title: Heather Locklear

text: In March 2008, a 9-1-1 call was made by someone who claimed to be Locklear's doctor, who said that Locklear was trying to commit suicide. Emergency responders were dispatched to Locklear's home. Her publicist later said that Locklear had never requested any medical assistance, and the Ventura County Sheriff's Department later stated that no further action was taken once they arrived at Locklear's Westlake Village home, as she appeared to be fine. They did, however, state that they believed the call was genuine.


title: Heather Locklear

text: On June 24, 2008, Locklear checked into a medical facility in Arizona for psychological ailments including anxiety and depression, and requested an in-depth evaluation of her medication to receive proper diagnosis and treatment. Her agent confirmed Locklear was suffering from anxiety and depression. On July 23, 2008, Locklear returned home after four weeks of treatment at the facility.


title: Heather Locklear

text: In September 2008, Locklear was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer and arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, just outside Santa Barbara after she was seen driving erratically. Police had been tipped off about Locklear's driving by Jill Ishkanian, a former reporter and editor at "Us Weekly" magazine, who saw Locklear outside a market in Montecito, California. Ishkanian photographed the incident and then sold the photos to the celebrity-news website TMZ.com for $27,500, although she claims it was entirely a chance meeting and denies having followed or set up Locklear to obtain photographs. Locklear was formally charged on November 17, 2008, with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence. A blood test detected no alcohol nor illegal narcotics, but Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Lee Carter stated authorities believe the prescription medications Locklear consumed for her anxiety and depression "could have impaired her ability to safely drive a motor vehicle". On January 2, 2009, Locklear pleaded no contest to reckless driving, and in return the district attorney dismissed the DUI charges. Locklear was sentenced to three years of informal probation, a DMV driver safety class and a $700 fine.


title: Heather Locklear

text: On January 12, 2012, Locklear's sister called 9-1-1 when she believed Locklear was in danger after reportedly taking prescription drugs and alcohol. Emergency personnel responded, and Locklear was taken to Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California, but was reported to be out of danger the following day.


title: Heather Locklear

text: In February 2018, Locklear was arrested for domestic violence and battery against a police officer. She was charged with one felony count of domestic violence and three misdemeanor counts of battery on a police officer. As deputies arrived at her Thousand Oaks home, she allegedly kicked three of the arresting sheriff deputies and told the deputies she would shoot at them if they ever came into her home again. According to audio of the 911 call, Locklear's brother called the police after coming to her home, where he found Locklear and her boyfriend arguing. Locklear was released on a $20,000 bond just before 6 a.m. the next day. Locklear's boyfriend, former American Motorcycle Association motocross racer Chris Heisser, was arrested on a driving under the influence charge in Thousand Oaks, hours after Locklear had been taken into custody. After obtaining a warrant, police searched her home for a weapon on March 12 but found none.


title: Heather Locklear

text: On June 24, 2018, Locklear was arrested again, this time for two misdemeanor counts of battery. On June 25, 2018, after being released on bail for charges of battery, Locklear was hospitalized in a suspected case of overdose. In August 2019, she pleaded no contest to charges stemming from that arrest and was sentenced to 30 days in a residential mental health facility.


title: Aries (astrology)

text: Aries () (Greek: Κριός [Kriós], Latin for "ram") is the first astrological sign in the zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ <30°), and originates from the Aries constellation. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign from approximately March 21 to April 19 each year. This time duration is exactly the first month of the Solar Hijri calendar (Arabic Hamal/Persian Farvardin/Pashto Wray).


title: Aries (astrology)

text: According to the tropical system of astrology, the Sun enters the sign of Aries when it reaches the March equinox, typically on March 21. Because the Earth takes approximately 365.24 days to go around the Sun, the precise time of the equinox is not the same each year, and generally will occur about six hours later from one year to the next until reset by a leap year. The leap day February 29 causes that year's March equinox to fall about eighteen hours earlier compared with the previous year.


title: Aries (astrology)

text: Aries is the first fire sign in the zodiac, the other fire signs being Leo and Sagittarius. Individuals born while the Sun is in this sign may be called "Ariens" The color for Aries is red. In astrology, Aries is the cardinal sign of the fire trigon. It is one of the six positive signs.


title: Aries (astrology)

text: In Greek Mythology, the symbol of the ram is based on the Chrysomallus, the flying ram that rescued Phrixus and Helle, the children of the Boeotian king Athamas and provided the Golden Fleece. Aries is derived from the God of War, Ares. He is described as, "murderous, bloodthirsty, the incarnate curse of mortals; and, strangely, a coward". The Roman name for Ares was Mars, which is the ruling planet of the sign.


title: Aries (astrology)

text: According to astrologers, the gender of Aries is masculine. The element is fire. The modality is cardinal. The ruling planet is Mars, which also rules Scorpio. Masculine, or positive, zodiac signs are said to take initiative in pursuing their ambitions with aggressive tendencies. Fire signs possess leadership skills and are uninhibited in their approach to life, which can manifest positively with spontaneity or negatively with impulsivity. They project a strong persona but are more sensitive than they may appear. Cardinal signs have a forceful nature and act decisively. They also prefer to do things in accordance with their own ideas and may be viewed as 'bossy'. Mars being the ruling planet makes Aries a sign that is determined to get what they want, and the planet's influence gives Aries a short temper. Aries, being the first sign of the zodiac, tend towards a child-like spirit or immaturity.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Ready Player One is a 2018 American science fiction adventure film based on Ernest Cline's novel of the same name. Directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Zak Penn and Cline, it stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance. The film is set in 2045, where much of humanity uses the OASIS, a virtual reality simulation, to escape the real world. A teenage orphan finds clues to a contest that promises the ownership of the OASIS to the winner, and he and his allies try to complete it before an evil corporation can do so.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Development of the film first began in 2010 when Warner Bros. acquired the rights to the book. In July 2015, Spielberg signed on to direct and produce the film, with casting commencing in September 2015. Filming began in England in June 2016 and was completed in September that year. The visual effects were handled by Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain, and Territory Studio, with some pre-visualization work done by The Third Floor. As with the novel, many popular culture references appear throughout the film, including references to "The Shining", the "Back to the Future" franchise, and "The Iron Giant."


