title: Brian May

text: May worked extensively with stage actress and singer Kerry Ellis after he cast her in the musical "We Will Rock You". He produced and arranged her debut studio album "Anthems" (2010), a follow-up to her extended play "Wicked in Rock" (2008), as well as appearing with Ellis at many public performances—playing guitar alongside her. He also contributed a guitar solo to Meat Loaf's "Hang Cool, Teddy Bear" album in exchange for the use of drummer John Miceli. Along with Elena Vidal, May released a historical book in 2009 entitled "A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village". The book is an annotated collection of stereoscopic photographs taken by the Victorian era photographer T. R. Williams. It included a focusing stereoscope. May became an enthusiast of stereoscope photographs as a child, and first encountered the work of Williams during the late 1960s. In 2003, May announced a search to identify the actual location of the "Scenes in Our Village" images. In 2004 May reported that he had identified the location as the village of Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire.


title: Brian May

text: On 20 May 2009, May and Queen bandmate Roger Taylor performed "We Are the Champions" live on the season finale of "American Idol" with winner Kris Allen and runner-up Adam Lambert providing a vocal duet. In November 2009, May appeared with Taylor on "The X Factor", with Queen mentoring the contestants, then later performed "Bohemian Rhapsody". In April 2010, May founded the "Save Me" 2010 project to work against any proposed repeal of the British fox-hunting ban, and to promote animal rights in Britain. In February 2011, it was announced that May would tour with Kerry Ellis, playing 12 dates across the UK in May 2011.


title: Brian May

text: At the end of 2004, May and Taylor announced that they would reunite and return to touring in 2005, with Paul Rodgers, the founder and former lead singer of Free and Bad Company. Brian May's website also stated that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as Queen + Paul Rodgers, not replacing the late Freddie Mercury. The retired John Deacon would not be participating.


title: Brian May

text: Between 2005 and 2006 Queen and Paul Rodgers embarked on a world tour, the first leg being Europe and the second, Japan and the US in 2006. On 25 May 2006, Queen received the inaugural VH1 Rock Honors at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, and May and Taylor were joined on stage with the Foo Fighters to perform a selection of Queen songs. On 15 August 2006, May confirmed through his website and fan club that Queen + Paul Rodgers would begin producing their first studio album in October, to be recorded at a "secret location". The album, titled "The Cosmos Rocks", was released in Europe on 12 September 2008 and in the United States on 28 October 2008. Following the album's release, the band embarked on a tour through Europe and parts of the US, opening on Kharkiv's freedom square in front of 350,000 Ukrainian fans. The show in Ukraine was later released on DVD. Queen and Paul Rodgers officially split up on 12 May 2009. Rodgers did not rule out the possibility of working together again.


title: Brian May

text: On 18  April 2011, Lady Gaga confirmed that May would play guitar on her track "You and I" from her latest album "Born This Way", released on 23 May 2011. May joined Gaga on stage during the performance of "You and I" at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards held at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. May performed with Tangerine Dream at the Starmus Festival on Tenerife in June 2011, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight.


title: Brian May

text: May performed "We Will Rock You" and "Welcome to the Black Parade" with the rock band My Chemical Romance at the Reading Festival on 26 August 2011. On 10 October, May made an appearance to celebrate the reunion of rock band The Darkness at an "intimate" 100 Club show with support from Dark Stares. A long-time fan of the group, May performed three songs onstage with The Darkness, including Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down", at the Hammersmith Apollo on their subsequent "comeback" tour.


title: Brian May

text: At the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards on 6 November, Queen received the Global Icon Award, which Katy Perry presented to Brian May. Queen closed the awards ceremony, with Adam Lambert on vocals, performing "The Show Must Go On", "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions". The collaboration garnered a positive response from both fans and critics, resulting in speculation about future projects together. Queen + Adam Lambert played two shows at the Hammersmith Apollo, London, on 11 and 12 July 2012. Both shows sold out within 24 hours of tickets going on open sale. A third London date was added for 14 July. On 30 June, Queen + Lambert performed in Kyiv, Ukraine at a joint concert with Elton John for the Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation. Queen also performed with Lambert on 3 July 2012 at Moscow's Olympic Stadium, and on 7 July 2012 at the Municipal Stadium in Wroclaw, Poland.


title: Brian May

text: In January 2012, May featured on N-Dubz frontman Dappy's solo single "Rockstar", providing "rumbling guitar riffs which culminate in an electrifying solo". The pair also collaborated on a performance of "We Will Rock You" for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.


title: Brian May

text: Queen performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on 12 August 2012. May performed part of the "Brighton Rock" solo before being joined by Taylor and solo artist Jessie J for a performance of "We Will Rock You". On 16 September 2012, May appeared at the Sunflower Jam charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, performing alongside bassist John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin), drummer Ian Paice (of Deep Purple), and vocalists Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden) and Alice Cooper.


title: Brian May

text: In a 2013 West End run of "Spamalot" (the musical adaptation of Monty Python's 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), May was among the celebrities who played the part of voicing God for a week in aid of charity. In 2015, May played guitar on the end credits song "One Voice" from the film "A Dog Named Gucci". The song also features the talents of: Norah Jones, Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs, Lydia Loveless, Neko Case, and Kathryn Calder. It was produced by Dean Falcone, who wrote the film's score. "One Voice" was released on Record Store Day, 16 April 2016, with profits from the sale of the single going to benefit animal charities.


title: Brian May

text: On 29 March 2019, May inducted Def Leppard into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He worked with contemporary metal band Five Finger Death Punch and blues artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd to re-record a new version of "Blue on Black" in support of The Gary Sinise Foundation in April 2019. The artists came together to merge country and mainstream rock to re-create the classic song originally co-written by Shepherd. At the end of the month he also performed songs including "All the Young Dudes" with Def Leppard's Joe Elliott at a Mott the Hoople show at the Shepherd's Bush Empire.


title: Brian May

text: Not long after performing with "American Idol" finalists Kris Allen and Adam Lambert during the programme's season finale in 2009, May and Taylor began contemplating the future of Queen after the group's amicable split with frontman Paul Rodgers. At the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards, Queen was presented with that year's Global Icon Award, accepted by May. As part of the broadcast, Queen performed a short set with Lambert, receiving an overwhelmingly welcoming response. Speculation regarding collaboration with Lambert soon arose, with the three formally announcing a short summer tour of Europe in 2012, including three dates at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, as well as shows in Ukraine, Russia and Poland.


title: Brian May

text: The collaboration was revived in 2013, when the three performed together at the iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on 20 September. Five months later, May, Taylor and Lambert announced a 19-date summer tour of North America on "Good Morning America". Because of ticket demand, five dates were soon added. In May 2014, shows in Australia and New Zealand were announced, along with festival performances in South Korea and Japan. The tour was extended to the UK and greater Europe in early 2015. The group performed together in South America in September 2015, including Queen's first performance at the Rock in Rio Festival since 1985.


title: Brian May

text: In 2016, the group embarked across Europe and Asia on the Queen + Adam Lambert 2016 Summer Festival Tour. This included closing the Isle of Wight Festival in England on 12 June where they performed "Who Wants to Live Forever" as a tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida earlier that day. On 12 September they performed at the Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel for the first time in front of 58,000 people. In September 2018 the group had a residency in the MGM Park Theater in Las Vegas. Though the collaboration remains active, there are currently no plans to record a studio album, though the three are willing to do so in the future.


title: Brian May

text: On 31 March 2020, Queen + Adam Lambert confirmed that their touring dates were postponed until 2021 because of the global COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Brian May

text: On 4 June 2022, Queen + Adam Lambert opened the Platinum Party at the Palace outside Buckingham Palace to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Performing a three-song set, May appeared in front of the Victoria Memorial monument as they opened with "We Will Rock You" which had been introduced in a comedy segment where the Queen and Paddington Bear tapped their tea cups to the beat of the song.


title: Brian May

text: May has been referred to as a virtuoso guitarist by many publications and musicians. He has featured in various music polls of great rock guitarists, and in 2011 was ranked number 26 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In January 2007, the readers of "Guitar World" voted May's guitar solos on "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Brighton Rock" into the "top 50 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time" (No.20 and No.41 respectively). Former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar stated, "I thought Queen were really innovative and made some great sounding records... I like the rockin' stuff. I think Brian May has one of the great guitar tones on the planet, and I really, really love his guitar work." Justin Hawkins, lead guitarist of the Darkness, cites May as his earliest influence, saying "I really loved his tone and vibrato and everything. I thought his playing sounded like a singing voice. I wanted to be able to do that. Whenever I went to guitar lessons, I was always asking to learn Queen stuff."


title: Brian May

text: Most of May's electric guitar work live and in the studio is done on the Red Special, which he built with his father, an electronics engineer, when he was sixteen years old. It was built with wood from an 18th-century fireplace, and was composed of household items such as mother-of-pearl buttons, shelf edging, and motorbike valve springs. While May and his father were building the Red Special, May also produced plans to build a second guitar. However, the Red Special was so successful that May did not need to build another guitar. These plans were eventually given to guitar luthier Andrew Guyton in around 2004–05. Guyton made some slight modifications and the guitar was built. It was named "The Spade", as the body's shape resembled the form shown on playing cards. However, the guitar also came to be known as "The Guitar That Time Forgot".


