title: Billie Holiday

text: For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone. Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography. When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in "Time" magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown", Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser. Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music. "God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in "Billboard" songs of the year, selling over a million records. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.


title: Billie Holiday

text: On June 12, 1942, in Los Angeles, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade. On October 11, 1943, "Life" magazine wrote, "She has the most distinctive style of any popular vocalist, [and] is imitated by other vocalists."


title: Billie Holiday

text: Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 1940s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites. Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him", Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings. A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola. In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, "New Orleans", in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail. Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes", Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville". Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than one thousand dollars per week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.


title: Billie Holiday

text: By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. "Metronome" expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The "New York Herald Tribune" reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.


title: Billie Holiday

text: By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the "DownBeat" poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in "Billboard"s annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the "Metronome" magazine popularity poll.


title: Billie Holiday

text: On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt", she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948) because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy", she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service", she said.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. Two thousand seven hundred tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she did not have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark", Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears", she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.


title: Billie Holiday

text: On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled "Holiday on Broadway", it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit", she said. But it closed after three weeks.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco. Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.


title: Billie Holiday

text: The loss of her cabaret card reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue. In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared", Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948. In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film "Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet", singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".


title: Billie Holiday

text: By the 1950s, Holiday's drug use, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series "The Comeback Story" to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario Nils Hellstrom initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton (1926–2012), Sonny Clark, Beryl Booker, Jimmy Raney and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as "Lady Love – Billie Holiday".


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday's autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues", was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a "New York Post" writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way. In his 2015 study, "Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth", John Szwed argued that "Lady Sings the Blues" is a generally accurate account of her life, but that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of "Citizen Kane". To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP "Lady Sings the Blues" in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by "Billboard" magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now", wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following". "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.


title: Billie Holiday

text: On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called "". The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols). The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the "New York Times", who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues". He later wrote:


title: Billie Holiday

text: The critic Nat Hentoff of "DownBeat" magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:


title: Billie Holiday

text: Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's "The Sound of Jazz" program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.


title: Billie Holiday

text: When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's "Chelsea at Nine" in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album "Lady in Satin" the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as "Last Recording".


title: Billie Holiday

text: On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a mob enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools. Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).


title: Billie Holiday

text: By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May 1959, she had lost . Her manager, Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of both liver and heart disease. According to writer and journalist Johann Hari, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939, when she started to perform "Strange Fruit"; However, this allegation has been disputed, with historian Lewis Porter noting that "there was no federal objection to the song “Strange Fruit,” nor was there any campaign to suppress it" and Holiday was instead pursued by Bureau of Narcotics mainly for her history of drug use. Porter writes that Johann Hari's, 2015 book, "Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs", is where the allegation that Holiday was targeted for singing "Strange Fruit" originated and that this claim didn't appear anywhere else before that. Narcotics police went to her hospital room, claiming they had found heroin in her bedroom. A grand jury was summoned to indict her, and she was arrested, handcuffed to her bed, and placed under police guard. According to Hari, after ten days, methadone was discontinued as part of Anslinger's policy; Hari accused Anslinger of being responsible for her death. On July 15, she received last rites. She died at age 44 at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, 1959, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In her final years Holiday had been progressively swindled out of her earnings by McKay and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Gilbert Millstein of "The New York Times", who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album "The Essential Billie Holiday" (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:


title: Billie Holiday

text: When Holiday died, "The New York Times" published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000, and her best recordings from the 1930s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961, she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame, and soon after Columbia reissued nearly one hundred of her early records. In 1972, Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in "Lady Sings the Blues" was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday was posthumously nominated for 23 Grammy awards.


title: Billie Holiday

text: It recently publicly came to light that the singer Adelaide Hall made a secret visit to Holiday’s bedside at the Metropolitan Hospital, believed to have taken place on (or around) June 12, 1959. Miss Hall’s spoken account of her visit was captured on tape by the journalist Max Jones in 1988, but the tape was never released into the public domain until 2021. Hall’s long-time friend, Iain Cameron Williams, and author of Hall’s biography, also had direct knowledge of the visit. However, he refrained from releasing the information into the public domain as he only had Hall’s one-to-one spoken account and no further backup. In July 2022, with Max Jones’ tape now in the public domain, Williams wrote an article for "The Syncopated Times" about Hall’s secret visit. Hall’s visit contradicts later claims (after Holiday’s death) that Holiday was kept isolated away from friends during her hospitalization.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Billie Holiday received several "Esquire" Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985, a statue of Billie Holiday was erected in Baltimore; the statue was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song "Strange Fruit". The Billie Holiday Monument is located at Pennsylvania and West Lafayette avenues in Baltimore's Upton neighborhood. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled "Lady in Satin", features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:


title: Billie Holiday

text: Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told "Ebony" magazine in 1958 about her impact:


title: Billie Holiday

text: The biographical film "Lady Sings the Blues", loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, was released in 1972 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for Best Actress. Another film, "The United States vs. Billie Holiday", starred Andra Day and was released in 2021. It is based on the book "Chasing the Scream" by Johann Hari. Director Lee Daniels saw how Holiday was portrayed in the 1972 biopic, and wanted to show her legacy as "a civil rights leader not just a drug addict or a jazz singer". The film also depicts Holiday's bisexuality and relationship with Tallulah Bankhead. Day was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance and won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 2021.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday is the primary character in the play "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill", with music by Lanie Robertson. It takes place in South Philadelphia in March 1959. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre and has been revived several times. A Broadway production starring Audra McDonald was filmed and broadcast on HBO in 2016; McDonald received an Emmy Award nomination. In 2014, she received a Tony Award win. "Billie" is a 2019 documentary film based on interviews in the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who was researching a book on Holiday that was never completed.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Billie Holiday was also portrayed by actress Paula Jai Parker in "Touched by an Angel" 2000 episode "God Bless the Child".


title: Billie Holiday

text: Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death, as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book "Pop Memories 1890–1954". Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra" in 1933.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra". During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra". Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.


title: Billie Holiday

text: Holiday had 16 best-selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire, whose rendering was a bestseller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.


title: Billie Holiday

text: In 1940, "Billboard" began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because "Billboard" only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.


title: Billie Holiday

text: "God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on "Billboard"s year-end top songs of 1941.


title: Billie Holiday

text: On October 24, 1942, "Billboard" began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on "Billboard"s year-end chart.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati (), is an island country in Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is over 119,000 (2020), more than half of whom live on Tarawa atoll. The state comprises 32 atolls and one remote raised coral island, Banaba. There is a total land area of dispersed over of ocean.


title: Kiribati

text: Their spread straddles the equator and the 180th meridian, although the International Date Line goes around Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching the 150° W meridian. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the same day as the Gilbert Islands and places them in the most advanced time zone on Earth: . Kiribati is the only country in the world to be situated in all four cardinal hemispheres.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati gained its independence from the United Kingdom, becoming a sovereign state in 1979. The capital, South Tarawa, now the most populated area, consists of a number of islets, connected by a series of causeways. These comprise about half the area of Tarawa atoll. Prior to its independence, the country had exported phosphate; however, those mines are no longer viable with fisheries and export of copra driving much of the economy. Kiribati is one of the least developed countries in the world and is highly dependent on international aid for its economy.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati is a member of the Pacific Community (SPC), Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the OACPS and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999 As an island nation, the islands are very vulnerable to climate change and addressing climate change has been a central part of its international policy, as a member of the Alliance of Small Island States.


title: Kiribati

text: The name is pronounced ; "Kiribass" as "-ti" in the Gilbertese language represents an "s" sound and its people, the I-Kiribati, as "e-Kiribassi"


title: Kiribati

text: The name "Kiribati" was adopted in 1979 at independence. It is the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", the plural of the English name of the nation's main archipelago, the "Gilbert Islands". It was named "îles Gilbert" (French for "Gilbert Islands") in about 1820 by Russian admiral Adam von Krusenstern and French captain Louis Duperrey, after the British captain Thomas Gilbert. Gilbert and captain John Marshall sighted some of the islands in 1788, while crossing the "outer passage" route from Port Jackson to Canton. Both von Krusenstern's and Duperrey's maps, published in 1824, were written in French. In French, the Northern Islands were until then called "îles Mulgrave" and Byron Island was not part of them.


