title: Whig Party (United States)

text: High tariffs were also designed to prevent a negative balance of trade and prevent the flow of currency and credit from the country. Whigs generally opposed Democratic efforts to reduce federal land prices, implement a "preemption" policy that would allow squatters the right to purchase land before it came to auction and transfer ownership of western lands to the states. Instead, Whigs favored a "distribution" policy that would distribute revenues from federal land sales to the states; states could then invest that money in education, infrastructure projects, and other priorities. The Whigs supported federally-financed internal improvements on the belief that only the federal government could construct the transportation system necessary for uniting the country commercially and culturally.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Aside from the Whig economic program, various other issues confronted the Whig Party. Temperance never became a purely partisan issue between Whigs and Democrats, but Whigs tended to be more favorable to state prohibition laws than were Democrats. Similarly, opinions on immigration did not break down strictly on party lines, but Whigs tended to have less favorable views towards immigration, partly because most recent immigrants aligned with the Democratic Party.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: In the mid-1840s, a group of Whigs unsuccessfully pushed a bill that would have implemented new paperwork requirements for naturalization and monitored the movements of immigrants in the United States more closely. The unwillingness of Whig leaders to push for more far-reaching changes, such as an extension of the five-year naturalization period, encouraged some Whigs to join nativist third parties.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Whigs were less in favor of expansionism than their Democratic counterparts, and Whigs tended to oppose the Mexican–American War and the acquisition of new territories like Cuba. John Mack Faragher writes that Democrats sought to balance the rising power of industrialization in the United States by following "Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories", while Whigs were content to develop the country within its present borders and feared that expansion would cause a divisive debate over slavery in the territories.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Political scientist A. James Reichley writes that the Democrats and Whigs were "political institutions of a kind that had never existed before in history" because they commanded mass membership among voters and continued to function between elections. Both parties drew support from voters of various classes, occupations, religions, and ethnicities. Nonetheless, the Whig Party was based among middle-class conservatives. The central fault line between the parties concerned the emerging market economy, as Whigs embraced the economic and social changes caused by the market economy and Democrats rejected them.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Whigs drew strength from the economic elites in both Northern cities and Southern plantation regions, but they also attracted support from other classes in most cities. In many states, local rivalries pushed groups into one party or the other, though areas that favored internal improvements tended to favor Whigs. Catholics overwhelmingly voted Democrat, while Protestants were split between the two parties. Recent Irish and German immigrants generally supported the Democrats, but recent immigrants from England, Scotland, and Wales tended to support the Whigs.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Although the Whigs and the rival Democratic Party established party structures that were unprecedented in terms of mass membership and continued functionality, both parties were still essentially coalitions of state party organizations and lacked strong cohesion at the national level. The Whigs built on the strength of National Republicans and the Anti-Masonic Party to build up party organizations in Delaware, Maryland, and much of New England.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Appealing to voters with a mix of economic and social policies, the Whigs established capable party organizations in Northeastern states like New York and Pennsylvania. Unlike the Federalists and the National Republicans, the Whigs were competitive in the South, building strong state parties in Tennessee and Kentucky, and competitive parties in Louisiana, Georgia, and Virginia. By emphasizing their moral conservatism, the Whigs were also able to expand into the Northwest and win elections in a state like Ohio and Indiana. The Whigs were generally not as competitive in Democratic strongholds like New Hampshire, Maine, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Henry Clay of Kentucky was the congressional leader of the party from the time of its formation in 1833 until his resignation from the Senate in 1842, and he remained an important Whig leader until his death in 1852. His frequent rival for leadership of the party was Daniel Webster, who represented Massachusetts in the Senate and served as Secretary of State under three Whig presidents. Clay and Webster each repeatedly sought the Whig presidential nomination, but, excepting Clay's nomination in 1844, the Whigs consistently nominated individuals who had served as generals, specifically William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. Harrison, Taylor, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore all served as president, though Tyler was expelled from the Whig Party shortly after taking office in 1841. Benjamin Robbins Curtis was the lone Whig to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, though later Supreme Court justices like John Marshall Harlan affiliated with the Whig Party early in their career before joining the Court as members of another party.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: During the time of the party's existence, numerous other Whig leaders emerged, including Truman Smith of Connecticut, who Holt describes as "the Whigs' closest equivalent to a modern national party chairman" for his efforts to raise money, deliver the Whig message, and build up the party nationwide. In New York, William Seward and Thurlow Weed established an influential organization and competed with Millard Fillmore's faction of the party. John M. Clayton of Delaware and John C. Crittenden of Kentucky were important border state Whigs who were influential in the Taylor administration.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Supreme Court Justice John McLean of Ohio commanded a following in the party and was a perennial aspirant for the Whig presidential nomination, but he maintained his independence from the party and never ran for office as a Whig candidate. Thomas Corwin of Ohio emerged in the 1840s as a leading opponent of the Mexican-American War, and he later served as Fillmore's Secretary of the Treasury. William Cabell Rives of Virginia joined the Whig Party over dissatisfaction with Van Buren's handling of the Independent Treasury, and he became a prominent conservative Whig.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: In Georgia, future Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs competed for influence with their intra-party rival, John M. Berrien. Future Republican President Abraham Lincoln served a single term as a Whig congressman representing Illinois.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: One strength of the Whigs was a superb network of newspapers—their leading editor was Horace Greeley of the powerful "New-York Daily Tribune". The "Boston Atlas", under the leadership of Richard Haughton and Richard Hildreth, also emerged as an important Whig paper. Influenced by the writings of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, Henry Charles Carey became the leading Whig economist in the 1830s. Other prominent Whig-aligned intellectuals and public figures include journalist John G. Palfrey of the "North American Review", novelist John P. Kennedy, and historian William H. Prescott.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: The Whigs suffered greatly from factionalism throughout their existence as well as weak party loyalty that stood in contrast to the strong party discipline that was the hallmark of a tight Democratic Party organization. Forged out of opposition to Jackson's perceived executive tyranny, the early Whig Party was divided between former National Republicans who favored federal measures to promote economic development and Southern states' rights advocates who wished to keep federal intervention in the economy to a minimum. By the 1840s, Southern Whigs like John M. Berrien of Georgia and John Botts of Virginia endorsed interventionist measures, but other Southern Whigs like William Cabell Rives of Virginia actively sought to shift the party away from economic nationalism.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: The Whig Party faced persistent sectional divisions regarding slavery. Northern Whigs tended to be more anti-slavery than Northern Democrats, but during the 1830s Southern Whigs tended to more pro-slavery than their Democratic counterparts. By the late 1840s, Southern Democrats had become more insistent regarding the expansion of slavery, and more open to the prospect of secession than their Whig counterparts. Northern Whigs divided into two major factions concerning slavery: the anti-slavery Conscience Whigs and the pro-South Cotton Whigs. While the "Consciences" were noted for their moral opposition to slavery–many, like John Quincy Adams, brought over their crusading fervor from Anti-Masonic days


