title: Russo-Georgian War

text: In November 2008, Georgia called on the EU to conduct an independent inquiry who was to blame for the conflict. Heidi Tagliavini, a national of Switzerland (non-EU state), oversaw the making of the EU-sponsored report which was published in September 2009. The report stated that open hostilities started "... with a large-scale Georgian military operation against the town of Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas, launched in the night of 7 to 8 August 2008", This conclusion was widely reported on by international media. The BBC reported that "the EU may welcome the report itself, but may want to distance itself from the content." However, the report also noted "... any explanation of the origins of the conflict cannot focus solely on the artillery attack on Tskhinvali in the night of 7/8 August", since "... it was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents", and there was "... no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone." The report said it "is not in a position" to consider the Georgian claims of the Russian invasion before 8 August to be substantiated enough, while recognising reports in Russian media which indicated Russian troops and equipment which did not fall under the peacekeeping mandate were already present on the southern side of the Caucasus range, in South Ossetia. The report also stated that it could not claim "veracity or completeness in an absolute sense", and could not give "total assurance that there are no mistakes or omissions".


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The report was heavily criticised for some of its pro-Kremlin statements by independent Russian and American researchers who pointed out that the report had omitted facts implicating Russia and South Ossetians in starting the war. An article by DELFI detailed some cases of bias in the Tagliavini commission's work, such as the omission of the Russian troop deployments to South Ossetia before the Georgian counterattack on Tskhinvali, and concluded that "the flexible Swiss diplomat and her minions made it seem like Georgia was the provocateur" and thus emboldened aggressive Russia's president to attack Ukraine. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, the EU report was influenced by Russian state propaganda. The Atlantic Council members stated on anniversary of the war in 2021 that Russia and South Ossetia initiated the 2008 conflict and that the EU report was erroneous.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: NATO increased its naval presence in the Black Sea significantly following the Russian invasion, with ships dropping anchors in Georgian ports, and according to the US Navy, bringing humanitarian assistance. NATO said that its presence in the Black Sea was not related to the Georgian crisis; its vessels were carrying out typical visits and preplanned naval trainings with Romania and Bulgaria. Russian General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn recalled the limit on the number of vessels admitted into the Black Sea under the 1936 Montreux convention. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev questioned the claim that ships going to Georgia were bringing only humanitarian assistance, alleging the delivery of military material. According to political analyst Vladimir Socor, in spite of the limits on vessel's weight and length of visits set by the Montreux Convention, the US kept a continual presence in the Black Sea by alternating vessels from time to time.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: According to the "Moscow Defence Brief", an English-language magazine published by the Russian non-governmental organisation the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, the Georgian troops included the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Infantry Brigades, the Artillery Brigade, part of the 1st Infantry Brigade and the standalone Gori Tank Battalion. Additionally, special forces and Ministry of Internal Affairs troops were deployed. The total number of troops was 16,000 according to the magazine. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, ten light infantry battalions of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th infantry brigades, special forces and an artillery brigade, totalling approximately 12,000 troops, had been concentrated by the start of the conflict. The primary task of securing Tskhinvali was accomplished by the 4th Brigade with support from the 2nd and 3rd Brigades. According to the EU fact-finding mission, 10,000–11,000 soldiers took part in the war.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The 1st Infantry Brigade, the only one instructed to NATO standards, was serving in Iraq at the beginning of the war; on 11 August, the United States Air Force flew it to Georgia. The best Georgian troops were overdue from Iraq and could not participate in the fighting. The presence of prime 2,000 Georgian military and the bulk of Georgian high-level government officials abroad before the war meant that Georgia did not intend to begin hostilities.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: A sizeable portion of the Russian 58th Army, one of the foremost military units in Russia, was included in the Russian order of battle. It exceeds the Georgian Army in the number of forces, heavy hardware and planes. The 58th Army fought in Second Chechen War.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: United States officials said that "one of the few effective elements of the [Georgia]'s military" was air defence, with the analysts crediting the SA-11 Buk-1M with shooting down a Tupolev-22M bomber and contributing to the loss of some Su-25s. This view was supported by independent Russian analysis. Colonel-General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, Russian deputy chief of general staff, said the Soviet-made Tor and Buk anti-aircraft missile systems, bought by Georgia from Ukraine, were responsible for shooting down Russian aircraft during the war. A Russian assessment, reported by Roger McDermott, said that Russian losses would have been significantly higher if the Georgians had not left behind a portion of their Buk-M1 systems near Senaki in western Georgia and several Osa missile launchers in South Ossetia. According to some reports, Georgia also possessed a battery of the Israeli-made SPYDER-SR short-range self-propelled anti-aircraft system. The Georgian air-defence early-warning and command-control tactical system was linked via Turkey to a NATO Air Situation Data Exchange (ASDE), which provided Georgia with intelligence during the conflict.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Georgia has said that its key deficiencies were ineffective communication during action and its lacking air strength. Konstantin Makienko of CAST saw substandard instruction of pilots as the primary reason for the paltry conduct of Georgian air sorties. According to Georgian first deputy defence minister Batu Kutelia, Georgia was required to have a complex, multi-layered air-defence system to protect its airspace. Western officers involved with Georgia's military indicated that Georgian military deficiencies were too great to be eliminated by new weapons. According to a 2 September 2008 "New York Times" article, "Georgia's Army fled ahead of the Russian Army's advance, turning its back and leaving Georgian civilians in an enemy's path. Its planes did not fly after the first few hours of contact. Its navy was sunk in the harbor, and its patrol boats were hauled away by Russian trucks on trailers."


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: A sweeping Russian offensive caught Georgia by surprise, who had never got ready for confronting such invasion. Many managerial and procedural problems surfaced during the war. According to a Western officer, Georgian logistical readiness was mediocre; there was interference between subdivisions during the action. Training to simulate combat against a probable enemy, the 58th Army, had never been organised by the Georgian Army. During the war, communications broke down in the mountains and troops had to resort to mobile phones. There was insufficient planning; according to Giorgi Tavdgiridze, nobody thought about sealing the Roki Tunnel. There was a dismal organisation of the delivery of 10,000 Georgian reservists in Gori on 9 August; they had no specific targets and went back to Tbilisi the following day. The conflict was named by Georgian journalists as the war "that was hidden from history" because there was very little video recording of the fighting. According to their American trainers, Georgian soldiers were unprepared for fighting despite having "warrior spirit". There was a small number of disciplined and knowledgeable officers in high ranking positions, and Saakashvili's government had no military background.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The Russian Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C³I) performed poorly during the conflict. The Russian communication systems were outdated, with a 58th Army commander allegedly making contact with his combat troops via a journalist-owned satellite phone. Without the modern GLONASS, precision-guided munitions could not be used and the US-controlled GPS was unavailable, since the war zone was blacked out. Due to the negligence of Russian defence minister, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles was not sanctioned; an RIA Novosti editorial said that Russian forces were without reliable aerial-reconnaissance systems, once using a Tupolev Tu-22M3 bomber instead. However, Russian reconnaissance battalions and regiments were also deployed during the war. Deputy chief of the General staff of Russia, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said that in the conflict new weapons were not tried out.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The RIA Novosti editorial also said that Russian Su-25 ground-attack jets did not have radar vision and ground-target coordinate computing. They also did not have long-range surface-to-air missiles that could be fired beyond the air-defence zones of an adversary. Opposition-affiliated Russian analyst Konstantin Makienko observed the substandard conduct of the Russian Air Force: "It is totally unbelievable that the Russian Air Force was unable to establish air superiority almost to the end of the five-day war, despite the fact that the enemy had no fighter aviation".


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: According to Russian expert Anton Lavrov, on 8 August, Russian and South Ossetian troops deployed in South Ossetia were unaware that Russian aviation was involved in the war. Russian troops and South Ossetians often assessed Russian aircraft as enemy and shot at them before precise identification took place. On 8 August, the air force performed 63 flights in support of Russian ground troops. A total of six Russian warplanes were lost during the war: one Su-25SM, two Su-25BMs, two Su-24Ms and one Tu-22M3; friendly fire was the cause of the loss of three aircraft. Lavrov denies that the shot-down Tu-22M was being used for reconnaissance.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Communication between the North Caucasus Military District commander and the air force was poor and their roles were unclear. Colonel-General Aleksandr Zelin, commander-in-chief of the Air Force, did not set foot in the command post, instead running Air-force operations on a mobile phone from his workroom without any help from his air-defence aides. The air force was blamed of rendering no assistance to land campaign.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Swedish analysts Carolina Vendil Pallin and Fredrik Westerlund said that although the Russian Black Sea Fleet did not meet significant resistance, it proved effective at implementing elaborate operations. Mechanised infantry opened a new front in Abkhazia, which contributed to the quickness of the Russian military success.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Heritage Foundation researchers said in their assessment of the preparation of Russian general-staff that the manoeuvres were planned and implemented effectively, with a crucial confusion being engineered by the Russians. A Reuters analyst described Russia's army as "strong but flawed"; the war demonstrated that Russia's "armed forces have emerged from years of neglect as a formidable fighting force, but revealed important deficiencies." He stated that Russia fell short of its role of a first-rate military power due to these faults. Unlike the Second Chechen War, Russia's force in Georgia was composed primarily of professional soldiers instead of conscripts. Reuters journalists in Georgia stated that they found the Russian forces to be well-outfitted and orderly forces. CAST director Ruslan Pukhov said that "the victory over the Georgian army ... should become for Russia not a cause for euphoria and excessive joy, but serve to speed up military transformations." Roger McDermott wrote that slight dissimilarity in criticism by civilian and official references after the conflict was "an orchestrated effort by the government to 'sell' reform to the military and garner support among the populace."


