and Elfster.

Friendster had also received competition from all-in-one sites such as Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo! 360, and Facebook. Google offered $30 million to buy out Friendster in 2003, but the offer was turned down. Friendster was then funded by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in October 2003 with a reported valuation of $53 million. Friendster's decision to stay private instead of selling to Google in 2003 is considered one of the biggest blunders in Silicon Valley, the Associated Press claims. In April 2004, John Abrams was removed as CEO, and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as president and CEO at Yahoo!. Scott Sassa later replaced Koogle in June 2004. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was then succeeded by Kent Lindstrom, following a capitalization by Kleiner and Benchmark that valued Friendster at less than 5% of its 2003 valuation.

In 2008, Friendster had a membership base of more than 115 million registered users and continued to grow in Asia. According to Alexa, the site suffered an exponential decline in traffic in America beginning in 2009. From a peak 40, it dropped to position 800 in November 2010. Most people have since attributed this decline to the rise of Facebook, a rival social networking site. In August 2008, Friendster hired ex-Google executive Richard Kimber as CEO. Kimber focused on Friendster's expansion in Asia.

On December 9, 2009, it was announced that Friendster had been acquired for $26.4 million by an internet company based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia named MOL Global. MOL's ownership of Friendster patents including one for a "System, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks" and Friendster's other core technical infrastructure patents, were bought by Facebook for $40 million in 2010.

In June 2011, the company re-positioned itself as a social gaming site. It discontinued user social network accounts, but Friendster accounts had not been deleted, and users could still log in using their existing passwords. Users' contact lists were preserved, along with basic information. Friendster said that the focus would now be on pure "entertainment and fun", and the aim was not to compete with Facebook, but rather to complement it.

On June 14, 2015, the site and all its services shut down indefinitely, but the company did not officially shutter until the end of June 2018.

In October 2023, the site was reactivated with an entry box for an email address and a button to "Get early access". The website is owned by Friendster Labs Inc. which has published a terms of service and privacy policy.

Financial history
The company was founded in 2002 with a $12 million investment by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, and private investors.

In 2003, Friendster management received a $30 million buyout offer from Google, which it declined.

Friendster received another $3 million in funding in February 2006 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital. In August 2006, Friendster also received $10 million in funding in a round led by DAG Ventures, and Friendster announced in August 2008 that it had raised an additional $20 million in funding in a round led by IDG Ventures. Prior to its acquisition by MOL Global, Friendster was backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures, and individual investors.

Awards and recognitions

 * In July 2006, Friendster was awarded Key Social Networking Technology Patent.
 * In 2007, Friendster was selected by AlwaysOn Media as Top 100 Private Company Award Winner.
 * In April 2008, Friendster became a Webware 100 winner.
 * In 2009, the site was the subject of a satirical portrayal by The Onion News Network of the site's discovery as an archaeological relic, untouched since 2005.

Services
In November 2009, Friendster announced a global partnership with MOL AccessPortal Berhad (MOL), a leading payments provider leveraging a network of over 600,000 physical and virtual payment channels worldwide, to power the Friendster Wallet and a payments platform enabling micro-spending for over 115 million registered users on Friendster. The Friendster Wallet was designed to support a variety of payment methods including pre-paid cards, mobile payments, online payments and credit card payments.

Friendster also had content partners, including game developers and publishers who provided monetization solutions on the Friendster platform using MOL's payment channels and Friendster's large user base. Sub-brands of Friendster included "Friendster iCafe", a cybercafe management system, and "Friendster Hotspots", a free Wi-Fi infrastructure for retailers.

Languages
Available languages include English, Filipino, Thai, Malay, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Users can also enter content on Friendster in any language.

Friendster launched all language support on a single domain – www.friendster.com. Friendster was the first global online social network to support Asian languages and others on a single domain so that users from around the world were able to talk to each other.

Development
Friendster has been an open site since August 2006 when it first began allowing widgets and content to be embedded in user profile pages through its developer program. In 2007, roughly 40% of Friendster's users had widgets on their profiles.

Friendster gave software developers access to APIs that utilized content and data within the Friendster network to build and deploy customizable applications on and off Friendster. Friendster's Developer Program was an open, non-proprietary platform with an open revenue model.

Friendster was the first social network to support both the OpenSocial and the Facebook Platform.

In December 2009, Friendster relaunched its website with a new interface.

Patents
Friendster held some fundamental online social networking patents: In August 2010, Facebook confirmed that it had acquired all patents from Friendster for a reported $40M, effectively rendering the company an arms length subsidiary of Facebook.
 * A system, method and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer
 * Method of Inducing Content Uploads in a Social Network
 * System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network
 * Compatibility Scoring of Users in a Social Network
 * Method for sharing relationship information stored in a social network

Site transformation
In June 2011, Friendster shifted from social networking site to a social entertainment site with a focus on gaming and entertainment. Previous users' accounts are unchanged. However, all the photos, messages, comments, testimonials, shoutouts, blogs, forums and groups that the users may have had in the past may no longer be part of their Friendster account. An exporting tool is provided to back up the information of the user account. This tool has the ability to export photos to Flickr and Multiply.

The deadline given to users to export their photos was extended to June 27, 2011. Photos which were not exported before the deadline were removed and are no longer retrievable.

In the two months after the new Friendster relaunched, the site attracted more than half a million new users and included over 40 games. Daily and monthly active users increased by 50%, with more than 90% of new users coming from Asia. At the end of 2015 Friendster closed the website and related services, and on July 1, 2018, it officially ceased to exist as a company.

title: Friendster


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King Rollo

King Rollo is a children's character, created by David McKee in 1980. He is the main character in a series of books, animations narrated by Ray Brooks, and a comic strip in the magazine Buttons. Thirteen episodes of the animation were produced in 1980 by McKee's own King Rollo Films, where the character is the company's mascot and namesake, and were originally shown as part of the pre-school 'See-Saw' strand.

Rollo himself is a childlike king who is always in need of advice and assistance from his friends. Among these are The Magician (a father figure); Cook (the king's cook, a mother figure, who was arguably the real ruler of the kingdom); his neighbour and girlfriend, Queen Gwen; King Frank; and Rollo's cat, Hamlet, who was generally portrayed as wiser than Rollo himself.

The animations used the same colourful cut-out paper look as McKee's other works, such as Mr Benn. The 2D animation style saved on production costs. The characters' legs would rotate outwards when walking until they were at right-angles to the sides of their body.

Books

 * King Rollo and the New Shoes (1979)
 * King Rollo and the Bread (1979)
 * King Rollo and the Birthday (1979)
 * King Rollo and the Balloons (1980)
 * King Rollo and the Tree (1980)
 * King Rollo and the Dishes (1980)
 * King Rollo and the Bath (1981)
 * King Rollo and King Frank (1981)
 * King Rollo and the Search (1981)
 * King Rollo and the Playroom (1982)
 * King Rollo and the Breakfast (1982)
 * King Rollo and the Dog (1982)
 * King Rollo and the Mask (1982)
 * King Rollo's Letter and Other Stories (1984): collection containing: King Rollo and the Letter; King Rollo and the Bush; King Rollo and the Present; King Rollo and the Tent
 * King Rollo's Winter (1986): board book
 * King Rollo's Spring (1987): board book
 * King Rollo's Summer (1988): board book
 * King Rollo's Autumn (1988): board book
 * King Rollo and Santa's Beard (1990): also published as King Rollo's Christmas
 * King Rollo and the New Stockings (2001)

Collections

 * The Adventures of King Rollo (1982): King Rollo and the New Shoes; King Rollo and the Birthday; King Rollo and the Bread; King Rollo and the Tree
 * The Further Adventures of King Rollo (1983): King Rollo and the Dishes; King Rollo and the Balloons; King Rollo and King Frank; King Rollo and the Search
 * King Rollo's Playroom and Other Stories (1984): King Rollo and the Playroom; King Rollo and the Breakfast; King Rollo and the Dog; King Rollo and the Mask
 * The Adventures of King Rollo (2016): collection of separate hardback books containing: King Rollo and the New Shoes; King Rollo and the Bread; King Rollo and the Birthday; King Rollo and King Frank

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

title: King Rollo


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Lottery machine

A lottery machine is the machine used to draw the winning numbers for a lottery.

Early lotteries were done by drawing numbers, or winning tickets, from a container. In the UK, numbers of winning Premium Bonds (which were not strictly a lottery, but very similar in approach) were generated by an electronic machine called ERNIE.

Mechanical machines
Most lotteries use mechanical lottery machines. These are more interesting to watch, and more transparent, both literally and figuratively: the audience can see exactly how the internal workings of the machine operate, and they can watch the balls come out of the machine; generally, the balls are visible during the entire draw.

Gravity Pick
A gravity pick machine has a chamber with rotating paddles inside, spinning in opposite directions. Numbered balls are dropped into the chamber and mixed until a sliding door opens, allowing the desired number of balls to pass through, one at a time. Machines of this type are used in many games, such as the American games Mega Millions, Powerball and Cash4Life, and the pan-European game EuroMillions.

A similar method is used to draw numbers from a manually operated bingo cage; a weighted cup catches the ball, which drops it onto the tray as the cage is rotated. This variant was at one time used by the Pennsylvania Lottery, the New Jersey Lottery, and the Illinois Lottery; in this variant, a cover is placed strategically, so as to obscure extra balls drawn beyond the number called for by the game matrix.

