text:
Gerard Brandon

Gerard Chittocque Brandon (September 15, 1788 – March 28, 1850) was an American political leader who twice served as Governor of Mississippi during its early years of statehood. He was the first native-born governor of Mississippi.

Early life and education
Gerard Brandon was the son of an Irish immigrant, Gerard Chittocque Brandon, who established and ran the Selma Plantation in Adams County, Mississippi, and Dorothy Nugent, the daughter of Irish immigrants Matthew Nugent and Isabel MacBray. The couple moved to Mississippi from South Carolina sometime in 1785.

Brandon was born September 15, 1788, in Natchez, in the Territory of Mississippi, the second child and first son of the family. He was educated at Princeton University and the College of William & Mary and served in the War of 1812. He later practiced law at Washington, Mississippi and was a successful planter, following his father's footsteps, in Adams County, Mississippi.

He married Margaret Chambers on January 18, 1816, in Bardstown, Kentucky. In 1817 Gerard Brandon bought Windy Hill Manor. At his death, Windy Hill Manor was inherited by his daughter, Elizabeth, who married William Stanton. Elizabeth and William's descendants lived at Windy Hill Manor until the 1940s. The last in the line were three unmarried sisters, Elizabeth, Maude, and Beatrice. When the last sister died in 1945, the house sat abandoned until 1965, when it was demolished.

After Margaret Chambers's death in June 1820, Gerard Brandon married Betsy Stanton on July 12, 1824, in Adams County, Mississippi. The governor had a total of eight children with his two wives.

Brandon died at 61 on March 28, 1850, and was buried in a private family cemetery at his Columbian Springs Plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi.

A slaveholder himself, he said he considered slavery an evil; his son, however, possessed a fortune in human property, including the kidnapped Henrietta Wood.

Political life
Brandon, a delegate to the constitutional conventions of 1817 and 1832, also helped draft Mississippi's first two constitutions. He served in the Mississippi Legislature and was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1822.

In 1825, Brandon became governor of Mississippi for the first time upon the death of Walter Leake, serving from Leake's death on November 17, 1825, until January 7, 1826, when David Holmes, the last territorial governor and first governor of the State of Mississippi was again inaugurated as governor.

Brandon became acting governor of Mississippi again on July 25, 1826 when Governor David Holmes resigned due to ill health. Brandon served until January 9, 1832, being reelected in the 1827 election and 1829 election.

Gerard Brandon served as governor during an era known as the "Flush Times," an era of expanded settlement and development in Mississippi and the surrounding areas. During his administration, the finalization of two Indian land sessions opened millions of acres of land to settlement, beginning the development of the cotton industry that would define Mississippi's economy in the coming years. Governor Brandon oversaw the expansion of transportation in the infrastructure to connect the new agricultural land, as well as the construction of public schools and the chartering of Mississippi's first railroad.

During Brandon's administration, political and economic changes, including the creation of several new counties (Washington, Madison, Rankin, and Lowndes) and the expansion of suffrage to all white males, induced the populace to vote in favor of a constitutional convention to replace Mississippi's Constitution of 1817.

After his term as governor ended, Brandon served as a delegate to the 1831 Constitutional Convention for Adams County. He would then live as a private citizen until his death in 1850.

Brandon, Mississippi, the county seat of Rankin County, is named after Gerard Brandon.

title: Gerard Brandon


text:
The Fiery Furnaces

The Fiery Furnaces are an American indie rock band, formed in 2000 in Brooklyn, New York. The band's primary members are Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. The siblings are originally from Oak Park, Illinois, a near-western suburb of Chicago. They are known for their ambitious, highly conceptual releases, which have frequently divided critical opinion.

In May 2011, the band entered a nine-year hiatus, with both Matthew and Eleanor pursuing solo careers. In February 2020, it was announced that The Fiery Furnaces would reunite to play at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the event was canceled. It was later revealed that the band signed to Jack White's Third Man Records label.

History
The Fiery Furnaces signed with Rough Trade in 2002, and recorded their debut album, Gallowsbird's Bark, the same year. Released in 2003, it was often compared in the press to The White Stripes due to the garage blues elements of the band's sound and the fact that the members are siblings, which the White Stripes duo originally presented themselves as.

Matthew is primarily responsible for the band's studio instrumentation and songwriting, while Eleanor handles the majority of the vocal duties. Drummer Andy Knowles and bassist Toshi Yano both joined the band for live performances in time for their 2004 tour. Beginning with a performance at the April 2004 All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Camber Sands, England, the band's live performances took the form of hour-long, continuous sets of music featuring snippets from most of their recorded songs. Many times, several songs were melded together to create a conglomerate song that encompassed material from previously released songs, this producing similarly complicated set lists for the band to follow.

The Fiery Furnaces released their second album, Blueberry Boat, in the summer of 2004. It is also often interpreted as a multi-layered concept album. "Quay Cur," the ten-minute lead track on Blueberry Boat, switches from dirty, gurgling organ to slide-guitar-fueled ditties, pulsing electronic beats to abstract lullaby within a few minutes, highlighting the Fiery Furnaces' variety in songwriting. Some critics, however, interpreted this type of material as evidence that the album is unfocused. The epic nature of the majority of the songs made them unsuitable for radio play so the band prepared "Single Again," a take on a traditional folk song as a substitute.

This single, along with their previously released ones, was mostly only made available to the UK audience, so in January 2005 the band released a 41-minute compilation disc named EP (this confusingly being a designation commonly reserved for shorter discs). EP featured two new songs, all of the band's singles and b-sides (with the exception of an alternate version of "We Got Back The Plague" found on the "Tropical Ice-Land" single), and was for this reason a contrast to the epic and, according to some, inaccessible nature of Blueberry Boat.

Their following album, Rehearsing My Choir (released in October 2005), saw the band return to an experimental sound once again. A concept album featuring the Friedbergers' grandmother, Olga Sarantos, narrating stories about her life, Rehearsing My Choir was met with widely differing opinions from both the press and the band's fans, being branded "difficult" even by those who rated it highly. Sarantos previously worked as choir director at a Greek Orthodox church, and her croaked reminiscences form the backbone to this peculiar, piecemeal storybook of an album. Jason Loewenstein of Sebadoh and Bob D'Amico took over band duties for the supporting tour, replacing Toshi Yano and Andy Knowles.

The band released their fifth LP, entitled Bitter Tea, in April 2006. In interviews they stated that the album was influenced by the sound of synthpop group Devo, and Eleanor Friedberger stated the album was "definitely the poppiest thing we've done."

Matthew Friedberger released Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School in August 2006, two separate albums which were packaged as a double album. According to a press release, Winter Women is "intended to be a summer record, full of memorable, catchy, and un-ironic pop songs," while Holy Ghost Language School is like "Faust, the Residents, or the most 'out' moments of Brian Eno's solo records." Eleanor appeared on neither album and Matthew did not tour in support of his solo releases.

The band did a short tour in October and November 2006, supported by San Francisco experimental rock band, Deerhoof. This tour saw Matthew on keyboard, Eleanor on vocals, Jason Loewenstein on wah-wah pedaled guitar, Bob D'Amico on drums and the addition of Michael Goodman on percussion. The songs had a tropical/salsa feel to them, and most of the tracks from Bitter Tea were played as one long song, lasting 30 minutes—a medley format the band previously used while promoting Blueberry Boat.

In June 2007, it was announced in The Chicago Reader that the band had signed with Chicago label Thrill Jockey and their album Widow City was later released on October 9, 2007. Unlike their two previous efforts, this album lacks a central concept and has a 70s album rock feel. The band toured in support of the album throughout the later months of 2007 and early 2008. A live compilation album, Remember, was released on August 16, 2008.

The band's seventh studio album I'm Going Away was released in the US on July 21, 2009, on Thrill Jockey and the UK on August 24, 2009. A second album, Take Me Round Again, which presents many of the same songs from "I'm Going Away" in a new way, was released on November 10, 2009. These tracks were made individually by Mathew and Eleanor, resulting in some overlap. These songs have the same lyrics as "I'm Going Away", but consist of completely new instrument and vocal recordings that give a new take on the same material.