title: Kiribati

text: In English, the archipelago, particularly the southern part, was often referred to as the Kingsmills in the 19th century, although the name Gilbert Islands was used increasingly, including in the Western Pacific Order in Council of 1877 and in the Pacific Order of 1893.


title: Kiribati

text: The name Gilbert, already in the name of the British protectorate since 1892, was incorporated into the name of the entire Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC) from 1916 and was retained after the Ellice Islands became the separate nation of Tuvalu in 1976. The spelling of "Gilberts" in the Gilbertese language as "Kiribati" may be found in books in Gilbertese prepared by missionaries, but with the meaning of Gilbertese (demonym and language) (see e.g., Hawaiian Board of Missionaries, 1895). The first mention as a dictionary entry of the word "Kiribati" as the native name of the country was written down in 1952 by in his comprehensive "Dictionnaire gilbertin-français".


title: Kiribati

text: It is often suggested that the indigenous name for the Gilbert Islands proper is "Tungaru" (see e.g., , 1952–1953, or Arthur Grimble, 1989). However, the rendition Kiribati for Gilberts was chosen as the official name of the new independent nation by the Chief Minister, Sir Ieremia Tabai and his Cabinet, on such grounds that it was modern, and to comprehend the inclusion of outer islands (e.g., the Phoenix Group and Line Islands), which were not considered part of the Tungaru (or Gilberts) chain.


title: Kiribati

text: The area now called Kiribati, mainly the 16 Gilbert Islands, has been inhabited by Austronesian peoples speaking the same Oceanic language, from North to South, including the southernmost Nui, since sometime between 3000 BC and AD 1300. The area was not completely isolated; later, voyagers from Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji introduced some Polynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects, respectively. Intermarriage and intense navigation between the islands tended to blur cultural differences and resulted in a significant degree of cultural homogenization Local oral historians chiefly in the form of lore keepers suggest that the area was first inhabited by a group of seafaring people from Melanesia, who were described as being dark-skinned frizzy-haired and short in stature. These indigenous peoples were then visited by early Austronesian seafarers from the west, a place called "Matang", orally described as being tall and fair-skinned. Eventually, both groups intermittently clashed and intermingled until they slowly became a uniform population.


title: Kiribati

text: Around 1300 A.D, there was a mass exodus from Samoa at the same time that cannibalism was forcefully abolished there, leading to the addition of Polynesian ancestry into the mix of most Gilbertese people. These Samoans would later bring strong features of Polynesian languages and culture, creating clans based on their own Samoan traditions and slowly intertwining with the indigenous clans and powers already dominant in Kiribati. Around the 15th century, starkly contrasting systems of governance arose between the Northern Islands, primarily under chiefly rule ("uea"), and the Central and Southern Islands, primarily under the rule of their council of elders ("unimwaane"). Tabiteuea could be an exception as the sole island that is known as maintaining a traditional egalitarian society. The name Tabiteuea stems from the root phrase Tabu-te-Uea meaning "chiefs are forbidden". Civil war soon became a factor, with acquisition of land being the main form of conquest. Clans and chiefs began fighting over resources, fuelled by hatred and reignited blood feuds, which may have started months, years, or even decades before.


title: Kiribati

text: The turmoil lasted well into the European visitation and colonial era, which led to certain islands decimating their foes with the help of guns and cannon-equipped ships that some Europeans were coerced into using by the more cunning and persuasive among the I-Kiribati leaders. The typical military arms of the I-Kiribati at this time were shark-tooth-embedded wooden spears, knives and swords, and garbs of armour fashioned from dense coconut fibre. They chiefly used these instead of the gunpowder and weapons of steel available at the time, because of the strong sentimental value of the equipment handed down through generations. Ranged weapons, such as bows, slings and javelins, were seldom used; hand-to-hand combat was a prominent skill still practised today, though seldom mentioned because of various taboos associated with it, secrecy being the primary one. Abemama's High Chief Tembinok' was the last of the dozens of expansionist Chiefs of Gilbert Islands of this period, despite Abemama historically conforming to the traditional Southern Island's governance of their respective ""unimwaane"". He was immortalised in Robert Louis Stevenson's book "In the South Seas", which delved into the High Chief's character and method of rule during Stevenson's stay in Abemama. The 90th anniversary of his arrival in the Gilbert Islands was chosen to celebrate the independence of Kiribati on 12 July 1979.


title: Kiribati

text: Chance visits by European ships occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, while those ships attempted circumnavigations of the world, or sought sailing routes from the south to north Pacific Ocean. A passing trade, whaling the On-The-Line grounds, and labour ships associated with blackbirding of Kanakas workers, visited the islands in large numbers during the 19th century, with social, economic, political, religious and cultural consequences. More than 9,000 workers were sent abroad from 1845 to 1895, most of them not returning.


title: Kiribati

text: The passing trade gave rise to European, Chinese, Samoan and other residents from the 1830s: they included beachcombers, castaways, traders and missionaries.


title: Kiribati

text: In 1886, an Anglo-German agreement partitioned the "unclaimed" central Pacific, leaving Nauru in the German sphere of influence, while Ocean Island and the future GEIC wound up in the British sphere of influence. In 1892, local Gilbertese authorities (an "uea", a chief from the Northern Gilbert Group, and "atun te boti" or head of clan) on each of the Gilbert Islands agreed to Captain E.H.M. Davis commanding HMS "Royalist" of the Royal Navy declaring them part of a British protectorate, along with the nearby Ellice Islands. They were administered by a resident commissioner based first on Makin Islands (1893–95), then in Betio, Tarawa (1896–1908) and Ocean Island (1908–1942), protectorate who was under the Western Pacific High Commission based in Fiji. Banaba, known to Europeans as Ocean Island, was added to the protectorate in 1900, because of the phosphate rock of its soil (discovered in 1900). This discovery and the mining ended the contracting of Kanakas workers to farm plantations in Queensland, German Samoa or Central America, with all the needed workers being used in Ocean Island extraction.


title: Kiribati

text: The conduct of William Telfer Campbell, the second resident commissioner of the Gilberts and Ellice Islands of 1896 to 1908, was criticised as to his legislative, judicial and administrative management (including allegations of forced labour exacted from islanders) and became the subject of the 1909 report by Arthur Mahaffy. In 1913, an anonymous correspondent to "The New Age" newspaper described the maladministration of W. Telfer Campbell and questioned the partiality of Arthur Mahaffy, because he was a former colonial official in the Gilberts. The anonymous correspondent also criticised the operations of the Pacific Phosphate Company on Ocean Island.


title: Kiribati

text: The islands became the crown colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1916. The Northern Line Islands, including Christmas Island (Kiritimati), were added to the colony in 1919, and the Phoenix Islands were added in 1937 with the purpose of a Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme. On 12 July 1940, Pan Am Airways' "American Clipper" landed at Canton Island for the first time during a flight from Honolulu to Auckland.


title: Kiribati

text: Sir Arthur Grimble was a cadet administrative officer based at Tarawa (1913–1919) and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926.


title: Kiribati

text: In 1902, the Pacific Cable Board laid the first trans-Pacific telegraph cable from Bamfield, British Columbia to Fanning Island (Tabuaeran) in the Line Islands, and from Fiji to Fanning Island, thus completing the All Red Line, a series of telegraph lines circumnavigating the globe completely within the British Empire. The location of Fanning Island, one of the closest formations to Hawaii, led to its annexation by the British Empire in 1888. Nearby candidates including Palmyra Island were not favoured due to the lack of adequate landing sites.