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: The other faction was tied to the cotton-based textile industry, which depended on Southern cotton. They de-emphasized the slavery issue. In Massachusetts, notable Consciences included Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson and Charles Francis Adams while the Cottons were led by such figures as Edward Everett, Robert C. Winthrop and Abbott Lawrence. During the mid-1850s, several Conscience leaders played an important role in the founding of the Republican Party.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Historian Allen C. Guelzo writes that "no major political movement...has suffered more sheer dismissal, more impatient contempt at the hands of political historians than the American Whigs". Guelzo traces the start of this "dismissal" to the writings of Henry Adams, who dismissed the Whigs as bereft of ideas, and through to the writings of historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who labeled the period during which the Whigs were active as the "Age of Jackson". The Whigs' historical reputation began to recover with the publication of "The Political Culture of the American Whigs" by historian Daniel Walker Howe in 1979. Rather than accepting the traditional understanding of the Whigs as Eastern elitists who sought to exploit the masses, Howe cast the Whigs as "sober, industrious, thrifty people" who sought to promote industrialization and national unity.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: In today's American political discourse, historians and pundits often cite the Whig Party as an example of a political party that lost its followers and reason for being, as in the expression "going the way of the Whigs". a term referred to by Donald Critchlow in his book, "The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History". Critchlow points out that the application of the term by Republicans in the Republican Party of 1974 may have been a misnomer—the old Whig party enjoyed more political support before its demise than the Republican Party in the aftermath of Nixon's resignation.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: After the dissolution of the Whig Party, the term Whig remained part of the name of various newspapers, including the "Quincy Herald-Whig". Several ephemeral small parties in the United States, including the Florida Whig Party and the "Modern Whig Party", have adopted the Whig name. In Liberia, the True Whig Party was named in direct emulation of the American Whig Party. The True Whig Party was founded in 1869 and it dominated politics in Liberia from 1878 until 1980.


title: Whig Party (United States)

text: Two alternative history works depicting histories where the Confederacy won the American Civil War include a Whig Party having a major role in the postbellum world. In Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee", a revived Whig Party is one of the two main parties of the rump United States, being the right-wing party whose platform reflects an acceptance of the United States' humbled status following its defeat in the War of Southern Independence. Conversely, in Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory Series" a Whig Party emerges as the dominant political party of an independent Confederacy, representing the interests of the plantocratic elite and dominating Confederate politics until the rise of the Freedom Party following the First Great War.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Life is a 2017 American science fiction film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and starring an ensemble cast consisting of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. In the film, a six-member crew of the International Space Station uncovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. When members of the crew conduct their research, the rapidly evolving life-form proves far more intelligent and terrifying.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: The development of "Life" began in November 2015, when Espinosa would direct a film set in space, with Wernick and Reese writing the screenplay. After the deal with Paramount Pictures was not confirmed, Sony Pictures signed on to handle the worldwide distribution rights and co-finance the film, with Skydance in March 2016. The casting call began from January to July 2016, month in which principal photography on the film began. Most of the visual effects were handled by DNEG.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: The only co-production between Skydance Media and Sony Pictures, the film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on March 24, 2017. It received mixed reviews, with praise for its acting, visuals and screenplay, but was compared unfavorably with films like "Alien" (1979). The film grossed over $100 million worldwide against a $58 million budget.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: In the near future, an unmanned space probe returns from Mars to Earth orbit with soil samples potentially containing evidence of extraterrestrial life. The probe is intercepted by the International Space Station. From its samples, exobiologist Hugh Derry revives a dormant cell that quickly grows into a multi-celled organism that American schoolchildren name "Calvin". Hugh realizes that Calvin's cells can change their specialization, acting as muscle, neuron, and photosensory cells all at once.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: During an experiment, Calvin becomes hostile, wrapping itself around Hugh's hand and crushing it. Calvin then escapes its enclosure and devours a lab rat, growing in size. Engineer Rory Adams rescues Hugh, but Calvin grabs onto his leg, prompting physician David Jordan to lock Rory in the lab. After Rory unsuccessfully attempts to destroy Calvin with a flame-throwing incinerator, Calvin enters his mouth, devouring his internal organs and killing him. After several minutes, Calvin emerges from Rory's mouth, larger than before, and escapes the lab through a fire-control vent.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: The crew attempts to inform Earth of the situation, but the station's communication system overheats, cutting off contact with Earth. ISS commander Ekaterina "Kat" Golovkina performs a spacewalk to find and fix the problem, which turns out to be Calvin. Calvin attacks Kat and ruptures her spacesuit's coolant system. As her suit fills with coolant, Kat makes her way to the airlock. She and the crew realize that Calvin will re-enter the station if they let her in, so she chooses to stay outside, and drowns in her spacesuit.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Calvin attempts to re-enter the station through its maneuvering thrusters. The crew fire the thrusters to blast it away, but they drain so much fuel that it causes the ISS to enter a decaying orbit, where it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Pilot Sho Murakami suggests using the ISS's remaining fuel to get back into a safe orbit even though it will allow Calvin to re-enter. The crew seal themselves in one side of the station and prepare to vent the atmosphere from the other side to render Calvin dormant. Unbeknownst to Hugh, a paraplegic with no feeling below the waist, Calvin latches on to his leg and begins feeding off him before the crew finishes sealing off the section where Calvin is supposed to be contained. The crew discovers Calvin feeding off of Hugh after he unexpectedly dies. Calvin attacks the crew, forcing them to flee. Sho seals himself inside a sleeping pod, while Calvin tries to break inside. David and Quarantine Officer Miranda North use Hugh's corpse as bait to lure Calvin away and trap it.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Having received a distress call prior to the damage to the ISS communication system, Earth sends a Soyuz spacecraft to push the station into deep space. This is a fail-safe to protect Earth, but Sho believes this to be a rescue and boards the Soyuz. He is followed by Calvin, who kills the Soyuz crew. A docking breach occurs, and Sho sacrifices himself in an unsuccessful attempt to trap Calvin in the Soyuz. The Soyuz detaches and crashes into the ISS, causing the ISS's orbit to decay again.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: The remaining survivors, David and Miranda, speculate that Calvin could survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, so they plan to lure Calvin into one of the ISS' two escape pods. Once inside, David will manually pilot the pod containing Calvin into deep space, thereby isolating it and enabling Miranda to return to Earth in the other pod. David leads Calvin into his pod and launches into space as Miranda launches her pod, and the two pods go in different directions. As Miranda's pod flies in one direction, she records a black box message to warn Earth of Calvin's threat. Subsequently, one pod is hit by debris, while David is attacked by Calvin while trying to pilot. Eventually, one of the two pods lands in the sea and is found by Vietnamese fishermen, while the other pod flies away from Earth. What the Vietnamese fishermen find turns out to be David's pod. Meanwhile, Miranda's pod flies uncontrollably into deep space. On Earth, the fishermen open David's pod despite his warnings, as other boats arrive at the scene.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: On November 18, 2015, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Daniel Espinosa would direct a film set in space and titled "Life", from a script from Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, which Skydance Media financing and producing, with David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Bonnie Curtis, and Julie Lynn. Paramount Pictures was circling to handle the distribution rights to the film, though the deal was not confirmed. On January 28, 2016, Rebecca Ferguson came on board to star in the film, and Ryan Reynolds subsequently joined, on February 16, 2016. On March 10, 2016, Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in the film. On March 15, 2016, Sony Pictures signed on to handle the worldwide distribution rights and co-finance the film, with Skydance. On June 23, 2016, Hiroyuki Sanada was cast to play one of the members of the International Space Station crew, and on July 19, 2016, "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that Olga Dihovichnaya and Ariyon Bakare were also cast in the film, playing other crew members. One scene in the trailer for the film features a recycled shot from the 2007 movie, "Spider-Man 3".