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: "Ready Player One" premiered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas on March 11, 2018, and was theatrically released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on March 29, 2018. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised Spielberg's direction, the visual effects, brisk pacing, and the performances of both Sheridan and Rylance. It grossed around $583 million worldwide, and earned a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 91st Academy Awards, 24th Critics' Choice Awards, and 72nd British Academy Film Awards. "Ready Player One" was awarded the title of Best Science Fiction Film at the 45th Saturn Awards, and a further two Outstanding Achievement Awards from the Visual Effects Society. A sequel is in development.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: In a dystopian 2045, people seek to escape from reality through the virtual reality entertainment universe called the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Games. After Halliday's death, a pre-recorded message left by his avatar Anorak announces a game, granting ownership of the OASIS to the first to find the golden Easter egg within it, which gets locked behind a gate requiring three keys which players can obtain by accomplishing three challenges. The contest has lured several "Gunters", or egg hunters, and the interest of Nolan Sorrento, the CEO of Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who seeks to control the OASIS himself by inserting intrusive online advertising. IOI uses an army of indentured servants, and employees called "Sixers" to find the egg.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Teenage orphan Wade Watts' avatar Parzival, an avid Gunter, participates in the first challenge, an unbeatable race, along with his best friend Aech, and Art3mis, a female avatar on whom Parzival has a crush. Parzival regularly visits Halliday's Journals, a simulated archive of Halliday's life and hobbies, run by the Curator. Wade receives the Copper Key from Anorak after he wins by driving backward, while Art3mis, Aech, and his friends Daito and Sho, all win the race afterward, later being collectively named the High-5 on the OASIS' scoreboard.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Sorrento asks mercenary i-R0k to learn Wade's true identity, intending to bribe him to win the contest on IOI's behalf. Wade and Art3mis discover from the Journals that Halliday once dated Morrow's wife Karen "Kira" Underwood. Wade and Art3mis visit the Distracted Globe night club to look for clues, where Wade confesses his love and true name to Art3mis. They survive an IOI raid in which Art3mis abandons Wade, explaining that her father died in debt to IOI. i-R0k, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, informs Sorrento of his findings. Sorrento contacts Wade with his offer. When rejected, Sorrento attempts to dispose of Wade by bombing his home, killing his aunt Alice and her boyfriend Rick among others. Art3mis' player Samantha Cook takes Wade in. Together, they realize the second challenge relates to Halliday's regret of not pursuing a relationship with Kira. Along with Aech, Daito, and Sho, Parzival and Art3mis search for the recreation of the Overlook Hotel. Art3mis asks Kira to dance and wins the Jade Key. Sorrento's subordinate F'Nale Zandor storms the Gunters' hideout, taking Samantha to an IOI Loyalty Center to pay off her father's debt. Wade escapes with the help of the other High-5 users, Helen Harris (Aech), Toshiro (Daito), and Zhou (Sho) in Helen's truck. Samantha escapes confinement after Aech and Parzival hack Sorrento's OASIS rig.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: The third challenge is found in Castle Anorak on Planet Doom, where players must guess Halliday's favorite Atari 2600 game to earn the Crystal Key. i-R0k places a forcefield around the castle using the Orb of Osuvox, but Art3mis soon disables it. The High-5 lead an army of OASIS players against IOI's forces. Parzival kills Samantha's avatar, allowing her to flee IOI with the High-5 picking her up nearby. Parzival and Sorrento fight in the OASIS with Sorrento detonating the Cataclyst bomb, wiping out every avatar on Planet Doom including himself. Parzival survives using an extra life coin given to him earlier by the Curator in a bet. He plays "Adventure", winning the Crystal Key by locating Warren Robinett's Easter egg. He uses the three keys to enter a treasure room, where Anorak offers him a contract to sign. Parzival recognizes it as the one Morrow signed when Halliday forced him out of Gregarious Games and refuses to sign it. Anorak transforms into Halliday, who expresses his regrets in life and awards Parzival the Easter egg.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Ogden Morrow appears, revealing that he is the Curator. Wade decides to run the OASIS with the High-5, inviting Morrow to join them as a consultant. After Aech sends the police a copy of Sorento confessing to the bombing, he and F'Nale are arrested. As the IOI Loyalty Centers are shut down, the High-5 make the controversial choice to close the OASIS every Tuesday and Thursday for people to spend more time in the real world, including Wade and Samantha, who start a relationship.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Letitia Wright, Mckenna Grace, and Lulu Wilson make appearances in the film, with Wright as a rebel who can be seen at Samantha's safe house, and Grace and Wilson as students using the OASIS.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Warner Bros. bought the film rights for producers Dan Farah and Donald De Line in June 2010, one year before the book was published. Ernest Cline was set to write the script for the film, which De Line and Farah would produce. Eric Eason rewrote Cline's script, and Zak Penn was hired to rewrite the previous drafts by Cline and Eason (who became uncredited for the final draft), along with Village Roadshow Pictures coming aboard. Steven Spielberg signed on to direct and produce the film, which Kristie Macosko Krieger also produced, along with De Line and Farah. Cline and Penn made several revisions while adapting the novel to film. Most of these changes were to eliminate scenes that would be uninteresting in a visual format, such as when Wade beats a high score in "Pac-Man", or recites all the lines from the film "WarGames". In 2016, American musician Moby said he had tried to make the book into a movie, but discovered that Spielberg had taken the role before him.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Elle Fanning, Olivia Cooke, and Lola Kirke were the frontrunners for the role of Art3mis; with Cooke announced as having been cast in the role by September 2015. In January 2016, Ben Mendelsohn joined the cast. In February 2016, Tye Sheridan was confirmed to play Wade, after a lengthy casting search for the role. Simon Pegg was added to the cast in March, with Mark Rylance joining in April. By June, T.J. Miller, Hannah John-Kamen, and Win Morisaki had also been cast in the film. In July, Philip Zhao joined the cast, with Lena Waithe, Ralph Ineson, Mckenna Grace, and Letitia Wright being revealed as appearing in the film over time prior to the film's release.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: In October 2019, "Doctor Sleep" director Mike Flanagan revealed that Jack Nicholson, who portrayed Jack Torrance in "The Shining", was approached to appear in the film, but declined the offer due to his retirement.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Production was slated to begin in July 2016, but on July 1, 2016, screenwriter Zak Penn confirmed that the first week of filming had already been completed, meaning that filming began on June 24, 2016. In August and September 2016, filming took place in Birmingham, England, standing in for Columbus, Ohio. Birmingham filming included on Livery Street in the Jewellery Quarter area of the city, which was used for multiple scenes in the film. Ludgate Hill Car Park lot on Lionel Street, in which caravan homes were partially built, was also used, and a planned explosion there caused some local businesses and residents to call emergency services as no prior notice was given by the production team. Other locations in the city included the former industrial area of Digbeth, and some of the city's landmarks were erased and replaced with CGI buildings to create a dystopian future Ohio. Outside of Birmingham, filming also took place at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden and at Solaris House, the former Sun Microsystems headquarters in Surrey. Principal photography wrapped on September 27, 2016.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Digital Domain, and Territory Studio developed the visual effects, with some pre-visualization work done by The Third Floor. For three hours three days a week, Spielberg met with ILM, which was in charge of the OASIS segments and produced the bulk of the visual effects shots, with 900 in total; Spielberg remarked that "this is the most difficult movie I've done since "Saving Private Ryan"", as three 3-hour long meetings a week were necessitated to discuss the visual effects. Visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett stated that the VFX team would collaborate with Spielberg and writers Cline and Penn:


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Part of the film takes place in a virtual space based on the Overlook Hotel in the film "The Shining". This was mostly a digital recreation using high-quality telecine of the original film, allowing new camera angles and shots that did not appear in the original. Some original footage from "The Shining" was also used, with ILM's modifications. Only a few scenes in this sequence involved real actors (such as the appearance of the Grady twins) and required reproduction of "The Shining"s physical sets. The "Shining" sequence was post-processed with film grain and other aging effects to make the new footage closely resemble the original. During the production of "Ready Player One", The VFX team built the sequence the Overlook Hotel in the digital realm. Stanley Kubrick's blueprints were used to recreate the hotel in the film. ILM also had to produce digital versions of the film's many cultural references, including the DeLorean time machine (from the "Back to the Future" films); the Iron Giant; Chucky; and King Kong, modeled after the 1933 film version. The "Tyrannosaurus rex" from "Jurassic Park" was created from the base model ILM had created. Digital Domain facilitated pre-visualization (with The Third Floor), motion capture, and virtual sets, and also created 300 visual effects shots for the primarily live-action portions of the film. The virtual sets were powered by game engines and were used congruently with the motion-capture process, with previsualization supervisor Scott Meadows explaining that in real time Spielberg would "put on a headset and scout the sets and make adjustments."


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: On June 9, 2016, John Williams was initially going to compose the film's score. However, in July 2017, Williams left the project in favor of scoring Spielberg's "The Post", and Alan Silvestri took over scoring duties for the film. The official score was released by WaterTower Music as a two-CD set on March 30, 2018, with vinyl and cassette releases projected. At Spielberg's request, Silvestri references his own music from "Back to the Future" within the film's score, as well as quoting music written by other composers including Max Steiner's theme from "King Kong", Akira Ifukube’s main theme from "Godzilla", and the score by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind from "The Shining."


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: "Ready Player One" pays homage to popular culture from various time periods, mainly the 1970s and 1980s but also extending to the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s; reviewers have identified over a hundred references to films, television shows, music, toys, video games, anime, and comics from these eras. Cline did not have any issues with these copyrighted elements when he published the book, but was aware that securing all necessary rights would be a major obstacle for a film adaptation. This task was eventually made easier thanks to Spielberg's reputation in the film industry. In the end, Spielberg estimated that they managed to get about 80% of the copyrighted elements they desired. The production was not able to secure "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" from Columbia Pictures.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: The "Dungeons & Dragons" module "Tomb of Horrors" features in an important episode of the book, the "Copper Key challenge", but that reference was excluded from the film, where the challenge features a huge car race in New York instead. However, the movie does reference the module: artwork of the "Tomb of Horrors" demon appears on the back of Aech's van.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Similarly "Blade Runner", which was integral to the plot of the book, was shelved as "Blade Runner 2049" was in production at the same time as "Ready Player One" and the producers at Alcon Entertainment feared that Spielberg's film could damage the commercial prospects of their film; as a replacement, the creative team had the players play through the events of "The Shining", which Spielberg was able to secure the rights to as an homage to his friend Stanley Kubrick. Penn and Cline also thought that the film could be the opportunity to replace such a lengthy sequence with a more action-heavy one. Once they decided to use "The Shining", they were doubtful at first that Spielberg would accept the change, but Spielberg did go for it. While Cline's original work heavily used the character of Ultraman, the rights over the character were still under legal dispute, requiring them to replace Ultraman with the titular robot from "The Iron Giant" and RX-78-2 Gundam. Spielberg recognized that his past films were a significant part of the 1980s popular culture cited in the book, and to avoid being accused of "vanity", he opted to remove many of the references to his own work. Cline stated that he believed Spielberg wanted to avoid self-references to films he directed, due to the criticism he received for his film "1941", which lampooned his own previous works "Jaws" and "Duel". Cline said he had to convince Spielberg to include some iconic elements, such as the DeLorean time machine from "Back to the Future", which Spielberg conceded as the film was one he produced rather than directed. Spielberg also allowed the "Tyrannosaurus rex" from his own "Jurassic Park" to be included. Cline also asked ILM to include a reference to "Last Action Hero", one of Penn's first screenplays, without Penn's knowledge; a movie marquee in the Manhattan race segment bears the name "Jack Slater", the character Arnold Schwarzenegger played in that film.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: "Ready Player One" was originally scheduled to be released on December 15, 2017. However, on February 9, 2016, the film was delayed to March 30, 2018, to avoid competition with "". In January 2018, it was announced the film's release date had been moved up one day to March 29, 2018. The film had its world premiere at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas on March 11, 2018 (as part of the South by Southwest Film Festival). Warner Bros. distributed the film worldwide, with Village Roadshow Pictures distributing in several overseas territories. Around the same time the film was released, massively multi-player online game platform "Roblox" held an event based on it. The winner of the event was the user r0cu.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: "Ready Player One" was released on digital copy on July 3, 2018, and on 4K UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 24, 2018. The film debuted at the top of the NPD VideoScan First Alert chart, a tracker of combined domestic Blu-Ray and DVD unit sales, for the week ending on July 27, 2018. It retained the No. 1 spot on the chart for the week ending on August 4, 2018.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: "Ready Player One" grossed $137.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $445.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $583 million. "Deadline Hollywood" estimated that the film needed to gross at least $440 million in order to break even.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Ready Player One" was projected to gross $40–50 million from 4,100 theaters over its first four days. It made $12.1 million on its first day, including $3.75 million from Wednesday night previews. It ended up grossing $41.8 million in its opening weekend (for a four-day total of $53.7 million). The film made $24.6 million in its second weekend, finishing second behind newcomer "A Quiet Place", and $11.5 million in its third weekend, finishing in fourth.