Air mix
Air mix machines have a fan in the bottom that blows the balls around. A valve to a tube opens, and the balls that are blown into the tube are the winning numbers. The balls are evenly weighted and are usually locked away in vaults when not in use, in order to prevent tampering. Machines of this type are used for many "daily numbers"-type games, as well as the pan-European game Eurojackpot.

Though similar in style to the latter type of "air mix" machines, those currently used by the American Powerball game do not use air mix; it is more in tune with a "gravity pick" machine, with the mixing paddles at the bottom of the machine. As the mixing paddle slows down, the ball lands on a pedestal, where it is carried to the top of the machine and then pushed onto the tray. On rare occasions, a similar machine is used in a "pick 3" or "pick 4" game.

Random number generator
Some lotteries use computerized random number generators, either alongside or in place of a mechanical draw machine. These are more "cost-effective": with mechanical equipment, machines and balls have to be replaced periodically. However, these are not as interesting to watch, and may give a player a sense that the lottery is being rigged.

Security measures
Because of the massive payoff for a successful cheat (especially after the 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal where drawing balls were rigged to draw a certain number of results), lottery machines are subject to strict security measures. In some cases there are several machines and several sets of balls, and the combination to be used is selected at random just before the draw. An independent accounting firm is hired by each lottery to watch the entire process and certify each drawing, and to step in and wave off the drawing if there are mechanical or technical issues during the drawing, or if the drawing is suspicious. Mechanical machines and RNG machines are also air-gapped from any type of network or external drive connection to prevent a hacking attack against the lottery to influence the results.

title: Lottery machine


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QOTD

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) service is a member of the Internet protocol suite, defined in 1983 in by Jon Postel. As indicated there, the QOTD concept predated the specification, when QOTD was used by mainframe sysadmins to broadcast a daily quote on request by a user. It was then formally codified both for prior purposes as well as for testing and measurement purposes.

A host may connect to a server that supports the QOTD protocol, on either TCP or UDP port 17. To keep the quotes at a reasonable length, RFC 865 specifies a maximum of 512 octets for the quote.

Although some sources indicate that the QOTD service is rarely enabled, and is in any case often firewalled to avoid denial-of-service attacks, interest continues in the pre-existing purpose of serving quotes as can be seen with web engine searches.

Current testing and measurement of IP networks is more commonly done with ping and traceroute, which are more robust adaptations of the echo protocol (RFC 862), which predated the attempt at QOTD standardization.

title: QOTD


text:
Hévíz Spa

Hévíz Spa and the Szent András Hospital, Hévíz (English: St. Andrew's State Hospital for Rheumatology and Rehabilitation) is a destination spa in Hungary. It is located in Hévíz, on the shores of the lake of the same name. Hévíz–Balaton Airport is approximately 12 km from the town.

History
The curative effect of the lake was probably known to the ancient Romans. Coins found in the lake in the early 1980s support this supposition. Discoveries from the age of Migration suggest that the migrant German and Slavic population used the lake as well. Written sources more than 400 years old originate from the age of Ottoman occupation.

The lake and its surroundings became the property of the Festetics family in the middle of the 18th century, who started its development as a spa. Earl György (I.) Festetics (between 1795 and 1797) built a thermal wooden bathing house on a float over the outflow. After the earl's death in 1819 the development of Hévíz stopped. 1 March 1868, György (II.) Festetics began building the bathing resort suitable for guests. The bath looked more or less as it does today. In 1866 the mirrorbath was built.

In 1905 Vencel Reischl, a brewery owner from Keszthely, became the tenant of the bath and remained so for 35 years. Reischl replaced the hotels, restaurants, and buildings, and the entrance of the bath was finished in 1911 together with the Zander Institution. The number of visitors increased significantly, and the facilities expanded considerably as more doctors moved to the site to practice various forms of therapy.

Between 1944-46 the buildings were used as a hospital, first by the German then by the Soviet army. In 1948 it fell under state ownership; the State Medicinal Bath, Hévíz, was established by the Ministry of Health on 1 January 1952. The number of visitors tripled then quadrupled, and the machinery of the hospital and the treatments were modernised. On 3 March 1986, the central buildings of the bath (in the lake) burnt down. In September 1989 the reconstruction of the destroyed parts was completed.

Further reconstruction of the park and buildings was completed between 2000 and 2002. Today the area of the institution is 620,000 square metres.

title: Hévíz Spa


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Kottabos

Kottabos (κότταβος) was a game of skill played at Ancient Greek and Etruscan symposia (drinking parties), especially in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It involved flinging wine-lees (sediment) at a target in the middle of the room. The winner would receive a prize (κοττάβιον or "kottabion"), comprising cakes, sweetmeats, or kisses.

Ancient writers, including Dionysius Chalcus, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Antiphanes, make frequent and familiar allusion to the practice; and it is depicted on contemporaneous red-figure vases. References to the practice by the writers of the Roman and Alexandrian periods show that the fashion had died out. In Latin literature, it is almost entirely unknown.

Dexterity was required to succeed in the game, and unusual ability was rated as highly as corresponding excellence in throwing the javelin. Kottabos was customary, and, at least in Sicily, special circular buildings were established, so the players might easily be arranged around the target, and follow each other in rapid succession. Like all games in which the element of chance found a place, it was regarded as more or less ominous of the future success of the players, especially in matters of love – and the excitement was sometimes further augmented by some object of value being staked on the event. The stake in the game was often a attending the symposium with the players.

Origin
The kottabos game seems to have originated in Sicily, or the land of the Sikels, but it spread through Greece, from Thessaly to Rhodes, becoming especially fashionable at Athens. Evidence of its origin can be found on an Attic red-figure psykter by Euphronios, depicting four hetairai. One of the hetairai on the vase, Smikra, is swinging her cup, as a kottabos player. The inscription beside her is Doric, the dialect used by the Sicilians.

Rules of play
As Antiphanes wrote in his play: "the kottabos player puts the index finger of the right-hand through the handle of the drinking cup, palm upwards; and the remaining fingers are spread as playing a flute." The player reclines on the couch, leaning on the left elbow; and, moving only the right-forearm, throws the wine-lees.

Kottabos kataktos
When playing kottabos kataktos, also called kottabos with a pole, the target is the plastinx (πλάστιγξ), a small disc, balanced horizontally atop a bronze lamp stand. Halfway down the stand is a larger disc called the manes (μάνης). Sometimes a bronze statuette is used, with the plastinx balanced on its extended arms, or on its head. Some refer to this statuette as the manes, since Manes was a Phrygian slave name; and it would make sense to connect that name with this small figure. But according to Antiphanes, the plastinx should fall onto the manes with a loud noise, which seems unlikely if the manes is the statuette. The player is expected to throw the wine-lees found in the drinking cup, in such a way that it does not break bulk in its passage through the air, towards the plastinx. Success entails making the plastinx fall to the manes, causing a bell-like sound. Both the wine thrown, and the noise made, were called latax (λάταξ).

Variations
Kottabos kataktos was the traditional and correct way of playing, but there were various modifications that were acceptable:

Kottabos with oxybapha
In Kottabos with an oxybaphon (Κότταβος δι᾽ ὀξυβάφων), or kottabos in a bowl, the target of the throw is a bowl, or lekane. The lekane is filled with water, and empty shallow saucers (ὀξύβαφα or oxybapha) float on the water. The object is to throw the wine-lees onto the oxybapha, to sink them, which is easier than the kottabos kataktos. The player who sank the most was the winner. This form of playing is rarely found on vases, presumably because it would be difficult to paint the interior of the lekane, with oxybapha floating in it, on a vase.

Combination of kataktos and oxybapha
There is a special kottabos stand found in Italy, Etruscan with a pole and a bowl at the bottom. It combines the kottabos kataktos with the variation involving oxybapha. The lower was probably the lekane used to float the oxybapha, while the pole can be used to play the original form.

Sunken kottabos
Sunken kottabos (Κότταβος κατακτός) is not so simple. The apparatus (kottabeion, pl. kottabeia) were the rhabdus (ῥάβδος, a bronze pole), the plastinx (πλάστιγξ, a small saucer like that on a balance), the lecanis (λεκανίς, a large saucer), and the manes (μάνης, a bronze figurine).

The discovery in Etruscan burial sites (by Wolfgang Helbig in 1886) of two sets of actual apparatus in Umbria, near Perugia, as well as various representations on Greek vases help explain the somewhat obscure accounts of how kottabos was played.

The rhabdus (pole) had a flat base, and the main structure tapered towards the top, with a blunt end (on which the plastinx or manes was balanced). The plastinx (small saucer) had a hole near the edge and was slightly concave in the middle.

About two-thirds of the way down, the rhabdus was encircled by the lecanis (large saucer). A socket near the top of the rhabdus held the manes (figurine). The manes was in the shape of a man, with his right arm and leg uplifted, sometimes holding a drinking horn (or "rhytum").

According to Helbig, three games were played with this apparatus:

Method No. 1
The plastinx (small saucer) was fixed on top of the rhabdus (pole), with the lecanis (large saucer) below. The players tried to fill the plastinx with enough wine to tip it over (with a crash) onto the lecanis.