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began at London's Shepperton Studios on July 19, 2016. To emulate the lack of gravity, the actors were suspended by wires that were erased in post-production. Most of the visual effects were handled by Double Negative, aside from the eight-minute long take that opens the movie, done by Industrial Light & Magic using the ISS model sculpted by Double Negative. That scene was described by Daniel Espinosa as "the inverse version of "Gravity". "Gravity" looks at the vastness of space through the oner. I wanted to look at the claustrophobia." Espinosa said that "Life" was "shot to make a science fiction movie that ties into this other great American genre, which is noir", with the death of the most charismatic character that seems to be the protagonist—using "Psycho" as an example, Espinosa explained that "Ryan [Reynolds] became my Janet Leigh"—and a downer ending.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Composer Jon Ekstrand wrote his sixth score while working with Espinosa. Ekstrand aimed to create an "atonal-horror score with some melodic elements", mostly focused on orchestral music while opening with "more melodic and classical cinematic" tones to not give away the horror trappings early on. Espinosa specifically told Ekstrand to seek a sound reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann, with some influence from György Ligeti to reference the music from "".


title: Life (2017 film)

text: "Life" was released by Columbia Pictures on March 24, 2017, after being moved up from its previously announced release date of May 26, 2017, to avoid competition with "" and "", the latter of which had moved up its release date from August 4, 2017 to May 19, 2017. "Life" had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 18, 2017.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: In March 2017, it was noted that stock footage of a crowd reacting to Spider-Man catching Gwen Stacy from "Spider-Man 3"s B-roll was used in a trailer for "Life". This announcement led to theories that "Life" was secretly an origin story for the symbiote featured in "Spider-Man 3", a theory made more popular by the announcement of a "Venom" film shortly afterwards, and that "Life"s screenwriters, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, had previously written a "Venom" script. When asked about the rumour in a "Collider" interview, Daniel Espinosa confirmed that he was a fan of "Venom". Jake Gyllenhaal would later portray Mysterio in the 2019 Marvel Cinematic Universe film "". Espinosa would later go on to direct "Morbius", based on the Spider-Man character of the same name. On February 2017, Skydance Interactive announced a VR tie-in promo to the film along with their first game "Archangel".


title: Life (2017 film)

text: "Life" grossed $30.2 million in the United States and Canada and $70.3 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $100.5 million, against a production budget of $58 million.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: In North America, "Life" opened alongside "Power Rangers", "CHiPs", and "Wilson", and was projected to gross $12–17 million from 3,146 theaters during its opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $12.6 million, finishing 4th at the box office, behind "Beauty and the Beast", "Power Rangers", and "". In its second weekend, the film grossed $5.5 million, dropping to 8th at the box office.


title: Life (2017 film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 237 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Life" is just thrilling, well-acted, and capably filmed enough to overcome an overall inability to add new wrinkles to the trapped-in-space genre." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, based on reviews from 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported just 48% of audience members gave the film a "definite recommend".


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" said of the film, "For all its flashy trappings, weighty ruminations and zero-gravity floatings aboard the International Space Station, "Life" turns out to be another variant of "Alien", though without the grungy horror and grim fun. In space no one can hear you snore." Describing the theme of outer space, Ben Kenigsberg of "The New York Times" said "As the astronauts contend with airlocks, busted equipment and escape pods, it becomes increasingly difficult to pretend that this isn't territory where more inventive screenwriters and stronger visual stylists have gone before." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" faulted not the scenes but the performances, saying there was "not a single actor in "Life" who manages to fill in and humanize the blank space where a character should be."


title: Life (2017 film)

text: Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" approved of these character flaws, saying the "conflicting dynamics of their individual temperaments lead occasionally to poor decision-making. While this may be bad for their health, it's great for the movie," adding that ""Life" has cool effects, real suspense and a sweet twist. It ain't rocket science, but it does what it does well—even, one might say, with a kind of genius." Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" complimented this balance of character and plot from the director, saying "Espinosa's sense of drama is efficient, familiar, and narrow; if there's a moral sentiment to his direction, it's precisely in the limits that he imposes on the movie's dose of pain and gore." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" opined that "Life", with a "mise-en-scène" of the International Space Station, was "a wonderful setting for a meal we've tasted before," adding that it is "undeniably satisfying to be in the hands of a persuasive director who knows how to slowly ratchet up the tension to a properly unnerving level."


title: Life (2017 film)

text: "Empire" summarized their review as "Part "Alien", part "Gravity", just not as good as either of them. But "Life" whips along at a decent pace and deploys enough engaging action sequences to make it work."