title: Brian May

text: In addition to using his home-made guitar he prefers to use coins (especially a sixpence from the farewell proof set of 1970), instead of a more traditional plastic plectrum, because he feels their rigidity gives him more control in playing. He is known to carry coins in his pockets specifically for this purpose.


title: Brian May

text: A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel—a relative rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races", where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").


title: Brian May

text: May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar, including: sweep picking ("Was It All Worth It" "Chinese Torture"); tremolo ("Brighton Rock", "Stone Cold Crazy", "Death on Two Legs", "Sweet Lady", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Get Down Make Love", "Dragon Attack"); tapping ("Bijou", "It's Late", "Resurrection", "Cyborg", "Rain Must Fall", "Business", "China Belle", "I Was Born To Love You"); slide guitar ("Drowse", "Tie Your Mother Down"); Hendrix sounding licks ("Liar", "Brighton Rock"); tape-delay ("Brighton Rock", "White Man"); and melodic sequences ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "These Are the Days of Our Lives"). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked May to bring them to life ("Bicycle Race", "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", "Killer Queen", "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy"). May also performed notable acoustic works, including the finger-picked solo of "White Queen" (from "Queen II"), "Love of My Life" and the skiffle-influenced "'39" (both from "A Night at the Opera").


title: Brian May

text: Aided by the uniqueness of the Red Special, May was often able to create strange and unusual sound effects. For example, he was able to imitate an orchestra in the song "Procession"; in "Get Down, Make Love" he was able to create various sound effects with his guitar; in "Good Company" he used his guitar to mimic a trombone, a piccolo and several other instruments for the song's Dixieland jazz band feel. Queen used a "No synthesizers were used on this album" sleeve note on their early albums to make this clear to the listeners. May also used his guitar to create the chime effect in "Bohemian Rhapsody".


title: Brian May

text: May's early influences included Cliff Richard and the Shadows, who he says were "the most metallic thing(s) out at the time." Many years later he gained his opportunity to play on separate occasions with Cliff Richard and Shadows lead guitarist Hank Marvin. He has collaborated with Cliff Richard on a re-recording of the Cliff Richard and the Shadows (then known as the Drifters) 1958 hit "Move It" on the Cliff Richard duets album "Two's Company" which was released on 6 November 2006.


title: Brian May

text: May always stated that the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who and Jimi Hendrix were the greatest influences on him. On the "Queen for an Hour" interview on BBC Radio 1 in 1989, May listed Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton as his guitar heroes. In a 1991 interview for "Guitar World" magazine, May referred to The Who as "my inspiration", and on seeing Led Zeppelin stated, "We used to look at those guys and think, 'That's the way it should be done.'" May told "Guitarist" in 2004: "I don't think anyone has epitomised riff writing better than Jimmy Page – he's one of the great brains of rock music".


title: Brian May

text: May also cites Rory Gallagher as a major influence, saying "He was a magician. He was one of the very few people of that time who could make his guitar do anything, it seemed. I remember looking at that battered Stratocaster and thinking, 'How does that (sound) come out of there?'" According to May, "...it was Rory that gave me my sound, and that's the sound I still have." May was also influenced by Steve Hackett, guitarist of the progressive rock band Genesis, in particular his harmony guitar solo at the end of the band's epic 1971 song "The Musical Box". Hackett said of May, "Equally, his energetic approach to guitar inspired me."


title: Brian May

text: From 1975 onwards, May had some replicas made of the Red Special, some of which were also used for live and recording purposes, others being mainly spares. The most famous replicas were made by John Birch in 1975 (May smashed it during a concert in the US in 1982), Greco BM90 (featured in the promo video of "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" in 1977), Guild (back-up from 1984 to 1993), Fryers (1997–1998, used both live and in the studio) and Guyton (back-up from 2003 to present). On stage, May used to carry at least one backup guitar (in case he broke a string). He occasionally would use others for specific songs or parts, such as alternate tunings. Currently, May owns a company that makes guitars whose design is modelled after the original Red Special guitar.


title: Brian May

text: He currently has a Guild 12-string to replace his Ovation Pacemaker. Some of the non-RS electric guitars he used in the studio included:


title: Brian May

text: For acoustic, he favoured Ovation, Martin, Tōkai Hummingbird, Godin and Guild. On a couple of videos, he also used some different electric guitars: a Stratocaster copy on "Play the Game" (1980) and a Washburn RR2V on "Princes of the Universe" (1986).


title: Brian May

text: In 1984, Guild released the first official Red Special replica for mass production and made some prototypes specifically for May. However, the solid-body construction (the original RS has hollow cavities in the body) and the pick-ups (DiMarzio) that were not a replica of the Burns TriSonic did not make May happy. The production of the guitars stopped after just 300 guitars. In 1993, Guild made a second replica of the RS, made in just 1000 copies, of which May has some and used as a back-up. At the moment, he uses the two guitars made by Greg Fryer—the luthier who restored the Old Lady in 1998—as back-up. They are almost identical to the original, except for the Fryer logo on the headstock (May's original one has a sixpence).


title: Brian May

text: May has used Vox AC30 amplifiers almost exclusively since a meeting with his long-time hero Rory Gallagher at a gig in London during the late 1960s/early 1970s. In the mid-1970s he used six of them, with an Echoplex delay (with extended delay time) plugged into a separate amplifier, and a second Echoplex plugged into yet another amp; he used a homemade booster, his only effects pedal, which was on all the time. His choice is the model AC30TBX, the top-boost version with Blue Alnico speakers, and he runs the amp at full volume on the Normal channel.


title: Brian May

text: May also customises his amps by removing the Brilliant and Vib-trem channels (leaving only the circuitry for the Normal). This alters the tone slightly, with a gain addition of 6–7 dB. He always used a treble booster which, along with the AC30 and his custom 'Deacy Amp' transistor amp, built by Queen bass player John Deacon, went a long way in helping to create many of his signature guitar tones. He used the Dallas Rangemaster for the first Queen albums, up to "A Day at the Races". Effects designer Pete Cornish built for him the TB-83 (32 dB of gain) that was used for all the remaining Queen albums. He switched in 2000 to the Fryer's booster, which actually gives less boost than the TB-83.


title: Brian May

text: When performing live, May uses banks of Vox AC30 amplifiers, keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus. He has a rack of 14 AC30s, which are grouped as Normal, Chorus, Delay 1, Delay 2. On his pedal board, May has a custom switch unit made by Cornish and subsequently modified by Fryer that allows him to choose which amps are active. He uses a BOSS pedal from the '70s, the Chorus Ensemble CE-1, which can be heard in "In The Lap of The Gods" ("Live at Wembley '86") or "Hammer to Fall" (slow version played live with P. Rodgers). Next in the chain, he uses a Foxx Foot Phaser ("We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions", "Keep Yourself Alive", etc.), and two delay machines to play his trademark solo in "Brighton Rock".


title: Brian May

text: As a child, May was trained on classical piano. Although Freddie Mercury was the band's primary pianist, May would step in occasionally (such as on "Save Me" and "Flash"). He mostly used Freddie Mercury's 1972 Steinway piano. From 1979 onwards, he also played synthesisers, organ ("Wedding March", "Let Me Live") and programmed drum-machines for both Queen and outside projects (such as producing other artists and his own solo records). In the studio, May used Yamaha DX7 synths for the opening sequence of "One Vision" and the backgrounds of "Who Wants to Live Forever" (also on stage), "Scandal" and "The Show Must Go On".


title: Brian May

text: The first instrument May learned to play was the banjolele. He used a "genuine George Formby Ukulele-Banjo" in "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" and "Good Company". Occasionally, May would also record on other string instruments such as harp (one chord per take, then copied and pasted by the engineer to make it sound like a continuous performance) and bass (on some demos and many songs in his solo career, and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album). May was keen on using some toys as instruments as well. He used a Yamaha plastic piano in "Teo Torriatte" and a toy mini koto in "The Prophet's Song".


title: Brian May

text: May is also an accomplished singer. From Queen's "Queen II" to "The Game", May contributed lead vocals to at least one song per album. May co-composed a mini-opera with Lee Holdridge, "Il Colosso", for Steve Barron's 1996 film, "The Adventures of Pinocchio". May performed the opera with Jerry Hadley, Sissel Kyrkjebo, and Just William. On-screen, it was performed entirely by puppets.


title: Brian May

text: May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. From 1970 to 1974, he studied for a PhD degree at Imperial College, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen began to have international success in 1974, he abandoned his doctoral studies, but nonetheless co-authored two peer-reviewed research papers, which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife.


title: Brian May

text: In October 2006, May re-registered for his doctorate at Imperial College, and he submitted his thesis in August 2007 (one year earlier than he estimated it would take to complete). As well as writing up the previous work he had done, May had to review the work on zodiacal dust undertaken during the intervening 33 years, which included the discovery of the zodiacal dust bands by NASA's IRAS satellite. After a viva voce, the revised thesis (titled "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud") was approved in September 2007, some 37 years after it had been commenced. He was able to submit his thesis only because of the minimal amount of research on the topic during the intervening years and has described the subject as one that became in-demand again in the 2000s. In his doctoral research, he investigated radial velocity using absorption spectroscopy and doppler spectroscopy of zodiacal light using a Fabry–Pérot interferometer based at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. His research was initially supervised by Jim Ring, Ken Reay and in the latter stages by Michael Rowan-Robinson. He graduated at the awards ceremony of Imperial College held in the Royal Albert Hall on 14 May 2008.