title: Kiribati

text: The United States eventually incorporated the Northern Line Islands into its territories, and did the same with the Phoenix Islands, which lie between Gilberts and the Line Islands, including Howland, Jarvis, and Baker islands, thus causing a territorial dispute. That was eventually resolved and they finally became part of Kiribati under the Treaty of Tarawa.


title: Kiribati

text: After the attack on Pearl Harbor, during World War II, Butaritari and Tarawa, and others of the Northern Gilbert group, were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1943. Betio became an airfield and supply base. The expulsion of the Japanese military in late 1943 involved one of the bloodiest battles in US Marine Corps history. Marines landed in November 1943 and the Battle of Tarawa ensued. Ocean Island, the headquarters of the colony, was bombed, evacuated and occupied by Japan in 1942 and only freed in 1945, after the massacre of all but one of the Gilbertese on the island by the Japanese forces. Funafuti hosted then the provisional headquarters of the colony from 1942 to 1946, when Tarawa returned to host the headquarters, replacing Ocean Island.


title: Kiribati

text: At the end of 1945, most of the remaining inhabitants of Banaba, repatriated from Kosrae, Nauru and Tarawa, were relocated to Rabi Island, a land of Fiji that the British government had acquired in 1942 for this purpose.


title: Kiribati

text: On 1 January 1953, the British Western Pacific High Commissioner of the colony was transferred from Fiji to the new capital of Honiara, to the British Solomon Islands, with the Gilberts' Resident Commissioner still headquartered in Tarawa.


title: Kiribati

text: Further military operations in the colony occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Christmas Island was used by the United States and United Kingdom for nuclear weapons testing including hydrogen bombs.


title: Kiribati

text: Institutions of internal self-rule were established on Tarawa from about 1967. The Ellice Islands asked for separation from the rest of the colony in 1974 and granted their own internal self-rule institutions. The separation entered into force on 1 January 1976. In 1978, the Ellice Islands became the independent nation of Tuvalu.


title: Kiribati

text: The Gilbert Islands gained independence as the Republic of Kiribati on 12 July 1979. Then, in September, the United States relinquished all claims to the sparsely inhabited Phoenix and Line Islands, in a 1979 treaty of friendship with Kiribati (ratified in 1983). Although the indigenous Gilbertese name for the Gilbert Islands proper is "Tungaru", the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese spelling of "Gilberts", because it was more modern and as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of Banaba, the Line Islands, and the Phoenix Islands. The last two archipelagoes were never initially occupied by Gilbertese until the British authorities, and later the Republic Government, resettled Gilbertese there under resettlement schemes. In 1982, the first elections since independence were held. A no confidence vote provoked the 1983 new election. In the post-independence era, overcrowding has been an issue, at least in British and aid organisations' eyes. In 1988, an announcement was made that 4,700 residents of the main island group would be resettled onto less-populated islands. In September 1994, Teburoro Tito from the opposition was elected president.


title: Kiribati

text: In 1995, Kiribati unilaterally moved the international date line far to the east to encompass the Line Islands group, so that the nation would no longer be divided by the date line. The move, which fulfilled one of President Tito's campaign promises, was intended to allow businesses across the expansive nation to keep the same business week. This also enabled Kiribati to become the first country to see the dawn of the third millennium, an event of significance for tourism. Tito was re-elected in 1998. In 1999, Kiribati became a full member of the United Nations, 20 years after independence. In 2002, Kiribati passed a controversial law that enabled the government to shut down newspaper publishers. The legislation followed the launching of Kiribati's first successful non-government-run newspaper. President Tito was re-elected in 2003 but was removed from office in March 2003 by a no-confidence vote and replaced by a Council of State. Anote Tong of the opposition party Boutokaan Te Koaua was elected to succeed Tito in July 2003. He was re-elected in 2007 and in 2011.


title: Kiribati

text: In June 2008, Kiribati officials asked Australia and New Zealand to accept Kiribati citizens as permanent refugees. Kiribati is expected to be the first country to lose all its land territory to climate change. In June 2008, the Kiribati President Anote Tong said that the country had reached "the point of no return." He added, "To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful but I think we have to do that."


title: Kiribati

text: In January 2012, Anote Tong was re-elected for a third and last successive term. In early 2012, the government of Kiribati purchased the 2,200-hectare Natoavatu Estate on the second largest island of Fiji, Vanua Levu. At the time it was widely reported that the government planned to evacuate the entire population of Kiribati to Fiji. In April 2013, President Tong began urging citizens to evacuate the islands and migrate elsewhere. In May 2014, the Office of the President confirmed the purchase of some 5,460 acres of land on Vanua Levu at a cost of 9.3 million Australian dollars.


title: Kiribati

text: In March 2016, Taneti Maamau was elected as the new President of Kiribati. He was the fifth president since the country became independent in 1979. In June 2020, President Maamau won re-election for second four-year term. President Maamau was considered pro-China and he supported closer ties with Beijing. The 2022 Kiribati constitutional crisis started with the suspension of all 5 major Justices of the judiciary of Kiribati.


title: Kiribati

text: The Constitution of Kiribati, promulgated 12 July 1979, provides for free and open elections in a parliamentary democratic republic.


title: Kiribati

text: The executive branch consists of a president ("te Beretitenti"), a vice-president and a cabinet. The president, who is also chief of the cabinet, is directly elected by the citizens, after the legislature nominates three or four persons from among its members to be candidates in the ensuing presidential election. The president is limited to serving three four-year terms, and remains a member of the assembly. The cabinet is composed of the president, vice-president, and 13 ministers (appointed by the president) who are also ministers of parliament.


title: Kiribati

text: The legislative branch is the unicameral "Maneaba ni Maungatabu" (House of Assembly). Its members are elected, including by constitutional mandate, a nominated representative of the Banaban people in Rabi Island, Fiji (Banaba, former Ocean Island), in addition to, until 2016, the attorney general, who served as an "ex officio" member from 1979 to 2016. Legislators serve for a four-year term.


title: Kiribati

text: The constitutional provisions governing administration of justice are similar to those in other former British possessions in that the judiciary is free from governmental interference. The judicial branch is made up of the High Court (in Betio) and the Court of Appeal. The president appoints the presiding judges.


title: Kiribati

text: Local government is through island councils with elected members. Local affairs are handled in a manner similar to town meetings in colonial America. Island councils make their own estimates of revenue and expenditure and generally are free from central government controls. There are a total of 21 inhabited islands in Kiribati. Each inhabited island has its own council. Since independence, Kiribati is no longer divided into districts (see Subdivisions of Kiribati).


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has formal political parties but their organisation is quite informal. Ad hoc opposition groups tend to coalesce around specific issues. There is universal suffrage at age 18. Today the only recognisable parties are the Boutokaan Kiribati Moa Party, former "Boutokaan te Koaua", and Tobwaan Kiribati Party.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati maintains close relations with its Pacific neighbours, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Fiji. The first three of these provide the bulk of the country's foreign aid. Taiwan and Japan also have specified-period licences to fish in Kiribati's waters. There are three resident diplomatic missions headquartered in South Tarawa: the Embassies of the Republic of China (Taiwan) until 2019, replaced by People's Republic of China in 2020 and the High Commissions of Australia and New Zealand. A US Embassy will open in 2023.


title: Kiribati

text: In November 1999, Kiribati agreed to allow Japan's National Space Development Agency to lease land on Kiritimati (formerly Christmas Island) for 20 years, on which to build a spaceport. The agreement stipulated that Japan was to pay US$840,000 per year and would also pay for any damage to roads and the environment. A Japanese-built downrange tracking station operates on Kiritimati and an abandoned airfield on the island was designated as the landing strip for a proposed reusable unmanned space shuttle called HOPE-X. HOPE-X, however, was eventually cancelled by Japan in 2003.