Method No. 2
Played exactly the same as method No. 1, except that the plastinx was supposed to hit the manes (figurine) on the way down to the lecanis.

Method No. 3
Played exactly the same as method No. 1, except that the manes (instead of the plastinx) was fixed on top of the rhabdus, and it was at this that the wine was thrown.

Kottabos with a phallus-headed bird
Another variation of the kottabos involves a different kind of target. On a red-figure cup by Apollodoros, it shows some symposiasts aiming at a target with a phallus-headed bird balancing on top of a tripod which is placed on a flat pan. The pan is inscribed KOTABOS, so it is certain which game is played. This target is unique, and it emphasizes the erotic side of both the game and the symposium.

Kottabos toast
Before the kottabos player throws the wine-lees, the turn is dedicated to a. The player's words can be a sort of toast or dedication to the person of affection. The toast can serve as a question about the possibility of success in love, which would be answered by the outcome of the throw. It emphasizes the love nature of this game, and the core idea of bonding at the symposium.

One of the most famous inscriptions is on the red-figure psykter of the four hetairai by Euphronios. On this psykter, Smikra is dedicating her turn to Leagros. The inscription says: "Tin tande latasso leagre (I am throwing this for you, Leagros)." Leagros was a popular youth frequently named in kalos inscriptions on sympotic vases around this period.

Sometimes painters would use gods as representations of a kottabos player when giving a kottabos toast. On a red-figure stamnos by the Copenhagen painter, Dionysus is painted as one of these representations. The inscription beside his arm says: "tot tende (this is for you)." On the left, a satyr completes the sentence: "lykoi (for Lykos)", who was a youth popular at the time, and known from other inscriptions. Apparently, the god is used as a mouthpiece for a human to speak of his affection.

On another red-figure cup, the inscription, "ho pais kalos (the youth is beautiful)", seems to spring out from the player's cup, and follow the trajectory of the wine that is being thrown.

Kottabos involves disruption of equilibrium when the plastinx falls, or the oxybapha are sunk. This break in equilibrium symbolizes the uncertainty a person may feel when a lover is present. So when balance is broken, the sound of the plastinx falling onto the manes, and the sunk of the oxybapha, serves as a good omen, indicating that the love of the player is assured. The successful play of the kottabos game would represent success when pursuing love or being loved by young men and women.

Female Kottabos players
Women were not usually the recipient of the kottabos toast, so a scene depicting women kottabos players, like the four hetairai by Euphronios, naming a popular youth as the subject of the toast, might be a joke. Another interpretation of the four hetairai is that these female symposiasts are Spartans. This would account for the Doric dialect used on the inscription and also the absence of couches, which is consistent with the stereotypes about Sparta held by the Athenians. The use of female symposiasts as a humorous trope is consistent with several black-figure vases with figures that are interpreted as Etruscan women. As with Spartan women, they were considered to be uncivilized.

Kottabos cup in Oxford
Most of the cups being used to play the kottabos game were regular kylikes as shown on painted pots. But there is a unique kottabos cup in Oxford: instead of a regular foot, this cup has a conical-shaped projection at the bottom. It is said to be a cup customized for playing the kottabos. Wear on the handles accords with the way a kottabos player would employ the cup. With its special foot, it would be conveniently carried as a personal kottabos cup to symposiums.

title: Kottabos


text:
GameTek

GameTek was an American video game publisher based in North Miami Beach, Florida known for publishing video game adaptations of game shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s. GameTek was a trade name for IJE, the owner of electronic publishing rights to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Originally, IJE licensed these titles to ShareData of Chandler, Arizona; however, when IJE saw ShareData's success with the titles, IJE decided to publish the titles themselves, resulting in the founding of GameTek.

After establishing distribution for the game show titles, GameTek expanded by licensing European titles for the North American market, including Frontier: Elite II and The Humans. In 1991, they attempted to launch the InfoGenius Systems franchise for the Game Boy. In 1994, the company made a deal to purchase game developer Malibu Interactive from Malibu Comics and renamed to Padded Cell Studios.

In 1996, GameTek scaled down its publishing activities, turning most of that aspect of its business over to Philips. GameTek filed for bankruptcy in December 1997, citing development delays and disappointing sales, and went out of business in July 1998. Most of the company's assets were acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 1997.

Games

 * Wheel of Fortune
 * Wheel of Fortune arcade game (1989, Developed by Incredible Technologies)
 * Double Dare
 * Hollywood Squares
 * Jeopardy!
 * Jeopardy! Sports Edition
 * Press Your Luck
 * Quarantine
 * Quarantine II: Road Warrior
 * Family Feud
 * American Gladiators (Developed by Incredible Technologies)
 * Frontier: Elite II
 * Alien Incident (European Version)
 * Cyberbykes: Shadow Racer VR
 * The Humans
 * Brutal: Paws of Fury
 * Brutal Unleashed: Above the Claw
 * Star Crusader (European version)
 * Valkyrie (for Macintosh)
 * Nomad
 * Robotech: Crystal Dreams (Cancelled)
 * Super Password
 * Super Street Fighter II Turbo (MS-DOS Version)
 * Frontier: First Encounters
 * Frantic Flea
 * NET:Zone
 * ''Daemon's Gate: Volume One, Dorovan's Key
 * Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle
 * Classic Concentration
 * The Price Is Right
 * Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing
 * Now You See It
 * Race Days
 * Yogi Bear's Gold Rush (Cancelled for Game Gear)
 * Full Throttle: All-American Racing
 * Zool (Console and Handheld Versions)
 * Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament (MS-DOS Version)
 * Pinball Dreams (SNES, Game Boy and Game Gear Versions)
 * Pinball Fantasies (SNES and Game Boy Versions)
 * Pinball Mania (Game Boy Version Exclusive to Europe)
 * ''Fisher-Price: Firehouse Rescue
 * ''Fisher-Price: I Can Remember
 * ''Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit

title: GameTek


text:
Birmingham pub bombings

The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings, although a former senior officer of the organisation confessed to their involvement in 2014. In 2017, one of the alleged perpetrators, Michael Hayes, also claimed that the intention of the bombings had not been to harm civilians, and that their deaths had been caused by an unintentional delay in delivering an advance telephone warning to security services.

Six Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts, and in 1975 sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings. The men—who became known as the Birmingham Six—maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse. After 16 years in prison, and a lengthy campaign, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory, and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

The Birmingham pub bombings were one of the deadliest acts of the Troubles, and the deadliest act of terrorism to occur in England between the Second World War and the 2005 London bombings.

Background
In 1973, the Provisional IRA extended its campaign to mainland Britain, attacking military and symbolically important targets to both increase pressure on the British government, via popular British opinion, to withdraw from Northern Ireland, and to maintain morale amongst their supporters. By 1974, mainland Britain saw an average of one attack—successful or otherwise—every three days. These attacks included five explosions which had occurred in Birmingham on 14 July, one of which had occurred at the Rotunda. Prior to any attack upon civilian targets, a code of conduct was followed in which the attacker or attackers would send an anonymous telephone warning to police, with the caller reciting a confidential code word known only to the Provisional IRA and to police, to indicate the authenticity of the threat.

On 14 November, James McDade, a 28-year-old UK-based member of the Provisional IRA, was killed in a premature explosion as he attempted to plant a bomb at a telephone exchange and postal sorting office in Coventry. Another man, Raymond McLaughlin, was arrested near the scene; he was charged with unlawfully killing McDade and causing an explosion. The republican movement in England had planned to bury McDade in Birmingham, with a paramilitary guard of honour. These plans were altered after the British Home Secretary vowed that such a funeral, and any associated sympathy marches, would be prevented. Councils in the West Midlands chose to ban any processions linked to the death of McDade under the Public Order Act 1936.

McDade's body was driven to Birmingham Airport and flown to Ireland on the afternoon of 21 November 1974. Initially, his body had been scheduled to be flown to Belfast Airport; however, upon learning that staff at the airport had refused to handle the coffin, McDade's body was instead flown to Dublin. All police leave was cancelled on this date, with an extra 1,300 officers drafted into Birmingham to quell any unrest as the hearse carrying McDade's coffin was driven to the airport. McDade's body was buried in Milltown Cemetery in Belfast on 23 November. According to a senior Provisional IRA figure, tensions within the Birmingham IRA unit were "running high" over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade.

The bombings
On the early evening of 21 November, at least three bombs connected to timing devices were planted inside two separate public houses and outside a bank located in and around central Birmingham. It is unknown precisely when these bombs were planted; if official IRA protocol of preceding attacks upon non-military installations with a 30-minute advance warning to security services was followed, and subsequent eyewitness accounts are accurate, the bombs would have been planted at these locations after 19:30 and before 19:47.

According to testimony delivered at the 1975 trial of the six men wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings, the bomb planted inside the Mulberry Bush was concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase, whereas the bomb planted inside the Tavern in the Town was concealed inside a briefcase or duffel bag (possibly concealed within a large, sealed plastic bag) and Christmas cracker boxes. The remnants of two alarm clocks recovered from the site of each explosion leaves the possibility that two bombs had been planted at each public house; the explosion crater at each location indicates that if two bombs had been planted at each public house, they would each have been placed in the same location and likely the same container.