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% with an average score of , based on reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Ready Player One" is a sweetly nostalgic thrill ride that neatly encapsulates Spielberg's strengths while adding another solidly engrossing adventure to his filmography." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave the film an 82% overall positive score and a 65% "definite recommend".


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: In a review for "RogerEbert.com", Brian Tallerico wrote that the film's "overwhelming" nature and non-stop action will likely thrill fans of pop culture; while he observed narrative weaknesses, such as a lack of depth among the supporting characters, he felt that they ultimately do not hinder the film from working "on the level of technical, blockbuster mastery that Spielberg helped define". Writing for "Variety", Owen Gleiberman called the film a "coruscating explosion of pop-culture eye candy" and found the sequence based on "The Shining" to be "irresistible". However, he criticized Spielberg's separation of fantasy and reality, and he said the film has "more activity than it does layers". "IndieWire"s Eric Kohn characterized the film as "an astonishing sci-fi spectacle and a relentless nostalgia trip at once" and praised both the sequence based on "The Shining" and Penn's screenplay, particularly with respect to Mendelsohn's character. Nevertheless, he remarked that the film "drags a bunch in its final third". Alissa Wilkinson, writing for "Vox", praised both the quality and quantity of the worldbuilding. She also commented on just how dystopian the future portrayed is, where the main characters fight to save the OASIS and the escape from reality it represents, with arguably less concern for the problems of the real world. Film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz praised "Ready Player One" and noted the undercurrent of sadness present in the film, stating that "I don't think Spielberg gets enough credit for making sad films that most people interpret as happy, and complex films that are immediately dismissed as simple or confused". Seitz concluded that the film "is a mess, but it is a fascinating and complex one..." In March 2019, a year after the film's release, Seitz determined that with "Ready Player One"s images commenting on capitalism and popular culture, the film was the second-most "interesting [and] substantive" big-budgeted fantasy in 2018 after "Black Panther", admitting that "I still think about ["Ready Player One"] a lot, especially concerning the world around me."


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: Monica Castillo was more critical of the film in her review for "The Guardian" and drew attention to the absence of character arcs, the lack of resolution for plot holes in the novel, and the bloating of scenes in the film by trivia. Alonso Duralde, writing for "TheWrap", found the usage of pop culture references lacking, and found his experience watching the film as "feeling bombarded with images, bored by the lack of an interesting story, and irritated with my own cultural past. I've never been much of a video-game player, but by the finale, I was ready to 'Leeroy Jenkins!' my way out of the theater".


title: Ready Player One (film)

text: When asked about a sequel to the film, Cline stated: "I think there's a good chance that, if this one does well, Warner Bros. will want to make a sequel. I don't know if Steven [Spielberg] would want to dive back in, because he would know what he is getting into. He's said that it's the third-hardest film he's made, out of dozens and dozens of movies". Co-star Olivia Cooke, and presumably the rest of the cast, is "contracted to sequels". Cline wrote a book sequel, titled "Ready Player Two", which was released on November 24, 2020, stating in the acknowledgments that he had consulted Spielberg on the final draft of the book and where to take an adaptation. On December 22, 2020, Cline announced that a sequel was in the early stages of development.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Prince George, Duke of Kent, (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942) was a member of the British royal family, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was a younger brother of kings Edward VIII and George VI.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Prince George served in the Royal Navy in the 1920s and then briefly as a civil servant. He became Duke of Kent in 1934. In the late 1930s he served as an RAF officer, initially as a staff officer at RAF Training Command and then, from July 1941, as a staff officer in the Welfare Section of the RAF Inspector General's Staff. He was killed in a military air-crash on 25 August 1942.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Prince George was born on 20 December 1902 at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England. His father was the Prince of Wales (later King George V), the only surviving son of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: His mother was the Princess of Wales, later Queen Mary, the only daughter and eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. At the time of his birth, he was fifth in the line of succession to the throne, behind his father and three older brothers: Edward, Albert and Henry.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: George was baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 26 January 1903 by Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Prince George received his early education from a tutor and then followed his elder brother, Prince Henry, to St Peter's Court, a preparatory school at Broadstairs, Kent. At the age of 13, like his brothers, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII and Prince Albert, later King George VI, before him; he went to naval college. First at Osborne and later, at Dartmouth. He was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 15 February 1924, and was promoted to lieutenant on 15 February 1926. He remained on active service in the Royal Navy until March 1929, serving on and later on the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet (renamed the Home Fleet in 1932), . He served on the latter as a lieutenant on the admiral's staff before transferring in 1928 to HMS "Durban" on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda; where his father had previously served on HMS "Canada" and HMS "Thrush", as a watch-keeping Lieutenant.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: After leaving the navy, he briefly held posts at the Foreign Office and later the Home Office, becoming the first member of the royal family to work as a civil servant. He continued to receive promotions after leaving active service: to commander on 15 February 1934 and to captain on 1 January 1937.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: From January to April 1931, Prince George and his elder brother the Prince of Wales travelled 18,000 miles on a tour of South America. Their outward voyage was on the ocean liner . In Buenos Aires they opened a British Empire Exhibition. They continued from Río de la Plata to Rio de Janeiro on the liner and returned from Brazil to Europe on the liner , landing at Lisbon. The princes returned via Paris and an Imperial Airways flight from Paris–Le Bourget Airport that landed specially in Windsor Great Park.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: On 23 June 1936, George was appointed a personal aide-de-camp to his eldest brother, the new king, Edward VIII. Following the abdication of Edward VIII, he was appointed a personal naval aide-de-camp to his elder brother, now George VI. On 12 March 1937, he was commissioned as a colonel in the British Army and in the equivalent rank of group captain in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was also appointed as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Fusiliers from the same date.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: In October 1938 George was appointed Governor-General of Australia in succession to Lord Gowrie with effect from November 1939. On 11 September 1939 it was announced that, owing to the outbreak of the Second World War, the appointment was postponed.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: On 8 June 1939, George was promoted to the ranks of rear admiral in the Royal Navy, major-general in the British Army and air vice-marshal in the Royal Air Force. At the start of the Second World War, George returned to active naval service with the rank of rear admiral, briefly serving in the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: On 12 October 1934, in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage to his second cousin, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, he was created Duke of Kent, Earl of St Andrews, and Baron Downpatrick. The couple married on 29 November 1934 at Westminster Abbey. The wedding was followed by a Greek ceremony in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, which was converted into an Orthodox chapel for the ceremony. They had three children:


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: There were rumours that he had affairs with musical star Jessie Matthews, writer Cecil Roberts, and Noël Coward, a relationship which Coward's long-term partner, Graham Payn, denied. While married, he had an affair with Margaret Whigham, later known as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: George was also rumoured to have been addicted to drugs, especially morphine and cocaine, an allegation which reputedly originated from his friendship with Kiki Preston (née Alice Gwynne, 1898–1946), whom he first met in the mid-1920s. Known as "the girl with the silver syringe" due to her addiction to heroin, Preston – a


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: cousin of railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt – was married first to Horace R. B. Allen and then, in 1925, to banker Jerome Preston. She died after jumping out of a window of the Stanhope Hotel in New York City.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Other alleged sexual liaisons include a "ménage à trois" with Preston and José Uriburu, bisexual son of Argentinean ambassador to the UK .


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: In addition to his legitimate children, he was said to have had a son by Kiki Preston. According to the memoirs of a friend, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Prince George's brother, the Duke of Windsor, believed that the son was Michael Temple Canfield (1926–1969), the adopted son of American publisher Cass Canfield – and the first husband of Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Some authors have alleged that like his elder brother, Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, he was a Nazi sympathiser with ties to Rudolf Hess but the claim has not been proven.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: As a young man the Duke came to the opinion that the future lay in aviation. It became his passion, and in 1929, the Duke earned his pilot's licence. He was the first of the royal family to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air. Before his flying days, he entered the Royal Navy, and was trained in intelligence work while stationed at Rosyth.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: In March 1937, he was granted a commission in the Royal Air Force as a group captain. He was also made the Honorary Air Commodore of No. 500 (County of Kent) Squadron Auxiliary Air Force in August 1938. He was promoted to air vice-marshal in June 1939, along with promotions to flag and general officer rank in the other two services.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: In 1939 he returned to active service as a rear admiral in the Royal Navy, but in April 1940, transferred to the Royal Air Force. He temporarily relinquished his rank as an air officer to assume the post of staff officer at RAF Training Command in the rank of group captain, so that he would not be senior to more experienced officers. On 28 July 1941, he assumed the rank of air commodore in the Welfare Section of the RAF Inspector General's Staff. In this role, he went on official visits to RAF bases to help boost wartime morale.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Prince George was initiated into freemasonry on 12 April 1928 in Navy Lodge No 2612. He subsequently served as master of Navy Lodge in 1931, and was also a member of Prince of Wales's Lodge No 259, and Royal Alpha Lodge No 16, of which he served as master in 1940. He was appointed senior grand warden of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1933, and served as provincial grand master of Wiltshire from 1934, until he was elected grand master of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1939; a position he held until his death in 1942.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: On 25 August 1942, George and 14 others took off in a RAF Short Sunderland flying boat W4026 from Invergordon, Ross and Cromarty, to fly to Iceland on non-operational duties. The aircraft crashed on Eagle's Rock, a hillside near Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland. George and all but one of the those on board were killed. He was 39 years old.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince have written about the crash in their book "Double Standards", which, however, has been criticised for its "implausible inaccuracy".