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles are an Australian children's music group formed in Sydney in 1991. The group are currently composed of Anthony Field, Lachlan Gillespie, Simon Pryce and Tsehay Hawkins, as well as supporting members Evie Ferris, John Pearce, Caterina Mete and Lucia Field. The Wiggles were founded in 1991 by Field, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt, Greg Page and Phillip Wilcher. Wilcher left the group after their first album. Page retired in 2006 due to ill health and was replaced by understudy Sam Moran, but returned in 2012, replacing Moran. At the end of 2012, Cook, Fatt and Page retired and were replaced by Gillespie, Pryce and Emma Watkins. Cook and Fatt retained their shareholding in the group and all three continued to have input into its creative and production aspects. Watkins departed the group in 2021, with Hawkins taking her place.


title: The Wiggles

text: Field and Fatt were members of the Australian pop band the Cockroaches in the 1980s, and Cook was a member of several bands before meeting Field and Page at Macquarie University, where they were studying to become pre-school teachers. In 1991, Field was inspired to create an album of children's music based upon concepts of early childhood education, and he enlisted Cook, Page, and Fatt to assist him. They began touring to promote the album and became so successful, they quit their teaching jobs to perform full-time. The group augmented their act with costumed characters Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus and Wags the Dog, as well as the human character Captain Feathersword, played by Paul Paddick since 1993. Shirley Shawn the Unicorn was later introduced. They originally travelled with a small group of dancers, which later grew into a larger troupe. The group's albums, DVDs and television programs have been produced independently since their inception. The height of their popularity came in the early 2000s, after they broke into the American market.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group were formally consolidated in 2005. They were listed at the top of "Business Review Weekly"s top-earning Australian entertainers four years in a row and earned A$45 million in 2009. In 2011, the worldwide recession hit the Wiggles, as it had done for many Australian entertainers; they earned $28 million, but they still appeared second on BRW's list that year. The Wiggles have enjoyed almost universal approval throughout their history, and their music has been played in pre-schools all over the world. They have earned multiple Gold, Platinum and double Platinum records; have sold 23 million DVDs and 7 million CDs; and have performed, on average, to one million people per year. The band has earned multiple Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Music Awards, and they have been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.


title: The Wiggles

text: Anthony Field and Jeff Fatt were members of the Cockroaches, a Sydney pop band known for their "good-time R&B material" and several singles recorded by independent labels during the 1980s. In 1988, Field's infant niece, who was the daughter of Cockroaches founder and band member Paul Field, died of SIDS, causing the group to disband. Anthony Field enrolled at Macquarie University in Sydney to complete his degree in early childhood education, and later stated that his niece's death "ultimately led to the formation of [the] Wiggles". Murray Cook, also "a mature-aged student", was the guitarist in the pub rock band Bang Shang a Lang before enrolling at Macquarie. Greg Page, who had been a roadie for and sang with the Cockroaches during their final years, had enrolled in Macquarie to study early childhood education on Field's recommendation. Field, Cook, and Page were among approximately 10 men in a program with 200 students.


title: The Wiggles

text: In 1991, while still a student, Field became motivated to use concepts in the field of early childhood education to record an album of music for children. The album was dedicated to Field's niece. A song he wrote for the Cockroaches, "Get Ready to Wiggle", inspired the band's name because they thought that wiggling described the way children dance. Like a university assignment, they produced a folder of essays that explained the educational value of each song on the album. They needed a keyboardist "to bolster the rock'n'roll feel of the project", so Field asked his old bandmate Fatt for his assistance in what they thought would be a temporary project.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group received songwriting help from John Field, Anthony's brother and former bandmate, and from Phillip Wilcher, who was working with the early childhood music program at Macquarie. After contributing to their first album, hosting the group's first recording sessions in his Sydney home, and appearing in a couple of the group's first videos, Wilcher left the group and went into classical music. The group reworked a few Cockroaches tunes to better fit the genre of children's music; for example, the Cockroaches song "Hot Tamale", written by John Field, was changed to "Hot Potato". Anthony Field gave copies of their album to his young students to test out the effect of the group's music on children; one mother returned it the next day because her child would not stop listening to it.


title: The Wiggles

text: To promote their first album, the Wiggles filmed two music videos with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and created a self-produced, forty-minute-long video version. Finances were limited, so there was no post-production editing of the video project. They used Field's nieces and nephews as additional cast, and hired the band's girlfriends to perform in character costumes. Cook's wife made their first costumes. They used two cameras and visually checked the performance of each song; that way, according to Paul Field, it took them less time to complete a forty-minute video than it took other production companies to complete a three-minute music video.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Cockroaches' former manager, Jeremy Fabinyi, became the group's first manager. Using their previous connections, he negotiated with the ABC to help them promote their first recording. The album cost approximately A$4,000 to produce and it sold 100,000 copies in 1991. Anthony Field and Cook got teaching jobs, while Page finished his degree, so they could only perform during school holidays; finding time to do so was, as Field reported, "challenging". Fabinyi advised them to tour in unusual settings throughout Sydney and New South Wales. The Wiggles' debut performance was at a friend's daycare facility in Randwick, New South Wales, for about a dozen children. They played for crowds at shopping centres like Westfield in Sydney and at small pre-school events and parties, and busked at Circular Quay, then moved on to regional tours and shows for playgroup associations, averaging about 300 people in the audience. They were promoted by local playgroups or nursing mothers' associations with whom they split their proceeds. They performed at pre-schools with other ABC children's performers; when 500 people attended these concerts just to see the Wiggles, they started doing their own shows, and according to Field, "Suddenly people started rolling up to performances in astonishing numbers".