Hiatus
The Fiery Furnaces went on an extended hiatus following a brief 2011 tour. Their final concert before the hiatus was on May 27, 2011 at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. Since then, each of the siblings has focused on their solo careers, with Matthew releasing a vinyl box set entitled Solos in 2011, and Eleanor releasing her first solo album, titled Last Summer, on July 12, 2011.

Return
In early 2020, The Fiery Furnaces announced they would be performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago that July, their first live show in nearly a decade. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the event was cancelled. They ended up performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2021.

It was later revealed that the band signed to Jack White's Third Man Records label.

The band returned on 18 June 2020 with a new single, "Down at the So and So on Somewhere", the single received praise from Pitchfork, RollingStone, The Guardian, Uncut, and other publications.

Discography

 * Studio albums
 * Gallowsbird's Bark (2003)
 * Blueberry Boat (2004)
 * EP (2005)
 * Rehearsing My Choir (2005)
 * Bitter Tea (2006)
 * Widow City (2007)
 * I'm Going Away (2009)
 * Take Me Round Again (2009)

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

title: The Fiery Furnaces


text:
Lion-man

The Löwenmensch figurine, also called the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave, part of the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 1939. The German name, Löwenmensch, meaning "lion-person" or "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany. It is an anthropomorphic figurine combining a human-like body with the head of a cave lion.

Determined by carbon dating of the layer in which it was found to be between 35,000 and 41,000 years old, it is one of the oldest-known examples of an artistic representation and the oldest confirmed statue ever discovered. Its age associates it with the archaeological Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic. An example of zoomorphic art, it was carved out of mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife. Seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges are on the left arm.

After several reconstructions that have incorporated newly found fragments, the figurine stands 31.1 cm tall, 5.6 cm wide, and 5.9 cm thick. It is currently displayed in the Museum Ulm, in the town of Ulm.

History

Systematic excavations at Hohlenstein-Stadel cave began in 1937 under the direction of historian Robert Wetzel.

The discovery of a fragmented mammoth ivory figurine was made on 25 August 1939 by geologist Otto Völzing. The start of World War II just one week later meant that the fieldwork was left incomplete and analysis of the finds was not undertaken. The excavation trenches were back-filled with the same soil in which the ivory had been found. For approximately thirty years, the fragments lay forgotten at the nearby Museum Ulm. It was not until archaeologist Joachim Hahn started an inventory and assembly of more than 200 fragments that a figurine with animal and human features began to emerge.

Wetzel continued to spend summers digging at the site until 1961, and further finds of ivory were made on the cave floor in the 1970s. In 1982, paleontologist Elisabeth Schmid combined the new fragments with Hahn's reconstruction, correcting some errors and adding pieces of the nose and mouth which emphasized the figurine's feline characteristics.

In 1987, a comprehensive restoration began in the workshops of the Landesmuseum Württemberg by Ute Wolf in cooperation with Schmid. During the work, which took more than six months, it was realized that the figurine was only about two-thirds complete. The back was severely damaged and the legs were missing some ivory lamellae. The ears, eye-holes, two-thirds of the mouth and nose, and the back of the head were preserved. To fill gaps in the head and body, a reversible substance consisting of a mixture of beeswax, artificial wax, and chalk was used.

From 2008, further excavations were carried out in the cave. All layers were sifted systematically, which led to many minute fragments being discovered. The first new adjustments were simulated virtually so that fragments could be added without having to disassemble the original recreation.

In 2012, a second restoration was begun in the workshops of the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Esslingen under the leadership of Nicole Ebinger-Rist. The figurine was disassembled into its individual parts and newly discovered fragments were added along with the old ones, allowing further completion of areas of the head, back, and right side of the body, and artificial additions used during the first restoration were discarded. The Löwenmensch figurine grew in height from 296 to 311 millimetres. Work was completed in late 2013.

Interpretation
Some researchers have ascribed sexual characteristics to the object. Initially, the figurine was classified as male by Hahn who suggested a plate on the abdomen could be a flaccid penis. Schmid later classified this feature as a pubic triangle; however, from examination of new parts of the sculpture, she proposed that the figurine was that of a woman with the head of a female cave lion (Panthera spelaea) Male European cave lions appear to have largely or completely lacked the distinctive manes of their African counterparts, so the absence of a mane could not determine categorically that the figurine was that of a lioness, and a debate about its sex ensued among some involved in the research and the popular press. Kurt Wehrberger, of the Museum Ulm, stated that the statue had become an "icon of the feminist movement".

After the 2012–2013 restoration it was realized that the triangular platelet in the genital area was processed all around, separating it from the figurine. A fracture point suggests that originally it may have been square in shape, which most commonly could be interpreted as a stylized male sex organ. Debate continues, even though an objective determination of the sex of the Löwenmensch figurine may be impossible.

The Löwenmensch figurine lay in a chamber almost 30 m from the entrance of the Stadel cave, accompanied by many other objects. Bone tools and worked antlers were found, along with jewellery consisting of pendants, beads, and perforated animal teeth. The chamber was probably a special place, possibly used as a storehouse, hiding-place, or maybe as an area for cultic rituals.

A similar but smaller lion-headed human figurine was found in Hohle Fels. Archaeologist Nicholas Conard suggested that "the occupants of Hohle Fels in the Ach Valley and Hohlenstein-Stadel in the Lone Valley must have been members of the same cultural group and shared beliefs and practices connected with therianthropic images of felids and humans" and that "the discovery of a second Löwenmensch lends support to the hypothesis that Aurignacian people practised a form of shamanism."

The figurine shares certain similarities with later French cave paintings, which also show hybrid creatures with human-like lower bodies and animal heads, such as the "Sorcerer" from the Trois Frères in the Pyrenees or the "Bison-man" from the Grotte de Gabillou in the Dordogne.

Debate exists as to whether the figurine depicts a lion or human-lion hybrid figure at all; with similarities to a standing bear, and the unreliable nature of the reconstructions cited.

Manufacture
The carving of the figurine from hard mammoth tusk would have been a complex and time-consuming task. A similarly sized tusk found in the same cave has marks that "indicate that the skin and thin bone around the tooth cavity of the upper jaw were cut through to the surface of the tooth, which was then exposed for detachment with a hammer. The tip was harder and had to be removed by wedging and splitting."

Wulf Hein and Kurt Wehrberger conducted an experimental replication with the kinds of stone tool available at the time. Removing the base of the tusk took ten hours. The body was carved with a steep-fronted scraper; the burins requiring regular resharpening. Several tools were needed to separate the torso from the insides of the arms while shaping the head and shoulders, which involved difficult cutting across the grain of the ivory, often requiring two hands on the tool. The basic shaping is estimated to have taken around 200 hours, and in total the recreation likely took more than 370 hours. Jill Cook, Curator of Palaeolithic collections at the British Museum, suggests that "unless the sculpture was created slowly at odd moments over several months, someone as skilled as an artist may have been excused from other subsistence tasks to work specially on this piece."

In his October 2017 BBC Radio 4 series Living with the Gods, Neil MacGregor asked Cook "... so why would a community living on the edge of subsistence, whose primary concerns were finding food, keeping that fire going, protecting children from predators, allow someone to spend so much time away from those tasks?"

She replied that it was about "... a relationship to things unseen, to the vital forces of nature, that you need to perhaps propitiate, perhaps connect to, in order to ensure your successful life."

title: Lion-man


text:
Talk:Jasmine Trias

Only Roman Catholic?
Is she the only known Roman Catholic to participate?

hello, please find out if she is related to antero soriano of tanza cavite? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

FLUENT?
I don't think learning French from her cousin would constitute someone as "fluent". Fluency is acquired over a long period of time, more than a number of years. Also removed fluency in Hawaii because I know for a fact that she is not.