title: Brian May

text: In October 2007, May was appointed a Visiting Researcher in Imperial College and he continues his interest in astronomy and involvement with the Imperial Astrophysics Group. He is co-author, with Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, of "Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe" and "The Cosmic Tourist". May appeared on the 700th episode of "The Sky at Night" hosted by Sir Patrick Moore, along with Chris Lintott, Jon Culshaw, Professor Brian Cox, and the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees who, on departing the panel, told Brian May, who was joining it, "I don't know a scientist who looks as much like Isaac Newton as you do." May was also a guest on the first episode of the third series of the BBC's "Stargazing Live", on 8 January 2013.


title: Brian May

text: On 17 November 2007, May was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, and he was installed in 2008 having also been awarded an honorary fellowship from the university for his contribution to astronomy and services to the public understanding of science. He held the post until 2013. Asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named after him on 18 June 2008 on the suggestion of Patrick Moore (probably influenced by the asteroid's provisional designation of ).


title: Brian May

text: In 2014, May co-founded Asteroid Day with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, B612 Foundation COO Danica Remy and German filmmaker Grigorij Richters. Asteroid Day is a global awareness campaign where people from around the world come together to learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet. May was a guest at the 2016 Starmus Festival where he also performed on stage with composer Hans Zimmer. The theme was "Beyond The Horizon: A Tribute To Stephen Hawking".


title: Brian May

text: During the "New Horizons" Pluto flyby NASA press conference held on 17 July 2015 at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, May was introduced as a science team collaborator. He told the panel "You have inspired the world." On 31 December 2018 through 1 January 2019, May was in attendance at the watch party for the New Horizons flyby of the Kuiper belt object, 486958 Arrokoth, and performed an updated version of his "New Horizons" celebratory song. As part of May's role as a collaborator with NASA's science team on the New Horizons mission, he worked on the first stereoanaglyph based on images of (486958) Arrokoth that were captured by the spacecraft.


title: Brian May

text: In 2019, he was awarded the Lawrence J. Burpee Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for outstanding contributions to the advancement of geography.


title: Brian May

text: In 2020, he participated in the team that contributed the stereography images of numerical simulations of asteroid disruptions and re-accumulations in a publication in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications by Michel, P. et al. (2020) presenting a scenario of formation of the asteroids (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu, visited by NASA OSIRIS-REx and JAXA Hayabusa2 probes, respectively. He was awarded the JAXA Hayabusa2 Honor Award for his contribution by making stereoscopic images of Ryugu.


title: Brian May

text: In 2021, he contributed the stereography images of the structural stability of double asteroid (65803) Didymos, the target of the NASA DART and ESA Hera missions, in a publication in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus by DART and Hera team members. He is also on the advisory board of the NEO-MAPP project (Near-Earth-Object Modelling and Payloads for Protection), funded by the European Union.


title: Brian May

text: In 2022, May was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science honoris causa by Professor Brad Gibson in the EA Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull. Unable to attend in person, he joined the graduation ceremony via video link. At the Starmus IV festival in Yerevan, Armenia in September 2022, May was awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.


title: Brian May

text: From 1976 to 1988, May was married to Christine Mullen. They had three children: James (born 15 June 1978), Louisa (born 22 May 1981), and Emily Ruth (born 18 February 1987). They separated in 1988. May had met actress Anita Dobson in 1986. She inspired him to write the 1989 hit "I Want It All". They married on 18 November 2000.


title: Brian May

text: He has said in interviews that he had depression in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons having to do with his troubled first marriage, his perceived failure as a husband and father, his father Harold's death, and Freddie Mercury's illness and death.


title: Brian May

text: According to "The Sunday Times" Rich List of 2019, May is worth £160 million. He has homes in London and Windlesham, Surrey. May's father Harold was a long-time heavy cigarette smoker. As a result, May dislikes smoking, to the point where he was already prohibiting smoking indoors at his concerts before many countries imposed smoking bans. He is an active animal rights advocate, and he was appointed a vice-president of an animal welfare charity, the RSPCA, in September 2012. A vegan since taking part in the 2020 Veganuary challenge, May has stated that meat eating is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. May describes himself as agnostic.


title: Brian May

text: May is a long-term champion of woodland as a haven and "corridor" for wildlife—both in Surrey, where he has a house, and elsewhere. In 2012, he bought land threatened by building development at Bere Regis, Dorset, and, in 2013 and with the enthusiastic support of local villagers, initiated a project to create an area of woodland, now called May's Wood (or "the Brian May Wood"). The wood consists of , formerly under the plough, planted by May's team of co-workers with 100,000 trees. May's Wood is said to be flourishing.


title: Brian May

text: In 2013, a new species of the genus "Heteragrion" (Odonata: Zygoptera) from Brazil was named "Heteragrion brianmayi"—one of four "Heteragrion" flatwing damselflies named after the bandmates, paying tribute to the 40th anniversary of Queen's founding.


title: Brian May

text: May experienced a small heart attack in May 2020. It required the insertion of three stents into three blocked arteries. May said he had been "very near death".


title: Brian May

text: In December 2021, May revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He compared his illness to "the worst flu you could imagine" and implored people to get vaccinated, stating that he didn't think he would have recovered as well if he hadn't received a full vaccination and booster shot.


title: Brian May

text: May has formed a group to promote animal welfare. Though a Conservative Party voter most of his life, he has stated that their policies on fox hunting and the culling of badgers meant he did not vote for them in the 2010 UK general election. His animal welfare–focussed organisation, Save Me (named after the May-written Queen song), campaigns for the protection of all animals against unnecessary, cruel and degrading treatment, with a particular emphasis on preventing hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers. The group's primary concern is to ensure that the Hunting Act 2004 and other laws protecting animals are retained in situ.


title: Brian May

text: In an interview in September 2010 with Stephen Sackur for the BBC's "HARDtalk" program, May said that he would rather be remembered for his animal rights work than for his music or scientific work. May is a staunch supporter of the RSPCA, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the League Against Cruel Sports, PETA UK and the Harper Asprey Wildlife Rescue. In March 2012, May contributed the foreword to a target paper published by the think tank the Bow Group, urging the government to reconsider its plans to cull thousands of badgers to control bovine TB, stating that the findings of Labour's major badger culling trials, several years earlier, show that culling does not work. The paper was authored by Graham Godwin-Pearson with contributions by leading tuberculosis scientists, including Lord Krebs.


title: Brian May

text: In 2013, May joined French guitar player Jean-Pierre Danel for a charity Danel launched for the benefit of animal rights in France. The guitarists signed guitars and art photos together, and were joined by Hank Marvin.


title: Brian May

text: In May 2013, May teamed up with actor Brian Blessed and Flash cartoonist Jonti "Weebl" Picking, as well as animal rights groups including the RSPCA, to form Team Badger, a "coalition of organisations that have teamed up to fight the planned cull of badgers". With Weebl and Blessed, May recorded a single, "Save the Badger Badger Badger"—a mashup of Weebl's viral 2003 Flash cartoon meme, "Badger Badger Badger", and Queen's "Flash", featuring vocals by Blessed. On 1 September 2013, "Save the Badger Badger Badger" charted at No. 79 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 39 on the UK iTunes chart and No. 1 on the iTunes Rock chart. In June 2013 naturalist Sir David Attenborough and rock guitarist Slash joined May to form a supergroup, Artful Badger and Friends, and released a song dedicated to badgers, "Badger Swagger".


title: Brian May

text: Prior to the 2015 general election, it was reported that May was considering standing as an independent Member of Parliament. It was also revealed that May had started a "Common Decency" project "to re-establish common decency in our lives, work and Parliament". May said he wanted to "get rid of the current government" and wished to see a House of Commons containing "individuals voting according to their conscience". May was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas at the election. He also endorsed a Conservative Party candidate, Henry Smith, on the grounds of his animal welfare record.


title: Brian May

text: In July 2015, May criticised UK Prime Minister David Cameron for giving Members of Parliament a free vote on amending the ban on fox hunting in England and Wales. During a live television interview, he described the pro-hunting organisation the Countryside Alliance as "a bunch of lying bastards" for their support for a change to the law. The government postponed the vote following the intervention of the Scottish National Party's Westminster MPs, who committed to vote to keep the ban as it existed. May told anti-hunt protesters in a rally outside Parliament that it was "a very, very important day for our democracy" but added "we have not yet won the war, there's no room for complacency".


title: Brian May

text: In June 2017, May endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 general election. May shared an article on Twitter by "The Independent" headlined "Jeremy Corbyn says Fox hunting is 'barbarity' and pledges to keep it banned" and captioned it: "Well, I guess that just about clinches it !! Anyone see any good reason not to prefer the evidently decent Corbyn over the weak and wobbly Mrs May? Bri".


title: Brian May

text: In October 2018, May said, "I don't like all this separatist stuff and you know this sort of illusion that we can all stand on our own, to me the future lies in co-operation. I get up every day and put my head in my hands about Brexit – I think it's the stupidest thing we ever tried to do." He also said that Prime Minister Theresa May was "driven by vanity and thirst for power".