title: The Wiggles

text: In 1993, Field, Cook, and Page decided to give up teaching for a year to focus on performing full-time, along with Fatt, to see if they could make a living out of it. As Fatt reported, "it was very much a cottage industry". They used many of the business techniques developed by the Cockroaches, choosing to remain as independent and self-contained as possible. John Field, Mike Conway, who later became the Wiggles' general manager, trumpeter Dominic Lindsay, and Cockroaches saxophonist Daniel Fallon performed with them. Anthony Field, with input from the other members, led most of the production of their music, home video releases, and live shows. Their act was later augmented with supporting characters: the "friendly pirate" Captain Feathersword and the costumed characters Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, and Wags the Dog. These characters were initially performed by the band members themselves: Field played Captain Feathersword and Wags; Cook played Dorothy; and Fatt played Henry. In 1993, actor Paul Paddick permanently joined the group to play Captain Feathersword; he later became known as "the fifth Wiggle" and was as popular as the regular bandmembers. At first, the group travelled with a small group of dancers hired from a local dance studio to perform with them.


title: The Wiggles

text: After the production of their second album, the Wiggles, who were called by their first names when they performed, began to wear costumes on stage as Fabinyi suggested and as the Cockroaches had done, and adopted colour-coded shirts: Page in yellow, Cook in red, Fatt in purple, and Field in blue. The coloured shirts also made it easier for their young audience to identify them. As Field reported, the decision to emphasise colour was "a no-brainer, considering our pre-school-age audience". Cook and Fatt already owned shirts in their colours, but Field and Page "met in a Sydney department store and literally raced to see who got the blue shirt".


title: The Wiggles

text: Through the rest of the 1990s, the Wiggles maintained a busy recording and touring schedule, becoming as Field reported and despite his strong dislike of touring, "the hardest-working touring act in the country". They released multiple albums and home videos and, depending upon the word of mouth of their audience, performed to increasingly large audiences in Australia and New Zealand despite having to re-introduce themselves to a new audience of children approximately every three years. They produced a new album and video each year and toured to promote them. By late 1993, they "grew bigger than anyone had thought", and hundreds attended their concerts; by 1995 they had set records for music and video sales. In 1997, Twentieth Century Fox produced a feature-length film, "The Wiggles Movie", which became the fifth-highest grossing Australian film of 1998, earning over a million-and-a-half dollars.


title: The Wiggles

text: In spite of their early success in Australia, Paul Field reported that the band was unable to produce a television program on the ABC, where they felt they would receive the most exposure to the pre-school market. "Around 1996–1997", they filmed a television pilot for the ABC, but as "The Sydney Morning Herald" reported in 2002, "the project never got off the ground due to irreconcilable artistic differences". As a result, the Wiggles financed a TV program of 13 episodes themselves and sold it to Disney Channel in Australia and to Channel Seven, where it became a hit. By 1998, the Wiggles were ready to move on to international markets, despite its members' health issues, especially Anthony Field's. The reaction of producers in the UK was less positive than the group would have liked, although they were eventually able to make inroads there, but their real success came in the US. Disney arranged for them to perform at Disneyland in California, where they were discovered by Lyrick Studios, the producers of "Barney & Friends." Both Anthony and Paul Field reported that Lyrick, despite their initial misgivings about whether American audiences would accept the band's Australian accents, came to understand the Wiggles and their goals, and after successful tests with American children, enthusiastically promoted them.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles used many of the same promotion techniques in the US that they had used in Australia, and chose to keep their concerts simple and maintain the same values that were successful in Australia. The Wiggles performed during the intermission of "Barney Live" stage shows, which "The New York Times" likened to "getting the warm-up slot for the Stones" in the pre-school entertainment world. In 2000, when video sales took off in the US, Lyrick began to distribute Wiggles videos and advertised them by including Wiggles shorts as trailers in their "Barney" videos, which, as Anthony Field stated, "pushed us over the edge". At first, the group's videos were distributed in boutique stores such as FAO Schwarz and Zany Brainy, and on-line. According to Paul Field, they entered the mass media market when their videos became top-sellers at Amazon.com, and their first two videos, "Yummy Yummy" and "Wiggle Time", landed in the top ten at Amazon.com. Stores such as Wal-Mart began to take notice, and began to sell Wiggles videos. The band released nine DVDs in the next three years to keep up with the demand.


title: The Wiggles

text: As they had done in Australia, the Wiggles chose to tour, but start off small, with simple props and sets instead of hiring a touring company. Some of their first appearances in America were at Blockbuster Video parking lots in 1999 to small audiences—as Fatt said, "a dozen people". They performed at small venues such as church halls and 500-seat theatres in Brooklyn and New Jersey, and upgraded to larger venues as ticket sales increased. Anthony Field reported that one week they would perform to 8,000 in Sydney and to 20 people the following week at a parking lot in a small town in the US. One time, they performed for a dozen people at the Mall of America in Minnesota, but half of the audience were hired by Lyrick. Eventually, they moved to larger arenas such as the Beacon Theatre and Madison Square Garden. They performed at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, for six weeks. Their audiences began to increase, and they toured Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the US, and the UK.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles' popularity in the US increased "in the shell-shocked weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York City in 2001", when the group performed there, even when other acts cancelled their tours, a decision that earned them loyalty and respect. According to Cook, the press proclaimed that they were braver than many Australian sports teams that had cancelled their appearances. Paul Field stated, "New York has really embraced them. It was a kind of watershed." Strong sales of the Wiggles videos eventually caught the attention of Disney Channel in the US, who was impressed by their "strong pro-social message". In January 2002, Disney began showing Wiggles video clips between their programs. By June of that year, the popularity of the clips prompted Disney Channel to add both of the Wiggles' television series to their schedule and showed full episodes multiple times per day. Anthony Field reported that despite their "modest production values", the shows were popular with pre-schoolers.


title: The Wiggles

text: Beginning in 2002, the Wiggles filmed four series worth of television programs exclusively with the ABC. The network called them "the most successful property that the ABC has represented in the pre-school genre". By the end of 2002, according to Field, "we knew we were involved in something extraordinary in the US". Their concert schedule in North America doubled, seemingly overnight; they began performing up to 520 shows per year all over the world. They also began to produce other stage shows in places the Wiggles themselves were unable to visit, in Australia, the UK, and US, that featured their characters, a host, and a few dancers. "The Age" called this time period (about the mid-2000s) the group's "high point"; they earned A$45 million a year in revenues, and had several licensing deals and an international distribution agreement with Disney.