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: They alleged that Kent had a briefcase full of 100 Swedish krona notes, worthless in Iceland, handcuffed to his wrist, leading to speculation the flight was a military mission to Sweden, the only place where Swedish notes were of value.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: His death in RAF service marked the first time in more than 450 years that a member of the royal family died on active service. The prince's body was transferred initially to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and he was buried in the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore, directly behind Queen Victorias mausoleum. His elder son, six-year-old Prince Edward, succeeded him as Duke of Kent. Princess Marina, his wife, had given birth to their third child, Prince Michael, only seven weeks before Prince George's death. His will was sealed in Llandudno in 1943. His estate was valued at £157,735 (or £5 million in 2022 when adjusted for inflation).


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: One RAF crew member survived the crash: Flight Sergeant Andrew Jack, the Sunderland's rear gunner. Flight Sergeant Jack's niece has claimed that Jack told his brother that the Duke had been at the controls of the plane; that Jack had dragged him from the pilot's seat after the crash; and that there was an additional person on board the plane whose identity has never been revealed.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: The Duke's early life is dramatised in Stephen Poliakoff's television serial "The Lost Prince" (2003), a biography of the life of the Duke's younger brother John. In the film, the teenage Prince 'Georgie' is portrayed as sensitive, intelligent, artistic and almost uniquely sympathetic to his brother's plight. He is shown as detesting his time at the Royal Naval College and as having a difficult relationship with his austere father.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: In May 2008, the BBC aired its Radio 4 comedy, "Hut 33", Series 2, Episode 1, titled "The Royal Visit". The main guest character for this episode was Duke of Kent, played by Michael Fenton-Stevens. The show is set at Bletchley Park with a team of code breakers. The Duke has been chosen to make an impromptu visit, and the code breakers have been told to hide all evidence of their real work and invent a story. On no account should the Duke be told what really happens at Bletchley because he is a Nazi spy. He is also portrayed as promiscuous and bisexual, as he tries to gain sexual favours from one of the male staff, and one of the female characters recalls a previous liaison with the Duke.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Much of George's later life was outlined in the documentary film "The Queen's Lost Uncle". He is a recurring character in the revival of "Upstairs, Downstairs" (2010/2012), played by Blake Ritson. He is portrayed as a caring brother, terrified of the mistakes that his family is making; later, he is portrayed as an appeaser of the German regime, but also as a supportive friend of Hallam Holland.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: George and his eldest brother the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, are shown in Stephen Poliakoff's BBC television serial "Dancing on the Edge" (2013), in which they are portrayed as supporters of jazz and encouragers of Louis Lester's Jazz Band. A sexual attraction to Louis on George's part is also insinuated.


title: Prince George, Duke of Kent

text: Around the time of his elder brother Prince Henry's twenty-first birthday, Prince George was granted the use of the Royal Arms, differenced by a label argent of three points, each bearing an anchor azure.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris that aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning seven seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, the show is about four older women who share a home in Miami, Florida. It was produced by Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions, in association with Touchstone Television. Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, and Harris served as the original executive producers.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "The Golden Girls" received critical acclaim throughout most of its run, and won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. It also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Each of the four stars received an Emmy Award, making it one of only four sitcoms in the award's history to achieve this. The series also ranked among the Nielsen ratings' top ten for six of its seven seasons. In 2013, "TV Guide" ranked "The Golden Girls" number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 69 in their list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time". Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The show features an ensemble cast and the plot revolves around four older single women (three widows and one divorcée) sharing a house in Miami. The owner of the house is a widow named Blanche Devereaux (McClanahan), who was joined by fellow widow Rose Nylund (White) and divorcée Dorothy Zbornak (Arthur) after they both responded to an ad on the bulletin board of a local grocery store a year before the start of the series. In the pilot episode, the three are joined by Dorothy's 80-year-old widowed mother, Sophia Petrillo (Getty), after the retirement home where she has been living has burned down.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The first episode features a cook/butler named Coco (played by Charles Levin), but the role was dropped before the second episode. The writers observed that in many of the proposed scripts, the main interaction between the women occurred in the kitchen while preparing and eating food. They decided that a separate cook would distract from their friendship. In addition, the character of Sophia had originally been planned as an occasional guest star, but Getty had tested positively with preview audiences, so the producers decided to make her a regular character.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "The Golden Girls" came to an end when Bea Arthur chose to leave the series. In the hour-long series finale, which aired in May 1992, Dorothy meets and marries Blanche's uncle Lucas (Leslie Nielsen) and moves to Hollingsworth Manor in Atlanta. Sophia is to join her, but in the end, she stays behind with the other women in Miami. This led into the spin-off series, "The Golden Palace".


title: The Golden Girls

text: The series finale of "The Golden Girls" was watched by 27.2 million viewers. As of 2016, it was the 17th-most watched television finale.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Ideas for a comedy series about older women emerged during the filming of a television special at NBC Studios in Burbank, California, in August 1984. Produced to introduce the network's 1984–85 season schedule, two actresses appearing on NBC shows, Selma Diamond of "Night Court" and Doris Roberts of "Remington Steele", appeared in a skit promoting the upcoming show "Miami Vice" as "Miami Nice", a parody about old people living in Miami. NBC senior vice president Warren Littlefield was among the executive producers in the audience who were amused by their performance, and he envisioned a series based on the geriatric humor the two were portraying.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Shortly afterward, he met with producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, who were pitching a show about a female lawyer. Though Littlefield nixed their idea, he asked if they would be interested in delivering a pilot script for "Miami Nice", instead. Their regular writer declined, so Witt asked his wife, Susan Harris, who had been semiretired since the conclusion of their ABC series "Soap". She found the concept interesting, as "it was a demographic that had never been addressed," and she soon began work on it. Though her vision of a sitcom about women in their 60s differed from NBC's request for a comedy about women around 40 years old, Littlefield was impressed when he received her pilot script and subsequently approved production of it. "The Cosby Show" director Jay Sandrich, who had previously worked with Harris, Witt, and Thomas on "Soap", agreed to direct the pilot episode.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The pilot included a gay houseboy, Coco (Charles Levin), who lived with the girls. Levin had been suggested by then-NBC president Brandon Tartikoff based on Levin's groundbreaking portrayal of a recurring gay character, Eddie Gregg, on NBC's Emmy-winning drama "Hill Street Blues". After the pilot, the character of Coco was eliminated from the series.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Walt Disney, NBC Studios and the creators were named in a federal copyright infringement suit filed by Nancy Bretzfield claiming the show was based on a script rejected by NBC in 1980. The suit was later settled.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The part of Sophia Petrillo was the first of the four roles to be cast. Estelle Getty auditioned and won the role as the feisty mother of character Dorothy Zbornak, due, in part, to the rave reviews she garnered in her off-Broadway role reprisal for the 1984 Los Angeles run of "Torch Song Trilogy". Afterwards, Getty had returned to New York, but gained permission from her manager to return to California in early 1985. Getty figured it would be her last chance to find television or film work. She would return home to New York if she were unsuccessful.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Casting director Judith Weiner had seen "Torch Song Trilogy", and thought Getty was terrific in it. She was also impressed by Getty's audition for the role of the mother of Steven Keaton (played by actor Michael Gross) for a guest episode of "Family Ties". Although Getty was impressive, the show's producers went with another actress. Getty came to Weiner's mind soon after, when it became time to begin casting of "The Golden Girls."


title: The Golden Girls

text: Getty, who went through a three-hour transformation to become Sophia, wore heavy make-up, thick glasses, and a white wig to look the part. The character of Sophia was thought by the creators to enhance the idea that three retirement-aged women could be young. Disney's Michael Eisner explains, "Estelle Getty made our three women into girls. And that was, to me, what made it seem like it could be a contemporary, young show." Getty continuously battled stage fright during her tenure on the show. In a 1988 interview, Getty commented on her phobia and expressed how working with major stars, such as Arthur and White, made her even more nervous. At times, she even froze on camera while filming.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Hired to shoot the pilot, director Jay Sandrich also became instrumental in helping to cast the roles of Blanche Devereaux and Rose Nylund. Both Rue McClanahan and Betty White came into consideration, as the series "Mama's Family", in which the two co-starred, had been cancelled by NBC. Producers wanted to cast McClanahan as Rose and White as Blanche based on roles they previously played; White portrayed man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", while McClanahan co-starred as sweet but scatterbrained Vivian Harmon in "Maude". Eager not to be typecast, they took the suggestion of Sandrich and switched roles at the last minute.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In the pilot script, Blanche was described as "more Southern than Blanche DuBois", so McClanahan was perplexed when she was asked by director Sandrich during the filming of the pilot not to use the strong Southern accent she had developed, but to use her natural Oklahoma accent instead. Once the show was picked up for a first season, new director Paul Bogart felt exactly the opposite, insisting that McClanahan use a Southern accent. McClanahan deliberately exaggerated her accent, stating, "I played Blanche the way I felt Blanche. She thought an accentuated Southern accent...would be sexy and strong and attractive to men. She wanted to be a Southern heroine, like Vivien Leigh. In fact, that's who I think she thought she was."