Reportedly, those who planted these bombs then walked to a preselected phone box to telephone the advance warning to security services; however, the phone box had been vandalised, forcing the caller to find an alternative phone box and thus shortening the amount of time police had to clear the locations. At 20:11, an unknown man with a distinct Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper. The call was answered by operator Ian Cropper. This caller said: "There is a bomb planted in the Rotunda and there is a bomb in New Street at the tax office. This is Double X", before terminating the call. ("Double X" was an IRA code word given to authenticate any warning call. ) A similar warning was also sent to the Birmingham Evening Mail newspaper, with the anonymous caller(s) again giving the code word, but again failing to name the public houses in which the bombs had been planted.

Mulberry Bush
The Rotunda is a 25-storey office block, built in the 1960s, that housed the Mulberry Bush pub on its lower two floors. Within minutes of the warning, police arrived and began checking the upper floors of the Rotunda, but they did not have sufficient time to clear the crowded pub at street level. At 20:17, six minutes after the first telephone warning had been delivered to the Birmingham Post, the bomb—which had been concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase located close to the rear entrance to the premises—exploded, devastating the pub. The explosion blew a 40-inch (100 cm) crater in the concrete floor, collapsing part of the roof and trapping many casualties beneath girders and concrete blocks. Many buildings near the Rotunda were also damaged, and pedestrians in the street were struck by flying glass from shattered windows. Several of the victims died at the scene, including two youths who had been walking past the premises at the moment of the explosion.

Ten people were killed in this explosion and dozens were injured, including many who lost limbs. Several casualties had been impaled by sections of wooden furniture; others had their clothes burned from their bodies. A paramedic called to the scene of this explosion later described the carnage as being reminiscent of a slaughterhouse; one fireman said that, upon seeing a writhing, "screaming torso", he had begged police to allow a television crew inside the premises to film the dead and dying at the scene, in the hope the IRA would see the consequences of their actions; however, the police refused this request, fearing the reprisals would be extreme.

One of those injured was a 21-year-old woman named Maureen Carlin, who had such extensive shrapnel wounds to her stomach and bowel she told her fiancé, Ian Lord (himself badly wounded in the explosion): "If I die, just remember I love you". Carlin was given the last rites, with surgeons initially doubtful she would live, although she recovered from her injuries.

Tavern in the Town
The Tavern in the Town was a basement pub on New Street located a short distance from the Rotunda and directly beneath the New Street Tax Office. Patrons there had heard the explosion at the Mulberry Bush, but did not believe that the sound (described by one survivor as a "muffled thump" ) was an explosion.

Police had begun attempting to clear the Tavern in the Town when, at 20:27, a second bomb exploded there. The blast was so powerful that several victims were blown through a brick wall. Their remains were wedged between the rubble and live underground electric cables that supplied the city centre. One of the first police officers on the scene, Brian Yates, later testified that the scene which greeted his eyes was "absolutely dreadful", with several of the dead stacked upon one another, others strewn about the ruined pub, and several screaming survivors staggering aimlessly amongst the debris, rubble, and severed limbs. A survivor said the sound of the explosion was replaced by a "deafening silence" and the smell of burnt flesh.

Rescue efforts at the Tavern in the Town were initially hampered as the bomb had been placed at the base of a set of stairs descending from the street which had been destroyed in the explosion, and the premises had been accessible solely via this entrance. The victims whose bodies had been blown through a brick wall and wedged between the rubble and underground electric cables took up to three hours to recover, as recovery operations were delayed until the power could be isolated. A passing West Midlands bus was also destroyed in the blast.

This bomb killed nine people outright, and injured everyone in the pub—many severely; two later died of their injuries: 28-year-old barman Thomas Chaytor on 28 November, and 34-year-old James Craig on 10 December. After the second explosion, police evacuated all pubs and businesses in Birmingham city centre and commandeered all available rooms in the nearby City Centre Hotel as an impromptu first-aid post. All bus services into the city centre were halted, and taxi drivers were encouraged to transport those lightly injured in the explosions to hospital. Prior to the arrival of ambulances, rescue workers removed critically injured casualties from each scene upon makeshift stretchers constructed from devices such as tabletops and wooden planks. These severely injured casualties would be placed on the pavement and given first aid prior to the arrival of ambulance services.

Hagley Road
At 21:15, a third bomb, concealed inside two plastic bags, was found in the doorway of a Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, approximately two miles from the site of the first two explosions. This device consisted of 13.5 lb of Frangex connected to a timer, and was set to detonate at 23:00. The detonator to this device activated when a policeman prodded the bags with his truncheon, but the bomb did not explode. The device was destroyed in a controlled explosion early the following morning.

Fatalities
Altogether, 21 people were killed and 182 injured in the Birmingham pub bombings, making them the deadliest terrorist attack in mainland Britain during the Troubles. Residents of Birmingham have referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as the "darkest day" in their city's history.

Many of those wounded were left permanently disabled, including one young man who lost both legs, and a young woman who was blinded by shrapnel. The majority of the dead and wounded were between the ages of 17 and 30, including a young couple on their first date, a young woman whose boyfriend had intended to propose to her on the evening of her death, and two Irishmen, brothers Desmond and Eugene Reilly (aged 21 and 23 respectively). The widow of Desmond Reilly gave birth to his first child four months after his death. One of the victims, 18-year-old Maxine Hambleton, had only entered the Tavern in the Town to hand out tickets to friends for her housewarming party. She was killed seconds after entering the pub and had been standing directly beside the bomb when it exploded, killing her instantly. Her friend, 17-year-old Jane Davis, was one of two 17-year-olds killed in the bombings, and had entered the Tavern in the Town to view holiday photographs she had developed that afternoon.

Initial reaction
The bombings stoked considerable anti-Irish sentiment in Birmingham, which then had an Irish community of 100,000. Irish people were ostracised from public places and subjected to physical assaults, verbal abuse and death threats. Both in Birmingham and across England, Irish homes, pubs, businesses and community centres were attacked, in some cases with firebombs. Staff at thirty factories across the Midlands went on strike in protest at the bombings, while workers at airports across England refused to handle flights bound for Ireland. Bridget Reilly, the mother of the two Irish brothers killed in the Tavern in the Town explosion, was herself refused service in local shops.

The bombings were immediately blamed on the IRA, despite the organisation not having claimed responsibility. Due to anger against Irish people in Birmingham after the bombings, the IRA's Army Council placed the city "strictly off-limits" to IRA active service units. In Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries launched a wave of revenge attacks on Irish Catholics: within two days of the bombings, five Catholic civilians had been shot dead by loyalists.

First IRA statement
Two days after the bombings, the Provisional IRA issued a statement in which they denied any responsibility. This statement stressed that a detailed internal investigation was underway to determine the possibility of any rogue members' involvement, although the Provisional IRA emphasised that the methodology of the attacks contradicted the official IRA code of conduct when attacking non-military targets, whereby adequate warnings would be sent to security services to ensure the safety of civilians. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, then-president of Sinn Féin, conducted an internal investigation which he stated confirmed the bombings had not been sanctioned by the IRA leadership.

The Provisional IRA never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings.

Prevention of Terrorism Act
Within four days of the bombings, Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, announced that the Irish Republican Army was to be proscribed within the UK. Two days later, on 27 November, Jenkins introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, which granted the police in mainland Britain the right to arrest, detain, and question people for up to seven days if they were suspected of the commission or preparation of an act of terrorism on the British mainland, and their subsequent deportation to either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland if culpability was proven. Jenkins later described the measures of this Act as being "draconian measures unprecedented in peacetime".

In response to public pressure, a separate debate within the House of Commons as to whether those convicted of terrorist offences should face the death penalty was held on 11 December 1974. This motion drew the support of more than 200 MPs, although the majority of those in Parliament voted against the restoration of the death penalty, reportedly in part due to fear that such a move could have encouraged the IRA to use children to plant bombs.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act became law on 29 November, and remained in force until superseded by the Terrorism Act in July 2000.

Forensic analysis
An analysis of the remnants of the bombs placed at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town revealed these devices had been constructed in a similar manner to the bomb placed at Hagley Road. Each bomb placed inside the public houses would have weighed between 25 and 30 lbs, and had contained numerous shards of metal. The forensic analyst was able to state that the construction of these devices was very similar to that of seven other bombs and incendiary devices discovered at various locations in Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton in the 16 days prior to the Birmingham pub bombings, and that the explosive material used to construct the bomb discovered at Hagley Road was of a brand solely manufactured in the Republic of Ireland which could not legally be imported into Britain. All these factors led the explosives expert to conclude that all three bombs had been manufactured by the same people, and that it was likely that whoever had constructed these bombs had also committed previous IRA attacks. This conclusion was further supported by the methodology of the attacks, and the official IRA code word given to the Birmingham Evening Mail and Birmingham Post newspapers minutes before the explosions.

Arrest
At 19:55 on 21 November (scarcely 20 minutes before the first bomb had exploded), five men—Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—had boarded a train at Birmingham New Street station. These men—who, alongside Hugh Callaghan, would become known as the "Birmingham Six" —were originally from Northern Ireland. Five of the Birmingham Six hailed from Belfast, whereas John Walker had lived in Derry until age 16. All six men had lived in Birmingham for between 11 and 27 years respectively and, although they had known James McDade and/or his family to varying degrees, each man was adamant they had not known of his IRA affiliations.