title: The Wiggles

text: Despite their success, Anthony Field almost left the group in 2004, shortly after his marriage and the birth of his first child, due to his serious medical issues, which were worsened by the Wiggles' demanding tour schedule. After meeting chiropractor James Stoxen in Chicago, Field improved his health to the point that he was able to continue. He began to hire teams of chiropractors for himself, his fellow bandmembers, and cast members in every city they performed, which he credited with making it possible for them to fulfill their touring requirements.


title: The Wiggles

text: In December 2005, lead singer Page, at age 33, underwent a double hernia operation. He withdrew from the Wiggles' US tour in August 2006, after suffering fainting spells, lethargy, nausea, and loss of balance. He returned to Australia, where doctors diagnosed his condition as orthostatic intolerance, a chronic but not life-threatening condition. Page's final performance with the Wiggles was in Kingston, Rhode Island.


title: The Wiggles

text: On 30 November 2006, the Wiggles announced Page's retirement from the group. In a video message posted on the group's web page, Page said: "I'll miss being a part of the Wiggles very much, but this is the right decision because it will allow me to focus on managing my health." "The Sydney Morning Herald" called it "unsettling". Page was replaced by Sam Moran, who had served as an understudy for the Wiggles for five years and had already stood in for Page for 150 shows. Initially, the Wiggles struggled over their decision to replace Page, but after their audience's positive response to Moran, they decided to continue as a group because they thought that was what their young audience would want. According to Fatt, who called it "a huge decision" and "a teachable moment" for them, they chose to be honest with their young audience as they made the transition from Page to Moran. As part owner of the Wiggles, Page received a payout of about $20 million.


title: The Wiggles

text: Although Moran's transition as the Wiggles' lead singer was "smooth" for the young children of their audience, it was more difficult for their parents. Moran said that "most children understood". Field reported that by the group's 20th anniversary in 2011, due to the ever-changing nature of their audience, most of their young fans were unfamiliar with Page. Cook stated that Moran's transition was challenging for the group because replacing their lead singer "changed their sound". Fatt characterised Moran's singing style as more operatic, so they chose different keys to sing and perform. The Wiggles never publicly disclosed how much Moran was paid, but it was reported that he earned $200,000 per year. Moran was featured in his first album and video as a member of the group in early 2007, and a new series of the Wiggles' television program featuring Moran was filmed and began airing in Australia.


title: The Wiggles

text: At the end of 2007, the Wiggles donated their complete back catalogue of 27 master tapes to Australia's National Film and Sound Archive. Their business ventures during these years included opening up "Wiggles World" sections in theme parks in North America and the Arab World, internet offerings, the creation of new television shows, and a five-year-long partnership with the American television network Sprout in 2009. In December 2010, Cinemalive beamed a Wiggles concert live from Acer Arena into movie theatres all over Australia, for children and their families unable to attend their shows.


title: The Wiggles

text: In early July 2011, Fatt developed arrhythmia and underwent "urgent but routine" heart surgery, when he was fitted with a pacemaker after feeling unwell for several weeks and blacking out. He missed the group's US tour as a result, after not missing a show in 20 years. Also in mid-2011, the Wiggles celebrated their 20th anniversary with circus-themed shows and performances throughout Australia and the outback in a circus tent, as well as a "physically grueling" birthday-themed tour of 90 shows throughout Australia, which Paul Field called "one of the biggest of their careers". Sydney's Powerhouse Museum commemorated the group's anniversary with an exhibit that displayed Wiggles memorabilia.


title: The Wiggles

text: In 2011, the worldwide financial crisis hit the group, and they recorded their first drop in revenues in 10 years, at approximately $2.5 million, a total decrease of 28 percent. Royalties partially offset the difference between their 2010 and 2011 revenues. Their managing director Mike Conway called 2011 their toughest year financially. For the first time, they had negative equity, with more liabilities than assets, and the owners had to provide the funds for them to continue operations. Conway stated that their losses were due to less touring time in the US, difficulties in placing their DVDs in Walmart, and their required investment in a new digital platform.


title: The Wiggles

text: In January 2012, and amidst a great deal of controversy, the Wiggles announced that Page had regained his health and was returning to the group in the place of Moran. He returned as an employee "exactly on the same level as [Moran]", rather than a co-owner, having relinquished his business interest in the group after he left in 2006. According to "The Sydney Morning Herald", the band members' interest in Page's return was sparked when they reunited during the group's induction in the ARIA Hall of Fame in November 2011. It was originally planned for Page to remain with the group temporarily until August 2012. "Business Review Weekly" reported that the presentation of Moran's departure had been mishandled and had potentially damaged their brand image. Paul Field agreed, stating that they "could have handled the communication and management of the transition better". Cook later admitted that they were shocked by the backlash in the press and among the parents of their audience. As part of his severance package, Moran continued to collect song royalties and was granted use of the Wiggles' studios.


title: The Wiggles

text: In mid-2012, the Wiggles announced that Cook, Fatt and Page would be retiring from touring with the group; Emma Watkins, the first female member of the Wiggles, replaced Page, Lachlan Gillespie replaced Fatt, and Simon Pryce replaced Cook. Anthony Field remained in the group because he found it too difficult to give up and because he still had a passion for educating children. According to Paul Field, staying in the band "was a vital decision to placate American, British and Canadian business partners". Cook, Fatt and Page remained involved with the creative and production aspects of the group. Fatt and Cook had been talking about quitting touring for many years; Cook announced his intention to retire first, citing a desire to spend more time with his family, and then Fatt announced his own retirement shortly thereafter. Page, who was still struggling with his health issues and had stated that his interest was in working with the group's original line-up, was subsequently asked to extend his stay until the end of the year so he would leave alongside Cook and Fatt, to which he agreed.


title: The Wiggles

text: Cook reported that the original members were confident that the new group would be accepted by the fans because they passed on their founding concepts of early childhood education to Gillespie, Pryce and Watkins. The new members, like Moran (who was not approached to return), were salaried employees. Watkins had previously worked with the group, first performing character roles in 2010, when Anthony Field approached her to joined the main line-up. He had initially asked her to tour with the group after being impressed by a behind-the-scenes video she had filmed. Once she had joined the group, Field asked Watkins to dye her hair red, as well as learn how to play the drums. Gillespie had joined the company performing as part of the live shows in 2009, while Pryce had previously worked as a backing vocalist on some of the band's albums.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group, for their farewell tour, visited eight countries and 141 cities, for a total of almost 250 shows in over 200 days for 640,000 people. Gillespie, Pryce and Watkins wore "in training" T-shirts, and debuted the song "Do the Propeller" during these concerts. The final televised performance of the original band members, along with the new members, was on 22 December 2012, during the annual Carols in the Domain in Sydney. Their final performance, after over 7000 shows over the years, was on 23 December at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Also by 2012, the Wiggles performed to audiences whose parents attended their shows in their early years, and they were hiring performers who were part of their audience as young children.