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The evolution of the Russian Army into a professional force was not deemed as fruitful. In September 2008, General Vladimir Boldyrev acknowledged that many of the professional soldiers did not have better training than the conscripts. Most of the land combat warfare was conducted by Russian Airborne Troops and special troops. Due to the failure of the Russian Air Force to penetrate Georgian air defence, airborne troops could not be airlifted behind Georgian lines. A surprise attack on a land-forces commander, in which only five of thirty vehicles in his convoy made it, demonstrated information-gathering negligence. Many Russian land units reportedly were short of ammo.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: After the ceasefire agreement Stratfor states that Russia "has largely destroyed Georgia's war-fighting capability". After the ceasefire was signed on 12 August, in Georgia proper, Russian troops attempted to seize and destroy Georgian armament, a process termed by the "Moscow Defence Brief" as the "demilitarization of the Georgian Armed Forces". Most losses of armaments were sustained after the ceasefire.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: About 20 armoured fighting vehicles, including tanks, were destroyed in the fighting. Before the conflict, Georgia possessed 230–240 tanks in total. At the time of the conflict, Georgia operated 191 T-72 tanks, of which 75 were deployed into South Ossetia. Georgia lost at least 10 T-72 tanks destroyed in and near Tskhinvali. After the end of hostilities, the Russian military seized a total of 65 Georgian tanks. About 20 of those were subsequently destroyed.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The Georgian army possessed 154 IFVs, 16 reconnaissance vehicles, 66 APCs and 86 multi-purpose tracked armoured vehicles before the conflict. Less than 10 armoured vehicles were destroyed in combat. Two BMP-2s were destroyed in combat and two were captured. At least 20 BMPs were captured after the hostilities, including several BMP-1s that were upgraded to BMP-1U. Georgia lost two Otokar Cobra armoured vehicles. Dozens of automobiles and lorries were also lost.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Two DANA self-propelled howitzers of the Georgian army were destroyed in combat and two DANAs were captured in and near Gori. Further 20 artillery pieces, including 120 mm mortars, were left behind. Six 2S7 Pions were captured after the hostilities. Two Buk-M1 launch vehicles and their transport loaders, as well as up to five OSA-AKM SAMs were also captured. The Russian military seized 1,728 firearms at the Senaki Second Infantry Brigade base.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The Georgian Navy lost one boat at sea according to Russia. In Poti, four boats were submerged. Nine rigid-hull inflatables were captured.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: The Air Force sustained limited damage as only three transport planes and four helicopters were confirmed lost. The Georgian air force ceased all sorties after 8 August. Instead all fighter and training aircraft, including the Su-25s, were tucked away. Russian bombers impaired the airstrips in Georgia. A Russian air attack on Marneuli Air Force Base destroyed three AN-2 aircraft. Russian airborne forces set fire to two Mi-24 helicopters and one Mi-14 on 11 August.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Georgian Defence Minister Davit Kezerashvili said that Georgia lost materiel worth $250 million. According to Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, his country saved 95 percent of its armed forces.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: In 2009, Russian Army Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov stated that Georgia was rearming, although the armament was not directly provided by the United States. According to Makarov, the Georgian Armed Forces had exceeded their pre-war strength by 2009.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: Russia admitted that three of its Su-25 strike aircraft and one Tu-22 long-range bomber were lost. Georgia at that time claimed it had downed no less than 21 Russian aircraft. "Moscow Defence Brief" provided a higher estimate for air force losses, saying that Russian Air Force total losses during the war were one Tu-22M3 long-range bomber, one Su-24M Fencer fighter-bomber, one Su-24MR Fencer E reconnaissance plane and four Su-25 attack planes. Anton Lavrov listed one Su-25SM, two Su-25BM, two Su-24M and one Tu-22M3 lost. Two helicopters, a Mi-8MTKO and a Mi-24, were wrecked in an accident after the hostilities.


title: Russo-Georgian War

text: While there are no official figures, Russian ground equipment losses in the war are estimated to be three tanks, at least 20 armoured and 32 non-armoured vehicles lost in combat. Several more vehicles were impaired in accidents. During one engagement, Georgian forces destroyed 25 out of 30 vehicles of a Russian military unit commanded by General Anatoly Khrulyov. The Russian military had no losses in the artillery, air defence and naval forces. According to "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", the five-day war cost Russia an estimated 12.5 billion rubles, a daily cost of 2.5 billion rubles.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Moana (also known as Vaiana or Oceania in some markets) is a 2016 American computer-animated musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 56th Disney animated feature film, it was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, co-directed by Chris Williams and Don Hall, and produced by Osnat Shurer, from a screenplay written by Jared Bush, and a story by Clements, Musker, Williams, Hall, Pamela Ribon, and the writing team of Aaron and Jordan Kandell.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: The film introduces Auliʻi Cravalho as the voice of Moana and also features the ensemble voices of Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, and Alan Tudyk. The film features original songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i and Mark Mancina, and an orchestral score also composed by Mancina. It tells the story of Moana, the strong-willed daughter of a chief of a Polynesian village, who is chosen by the ocean itself to reunite a mystical relic with the goddess Te Fiti. When a blight strikes her island, Moana sets sail in search of Maui, a legendary demigod, in the hope of returning the relic to Te Fiti and saving her people. The plot is original, but takes inspiration from Polynesian myths.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" premiered during the AFI Fest at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 14, 2016, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 23. The film received positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised its animation, music, and vocal performances. The film went on to gross over $645 million worldwide. Along with "Zootopia", it marked the first time since 2002 that Walt Disney Animation Studios released two feature films in the same year, after "Lilo & Stitch" and "Treasure Planet". At the 89th Academy Awards, the film received two nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("How Far I'll Go").