title: Kiribati

text: As one of the world's most vulnerable nations to the effects of global warming, Kiribati has been an active participant in international diplomatic efforts relating to climate change, most importantly the UNFCCC conferences of the parties (COP). Kiribati is a member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an intergovernmental organisation of low-lying coastal and small island countries.


title: Kiribati

text: Established in 1990, the main purpose of the alliance is to consolidate the voices of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to address global warming. AOSIS has been very active from its inception, putting forward the first draft text in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations as early as 1994.


title: Kiribati

text: In 2009, President Tong attended the Climate Vulnerable Forum (V11) in the Maldives, with 10 other countries that are vulnerable to climate change, and signed the Bandos Island declaration on 10 November 2009, pledging to show moral leadership and commence greening their economies by voluntarily committing to achieving carbon neutrality.


title: Kiribati

text: In November 2010, Kiribati hosted the Tarawa Climate Change Conference (TCCC) to support the president of Kiribati's initiative to hold a consultative forum between vulnerable states and their partners. The conference strove to create an enabling environment for multi-party negotiations under the auspices of the UNFCCC. The conference was a successor event to the Climate Vulnerable Forum. The ultimate objective of TCCC was to reduce the number and intensity of fault lines between parties to the COP process, explore elements of agreement between the parties and thereby to support Kiribati's and other parties' contribution to COP16 held in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010.


title: Kiribati

text: In 2013, President Tong spoke of climate-change induced sea level rise as "inevitable". "For our people to survive, then they will have to migrate. Either we can wait for the time when we have to move people en masse or we can prepare them—beginning from now ..." In New York in 2014, per "The New Yorker", President Tong told "The New York Times" that "according to the projections, within this century, the water will be higher than the highest point in our lands". In 2014, President Tong finalised the purchase of a stretch of land on Vanua Levu, one of the larger Fiji islands, 2,000 km away. A move described by Tong as an "absolute necessity" should the nation be completely submerged under water.


title: Kiribati

text: In 2013, attention was drawn to a claim of a Kiribati man of being a "climate change refugee" under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951). However, this claim was determined by the New Zealand High Court to be untenable. The New Zealand Court of Appeal also rejected the claim in a 2014 decision.


title: Kiribati

text: On further appeal, the New Zealand Supreme Court confirmed the earlier adverse rulings against the application for refugee status, but rejected the proposition "that environmental degradation resulting from climate change or other natural disasters could never create a pathway into the Refugee Convention or protected person jurisdiction". In 2017, Kiribati signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.


title: Kiribati

text: On 20 September 2019, the government of Kiribati restored its diplomatic relationship with the People's Republic of China and simultaneously stopped its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. China offered a 737 aircraft and ferries to Kiribati for the decision, according to Taiwan's foreign minister, Joseph Wu.


title: Kiribati

text: From 1973 though 2008, a total of almost 500 US Peace Corps volunteers were based on the Islands, as many as 45 in a given year. Activities included assisting in the planning, design and construction of wells, libraries, and other infrastructure, and agricultural, environmental, and community health education. In 2006, volunteer placement was significantly scaled down due to the reduction of consistent air transportation to the outer islands; it was later ended because the associated ability to provide medical care to volunteers could not be assured. In July 2022, US Vice President Harris announced plans to build a new embassy in Kiribati and Tonga and reestablish the Peace Corps presence in the region.


title: Kiribati

text: Law enforcement in Kiribati is carried out by the Kiribati Police Service which is responsible for all law enforcement and paramilitary duties for the island nation. There are police posts located on all of the islands. The police have one patrol boat, the Pacific-class patrol boat RKS "Teanoai II". Kiribati has no military and relies on both Australia and New Zealand for its defence.


title: Kiribati

text: The main prison in Kiribati is located in Betio, named the Walter Betio Prison. There is also a prison in London on Kiritimati.


title: Kiribati

text: Male homosexuality is illegal in Kiribati, with a penalty up to 14 years in prison, according to a historical British law, but this law is not enforced. Kiribati has not yet followed the lead of the United Kingdom, following its Wolfenden report, to decriminalise acts of male homosexuality, beginning with provisions in the UK's Sexual Offences Act 1957. Female homosexuality is legal, but lesbians may face violence and discrimination. However, employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited.


title: Kiribati

text: There are 21 inhabited islands in Kiribati. Kiribati can be geographically divided into three archipelagoes or groups of islands, which have no administrative functions. They are:


title: Kiribati

text: Four of the former districts (including Tarawa) lie in the Gilbert Islands, where most of the country's population lives. Five of the Line Islands are uninhabited (Malden Island, Starbuck Island, Millenium Island, Vostok Island and Flint Island). The Phoenix Islands are uninhabited except for Kanton, and have no representation. Banaba itself is sparsely inhabited now. There is also a non-elected representative of the Banabans on Rabi Island in Fiji.


title: Kiribati

text: Each of the 21 inhabited islands has its own local council that takes care of daily affairs. There is one council for each inhabited island, with two exceptions: Tarawa Atoll has three councils: Betio Town Council, (TUC) for the rest of South Tarawa) and Eutan Tarawa Council (ETC) (for North Tarawa); and Tabiteuea has two councils.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati consists of 32 atolls and one solitary island (Banaba), extending into the eastern and western hemispheres, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres. Its extensive exclusive economic zone covers three, non-contiguous, traditional geographic subregions: Banaba (Melanesian-Micronesian area), the Gilbert Islands (Micronesia) and the Line and Phoenix Islands (Polynesia). The groups of islands are:


title: Kiribati

text: Banaba (or Ocean Island) is a raised-coral island. It was once a rich source of phosphates, but was exhausted in mining before independence. The rest of the land in Kiribati consists of the sand and reef rock islets of atolls or coral islands, which rise only one or two metres above sea level.


title: Kiribati

text: The soil is thin and calcareous. It has a low water-holding capacity and low organic matter and nutrient content—except for calcium, sodium, and magnesium. Banaba is one of the least suitable places for agriculture in the world.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiritimati (previously Christmas Island) in the Line Islands is the world's largest atoll. Based on a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line, the Line Islands were the first area to enter into a new year, including year 2000. For that reason, Caroline Island was renamed Millennium Island in 1997. The majority of Kiribati, including the capital, is not first, for example New Zealand (UTC+13 in January) has an earlier new year.


title: Kiribati

text: According to the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (previously South Pacific Regional Environment Programme), two small uninhabited Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels will rise by about 50 cm (20 in) by 2100 due to global warming and a further rise would be inevitable. It is thus likely that within a century the nation's arable land will become subject to increased soil salination and will be largely submerged.


title: Kiribati

text: The exposure of Kiribati to changes in sea levels is exacerbated by the Pacific decadal oscillation, which is a climate switch phenomenon that results in changes from periods of La Niña to periods of El Niño. This has an effect on sea levels. For example, in 2000, there was a switch from periods of downward pressure of El Niño on sea levels to an upward pressure of La Niña on sea levels, which upward pressure causes more frequent and higher high tide levels. The Perigean spring tide (often called a king tide) can result in seawater flooding low-lying areas of the islands of Kiribati.


title: Kiribati

text: The atolls and reef islands can respond to changes in sea-level. Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji released a study in 2010 on the dynamic response of atolls and reef islands in the central Pacific. Kiribati was mentioned in the study, and Webb and Kench found that the three major urbanised islands in Kiribati—Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai—increased by 30% (36 hectares), 16.3% (5.8 hectares) and 12.5% (0.8 hectares), respectively.


title: Kiribati

text: The study by Paul Kench and Arthur Webb recognises that the islands are extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, and concluded that: "This study did not measure vertical growth of the island surface nor does it suggest there is any change in the height of the islands. Since land height has not changed the vulnerability of the greater part of the land area of each island to submergence due to sea level rise is also unchanged and these low-lying atolls remain immediately and extremely vulnerable to inundation or sea water flooding."