When the bombs exploded, the booking clerk from whom the men had purchased tickets informed police that a man with an Irish accent, dressed in a dust-covered purple suit, had purchased a ticket to travel to the coastal village of Heysham, en route to Belfast. The man had then run onto the train. A spot check on ticket sales that evening revealed that four further tickets to travel to Belfast via Heysham had also been issued. Within three hours of the bombings, each man had been detained at Heysham Port and taken to Morecambe police station to undergo forensic tests to eliminate them as suspects in the bombings. Each man expressed their willingness to assist in these inquiries, having informed the officers of a half-truth as to the reason they had been travelling to Belfast: that they intended to visit their families, although they also intended to attend McDade's funeral.

Between 03:00 and 06:10 the following morning, forensic scientist Frank Skuse conducted a series of Griess tests upon the hands, fingernails and belongings of the five men arrested at Heysham Port, to determine whether any of the men had handled the explosive nitroglycerine. He concluded with a 99% degree of certainty that both Patrick Hill and William Power had handled explosives, and remained uncertain as to the test results conducted on John Walker, whose right hand had tested positive, but whose left hand had tested negative. The test results upon Hunter and McIlkenny had been negative.

Each man was ordered to change his clothes. A search of Walker's possessions revealed several mass cards printed in reference to the upcoming funeral of James McDade. Upon discovering these mass cards, two officers led Walker into an adjacent room, where he was repeatedly punched, kicked and, later, burned with a lit cigarette by three officers as his arms were restrained by the two policemen who had escorted him into the room. Similar assaults were committed upon Power, Hunter, Hill and, to a lesser degree, McIlkenny; the officers who administered these beatings took great care to avoid marking the men's faces.

At 12:55 on the afternoon of 22 November, while detained at Morecambe police station, William Power signed a confession admitting his involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. This confession was extracted after Power had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, which included repeated kicking in the stomach, head and legs, dragging by the hair, and the stretching of his scrotum.

False confessions
The five men were transferred to the custody of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad on the afternoon of 22 November. At 22:45 that evening, Hugh Callaghan was arrested at his home in Birmingham and driven to Sutton Coldfield police station, where he was briefly questioned before being detained in a cell overnight, but intentionally denied sleep. The same evening Callaghan was arrested, the homes of all six men were extensively—and unsuccessfully—searched for explosives and explosive material.

Following their transfer to the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad, three other members of the Birmingham Six (Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker) signed false confessions on 23 November. In these three further false statements obtained by the West Midlands Crime Squad, Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker each falsely claimed to be members of the IRA; to have conspired with McDade to cause explosions prior to his death; and to have planted the bombs at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town public houses. As had been the case with William Power while detained at Morecambe police station, the three men later claimed that, before and during their transfer to Birmingham, officers had coerced them into signing these confessions through severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse. This mistreatment included beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, being subject to mock executions, intimidation, being burned with lit cigarettes, and being forced to stand or squat in various stress positions. In addition, each man had heard threats directed against their families. Hill and Hunter both claimed they had been subject to the same mistreatment, and although both men had refused to sign false confessions, police later claimed that both men had verbally confessed their guilt. On 24 November, each man was initially charged with the murder of 17-year-old Jane Davis, who had been killed in the Tavern in the Town explosion. All six were remanded in custody at Winson Green Prison, and they were only assigned solicitors the following day.

Inside Winson Green Prison, all six men were subject to the same mistreatment at the hands of prison officers as they had endured at the hands of police, with one of the men losing four teeth in one assault. At a further court hearing on 28 November, each man was observed to have extensive facial injuries; an examination by a prison doctor revealed each man had received extensive injuries not only to their faces, but across their bodies. (Following an independent investigation into this mistreatment, the British Director of Public Prosecutions recommended that 14 prison warders be charged with assault. These men were suspended from duty in December 1975; all 14 were found not guilty of 90 separate charges of misconduct and assault on 15 July 1976. )

Second IRA statement
Dáithí Ó Conaill, then a member of the Provisional IRA's Army Council, had four days before the Birmingham pub bombings issued a statement declaring that the "consequences of war" would incessantly be felt not only in Northern Ireland, but on the British mainland, until the British government announced their intentions to "disengage from Ireland". One week after the Birmingham Six had been charged with the murder of Jane Davis, Ó Conaill issued a further statement emphasising that none of the Birmingham Six had ever been members of the IRA. Ó Conaill further stated:

"If IRA members had carried-out such attacks, they would be court-martialled and could face the death penalty. The IRA has clear guidelines for waging its war. Any attack on non-military installations must be preceded by a 30-minute warning so that no innocent civilians are endangered."

Committal hearing
At a committal hearing in May 1975, each man was formally charged with 21 counts of murder, with additional charges of conspiracy to cause explosions. Due to the wave of public outrage towards the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings within the Midlands, Judge Bridge conceded to defence motions to move the trial away from the Midlands, and the trial was set to be heard within the Shire Hall and Crown Court of Lancaster Castle the following month. Also to stand trial with the Birmingham Six were three men: Mick Murray (a known member of the Provisional IRA who had previously been convicted of a separate charge of conspiracy to cause explosions), James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs, and Michael Sheehan. Murray was also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan charged with possession of explosives.

Prior to the trial, defence lawyers for the Birmingham Six applied for their clients to be tried separately from Sheehan, Kelly and, particularly, Murray, stating that their clients' presumptions of innocence and denials of association with the IRA would be tainted if they were tried alongside an admitted member of the Provisional IRA, who had been convicted of causing explosions. This application was rejected by Judge Bridge, who was to preside over the trial.

Trial
On 9 June 1975, the Birmingham Six stood trial at Lancaster Crown Court before Judge Nigel Bridge. Each man was charged with 21 counts of murder and conspiring with the deceased James McDade to cause explosions across the Midlands between August and November 1974. Murray, Kelly and Sheehan were also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan facing the additional charges of possession of explosives.

All six men emphatically maintained their innocence, stating they had never been members of the IRA; that they had not known James McDade had been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army until his death; and reiterating their earlier claims of having been subject to intense physical and psychological abuse upon their arrest. Sheehan and Kelly also denied the charges brought against them, with Murray simply refusing to acknowledge or speak throughout the entire proceedings. (No direct evidence was offered to link Murray, Sheehan or Kelly with the Birmingham pub bombings. Nonetheless, the Crown alleged they were part of the same IRA unit as the Birmingham Six, and contended the Birmingham pub bombs may have been planted "in some illogical way" to avenge or commemorate the death of James McDade. )

The primary evidence presented against the Birmingham Six linking them to the Birmingham pub bombings were their written confessions, the Griess tests conducted by Frank Skuse at Morecambe police station, and circumstantial evidence indicative of Irish republican sympathies which would be supported by character witnesses called to testify on behalf of the prosecution.

Skuse testified as to his conducting Griess tests upon the hands of the six men following their arrest, stating as to his being 99% certain that both Hill and Power had handled explosive materials, and to a possibility Walker may also have done so. Skuse conceded that he could not rule out the possibility that Walker's right hand could have been contaminated from his (Skuse's) own hands, as Walker was the last of the five men to be swabbed at Morecambe police station, and had at first tested negative to the Griess test, before a second swab had revealed faint, positive traces of ammonium and nitrates. This testimony was refuted by Dr. Hugh Kenneth Black, a former Chief Inspector of Explosives for the Home Office, who testified that a range of innocuous substances and objects one could handle on a daily basis containing nitrocellulose (such as varnishes and paints) would produce a positive result to a Griess test. Moreover, the tests conducted by Skuse had not succeeded in identifying nitroglycerine as the source of the positive results produced by the Griess tests, and the Crown had earlier conceded that an exhaustive search of the six men's homes had revealed no traces of nitroglycerine.

Several weeks into the trial, Judge Bridge overruled motions from the defence counsel that the four written confessions obtained from their clients should be omitted from evidence due to their being extorted under extreme physical and mental pressure, instead citing the statements as admissible evidence. These written confessions were presented in evidence at the trial following an eight-day hearing conducted without the presence of the jury. The judge refused to allow the jury to view the written confessions, which would have disclosed not only that each of the four written confessions contradicted details contained within the three other confessions, but that they also contradicted testimony from forensic scientists delivered earlier in the trial as to the devices used to conceal the bombs, and the locations in which they had been placed inside the public houses. For example, William Power had claimed in his written confession that he had placed the bomb which devastated the Mulberry Bush public house by a jukebox at the foot of a staircase to the premises; whereas a forensic scientist named Douglas Higgs had testified on the fourth day of the trial that the bomb which had detonated within these premises had been left by a wall located towards the rear of the premises.

Conviction
The trial lasted 45 days, and saw one hundred witnesses testify on behalf of the prosecution and defence. On 14 August 1975, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. These deliberations continued until the following day. On the afternoon of 15 August, having deliberated for over six-and-a-half hours, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts in relation to the 21 murder charges against the Birmingham Six. Upon passing sentence, Judge Nigel Bridge informed the defendants: "You stand convicted of each of 21 counts, on the clearest and most overwhelming evidence I have ever heard, of the crime of murder." All six men were sentenced to life imprisonment. None of the Birmingham Six displayed any emotion upon hearing the verdict, although William Power saluted the judge.