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On the Polynesian island of Motunui, the inhabitants worship the goddess of nature Te Fiti, who brought life to the ocean long ago using a pounamu stone as her heart and the source of her power. Maui, the trickster, shape-shifting demigod of the wind and sea and master of sailing, steals the heart to give humanity the power of creation. This causes Te Fiti to disintegrate, and Maui is attacked offshore by Te Kā, a volcanic demon. He loses both the heart and his magical giant fishhook to the depths of the sea.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: A thousand years later, the ocean chooses Moana, daughter of Motunui's chief Tui, to return the heart to Te Fiti. Tui and Sina, Moana's father and mother, try to keep her away from the ocean to prepare her to become the island's chief. Sixteen years later, a blight strikes the island, killing vegetation and shrinking the fish catch. Moana suggests going beyond the island's reef with her pet pig, Pua, to find more fish and find out what is happening, but Tui forbids it. Moana tries conquering the reef but is overpowered by the tides and shipwrecked back to Motunui. That afternoon, Moana's grandmother, Tala, shows her a secret cave of ships, revealing that their people were voyagers until Maui stole Te Fiti's heart; the ocean was no longer safe without it. Tala explains that Te Kā's darkness is poisoning the island, but can be cured if Moana finds Maui and has him restore the heart of Te Fiti. Having been given the heart of Te Fiti by the ocean, Tala gives it to Moana. Tala later falls ill and, on her deathbed, tells Moana that she must depart to find Maui.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Moana sets sail on a camakau from the cavern along with her dimwitted pet rooster, Heihei, who has stowed away on it. They are caught in a typhoon and shipwrecked on an island where she finds Maui, who boasts about his achievements. She demands that Maui return the heart, but he refuses and traps her in a cave before leaving on Moana’s camakau. She escapes and confronts Maui, who reluctantly lets her on the camakau. They are attacked by Kakamora—coconut pirates—who seek the heart, but Moana and Maui outwit them. Moana realizes Maui is no longer a hero since he stole the heart and cursed the world, and convinces him to redeem himself by returning the heart. Maui first needs to retrieve his magical fishhook in Lalotai, the Realm of Monsters, from Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab. While Moana distracts Tamatoa, Maui retrieves his hook, only to find himself unable to control his shape-shifting. He is overpowered by Tamatoa, but Moana's quick thinking allows them to escape with the hook. Maui reveals that his first tattoo was earned when his mortal parents abandoned him as an infant, and the gods, taking pity on him, granted him his powers. After reassurance from Moana, Maui teaches her the art of sailing, regaining control of his powers, and the two grow closer.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: They arrive at Te Fiti's island, only to be attacked by Te Kā. Moana refuses to turn back, resulting in Maui's hook being badly damaged. Unwilling to lose his hook in another confrontation with Te Kā, Maui abandons a tearful Moana, who asks the ocean to find someone else to restore the heart and loses hope. The ocean obliges and takes the heart, but Tala's spirit appears, inspiring Moana to find her true calling. She retrieves the heart and sails back to confront Te Kā. Maui returns, having had a change of heart, and buys Moana time to reach Te Fiti by fighting Te Kā, destroying his hook in the process. Upon being unable to find Te Fiti, Moana realizes Te Kā is Te Fiti, corrupted without her heart. The ocean clears a path for Moana, allowing her to return the heart to Te Fiti, who heals the ocean and islands of the blight. Maui apologizes to Te Fiti, who fixes his hook and decorates Moana's boat with flowers before falling into a deep sleep and becoming an island. Moana bids farewell to Maui and Te Fiti, returning home where she reunites with her parents. She takes up her role as chief and wayfinder, leading her people as they resume voyaging with Maui flying over them in Hawk form.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In a post-credits scene, Tamatoa, still stuck on his back, addresses the audience, knowing they would help if he was named Sebastian.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: After directing "The Princess and the Frog" (2009), Clements and Musker started working on an adaptation of Terry Pratchett's "Mort", but problems with acquiring the necessary film rights prevented them from continuing with that project. To avoid a recurrence of that issue, they pitched three original ideas. The genesis of one of those ideas (the one that was ultimately green-lit) occurred in 2011, when Musker began reading up on Polynesian mythology, and learned of the heroic exploits of the demigod Māui. Intrigued with the rich culture of Polynesia, he felt it would be a suitable subject for an animated film. Shortly thereafter, Musker and Clements wrote a treatment and pitched it to John Lasseter, who recommended that both of them should go on research trips. Accordingly, in 2012, Clements and Musker went on research trips to Fiji, Samoa, and Tahiti to meet the people of the South Pacific Ocean and learn about their culture. At first, they had planned to make the film entirely about Maui, but their initial research trips inspired Clements to pitch a new idea focused on the young daughter of a chief.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Clements and Musker were fascinated to learn during their research that the people of Polynesia abruptly stopped making long-distance voyages about three thousand years ago. Their navigational traditions predated those of European explorers, beginning around 300 CE. Native people of the Pacific possessed knowledge of the world and their place in it prior to the incursion of foreigners. For example, Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) were well aware of the existence of far away islands, had names for these places, and were interested in exploring them to benefit their societies. This voyaging heritage was made possible by a geographical knowledge system based on individual perspective rather than the European cardinal direction system. The reasons for the halt of this voyaging tradition remain unknown, but scholars have offered climate change and resulting shifts in ocean currents and wind patterns as one possible explanation. Native peoples of the Pacific resumed voyaging again a thousand years later. Clements and Musker set the film at that point in time, about two thousand years ago, on a fictional island in the central Pacific Ocean, which drew inspiration from elements of the real-life island nations of Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Over the five years it took to develop and produce the film, Clements and Musker recruited experts from across the South Pacific to form an Oceanic Story Trust, who consulted on the film's cultural accuracy and sensitivity as the story evolved through nine versions. The Trust responded negatively, for example, to a depiction of Maui as bald, and to a proposed scene in which Moana threw a tantrum by throwing coconuts. In response, Maui was reworked with long hair and the coconut scene was scrapped.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: During the 2015 D23 Expo's panel for Disney's slate of upcoming animated films, Moana's last name was given as "Waialiki", but that name was not retained in the final film.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Taika Waititi wrote the initial screenplay, but went home to New Zealand in 2012 to focus on his newborn first child and "What We Do in the Shadows". Years later, Waititi joked that all that was left of his original draft was "EXT: OCEAN – DAY". The first draft focused on Moana as the sole daughter in a family with "five or six brothers", in which gender played into the story. However, the brothers and gender-based theme were deleted from the story, as the directors thought Moana's journey should be about finding herself. A subsequent draft presented Moana's father as the one who wanted to resume navigation, but it was rewritten to have him oppose navigation so he would not overshadow Moana. Instead, Pamela Ribon came up with the idea of a grandmother character for the film, who would serve as a mentor linking Moana to ancient traditions. Another version focused on Moana rescuing her father, who had been lost at sea. The film's story changed drastically during the development phase (which happens with most Disney films), and that idea ultimately survived only as a subtle element of the father's backstory.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Te Kā was referred to in early drafts of the film as Te Pō, a reference to the Māori goddess Hine-nui-te-pō, who was originally the life-giving goddess Hine-tītama, but became the goddess of death upon discovering that her husband, the god Tāne, was also her father. Māui set out to defeat her in order to bring immortality to humans, but failed and was himself killed.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Aaron and Jordan Kandell joined the project during a critical period to help deepen the emotional story architecture of the film. They are credited with developing the core relationship between Moana and Maui, the prologue, the Cave of the Wayfinders, the Kakamora, and the collector crab Tamatoa (played by Jemaine Clement). Jared Bush received sole credit as the writer of the final version of the screenplay.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Several major story problems were identified in 2015 after the film had already transitioned from development into production, but computer-generated films tend to have much shorter production schedules and much larger animation teams (in this case, about 90 animators) than traditionally animated films. Since Clements and Musker were already working 12-hour days (and Saturdays) directing such a large team of animators, Don Hall and Chris Williams (who had just finished directing "Big Hero 6") came on board as co-directors to help fix the film's story issues. The scene in which Maui and Moana encounter the Kakamora is an intentional homage to "".