title: The Golden Girls

text: Though Harris had created the character of Dorothy with a "Bea Arthur type" in mind, Littlefield and the producers initially envisioned actress Elaine Stritch for the part. Stritch's audition flopped, however, and under the impression that Arthur did not want to participate, Harris asked McClanahan if she could persuade Arthur, with whom she worked previously on the CBS sitcom "Maude", to take the role. Arthur flipped upon reading the script, but felt hesitant about McClanahan's approach, as she did not "want to play (their "Maude" characters) Maude and Vivian meet Sue Ann Nivens." She reconsidered, however, after hearing that McClanahan and White had switched roles.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Arthur and White worked well together in shared mutual respect, but they did not pursue a personal friendship with one another outside of "The Golden Girls" set. Arthur's son, Matthew Saks, later spoke of tension between the two actresses, stating that his mother, "unknowingly carried the attitude that it was fun to have somebody to be angry at...It was almost like Betty became her nemesis, someone she could always roll her eyes about at work." Both actresses had dramatically different training and acting backgrounds; Saks commented on White's habit of breaking the fourth wall to engage and joke with the studio audience during breaks between filming, which Arthur found unprofessional. In 2011, White stated that she believed it was her "positive attitude" and perky demeanor that got on Arthur's nerves. Interestingly, Arthur preferred that her three castmates and she all break for lunch together on workdays.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The show was the second television series to be produced by the Walt Disney Company under the Touchstone Television label, and was subsequently distributed by Buena Vista International, Inc. (which holds as the ownership stake in Disney Channel Southeast Asia, now Disney–ABC Television Group).


title: The Golden Girls

text: Creator Susan Harris went on to contribute another four episodes to the first season, but became less involved with the sitcom throughout its run; she continued reading all scripts, though, and remained familiar with most of the storylines. Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman were the first head writers of the series, and wrote for the show's first four seasons. As head writers, Speer and Grossman, along with Mort Nathan and Barry Fanaro, who won an Emmy Award for outstanding writing the first season, gave general ideas to lower staff writers, and personally wrote a handful of scripts each season.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In 1989, Marc Sotkin, previously a writer on "Laverne & Shirley" and a producer on another Witt/Thomas series, "It's a Living", assumed head-writing responsibilities, and guided the show (to varying degrees) during what were its final three seasons. Richard Vaczy and Tracy Gamble, previously writers on "227" and "My Two Dads", also assumed the roles of producers and head writers. Beginning in 1990, Marc Cherry served as writer and producer, years before creating "Desperate Housewives", which ran on ABC from 2004 to 2012. Mitchell Hurwitz also served as writer for the show in its last two seasons. Hurwitz later created "Arrested Development" for Fox and later for Netflix.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Cherry commented on read-throughs of the scripts that "generally, if the joke was a good one, the women found a way to make it work the very first time they read it. You have a lot of table reads where the actors will mess it up because they don't understand what the characters are doing, or they misinterpret. But the women were so uniformly brilliant at nailing it the first time...we basically knew that if the women didn't get it right the first time, the joke needed to be replaced." According to Cherry, the writers' room was "a competitive atmosphere. There was a lot of competition to get your words into the script." Writer Christopher Lloyd explained that the usual situation was for all of the more junior writers to be assigned the same scene to write, with the one judged the best version becoming the one chosen. This "created a great deal of stress and competitiveness amongst those of us who weren't in that inner sanctum."


title: The Golden Girls

text: After season three, Arthur had expressed her growing dissatisfaction with the disparaging jokes made about her physical appearance, which were often in the script. She expressed that she would not continue if changes were not made, but changes were made and jokes regarding Dorothy's physique appeared less often. Christopher Lloyd later said, "I think that was a mistake we made, to be a little bit insensitive to someone who was an extremely sensitive person...I think we pushed that [the jokes about Arthur's appearance] a little bit far and I think she let it be known she didn't love that."


title: The Golden Girls

text: Estelle Getty's stage fright, which affected her from the beginning of the show, grew worse as the show went on. According to McClanahan, by the end of season three, Getty's anxiety had become a serious problem, and she had increasing trouble memorizing her lines. To aid her retention, Getty tried hypnosis, and the show hired an assistant to run lines with her before taping; neither method worked. She took to writing her lines on props at which she could glance easily, like the wicker purse Sophia always carried with her. The cast often had to stay behind after the audience had departed to redo scenes where Getty had flubbed her lines, and although this was at first met with resistance from the producers, cue cards were eventually introduced to help her. Rue McClanahan, who shared a dressing room with Getty, described the severity of Getty's stage fright: "She'd panic. She would start getting under a dark cloud the day before tape day...You could see a big difference in her that day. She'd be walking around like Pig-Pen under a black cloud. By tape day, she was unreachable. She was just as uptight as a human being could get. When your brain is frozen like that, you can't remember lines." Getty died in 2008, the result of dementia with Lewy bodies. Her co-stars, in an interview, said that her disease had progressed to the point that she was not able to hold conversations with them or recognize them. She had reportedly started to show signs of the dementia during the filming of the television series, when, despite more than three decades of theater work, she began to struggle to remember her lines, and in later seasons of the show, had to rely on cue cards.


title: The Golden Girls

text: During season six, some uncertainty arose over whether Bea Arthur would commit to future seasons, or leave the show once her contract expired to pursue other projects. Arthur felt the characters had been in every possible scenario, and wanted to end the series while it was still successful. Debbie Reynolds was brought on as a guest star in the season-six episode "There Goes the Bride: Part 2" to test her chemistry with the other actresses as a possible replacement for Arthur, but producers decided that nobody could replicate the chemistry of the four original actresses. In any event, Arthur chose to commit to a seventh and final season.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The house's address was mentioned as being 6151 Richmond Street, Miami. The model used for exterior shots of the house from the third season through the end of the series was part of the backstage studio tour ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This façade, along with the "Empty Nest" house, sustained hurricane damage leading to Disney's 2003 decision to bulldoze the houses of "Residential Street" and construct its attraction, later replaced by . The façade was based on a real house at 245 North Saltair Avenue in the Westgate Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Producers used this residence for exterior shots during the first two seasons. In 2020, owners marketed the property for $3 million.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The show's designer, Ed Stephenson, took inspiration from his time living in Florida to design a "Florida look" for "The Golden Girls" house set. The wooden accents, columns, and doors were painted to mimic bald cypress wood, popular in South Florida homes, with rattan furniture and tropical-printed upholstery chosen for the furniture.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The kitchen set seen on "The Golden Girls" was originally used on an earlier Witt/Thomas/Harris series, "It Takes Two", which aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983. However, the exterior backdrop seen through the kitchen window changed from the view of Chicago high-rises to palm trees and bushes for the Miami setting. Space was limited on the soundstage, so when the kitchen was off camera, it was usually detached from the rest of the set and the space used for something else. The doorway from the living room, with the alcove and baker's shelf just inside, was designed to give the illusion that the actors were walking into and out of the kitchen.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Costume designer Judy Evans created distinctive looks for each of the four actresses to suit their characters' personalities and to reflect the Florida setting. According to Evans, "I wanted a sexy, soft, and flowing look for Rue, a tailored, pulled-together look for Bea, a down-home look for Betty, and comfort for Estelle." Anna Wyckoff of the Costume Designers Guild wrote, "Evans took the direction from the producers to create a vibrant look for the four mature leads, and ran with it...redefining what 'dressing your age' looked like." Many of the character's outfits were designed by Evans and made specially, but seven to ten costume changes per episode were made between the four actresses, which entailed a great deal of off-the-rack shopping. Evans generally dressed the actresses in expensive pieces and high-quality fabrics, despite the recurring theme that the four characters were struggling with money, because, "The main idea was to make them look good. We didn't want the show to be about four dowdy ladies."


title: The Golden Girls

text: Bea Arthur had a preference for wearing loose-fitting clothing, like slacks and long sweaters, along with sandals, because she hated wearing shoes. She had established this signature look while playing Maude, and Evans honored it in her designs for Dorothy. Much of Arthur's wardrobe was custom-made because at the time, finding off-the-rack clothing that was flattering for a taller woman was difficult. Rue McClanahan had a special clause written into her contract allowing her to keep her costumes, which were mostly custom-made using expensive fabrics. Eventually, McClanahan went on to create a clothing line for QVC called "A Touch of Rue", inspired by Blanche, but made with affordable fabrics and practical designs.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "The Golden Girls" was shot on videotape in front of a live studio audience. Many episodes of the series followed a similar format or theme. For example, one or more of the women would become involved in some sort of problem, often involving other family members, men, or an ethical dilemma. At some point, they would gather around the kitchen table and discuss the problem, sometimes late at night and often while eating cheesecake, ice cream, or some other dessert. One of the other girls then told a story from her own life, which somehow related to the problem (though Rose occasionally regaled the others with a nonsense story that had nothing to do with the situation, and Sophia told outrageous, made-up stories). Some episodes featured flashbacks to previous episodes, flashbacks to events not shown in previous episodes, or to events that occurred before the series began. Though the writing was mostly comical, dramatic moments and sentimental endings were included in several episodes. One of the actresses on the show, Bea Arthur, actually hated cheesecake.