Also removed the whole fluency thing altogether. She is only fluent in English. She is only learning how to speak Tagalog and French which does not constitute fluency. 65.115.99.226 23:44, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

POV
A whole bunch of statements, especially the ones about her denying her Filipino roots are espeically libelous. I'll let the statements stay for a short while and remove them unless proper citations are added. --Chicbicyclist 01:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no proper citation because it simply isn't true, please removed these libelous statements. --aznxdarkricex 10:50, 3 November 2006 (PST)

I removed some of the language due to neutrality concerns; hopefully it sounds less like a gushing fan typed this.

Fair use rationale for Image:Flyinghomecover.jpg
Image:Flyinghomecover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 09:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Jasmine Trias.jpg
Image:Jasmine Trias.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 01:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality of This Article
I dunno. Reading through this article, it's like a "Jasmine Trias is so unbelievably awesome" vibe is coming from it. Also, a lot of things need sources. Things like "During the American Idol season, hundreds of internet fan sites from over a dozen countries were established in several Asian and European languages." don't seem to really be needed.

Does anyone agree? --Goten X 15:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This how article reads more like a promotion than a neutral description of her. No mention is made of the controversy of why she kept not being voted off American Idol even though numerous other singers seemed to have much better talent than her. This article definitely needs more balance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raindreamer (talk • contribs) 04:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Need Permission
I've created a category about the Trias family and I want to include Jasmine because she is the descendant of Mariano Trias, a former vice president of The First Philippine Republic in time of Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Debbyryanfan 2412 (talk • contribs) 14:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:35, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Jasmine Trias. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070907164803/http://blogs.usatoday.com/idolchatter/2007/07/kelly-crashes-b.html to http://blogs.usatoday.com/idolchatter/2007/07/kelly-crashes-b.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060628201519/http://www.universalrecords.com.ph/jasmine.htm to http://www.universalrecords.com.ph/jasmine.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060628201519/http://www.universalrecords.com.ph/jasmine.htm to http://www.universalrecords.com.ph/jasmine.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:12, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jasmine Trias


text:
The Zutons

The Zutons are an English indie rock band, formed in 2001 in Liverpool. The band are currently composed of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Dave McCabe, drummer Sean Payne, and saxophonist Abi Harding.

They released their debut album, Who Killed...... The Zutons?, in April 2004 and achieved UK chart success with "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?" and "Valerie", both taken from their second studio album, Tired of Hanging Around, in 2006. Both singles reached number 9 in the UK Singles Chart.

The band quietly disbanded in 2009, several months after they released the third studio album, You Can Do Anything, in June 2008 with no official announcement. They ultimately reunited in September 2016 for a one-off show billed as "probably [the] last ever" in remembrance of their friend, actor and former Tramp Attack frontman Kristian Ealey. The band remained in contact and in November 2018 announced a spring 2019 tour to commemorate and perform their debut album.

Formation
The Zutons formed in Liverpool in 2001, taking their name from Captain Beefheart's Magic Band guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo. Dave McCabe had previously been in the band Tramp Attack. Both Pritchard and Payne were members of Edgar Jones' post Stairs band The Big Kids (with Sean's brother Howie Payne of The Stands). The band was originally a four-piece, before Payne's girlfriend Abi Harding began joining The Zutons on stage for a couple of songs mid-set, playing simple saxophone lines. The other band members liked the way her saxophone enhanced their sound and Harding became a full member, contributing vocals and sax.

Deltasonic head Alan Wills was initially dubious about the musical talents of McCabe: "I'd heard other bands Dave had played in and I thought they were all rubbish". The Coral's James Skelly was persistent in trying to convince Wills of his friend's potential and the breakthrough finally came when the bedroom demos of the newly formed Zutons persuaded the Deltasonic head into working with them.

At first, the band had to battle comparisons to The Coral. Both bands were Merseyside bands prominent in the Liverpool music scene; were on the same record label; shared the same producer, Ian Broudie; and were good friends, with McCabe having previously written songs with James Skelly. The band's music has proved difficult to categorize, being described as "psychedelic cartoon punk". McCabe, who is also the lead songwriter, includes amongst his influences Talking Heads, Devo, Sly & the Family Stone, Dexys Midnight Runners, Sublime and Madness.

Early singles and Who Killed...... The Zutons? (2002–2005)
The first record the band put out was the 3-track CD Devil's Deal, released in September 2002. The following spring they released Creepin' and a Crawlin', and then the download-only single "Haunts Me" in November 2003. The band's "Z" logo was changed early in 2004 to avoid confusion with the Zenith logo.

The Zutons' debut album, Who Killed...... The Zutons?, was released in April 2004, and initially reached No. 13 in the UK album chart. However, after nearly a year, it moved up to No. 9 in early 2005. The LP had a specially printed 3-D cover and came with Zutons 3-D viewing glasses, which many fans then wore to their concerts. Early copies of the album also included a bonus 4-track CD of alternative versions of their songs. The album was critically acclaimed and was a nominee for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize. The band themselves were nominated for the British Breakthrough Act award at the 2005 BRIT Awards. The album was later re-issued following the single "Don't Ever Think (Too Much)", with that song being added as track 13. The track "Confusion" was used in a Peugeot 307 car advert in the UK during 2004-2005.

Tired of Hanging Around (2006–2007)
The new album Tired of Hanging Around was released on 17 April 2006 and reached No. 2 in the UK album charts. The first two singles from the album, "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?" and "Valerie", both peaked at 9 in the UK charts, a fair achievement considering their highest place previously had been with the single "Don't Ever Think (Too Much)" at 15. The band toured the UK in May 2006 following the release of this album. They played at the Jersey Live Festival on 2 September 2006 before their second UK tour, which began in November 2006. In October 2006, they performed at The Secret Policeman's Ball. On New Year's Eve 2006, the Zutons appeared on Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny on BBC television, on which they performed their songs "Valerie", "Why Don't You Give Me Your Love?" and "It's The Little Things We Do." As the November tour began, the band gave an interview to STV discussing songwriting, making videos and their American dates with The Killers. In a separate interview, Payne complained about the tendency of music writers and magazines to generalise a particular city as the breeding ground of new 'movements', "A lot of bands get lumped in when they're in the same neck of the woods and journalists–especially in England–like to make a big deal out of that and make it into a scene, as if the individual bands aren't good enough to write about."

The band announced on 13 July 2007 that guitarist Boyan Chowdhury had left The Zutons, citing "musical differences". In late 2007, Paul Molloy, formerly of The Skylarks and The Stands, joined the band.

You Can Do Anything and split (2008–2009)
The band released their third studio album, titled You Can Do Anything, on 2 June 2008. It was the band's first album to feature Molloy on lead guitar. The first single was "Always Right Behind You", which was released on 26 May 2008. The album was recorded earlier in the year in Los Angeles, California. On 17 May 2008 The Zutons appeared on Soccer AM as guest stars. They performed "Always Right Behind You" at the end to celebrate the last show of the season. In the summer of 2008, The Zutons had their first UK tour in 2 years. They were scheduled to play seven gigs in forest settings as part of The Forestry Commission's Forest Tour.

On 26 July 2008, The Zutons performed at Japan's Fuji Rock Festival for a third time. On 30 August 2008, the band appeared at the indie festival Jersey Live, headlining the festival along with The Prodigy. Over the 2008 Christmas holidays, the Zutons were dropped from Sony/BMG.

Following a run of 2009 festival performances including Summer Sundae in Leicester and Wickerman Festival, the band quietly disbanded.

Post split, reunions and The Big Decider
Pritchard joined Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Molloy collaborated with Sean's sister, Candie Payne, before forming Serpent Power with Ian Skelly and joining The Coral and Sean Payne recorded with Miles Kane. In 2010, singer Dave McCabe was convicted of assault before releasing solo album Church of Miami in 2015. The Zutons' song "What's your Problem" was featured in a trailer for the 2012 movie Wreck-It Ralph.