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: After the filmmakers sat through auditions of hundreds of candidates from across the Pacific, 14-year-old high school freshman Auliʻi Cravalho was cast as the lead character Moana. At that point in time, the design of Moana's face and personality was already complete, and Cravalho's obvious physical resemblance to her character was simply a coincidence. During animation production, Disney animators were able to integrate some of Cravalho's mannerisms into Moana's behavior as depicted onscreen.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: The majority of the film's cast members are of Polynesian descent: Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana) and Nicole Scherzinger (Sina, Moana's mother) were born in Hawaii and are of Native Hawaiian heritage; Dwayne Johnson (Maui), Oscar Kightley (Fisherman), and Troy Polamalu (Villager No. 1) are of Samoan heritage; and New Zealand-born Rachel House (Tala, Moana's grandmother), Temuera Morrison (Tui, Moana's father), and Jemaine Clement (Tamatoa) are of Māori heritage.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" is Clements and Musker's first fully computer-animated film. One of the reasons for using computer animation was that the environment, including the ocean, benefited much more from the use of CGI as opposed to traditional animation. The filmmakers have also suggested that three-dimensional computer animation is well-suited to the "beautiful sculpturing" of the faces of the people of the South Pacific. Eric Goldberg worked on the hand-drawn animation used to depict Maui's sentient tattoos. During early development, the filmmakers considered the possibility of making the film with hand-drawn traditional animation, but only a few early animation tests were made in that style. In the final cut, only Maui's tattoos are hand-drawn.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" was produced in makeshift quarters in a giant warehouse in North Hollywood (together with "Zootopia"), while Disney Animation's headquarters building in Burbank was being renovated. Musker observed that "Moana" was similar in that respect to "The Little Mermaid", which was produced in a warehouse in Glendale. Production wrapped on October 20, 2016.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: The film's soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on November 18, 2016. The songs were written by Opetaia Foa'i, Mark Mancina, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, while the score was written by Mancina. The lyrics are in English, Samoan, and the Tokelauan language. The soundtrack peaked at number two on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In many European countries, the name of the titular character, Moana, was changed to "Vaiana" due to a trademark conflict. The film was released in those countries to bear the alternative name in the title. In Italy, the film was released with the title "Oceania": media outlets speculated that the name change was to avoid confusion with Italian pornographic actress Moana Pozzi, and Disney Italy's head of theatrical marketing, Davide Romani, acknowledged they were "thinking about the issue" at a meeting of Italian exhibitors in 2015.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Following the success brought by international productions of Disney's "Frozen", which led to the release of a complete set album which included all the official versions of "Let It Go" released at the time, Disney decided to produce a special Tahitian dubbing for the movie. On October 25, 2016, at a press conference in Papeete, it was announced that the film will be the first motion picture to be fully dubbed in the Tahitian language. This marks the second time Disney has released a special dubbing dedicated to the culture which inspired the film: the first case was "The Lion King" (1994), for which the directors travelled to South Africa to cast voice actors for a Zulu-dubbed version. The Tahitian dubbing was made available in schools and institutions, but never for the public to purchase.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In June 2017, a Māori-language dubbing of the movie was announced, premiering in Auckland on September 11, with 30 theatres screening it for free as part of Māori Language Week. Rachel House, Jemaine Clement, Temuera Morrison, and Oscar Kightley reprised their respective roles in this version, directed by Rachel House herself. In contrast to the Tahitian dubbing, the Māori version was made available for purchase in Australia and New Zealand, and the soundtrack was uploaded on Disney's official Vevo channel.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In November 2017, a Hawaiian-language (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi) dubbing was announced to be under way, with Aulii Cravalho reprising her role as Moana and Nicole Scherzinger reprising the role of Sina. The movie premiered on June 10, 2018, and like the Tahitian dubbing, was later distributed for free to schools in Hawaii. It was never released for sale in home media form.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On October 20, 2014, Walt Disney Pictures announced that it would be releasing the film in late 2016, and hinted that it might be the November 23, 2016, release window previously announced by the studio in March 2014 for a then-untitled film. In November 2014, Disney confirmed that it would be releasing the film on November 23, 2016. The film is accompanied by the short film "Inner Workings". The film's world premiere was held at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 14, 2016.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On January 27, 2017, a sing-along version of "Moana" was released in more than 2,000 theaters in the United States, featuring on-screen lyrics.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On October 15, 2016, Hawaiian Airlines unveiled their "Moana"-themed livery for three of their Airbus A330-200 fleet. Disney initiating a partnership with Hawaiian Airlines to promote the film has been perceived as having the motive of fetishizing Polynesian island nations as exotic vacation spots, the people and culture of which exist only to entertain foreign audiences, as well as Auliʻi Cravalho speaking with "The New York Times" in an interview sharing travel tips for visitors to Hawaii. Critiques of these promotional tactics focus on how adverse effects of tourism have devastated native communities in the Pacific, resulting in environmental degradation and poverty.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: A Maui "skin suit" costume made to tie in with the film was pulled by Disney from its online store following complaints about it being culturally insensitive and for appearing to promote brownface.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: There are currently meet-and-greets with Moana at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris, and at Aulani, a Disney Resort and Spa. At the parks, she is located in Adventureland and is occasionally joined by Maui.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: At Hong Kong Disneyland, there is a stage show called Moana's Village Festival, which opened in 2018.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray (2D and 3D) and DVD in the United States on March 7, 2017, with a digital release on February 21, 2017. The releases include the short film "Inner Workings". The Blu-ray release also introduces a short film featuring Maui and Moana titled "Gone Fishing". "Moana" was also released on the streaming service Disney+ on its launch date November 12, 2019. A sing-along version of the film was released on Disney+ July 22, 2022.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" grossed $248.7 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $442.1 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $690.8 million. On January 22 and March 16, 2017, respectively, the film reached the $500 million and $600 million marks, becoming the fourth consecutive Walt Disney Animation Studios film to reach both milestones after "Frozen" (2013), "Big Hero 6" (2014), and "Zootopia" (2016). Although Disney has not disclosed the film's production budget, most of its animated films cost around $150 million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $121.3 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film, making it the 12th-most profitable release of 2016.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In the United States, "Moana" was released during the Thanksgiving weekend. The film played in 3,875 theaters of which a majority of them (80%) screened it in 3D. It also played in 50 premium large-format screens and more than 400 D-Box screens. It was projected to take in around $50 million in three days, with $75–85 million in five days (some estimates going as high as $90 million). Deadline.com said the numbers were good for the original Disney film and marked a great rebound for the company in the wake of Pixar's "The Good Dinosaur" the previous year, which had made $55 million over five days off a production budget of $175–200 million.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: "Moana" made $2.6 million from Tuesday paid previews which began at 7 pm, the highest ever for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film and for a non-Pixar Disney animated film. On its opening day, it made $15.5 million, a new record for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film opening on Wednesday (breaking "Frozen"s record) and the biggest opening day ever for a film released on pre-Thanksgiving Day. On Thanksgiving Day, it earned $9.9 million, a decrease of 36% from its previous day. On Black Friday—the highest-grossing day of the Thanksgiving stretch—it made $21.8 million, a 127% increase from the day before. Through Sunday, the film posted a three-day opening weekend worth $56.6 million over its Friday-to-Sunday debut and $82.1 million from Wednesday to Sunday, the third biggest three-day Thanksgiving opening (behind "Frozen" and "Toy Story 2") and the second-biggest five-day Thanksgiving opening (behind "Frozen"), dethroning "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" off the top spot. Among all films that did not necessarily open in this weekend but may have played, "Moana" ranks sixth among three-day weekends and fifth among five-day weekends.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: The film's opening was considered to be another animated success for the studio after "Zootopia" and Pixar's "Finding Dory" posted huge openings, respectively, the same year in March and June.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In its second weekend, the film dropped by about 50% for a total of $28.3 million, a smaller drop than "Toy Story 2", "Frozen", "Tangled", and "The Good Dinosaur". The film managed to top the box office for its third weekend, despite competition from newcomers and holdovers, earning $18.5 million while falling by 34%. It became the sixth film of 2016 to top the box office three times, following "Deadpool", "Zootopia", "The Jungle Book", "Finding Dory", and "Suicide Squad". The film was overtaken by Disney's own "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" in its fourth weekend, despite only a marginal decline.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: It fell to number six in its fifth weekend, due to competition from four new releases—"Sing", "Passengers", "Why Him?", and "Assassin's Creed"—despite a small drop again; it grossed $2.9 million on Christmas Day. On the holiday week of December 23–29, the film finished at number four with a gross of $26 million, which was 14% up from the previous week, despite losing over 300 theaters. It finished at number four in its sixth weekend, going up 42% and 97%, respectively, during the three-day and four-day weekends; it grossed $3.6 million on New Year's Day.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: It fell outside the top ten in its eighth weekend (which included Martin Luther King Jr. Day), dropping 33% and 4%, respectively, during the three-day and four-day weekends.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Internationally, the film earned $17.2 million in its first weekend from 12 markets, the bulk of which came from China. In its second weekend, the film expanded to a total of 30 markets, adding an additional $33.7 million.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: In China, the film had a November 25 opening day with $1.9 million from 38,000 screenings. However, it enjoyed a big weekend bump on Saturday—even though its screens dipped—and Sunday. In total, it scored an opening weekend of $12.3 million, the second best for a Disney animated title, behind only "Zootopia". It was No. 2 behind "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". Strong social media numbers showed among the highest the studio has seen there, similar to how "Zootopia" started off slow and later became a blockbuster phenomenon. The film slipped 55% in its second weekend, earning $5.8 million, and $21.8 in total in China. It would eventually earn a total of $32.7 million in China.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: It had similar successful number-one debuts in France, Russia, Mexico and Spain. The film also saw success in Belgium, the Netherlands and French-speaking Switzerland. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the film faced competition from "Fantastic Beasts"—which was playing in its third weekend—and as a result, it posted a low opening of only £2.2 million ($2.8 million).


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: The biggest earning markets to date have been Japan ($45.9 million), followed by France ($35.5 million), China ($32.8 million), the UK ($25.3 million), Brazil ($22.9 million), Australia ($19 million), Germany ($17 million), Italy ($15.9 million), and South Korea ($15.5 million).


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Moana" holds an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads "With a title character as three-dimensional as its lush animation and a story that adds fresh depth to Disney's time-tested formula, "Moana" is truly a family-friendly adventure for the ages." Subsequently, the film is also listed as number 18 on the website's "90 Best Computer Animated Movies" list. On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale ranging from A+ to F, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave an 89% overall positive score and a 79% "definite recommend".


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" proclaimed that ""Moana" is beautiful in more ways than I can tell, thanks to the brilliance of more animators than I could count." Animator Eric Goldberg received praise from critics and audiences for his hand-drawn animation of Maui's tattoos, which they claimed "stole the show" from the actual CGI-animated motion picture. Wai Chee Dimock, writing in the "Los Angeles Review of Books", compared the ocean in "Moana" to the one in "The Water Baby", a short story by Jack London, saying that both are animated: one, by the tension between digital and analog animation, and the other, by the tension between an encroaching future and a past in retreat still capable of pushing back.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Christy Lemire of "RogerEbert.com" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, stating "...its dazzling visuals, catchy tunes, enjoyable performances, clever running gags and overall sense of fun. It's all there, and—except for a few scary moments—it'll delight viewers of all ages." Peter Debruge of "Variety" praised the film, calling it "a return to the heights of the Disney Renaissance".


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Critics also lauded "Moana" for centering on a strong female protagonist whose narrative is not confined to finding a Prince Charming, a contrast to princess characters of past Disney films. Brent Lang of "Variety" wrote, "Whereas earlier Disney heroines waited around for their prince to come and save the day, Moana takes it upon herself to embark on a perilous oceanic voyage in order to lift her island home from a curse. It’s the kind of adventuring that would have been left for the guys in Disney films of yore...Her journey is about finding herself, not landing a husband".