title: Kiribati

text: The Climate Change in the Pacific Report of 2011 describes Kiribati as having a low risk of cyclones; however in March 2015 Kiribati experienced flooding and destruction of seawalls and coastal infrastructure as the result of Cyclone Pam, a Category 5 cyclone that devastated Vanuatu. Kiribati remains exposed to the risk that cyclones can strip the low-lying islands of their vegetation and soil.


title: Kiribati

text: Gradual sea-level rise also allows for coral polyp activity to raise the atolls with the sea level. However, if the increase in sea level occurs at a rate faster than coral growth, or if polyp activity is damaged by ocean acidification, then the resilience of the atolls and reef islands is less certain. Also, coral bleaching has occurred on more than 60% of the coral reefs in the Maldives.


title: Kiribati

text: The Kiribati Adaptation Program (KAP), started in 2003, is a US$5.5 million initiative that was originally enacted by the national government of Kiribati with the support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Japanese government. Australia later joined the coalition, donating US$1.5 million to the effort. The program aims to take place over six years, supporting measures that reduce Kiribati's vulnerability to the effects of climate change and sea level rise by raising awareness of climate change, assessing and protecting available water resources, and managing inundation.


title: Kiribati

text: At the start of the Adaptation Program, representatives from each of the inhabited atolls identified key climatic changes that had taken place over the past 20–40 years and proposed coping mechanisms to deal with these changes under four categories of urgency of need. The program is now focusing on the country's most vulnerable sectors in the most highly populated areas.


title: Kiribati

text: Initiatives include improving water supply management in and around Tarawa; coastal management protection measures such as mangrove re-plantation and protection of public infrastructure; strengthening laws to reduce coastal erosion; and population settlement planning to reduce personal risks.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has a tropical rainforest climate (Af). From April to October, there are predominant northeastern winds and stable temperatures close to . From November to April, western gales bring rain.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati wet season ("te Auu-Meang") also recognized as the Tropical cyclone (TC) ("te Angibuaka") season starts from November to April every year. Kiribati therefore typically experiences more extreme weather events associated with Tropical disturbances (TD) or Tropical cyclones during te Auu-Meang. But Tropical cyclones rarely develop or pass along the equator where Kiribati is located. However, based on past events, Kiribati has been impacted from distant Tropical cyclone (TC) and the impacts were observed while the systems are in their development stages (Tropical Low/disturbance) or even before they reach Tropical cyclone category.


title: Kiribati

text: The fair season starts when "Ten Rimwimata" (Antares) appears in the sky after sunset, from May to November, when more gentle winds and currents and less rain. Then towards December, when "Nei Auti" (Pleiades) replaces Antares, the season of sudden westerly winds and more heavy rain discourages any far travel from island to island.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati does not experience cyclones but effects may occasionally be experienced during cyclone seasons affecting nearby Pacific Island countries such as Fiji.


title: Kiribati

text: Precipitation varies significantly between islands. For example, the annual average is 3,000 mm (120 in) in the north and 500 mm (20 in) in the south of the Gilbert Islands. Most of these islands are in the dry belt of the equatorial oceanic climatic zone and experience prolonged droughts.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati contains three ecosystems: Central Polynesian tropical moist forests, Eastern Micronesia tropical moist forests, and Western Polynesian tropical moist forests.


title: Kiribati

text: Because of the relatively young geological age of the islands and atolls and high level of soil salination, the flora of Kiribati is somewhat unhealthy. The Gilbert Islands contain about 83 indigenous and 306 introduced plants, whereas the corresponding numbers for Line and Phoenix Islands are 67 and 283. None of these species are endemic, and about half of the indigenous ones have a limited distribution and became endangered or nearly extinct due to human activities such as phosphate mining.


title: Kiribati

text: Coconut, pandanus palms and breadfruit trees are the most common "wild" plants, whereas the five most cultivated crops but the traditional "Babai", "Cyrtosperma merkusii", are imported Chinese cabbage, pumpkin, tomato, watermelon and cucumber. Over eighty per cent of the population participates in either farming or fishing.


title: Kiribati

text: Seaweed farming is an important part of the economy , with two major species "Eucheuma alcarezii" and "Eucheuma spinosium" introduced to the local lagoons from the Philippines in 1977. It competes with collection of the black-lipped pearl oyster ("Pinctada margaritifera") and shellfish, which are dominated by the strombid gastropod ("Strombus luhuanus") and Anadara cockles ("Anadara uropigimelana"), whereas the stocks of the giant clam ("Tridacna gigas") have been largely exhausted.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has a few land mammals, none being indigenous or endemic. They include the Polynesian rat ("Rattus exulans"), dogs, cats and pigs. Among the 75 bird species, the Bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis") is endemic to Kiritimati.


title: Kiribati

text: There are 600–800 species of inshore and pelagic finfish, some 200 species of corals and about 1000 species of shellfish. Fishing mostly targets the family Scombridae, particularly the skipjack tuna and yellowfin tuna as well as flying fish ("Cypselurus" spp.).


title: Kiribati

text: Dogs were already accompanying the first inhabitants but were re-introduced by European settlers: they have continued to grow in numbers and are roaming in traditional packs, particularly around South Tarawa.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has few natural resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits on Banaba were exhausted at the time of independence. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. Kiribati has the lowest GDP out of any sovereign state in Oceania, and is considered one of the least developed countries in the world.


title: Kiribati

text: In one form or another, Kiribati gets a large portion of its income from abroad. Examples include fishing licences, development assistance, workers' remittances, especially the seafarers issued from Marine Training Centre, and a few tourists. Given Kiribati's limited domestic production ability, it must import nearly all of its essential foodstuffs and manufactured items; it depends on these external sources of income for financing.


title: Kiribati

text: The economy of Kiribati benefits from international development assistance programs. The multilateral donors providing development assistance in 2009 were the European Union (A$9 million), the United Nations Development Programme (A$3.7 million), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (A$100,000). The bilateral donors providing development assistance in 2009 were Australia (A$11 million), Japan (A$2 million), New Zealand (A$6.6 million), Taiwan (A$10.6 million), and other donors providing A$16.2 million, including technical assistance grants from the Asian Development Bank.


title: Kiribati

text: The major donors in 2010/2011 were Australia (A$15 million), Taiwan (A$11 million); New Zealand (A$6 million), the World Bank (A$4 million) and the Asian Development Bank.


title: Kiribati

text: In 1956, Gilbert and Ellice Islands established a sovereign wealth fund to act as a store of wealth for the country's earnings from phosphate mining.


title: Kiribati

text: In 2008, the Revenue Equalization Reserve Fund was valued at US$400 million. The RERF assets declined from A$637 million (420% of GDP) in 2007 to A$570.5 million (350% of GDP) in 2009 as the result of the global financial crisis and exposure to failed Icelandic banks. In addition, draw-downs were made by the government of Kiribati to finance budgetary shortfalls during this period.


title: Kiribati

text: In May 2011, the IMF country report assessment of the economy of Kiribati is that "After two years of contraction, the economy recovered in the second half of 2010 and inflation pressure dissipated. It is estimated to have grown by 1.75% for the year. Despite a weather-related drop in copra production, private sector activity appears to have picked up, especially in retail. Tourist arrivals rebounded by 20% compared to 2009, although from a very low base.


title: Kiribati

text: Despite the rise in world food and fuel prices, inflation has bounced from 2008 crisis-highs into negative territory, reflecting the strong appreciation of the Australian dollar, which is used as the domestic currency, and a decline in the world price of rice. Credit growth in the overall economy declined in 2009 as economic activity stalled. But it started to pick up in the second half of 2010 as the recovery gained traction".