Chowdhury formed a new band, the Venus Fury, shortly after his departure from The Zutons. In May 2013, he collaborated with musician David South and scriptwriter Michelle Langan to produce Shoebox, a musical theatre play set in 1950s Liverpool. In 2016, Harding became the keyboardist and saxophonist for The Lightning Seeds, the band of the Zutons' former producer Ian Broudie.

In April 2016, three members of the band, including original guitarist Chowdhury, performed at a tribute concert for the Warrington indie rock group Viola Beach, whose members had died earlier that year in a car accident in Sweden.

On 23 June 2016, it was announced that the original line-up of the band would reform for a one-off gig at Mountford Hall, Liverpool, on 30 September 2016. A fundraiser in celebration of their friend, actor and former Tramp Attack frontman Kristian Ealey, who died earlier in the year. The show was billed as the band's "last ever". McCabe explained: "I'm not against doing gigs as The Zutons, it's the others who don't want to keep doing it, and I understand why. With two of them it's personal issues and Russ plays with Noel Gallagher." He also revealed that the band almost reformed in 2014 to mark the tenth anniversary of the band's debut album but that, "if The Zutons were ever to reform properly, I don't think it would be the original line-up".

In November 2018, the band announced a reunion tour to play Who Killed..... The Zutons? on its 15th anniversary. While original members Dave McCabe, Boyan Chowdhury, Sean Payne and Abi Harding were all on board, Russell Pritchard confirmed via social media that he was not taking part in the reunion tour. In place of Pritchard, Cast member Jay Lewis was recruited to play bass.

On 27 July 2021, the band announced via their Twitter page that they were to support Nile Rodgers on one of the UK dates of his tour. They also confirmed that Rodgers would be producing the band's fourth studio album. On 24 October, they posted a photo with Rodgers at Abbey Road Studios while working on their fourth album. In November 2023, the band announced that their fourth studio album, The Big Decider, would be released on 26 April 2024.

The new album announcement was accompanied by news that the band was to play a series of 22 UK gigs in smaller venues from late January to March 2024. Strong sales for these shows led to the tour being extended with 11 more UK appearances throughout April at larger venues.

Members
Current members
 * Dave McCabe – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2001–2009, 2016, 2018–present)
 * Sean Payne – drums, backing vocals (2001–2009, 2016, 2018–present)
 * Abi Harding – saxophone, backing vocals (2002–2009, 2016, 2018–present)

Current touring musicians
 * Neil Bradley – keyboards, percussion, backing vocals (2018–present)
 * Jay Lewis – lead guitar, backing vocals (2022–present), bass (2018–2022)
 * Tim Cunningham – bass (2022–present)

Former members
 * Russell Pritchard – bass, backing vocals (2001–2009, 2016)
 * Boyan Chowdhury – lead guitar, backing vocals (2001–2007, 2016, 2018–2022)
 * Paul Molloy – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–2009)

Discography
Studio albums
 * Who Killed...... The Zutons? (2004)
 * Tired of Hanging Around (2006)
 * You Can Do Anything (2008)
 * The Big Decider (2024)

title: The Zutons


text:
No. 7 Squadron RAF

No. 7 Squadron is a special operations support squadron of the Royal Air Force operates the Boeing Chinook HC6 from RAF Odiham, Hampshire.

Formation and early years
No. 7 Squadron was formed at Farnborough Airfield on 1 May 1914 as the last squadron of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to be formed before the First World War, but has been disbanded and reformed several times since, the first being after only three months of existence, the latter as early as 28 September 1914. The squadron spent most of the First World War in observation and interception roles and was responsible for the first ever interception of an enemy aircraft over Britain.

No 7 Squadron deployed to France in April 1915, flying Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.5s for reconnaissance and Vickers Gunbuses as escort fighters. Captain John Aidan Liddell of 7 Squadron won the Victoria Cross for his actions on 31 July 1915, when he continued his reconnaissance mission over Belgium after the aircraft was hit by ground fire, the aircraft being badly damaged and Liddell suffering a broken thigh. Although he successfully recovered the R.E.5 to allied lines, saving his observer, he died of his wounds a month later.

The squadron re-equipped with B.E.2s in 1916, which it used for both bombing and reconnaissance during the Battle of the Somme that year. The B.E.2s were replaced by R.E.8s in July 1917, continuing in the reconnaissance role for the rest of the war, operating in Ypres during the Battle of Passchendaele in the summer and autumn of 1917 and in support of Belgium forces in the closing months of the war. It disbanded at the end of 1919.

To Bomber Command
It re-formed at RAF Bircham Newton on 1 June 1923 with the Vickers Vimy as a night heavy bomber squadron, continuing in this role with a succession of types through the inter-war period. It started to receive the Vickers Virginia bomber on 22 May 1924, being the first RAF Squadron to operate Virginias, although it did not dispose of the last of its Vimys until April 1927. In 1927 it moved to RAF Worthy Down, commanded by Charles Portal, later to become Chief of the Air Staff during the Second World War. In 1932, Frederick Higginson, who became a fighter ace in the Second World War, was assigned as a mechanic-gunner to the squadron.

The squadron gained a reputation as being one of the leading RAF heavy bomber squadrons, winning the Lawrence Minot Memorial Bombing Trophy six times between 1927 and 1933 and shared in 1934 with 54 Squadron, achieving an average bombing error of 40 yards (37 m). By this time, the elderly Virginia was obsolete and in April 1935 they were replaced by the more modern Handley Page Heyford, with which the squadron won the Lawrence Minot trophy yet again in 1935. Part of the squadron was split off in October 1935 to form No. 102 Squadron, while the remainder moved to RAF Finningley in September 1936. In April 1937 the squadron received four Vickers Wellesleys to equip a flight which was again split off to form 76 Squadron.

In March 1938 it replaced its Heyford biplanes with monoplanes from Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. It re-equipped again in April 1939, with Handley Page Hampden bombers replacing the Whitleys. In June 1939 it became a training unit, preparing crews for the Hampden equipped 5 Group.

Second World War
On the outbreak of the Second World War, it continued to be used for training bomber crews, disbanding on 4 April 1940 when it merged with 76 Squadron to form No. 16 OTU. On 1 August 1940 it reformed, becoming the first squadron to equip with the new Short Stirling heavy bomber, the first RAF squadron to operate four engined bombers during the Second World War, flying the first bombing raids with the Stirling against oil storage tanks near Rotterdam on the night of 10/11 February 1941. It flew on the 1000 bomber raids to Cologne, Essen and Bremen in May and June 1942. It was transferred to the Pathfinder Force in August 1942, with the job of finding and marking targets for the Main Force of Bomber Command bombers.

The squadron re-equipped with the Avro Lancaster from 11 May 1943, flying its first mission with the Lancaster on 12 July 1943. It continued in the Pathfinder role until the end of the war in Europe. It flew its last bomber mission on 25 April 1945 against Wangerooge, and dropped food to starving civilians in the Netherlands in May. While it was planned to fly 7 Squadron out to the Far East to join Tiger Force for air attacks against Japan, the war ended before the squadron was due to move. The squadron carried out 5,060 operational sorties with the loss of 165 aircraft.

Post-war
After World War II it was equipped with Avro Lincoln bombers, an update of the Lancaster. Based at RAF Upwood, the Lincoln was for several years the front line Cold War bomber aircraft. It was used in the Malayan emergency, the Middle East, the Trucial States (the Emirates) and then Aden. The squadron disbanded on 2 January 1956 before reforming with the Vickers Valiant at RAF Honington in Suffolk in December that year, flying them in the Strategic Bomber role until disbanding in 1962. 7 Squadron was eventually reformed in 1970, this time as a target squadron flying the English Electric Canberra until January 1982.

The squadron reformed in the Support Helicopter role, receiving Chinooks HC.1s in September 1982. The Chinook HC.2, equivalent to the US Army CH-47D standard, began to enter RAF service in 1993. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 7 Squadron took part in the UK's deployment to the Gulf in 1991.