title: The Wiggles

text: The new iteration of the Wiggles, with Field and its new members, began touring in early 2013. Cook became the group's road manager in mid-2013. Pryce reported that since the Wiggles' audience changed every few years, the transition to the new group was easier for their young audience than it was for their parents. One of their challenges, especially for their early tours, was learning the Wiggles' catalogue of 1400 songs. After a seven-year absence from Australian television, they filmed a new television series, called "Ready, Steady, Wiggle!", in their spare time at their studio in Sydney between tours and on the road. Watkins, who had a film-making degree, played an important role in its production. Field admitted that they found it "hard going" until they returned to television. Merchandise featuring the original group outsold the new group's products, and they failed to sell-out their concerts. By 2014, however, the Wiggles found success with their new line-up, when they doubled their concert ticket sales from the year before, and won the 2014 ARIA Award for Best Children's Album with "Apples & Bananas". In 2015, Paul Field called the new group "an amazing success". According to Kathy McCabe of News Corp Australia, it took 18 months for the new group to be accepted by their audience. In 2014, it was announced that the Wiggles would produce their second feature film; comedian Ben Elton was slated to write the script and co-write the soundtrack.


title: The Wiggles

text: McCabe credited their success to Watkins, who became the group's stand-out member. According to Field, an American journalist called her young fans, who came to concerts dressed in yellow and wearing bows like her, the "mini Emma army". She was so popular that a new television series, "Emma!", featuring Watkins as a solo performer, was produced in 2015. Anthony Field compared Watkins to Elvis Presley, while Paul Field called her "an aspirational role model" for their young audience and reported that she had increased their fan base of girls. Up to 80% of the audience at concerts would emulate her costuming and wear yellow; by 2021 it was estimated that 50% of the group's merchandising was specific to the "Emma" brand. In early 2015, Gillespie and Watkins revealed that they had been dating for two years; they announced their engagement in May 2015. They were married in April 2016, but made public their separation in August 2018.


title: The Wiggles

text: At first, the members of the new group were salaried employees, but in 2020, Peter Ker of "The Australian Financial Review" reported that Watkins and Gillespie had each acquired approximately 8% of the company and were given directorships in June 2018; Pryce was the only member who did not have equity in the business. Ker also reported that Anthony Field owned 36%, while Fatt and Cook each owned 24% of the business. A new costumed character, Shirley Shawn the Unicorn, was added in 2019, who was later revealed to identify as non-binary. The COVID-19 pandemic halted the group's capacity to tour in 2020, which led to a downsizing of the company's staff and an increase in filming online content.


title: The Wiggles

text: Throughout the new members era, the original line-up engaged in occasional reunion performances. In February 2016, the original group members performed a charity concert for an over-18 audience at the Dee Why RSL club in Sydney. The original line-up performed reunion charity concerts on 17 and 18 January 2020 to raise funds for the Australian bush fires with proceeds going to the Australian Red Cross and the WIRES Wildlife Rescue Service. Onstage on 17 January, Page suffered a cardiac arrest; he stopped breathing and required CPR and three jolts from a defibrillator. Page was discharged from hospital the following week. In March 2021, the Wiggles performed on Triple J's "Like a Version" segment. Cook and Fatt returned alongside Field, Gillespie, Pryce and Watkins to cover Tame Impala's "Elephant" which they interspersed with "Fruit Salad"; the cover reached 1 on the annual Triple J Hottest 100 poll for 2021. This was the first cover to top the chart, as well as the first time a children's act had led the ranking. The original line-up performed an adults-only reunion tour at arenas around Australia in 2022.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles commemorated their 30th anniversary in January 2021 with a song entitled "We're All Fruit Salad!", containing lyrics centred around unity and acceptance, and featuring guest performers of different cultural backgrounds, after Field expressed a desire to include more diversity in the band. In August 2021, four new members were added to the Wiggles in a supporting capacity, with the aim of embracing cultural and gender diversity, and better reflecting contemporary society. Evie Ferris, Kelly Hamilton, Tsehay Hawkins and John Pearce debuted in an exclusive web series entitled "Fruit Salad TV", made available on YouTube in September.


title: The Wiggles

text: Watkins announced her departure from the group in October 2021 and was replaced by Hawkins in the primary line-up; she became the band's first woman of colour. The expanded line-up made their live performance debut as the pre-match entertainment of an Australia women's national soccer team game in November, followed by a national Australian concert tour in early 2022. Caterina Mete, the long-standing choreographer for the Wiggles, joined the group as a supporting member at the commencement of the tour.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group's 2022 tribute album "ReWiggled" debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart, becoming their first number-one album in Australia. "ReWiggled" was named Best Children's Album at the 2022 ARIA Awards, where The Wiggles also took out the award for Best Australian Live Act.


title: The Wiggles

text: Field's daughter, Lucia Field, joined the group as a supporting member in July, wearing blue like her father. The group made their first appearance on the cover of the Australian edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine in September, before making history as the first band in Australia to perform two arena tours in one year.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles have written new music each year since their inception; they sequestered themselves for a month each summer and wrote three albums' worth of original children's music based on simple concepts familiar to young children, and using several genres of music and types of instruments. Most of their songs were short and started with the chorus because they felt that young children needed to be presented with a song's topic in their first few lines. They wrote songs individually at first, but eventually wrote as a group, often with John Field, trumpet player Dominic Lindsay, and Paddick. Fatt, the only member of the original group without a degree in early childhood education, tended to focus on composing music. Fatt told reporter Brian McElhiney, who called the group's songwriting process "a collaborate affair", that they wrote repetitive pop songs or jingles, which were appealing to children. Watkins reported that she was invited to write songs for their albums, even though she was primarily a dancer. John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, who appeared in a Wiggles video in 2002, told "The New York Times" that he was "very impressed" with the group's songwriting, especially with their drum sound.