title: Brian May

text: In the run-up to the 2019 United Kingdom general election May criticised what he saw as the poor conduct of the media and declined to endorse either candidate, stating that he found it "impossible" to vote for either Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson. After the election in which the Conservatives won a majority, May vowed to continue fighting for animal rights but in an Instagram and blog post he urged his followers to congratulate Johnson and "wish Boris a decent chance to rebuild Britain" before praising reforms to animal welfare laws made by Conservative Party Environment Secretary Michael Gove. In 2021 May criticised Johnson for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it inadequate.


title: Brian May

text: In the lead up to the 2019 Okinawan referendum on landfill work at Henoko Bay for the expansion of the base in Okinawa, Japan, May advocated voting in opposition to the landfill.


title: Brian May

text: May has had a lifelong interest in collecting Victorian stereophotography. In 2009, with co-author Elena Vidal, he published his second book, "A Village Lost and Found," on the work of English stereophotography innovator T. R. Williams. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Saxby Medal in 2012 for achievement in the field of three-dimensional imaging.


title: Brian May

text: May made a significant technical contribution to the book to accompany the exhibition 'Stereoscopic Photographs of Pablo Picasso by Robert Mouzillat', held at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England, from February to June 2014. The book provides photographs of Picasso in his studio, at a bullfight at Arles, and in his garden. May's 3D Owl viewer is used to view the photographs in 3D.


title: Brian May

text: The purchase of his first card in 1973 started May on a lifelong and worldwide search for Les Diableries, which are stereoscopic photographs depicting scenes of daily life in Hell. On 10 October 2013 the book "Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell" by Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming was published.


title: Brian May

text: In 2017, May published "Queen in 3-D", chronicling the group's 50-year history. It contains over 300 of his own stereoscopic photos and is the first book about the band published by one of its members. Included with the book is May's patented OWL Stereoscopic Viewer.


title: Brian May

text: In the 2018 biographical film "Bohemian Rhapsody", he was portrayed by Gwilym Lee. May himself served as a creative and musical consultant for the film, and worked especially closely with Lee.


title: Azores

text: The Azores ( , ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about west of Lisbon, about northwest of Morocco, and about southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.


title: Azores

text: Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which has become a major service activity in the region. The government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service and tertiary sectors. The largest city of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. The culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these remote islands were settled sporadically over a span of two centuries.


title: Azores

text: There are nine major Azorean islands and an islet cluster, in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo, to the west; Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre; and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and the Formigas islet to the east. They extend for more than and lie in a northwest–southeast direction. All of the islands have volcanic origins, although some, such as Santa Maria, have had no recorded activity in the time since the islands were settled several centuries ago. Mount Pico, on the island of Pico, is the highest point in Portugal, at . If measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean to their peaks, which thrust high above the surface of the Atlantic, the Azores are among the tallest mountains on the planet.


title: Azores

text: The climate of the Azores is very mild for such a northerly location, being influenced by its distance from the continents and by the passing Gulf Stream. Because of the marine influence, temperatures remain mild year-round. Daytime temperatures normally fluctuate between depending on season. Temperatures above or below are unknown in the major population centres. It is also generally wet and cloudy.


title: Azores

text: A small number of alleged hypogea (underground structures carved into rocks) have been identified on the islands of Corvo, Santa Maria, and Terceira by Portuguese archaeologist Nuno Ribeiro, who speculated that they might date back 2,000 years, implying a human presence on the island before the Portuguese. These structures have been used by settlers in the Azores to store grain and the suggestion by Ribeiro that they might be burial sites is unconfirmed. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking; thus it is unclear whether these structures are natural or human-made and whether they predate the 15th century Portuguese colonization of the Azores.


title: Azores

text: According to a 2015 paper published in "Journal of Evolutionary Biology", research based on mouse mitochondrial DNA points to a Scandinavian rather than Portuguese origin of the local mouse population. Some years later, a paper published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" in 2021, using data from lake sediment core sampling suggests brush-clearing was undertaken and animal husbandry introduced between 700 and 850 C.E. Together, these findings may be explained by a brief period of Norse settlement and the 2021 paper further cites climate simulations carried out that suggest the dominant winds in the North Atlantic Ocean in that period blew from the northeast, which would have taken Viking ships heading southwest from Scandinavia more or less directly to the Azores.


title: Azores

text: The islands were known to Europeans in the 14th century; parts of them appear in the Catalan Atlas, created in 1375. In 1427, a captain sailing for Prince Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, may have rediscovered the Azores but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashe's 1813 work, "A History of the Azores", the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges, who made landfall in the archipelago during a storm on his way to Lisbon. Ashe stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other writers note the discovery of the first islands (São Miguel, Santa Maria and Terceira) by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims.


title: Azores

text: Although it is commonly said that the archipelago received its name from (Portuguese for goshawk, a common bird at the time of discovery) it is unlikely that the bird ever nested or hunted on the islands. There were no large animals on Santa Maria; after its discovery and before settlement began, sheep were let loose on the island to supply future settlers with food.


title: Azores

text: The archipelago was largely settled from mainland Portugal but settlement did not take place right away. Gonçalo Velho Cabral gathered resources and settlers for the next three years (1433–1436) and sailed to establish colonies, first on Santa Maria and then on São Miguel. Settlers built houses, established villages and cleared bush and rocks to plant crops, grain, grapevines, sugar cane and other plants suitable for local use and for export. They brought domesticated animals, such as chickens, rabbits, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. The settlement of the unoccupied islands started in 1439 with people mainly from the continental provinces of Algarve and Alentejo, in mainland Portugal. São Miguel was first settled in 1449, the settlers – mainly from the Estremadura, Alto Alentejo and Algarve areas of mainland Portugal – under the command of Gonçalo Velho Cabral, who landed at the site of modern-day Povoação.


title: Azores

text: The first reference to the island of São Jorge was made in 1439 but the date of discovery is unknown. In 1443, the island was already inhabited but settlement only began after the arrival of the noble Flemish native Willem van der Haegen. Arriving at Topo, São Jorge, where he lived and died, he became known as "Guilherme da Silveira" to the islanders. João Vaz Corte-Real received the captaincy of the island in 1483. Velas became a town before the end of the 15th century. By 1490, there were 2,000 Flemings living in the islands of Terceira, Pico, Faial, São Jorge and Flores. Because there was such a large Flemish settlement, the Azores became known as the Flemish Islands or the Isles of Flanders.


title: Azores

text: Prince Henry the Navigator was responsible for this settlement. His sister, Isabel, was married to Philip the Good Duke of Burgundy, of which Flanders was a part. There was a revolt against Philip's rule, and disease and hunger became rampant. Isabel appealed to Henry to allow some of the unruly Flemings to settle in the Azores. He granted this and supplied them with means of transport and goods.


title: Azores

text: In 1522, Vila Franca do Campo, then the capital of São Miguel, was devastated by an earthquake and landslide that killed about 5,000 people, and the capital was moved to Ponta Delgada. The town of Vila Franca do Campo was rebuilt on the original site, and today is a thriving fishing and yachting port. Ponta Delgada received its city status in 1546. From the first settlement, the pioneers applied themselves to agriculture, and by the 15th century Graciosa exported wheat, barley, wine and brandy. The goods were sent to Terceira largely because of the proximity of the island.


title: Azores

text: Portugal fell into a dynastic crisis following the death of Cardinal-King Henry of Portugal in 1580. Of the various claimants to the crown, the most powerful was king Phillip II of Spain, who justified his rights to the Portuguese throne by the fact that his mother was a Portuguese royal princess, his maternal grandfather having been King Manuel I of Portugal. Following his proclamation in Santarém, António, Prior of Crato was acclaimed in the Azores in 1580 (through his envoy António da Costa) but was expelled from the continent by the Spaniards following the Battle of Alcântara. Yet, through the administration of Cipriano de Figueiredo, governor of Terceira (who continued to govern Terceira in the name of ill-fated, former King Sebastian of Portugal), the Azoreans resisted Spanish attempts to conquer the islands (including specifically at the Battle of Salga).


title: Azores

text: In 1583, Philip II of Spain, as King of Portugal, sent his fleet to clear the Azores of a combined multinational force of adventurers, mercenaries, volunteers, and soldiers who were attempting to establish the Azores as a staging post for a rival pretender to the Portuguese throne. Following the success of his fleet at the Battle of Ponta Delgada captured enemies were hanged from yardarms, as they were considered pirates by Philip II. Opponents receiving the news variously portrayed Philip II as a despot or "Black Legend"; the sort of insult widely made against contemporary monarchs engaged in aggressive empire building and the European wars of religion. Figueiredo and Violante do Canto helped organize a resistance on Terceira that influenced some of the response of the other islands, even as internal politics and support for Philip's faction increased on the other islands (including specifically on São Miguel, where the Gonçalvez da Câmara family supported the Spanish claimant).


title: Azores

text: An English raid of the Azores in 1589 successfully plundered some islands and harbouring ships; eight years later, a second raid failed – the Islands Voyage.


title: Azores

text: Spain held the Azores under the Iberian Union from 1580–1642 (called the "Babylonian captivity" in the Azores). The Azores were the last part of the Portuguese Empire to resist Philip's reign over Portugal (Macau resisted any official recognition), until the defeat of forces loyal to the Prior of Crato with the Conquest of the Azores in 1583. Portuguese control resumed with the end of the Iberian Union in 1640, and the beginning of the Portuguese Restoration War, not by the professional military, who were occupied with warfare on the Portuguese mainland, but by local people attacking a fortified Castilian garrison.