title: Kiribati

text: A major Australian bank, ANZ, maintains a presence on Kiribati with a number of branches and ATM units.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati is a major exporter of hand-caught ornamental fish. There are eight licensed operators based on Kiritimati (Christmas Island). At the end of 2005, the number of pet fish exported was 110,000. All operators have a land-based facility but fish are kept in containers on the reef until the day before the shipment. This is to reduce the running cost and the mortality of pet fish to be exported. The flame angelfish ("Centropyge loriculus") is the major species exported.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has had two domestic airlines: Air Kiribati and Coral Sun Airways. Both airlines are based in Tarawa's Bonriki International Airport and serve destinations across the Gilbert Islands and Line Islands only: Banaba and the Phoenix Islands are not served by the domestic carriers.


title: Kiribati

text: Cassidy International Airport on Kiritimati has an international service provided by Fiji Airways: Nadi to Cassidy Airport and then to Honolulu.


title: Kiribati

text: The islands’ remote location in the Central Pacific at approximately the International Date Line and spanning hundreds of miles north and south of the equator has meant that communications between them has always been challenging and conducted primarily by radio and print media. TV Kiribati Ltd, was owned by the government operated between 2004 and mid-2012, but could not reach all of the Islands. Radio Kiribati, based on Tarawa and operated by the government's Broadcasting and Publications Authority (BPA) on 1440 kHz AM is the only form of mass media that reaches all the major islands. Transmission hours are limited and local content in Gilbertese is supplemented by English summaries and BBC News. The BPA and a private broadcaster also operate FM stations accessible on Tarawa.


title: Kiribati

text: Inter-island communications for many years relied on a centralized shortwave radio network operated by Telecom Services Kiribati, Ltd (TSKL) based in each Island's Council Headquarters. Numerous issues including low availability, maintenance, privacy, and only one per island led TSKL to adopt satellite-based telephones. However, the system is more expensive and still only located at Council Headquarters.


title: Kiribati

text: Print weeklies in Gilbertese include the "Te Uekara" published by the government, "Te Mauri" published by the Kiribati Protestant Church, and the "Kiribati Independent", published from Auckland as well as the "Kiribati Newstar", published in English.


title: Kiribati

text: In December 2019, SpaceX launched the Kacific1 broadband satellite that provides 100Mbit/s mobile and broadband service to 25 countries throughout to the Asia-Pacific region including Kiribati. Three of the satellite's 56 spot beams provide overlapping coverage of the Gilbert Islands and Tuvalu; however, the more eastern regions of the country, the Phoenix and Line Islands, are outside of the satellite's coverage.


title: Kiribati

text: The planned Southern Cross NEXT cable system, estimated to be completed in Q2 2022, will connect the US to Australia and provide service to Kiribati (Tarawa) through the Kiritimati Branch with one fiber pair. The network, which is an upgrade to the existing Southern Cross Cable, also connects to Samoa, Fiji, and New Zealand.


title: Kiribati

text: In June 2021, the World Bank-backed procurement for the East Micronesian Cable system was cancelled due to security concerns. The undersea fiberoptic system, which would have originated in Guam, was "designed to improve the communications in the island nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)."


title: Kiribati

text: The November 2020 census showed a population of 119,940. About 90% lived in the Gilbert Islands, with 52.9% of them on South Tarawa, including Betio, the biggest township.


title: Kiribati

text: Until recently, people lived mostly in villages with populations between 50 and 3,000 on the outer islands. Most houses are made of materials obtained from coconut and pandanus trees. Frequent droughts and infertile soil hinder reliable large-scale agriculture, so the islanders have largely turned to the sea for livelihood and subsistence. Most are outrigger sailors and fishermen. Copra plantations serve as a second source of employment. In recent years, large numbers of citizens have moved to the more urban island capital of Tarawa, where Betio is the largest town and South Tarawa reunites larger towns like Bikenibeu or Teaoraereke. Increasing urbanisation has raised the population of South Tarawa to 63,017.


title: Kiribati

text: The native people of Kiribati are called I-Kiribati. Ethnically, the I-Kiribati are Oceanians and Micronesians, a sub-ethnicity of Austronesians. Recent archaeological evidence indicates that Austronesians originally settled the islands thousands of years ago . Around the 14th century, Fijians, Samoans, and Tongans invaded the islands, thus diversifying the ethnic range and introducing Polynesian linguistic traits. Intermarriage among all ancestral groups, however, has led to a population reasonably homogeneous in appearance and traditions.


title: Kiribati

text: The people of Kiribati speak Gilbertese, an Oceanic language. English is the other official language, but is not used very often outside the island capital of Tarawa. It is more likely that some English words are mixed in their use with Gilbertese. Older generations of I-Kiribati tend to use more complicated versions of the language. Several words in Gilbertese have been adopted from European settlers, for instance, "kamea" is one of the Gilbertese words for dog, "kiri" being the Oceanic one, which has its origins in the I-Kiribati people hearing the European settlers saying "come here" to their dogs, and adopting that as "kamea".


title: Kiribati

text: Many other loanwords have been adopted (like "buun", spoon, "moko", smoke, "beeki", pig, "batoro", bottle) but some typical Gilbertese words are quite common, even for European objects (like "wanikiba", plane – the flying canoe, "rebwerebwe", motorbike – for the motor noise, "kauniwae", shoes – the cow for the feet).


title: Kiribati

text: Christianity is the major religion in Kiribati, having been lately introduced by missionaries, because of its remoteness and the absence of any significant European presence until the latter half of the 19th century. The population is predominantly Roman Catholic (58.9%), with two main Protestant denominations (Kiribati Protestant Church 8.4% and Kiribati Uniting Church 21.2%) accounting for 29.6%. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.6%), Baháʼí Faith (2.1%), Seventh-day Adventist Church (2.1%), Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other small faiths together account for less than 2% (2020 census).


title: Kiribati

text: The Gilbert Islands where 90% of the Kiribati population live, boast some of the highest population densities in the Pacific, rivalling, without any tall building, cities like Hong Kong or Singapore. This overcrowding produces a great amount of pollution, worsening the quality and length of life. Due to insufficient sanitation and water filtration systems, worsened by the fragility of the water lens of the atolls and by climate change, only about 66% have access to clean water. Waterborne diseases grow at record levels throughout the islands. Poor sanitation has led to an increase in cases of conjunctivitis, diarrhoea, dysentery, and fungal infections. Around 57% of adults smoke tobacco products on a regular basis, the highest proportion in the world. Due to this and other "lifestyle diseases," such as type 2 diabetes, there has been a drastic spike in amputations on the islands, doubling in a few years.


title: Kiribati

text: As a consequence, the population of Kiribati has a quite low life expectancy at birth of 68.46 years. Even if this data is of only 66.9 years, provided elsewhere, Kiribati ranks last in life expectancy out of the 20 nations of Oceania. This life expectancy is 64.3 for males, and 69.5 for females and there is an infant mortality rate of 41 deaths per 1,000 live births. Tuberculosis has a small presence in the country, with 365 cases per 100,000 a year. Government expenditure on health was at US$268 per capita (PPP) in 2006. In 1990–2007, there were 23 physicians per 100,000 persons. Since the arrival of Cuban doctors in 2006, the infant mortality rate has decreased significantly.


title: Kiribati

text: Most health problems are related to consumption of semi-raw seafood, limited food storage facilities, and bacterial contamination of fresh water supplies. In the early 2000s, between 1 and 7% of the population, depending on the island, were annually treated for food poisoning in a hospital. Modernization and cross-cultural exchange of the late 20th century brought new issues of unhealthy diet and lifestyle, heavy smoking, especially among the young, and external infections, including HIV/AIDS. Kiribati is the country with the third highest prevalence of smoking in the world, with 54–57% of the population reported as smokers.


title: Kiribati

text: Fresh water remains a concern of Kiribati – during the dry season (Aumaiaki), water has been drilled for instead of using rain water tanks. In recent years, there has been a longer than usual Aumaikai season resulting in additional water having to be drilled from beneath the water table. This has introduced water-borne illnesses, compounding the health problems within Kiribati.