On 2 June 1994, a 7 Squadron Chinook HC.2 (ZD576) crashed into the Mull of Kintyre while carrying 25 senior members of the British security forces from RAF Aldergrove, Belfast to Inverness. All passengers and the four crew were killed. In April 2001, 7 Squadron RAF became part of the Joint Special Forces Aviation Wing (JSFAW) with a role to support the United Kingdom Special Forces. On 19 August 2009, a Chinook made an emergency landing in Afghanistan after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

In March 2020, the squadron was awarded the right to emblazon battle honours on its squadron standard, recognising its role in the British military intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 and the War in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014.

Aircraft operated
Aircraft operated include:

title: No. 7 Squadron RAF


text:
Gold Star Wives of America

The Gold Star Wives of America (Gold Star Spouses) (GSW) is a private nonprofit organization formed before the end of World War II that provides support for surviving spouses and children of those who lost their lives due to military service Armed Forces of the United States.

History
In March 1929, the Congress passed a law to offer financial compensations to mothers and wives of soldiers killed on the field. From 1930 to 1933, the government paid for more than 6,000 Gold Star mothers and wives to go to Europe to pray onsite for their lost ones.

The first meeting took place on April 5, 1945, when four young widows met in Marie Jordan's apartment on West 20th Street in New York City. One week later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, and shortly thereafter, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the organization. Mrs. Roosevelt attended meetings, wrote about the organization in her My Day column, entertained children of Gold Star Wives at a picnic at her home in Hyde Park, New York, served on the first board of directors, and was one of the original 15 signers when the organization was chartered as a non-profit organization in the State of New York in December 1945. The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code under Public Law 96-497.

From the outset, the organization sponsored a variety of activities for the children, and guided them as they formed their own auxiliary of the organization called the Gold Star Sons and Daughters.

Gold Star Wives groups were soon organized in other cities throughout the country, and were chartered as chapters of the Gold Star Wives of America, Inc.s The Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq brought in new groups of widows (widowers). Added to the survivors of service personnel killed in action are thousands who die each year from service-connected causes. Remarried widows are eligible for membership.

In 1980, the organization received its federal charter from Congress.

In 1947, the US Congress established the Gold Star label pin presented to spouses and families of service officers killed in combat.

A senate resolution created the Gold Star Wives Day, which was first celebrated on December 18, 2010.

Description
There are members and local chapters throughout the United States. The country is divided into eight regions. Region conferences are held in the spring where recommendations originate for presentation to the national convention held each year, usually in July.

An Appreciation Award Reception is held in Washington, D.C. in late May honoring those who have shown that they have gratefully remembered those who gave their lives in the service of our country, and their survivors.

title: Gold Star Wives of America


text:
Mercury Theatre

The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools.

After a series of acclaimed Broadway productions, the Mercury Theatre progressed into its most popular incarnation as The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The radio series included one of the most notable and infamous radio broadcasts of all time, "The War of the Worlds", broadcast October 30, 1938. The Mercury Theatre on the Air produced live radio dramas in 1938–1940 and again briefly in 1946.

In addition to Welles, the Mercury players included Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Martin Gabel, Norman Lloyd, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Everett Sloane. Much of the troupe would later appear in Welles's films at RKO, particularly Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.

Theatre
Part of the Works Progress Administration, the Federal Theatre Project (1935–39) was a New Deal program to fund theatre and other live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States during the Great Depression. In 1935, John Houseman, director of the Negro Theatre Unit in New York, invited his recent collaborator, 20-year-old Orson Welles, to join the project. Their first production was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth with an entirely African-American cast. It became known as the Voodoo Macbeth because Welles changed the setting to a mythical island suggesting the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with Haitian vodou fulfilling the rôle of Scottish witchcraft. The play opened April 14, 1936, at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem and was received rapturously.

That production was followed by an adaption of the farce Horse Eats Hat and, in 1937, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus  and Marc Blitzstein's socialist musical The Cradle Will Rock. The latter received much publicity when on the eve of its preview the theatre was padlocked by the WPA. Welles invited the waiting audience to walk several blocks to a neighboring theatre where the show was performed without sets or costumes. Blitzstein played a battered upright piano while the cast, barred from taking the stage by their union, sat in the audience and rose from their seats to sing and deliver their dialogue.

Welles and Houseman broke with the Federal Theatre Project in August 1937 and founded their own repertory company, which they called the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine, The American Mercury.

"All the Mercury offerings bore the credit line, 'Production by Orson Welles,'" wrote critic Richard France, "implying that he functioned not only as the director, but as designer, dramatist, and, most often, principal actor as well. To be sure, this generated a good bit of resentment among his collaborators (the designers, in particular). However, in a more profound sense, that credit is, in fact, the only accurate description of a Welles production. The concepts that animated each of them originated with him and, moreover, were executed in such a way as to be subject to his absolute control."

Welles and Houseman secured the Comedy Theatre, a 687-seat Broadway theatre at 110 West 41st Street in New York City, and reopened it as the Mercury Theatre. It was the venue for virtually all their productions from November 1937 through November 1938.

Caesar (1937–38)
The Mercury Theatre began with a groundbreaking, critically acclaimed adaption of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar that evoked comparison to contemporary Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. It premiered on Broadway on November 11, 1937.

The production moved from the Mercury Theatre to the larger National Theatre on January 24, 1938. It ran through May 28, 1938, for a total of 157 performances.

The cast included Joseph Holland (Julius Caesar), George Coulouris (Marcus Antonius), Joseph Cotten (Publius), Martin Gabel (Cassius), Hiram Sherman (Casca), John A. Willard (Trebonius), Grover Burgess (Ligarius), John Hoysradt (Decius Brutus), Stefan Schnabel (Metellus Cimber), Elliott Reid (Cinna), William Mowry (Flavius), William Alland (Marullus), George Duthie (Artemidorus), Norman Lloyd (Cinna, the poet), Arthur Anderson (Lucius), Evelyn Allen (Calpurnia, wife to Caesar), Muriel Brassler (Portia, wife to Brutus), and John Berry (extra). At the National Theatre, Polly Rowles took the role of Calpurnia and Alice Frost played Portia.

From January 20, 1938, a roadshow version of Caesar with a different cast toured the United States. The company included Tom Powers as Brutus, and Edmond O'Brien as Marc Antony.

The Shoemaker's Holiday (1938)
The Mercury Theatre's second production was a staging of Thomas Dekker's Elizabethan comedy The Shoemaker's Holiday, which attracted "unanimous raves again". It premiered on January 1, 1938, and ran to 64 performances in repertory with Caesar, until April 1. It then moved to the National Theatre through April 28.

Heartbreak House (1938)
The first season of the Mercury Theatre concluded with George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, which again attracted strong reviews. It premiered April 29, 1938, at the Mercury Theatre and ran for six weeks, closing June 11. Shaw insisted that none of the text be altered or cut, resulting in a longer and more conventional production that limited Welles's creative expression. It was chosen to demonstrate that the Mercury's style did not depend upon extensive revision and elaborate staging.

Geraldine Fitzgerald, a fellow member of the Gate Theatre company while Welles was in Dublin, was brought over from Ireland for her American debut as Ellie Dunn. Welles played the octogenarian Captain Shotover. Other cast were Brenda Forbes (Nurse Guinness), Phyllis Joyce (Lady Utterword), Mady Christians (Hesione Hushabye), Erskine Sanford (Mazzini Dunn), Vincent Price (Hector Hushabye), John Hoysradt (Randall Utterword) and Eustace Wyatt (The Burglar)

Too Much Johnson (1938)
The fourth Mercury Theatre play was planned to be a staging of Too Much Johnson, an 1894 comedy by William Gillette. The production is now remembered for Welles's filmed sequences, one of his earliest films. There were to be three sequences: a 20-minute introduction, and 10-minute sequences transitioning into the second and third acts.