At the same trial, Michael Murray and Michael Sheehan were each convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. James Kelly was found not guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions, but guilty of the possession of explosives and sentenced to one year's imprisonment; his counsel, Edwin Jowett, successfully argued that his client had already served the equivalent of a one-year sentence, and he was released from prison on 23 August.

After sentencing all nine defendants, Judge Bridge summoned the Chief Constable of Lancashire and the Assistant Chief Constable of the West Midlands to hear a final address; both were commended for their collective efforts in interrogating and obtaining the four confessions presented in evidence. In addressing the defendants' assertions as to physical and psychological abuse while in the custody of both constabularies, Judge Bridge concluded: "These investigations both at Morecambe and Birmingham were carried out with scrupulous propriety by all your officers".

Appeals and independent reviews
Following their conviction, the Birmingham Six continued to steadfastly maintain their innocence. All six men submitted an application to appeal their convictions; this motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in March 1976. Two years later, in November 1978, the Birmingham Six were granted legal aid to sue the Lancashire and West Midlands Police forces, and the Home Office, through the Court of Appeal in relation to the injuries they had suffered in custody. This motion to appeal their convictions on these grounds was challenged by the West Midlands Police, and was stricken by Lord Denning in January 1980, thereby thwarting the attempts of the men to find legal redress for their grievances via these grounds. The Birmingham Six were initially refused permission to further appeal against their convictions. The following year, Patrick Hill embarked on a month-long hunger strike in an unsuccessful bid to have his case reopened.

In 1982, Patrick Hill was visited by civil rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, who agreed to act on his behalf. Peirce also encouraged Hill and his co-accused to continue to compile evidence attesting to their innocence and to write to media personnel such as journalist Chris Mullin, and politicians such as Sir John Farr in an effort to garner support for a review of their case. Farr responded to this correspondence in March 1983, and later thoroughly reviewed all documents relating to the men's conviction, concluding that the forensic evidence which existed against the six men was "not worth the paper it was written on".

In 1985, the current affairs news programme World in Action presented the first of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings which seriously challenged the validity of the convictions of the six men. In this first episode broadcast, two distinguished forensic scientists conducted a series of Griess tests upon 35 separate common substances which the men had likely come into contact within their everyday lives.

Each forensic scientist confirmed that only substances containing nitrocellulose produced a positive result, and that the Griess test would only produce a positive reaction to nitrocellulose if conducted in a room at typical room temperature. When asked to comment on testimony delivered at the trial of the Birmingham Six, in which Dr. Skuse had stated that the temperature in a room in which the Griess test was conducted would need to be heated to 60 °C to produce a false positive reaction to nitrocellulose (thereby confusing the reading with nitroglycerine), one of the forensic scientists stated, "Frankly, I was amazed."

Also appearing on this first World in Action episode broadcast was a former West Midlands policeman, who confirmed that each of the Birmingham Six had been subjected to beatings and threats while in the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad. In addition, a former IRA Chief of Staff, Joe Cahill, on the same programme, acknowledged the IRA's role in the Birmingham pub bombings.

In 1986, British Labour politician and journalist Chris Mullin published Error of Judgement: Truth About the Birmingham Bombings, which provided further evidence that the men had been wrongly convicted. The book included anonymous interviews with some of those who claimed to have been involved in the bombings, and who claimed the protocol 30-minute warning bomb warning had been delayed because the preselected telephone box had been vandalised, and that by the time another telephone box was found, the advance warning had been significantly delayed.

1987 Court of Appeal hearing
In January 1987, the Home Office referred the conviction of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This motion resulted from the findings of forensic scientists working for the Home Office, who had expressed grave concerns as to the reliability of the Griess tests cited as forensic evidence of the defendants' guilt. In granting this motion, the Home Secretary himself emphasised that he had "little or no confidence" in the reliability of this test. This appeal was heard before three judges of the Court of Appeal in November 1987.

At this hearing, the defence counsels argued that the Birmingham Six were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice, that they had been convicted upon unreliable forensic evidence, and that the signed confessions were contradictory and had been obtained under extreme physical and mental duress. The allegations of physical mistreatment were corroborated by a former policeman named Thomas Clarke, who testified as to the defendants' mistreatment while incarcerated at Winson Green Prison.

This appeal also heard evidence from Mullin, who testified in detail as to the contradictions in the written and verbal confessions obtained from the defendants, both with regards to the events of the day, and with regards to the content of the statements made by their fellow defendants—all purported by the Crown to be solid evidence. Mullin also testified as to the fundamental flaws in the forensic tests conducted upon the men's hands for traces of nitroglycerine.

This evidence was contradicted by Igor Judge, QC, who informed the three judges of the Court of Appeal of the Crown's allegations that police had obtained false confessions by subjecting the men to severe physical and emotional abuse was "baseless", and of his belief that only film footage of the defendants planting the bombs would provide stronger evidence than that which already existed against the Birmingham Six. On 28 January 1988, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales again upheld the convictions of the Birmingham Six as safe.

Further media exposure
In March 1990, ITV broadcast the Granada Television documentary drama, Who Bombed Birmingham?; a drama which recounted the events of the arrest of the Birmingham Six, the evidence presented at the trial and Mullins' then-ongoing efforts to prove Birmingham Six had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. This documentary drama extensively detailed both the flaws in the forensic evidence against the men, and the extensive physical and psychological abuse to which they had been subjected. The programme named four of five members of the Provisional IRA as having organised and committed the Birmingham pub bombings.

One of these men was Mick Murray, who had been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions. Murray was named as having assisted in the selection of the targets, and had later placed the advance warning call to the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Evening Mail newspapers, which was delayed by a half-hour due to the fact that the pre-selected telephone had been vandalised and another needed to be located, leading to the fateful delay in the warning calls. The other three named in the documentary were Seamus McLoughlin, whom the programme asserted had also planned the atrocities; James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs; and Michael Christopher Hayes, who had planted the bombs at the preselected locations.

The executive producer of Who Bombed Birmingham?, Ray Fitzwalter, has stated that those involved in the production of this documentary drama are 100 percent certain that those named as the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings had committed the atrocities.

Release
On 29 August 1990, as a result of further fresh evidence uncovered following the 1988 dismissal of appeal, the Home Secretary again referred the convictions of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was heard by Lord Justice Lloyd between 4 and 14 March 1991. At the conclusion of this second appeal, the convictions of the Birmingham Six were quashed upon the bases of police fabrication of evidence, the suppression of evidence, and the unreliability of the scientific evidence presented at their 1975 trial. The tests conducted by Skuse upon the defendants' hands for nitroglycerine were deemed by the three Court of Appeal judges as being particularly unreliable and "demonstrably wrong ... even by the state of forensic science in 1974".

The discrediting of this evidence was sufficient for the Crown to dismiss pleas from the prosecution to find the convictions "unsatisfactory but not unsafe". On the afternoon of 14 March, Lord Justice Lloyd announced his intentions to withdraw the Crown's case against the defendants. Upon announcing his intention to withdraw the convictions, Lord Justice Lloyd informed the Birmingham Six: "In the light of the fresh evidence which has been made available since the last hearing in this court, your appeals will be allowed and you are free to go."

Emerging from the Old Bailey to an ecstatic public reception, each of the men addressed the press and public with varying statements including their concern for "many more people—both Irish and English—still wrongfully behind bars".

In 2001, each of the Birmingham Six was subsequently paid between £840,000 and £1.2 million in compensation.

Renewed inquests
The West Midlands Police and then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Dame Barbara Mills, reopened their investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings following the release of the Birmingham Six. In April 1994, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands, Ron Hadfield, publicly stated: "The file, so far as we are concerned is now closed ... We have done everything we could possibly have done to bring the perpetrators to justice". Hadfield then emphasised that the Director of Public Prosecutions had found "insufficient evidence for [criminal] proceedings to be taken".

At the conclusion of the 1994 investigation, the Director of Public Prosecutions implemented a 75-year public-interest immunity certificate on documents relating to the Birmingham pub bombings—effectively preventing any release of documents relating to the reinvestigation until 2069. This court order forbids the disclosure of this evidence to the public on the grounds that any disclosure would be deemed to be damaging to the public interest.

On 1 June 2016, the senior coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, Louise Hunt, announced renewed inquests into the Birmingham pub bombings, citing two occasions where evidence clearly indicated the West Midlands Police had received a minimum of two advance warnings of the impending attacks at the two pubs—one of which had been made by known IRA members who had unequivocally stated on 10 November that Birmingham was to be "hit next week". This conversation had been reported to police; no evidence is known to exist showing that the West Midlands Police had taken any effective responsive action to this threat. A second warning had been given to police on the day of the bombings, yet no action is known to have been taken.

Although Hunt states that any claims that police were/are protecting an IRA mole are unfounded, and that the response of emergency services on the night of the blasts did not in any way contribute to the deaths, in one section of her report, she states: "I have serious concerns that advanced notice of the bombs may have been available to the police, and that they failed to take the necessary steps to protect public life."