title: The Golden Girls

text: On Metacritic, the series has an overall score of 82 out of 100, based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: The Golden Girls

text: During the NBC upfronts, the preview screening of the show got a standing ovation. The show promptly received a full order of 12 episodes.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In 2013, "TV Guide" ranked "The Golden Girls" number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 69 in their list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time". Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well.


title: The Golden Girls

text: An instant ratings hit, "The Golden Girls" became an NBC staple on Saturday nights. The show was the anchor of NBC's Saturday line-up, and almost always won its time slot, as ABC and CBS struggled to find shows to compete against it, the most notable being ABC's Lucille Ball sitcom "Life With Lucy" in the beginning of the 1986–87 season although it aired at 8:00, an hour earlier. "The Golden Girls" was part of a series of Brandon Tartikoff shows that put an end to NBC's ratings slump, along with "The Cosby Show", "227", "Night Court", "Miami Vice", and "L.A. Law."


title: The Golden Girls

text: The show dealt with many controversial issues, such as coming out and same-sex marriage, elder care, homelessness, poverty, HIV/AIDS and discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, US immigration policy, sexual harassment, teenaged pregnancy, artificial insemination, adultery, bad medical care, sexism, miscegenation and interracial marriage, antisemitism, age discrimination, environmentalism, addiction to pain killers, problem gambling, nuclear war, death, and assisted suicide.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Writer and producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created a sitcom with this kind of image as a "four women" show, which became "Designing Women" on CBS. "Designing Women" began competing against "The Golden Girls".


title: The Golden Girls

text: At the request of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was reputedly a big fan, the cast of "The Golden Girls" performed several skits as their characters in front of other members of the royal family and her at the 1988 Royal Variety Performance in London.


title: The Golden Girls

text: During its original run, "The Golden Girls" received 68 Emmy nominations, 11 Emmy awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Viewers for Quality Television awards. All the lead actresses won Emmy awards for their performances on the show. "The Golden Girls" is one of four live-action shows, along with "All in the Family", "Will & Grace", and "Schitt's Creek", where all the principal actors have won at least one Emmy.


title: The Golden Girls

text: As a tribute to the success of "The Golden Girls", all four actresses were later named Disney Legends as part of the class of 2009.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Beginning July 3, 1989, NBC added daytime reruns of the show, replacing long-running "Wheel of Fortune" (which had moved to CBS) on the NBC schedule at 11:00 am(EST); it ran until September 1990. At this time, syndicated reruns began airing, distributed by Buena Vista Television (now Disney–ABC Domestic Television), the syndication arm of Disney, whose Touchstone Television division produced the series.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In March 1997, the Lifetime cable network acquired the exclusive rights to repeat the episodes of "The Golden Girls" in the US until March 1, 2009. Many episodes were edited to allow more commercials and for content.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Both the Hallmark Channel and WE tv picked-up the reruns in March 2009. As of February 2013, WE tv's rights expired and Viacom networks' TV Land, home to Betty White's last series "Hot in Cleveland", purchased them, as did Logo TV. In 2020, CMT purchased the rights to the series.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In Australia, the show airs daily on FOX Comedy. As of 2019, every episode is available for streaming on Stan. As of December 1, 2021, every episode was made available to stream on Disney+.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In Canada, Corus Entertainment's digital specialty channel, DejaView, aired reruns of "The Golden Girls" until 2017. As of September 8, 2021 all 7 seasons of "The Golden Girls" were made available to stream on Disney+ in Canada.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In Germany, airing of the show started in January 1990, only months before the German reunification, by German public broadcaster ARD in the late evening programme on their main channel Das Erste. The show was aired as a bilingual broadcast using a two-channel sound system (Zweikanalton). If technically supported by the home television, this system allowed their audience to watch the show either in the dubbed German version (by default) or the original English version. After reruns on different regional channels of the ARD Network, the show later aired on private channels RTL, VOX, Super RTL, Disney Channel and RTLup. While RTL initially chose to cut some scenes for time, some of the gags remain incomprehensible for their broadcast and all subsequent reruns, only to be restored partially for the release of DVD in 2005. As of September 15, 2021, every episode was made available to stream on Disney+ in Germany and Austria.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In Southeast Asia, Rewind Networks began airing reruns of "The Golden Girls" on its HD channel, HITS, in 2013.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In New Zealand, the series aired on TVNZ and is replayed on public holidays and it is shown on Jones!.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In the United Kingdom, the series aired on Channel 4, Living and Disney Channel. Another brief run of the show began on 27 April 2020 till summer 2020 on Channel 5, but only showed episodes up to the season-four finale and is returning to Channel 4 starting from early 2022.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "Forever Golden: A Celebration of The Golden Girls" released in select movie theaters across North America via Fathom Events on September 14, 2021, marking the show's 36th anniversary. The film featured five episodes from the show: "The Pilot", "The Flu", "The Way We Met", "Ladies of the Evening" and "Grab That Dough".


title: The Golden Girls

text: Buena Vista Home Entertainment has released all seven seasons, with edits, of "The Golden Girls" on DVD in Region 1 and Region 4 with the first four being released in Region 2. On November 9, 2010, the studio released a complete-series box set titled "The Golden Girls: 25th Anniversary Complete Collection". The 21-disc collection features all 180 episodes of the series as well as all special features contained on the previously released season sets; it is encased in special collectible packaging, a replica of Sophia's purse. On November 15, 2005, Warner Home Video released "The Golden Girls: A Lifetime Intimate Portrait Series" on DVD which contains a separate biography of Arthur, White, McClanahan and Getty, revealing each woman's background, rise to stardom and private life, which originally aired on Lifetime network between June 2000 and January 2003.


title: The Golden Girls

text: A continuation, "The Golden Palace," aired in the 1992–1993 season, starring all the main cast with the exception of Bea Arthur (though she did guest star).


title: The Golden Girls

text: Upon the success of "The Golden Girls", creator Susan Harris later devised "Empty Nest" as a spin-off with some character crossovers. "Nurses" was later spun-off from "Empty Nest", and the shows occasionally had special episodes in which characters from one show made appearances in the others.


title: The Golden Girls

text: After the original series ended, White, McClanahan, and Getty reprised their characters in the CBS series "The Golden Palace", which featured Rose, Blanche, and Sophia selling their house to buy and run a hotel in Miami. It ran from September 1992 to May 1993 and also starred Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle. Bea Arthur was not a part of the main cast but did guest star in a double episode, reprising her role as Dorothy.


title: The Golden Girls

text: The show never approached the popularity or acclaim of the original, and ranked 57th in the annual ratings. Reportedly, a second season was approved before being cancelled the day before the network announced its 1993–94 schedule.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Lifetime, which held the rights to "The Golden Girls" at the time, aired reruns of "The Golden Palace" in the summer of 2005, and again in December of that year. This was the first time since 1993 that "The Golden Palace" was seen on American television. Until April 2006, Lifetime played the series as a virtual season eight, airing the series in between the conclusion of the final season and the syndicated roll-over to season one.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Susan Harris developed a spin-off centering on the empty nest syndrome. The initial pilot was aired as the 1987 "Golden Girls" episode "Empty Nests", and starred Paul Dooley and Rita Moreno as George and Renee Corliss, a married couple living next to the "Golden Girls" characters, who face empty nest syndrome after their teenaged daughter goes to college. When that idea was not well received, Harris retooled the series as a vehicle for Richard Mulligan, and the following year "Empty Nest" debuted, starring Mulligan as pediatrician Harry Weston, a widower whose two adult daughters moved back home.


title: The Golden Girls

text: Characters from both shows made occasional crossover guest appearances on the other show, with the four girls guesting on "Empty Nest" and Mulligan, Dinah Manoff, Kristy McNichol, David Leisure, and Park Overall appearing on "The Golden Girls" in their "Empty Nest" roles. After the end of "The Golden Palace", Getty joined the cast of "Empty Nest", making frequent appearances as Sophia in the show's final two seasons. Mulligan and Manoff were alumni from one of Susan Harris' earlier shows, "Soap".


title: The Golden Girls

text: "Empty Nest" launched its own spin-off in 1991 set in Miami in the same hospital where Dr. Weston worked. The series starred Stephanie Hodge and a set of other young nurses. As one of the few times in television history where three shows from the same producer, set in the same city, aired back-to-back-to-back on the same network, the three shows occasionally took advantage of their unique circumstance to create storylines carrying through all three series, such as "Hurricane Saturday".


title: The Golden Girls

text: Starring actress Hodge left after two seasons, David Rasche joined the cast at the start of the second season, and Loni Anderson was added as the new hospital administrator in the third.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "The Golden Girls: Live!" was an off-Broadway show that opened in the summer of 2003 in New York City at Rose's Turn theater in the West Village, and ran until November of that year. The production ended because the producers failed to secure the rights and received a cease-and-desist order by the creators of the original television show. Featuring an all-male cast in drag, "The Golden Girls: Live!" consisted of two back-to-back episodes of the sitcom: "Break-In" (season one, episode eight) and "Isn't It Romantic?" (season two, episode five).