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: Due to the success of the film, Moana was officially added to the Disney Princess franchise and was the 12th addition to the lineup. According to the official list of the most-watched streaming titles of 2021 released on January 21, 2022, by Deadline and Nielsen released, "Moana" ranked as the second most streamed movie title of 2021 with 8.9 billion minutes watched, just behind "Luca" (2021) which had 10.5 billion watched.


title: Moana (2016 film)

text: On December 10, 2020, it was announced during the Disney investors meeting that a series based on the film would stream on Disney+ sometime in 2023. The release date was later pushed back to 2024. It is one of the first spin-offs to be produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios itself rather than the Disney Television Animation branch.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 – Accident with Wider Consequences.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The accident began with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system that allowed large amounts of nuclear reactor coolant to escape. The mechanical failures were compounded by the initial failure of plant operators to recognize the situation as a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). The failure of operators is attributed to the out-of-the-loop performance problem. TMI training and procedures left operators and management ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation. During the event these inadequacies were compounded by design flaws, including inconveniently arranged instruments and controls, the use of multiple similar alarms, and a failure of the equipment to clearly indicate coolant inventory level or the position of the stuck-open PORV.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among activists and the general public, and resulted in new regulations for the nuclear industry. It has been cited as a contributor to the decline of a new reactor construction program, a slowdown that was already underway in the 1970s. The partial meltdown resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Anti-nuclear movement activists expressed worries about regional health effects from the accident. Some epidemiological studies analyzing the rate of cancer in and around the area since the accident did determine that there was a statistically significant increase in the rate of cancer, while other studies did not. Due to the nature of such studies, a causal connection linking the accident with cancer is difficult to prove. Cleanup started in August 1979, and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ).


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In the night time hours before the incident, the TMI-2 reactor was running at 97% power, while the companion TMI-1 reactor was shut down for refueling. The main chain of events leading to the partial core meltdown on Wednesday March 28, 1979, began at 4:00:37 a.m. EST in TMI-2's secondary loop, one of the three main water/steam loops in a pressurized water reactor (PWR).


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The initial cause of the accident happened 11 hours earlier, during an attempt by operators to fix a blockage in one of the eight condensate polishers, the sophisticated filters cleaning the secondary loop water. These filters are designed to stop minerals and impurities in the water from accumulating in the steam generators and to decrease corrosion rates on the secondary side.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Blockages are common with these resin filters and are usually fixed easily, but in this case, the usual method of forcing the stuck resin out with compressed air did not succeed. The operators decided to blow the compressed air into the water and let the force of the water clear the resin. When they forced the resin out, a small amount of water forced its way past a stuck-open check valve and found its way into an instrument air line. This would eventually cause the feedwater pumps, condensate booster pumps, and condensate pumps to turn off around 4:00 a.m., which would, in turn, cause a turbine trip.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Given that the steam generators were no longer receiving feedwater, heat transfer from the reactor coolant system (RCS) was greatly reduced, and RCS temperature rose. The rapidly heating coolant expanded and surged into the pressurizer, compressing the steam bubble at the top.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: When RCS pressure rose to , the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) opened, relieving steam through piping to the reactor coolant drain tank (RCDT) in the containment building basement. RCS pressure continued to rise, reaching the reactor protection system (RPS) high-pressure trip setpoint of eight seconds after the turbine trip. The reactor automatically tripped, its control rods falling into the core under gravity, halting the nuclear chain reaction and stopping the heat generated by fission. However, the reactor continued to generate decay heat, initially equivalent to approximately 6% of the pre-trip power level. Because steam was no longer being used by the turbine and feed was not being supplied to the steam generators, heat removal from the reactor's primary water loop was limited to steaming the small amount of water remaining in the secondary side of the steam generators to the condenser using turbine bypass valves.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: When the feedwater pumps tripped, three emergency feedwater pumps started automatically. An operator noted that the pumps were running, but did not notice that a block valve was closed in each of the two emergency feedwater lines, blocking emergency feed flow to both steam generators. The valve position lights for one block valve were covered by a yellow maintenance tag. The reason why the operator missed the lights for the second valve is not known, although one theory is that his own large belly hid it from his view. The valves may have been left closed during a surveillance test two days earlier. With the block valves closed, the system was unable to pump any water. The closure of these valves was a violation of a key Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rule, according to which the reactor must be shut down if all auxiliary feed pumps are closed for maintenance. This was later singled out by NRC officials as a key failure.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: After the reactor tripped, secondary system steam valves operated to reduce steam generator temperature and pressure, cooling the RCS and lowering RCS temperature, as designed, resulting in a contraction of the primary coolant. With the coolant contraction and loss of coolant through the open PORV, RCS pressure dropped as did pressurizer level after peaking fifteen seconds after the turbine trip. Also, fifteen seconds after the turbine trip, coolant pressure had dropped to , the reset setpoint for the PORV. Electric power to the PORV's solenoid was automatically cut, but the relief valve was stuck open with coolant water continuing to be released.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In post-accident investigations, the indication for the PORV was one of many design flaws identified in the operators' controls, instruments and alarms. There was no direct indication of the valve's actual position. A light on a control panel, installed after the PORV had stuck open during startup testing, came on when the PORV opened. When that light—labeled "Light on - RC-RV2 open"—went out, the operators believed that the valve was closed. In fact, the light, when on, only indicated that the PORV pilot valve's solenoid was powered, not the actual status of the PORV. While the main relief valve was stuck open, the operators believed the unlighted lamp meant the valve was shut. As a result, they did not correctly diagnose the problem for several hours.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The operators had not been trained to understand the ambiguous nature of the pilot-operated relief valve indicator and to look for alternative confirmation that the main relief valve was closed. A downstream temperature indicator, the sensor for which was located in the tail pipe between the pilot-operated relief valve and the pressurizer relief tank, could have hinted at a stuck valve had operators noticed its higher-than-normal reading. It was not, however, part of the "safety grade" suite of indicators designed to be used after an incident, and personnel had not been trained to use it. Its location behind the seven-foot-high instrument panel also meant that it was effectively out of sight.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Less than a minute after the beginning of the event, the water level in the pressurizer began to rise, even though RCS pressure was falling. With the PORV stuck open, coolant was being lost from the RCS, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Expected symptoms for a LOCA were drops in both RCS pressure and pressurizer level. The operators' training and plant procedures did not cover a situation where the two parameters went in opposite directions. The water level in the pressurizer was rising because the steam in the space at the top of the pressurizer was being vented off through the stuck-open PORV, lowering the pressure in the pressurizer because of the lost inventory. The lowering of pressure in the pressurizer made water from the coolant loop surge in and created a steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, aided by the decay heat from the fuel. This steam bubble was invisible for the operators and this mechanism had not been trained. Indications of high water levels in the pressurizer contributed to confusion, as operators were concerned about the primary loop "going solid", (i.e., no steam pocket buffer existing in the pressurizer) which in training they had been instructed to never allow. This confusion was a key contributor to the initial failure to recognize the accident as a LOCA and led operators to turn off the emergency core cooling pumps, which had automatically started after the pilot-operated relief valve stuck and core coolant loss began, due to fears the system was being overfilled.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: With the pilot-operated relief valve still open, the pressurizer relief tank that collected the discharge from the pilot-operated relief valve overfilled, causing the containment building sump to fill and sound an alarm at 4:11 a.m. This alarm, along with higher than normal temperatures on the pilot-operated relief valve discharge line and unusually high containment building temperatures and pressures, were clear indications that there was an ongoing loss-of-coolant accident, but these indications were initially ignored by operators. At 4:15 a.m., the relief diaphragm of the pressurizer relief tank ruptured, and radioactive coolant began to leak out into the general containment building. This radioactive coolant was pumped from the containment building sump to an auxiliary building, outside the main containment, until the sump pumps were stopped at 4:39 a.m.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: At about 5:20a.m., after almost 80 minutes with a growing steam bubble in the reactor pressure vessel head, the primary loop's four main reactor coolant pumps began to cavitate as a steam bubble/water mixture, rather than water, passed through them. The pumps were shut down, and it was believed that natural circulation would continue the water movement. Steam in the system prevented flow through the core, and as the water stopped circulating it was converted to steam in increasing amounts. Soon after 6:00a.m., the top of the reactor core was exposed and the intense heat caused a reaction to occur between the steam forming in the reactor core and the zircaloy nuclear fuel rod cladding, yielding zirconium dioxide, hydrogen, and additional heat. This reaction melted the nuclear fuel rod cladding and damaged the fuel pellets, which released radioactive isotopes to the reactor coolant, and produced hydrogen gas that is believed to have caused a small explosion in the containment building later that afternoon.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: At 6:00 a.m. there was a shift change in the control room. A new arrival noticed that the temperature in the pilot-operated relief valve tail pipe and the holding tanks was excessive, and used a called a "block to shut off the coolant venting via the pilot-operated relief valve, but around of coolant had already leaked from the primary loop. It was not until 6:45 a.m., 165 minutes after the start of the problem, that radiation alarms activated when the contaminated water reached detectors; by that time, the radiation levels in the primary coolant water were around 300 times expected levels, and the general containment building was seriously contaminated.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: At 6:56 a.m. a plant supervisor declared a site area emergency, and less than 30 minutes later, station manager Gary Miller announced a general emergency. Metropolitan Edison (Met Ed) notified the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), which in turn contacted state and local agencies, Governor Richard L. Thornburgh and Lieutenant Governor William Scranton III, to whom Thornburgh assigned responsibility for collecting and reporting on information about the accident. The uncertainty of operators at the plant was reflected in fragmentary, ambiguous, or contradictory statements made by Met Ed to government agencies and to the press, particularly about the possibility and severity of off-site radioactivity releases. Scranton held a press conference in which he was reassuring, yet confusing, about this possibility, stating that though there had been a "small release of radiation...no increase in normal radiation levels" had been detected. These were contradicted by another official, and by statements from Met Ed, who both claimed that no radioactivity had been released. In fact, readings from instruments at the plant and off-site detectors had detected radioactivity releases, albeit at levels that were unlikely to threaten public health as long as they were temporary, and providing that containment of the then highly contaminated reactor was maintained.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Angry that Met Ed had not informed them before conducting a steam venting from the plant, and convinced that the company was downplaying the severity of the accident, state officials turned to the NRC. After receiving word of the accident from Met Ed, the NRC had activated its emergency response headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and sent staff members to Three Mile Island. NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie and commissioner Victor Gilinsky initially viewed the accident as a "cause for concern but not alarm". Gilinsky briefed reporters and members of Congress on the situation and informed White House staff, and at 10:00 a.m. met with two other commissioners. However, the NRC faced the same problems in obtaining accurate information as the state, and was further hampered by being organizationally ill-prepared to deal with emergencies, as it lacked a clear command structure and did not have the authority either to tell the utility what to do or to order an evacuation of the local area.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In a 2009 article, Gilinsky wrote that it took five weeks to learn that "the reactor operators had measured fuel temperatures near the melting point". He further wrote: "We didn't learn for years—until the reactor vessel was physically opened—that by the time the plant operator called the NRC at about 8:00 a.m., roughly half of the uranium fuel had already melted."