title: Azores

text: In the late 16th century, the Azores and Madeira began to face problems of overpopulation. Responding to the consequent economic problems, some people of the Azores began to emigrate to Brazil.


title: Azores

text: The Portuguese Civil War (1828–1834) had strong repercussions in the Azores. In 1829, in Praia da Vitória, the liberals won over the absolutists, making Terceira Island the main headquarters of the new Portuguese regime and also where the Council of Regency () of Maria II of Portugal was established. Beginning in 1868, Portugal issued its stamps overprinted with "" for use in the islands. Between 1892 and 1906, it also issued separate stamps for the three administrative districts of the time.


title: Azores

text: From 1836 to 1976, the archipelago was divided into three districts, equivalent (except in area) to those in the Portuguese mainland. The division was arbitrary and did not follow the natural island groups, rather reflecting the location of each district capital on the three main cities (none of which were on the western group).


title: Azores

text: In 1931, the Azores (together with Madeira and Portuguese Guinea) revolted against the Ditadura Nacional and were held briefly by rebel military.


title: Azores

text: In 1943, during World War II, the Portuguese ruler António de Oliveira Salazar leased air and naval bases in the Azores to Great Britain. The occupation of these facilities in October 1943 was codenamed "Operation Alacrity" by the British. This was a key turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, enabling the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Forces, and the U.S. Navy to provide aerial coverage in the Mid-Atlantic gap. This helped them to protect convoys and to hunt hostile German U-boats.


title: Azores

text: In 1944, the U.S. constructed a small and short-lived air base on the island of Santa Maria. In 1945, a new base was constructed on the island of Terceira, named Lajes Field. This air base is in an area called Lajes, a broad, flat sea terrace that had been a large farm. Lajes Field is a plateau rising out of the sea on the northeast corner of the island. This air base is a joint American and Portuguese venture. Lajes Field continues to support the American and Portuguese Armed Forces.


title: Azores

text: During the Cold War, U.S. Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare squadrons patrolled the North Atlantic Ocean for Soviet Navy submarines and surface warships. Since its opening, Lajes Field has been used for refuelling American cargo planes bound for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The U.S. Navy keeps a small squadron of its ships at the harbor of Praia da Vitória, southeast of Lajes Field. The airfield also has a small commercial terminal handling scheduled and chartered passenger flights from the other islands in the Azores, Europe, Africa, and North America.


title: Azores

text: Following the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which deposed the Estado Novo dictatorship in Lisbon, Portugal and its territories across the world entered into a period of great political uncertainty. The Azorean Liberation Front attempted to take advantage of this instability immediately after the revolution, hoping to establish an independent Azores, until operations ceased in 1975.


title: Azores

text: In 1976, the Azores became the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), one of the autonomous regions of Portugal, and the subdistricts of the Azores were eliminated. In 2003, the Azores saw international attention when United States President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso held a summit there days before the commencement of the Iraq War.


title: Azores

text: The archipelago of the Azores is located in the middle of the northern hemisphere of the Atlantic Ocean and extends along a west-northwest to east-southeast orientation (between 36.5°–40° North latitudes and 24.5°–31.5° West longitudes) in an area approximately wide. The islands of the Azores emerged from what is called the Azores Plateau, a 5.8 million km region that is morphologically accented by a depth of .


title: Azores

text: The nine islands that compose the archipelago occupy a surface area of , that includes both the main islands and many islets located in their vicinities. They range in surface area from the largest, São Miguel, at to the smallest, Corvo, at approximately .


title: Azores

text: Several sub-surface reefs (particularly the Dollabarat on the fringe of the Formigas), banks (specifically the Princess Alice Bank and D. João de Castro Bank), as well as many hydrothermal vents and sea-mounts are monitored by the regional authorities, owing to the complex geotectonic and socioeconomic significance within the economic exclusion zone of the archipelago.


title: Azores

text: From a geostructural perspective, the Azores are located above an active triple junction between three of the world's major tectonic plates (the North American Plate, the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate), a condition that has translated into the existence of many faults and fractures in this region of the Atlantic. The westernmost islands of the archipelago (Corvo and Flores) are located on the North American Plate, while the remaining islands are located within the boundary that divides the Eurasian and African plates.


title: Azores

text: The principal tectonic structures that exist in the region of the Azores are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Terceira Rift, the Azores Fracture Zone and the Glória Fault. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the main frontier between the North American Plate and the African-Eurasian Plates that crosses the Azores Plateau between the islands of Flores and Faial from north to south then to the southwest; it is an extensive form crossed by many transform faults running perpendicular to its north–south orientation, that is seismically active and susceptible to volcanism.


title: Azores

text: The Terceira Rift is a system of fractures that extends from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Glória Fault that represents the main frontier between the Eurasian and African Plates. It is defined by a line of submarine volcanoes and island mounts that extend northwest to southeast for about , from the area west of Graciosa until the islets of the Formigas, that includes the islands of Graciosa, Terceira and São Miguel. Its northwest limit connects to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, while the southeast section intersects the Gloria Fault southeast of the island of Santa Maria.


title: Azores

text: The Azores Fracture Zone extends from the Glória Fault and encompasses a relatively inactive area to the south of the islands of the Central and Eastern groups north to the Terceira Rift, along a 45° angle. The Glória Fault, for its part, extends along a linear line from the Azores to the Azores–Gibraltar Transform Fault.


title: Azores

text: The island's volcanism is associated with the rifting along the Azores Triple Junction; the spread of the crust along the existing faults and fractures has produced many of the active volcanic and seismic events, while supported by buoyant upwelling in the deeper mantle, some associate with an Azores hotspot. Most of the volcanic activity has centered, primarily, along the Terceira Rift.


title: Azores

text: From the beginning of the island's settlement, around the 15th century, there have been 28 registered volcanic eruptions (15 terrestrial and 13 submarine). The last significant volcanic eruption, the Capelinhos volcano (), occurred off the coast of the island of Faial in 1957; the most recent volcanic activity occurred in the seamounts and submarine volcanoes off the coast of Serreta and in the Pico-São Jorge Channel.


title: Azores

text: The islands have many examples of volcano-built geomorphology including caves and lava tubes (such as the Gruta das Torres, Algar do Carvão, Gruta do Natal, Gruta das Cinco Ribeiras), the coastal lava fields (like the coast of Feteiras, Faial, the Mistério of Prainha or São João on Pico Island) in addition to the inactive cones in central São Miguel Island, the aforementioned Capelinhos on Faial, the volcanic complexes of Terceira or Plinian caldeira of Corvo Island.


title: Azores

text: The islands of the archipelago were formed through volcanic and seismic activity during the Neogene Period; the first embryonic surfaces started to appear in the waters of Santa Maria during the Miocene epoch (from circa 8 million years ago).


title: Azores

text: The sequence of the island formation has been generally characterized as: Santa Maria (8.12 Ma), São Miguel (4.1 Ma), Terceira (3.52 Ma), Graciosa (2.5 Ma), Flores (2.16 Ma), Faial (0.7 Ma), São Jorge (0.55 Ma), Corvo (0.7 Ma) and the youngest, Pico (0.27 Ma). Although all islands have experienced volcanism during their geological history, within recorded "human settlement" history the islands of Santa Maria, Graciosa, Flores, and Corvo have not experienced any volcanic eruptions; in addition to active fumaroles and hot-springs, the remaining islands have had sporadic eruptions since the 14th century. Apart from the Capelinhos volcano in 1957–1958, the last recorded instance of "island formation" occurred off the coast of São Miguel, when the island of Sabrina was briefly formed.


title: Azores

text: Owing to its geodynamic environment, the region has been a center of intense seismic activity, particularly along its tectonic boundaries on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Terceira Rift. Seismic events although frequent, are usually tectonic or vulco-tectonic in nature, but in general are of low to medium intensities, occasionally punctuated by events of level 5 or greater on the Richter magnitude scale. The most severe earthquake was registered in 1757, near Calheta on the island of São Jorge, which exceeded 7 on the Richter magnitude scale.


title: Azores

text: In comparison, the 1522 earthquake that was mentioned by historian Gaspar Frutuoso measured 6.8, but its effects were judged to be X ("Extreme") on the Mercalli intensity scale, and was responsible for the destruction of Vila Franca do Campo and landslides that may have killed more than 5,000 of the inhabitants.


title: Azores

text: The archipelago lies in the Palearctic realm and has a unique biotic community that includes the Macaronesian subtropical laurissilva, with many endemic species of plants and animals. There are at least 6,112 terrestrial species, of which about 411 are endemic. The majority (75%) of these endemics are animals, mostly arthropods and mollusks. New species are found regularly in the Azores (e.g., 30 different new species of land snails were discovered circa 2013).


title: Azores

text: Even though the Azores look very green and sometimes wild, the vegetation has been extremely altered. A great part of it has been wiped out in the past 600 years for its valuable wood (for tools, buildings, boats, fire wood, and so on) and to clear land for agriculture. As a result, it is estimated that more than half of insects on the Graciosa island have disappeared or will become extinct.