title: The Golden Girls

text: The cast of "The Golden Girls", Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose, have been even further immortalised in two puppet parody shows "Thank You For Being A Friend" and "That Golden Girls Show: A Puppet Parody", both created by Australian screenwriter Thomas Duncan-Watt and producer Jonathan Rockefeller.


title: The Golden Girls

text: "Golden Girls 3033" is an animated pilot created by Mike Hollingsworth. The pilot takes audio from the sitcom and sets it against a futuristic background inspired by The Jetsons.


title: The Golden Girls

text: In 2017, a "Golden Girls"-themed eatery, Rue la Rue Cafe owned by Rue McClanahan's close friend Michael La Rue, who inherited many of the star's personal belongings and in turn decorated the restaurant with them, opened in the Washington Heights section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The eatery closed in November 2017 after less than a year of operation.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 Armata (; industrial designation ), is a next-generation Russian main battle tank based on the Armata Universal Combat Platform.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The Russian Army initially planned to acquire 2,300 T-14s between 2015 and 2020. By 2018, production and fiscal shortfalls delayed this to 2025, before Russia announced the apparent cancellation of the main production run on 30 July 2018. However, , Russian state-owned TASS media agency claimed the Armata had been expected to begin serial production in 2022, with delivery of a test batch of 100 to the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division expected to begin in 2022. The tanks are planned to only be officially transferred following completion of all state tests. In December 2021 the Russian state conglomerate Rostec stated that serial production had commenced, with "more than 40" Armata tanks anticipated to be delivered to Russian troops after 2023.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In November 2022 Moscow Times and Newsweek reported that the state program under which the T-14 Armata is being developed has been halted.


title: T-14 Armata

text: After the cancellation of the T-95 in 2010, Uralvagonzavod began the OKR Armata (Armament) design study. The study resulted in the Object 148 based on the T-95 (itself based on the Object 187). The Russian Army curtailed T-90 orders beginning in 2012 to prepare for the arrival of the new tank.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 first publicly appeared in March 2015, when several tanks with covered turrets were seen loaded on train carriage in Alabino. It was subsequently revealed on 9 May during the 2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade. During the 2015 rehearsals, one of the tanks suddenly stopped moving, and after attempts to tow it failed, it moved away under its own power after about 15 minutes.


title: T-14 Armata

text: At least seven T-14 Armata tanks appeared in the 2015 and 2016 Moscow Victory Day parade, five in 2017 and 2018. Four were anticipated in promotional materials in advance of the 2019 parade.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The state trials of the tank have started in early 2020. This became known in April 2020, when Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov stated the T-14 has already been tested in combat conditions on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. Subsequently in July 2020, testing of an unmanned version of the T-14 called "Tachanka-B" () was announced.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In November 2022, several videos and photos of T-14s appeared on social media, apparently training at the same grounds as Russian military personnel who were mobilized. The videos were located to a training ground in Kazan, where cadets of the Kazan Higher Tank Command School train.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In 2016 the Russian Defence Ministry announced that it had signed a contract for a "test batch" of 100 T-14 tanks to be delivered by 2020, with the full project to be extended until 2025.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)." Instead, a modernization program of the T-72s, T-80s and T-90s in-service will take precedence. In August 2018, at the ARMY2018 Forum outside Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the purchase of 32 T-14s tanks and 100 T-15 infantry fighting vehicles, with delivery to be finished by 2021.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In February 2019 it was announced that the first 12 tanks would be delivered by the end of that year. In August 2019, the Russian "Military-Industrial Courier" reported that out of a contractually agreed 132 Armata-platform vehicles over three years to 2021 (including T-14 tanks, and also T-15 IFVs and T-16 BREM ARVs (), assuming production of 44 vehicles a year, only 16 would be delivered by the end of 2019. This implied a shortfall of at least 28 vehicles that year. By November 2019 the delivery forecast slipped to "late 2019 or early 2020."


title: T-14 Armata

text: In mid January 2020 the head of Rostec (the conglomerate owning Uralvagonzavod) said no Armata-platform vehicles including T-14 tanks had been delivered, and in February the CEO of Uralvagonzavod only said that Armata-platform armour (not necessarily T-14 tanks) would start shipping to begin operation evaluation in 2020, with the full contract of 132 Armata-platform vehicles completed by 2022. Furthermore, also in February 2020 it became evident that the set of requirements for the intended engine of the tank were not met by the construction bureau and the project of development of the engine would be closed in the first quarter of 2020, further delaying the introduction of the tank for an unspecified time. In August 2020, the Industry and Trade minister told journalists that the production of 132 Armata-platform tanks and fighting vehicles including T-14 tanks had begun after the resolution of problems with engines and thermal-imaging equipment, and they would be issued to the armed forces in 2021.


title: T-14 Armata

text: In July 2021, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said the tank would enter serial production in 2022. However in March, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that only “an experimental-industrial” batch of T-14s would be delivered in 2022. In August 2021, Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said that the Russian Armed Forces would receive 20 T-14 Armata tanks by the end of 2021. On 23 August, a Rostec official said that the company had shipped an unspecified number of T-14 tanks in an "experimental batch" to the Russian Armed Forces. In November 2021, state trials were in progress and expected to be completed in 2022, and a "pilot batch" of twenty tanks was yet to be delivered to the armed forces. On 24 December 2021, First Deputy General Director of Rostec Vladimir Artyakov announced, that "serial production" of the T-14 was launched. Earlier in December MIC First Deputy Chairman Andrei Yelchaninov said that state trials of new ammunition loader for the T-14 should be fully completed in 2022, and that "more than 40" Armata tanks will be delivered to Russian troops after 2023.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The Armata was designed over the course of five years, and features a number of innovative characteristics, including an unmanned turret. The crew of three is seated in an armoured capsule in the front of the hull, which will also include a toilet for the crew.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The "Vacuum-1" APFSDS round, developed for the 2A82-1M gun, has a penetrator that is 900 mm long, and is said to be capable of penetrating 1000 mm of RHA equivalent at a distance of 2 km. The new controlled-detonation "Teknik" HE-Frag shell is available and has entered service. The gun is capable of firing guided missiles like the 9M119M1 Invar-M which has an effective range of 100 m to 5 km, and can engage low-flying air targets such as helicopters, with a new 3UBK21 "Sprinter" ATGM with an effective range up to 12 km developed specifically for it. 3UBK25 active homing ATGM is currently under development.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The secondary armament consists of a 12.7×108mm Kord (GRAU index 6P49) machine gun with 300 rounds (not observed during the 2015 parade) and a 7.62×54mmR Pecheneg PKP (GRAU Index: 6P41) or a PKTM (6P7К) machine gun with 1,000 rounds. All guns are remotely controlled. In addition, another 1,000 rounds can be stored separately.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The cannon, which was first developed in 2000 for the T-95 prototype, has a high-speed APFSDS shell with a 1,980 m/s muzzle velocity, only dropping to 1,900 m/s at 2 km. However, Russian engineers have so far kept the 125 mm-size gun, assessing that improvements in ammunition are enough to increase effectiveness, while concluding that a larger bore weapon would offer few practical advantages.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 could also be modified to use anti-aircraft missiles. A 30 mm anti-aircraft gun could be installed in the near future.


title: T-14 Armata

text: During the prototype stage, several engines with power outputs ranging from 1500 to 2000 hp were tested on the platform, with the 1500 hp version reportedly allowing a max speed of 82 km/h. The T-14 is powered by a ChTZ diesel engine delivering up to . The engine's theoretical maximum power, not normally used, is , at the cost of radically decreasing its service life, projected min 2,000 hours at a nominal , comparable to other modern tank engines, and up to 10,000 hours at a moderated . The engine is electronically controlled. Operational range is over 500 km.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 has a 12-speed automatic gearbox, with a top speed of and a range of . Other sources suggest a partly or fully hydrostatic transmission.


title: T-14 Armata

text: Unlike previous Russian and Soviet designs, such as the T-90/80/72/64, the T-14 has seven 700 mm road wheels per side, based on the T-80 variant. This may have been done to improve the pivoting ability of the tank, as an active suspension system improves the target lock time by a factor of 2.2, and reduces the timeframe between target detection and reaction by 31%, all due to the resulting smoother ride.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14's crew of three is protected by an internal armored capsule. Both the chassis and the turret are equipped with the "Malachit" dual-explosive reactive armour (ERA) system on the front, sides and the top. The tank uses an integrated, computerized control system which monitors the state and functions of all tank modules. In battle, the software can analyze threats and then either suggest or automatically take actions to eliminate them, while without the external threat it can detect and rectify crew errors. Serial production of the Armata Platform's ceramic armor components began in mid-2015.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The tank features the "Afghanit" () active protection system (APS), which includes a millimeter-wave radar to detect, track, and intercept incoming anti-tank munitions, both kinetic energy penetrators and tandem-charges. Currently, the maximum speed of the interceptable target is , with projected future increases of up to . According to news sources, it protects the tank from all sides, however it is not geared towards shooting upwards to defend against top-attack munitions.