The production was meant to be a summer show on Broadway in 1938, but technical problems (the Mercury Theatre in New York was not yet adequately equipped to project the film segments) meant that it had to be postponed. It was due to run in repertory with Danton's Death in the fall of 1938, but after that production suffered from numerous budgetary over-runs, a New York run of Too Much Johnson was abandoned altogether. The play ran for a two-week trial at the Stony Creek Summer Theatre, Stony Creek, Connecticut, from August 16, 1938, in a scaled-back version which never made use of the filmed sequences.

Long considered lost, the footage for Too Much Johnson was rediscovered in 2013.

Danton's Death (1938)
A production of Georg Büchner 1835 play Danton's Death, about the French Revolution, was the next Mercury stage production. It opened on November 2, 1938, but met with limited success and only ran to 21 performances, closing November 19. The commercial failure of this play forced the Mercury to significantly scale back on the number of plays planned for their 1938–39 season. Danton's Death was the last Mercury production at the Mercury Theatre, which had been leased until 1942. The company relinquished the theatre in June 1939.

Five Kings (Part One) (1939)
The final full-length Mercury production before the troupe headed to Hollywood in 1939 was Five Kings (Part One). This was an entirely original play by Welles about Sir John Falstaff, which was created by mixing and re-arranging dialogue from five different Shakespeare plays (primarily taken from Henry IV, Part I, Henry IV, Part II, and Henry V, but also using elements of Richard II and The Merry Wives of Windsor), to form a wholly new narrative. It opened on February 27, 1939, at the Colonial Theatre, Boston, in a five-hour version playing from 8pm to 1am. As the title suggests, the play was intended to be the first of a two-part production, but although it opened in three other cities, poor box-office receipts meant that plan had to be abandoned, and Five Kings (Part One) never played in New York, while Five Kings (Part Two) was never produced at all.

Five Kings was an intensely personal project for Welles, who would revive a substantially rewritten version of the play (retitled Chimes at Midnight) in Belfast and Dublin in 1960, and would eventually make a film of it, which he came to regard as his favourite of his own films.

The Green Goddess (1939)
In July and August 1939, after having signed a contract with the RKO film studio, the Mercury Theatre toured the RKO Vaudeville Theatre circuit with an abbreviated, twenty-minute production of the William Archer melodrama The Green Goddess, five minutes of which took the form of a film insert. The show was performed as often as four times a day.

Native Son (1941)
The Mercury Theatre had moved to Hollywood late in 1939, after Welles signed a film contract which would eventually result in his debut, Citizen Kane, in 1941. In the intervening period, the troupe focused on their radio show, which had begun in 1938 and continued until March 1940. Their last full play after moving to Hollywood was a stage adaptation of Richard Wright's anti-racism novel Native Son. It opened at the St. James's Theatre, New York, on March 24, 1941 (just a month before Citizen Kane premiered), and received excellent reviews, running to 114 performances. This was the final Mercury production which Welles and Houseman collaborated upon.

"The Mercury Theatre was killed by lack of funds and our subsequent move to Hollywood," Welles told friend and mentor Roger Hill in a conversation June 20, 1983. "All of the money I had made on radio was spent on the Mercury, but I didn't make enough money to finance the entire operation. Hollywood was really the only choice. … I think all acting companies have a lifespan. My partnership with John Houseman came to an end with the move to California. He became my employee, expensive and not particularly pleasant or productive. Our mutual discomfort led to his decamping California and returning to New York."

The Mercury Wonder Show (1943)
Although the Mercury troupe technically dissolved either in 1941 (when Welles and Houseman parted) or 1942 (when the entire Mercury unit was sacked by RKO - see below), Welles produced and directed this morale-boosting variety show for US troops in 1943, featuring a number of Mercury actors including Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead. The show was based in a 2,000-seater tent on Cahuenga Boulevard, Hollywood, where it ran for a month from August 3, 1943, before touring nationwide.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air (1938)
By 1938, Orson Welles had already worked extensively in radio drama, becoming a regular on The March of Time, directing a seven-part adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and playing the title character in The Shadow for a year, as well as a number of uncredited character roles.

After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Welles to create a summer show. The series began on July 11, 1938, initially titled First Person Singular, with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some months later the show was called The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Welles insisted his Mercury company — actors and crew — be involved in the radio series. This was an unprecedented and expensive request, especially for one so young as Welles. Most episodes dramatized works of classic and contemporary literature. It remains perhaps the most highly regarded radio drama anthology series ever broadcast, most likely due to the creativity of Orson Welles.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air was an hour-long program. Houseman wrote the early scripts for the series, turning the job over to Howard E. Koch at the beginning of October. Music for the program was composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann. Their first radio production was Bram Stoker's Dracula, with Welles playing both Count Dracula and Doctor Seward. Other adaptations included Treasure Island, The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Man Who Was Thursday and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Originally scheduled for nine weeks, the network extended the run into the autumn, moving the show from its Monday night slot, where it was the summer substitute for the Lux Radio Theater, to a Sunday night slot opposite Edgar Bergen's popular variety show.

The early dramas in the series were praised by critics, but ratings were low. A single broadcast changed the program's ratings: the October 30, 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Possibly thousands of listeners thought Martians were in fact invading the earth, due to the faux-news quality of most of the broadcast. Significant publicity was generated, and The Mercury Theatre on the Air quickly became one of radio's top-rated shows. The notoriety of "The 'War of the Worlds" had a welcome side effect of netting the show the sponsorship of Campbell's Soup, guaranteeing its survival for a period, and beginning on December 9, 1938, the show was retitled The Campbell Playhouse.

The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940)
The Mercury Theatre continued broadcasting 60-minute episodes in 1938–40, now sponsored by Campbell's Soup and punctuated by commercials. The company moved to Hollywood for their second season, and Hollywood stars began to be featured in guest roles. The programme was billed as "The Campbell Playhouse presents the Mercury Theatre". A full list of the 56 episodes can be found at The Campbell Playhouse.

The Campbell Playhouse briefly continued after Welles's final performance in March 1940, with a truncated third season broadcast thereafter without the Mercury Theatre, but it was not a success.

The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air (1946)
The Mercury troupe had disbanded by the time Welles made this series, commonly known as The Mercury Summer Theatre, in the summer of 1946. Nonetheless, it carried the Mercury name, was produced, written, directed and presented by Welles (and often starred or co-starred him), and it combined abridged scriptings of old Mercury performances with new shows. Occasionally, former members of the troupe would guest star in the 30-minute program. The series had limited success, it only lasted 15 episodes, and it was not renewed for a further season.

Move to Hollywood
Orson Welles's notoriety following "The War of the Worlds" broadcast earned him Hollywood's interest, and RKO studio head George J. Schaefer's unusual contract. Welles made a deal with Schaefer on July 21, 1939, to produce, direct, write, and act in three feature films. (The number of films was later changed - see below.) The studio had to approve the story and the budget if it exceeded $500,000. Welles was allowed to develop the story without interference, cast his own actors and crew members, and have the privilege of final cut, unheard of at the time for a first-time director. (Welles later claimed that nobody in Hollywood had enjoyed this level of artistic freedom since Erich von Stroheim in the early 1920s.) Additionally, as part of his contract, he set up a "Mercury Unit" at RKO; containing most of the actors from the Mercury's theatre and radio productions, as well as numerous technicians, (such as composer Bernard Herrmann), who were brought in from New York. Few of them had any film experience.

Welles spent the first five months of his RKO contract learning the basics of making films, and trying to get several projects going with no success. The Hollywood Reporter said, "They are laying bets over on the RKO lot that the Orson Welles deal will end up without Orson ever doing a picture there." First, Welles tried to adapt Heart of Darkness, but there was concern over the idea to depict it entirely with point of view shots, as Welles was unable to come up with an acceptable budget. Welles then considered adapting Cecil Day-Lewis' novel The Smiler With The Knife, but realized that this relatively straightforward pulp thriller was unlikely to make much impact for his film debut. He concluded that to challenge himself with a new medium, he had to write an original story.