In September 2018, the Lord Chief Justice ruled that any suspects in the bombings were not due to be named at upcoming inquests into the bombings, the judges present at the hearing having upheld an earlier coroner's decision to omit issues pertaining to responsibility for the bombings in these inquests. The renewed inquests commenced on 11 February 2019.

With permission from the current head of the IRA, an individual known only as "Witness O" testified at this inquest on 22 March, naming four men (one of whom was Mick Murray) as responsible for the bombings. He also testified as to his belief that security services had been given adequate time to evacuate both pubs. On 5 April, the jury of 11 found that a botched advance IRA telephone warning contributed to or caused the 21 deaths and that there had been no error or omission in the police response to the given warning call which might have limited the loss of life.

Independent campaign
In 2011, Brian and Julie Hambleton, who lost their 18-year-old sister Maxine in the Tavern in the Town explosion, initiated a campaign called Justice for the 21. The stated aims of this campaign are to highlight and resolve the fact that, although the inquiry is officially an open one, no efforts are being made to actively pursue the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings unless significant new leads are to surface, and to resolve the issue that the families of the 21 victims have never seen true justice for the loss of their loved ones. Justice for the 21 wants to see the criminal investigation into the bombings reopened and the perpetrators brought to justice or, if deceased, publicly named. When asked in 2012 why she and her brother had instigated this campaign, Julie Hambleton stated: "Someone has to fight for them; someone has to speak on their behalf, because they're not here to do it themselves ... It doesn't matter how much time has passed."

Campaigners for Justice for the 21 believe they have amassed evidence indicating that a British double agent was part of an IRA unit that had committed the pub bombings.

Following a 2014 meeting held at the West Midlands Police headquarters to discuss the findings of a two-year reassessment of all available evidence connected with the original 1974 inquiry, campaigners within Justice for the 21 were informed that unless "new and significant information" was forthcoming, there would be no further inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. At this meeting, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands informed the campaigners that 35 pieces of evidence from the original 1974 inquiry were now missing, including the bomb which had been discovered at Hagley Road and safely destroyed in a controlled explosion.

In November 2014, the Justice for the 21 campaign implemented a fresh petition to pressure the British Government to form a new inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. This petition was signed by four retired West Midlands Police officers, and by Patrick Hill, who wrote of his desire that a fresh inquiry would "establish the true circumstances of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, and to order the release of all government, police, and Crown papers related to the case in order to bring truth and justice for the 21 innocent people who died, the 182 people who were injured, for the six innocent men who were wrongfully convicted, and for the families of all those affected."

Patrick Hill has publicly backed the efforts of the Justice for the 21 campaign, and would later state that, following their 1991 release from prison, the Birmingham Six had been informed of the names of the true perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings and that their identities are known among the upper echelons of both the IRA and the British government. Hill stated that, following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, he has been told that five members of the Provisional IRA have admitted to committing the Birmingham pub bombings, relying on a clause in the Good Friday Agreement offering immunity from prosecution. Two of these men have since died and a further two have been promised immunity, whereas a fifth man reportedly had not received any such assurances.

Aftermath

 * In the weeks and months following the Birmingham pub bombings, Birmingham's Irish community experienced ostracism, assault and abuse. As a result of these tensions, any public celebrations of Irish culture, including the annual St Patrick's Day Parade, were cancelled. Tensions created in the wake of the bombings would take more than a decade to heal.
 * In 1983, the Director of the Birmingham Irish Welfare and Information Centre, Rev. Joe Taaffe, reinstated Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade, with a message that the Irish community in Birmingham should again unashamedly celebrate their heritage without fear of reprisal. Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade is considered to be the world's third largest St Patrick's Day Parade, with annual attendance figures reaching or surpassing 130,000.
 * Following his release from prison in 1991, Patrick Hill co-founded of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation; a group whose dual aims are to provide and improve emotional and physical support for those found to have been wrongly convicted once released from prison, and to provide advocacy for those still inside prison who proclaim their innocence. Patrick Hill and the families of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings remain united in their efforts to overturn the 75-year public interest immunity order imposed in 1994, and have publicly demanded the British Government order the release of all government, police, and crown papers related to the case. In reference to the public interest immunity order, a spokeswoman for the Justice for the 21 campaign group commented in 2014:

"Patrick [Hill] clarified the details of this and the significance of this in relation to the truth being known. With reference to the kind of information that is hidden in these files, it's anyone's guess. But, for us, knowing that they [the files relating to the Birmingham pub bombings] have been locked away for so long, only adds weight to our argument that the government and the police do not want this information to be known until we are all dead. Why do you think that might be? What do they have to hide and who are they protecting?"

 * In 2004, civil rights campaigner and Catholic priest the Rev. Denis Faul (who had previously campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six) officially called on the IRA to both admit their culpability in the Birmingham pub bombings, and to apologise. These calls were echoed by Sinn Féin, who stated: "What happened in Birmingham 30 years ago was wrong and should not have happened", adding "[if] issues relating to the IRA concerning the Birmingham bombings are still to be addressed, then it is very clearly the Sinn Féin position that this should happen".
 * In 2014, the Birmingham Mail named Michael Murray as the mastermind behind the Birmingham pub bombings. Murray was an admitted member of the Provisional IRA who held a high rank within the Birmingham IRA unit; he had been arrested just four days after the Birmingham pub bombings and had stood trial alongside the Birmingham Six, and although charged only with conspiracy to cause explosions, the prosecutor had suggested Murray may have been the mastermind behind the bombings. Prior to his 1975 trial, Murray had been convicted of separate charges of conspiracy to cause explosions and with causing an explosion.
 * The Birmingham Mail alleges Murray had assisted in the construction of the bombs at a house in Bordesley Green, and had then transported them to the city centre, where he had handed them to another person, who then placed them in the preselected targets, before Murray telephoned the delayed warning calls to the two Birmingham newspapers. These allegations are supported by Patrick Hill and John Walker, who remain adamant that at one stage during the 1975 trial, Murray had privately admitted being one of the bombers. Murray allegedly told the two men: "I'm very sorry to see yous in here. Nothing went right that night. The first telephone box we got to was out of order", before threatening the two men that if they ever divulged this admission, both they and their families would be attacked.
 * Mick Murray never admitted his alleged involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. Following his release from prison, he remained active within the Provisional IRA, and later became a vocal opponent of the decommissioning in Northern Ireland as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. He died of a heart attack in County Tipperary in 1999.
 * Kieran Conway, a former senior officer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, admitted in 2014 the PIRA had committed the Birmingham pub bombings, adding that he was "appalled and ashamed" at the attack, and that other senior IRA officials shared his opinion the bombings had been immoral and detrimental to the objectives of the republican movement. Conway, however, disputed allegations that an insufficient warning had deliberately been given to security services due to ill-feeling within the IRA over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade, but claimed the perpetrators had tried to use several phone boxes which were either out of order or in use to deliver the protocol 30-minute warning, before finding a free, operable phone box to deliver the warning call.
 * On 10 July 2017, BBC Northern Ireland radio released an interview with Michael Christopher Hayes, a self-confessed bomb maker active within the Birmingham IRA unit in the 1970s. In this interview, Hayes (who had been named as a perpetrator of the bombings in the 1990 Granada documentary drama Who Bombed Birmingham?) stated he took "collective responsibility" for the bombings, although he refused to name who had planted the bombs in each of the locations. Nonetheless, he did state: "We were horrified when we heard, because it was not intended. I personally defused the third bomb. It was not the intention of the IRA to kill innocent people ... It wouldn't have been done if that was the case."
 * On 18 November 2020, a 65-year-old man was arrested in Belfast under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in connection with the bombings. He was released the following day without charge.

Memorials
A memorial plaque for the victims stands in the grounds of Birmingham's Saint Philip's Cathedral. This plaque is engraved with the names of the 21 people killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, and bears the inscription: "The people of Birmingham remember them and those who suffered."

A memorial commemorating those lost and wounded in the Birmingham pub bombings was unveiled on 21 November 2018. Commissioned by the Birmingham Irish Association and designed by a local artist named Anuradha Patel, this memorial consists of three steel trees, and is located outside the city's New Street Station.

Several survivors and relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings have visited the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the Republic of Ireland in an effort to come to terms with the events of 21 November 1974. The Glencree Centre is a charitable organisation whose stated aim is to promote peace and reconciliation in Britain and Ireland as a response to the Troubles. One of those who has visited the Glencree Centre, Maureen Carlin (who survived the Mulbery Bush bombing), said in 2009 that she had spoken with two former IRA members, who referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as a mistake for which the IRA would never publicly admit responsibility.

Film
The made-for-TV film Who Bombed Birmingham? was first broadcast in 1990. Directed by Mike Beckham, the film is directly inspired by the painstaking efforts of then-journalist Chris Mullin to prove the six men convicted of the bombing had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice, as detailed in his 1986 book Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings. The film casts John Hurt as Mullin and Martin Shaw as Granada Television World in Action producer and fellow researcher Ian McBride, as they investigate the convictions of the "Birmingham Six."