title: Kiribati

text: The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that Kiribati is fulfilling 77.2% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to health based on its level of income. When looking at the right to health with respect to children, Kiribati achieves 93.8% of what is expected based on its current income. In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves 92.2% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income. Kiribati falls into the "very bad" category when evaluating the right to reproductive health because the nation is fulfilling only 45.5% of what the nation is expected to achieve based on the resources (income) it has available.


title: Kiribati

text: Primary education is free and compulsory for the first 9 years, beginning at age 6. Mission schools are slowly being absorbed into the government primary school system. Higher education is expanding; students may seek technical, teacher or marine training, or study in other countries. Most choosing to do the latter have gone to Fiji to attend the University of the South Pacific, and those wishing to complete medical training have been sent to Australia, New Zealand or Cuba.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati Ministry of Education is the education ministry. The government high schools are King George V and Elaine Bernacchi School, Tabiteuea North Senior Secondary School, and Melaengi Tabai Secondary School. 13 high schools are operated by Christian churches.


title: Kiribati

text: The University of the South Pacific has a campus in Teaoraereke for distant/flexible learning, but also to provide preparatory studies towards obtaining certificates, diplomas and degrees at other campus sites.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati folk music is generally based on chanting or other forms of vocalising, accompanied by body percussion. Public performances in modern Kiribati are generally performed by a seated chorus, accompanied by a guitar. However, during formal performances of the standing dance ("Te Kaimatoa") or the hip dance ("Te Buki"), a wooden box is used as a percussion instrument. This box is constructed to give a hollow and reverberating tone when struck simultaneously by a chorus of men sitting around it. Traditional songs are often love-themed, but there are also competitive, religious, children's, patriotic, war and wedding songs. There are also stick dances which accompany legends and semi-historical stories. These stick dances or "tirere" (pronounced seerere) are performed only during major festivals.


title: Kiribati

text: The uniqueness of Kiribati when compared with other forms of Pacific island dance is its emphasis on the outstretched arms of the dancer and the sudden birdlike movement of the head. The Frigate bird ("Fregata minor") on the Kiribati flag refers to this bird-like style of Kiribati dancing. Most dances are in the standing or sitting position with movement limited and staggered. Smiling whilst dancing is generally considered vulgar within the context of Kiribati dancing. This is due to its origin of not being solely as a form of entertainment but as a form of storytelling and a display of the skill, beauty and endurance of the dancer.


title: Kiribati

text: Traditionally, the staple diet of the I-Kiribati was the abundance of seafood and coconuts. Starch based carbohydrate sources were not plentiful due to the hostile climate of the atolls with only the northernmost atolls being viable for constant agriculture. The national crop "bwabwai" was only eaten during special celebrations along with pork.


title: Kiribati

text: To complement the rather low consumption of carbohydrates in their diets, the I-Kiribati processed the sap and fruit of the abundant Pandanus and Coconut trees into different beverages and foods such as "te karewe" (fresh daily sap of the coconut tree) or "te tuae" (dried pandanus cake) and "te kabubu" (dried pandanus flour) from pandanus fruit pulp and "te kamaimai" (coconut sap syrup) from coconut sap.


title: Kiribati

text: After World War II, rice became a daily staple in most households which is still the case today. Majority of seafood, fish in particular is eaten sashimi style with either coconut sap, soy sauce or vinegar based dressings in use often combined with chillies and onions.


title: Kiribati

text: Coconut crabs and mud crabs are traditionally given to breastfeeding mothers, with the belief that the meat stimulates the production of good quality breastmilk.


title: Kiribati

text: Kiribati has competed at the Commonwealth Games since 1998 and the Summer Olympics since 2004. It sent three competitors to its first Olympics, two sprinters and a weightlifter. Kiribati won its first ever Commonwealth Games medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games when weightlifter David Katoatau won Gold in the 105 kg Group.


title: Kiribati

text: Football is the most popular sport. Kiribati Islands Football Federation (KIFF) is an associate member of the Oceania Football Confederation, but not of world-governing body FIFA. Instead, they are member of ConIFA. Kiribati National team has played ten matches, all of which it has lost, and all at the Pacific Games from 1979 to 2011. The Kiribati football stadium is Bairiki National Stadium, which has a capacity of 2,500.


title: Kiribati

text: Edward Carlyon Eliot, who was Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati & Tuvalu) from 1913 to 1920 describes this period in his book "Broken Atoms" (autobiographical reminiscences) Pub. G. Bles, London, 1938.


title: Kiribati

text: Sir Arthur Grimble wrote about his time working in the British colonial service in Kiribati (then the Gilbert Islands) from 1914 to 1932 in two popular books "A Pattern of Islands" (1952) and "Return to the Islands" (1957). He also undertook academic studies of Gilbertese culture.


title: Kiribati

text: John Smith, the last governor of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands wrote his memoir "An Island in the Autumn" (2011).


title: Kiribati

text: J. Maarten Troost's more recent autobiographical experiences in Tarawa are documented in his book "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" (2004).


title: Kiribati

text: Alice Piciocchi's illustrated essay, "Kiribati. Cronache illustrate da una terra (s)perduta", (2016) Milan: 24 ORE Cultura, also translated into French (2018, éditions du Rouergue), tries to write and portray a comprehensive encyclopaedic book of nowadays Kiribati.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: Patrick Arnold Shriver Schwarzenegger (born September 18, 1993) is an American model, actor, investor, and entrepreneur. He is the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger was born at Providence St John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California and raised in Los Angeles, California. He is the eldest son of Maria Shriver, a journalist and author who is a member of the Kennedy family, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born bodybuilder, actor, and former Governor of California. Schwarzenegger has two elder sisters, Katherine and Christina, a younger brother, Christopher, and a younger paternal half-brother, Joseph. His maternal grandparents were activist Eunice Kennedy Shriver and diplomat and politician Sargent Shriver.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger holds dual Austrian-American citizenship, speaks English and German, regularly visits Austria and maintains a strong connection to his father's native country. His cousin, also named Patrick Schwarzenegger, lost his father (Arnold's brother) in a car accident in 1971 and is now an attorney.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: At the age of ten, Schwarzenegger had a small role in the film "The Benchwarmers". Throughout his childhood, he practiced acting with his father, and through his young adult years, he studied theater at USC while taking acting classes weekly at Nancy Banks Studio. At age 15 he started a clothing line.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: Patrick is also signed with LA Models, which had plans to push him for Ralph Lauren and Armani ad campaigns. He has stated that he hopes to raise awareness of his clothing company by taking on high-profile modeling jobs.


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: Schwarzenegger had supporting roles in 2012's "Stuck in Love", 2013's "Grown Ups 2" and 2015's "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse". His first leading role was opposite Bella Thorne in 2018's "Midnight Sun", a romantic drama about a teenage girl with a rare medical condition, which went on to gross over 27 million dollars worldwide. His performance in the 2019 horror "Daniel Isn't Real" was praised as "excellent" and played with "a playful intensity similar to his father" and "a restraint unusual in actors his age". In 2020, Schwarzenegger worked opposite Academy Award winner Michael Shannon in "Echo Boomers", then in 2021, went to star in Netflix's comedy-drama coming-of-age film "Moxie".