title: Azores

text: Many cultivated places (which are traditionally dedicated to pasture or to growing taro, potatoes, maize and other crops) have now been abandoned, especially as a result of emigration. Consequently, some invasive plants have filled these deserted and disturbed lands. Hydrangeas are another potential pest, but their threat is less serious. Notwithstanding the fact that hydrangeas were introduced from America or Asia, some locals consider them a symbol of the archipelago and propagate them along roadsides. "Cryptomeria", the Japanese cedar, is a conifer extensively grown for its timber. The two most common of these alien species are "Pittosporum undulatum" and "Hedychium gardnerianum". Reforestation efforts with native laurissilva vegetation have been accomplished successfully in many parts of the Azores.


title: Azores

text: The Azores has at least two endemic living bird species. The Azores bullfinch, or "Priolo", is restricted to remnant laurisilva forest in the mountains at the eastern end of São Miguel and is classified by BirdLife International as endangered. Monteiro's storm petrel, described to science as recently as 2008, is known to breed in just two locations in the islands but may occur more widely. An extinct species of owl, the São Miguel scops owl, has recently been described, which probably became extinct after human settlement because of habitat destruction and the introduction of alien species. Five species of flightless rail ("Rallus" spp.) once existed on the islands, as did a flightless quail ("Coturnix" sp.) and another species of bullfinch, the greater Azores bullfinch, but these also went extinct after human colonization. Eleven subspecies of bird are endemic to the islands. The Azores has an endemic bat, the Azores noctule, which has an unusually high frequency of diurnal flight.


title: Azores

text: The islets of the Formigas (the Portuguese word for "ants"), including the area known as the Dollabarat Reef, have a rich environment of maritime species, such as black coral and manta rays, different species of sharks, whales, and sea turtles. Seventeen new marine reserves (with special conservation status) were added to the Azorean Marine Park (which covers around ). On São Miguel there are notable micro-habitats formed by hot springs that host extremophile microorganisms.


title: Azores

text: The archipelago is spread out at roughly the same latitude as the southern half of mainland Portugal, but its location in the mid-Atlantic Ocean gives it a generally tepid, oceanic, mild to warm subtropical climate, with mild annual oscillations.


title: Azores

text: The Azores archipelago is located in a transition and confrontation zone between air masses of tropical origin and masses of cooler air of polar origin. The climate of the archipelago is largely determined by variations in the atmospheric pressure field over the North Atlantic. These variations conditioned by the mass of the American Continent and the Atlantic water mass are overlapped by a semi-permanent subtropical Atlantic anticyclone, commonly known as the Azores High. This anticyclone experiences seasonal variations which can affect the archipelago in many ways.


title: Azores

text: In winter, the Azores anticyclone is positioned further south, and allows for a descent of the Polar front, approaching it to the archipelago. In summer, on the other hand, the anticyclone's movement further north, leads to the departure of the polar front and its associated disturbances towards higher latitudes. Far enough away from the mainland coasts, the continental air masses that reach the archipelago are weakened by the maritime influence.


title: Azores

text: The same can not be said for the higher altitudes (e.g. Mount Pico), where upper air masses of a continental origin and with a more direct pathway can reach the surface and present those areas with drier air and more extreme temperatures. At the same time, this free atmosphere circulating air transports aerosols to the archipelago, namely volcanic ash or fine sands from the Sahara desert, which sporadically affect the radiation and air quality.


title: Azores

text: Daily maximum temperatures at low altitudes usually range between . The average annual rainfall generally increases from east to west, ranging from in Santa Maria to in Flores and reaching values above on the highlands of Pico.


title: Azores

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, the eastern group (São Miguel and Santa Maria) is usually classified as Mediterranean while the central and western group (especially Flores and Corvo) is increasingly more humid subtropical and overall rainier because of the effects of the Gulf Stream. This stream has a large effect over the sea temperature which varies between in February and March, and in August and September, and increases earlier in the western group.


title: Azores

text: Salvador Rivas-Martínez data presents several different bioclimatic zones for the Azores. Seasonal lag is extreme in the low-sun half of the year, with December being milder than April in terms of mean temperatures. During summer the lag is somewhat lower, with August being the warmest month, though September is usually as warm or warmer than July.


title: Azores

text: Although temperatures as warm as have been recorded on Pico, neither Ponta Delgada nor Angra do Heroísmo, the two largest cities, have ever gone above . There has never been a frost, snowfall, freeze or even temperatures below recorded at sea level on any of the islands. The coldest weather in winter usually comes from northwesterly air masses originating from Labrador in Canada. However, since those air masses are warmed up as they pass across the warmer Atlantic Ocean, temperatures by day even then exceed .


title: Azores

text: The average relative humidity can range from 80% at the coast to over 90% above . However, higher elevations above the planetary boundary layer can experience extremely low values close to 10%. Summers are especially humid in August and may increase the perceived temperature by a few degrees. Winters are not only very mild but also very humid and contribute substantially to the annual precipitation.


title: Azores

text: Insolation is relatively low, with 35-40% of the total possible value for sunshine, and higher in topographically lower islands such as Graciosa or Santa Maria, inversely proportional to precipitation. This is directly caused by the orographic lift of humid air masses and is especially pronounced in islands marked by high orography.


title: Azores

text: With a greater rarity, especially in late summer and autumn, despite the northern position that the archipelago occupies, the Azores can be affected by the passage of tropical cyclones, or tropical storms derived from them, some can result from anomalies of low latitude systems while others result from the return, back to the Atlantic, after a route close to or even over the American continent. Though often small and in the process of dissipation, these cyclones result in many of the worst storms the archipelago is subject to.


title: Azores

text: A total of 14 tropical or subtropical cyclones have affected the region in history. Most of them were either extratropical or tropical storms when they affected the region, although several Category 1 hurricanes have reached the Azores.


title: Azores

text: In order of importance, the main sectors of employment of the Azores are services, agriculture, fishery, industry and tourism. Agricultural products include São Jorge cheese.


title: Azores

text: The Azores are divided into 19 municipalities (); each municipality is further divided into "freguesias" (civil administrative parishes), of which there is a total of 156 in all of the Azores.


title: Azores

text: There are six cities () in the Azores: Ponta Delgada, Lagoa and Ribeira Grande on the island of São Miguel; Angra do Heroísmo and Praia da Vitória on the island of Terceira, and Horta on Faial. Three of these, Ponta Delgada, Angra and Horta are considered capital/administrative cities to the regional government: homes to the President (Ponta Delgada), the Judiciary (Angra) and the Regional Assembly (Horta). Angra also serves as the ecclesiastical centre of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Angra, the episcopal see of the Azores.


title: Azores

text: According to the 2019 Census, population in the Azores was 242,796. The Azores were uninhabited when Portuguese navigators arrived in the early 15th century; settlement began in 1439 with migrants from several regions of mainland Portugal and from Madeira. North African and Sephardic Jews settled on the islands in large numbers. Moorish (Muslim) prisoners and African slaves from Guinea Cape Verde, and São Tomé contributed to the population as well. Thus the Azorean population received a significant contribution from people with geographic backgrounds other than Portuguese.


title: Azores

text: The islands sometimes served as a waypoint for ships carrying African slaves. Moorish and African genetic heritage, likely facilitated by the African slavery, and supported by historical reports, is supported by mtDNA genetic data. Contributions from Sephardic Jews and Northern Europe also are supported by the analysis of genetic data.


title: Azores

text: In addition to Portuguese and Africans, Moors, Sephardic Jews, Madeirans, as well as Flemish, French, and Spanish settlers migrated to the Azores. Genetic analysis suggests that the archipelago was populated mainly from Portugal; however, contributions from other lineages are significant.


title: Azores

text: Since the 17th century, many Azoreans have emigrated, mainly to Brazil, Uruguay, the United States and Canada. Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts are the primary destination for Azorean emigrants. From 1921 to 1977, about 250,000 Azoreans immigrated to Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Northern California was the final destination for many of the Massachusetts immigrants who then moved on to the San Joaquin Valley, especially the city of Turlock. In the late 19th century many Azoreans immigrated to the Hawaiian islands. The tuna fishing industry drew a significant number of Azoreans to the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego. During the Great Recession of the early 21st century, Portugal was in a recession from 2011 until 2013, which resulted in high levels of unemployment across the mainland as well as the Azores. The Great Recession led to an increase of emigration from the Azores.


title: Azores

text: Florianópolis and Porto Alegre in the Southern Region of Brazil were founded by Azoreans, who accounted for over half of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina's populations in the late 18th century. As late as 1960, mass immigration currents were registered to Brazil, and many were from the Azores.


title: Azores

text: Since 1976, the Azores has been an autonomous region integrated within the framework of the Portuguese Republic. It has its own government and autonomous legislature within its own political-administrative statute and organic law. Its governmental organs include: the legislative assembly, a unicameral parliament composed of 52 elected deputies, elected by universal suffrage for a four-year term; the regional government and presidency, with parliamentary legitimacy, composed of a president, a vice-president and seven regional secretaries responsible for day-to-day operations. It is represented in the Council of Ministers by a representative appointed by the president of the Republic, which was created during the revision of the constitution of 2004 (which, among other things, removed the older Portuguese representative that was appointed by the president of the Republic, beholden to the Council of State and coincident with the president). Since becoming a Portuguese autonomous region, the executive branch of the regional authority has been located in Ponta Delgada, the legislative branch in Horta, and the judicial branch in Angra do Heroísmo.