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: It was still not clear to the control room staff that the primary loop water levels were low and that over half of the core was exposed. A group of workers took manual readings from the thermocouples and obtained a sample of primary loop water. Seven hours into the emergency, new water was pumped into the primary loop and the backup relief valve was opened to reduce pressure so that the loop could be filled with water. After 16 hours the primary loop pumps were turned on once again, and the core temperature began to fall. A large part of the core had melted, and the system was still dangerously radioactive.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: On the third day following the accident, a hydrogen bubble was discovered in the dome of the pressure vessel and became the focus of concern. A hydrogen explosion might not only breach the pressure vessel but, depending on its magnitude, might compromise the integrity of the containment building leading to a large-scale release of radioactive material. However, it was determined that there was no oxygen present in the pressure vessel, a prerequisite for hydrogen to burn or explode. Immediate steps were taken to reduce the hydrogen bubble and, by the following day, it was significantly smaller. Over the next week, steam and hydrogen were removed from the reactor using a catalytic recombiner and by venting directly into the open air.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The release occurred when the cladding was damaged while the pilot-operated relief valve was still stuck open. Fission products were released into the reactor coolant. Since the pilot-operated relief valve was stuck open and the loss of coolant accident was still in progress, primary coolant with fission products and/or fuel was released, and ultimately ended up in the auxiliary building. The auxiliary building was outside the containment boundary.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: This was evidenced by the radiation alarms that eventually sounded. However, since very little of the fission products released were solids at room temperature, very little radiological contamination was reported in the environment. No significant level of radiation was attributed to the TMI-2 accident outside of the TMI-2 facility. According to the Rogovin report, the vast majority of the radioisotopes released were noble gases xenon and krypton resulting in an average dose of to the two million people near the plant. In comparison, a patient receives from a chest X-ray—more than twice the average dose of those received near the plant. On average, a U.S. resident receives an annual radiation exposure from natural sources of about .


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Within hours of the accident, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began daily sampling of the environment at the three stations closest to the plant. Continuous monitoring at 11 stations was not established until April 1, and was expanded to 31 stations on April 3. An inter-agency analysis concluded that the accident did not raise radioactivity far enough above background levels to cause even one additional cancer death among the people in the area, but measures of beta radiation were not included, because the EPA found no contamination in water, soil, sediment, or plant samples.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Researchers at nearby Dickinson College—which had radiation monitoring equipment sensitive enough to detect Chinese atmospheric atomic weapons-testing—collected soil samples from the area for the ensuing two weeks and detected no elevated levels of radioactivity, except after rainfalls (likely due to natural radon plate-out, not the accident). Also, white-tailed deer tongues harvested over from the reactor subsequent to the accident were found to have significantly higher levels of cesium-137 than in deer in the counties immediately surrounding the power plant. Even then, the elevated levels were still below those seen in deer in other parts of the country during the height of atmospheric weapons testing. Had there been elevated releases of radioactivity, increased levels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 would have been expected to be detected in cattle and goat's milk samples; yet elevated levels were not found. A later study noted that the official emission figures were consistent with available dosimeter data, though others have noted the incompleteness of this data, particularly for releases early on.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: According to the official figures, as compiled by the 1979 Kemeny Commission from Metropolitan Edison and NRC data, a maximum of of radioactive noble gases (primarily xenon) were released by the event. However, these noble gases were considered relatively harmless, and only of thyroid cancer-causing iodine-131 were released. Total releases according to these figures were a relatively small proportion of the estimated in the reactor. It was later found that about half the core had melted, and the cladding around 90% of the fuel rods had failed, with of the core gone, and around of uranium flowing to the bottom head of the pressure vessel, forming a mass of corium. The reactor vessel—the second level of containment after the cladding—maintained integrity and contained the damaged fuel with nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Anti-nuclear political groups disputed the Kemeny Commission's findings, claiming that other independent measurements provided evidence of radiation levels up to seven times higher than normal in locations hundreds of miles downwind from TMI. Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and anti-nuclear advocate, said "I think the numbers on the NRC's website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000".


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Gundersen offers evidence, based on pressure monitoring data, for a hydrogen explosion shortly before 2:00 p.m. on March 28, 1979, which would have provided the means for a high dose of radiation to occur. Gundersen cites affidavits from four reactor operators according to which the plant manager was aware of a dramatic pressure spike, after which the internal pressure dropped to outside pressure. Gundersen also claimed that the control room shook and doors were blown off hinges. However, official NRC reports refer merely to a "hydrogen burn". The Kemeny Commission referred to "a burn or an explosion that caused pressure to increase by in the containment building", while "The Washington Post" reported that "At about 2:00 pm, with pressure almost down to the point where the huge cooling pumps could be brought into play, a small hydrogen explosion jolted the reactor." Work performed for the Department of Energy in the 1980s determined that the hydrogen burn (deflagration), which went essentially unnoticed for the first few days, occurred 9 hours and 50 minutes after initiation of the accident, had a duration of 12 to 15 seconds and did not involve a detonation.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Twenty-eight hours after the accident began, William Scranton III, the lieutenant governor, appeared at a news briefing to say that Metropolitan Edison, the plant's owner, had assured the state that "everything is under control". Later that day, Scranton changed his statement, saying that the situation was "more complex than the company first led us to believe". There were conflicting statements about radioactivity releases. Schools were closed and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and on stored feed.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Governor Dick Thornburgh, on the advice of NRC chairman Joseph Hendrie, advised the evacuation "of pregnant women and pre-school age children...within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility". The evacuation zone was extended to a 20-mile radius on Friday, March 30. Within days, 140,000 people had left the area. More than half of the population within the 20-mile radius remained in that area. According to a survey conducted in April 1979, 98% of the evacuees had returned to their homes within three weeks.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Post-TMI surveys have shown that less than 50% of the American public were satisfied with the way the accident was handled by Pennsylvania State officials and the NRC, and people surveyed were even less pleased with the utility (General Public Utilities) and the plant designer.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Several state and federal government agencies mounted investigations into the crisis, the most prominent of which was the "' President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island", created by Jimmy Carter in April 1979. The commission consisted of a panel of twelve people, specifically chosen for their lack of strong pro- or anti-nuclear views, and headed by chairman John G. Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College. It was instructed to produce a final report within six months, and after public hearings, depositions, and document collection, released a completed study on October 31, 1979. The investigation strongly criticized Babcock & Wilcox, Met Ed, GPU, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency, but avoided drawing conclusions about the future of the nuclear industry. The heaviest criticism from the Kemeny Commission said that "... fundamental changes will be necessary in the organization, procedures, and practices—and above all—in the attitudes" of the NRC and the nuclear industry. Kemeny said that the actions taken by the operators were "inappropriate" but that the workers "were operating under procedures that they were required to follow, and our review and study of those indicates that the procedures were inadequate" and that the control room "was greatly inadequate for managing an accident".