title: Patrick Schwarzenegger

text: While studying at Brentwood High School, Schwarzenegger took private acting lessons with Nancy Banks. In 2012, he matriculated at the University of Southern California, and graduated from the USC Marshall School of Business with a minor in Cinematic Arts in May 2016. He was part of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Nikki Sixx (born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr.; December 11, 1958) is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, bassist, and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Prior to forming Mötley Crüe, Sixx was a member of Sister before going on to form London with his Sister bandmate Lizzie Grey. In 2000, he formed side project group 58 with Dave Darling, Steve Gibb and Bucket Baker, issuing one album, "Diet for a New America". Also in 2002, he formed the hard rock supergroup Brides of Destruction with L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns. Formed in 2006, initially to record an audio accompaniment to Sixx's autobiography "", his side band features songwriter, producer, and vocalist James Michael and guitarist DJ Ashba.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Sixx has also worked with a number of artists and groups, co-writing and/or producing songs, such as Sex Pistols's guitarist Steve Jones, Lita Ford, Alice Cooper, Meat Loaf, Marion Raven, Drowning Pool, Saliva and The Last Vegas, among others.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Sixx launched the clothing line "Royal Underground" in 2006 with Kelly Gray, formerly the co-president and house model of St. John. Initially the label concentrated on men's clothing before expanding into women's apparel. In 2010, Premiere Radio Networks launched nationally syndicated rock/alternative music radio programs "Sixx Sense" and "The Side Show Countdown" with both based in Dallas, Texas and hosted by Sixx and co-hosted by Jenn Marino.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr. was born on December 11, 1958, in San Jose, California. He is of Italian descent on his father's side, from Prato, Tuscany. Sixx was partially raised by his single mother, Deana Richards, and by his grandparents after his father left the family. Feranna later moved in with his grandparents after his mother abandoned him. Feranna relocated several times while living with his grandparents. Feranna's uncle, husband of Deana's sister Sharon, is Don Zimmerman, producer and president of Capitol Records. Feranna had one full biological sister, Lisa (born with Down syndrome; died circa 2000) and has one (half) brother Rodney Anthony Feranna (born 1966) and a half-sister Ceci.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Feranna grew up listening to Deep Purple, Harry Nilsson, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Queen, and Black Sabbath; he later discovered T. Rex, David Bowie, and Slade. While living in Jerome, Idaho, Feranna's youth was troubled; he became a teenage vandal, broke into neighbors' homes, shoplifted, and was expelled from school for selling drugs. His grandparents sent him to live with his mother, who had moved to Seattle. Feranna lived there for a short time and learned how to play the bass guitar, having bought his first instrument with money gained from selling a guitar he had stolen.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: At the age of 17, Feranna moved to Los Angeles and worked menial jobs such as working at a liquor store and selling vacuum cleaners over the phone while he auditioned for bands. He eventually joined the band Sister, led by Blackie Lawless, after answering an ad in "The Recycler" for a bass player. Soon after recording a demo, Feranna was fired from Sister along with bandmate Lizzie Grey.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Feranna and Grey formed the band London soon afterward, in 1978. During this time, Feranna legally changed his name to Nikki Sixx. After a number of lineup changes, London added former Mott the Hoople singer Nigel Benjamin to the group, and recorded a 16-track demo in Burbank. After the departure of Benjamin, along with the failure to find a replacement, Sixx departed London. The group would go on to feature Sixx's former Sister bandmate Blackie Lawless (later of W.A.S.P.), Izzy Stradlin (then of Hollywood Rose, later of Guns N' Roses) and drummer Fred Coury (later of Cinderella). In 2000, a number of the London demos recorded with Sixx were included on "London Daze" by Spiders & Snakes, led by former London guitarist Lizzie Grey.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: In 1981, Sixx founded Mötley Crüe alongside drummer Tommy Lee. They were later joined by guitarist Mick Mars through an ad in the local newspaper, and singer Vince Neil, with whom Lee had attended high school. The band self-recorded their debut album, "Too Fast for Love", which was subsequently released in November 1981 on the band's own Leathür Records label. After signing with Elektra Records, they re-released the same album. The band then went on to record and release "Shout at the Devil", raising the band to national fame. They issued three more albums during the 1980s, "Theatre of Pain" in 1985, "Girls, Girls, Girls" in 1987, and "Dr. Feelgood" in 1989. The latter ended up being their most successful record, staying in the charts for 114 weeks after its release.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: During his time with Mötley Crüe, Sixx became addicted to heroin. He is quoted in "The Heroin Diaries" as saying: "Alcohol, acid, cocaine... they were just affairs. When I met heroin it was true love." He estimates he overdosed "about half a dozen times". On December 23, 1987, Sixx overdosed on heroin and was reportedly declared clinically dead for two minutes before a paramedic revived him with two syringes full of adrenaline.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: After releasing the compilation album "Decade of Decadence" in 1991, Neil left the group, and was replaced by John Corabi, who formerly served with The Scream. They released one self titled album with Corabi, in 1994, before firing him in 1996. Afterwards, they reunited with Neil, with whom they released "Generation Swine" in 1997.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Sixx had become controversial for an incident during a Mötley Crüe concert at Greensboro Coliseum on October 30, 1997, in which he used racial epithets while goading the audience to physically attack a black security guard for repeatedly attacking a female fan. In May 2001, Sixx addressed the issue, and claimed he had apologized to the victim of the incident.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: In 1999, Tommy Lee left the group to form Methods of Mayhem. He was replaced by former Ozzy Osbourne drummer Randy Castillo, with whom they released the album "New Tattoo" in 2000. The group went on hiatus soon afterward before reuniting in 2004, during which Sixx declared himself sober. A 2001 autobiography entitled "The Dirt" packaged the band as "the world's most notorious rock band". The book made the top ten on "The New York Times" Best Seller list and spent ten weeks there.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: In 2006, Mötley Crüe completed a reunion tour, featuring all four original members, and embarked on a co-headlining tour with Aerosmith, called The Route of All Evil. In April 2008, the band announced the first "Crüe Fest", a summer tour, that featured Sixx's side project , Buckcherry, Papa Roach and Trapt. On June 24, 2008, Mötley Crüe released their ninth studio album, "Saints of Los Angeles", with Sixx credited as either writer or co-writer on all tracks.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Sixx wrote most of Mötley Crüe's material, including tracks such as "Live Wire", "Home Sweet Home", "Girls, Girls, Girls", "Kickstart My Heart", "Wild Side", "Hooligan's Holiday" and "Dr. Feelgood". In the 1990s, all four members began contributing to the material on the albums.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: In 2000, Sixx formed the internet-based side project 58 with producer Dave Darling, guitarist Steve Gibb (formerly of Black Label Society and Crowbar) and drummer Bucket Baker. They released one single, titled "Piece of Candy", and their debut album, "Diet for a New America", also in 2000 through Sixx's Americoma label and Beyond Records. The group did not tour, and was described by Sixx as "strictly an artistic thing."


title: Nikki Sixx

text: Brides of Destruction were formed by Sixx and Tracii Guns in Los Angeles 2002 initially with the name Cockstar after Mötley Crüe went on hiatus and Guns left L.A. Guns. Sixx also invited former Beautiful Creatures guitarist DJ Ashba to join the group however he declined to focus on his solo band, ASHBA. Ashba would eventually join Sixx in


title: Nikki Sixx

text: After a few lineup changes, that included Sixx's former Mötley Crüe bandmate John Corabi, keyboardist Adam Hamilton and drummer Kris Kohls of Adema, the group was composed of Sixx, Guns, singer London LeGrand and drummer Scot Coogan formerly of Ednaswap and Annetenna.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: They were advised by radio programmers that the name Cockstar would not be announced on air. They briefly adopted the moniker Motordog before settling on Brides of Destruction.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: They entered the studio with producer Stevo Bruno to begin recording what would become "Here Come the Brides". The Brides played their first show opening for Mudvayne and Taproot on November 14, 2002, at the Ventura Theatre in California.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: After signing a deal with Sanctuary Records, the group released "Here Come the Brides" in 2004, with the album debuting at number 92 on the "Billboard" 200 selling over 13,000 copies. A tour of the US, Europe, including an appearance at Download Festival in the United Kingdom, and Australia followed.


title: Nikki Sixx

text: On October 25, 2004, it was announced that the group were to go on hiatus while Sixx reunited with Mötley Crüe for a reunion tour. The group continued without Sixx, however, with Guns adding former Amen bassist Scott Sorry to the group as Sixx's replacement. The second Brides of Destruction album, titled "Runaway Brides", released in 2005 featured three songs co-written by Sixx during the "Here Come the Brides" sessions.