Citizen Kane (1941)
As Welles decided on an original screenplay for his first film, he settled on a treatment he wrote, entitled American. In its first draft, it was only partially based on William Randolph Hearst, and also incorporated aspects of other tycoons such as Howard Hughes. However, American was heavily overlength, and Welles soon realised he would need an experienced co-writer to help redraft it—preferably one with experience of working with tycoons.

In 1940, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was a former Hearst journalist recuperating from a car accident, and was in between jobs. He had originally been hired by Welles to work on The Campbell Playhouse radio program and was available to work on the screenplay for Welles's film. The writer had only received two screenplay credits between 1935 and his work on Citizen Kane and needed the job, his reputation having plummeted after he descended into alcoholism in the late 1930s. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a dispute amongst historians regarding whose idea it was to use William Randolph Hearst as the basis for Charles Foster Kane. For some time, Mankiewicz had wanted to write a screenplay about a public figure, perhaps a gangster, whose story would be told by the people that knew him. Welles claimed it was his idea to write about Hearst, while film critic Pauline Kael (in her widely publicised 1971 essay "Raising Kane") and Welles's former business partner John Houseman claim that it was Mankiewicz's idea. Kael further claimed that Welles had written nothing of the original script, and did not deserve a co-writer credit. However, in 1985, film historian Robert Carringer showed that Kael had only reached her conclusion by comparing the first and last drafts of the Citizen Kane script, whereas Carringer examined every intermediate draft by Mankiewicz and Welles, and concluded that a co-writer credit was justified, with each man writing between 40% and 60% of the script. He additionally concluded that Houseman's claims to have contributed to the script were largely unfounded.

Mankiewicz had already written an unperformed play entitled, The Tree Will Grow about John Dillinger. Welles liked the idea of multiple viewpoints but was not interested in playing Dillinger. Mankiewicz and Welles talked about picking someone else to use a model. They hit on the idea of using Hearst as their central character. Mankiewicz had frequented Hearst's parties until his alcoholism got him barred. The writer resented this and became obsessed with Hearst and Marion Davies. Hearst had great influence and the power to retaliate within Hollywood so Welles had Mankiewicz work on the script outside of the city. Because of the writer's drinking problem, Houseman went along to provide assistance and make sure that he stayed focused. Welles also sought inspiration from Howard Hughes and Samuel Insull (who built an opera house for his girlfriend). Although Mankiewicz and Houseman got on well with Welles, they incorporated some of his traits into Kane, such as his temper.

During production, Citizen Kane was referred to as "RKO 281". Filming took place between June 29, 1940, and October 23, 1940, in what is now Stage 19 on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood, and came in under schedule. Welles prevented studio executives of RKO from visiting the set. He understood their desire to control projects and he knew they were expecting him to do an exciting film that would correspond to his "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. Welles's RKO contract had given him complete control over the production of the film when he signed on with the studio, something that he never again was allowed to exercise when making motion pictures. According to an RKO cost sheet from May 1942, the film cost $839,727 compared to an estimated budget of $723,800.

When the film was released, pressure from William Randolph Hearst led to many cinemas refusing to screen it, and it was screened in so few places that RKO made a substantial loss on the film on its original release. As a consequence of this, Welles's RKO contract was renegotiated, and he lost the right to control a film's final cut—something which would have major consequences for his next film, The Magnificent Ambersons.

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Welles's follow-up to Citizen Kane was an adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel The Magnificent Ambersons, a childhood favorite of his which he had already adapted for the radio. It portrayed the decline and fall of a proud Midwestern American family of the 19th century, as the motor car in the 20th century makes them obsolete.

Welles's relations with RKO grew strained during the making of this film. His stock had fallen considerably after Kane had commercially flopped. Whereas studio head George Schaefer had given Welles carte blanche over Kane, he closely supervised Ambersons, sensing that his own position was in danger (which indeed it was - Schaefer was fired as head of RKO shortly after Ambersons was completed, and a commonly-attributed reason was for his having hired Welles with such a generous contract). RKO itself was in serious financial trouble, running a deficit.

Welles himself considered his original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons to have been one of his finest films - "it was a much better picture than Kane". However, RKO panicked over a lukewarm preview screening in Pomona, California, when the film ran second in a double-bill with a romantic comedy. Around 55% of the audience strongly disliked the film (although the surviving audience feedback cards show that the remaining minority gave fulsome praise, using words such as "masterpiece" and "cinematic art"). Welles was in Brazil filming It's All True (see below), so the studio decided to trim over 40 minutes of the film's two-hour running time.

The first half of the film, portraying the happy times of the Ambersons in the 19th century, was largely unaffected. However, the vast majority of the second half of the film, portraying the Ambersons' fall from grace, was largely discarded as too depressing. Actors were drafted in for reshoots by other directors, who shot new scenes, including an upbeat, optimistic ending out of key with the rest of the film. The discarded 40 minutes of scenes by Welles were burned, and detailed, telegraphed instructions from him suggesting further compromises to save the film were thrown away, unread. This truncated version of The Magnificent Ambersons had a limited released in two Los Angeles cinemas in July 1942, where it did indifferently, and like Citizen Kane, the film lost RKO hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Later in 1942, George Schaefer was dismissed as studio head. One of the first changes initiated by his successor, Charles Koerner, was to fire Welles from RKO, and his entire Mercury unit was removed from the studio and closed down.

Journey into Fear (1943) and It's All True (1942-1993)
Welles's RKO contract was renegotiated after the commercial failure of Citizen Kane. Instead of delivering three major "A-pictures" for the studio, Welles would instead deliver two, and would compensate for the high costs of Citizen Kane by delivering two further films with lower budgets.

One of these was the straightforward espionage thriller Journey into Fear, based on a novel by Eric Ambler. Welles wrote and produced the film, but opted not to be the main director, not least as the film was on a tight schedule, filming back-to-back with The Magnificent Ambersons. The project appealed to RKO, especially as it seemed to be a low-risk, low-budget film.

The other project was first suggested by David Rockefeller, and since Welles was qualified as medically unfit for war service, it was suggested he could render service to the war effort by making a film to encourage Pan-American sentiment, since the US State Department was worried about fascist sympathies in some Latin American countries. The film's concept was loosely defined as an anthology of stories about different Americans being united against fascism, and it was hoped that a Pan-American song-and-dance number could be recorded. In February 1942, Brazil's carnival season was rapidly approaching, so it was decided to quickly send Welles over with technicolour cameras to film the carnival, and he could decide how to use the film later.

Studio director Norman Foster was heavily involved in both projects. Officially, he was the sole director of Journey into Fear. However, studio documentation and photographs show Welles directing that film (often in costume for his supporting role as "Colonel Haki"), and fuelled by amphetamines, he was directing Ambersons in the day and Journey at night. He finished his Journey scenes in the small hours of the morning he left for Brazil, and Foster directed the rest of the film to Welles's specific instructions. RKO found Journey into Fear too eccentric in its original form, and kept the film for a year before releasing it in 1943, by which time they had cut over twenty minutes. As with Ambersons, the excised footage was burned.

While Welles was in Brazil, he sent Foster to Mexico to direct one of the sequences of It's All True (based on the short story "My Friend Bonito", about a boy and his donkey), while he began to develop the rest of the film. As well as working his carnival footage into a sequence on the history of Samba, he filmed a sequence called "Four raftmen", about an epic sea voyage undertaken by Jangedeiros fishermen to seek justice from Brazil's president.

RKO rapidly turned against Welles and the It's All True project. Film historian Catherine Benamou has argued, based on extensive work in the RKO archives, that racism was a major underlying factor, and that RKO was alarmed that Welles was choosing to make non-white Americans the heroes of his story. As well as ignoring his instructions while the studio recut Ambersons and Journey, they began issuing press releases attacking him for profligacy with studio funds, and accusing him of wasting his time in Brazil by attending lavish parties and drinking into the small hours (which he did - but fortified by amphetamines, he would also be the first to report for filming at 6am). When a filming accident resulted in one actor drowning, RKO cited this as an example of Welles's irresponsibility. Finally, they ordered him to abandon the film. Not wishing to leave, Welles remained in Brazil with a skeleton crew which he funded himself, but eventually had to return when he ran out of film and RKO refused to send him any more.