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Kemeny Commission noted that Babcock & Wilcox's pilot-operated relief valve had previously failed on 11 occasions, nine of them in the open position, allowing coolant to escape. The initial causal sequence of events at TMI had been duplicated 18 months earlier at another Babcock & Wilcox reactor, the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station owned at that time by Toledo Edison. The only difference was that the operators at Davis-Besse identified the valve failure after 20 minutes, where at TMI it took 80 minutes, and the Davis-Besse facility was operating at 9% power, against TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognized the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, which focused on the need to improve evacuation procedures.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In 1985, a television camera was used to see the interior of the damaged reactor. In 1986, core samples and samples of debris were obtained from the corium layers on the bottom of the reactor vessel and analyzed.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: According to the IAEA, the Three Mile Island accident was a significant turning point in the global development of nuclear power. From 1963 to 1979, the number of reactors under construction globally increased every year except in 1971 and 1978. However, following the event, the number of reactors under construction in the U.S. declined from 1980 to 1998, with increasing construction costs and delayed completion dates for some reactors. Many similar Babcock & Wilcox reactors on order were canceled; in total, 51 U.S. nuclear reactors were canceled between 1980 and 1984.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The 1979 TMI accident did not initiate the demise of the U.S. nuclear power industry, but it did halt its historic growth. Additionally, as a result of the earlier 1973 oil crisis and post-crisis analysis with conclusions of potential overcapacity in base load, forty planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the TMI accident. At the time of the TMI incident, 129 nuclear power plants had been approved, but of those, only 53 (which were not already operating) were completed. During the lengthy review process, complicated by the Chernobyl disaster seven years later, Federal requirements to correct safety issues and design deficiencies became more stringent, local opposition became more strident, construction times were significantly lengthened and costs skyrocketed. Until 2012, no U.S. nuclear power plant had been authorized to begin construction since the year before TMI.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Globally, the end of the increase in nuclear power plant construction came with the more catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (see graph).


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Initially, GPU planned to repair the reactor and return it into service. However, Three Mile Island Unit 2 was too badly damaged and contaminated to resume operations; the reactor was gradually deactivated and permanently closed. TMI-2 had been online for only 3 months but now had a ruined reactor vessel and a containment building that was unsafe to walk in. Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1 billion. Benjamin K. Sovacool, in his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Efforts focused on the cleanup and decontamination of the site, especially the defueling of the damaged reactor. Starting in 1985, almost of radioactive fuel were removed from the site. Planning and work was partially hampered by too-optimistic views about the damage.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In 1988, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that, although it was possible to further decontaminate the Unit 2 site, the remaining radioactivity had been sufficiently contained as to pose no threat to public health and safety. The first major phase of the cleanup was completed in 1990, when workers finished shipping of radioactive wreckage to Idaho for storage at the Department of Energy's National Engineering Laboratory. However, the contaminated cooling water that leaked into the containment building had seeped into the building's concrete, leaving the radioactive residue too impractical to remove. Accordingly, further cleanup efforts were deferred to allow for decay of the radiation levels and to take advantage of the potential economic benefits of retiring both Unit 1 and Unit 2 together.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In the aftermath of the accident, investigations focused on the amount of radioactivity released. In total, approximately of radioactive gases and approximately of iodine-131 was released into the environment. According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was eight millirem (0.08 mSv), and no more than 100 millirem (1 mSv) to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: According to health researcher Joseph Mangano, early scientific publications estimated no additional cancer deaths in the area around TMI, based on these numbers. Disease rates in areas farther than 10 miles from the plant were never examined. Local activism in the 1980s, based on anecdotal reports of negative health effects, led to scientific studies being commissioned. A variety of epidemiology studies have concluded that the accident had no observable long term health effects.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization with little credibility amongst epidemiologists, cited calculations by Mangano—who has authored 19 medical journal articles and a book called "Low Level Radiation and Immune Disease"—that showed a spike in infant mortality in downwind communities two years after the accident. Anecdotal evidence also records effects on the region's wildlife.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: John Gofman used his own, non-peer reviewed low-level radiation health model to predict 333 excess cancer or leukemia deaths from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: A peer-reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers between 1979 and 1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI. In 2009 Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates. A retrospective study of Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in some counties south of TMI (although, notably, not in Dauphin County itself) and in high-risk age groups but did not draw a causal link between these incidences and the accident. The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding a few, small increased cancer risks within the TMI population. A more recent study reached "findings consistent with observations from other radiation-exposed populations," raising "the possibility that radiation released from [Three Mile Island] may have altered the molecular profile of [thyroid cancer] in the population surrounding TMI", establishing a potential causal mechanism, although not definitively proving causation.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The ongoing TMI epidemiological research has been accompanied by a discussion of problems in dose estimates due to a lack of accurate data, as well as illness classifications.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The TMI accident enhanced the perceived credibility of anti-nuclear groups and triggered protests around the world. President Carter—who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy—told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the accident was minor but reportedly declined to do so in public, in order to avoid offending Democrats who opposed nuclear power.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Members of the American public, concerned about the release of radioactive gas from the accident, staged numerous anti-nuclear demonstrations across the country in the following months. The largest demonstration was held in New York City in September 1979 and involved 200,000 people, with speeches given by Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader. The New York rally was held in conjunction with a series of nightly "No Nukes" concerts given at Madison Square Garden from September 19 to 23 by Musicians United for Safe Energy. In the previous May, an estimated 65,000 people—including California Governor Jerry Brown—attended a march and rally against nuclear power in Washington, D.C.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In 1981, citizens' groups succeeded in a class action suit against TMI, winning $25 million in an out-of-court settlement. Part of this money was used to found the TMI Public Health Fund. In 1983, a federal grand jury indicted Metropolitan Edison on criminal charges for the falsification of safety test results prior to the accident. Under a plea-bargaining agreement, Met Ed pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying records and no contest to six other charges, four of which were dropped, and agreed to pay a $45,000 fine and set up a $1 million account to help with emergency planning in the area surrounding the plant.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: According to Eric Epstein, chair of Three Mile Island Alert, the TMI plant operator and its insurers paid at least $82 million in publicly documented compensation to residents for "loss of business revenue, evacuation expenses and health claims." However, a class action lawsuit alleging that the accident caused detrimental health effects was rejected by Harrisburg U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo. The appeal of the decision to U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals also failed.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Three Mile Island accident inspired Charles Perrow's Normal Accident Theory, which attempts to describe "unanticipated interactions of multiple failures in a complex system". TMI was an example of this type of accident because it was "unexpected, incomprehensible, uncontrollable and unavoidable."


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Perrow concluded that the failure at Three Mile Island was a consequence of the system's immense complexity. Such modern high-risk systems, he realized, were prone to failures however well they were managed. It was inevitable that they would eventually suffer what he termed a 'normal accident'. Therefore, he suggested, we might do better to contemplate a radical redesign, or if that was not possible, to abandon such technology entirely.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: "Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Events which appear trivial initially cascade and multiply unpredictably, creating a much larger catastrophic event.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: "Normal Accidents" contributed key concepts to a set of intellectual developments in the 1980s that revolutionized the conception of safety and risk. It made the case for examining technological failures as the product of highly interacting systems, and highlighted organizational and management factors as the main causes of failures. Technological disasters could no longer be ascribed to isolated equipment malfunction, operator error or acts of God.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Following the Three Mile Island (TMI) power plant's partial core melt on March 28, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commissioned a study, "Report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island" (1979). Subsequently, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was asked to testify before Congress regarding why naval nuclear propulsion (as used in submarines) had succeeded in achieving a record of zero reactor-accidents (as defined by the uncontrolled release of fission products to the environment resulting from damage to a reactor core) as opposed to the dramatic one that had just taken place at Three Mile Island. In his testimony, he said:


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Program, so that they might find some benefit for their own work. I am always chagrined at the tendency of people to expect that I have a simple, easy gimmick that makes my program function. Any successful program functions as an integrated whole of many factors. Trying to select one aspect as the key one will not work. Each element depends on all the others.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Currently, Unit 1—which was not involved in the 1979 accident—is owned and operated by Exelon Nuclear, a subsidiary of Exelon. Unit 1 was sold to AmerGen Energy Corporation, a joint venture between Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO), and British Energy, in 1998. In 2000, PECO merged with Unicom Corporation to form Exelon Corporation, which acquired British Energy's share of AmerGen in 2003. In 2009, Exelon Nuclear absorbed AmerGen and dissolved the company. Exelon Nuclear operates TMI Unit 1, Clinton Power Station, and several other nuclear facilities.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: Unit 1 had its license temporarily suspended following the incident at Unit 2. Although the citizens of the three counties surrounding the site voted by an overwhelming margin to retire Unit 1 permanently in a non-binding resolution in 1982, it was permitted to resume operations in 1985 following a 4–1 vote by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. General Public Utilities Corporation, the plant's owner, formed General Public Utilities Nuclear Corporation (GPUN) as a new subsidiary to own and operate the company's nuclear facilities, including Three Mile Island. The plant had previously been operated by Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), one of GPU's regional utility operating companies. In 1996, General Public Utilities shortened its name to GPU Inc and in 1998, it sold Unit 1 to AmerGen.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: General Public Utilities was legally obliged to continue to maintain and monitor the site and therefore retained ownership of Unit 2 when Unit 1 was sold to AmerGen in 1998. GPU Inc. was acquired by FirstEnergy Corporation in 2001 and subsequently dissolved. FirstEnergy then contracted the maintenance and administration of Unit 2 out to AmerGen. Unit 2 has been administered by Exelon Nuclear since 2003, when Exelon Nuclear's parent company, Exelon, bought out the remaining shares of AmerGen, inheriting FirstEnergy's maintenance contract. Unit 2 continues to be licensed and regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a condition known as Post Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS).