title: Azores

text: The islands of the archipelago do not have independent status in law, except in electoral law and are governed by 19 municipalities that subdivide the islands. In addition, until the administrative reform of the 19th century, the following civil parishes had municipal standing: Topo (today integrated into the municipality of Calheta, São Jorge); Praia (today integrated into municipality of Santa Cruz da Graciosa); São Sebastião (today an integral part of the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo); Capelas (now part of the municipality of Ponta Delgada); and Água de Pau (now a civil parish in the municipality of Lagoa). These civil parishes still retain their titles of "vila" in name only; the populations of Capelas and neighbouring parish still protest the change and promote the restoration of their status. The municipalities are further subdivided into several civil parishes, with the exception of Corvo (the only municipality by law without a civil parish, owing to its size).


title: Azores

text: Azorean politics is dominated by the two largest Portuguese political parties, the Socialist Party and Social Democratic Party, the former holding a majority in the Legislative Assembly. The Democratic and Social Center / People's Party, the Left Bloc, the Unitary Democratic Coalition and the People's Monarchist Party are also represented. , the President of the Azores is Social Democratic Party leader José Manuel Bolieiro. Although the Socialist Party dominates the regional politics, the Social Democratic Party is traditionally popular in city and town council elections.


title: Azores

text: As part of Portugal, the Azores are in the European Union and Schengen Area. They are also in the European Union Customs Union and VAT area but levy a lower rate of VAT than applies on the mainland. The Azores, like Madeira and the Canary Islands, are among member state territories with special status, as one of the designated "Outermost Regions".


title: Azores

text: Each of the nine islands has an airport, although the majority are airfields rather than airports. The primary (and busiest) airport of the island group is João Paulo II Airport. The commercial terminals in Ponta Delgada, Horta, Vila do Porto and Santa Cruz das Flores are operated by ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, a public entity that oversees the operations of airports across Portugal. The remaining, except for Lajes Field, are operated by the Regional Government. Lajes is a military airbase, as well as a commercial airport, and is operated by the Portuguese Armed Forces in conjunction with the United States.


title: Azores

text: The Azores has had a long history of marine transport to overcome distances and establish inter-community contacts and trade. Consequently, the shipbuilding industry developed in many islands, from small fishing boats to whaling sloops and larger passenger services. Passenger traffic to the main islands (São Miguel, Santa Maria, Terceira and Faial) began in the 17th century, and between the 18th–19th century, the "Pico Yacht" controlled the lucrative summer traffic season.


title: Azores

text: After 1871, the Insulana Shipping Company was the only entity responsible for regular traffic between the islands (except Corvo), Madeira and the United States. Finally, cargo and passenger transportation ceased in the 1970s, and the ships were sold or converted into tuna fishing boats. For the next 20 years, commercial maritime service between the islands ceased (except between Faial-Pico and Lajes das Flores-Vila do Corvo).


title: Azores

text: Transmaçor (Transportes Marítimos Açorianos, Lda.) was founded in 1987. The shipping company operates four to six daily connections between Horta and Madalena throughout the year, using its small fleet of ships, in addition to inter-island connections between Faial, Pico, São Jorge and Terceira during the summer months. New initiatives began in the late 1990s: the catamaran "Iapetos" began services, followed by "Lady of Mann" and "Golfinho Azul" (chartered by Açorline).


title: Azores

text: In 2005, Atlânticoline was established, providing transport services. In 2009, Atlanticoline was involved in a controversial rejection of a 750-passenger, 150-vehicle ship ordered from the Estaleiros de Viana do Castelo (ENVC). The "Atlantida", a 50 million Euro cruiser (as part of a two-ship deal with the other named "Anticiclone") was rejected in 2009 by Atlanticoline for the under-performance of the power-plant. Although it would only result in a five-minute delay between islands, the public company rejected the ship, and the contract was broken over the builder's inability to deliver the required ship on time. While the ship was being shopped to other interested parties (Hugo Chávez once considered purchasing the ferryboat in 2010), no interested buyers appeared, and ENVC decided to cede the "Atlantida" to Atlânticoline as part of the latter's open international competition to charter two ships in 2012.


title: Azores

text: In June 2011, the Regional Government announced that it would purchase 60% of Transmaçor, equivalent to 500,000 Euro of the company's capital. With this transaction the autonomous government of the Azores ceded control, of which it once had 88% of the capital. The signed memorandum of understanding concluded negotiations between the various parties involved, under which the liability of Transmaçor (worth a total of 8 million Euro) was divided equally between the government and businessman José E. Almeida, who is now the holder of a majority stake in the company. Similarly, the Regional Government approved the consolidation of the three individual port authorities (Administração dos Portos do Triângulo e Grupo Ocidental, Administração dos Portos da Terceira e Graciosa and the Administração dos Portos das Ilhas de São Miguel e Santa Maria) and regional Portos dos Açores into one entity that resulted in a 2.2 million Euro cost savings, in addition to a reduction from 11 to three administrators.


title: Azores

text: Religious festivals, patron saints, and traditional holidays mark the Azorean calendar. The most important religious events are tied with the festivals associated with the cult of the Holy Spirit, commonly referred to as the festivals of the Holy Spirit (or ), rooted in millenarian dogma and held on all islands from May to September. These festivals are very important to the Azorean people, who are primarily Roman Catholic, and combine religious rituals with processions celebrating the benevolence and egalitarianism of neighbours. These events are centred around or , small buildings that host the meals, adoration and charity of the participants, and used to store the artefacts associated with the events. On Terceira, for example, these impérios have grown into ornate buildings painted and cared for by the local brotherhoods in their respective parishes. The events focus on the members of local parishes, not tourists, but all are welcome, as sharing is one of the main principles of the festivals. Some limited events focus on tourists, including a public event that the city government of Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel holds, which attracts visitors and locals.


title: Azores

text: The Festival of the Lord Holy Christ of the Miracles () in Ponta Delgada is the largest individual religious event in the Azores and takes place on Rogation Sunday. Pilgrims from within the Portuguese diaspora normally travel to Ponta Delgada to participate in an afternoon procession behind the image of Christ along the flower-decorated streets of the city. Although the solemn procession is only held on one day, the events of the Festival of Senhor Santo Cristo occur over a period of a week and involve a ritual of moving the image between the main church and convent nightly, ultimately culminating in the procession, which is televised within the Azores and to the Portuguese diaspora.


title: Azores

text: The Sanjoaninas Festivities in Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira are held in June honoring Saint Anthony, Saint Peter and Saint John the Baptist, in a large religious celebration. The festival of Our Lady of Lourdes (), patron saint of whalers, begins in Lajes on Pico Island on the last Sunday of August and runs through the week—Whalers Week. It is marked by social and cultural events connected to the tradition of whale hunting. The Wine Harvest Festival (), takes place during the first week of September and is a century-old custom of the people of Pico.


title: Azores

text: On Corvo, the people celebrate their patron saint (Our Lady of Miracles) on 15 August every year in addition to the festivals of the Divine Holy Spirit. The (August Sea Festival), takes place every year beginning on 15 August in Praia Formosa on Santa Maria. Also, the (Sea Week), dedicated almost exclusively to water sports, takes place in August in the city of Horta, on Faial.


title: Azores

text: Notable sports teams in the Azores include Santa Clara (Primeira Liga), Lusitânia (Liga Portuguesa de Basquetebol), Fonte do Bastardo (Portuguese Volleyball First Division) and Sporting Clube da Horta (Portuguese Handball Second Division).


title: Azores

text: The Rallye Açores is an international rally race held annually since 1965, which was part of the European Rally Championship and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Kaya Rose Scodelario-Davis (née Humphrey; born 13 March 1992) is an English actress best known for her roles as Effy Stonem on the E4 teen drama "Skins" (2007–2010, 2013), and Teresa in the "Maze Runner" film series (2014–2018). Other roles include Catherine Earnshaw in Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights" (2011), Carina Smyth in "" (2017), Carole Ann Boone in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" (2019), Haley Keller in "Crawl" (2019), Katarina Baker in the Netflix original series "Spinning Out" (2020) and Claire Redfield in "" (2021).