After Welles was sacked in 1942, RKO had no plans for the It's All True footage. Some of it was dumped in the Pacific Ocean. Welles tried to buy back the negative, convinced he could fashion It's All True into a commercially successful film about samba, and he wrote the studio an "IOU" note for it, but when he could not afford the first installment on payments, the footage reverted to the studio. The footage was long presumed lost (though some of it was found again in 1985 and incorporated into a partial restoration in 1993), and Welles was unable to find a directing job for over three years, and even then, only for a formulaic low-budget thriller. In the meantime, the Mercury Theatre had disbanded for good.

Later cinema
The Mercury Theatre production team of John Houseman and Orson Welles separated during the making of Citizen Kane, but as the RKO Mercury unit retained its name until its removal from the studio in 1942. Since the Mercury Theatre name was not trademarked, Welles continued to use it for some of his subsequent projects. As well as the 1943 variety act The Mercury Wonder Show and the 1946 radio series The Mercury Summer Theatre.

Mercury Theatre actors in Welles's films
Welles cast a number of regular Mercury Theatre actors in his later films. Unless otherwise noted, information in this table is taken from Orson Welles at Work (2008) by Jean-Pierre Berthomé and Francois Thomas.

Publishing and recording
One book was released under the Mercury Theatre imprint, with accompanying sets of records:

 * Orson Welles and Roger Hill, The Mercury Shakespeare (Harper and Row, New York, 1939)

This was in fact a revised omnibus version of three volumes released in 1934 under the umbrella title of Everybody's Shakespeare, published by the 19-year-old Welles and his former school teacher & lifelong friend Roger Hill, by the Todd Press, the imprint of the Todd School for Boys where Welles was a pupil and Hill became Headmaster. The book contained "acting versions" (i.e. abridgments) of Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. Accompanying the book, the Mercury Theatre released three sets of specially-recorded 12-inch 78-RPM gramophone records of these plays. Each of the three plays filled up 11, 10 and 12 records respectively.

In addition to this, a great number of Mercury Theatre on the Air and Campbell Playhouse radio plays were subsequently turned into records, tapes and CDs, in many cases decades after their broadcast. For full details, see Orson Welles discography.

title: Mercury Theatre


text:
Category:Acura vehicles

This category contains automobiles made by the Acura luxury division of the Honda motor company.

title: Category:Acura vehicles


text:
Ducati 916

The Ducati 916 is a fully faired sport bike made by Ducati from 1994 to 1998. Featuring a 916 cc fuel injected, 4-valve, desmo, liquid-cooled, 90° V-twin engine in a trellis frame with a single-sided swingarm and USD forks, the 916 is frequently cited as one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever.

Design and development
The first development of the 916 model family can be traced back to the development of the four-valve Ducati engine, the Desmoquattro, through the development and racing of the earlier Pantah models, to the road-going 851 and 888 models.

The chief designer of Ducati motorcycles since the 1970s was Fabio Taglioni (1920–2001), who introduced the Pantah in 1979. The engine was updated in the 1990s in the SuperSport (SS) series and all modern Ducati engines are derivatives of the Pantah, which used its camshafts to both open and close the engine's valves, eliminating the usual valve closing springs, a system called 'desmodromic'. Taglioni, did not, however, have an interest in four-valve head engines, and so this was left to his successor. The eight-valve V-twin was the work of Taglioni's successor, Massimo Bordi.

Designed by Massimo Tamburini and Sergio Robbiano and his team at the Cagiva Research Centre in San Marino, the 916's water-cooled engine was a revision of that of its predecessor, the 888, with larger displacement and a new engine management system. The greater displacement was accomplished by increasing the crankshaft stroke from 64 mm to 66 mm, keeping the same 94 mm bore size as the 888, resulting in a capacity of 916 cc. (By the time the 916 was introduced, the final 851/888 Corse engines had also had their bore sizes increased to 96 mm resulting in 'race only' capacities of 926 cc and 955 cc respectively.)

The 916 was a smaller motorcycle than the 888, with a chrome-moly trellis frame which was shared with the Ducati 748 in 1995 and beyond. This was combined with striking new bodywork that featured aggressive lines. In contrast to Japanese inline four-cylinder competitors of the time, its V-twin engine produced less outright power, but a more even torque spread. The 916 model was replaced by the 996 model in 1999.

Design of the Ducati 916 was a synthesis of form and function:
 * The stylish single-sided swingarm was designed to make wheel changes faster during races.
 * The underseat exhausts improve aerodynamic performance, and gave very clean lines. This feature was initially introduced on the Honda NR, and although Ducati was not the first, it has remained one of the trademark features of 916 line.

Journalist Kevin Ash suggested that although the 916 was "one of the most influential machines of the last twenty years", the design is actually derivative of the Honda NR750, with the shared elements of underseat exhaust, narrow waist, similar squared-off dual headlights, and single-sided swingarm holding a large-section rear tire.

Reception
The really big news for 1994, however, was the arrival of the ground-breaking 916. This machine's engine size matched its code number and had been achieved by increasing the stroke of the 888 from 64 to 66 mm. ... This was the work of Massimo Tamburini, who has been described as one of the greatest motorcycle designers of the late 20th century – and with good cause. ... To many enthusiasts around the world, the 916 was not simply the latest superbike, but the best there had ever been. It set new standards of performance, handling, and braking, but also style and charisma. ... The 916 changed the face of sports bikes in a way that only the original Suzuki GSX-R750 had managed a decade earlier. [W]ho could forget 1994 when Ducati stunned the world with the amazing 916? It was another Ducati-inspired revolution in the high-performance sports motorcycle category. With the 916, technology and style, performance and symmetry reached maximum levels. ... From the worlds most prestigious bike magazines, the 916 received the title 'Motorcycle of the year' and many other well-deserved compliments. Making its debut in 1994, the Ducati 916 was admired because of its new design and outstanding technical features. At the time of introduction, the 916 was recognized by winning "every magazine's Bike of the Year award for 1994", and Ducati sold out its entire first year's production run in the United States before any had actually arrived there.

916 Senna
First presented at the Bologna Motor Show in December 1994, the 916 Senna was a special edition to commemorate Formula 1 World Champion, Ayrton Senna, an avid Ducati enthusiast who endorsed its release shortly before his death in May 1994. At the time, the project was facilitated by the fact that Claudio Castiglioni, Ducati's owner, was a personal friend of Senna's. In total, between 1995, 1998 and 2001, Ducati released three "Senna" editions and, in every instance, net proceeds were donated to the Instituto Ayrton Senna charity.

Racing
Ducati won 4 Superbike World Championships with the 916, in 1994–1996, and in 1998, with riders Carl Fogarty and Troy Corser. Ducati won the Manufacturer's Championship in all those years.

On March 1 and 2 in 1999, at the AHRMA Classic Days at Daytona International Speedway, Devin Battley rode a 1998 Ducati 916 to two victories. First, in the eight-lap Formula One class, and then in the Battle of the Twins Open class.

Subsequent models and legacy
The 916 was later replaced by the 996 and 998 with similar design but revised engines and more power.

Massimo Tamburini went on to design the MV Agusta F4, the bike which is seen as his replacement for the 916 range, and it shares many similarities with the 916 especially in the tail section. Both of these Tamburini designs were featured in the Guggenheim Museum's 1998 The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit.

Looking back over a decade after its introduction, it is regularly placed on top lists of important designs in motorcycle history by authorities like the Guggenheim Museum, Bennetts, and Design Week; and authors Ian Falloon, Hugo Wilson, and Margaret Henderson. In a retrospective on the 1990s, Motorcyclist magazine simply stated, "1994: Ducati 916 debuts. Did anything else happen that year?"

In addition to the Guggenheim exhibit noted above, an example is also held by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

title: Ducati 916