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The TMI-2 reactor has been permanently shut down with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site, reactor fuel and most core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored. The owner planned to keep the facility in long-term, monitoring storage until the operating license for the TMI-1 plant expired, at which time both plants would be decommissioned. In 2009, the NRC granted a license extension which allowed the TMI-1 reactor to operate until April 19, 2034. In 2017, it was announced that operations would cease by 2019 due to financial pressure from cheap natural gas, unless lawmakers stepped in to keep it open. When it became clear that the subsidy legislation would not pass, Exelon decided to retire the plant. TMI Unit 1 shut down on September 20, 2019.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: On March 15, 1979, twelve days before the accident, the movie "The China Syndrome" premiered and was initially met with backlash from the nuclear power industry, claiming it to be "sheer fiction" and a "character assassination of an entire industry".


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: In the film, television reporter Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) secretly film a major accident at a nuclear power plant while taping a series on nuclear power. At one point in the film, an official tells Jane Fonda's character that an explosion at the plant "could render an area the size of the state of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable". After the release of the film, Fonda began lobbying against nuclear power. In an attempt to counter her efforts, Edward Teller, a nuclear physicist and long-time government science adviser best known for contributing to the Teller–Ulam design breakthrough that made hydrogen bombs possible, personally lobbied in favor of nuclear power. Teller suffered a heart attack shortly after the incident and joked that he was the only person whose health was affected.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: "Meltdown: Three Mile Island" is a four-part docuseries released by Netflix on May 4, 2022. The show tackles the near catastrophe at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Insiders recount the events, controversies and lingering effects of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.


title: Three Mile Island accident

text: The Jimmy Buffett song “Volcano” makes reference to the incident in the line “Don’t want to land on no Three Mile Island, Don’t want to see my skin aglow.”


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Jussie Smollett (, born June 21, 1982) is an American actor and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1991 debuting in "The Mighty Ducks" (1992). In 2015, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox drama series "Empire", a role that was hailed as groundbreaking for its positive depiction of a Black gay man on television.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: In January 2019, Smollett staged a fake hate crime against himself in Chicago and later made false police reports regarding the incident. In December 2021, Smollett was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct; he was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in county jail. He has since been released on bond while his case is on appeal.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Jussie Smollett was born in Santa Rosa, California, the son of Joel and Janet (née Harris) Smollett. He has three brothers and two sisters: Jake, Jocqui, Jojo, Jurnee, and Jazz, several of whom are also actors. Smollett is biracial. His mother is African-American, and his father is Jewish. He has said that his father would "kill you if you called him white". His father was absent from his life for a significant portion of his childhood. The family moved to the Elmhurst neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens when he was two years old, then to Los Angeles when he was about seven. Smollett graduated from Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey. When he was 19, Smollett told his parents he was gay.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Smollett began his acting career as a child model in New York City and later worked as an extra on the New York-shot movies "Mo' Better Blues" (1990) and "New Jack City" (1991) He went on to act in the films "The Mighty Ducks" (1992) and Rob Reiner's "North" (1994). On television, he starred alongside his five real-life siblings in the short-lived ABC sitcom "On Our Own" in 1994–1995. In 2012, Smollett returned to acting with the leading role in Patrik-Ian Polk's LGBT-themed comedy-drama "The Skinny". Also that year, he released an EP titled "The Poisoned Hearts Club". He later guest-starred on "The Mindy Project" (2012) and "Revenge" (2014).


title: Jussie Smollett

text: In 2014, Smollett was cast as Jamal Lyon—a gay musician struggling to gain the approval of his father Lucious—opposite Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in the Fox drama series "Empire". His role was hailed as groundbreaking for its positive depiction of a Black gay man on television. Smollett reprised his role in subsequent seasons and directed an episode of the fourth season in 2017. Smollett's character was removed from the final two episodes of season five because of the assault controversy.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: In February 2015, Smollett confirmed that he had signed a recording contract with Columbia Records and would be releasing an album in the future. Smollett co-wrote the songs "I Wanna Love You" and "You're So Beautiful" on the "" album, which was released in March 2015.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: In June 2015, it was announced that Smollett would guest-star alongside his younger sister Jurnee in "Underground", which aired in 2016. Smollett released his debut album, "Sum of My Music", in March 2018. "Sum of My Music" is an R&B album that features elements of electronic music and hip hop. Smollett self-released it through his own label, Music of Sound.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: On April 30, 2019, Fox Entertainment announced that though Smollett's contract had been extended for the sixth season of "Empire", there were no plans for his character to appear during it.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Smollett directed "B-Boy Blues", a movie based on the 1994 Black gay novel by James Earl Hardy. The movie was released in November 2021.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: On January 29, 2019, Smollett told police that he was physically attacked outside his apartment building along with the use of racial and homophobic slurs. Smollett was treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital was released "in good condition" later that morning.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Following a police investigation, on February 20, 2019, Smollett was charged by a grand jury with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report. On March 26, 2019, all charges filed against Smollett were dropped. First Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Magats said the office reached a deal with Smollett's defense team in which prosecutors dropped the charges upon Smollett performing 16 hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond. On April 12, 2019, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against Smollett for the costs, totaling $130,105.15, of overtime authorities expended investigating the hoax. In November 2019, Smollett filed a countersuit against the city of Chicago alleging he was the victim of "mass public ridicule and harm" and arguing he should not be made to reimburse the city for the cost of the investigation.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: After the charges were dropped, allegations of favoritism and leniency were made against the prosecutor Kim Foxx. In June 2019, Foxx asked the state to conduct an independent inquiry by a special investigator. On February 11, 2020, after further investigation by a special prosecutor was completed, Smollett was indicted again by a Cook County grand jury on six counts of felony disorderly conduct pertaining to making four false police reports. On June 12, 2020, a judge rejected Smollett's claim that his February charge violated the principle of double jeopardy. His trial began in November 2021, and on December 9 Smollett was found guilty of five of the six counts.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: On March 10, 2022, he was sentenced to serve 150 days in county jail along with two and a half years on probation. Smollett was also ordered to make restitution to the city of Chicago of just over $120,000 and fined $25,000. His lawyers filed a notice of appeal the following day. On March 16, 2022, an Illinois appeals court ordered that Smollett be released from jail, upon his posting of a $150,000 personal recognizance bond, pending the outcome of the appeal of his conviction.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: Smollett publicly came out as gay during a televised interview with Ellen DeGeneres in March 2015. When Smollett's gay character from "Empire" engaged in a tryst with a female character, Smollett defended the plot development by stating that he and "Empire"s co-creator Lee Daniels were trying to create a conversation about sexual fluidity in the gay community. While Daniels and Smollett are gay, Daniels has stated that they occasionally want to have sex with women.


title: Jussie Smollett

text: In 2007 Smollett pleaded no contest to three misdemeanor counts providing false information to law enforcement resulting from a DUI stop in which he gave police a false name pretending to be his brother. Smollett also pleaded no contest to driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit and driving without a valid driver's license and was sentenced to a fine and three years of probation.


title: Hermes

text: Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.


title: Hermes

text: In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. Hermes is regarded as "the divine trickster," about which the "Homeric Hymn to Hermes" offers the most well-known account.


title: Hermes

text: His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the "caduceus", a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods. His attributes had previously influenced the earlier Etruscan god Turms, a name borrowed from the Greek "herma".


title: Hermes

text: In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes' characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin "merx", meaning "merchandise," and the origin of the words ""mer"chant" and "com"merce"."


title: Hermes

text: The earliest form of the name "Hermes" is the Mycenaean Greek *"hermāhās", written "e-ma-a" ("e-ma-ha") in the Linear B syllabic script. Most scholars derive "Hermes" from Greek ἕρμα ("herma"), "stone heap."