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario was born Kaya Rose Humphrey on 13 March 1992 in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. Her mother, Katia Scodelario, is a Brazilian accountant from Itu, São Paulo, who moved to England in 1990; Scodelario's surname comes from her mother's Italian grandfather. Her father, Roger Humphrey, was English and died in November 2010.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Her parents divorced when Scodelario was one year old, and her mother brought her to London when she was four. They spent their first night on the street before finding a council flat on Holloway Road. Scodelario adopted her mother's surname and spoke Portuguese at home. She attended Bishop Douglass Catholic School and then Islington Arts and Media School. She participated in school plays and found drama an escape from bullying. Her mother took on multiple jobs to make ends meet and had clinical depression that worsened during Scodelario's teens from the strain. Scodelario said she wanted to help, but did not know how at the time and moved out to a flat in Camden.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: In 2007, at the age of 14 and with no acting experience, Scodelario was cast in the first series of "Skins" as Effy Stonem. At the auditions, Scodelario became discouraged as she felt she was too young, but a producer told her to stay and she was asked to read for the part. While Scodelario's role in the first series had minimal speaking lines, her character developed considerably during 2008. She eventually became the central character in the 2009 and 2010 series after the cast had been replaced with a new generation of characters. This made Effy one of the only characters to appear from series 1 all the way through to series 4. Filming began in July and Scodelario said that 18 November 2009 was her last day of filming the series and that she would miss being on the show.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario left after the fourth series, making way for the third generation of characters. Her performance was praised by critics, and she was nominated twice for Best Actress at the "TV Quick" Awards, in 2009 and 2010. In the episode "Fire", one of three parts of the seventh (and final) season of "Skins", Scodelario reprised the role of Effy. It is a two-part depiction of her life as an adult, lasting two hours. She claims "Fire" is "more like a movie" and that she could relate to Effy's struggle to change from a teenager into an adult.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario made her film debut in the science fiction-thriller film "Moon", which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, receiving positive reviews. In her second film, "Shank", released on 26 March 2010, she played teenager Tasha. In addition, she appeared in the 2010 remake of "Clash of the Titans" as Peshet.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: In April 2010, Scodelario confirmed her casting as Cathy in an adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" directed by Andrea Arnold. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2011 to generally positive reviews, and Scodelario was hailed as a "heart-wrenching revelation". "Wuthering Heights" also played at several other international film festivals, including the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, the London Film Festival, and the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: In 2011, she signed on to play Sally Weaver in a British thriller, "Twenty8k". The film was released in September 2012. In late June, Scodelario announced that she had signed on to star in "Now Is Good" with Dakota Fanning. The film is based on Jenny Downham's novel "Before I Die", about a teenage girl with leukaemia who makes a list of things to do before she dies. She portrays Zoey, the protagonist's best friend. In late September 2011, Scodelario filmed a television serial for BBC One, "True Love", an improvised series comprising five stand-alone episodes, each covering a different love-related dilemma. She is cast in the third storyline as Karen, the love interest of her teacher, portrayed by Billie Piper.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: In January 2012, Scodelario made her first American film, "The Truth About Emanuel", in Los Angeles. She stars as the title character, Emanuel, a troubled 17-year-old girl who babysits her new neighbour Linda's "baby", which is actually a very lifelike doll. It had a limited Release on 10 January 2014. In April 2012, Scodelario shot a cameo appearance for the film "Spike Island". She also participated in an advertising campaign for Korean jewelry brand J. Estina. In 2013 she starred in the four-part Channel 4 drama series "Southcliffe", which tells the story of a fictional English town devastated by a spate of shootings, exploring the tragedy through the eyes of a journalist and those close to the victims.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: She signed on to the film franchise "The Maze Runner" in April 2013 as the lead female character, Teresa, in the first film, based on the novel of the same name by James Dashner released in September 2014, and its sequel, "", released in September 2015. She starred in lead roles in the home-invasion thriller "Tiger House" in 2015 and the film adaptation of "The Kings Daughter", however after production wrapped in 2014 this film was finally released in 2022. She also had a starring role in the sequel "", released on 26 May 2017.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario reprised the role of Teresa in "." The film was set for release on 17 February 2017, but after her co-star Dylan O'Brien was injured on set, the film was pushed back to 26 January 2018.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: The year 2019 brought new projects for Scodelario. The first, released in May 2019, was "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", about serial killer Ted Bundy, where she portrays his wife Carole Ann Boone. She then went on to play the lead in Alexandre Aja's horror film, "Crawl", which was released in July 2019, to positive reviews. Her next film, 2021's "", saw Scodelario lead another horror film, this time portraying video game character Claire Redfield as a main protagonist.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario then signed up to lead a new Netflix series, an edgy figure skating drama called "Spinning Out" in 2019. Debuting in early 2020, the series explored multi-person mental illness within a family and its interaction with high-level competitive sports.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: In Spring 2019, Scodelario became the face of Cartier's new jewelry line, Clash de Cartier, and filmed the latest Agatha Christie miniseries adaptation, "The Pale Horse", for Amazon and BBC. In August 2021, Scodelario joined dramedy "Don't Make Me Go" being developed under Amazon Studios.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario dated her "Skins" co-star Jack O'Connell for about a year before they split up in June 2009, remaining good friends. She was in a relationship with Elliott Tittensor from late 2009 to early 2014. During their relationship, she supported Tittensor after his arrest for hitting someone while driving an uninsured car.


title: Kaya Scodelario

text: Scodelario and Benjamin Walker began dating during the filming of "The King's Daughter" in early 2014 and they married in December 2015. Both subsequently adopted the surname "Scodelario-Davis". Their first child, a son, was born in November 2016. On September 18 2021, Scodelario announced she was pregnant with her second child. In December 2021, she gave birth to a daughter.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008.


title: Ted Cruz

text: After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Cruz pursued a career in politics. He worked as a policy advisor in the George W. Bush administration before serving as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008. In 2012, Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Hispanic-American to serve as a U.S. senator from Texas. In the Senate, Cruz has taken consistently conservative positions on economic and social policy; he played a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown, seeking to force Congress and President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act. He was reelected in a close Senate race in 2018 against Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke.


title: Ted Cruz

text: In 2016, Cruz ran for president of the United States, placing second behind Donald Trump in the Republican primaries. The competition for the Republican presidential nomination between Trump and Cruz was deeply acrimonious and characterized by a series of public personal attacks. While Cruz initially declined to endorse Trump's campaign once he won the nomination, he became a staunch Trump supporter during his presidency. After the January 2021 Capitol attack, Cruz received widespread political and popular backlash for objecting to the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election and giving credence to the false claim that the election was fraudulent.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Rafael Edward Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Eleanor Elizabeth () Wilson and Rafael Cruz. Cruz's mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is of three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Italian descent, and earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Cruz's father, Rafael, was born and raised in Cuba, the son of a Canary Islander who immigrated to Cuba as a child. As a teenager in the 1950s, Rafael Cruz was beaten by agents of Fulgencio Batista for opposing the Batista regime. He left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired. He earned Canadian citizenship in 1973 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2005.


title: Ted Cruz

text: At the time of his birth, Ted Cruz's parents had lived in Calgary for three years and were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oil drilling. Cruz has said that he is the son of "two mathematicians/computer programmers". In 1974, Cruz's father left the family and moved to Texas. Later that year, Cruz's parents reconciled and relocated the family to Houston. They divorced in 1997. Cruz has two older half-sisters, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz, from his father's first marriage. Miriam died in 2011.


title: Ted Cruz

text: For junior high school, Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston. Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy, near Katy, Texas; and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988. During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.


title: Ted Cruz

text: After high school, Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University. While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship. In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Cruz and Panton later represented Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semifinals to a team from Australia. Princeton's debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz. At Princeton, Cruz was a member of Colonial Club. His 115-page senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, "Clipping the Wings of Angels: The History and Theory Behind the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution", was inspired by a passage attributed to James Madison from the 51st essay of the Federalist Papers: "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect their constituents' rights, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state. Cruz graduated from Princeton in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts "cum laude".


title: Ted Cruz

text: Cruz then attended Harvard Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics. He was a primary editor of the "Harvard Law Review", an executive editor of the "Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy", and a founding editor of the "Harvard Latino Law Review". Referring to Cruz's time as a student at Harvard Law, professor Alan Dershowitz said that Cruz was "off-the-charts brilliant." Cruz graduated from Harvard Law in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree "magna cum laude".


title: Ted Cruz

text: After law school, Cruz served as a law clerk for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1995 to 1996, and then for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1996 to 1997.


title: Ted Cruz

text: After his Supreme Court clerkship, Cruz worked in private practice as an associate at the law firm Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal (now Cooper & Kirk, PLLC) from 1997 to 1998. At the firm, Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. In 1998, Cruz was briefly one of the attorneys who represented Representative John Boehner during his litigation against Representative Jim McDermott over the alleged leak of an illegal recording of a phone conversation whose participants included Boehner.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform. During the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, he assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devising strategy, and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court in the case "Bush v. Gore". Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to Bush's legal team.


title: Ted Cruz

text: After Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the United States Department of Justice and as the director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission.


title: Ted Cruz

text: In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to be the solicitor general of Texas. The office was established in 1999 to handle appeals involving the Texas state government, but Abbott hired Cruz with the idea that Cruz would take a "leadership role in the United States in articulating a vision of strict constructionism". As Texas solicitor general, Cruz argued before the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, winning five cases and losing four. He authored 70 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 34 appellate oral arguments. His nine appearances before the Supreme Court are the most by any practicing lawyer in Texas or current member of Congress. Cruz has said, "We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights."


title: Ted Cruz

text: In 2003, while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General, the Texas Attorney General's office declined to defend Texas's sodomy law in "Lawrence v. Texas", in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning homosexual sex were unconstitutional.


title: Ted Cruz

text: In the landmark case of "District of Columbia v. Heller", Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states arguing that the Washington, D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. He also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to "Heller" before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5–4 in "Van Orden v. Perry".


title: Ted Cruz

text: In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case surrounding a challenge to the constitutionality of public schools' requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (including the words "under God", legally a part of the Pledge since 1954), "Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow". He wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states that argued that the plaintiff, a non-custodial parent, did not have standing to file suit on his daughter's behalf. The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz's brief.


title: Ted Cruz

text: Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was decided 5–4 in his favor in "League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry".


title: Ted Cruz

text: In "Medellín v. Texas", Cruz successfully defended Texas against an attempt to reopen the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and on death row. With the support of the George W. Bush administration, the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate. They based their case on a decision of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, which ruled that by failing to allow access to the Mexican consulate, the United States had breached its obligations under the Convention. Texas won the case in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court holding that ICJ decisions were not binding in domestic law and that the President had no power to enforce them.