Books

 * Encyclopedia of Modern Murder 1962–1982, by Colin Wilson (ISBN 978-0-517-66559-6)
 * Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings, by Chris Mullin (ISBN 978-1-853-71365-1)
 * Forever Lost, Forever Gone, by Patrick Hill (ISBN 978-0-747-52125-9)
 * Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles, by David McKittrick (ISBN 978-1-780-57649-7)
 * The Birmingham Bombs, by Brian Gibson (ISBN 978-0-859-92070-4)
 * The Birmingham Six and Other Cases: Victims of Circumstance, by Louis Blom-Cooper (ISBN 978-0-715-62813-3)

Television

 * The British investigative current affairs programme World in Action has broadcast a total of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings between 1985 and 1991. The last of these episodes, World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, was broadcast on 18 March 1991—four days after the release of the Birmingham Six —and was later nominated for a BAFTA award.
 * The BBC have commissioned a 30-minute documentary focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings. This documentary, Who Murdered Maxine?, was first broadcast in December 2013 and focuses upon the ongoing campaign by relatives of one of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, Maxine Hambleton, to reopen the investigation into the bombings and their ongoing efforts to raise public awareness of their campaign.

title: Birmingham pub bombings


text:
John Covode

John Covode (March 17, 1808 – January 11, 1871) was an American businessman and abolitionist politician. He served three terms in the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Early life
Covode was born in Fairfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He worked for several years on his father's farm, served an apprenticeship to a blacksmith, and then was employed at a woolen mill in Lockport, Pennsylvania. He became owner of the woolen mill and attained considerable wealth as a woolen manufacturer. Other business interests included the Westmoreland Coal Company, where he served as the first president of the company in 1854. He served for two terms in the Pennsylvania Legislature (House of Representatives ). Two attempts to enter the Pennsylvania Senate were unsuccessful.

United States House of Representatives
In 1854, he was elected to Congress as an Opposition Party candidate.

After joining the Republican Party, he was re-elected to the 35th Congress in 1856. He was a strong supporter of the Freedmen's Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Reconstruction Acts. He attended the Union National Convention in Philadelphia in 1866. On February 21, 1868, Covode introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to impeach President Andrew Johnson. A slightly-amended version of this resolution, was passed by the House on February 24, 1868, thereby impeaching Johnson, but the Senate did not vote to convict him in his impeachment trial.

Committees
He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Public Expenditures from 1857 until 1859 and the United States House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds from 1867 until 1869. He also served on the United States Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, in reference to the American Civil War.

Covode Committee
Covode is most famous for chairing a committee to investigate the possibility of impeaching President James Buchanan during the spring and summer of 1860. Officially titled the United States House Select Committee to Investigate Alleged Corruptions in Government, it is more popularly known as the Covode Committee after him.

United States House election, 1870
Covode contested with Henry D. Foster the election to the Forty-first Congress, neither being sworn pending the contest, as no credentials were issued by the Governor. On February 9, 1870, the House declared him duly elected, whereupon he qualified and served until his death. Covode died in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, aged 62.

Family
His oldest son, George H. Covode (1835–1864), was a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. He died on June 25, 1864, after being shot in the arm and stomach by Confederate troops he had mistaken for Unionists.

title: John Covode


text:
Hans Makart

Hans Makart (28 May 1840 – 3 October 1884) was a 19th-century Austrian academic history painter, designer, and decorator. Makart was a prolific painter whose ideas significantly influenced the development of visual art in Austria-Hungary, Germany, and beyond.

Life
Makart was the son of a chamberlain at the Mirabell Palace, born in the former residence of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg, the city in which Mozart had been born. Initially, he received his training in painting at the Vienna Academy between 1850 and 1851 from Johann Fischbach. While in the Academy, German art was under the rule of a classicism, which was entirely intellectual and academic—clear and precise drawing, sculpturesque modelling, and pictorial erudition were esteemed above all. Makart, who was a poor draughtsman, but who had a passionate and sensual love of color, was impatient to escape the routine of art school drawing. For his fortune, he was found by his instructors to be devoid of all talent and forced to leave the Vienna Academy.

He went to Munich, and after two years of independent study attracted the attention of Karl Theodor von Piloty, under whose guidance, between 1861 and 1865 he developed his painting style. During these years, Makart also travelled to London, Paris and Rome to further his studies. The first picture he painted under Piloty, Lavoisier in Prison, though it was considered timid and conventional, attracted attention by its sense of color. In his next work, The Knight and the Water Nymphs, he first displayed the decorative qualities to which he afterwards sacrificed everything else in his work. His fame became established in the next year, with two works, Modern Amoretti and The Plague in Florence. His painting Romeo and Juliet was soon after bought by the Austrian emperor for the Vienna Museum, and Makart was invited to come to Vienna by the aristocracy.

The prince Von Hohenlohe provided Makart with an old foundry at the Gusshausstraße 25 to use as a studio. He gradually turned it into an impressive place full of sculptures, flowers, musical instruments, requisites and jewellery that he used to create classical settings for his portraits, mainly of women. Eventually his studio looked like a salon and became a social meeting point in Vienna. Cosima Wagner described it as a "wonder of decorative beauty, a sublime lumber-room". His luxurious studio served as a model for a great many upper middle-class living rooms.

The opulent, semi-public spaces of the Makart atelier were the scene of a recurring rendezvous between the artist and his public. Makart became the mediator between different levels of society: he created a socially ambiguous sphere in which nobility and bourgeoisie could encounter one another in mutual veneration of the master, and aestheticized the burgeoning self-awareness of the bourgeoisie by means of historical models drawn from the world of the aristocracy. In this way, an artist like Makart lived out the image that high society had created of him.

Makart became the acknowledged leader of the artistic life of Vienna, which in the 1870s passed through a period of feverish activity. A chief result of this activity are the sumptuously decorated public buildings of the Ringstraße. He not only practised painting, but was also an interior designer, costume designer, furniture designer, and decorator, and his work decorated most of the public spaces of the era. His work engendered the term "Makartstil", or "Makart style", which completely characterized the era.

In 1879, Makart designed a pageant organised to celebrate the Silver Wedding Anniversary of the Imperial couple, emperor Franz Joseph I and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria —he designed, single-handedly, the costumes, scenic setting, and triumphal cars. This became known as the "Makart-parade", and gave the people of Vienna the chance to dress up in historical costumes and be transported back into the past for a few hours. At the head of the parade was a float for artists, led by Makart on a white horse. His festivals became an institution in Vienna which lasted up until the 1960s. In the same year of the first parade, Makart became a Professor at the Vienna Academy.

Makart's painting The Entry of Charles V into Antwerp caused some controversy, because Charles V was depicted arriving in a procession surrounded by nude virgins (it was considered offensive to include nudes in such a relatively modern scene). In the United States, the painting fell under the proscription of Anthony Comstock, which secured Makart's fame there. The American public desired at once to see what Comstock was persecuting, so they could tell whether he was acting correctly or in error.

In 1882, emperor Franz Joseph I ordered the building of the Villa Hermes at Lainz (near Vienna) for his empress and specified the bedroom decoration to be inspired from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Makart designed for him a dreamworld decoration as a large painting (1882) that is still extant. Unfortunately his design was never executed after his early death in 1884. His collection of antiques and art consisted of 1083 pieces and was put up for auction by art-dealer H.O. Miethke. Salzburg's Makart Square, or Makartplatz, was named after the painter.

Art

The "Makartstil", which determined the culture of an entire era in Vienna, was an aestheticism the likes of which hadn't been seen before him and has not been replicated to this day. Called the "magician of colors", he painted in brilliant colors and fluid forms, which placed the design and the aesthetic of the work before all else. Often to heighten the strength of his colors he introduced asphalt into his paint, which has led to some deterioration in his paintings over the years. The paintings were usually large-scale and theatrical productions of historical motifs. Works such as The Papal Election reveal Makart's skill in the bold use of color to convey drama as well as his later developed virtuoso draughtsmanship.

Makart was deeply interested in the interaction of all the visual arts and thus in the implementation of the idea of the "total work of art" which dominated discussions on the arts in the 19th century. This was the ideal which he realised in magnificent festivities which he organised and centred on himself. The 1879 Makart-parade was the culmination of these endeavors. Makart was also a friend of the composer Richard Wagner, and it can be argued that the two developed the same concepts and stylistic tendencies in their differing art forms: a concern for embedding motifs of history and mythology in a framework of aestheticism, making their respective works historical pageants. Makart's work, like those of other academic artists of the time, consisted of allegorical painting and history painting as seen in Catherina Carnaro, Dianas Hunt, The Entry of Charles V into Antwerp, Abundantia, Spring, Summer, The Death of Cleopatra, The Five Senses, and Bacchus and Ariadne. He was considered the Austrian rival to the French William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Within Austria, his nearest competitor was considered to be Hans Canon, and he was associated with the sculptor Viktor Tilgner, who travelled with him to Italy.

Influence
Aside from his clear influence on the academic art and high culture of Vienna at the time, Makart also influenced a range of painters and decorators who followed him, including many who rebelled against his style—the most notable being Gustav Klimt, who is said to have idolized him. Klimt's early style is based in historicism and has clear similarities to Makart's paintings. The entire decorative focus of the Secession, the Austrian Art Nouveau of which Klimt was a part, arose in an environment in which Makart had put the decorative aspects of art in the forefront. Some have also suggested that primacy of sexual symbolism in Art Nouveau artworks were influenced by the sensuality in many of Makart's paintings.

title: Hans Makart