title: T-14 Armata

text: "Defense Update" released an analysis of the tank in May 2015, speculating that "Afghanit"'s main sensors are the four panels mounted on the turret's sides, which are probably AESA radar panes spread out for a 360° view, with possibly one more on top of the turret. In their opinion, the active part of the system consists of both a hard kill and soft kill element, the first of which actively destroys an incoming projectile (such as an unguided rocket or artillery shell), while the second confuses the guidance systems of ATGMs, causing them to lose target lock. They believe that it would be effective against 3rd and 4th generation ATGMs, including Hellfire, TOW, BILL, Javelin, Spike, Brimstone, and JAGM, as well as sensor-fused weapons (SFW). Some Russian sources claim the hard-kill APS is effective even against depleted uranium-cored armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds traveling at , but others are skeptical, saying the fragmentation charge would not do much to the dense penetrator; while it might be able to push it off course somewhat with a hit-to-kill approach, it likely will not do much to stop it. According to a Russian Ministry of Defence source, practical tests confirmed the destruction of the uranium subcalibre projectile (goal speed up to 2 km/s). However, several outside analysts remain skeptical, as the feat has not yet been independently verified or even publicly demonstrated.


title: T-14 Armata

text: "Afghanit" hard-kill launchers are the long tubes mounted in groups of five between the turret's front sides and the chassis. These send out an electronically activated charge that fires an unknown type of warhead towards the target. Many analysts currently assume it is some form of high-explosive fragmentation charge, but the possibility has been raised by other sources of the usage of a more solid warhead (possibly similar to an explosively formed penetrator), as seen in Russian patent RU 2263268. The tank is also equipped with the NII Stali Upper Hemisphere Protection Complex, which consists of two steerable cartridges with 12 smaller charges each, and a turret-top VLS with two more similar cartridges, corresponding to the vehicle's soft kill APS. Additionally, using the AESA radar and anti-aircraft machine gun it is possible to destroy incoming missiles and slow-flying shells (except kinetic energy penetrators).


title: T-14 Armata

text: In July 2015, the deputy director of the Uralvagonzavod tank manufacturing company claimed the T-14 would be invisible to radar and infrared detection due to radar-absorbing paint and the placement of components with heat signatures deep within the hull. The turret's shape is designed to reduce its radio and thermal signature for a stealth ground vehicle. American and Russian armor experts have doubts about these unproven claims. A retired senior U.S. military officer said that sensitive modern thermal technology could detect things such as vehicle movement, a weapon firing, an exposed crewman, or the exhaust of an engine capable of moving a 50-ton tank regardless of heat-generating component placement. Analysts also pointed out that most stealth technology in Russia has been for aircraft to reduce their radar cross section from airborne or ground-based detection, while in a ground vehicle the approach would be to make it indistinguishable from ground clutter to optimize shielding from air-to-ground detection and the two techniques do not necessarily overlap.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 is equipped with 26.5–40 GHz active electronically scanned array radar, which is used mainly by the APS. The T-14 uses highly protected communication channels that connect a group of T-14s and the command post.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The commander and gunner have largely identical multispectral image sights, with visible electromagnetic spectrum and thermography channels and laser rangefinders. The commander's sight is installed on the turret top and has a 360° field of view, while the gunner's, situated in the turret's niche to the gun's left, is slaved to it and is additionally equipped with a direct-vision periscopic channel and laser designator for the T-14's gun-launched, SACLOS anti-tank missiles. The detection distance of tank-sized objects for both sights is 7,500 m (8,000) in daylight, through the TV/periscopic channel, and ≈3,500 m at night through the thermal channel. There is also a backup night-vision capable sight, with 2,000/1,000 m respective detection distances. In addition to traditional vision periscopes, the driver has a forward looking infrared camera and a number of zooming closed-circuit television cameras. Video cameras are installed for all-round vision for the crew, since it lacks the normal vantage point of turret roof hatches. This 360-degree camera coverage is perhaps one of the T-14's most unusual features, made necessary because of extremely limited visibility without them. The crew, clustered in the front of the hull, would have poor situation awareness if the camera setup and video feeds were to fail.


title: T-14 Armata

text: Although the T-14 is touted as an entirely Russian-made next-generation tank, it has been speculated that some components may not be entirely domestically made. In 2015 US cybersecurity analysts Taia Global stated that information obtained from pro-Ukrainian hackers indicated that Russian industries have had difficulty producing critical components of night-vision systems for the tank, and have attempted to buy them from a French supplier in the past. It was claimed this means components of the T-14 could have originated outside of Russia, and may be more difficult to obtain or produce due to sanctions against Russia for its involvement in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.


title: T-14 Armata

text: This became partially subject to discussion in 2016 when the Krasnogorsk plant finished testing the "Irbis-K" night-vision sighting system. Completion of the Irbis-K, the first Russian-produced mercury-cadmium-telluride (MCT) matrix thermal sight, addressed a disadvantage of Russian tanks relative to their Western counterparts. The Irbis-K is capable of identifying targets at ranges up to 3,240 meters during both day and night.


title: T-14 Armata

text: Vladimir Kozhin, a Russian presidential aide, said that Russia's foreign partners, including China and India, have expressed interest in purchasing new military equipment presented at the 9 May Victory Day parade in Moscow, including the Armata tank. "To a larger extent it is our traditional partners: India, China and South-East Asia," he told the "Izvestia" newspaper. Even though China has shown interest in the T-14, Chinese company Norinco claims their domestic VT-4 tank is superior to the Armata design in terms of mechanical reliability, fire control, and unit cost. In 2020, Vietnam has also been reported as a potential customer of the T-14 alongside India, Egypt and Belarus.


title: T-14 Armata

text: The T-14 Armata has been described as a major concern for Western armies, and British intelligence views the unmanned turret as providing many advantages. Western observers, however, question Russia's ability to produce modern tanks like the T-90 and T-14 in significant numbers. In response to the Armata, German Rheinmetall AG has developed a new 130mm L/51 tank gun, claiming it provides a 50 percent increase in armor penetration over the 120mm L/55 in service with the Bundeswehr. Germany and France have joined forces to develop an unspecified "Main Ground Combat System" (MGCS) to compete with the technological advances of the Armata and replace both the Leclerc and Leopard 2 MBTs around 2030.


The United States presidential line of succession is the order in which the vice president of the United States and other officers of the United States federal government assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency (or the office itself, in the instance of succession by the vice president) upon an elected president's death, resignation, removal from office, or incapacity.


title: United States presidential line of succession

text: The order of succession specifies that the office passes to the vice president; if the vice presidency is simultaneously vacant, or if the vice president is also incapacitated, the powers and duties of the presidency pass to the speaker of the House of Representatives, president pro tempore of the Senate, and then Cabinet secretaries, depending on eligibility.


text: Presidential succession is referred to multiple times in the U.S. Constitution: Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, the 12th Amendment, 20th Amendment, and 25th Amendment. The vice president is designated as first in the presidential line of succession by the Article II succession clause, which also authorizes Congress to provide for a line of succession beyond the vice president. It has done so on three occasions. The Presidential Succession Act was adopted in 1947, and last revised in 2006. The 25th Amendment also establishes procedures for filling an intra-term vacancy in the office of the vice president.


text: The Presidential Succession Act refers specifically to officers beyond the vice president "acting as" president rather than "becoming" president when filling a vacancy. The Cabinet has 15 members, of which the secretary of state is first in line; the other Cabinet secretaries follow in the order of when their departments (or the department of which their department is the successor) were created. Those heads of department who are constitutionally not “eligible to the Office of President” are disqualified from assuming the powers and duties of the president through succession, and skipped to the next in line. Since 1789, the vice president has succeeded to the presidency intra-term on nine occasions: eight times due to the incumbent's death, and once due to resignation. No one lower in the line of succession has ever been called upon to act as president.


text: Widely considered a settled issue during the late 20th century, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 demonstrated the potential for a decapitation strike that would kill or incapacitate multiple individuals in the presidential line of succession in addition to many members of Congress and the federal judiciary. In the years immediately following the attacks, numerous wide-ranging discussions were started, in Congress, among academics and within the public policy community about continuity of government concerns including the existing constitutional and statutory provisions governing presidential succession. These discussions remain ongoing. One effort put forward by the Continuity of Government Commission, a nonpartisan think tank, produced three reports (2003, 2009, and 2011), the second of which focused on the implicit ambiguities and limitations in the succession act, and contained recommendations for amending the laws for succession to the presidency.


text: The presidential order of succession is set by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, as amended. The order consists of congressional officers, followed by the members of the cabinet in the order of the establishment of each department, provided that each officer satisfies the constitutional requirements for serving as president. In the table, the absence of a number in the first column indicates that the incumbent is ineligible.


text: of the Constitution sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: One must be a natural-born citizen of the United States (or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, in 1788), be at least 35 years of age and have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.


text: The Presidential Succession Act of 1792 () provided for succession after the president and vice president: first, the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by the speaker of the House. The statute provided that the presidential successor would serve in an acting capacity, holding office only until a new president could be elected. A special election was to be held in November of the year in which dual vacancies occurred (unless the vacancies occurred after the first Wednesday in October, in which case the election would occur the following year; or unless the vacancies occurred within the last year of the presidential term, in which case the next election would take place as regularly scheduled). The persons elected president and vice president in such a special election would have served a full four-year term beginning on March 4 of the next year. No such election ever took place.


text: Various framers of the Constitution, such as James Madison, criticized the arrangement as being contrary to their intent. The decision to build the line of succession around those two officials was made after a long and contentious debate. In addition to the president pro tempore and the speaker, both the secretary of state and the chief justice of the Supreme Court were also suggested. Including the secretary of state was unacceptable to most Federalists, who did not want the then secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who had become the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republicans, to follow the vice president in the succession, and many objected to including the chief justice due to separation of powers concerns.