title: The Wiggles

text: According to Anthony Field, the transition from writing music for an adult rock band to writing children's music was not a big one for the Wiggles. He explained that the music of the Cockroaches and the Wiggles was similar, but just featuring different subject matter in the lyrics. Moran stated that the Wiggles wrote songs they liked and would listen to, and then made them appropriate for children. They approached simple and relocatable topics, such as food and nutrition, as teachers would in a pre-school setting, with simple melodies that were easy for children to sing and remember. The group sang the same 60s-style pop as the Cockroaches, but with different lyrics, although they were not confined to songs about love and could write about anything that interested and excited young children, which was limitless. The music they chose to write and perform was influenced by nursery rhymes, folk music, and rock songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Page reported, "First and foremost, we're entertainers". The Wiggles captured the interest of children by first entertaining them, and then by presenting them with educational messages.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group wrote and performed children's music that was different from what had been done previously; as Cook stated, "we didn't just go down the route of what people think is kids' music". They were not tied to one style or genre of music and often experimented in the studio; while some of their recordings were orchestral, others had a more live feel. The group were aware that their songs were often children's first exposure to music. "Guitar Magazine" speculated that since Cook was one of the first guitarists children were exposed to, he may be the most influential guitarist in the world. Cook was conscious that he was probably the first guitarist children would see and appreciated the opportunity to inspire children to learn to play guitar later. In 2013, after Cook retired from touring with the group and became their touring manager, he reported that newer bands like Regular John approached him and said that the Wiggles were the first band "they got into".


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles' songwriting and performances were rooted in their professional training as pre-school teachers and in the concepts of early childhood education. Field reported, as he studied music for young children at university, being "shocked ... at the non-inclusive way music for children was usually performed". According to Field, children had to sit silently as musicians played "traditional songs often featuring negative or outdated lyrics and dealing with subject matter of no interest to small children". The lack of songs with themes and topics that interested children inspired Field to record the Wiggles' first album.


title: The Wiggles

text: The group's "golden rule", according to Field, was to make the content of their songs and shows "developmentally appropriate and fun". Their music, stage shows, and television and DVD productions were developed, as "The New York Times" reported, "from the premise that a young child has a short attention span, is curious about a limited number of objects and activities, loves having a job to do and is thrilled by mastering basic movements". They also respected their audience's intelligence and insight about entertainment, information and honesty. As Field said, "Young children identify with relevant concepts, and enjoy being entertained and being part of the entertainment. They are willing to commit to interacting if you are direct, inclusive, and positive". The group understood that challenging young children to engage in difficult tasks is more effective than simply telling them to do it. They believed that young children were egocentric, so they stared continually into the camera in their videos and TV shows, and explained every action because they believed that young children needed to be told what to expect so that they do not feel left out and in order to feel safe.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles' stage shows are full of action and audience participation. By the group's "New Wiggles" iteration, they featured inside jokes for the adult members of their audience and the bandmembers tended to wander throughout the audience. Pryce, as an experienced stage performer, was conscious that their shows were the first live theater young children experienced; as a result, the group adapted the content of their shows to accommodate their audience's development and understanding. Paddick's role as Captain Feathersword became more important in the mid-1990s, especially in the group's stage shows, when he was able to incorporate his circus and opera training, as well as impersonations that were popular with their audience's parents.


title: The Wiggles

text: They believed in empowering children by practices such as greeting their audience members with "Hello, everyone", instead of "Hello, boys and girls" which, as Paul Field explains, "unnecessarily separates children and has undertones of condescension". Kathleen Warren, the band members' former professor at Macquarie University, believed that the group's practice of asking their audience to "Wake Up Jeff" when Fatt pretended to fall asleep was "very much in keeping with the way they work with children". Warren stated that asking children to interrupt Fatt's slumber helped them build confidence and to feel more in control of their lives. Fatt was the only original member of the Wiggles without a background in early childhood education; he explained that was the reason falling asleep was chosen as his gimmick and that "it was a way of getting me involved in the shows without actually having to do anything". Paul Field reported that children in the Wiggles' audience felt "great excitement" and were disappointed if not given the opportunity to help Jeff in this way. Anthony Field, who called it "a simple audience participation and interaction gag we've done since the start of the group", claimed that it endeared Fatt to their audiences. The group's members took turns falling asleep in the early days of the group, but it became Fatt's gimmick because "it was a perfect fit". When Fatt retired, Gillespie took over the task of falling asleep.


title: The Wiggles

text: Simple movements were developed by their choreographers, including Leeanne Ashley, to accompany each song because, as "The New York Times" reported, they believed "in the power of basic movements to enchant young children". According to reporter Anders Wright, they intentionally made mistakes in their dance moves in order to identify more with their young audience. The group incorporated more dancing into their performances after the birth of Field's oldest daughter in 2004. In later years, corresponding with Field's developing interests in acrobatics and gymnastics, they added these elements to their stage shows, including, as Field reported, hiring several world-class athletes such as former trampoline champion Karl Shore. Watkins, whom Paul Field called "a dancer of many disciplines", was initially hired as a member of their troupe and referred to herself as "mainly a dancer".


title: The Wiggles

text: Between 1999 and 2003, to test the group's appeal across cultures, Warren used one of the Wiggles' CDs as an educational tool in a village near Madang, on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. She found that the Madangese children were able to relate to the group's songs, and that they were able to sing along and participate in their simple choreography. Although the Wiggles' recorded and performed songs, dances, and musical styles from different cultures and languages, the Wiggles did not find that adapting their music to non-Australian cultures was necessary to reach children in other countries. The Wiggles recognised that as long as they spoke at the same level as their audience, their Australian accents would not matter, and that young children were able to adapt to a variety of contexts and to different pronunciations of common words, no matter where they resided.


title: The Wiggles

text: Throughout the group's history, the members and management have retained full creative control and ownership of every aspect of their business in an effort to remain as independent as possible. As Field stated, the band's corporation was "not your regular 'corporate culture'. The group does not have a chief executive, instead making decisions through consensus and made business decisions based upon their experience as performers and their knowledge of early childhood education. Endorsements of toys and other products are made carefully and only with products that correlated with their image. There are high expectations regarding the behaviour and attitude of everyone associated with the group, although in 2021, Watkins denied the existence of "a Wiggles code-of-conduct manual hidden away somewhere". Other ventures of band's corporation included franchising their concept to Africa, South America, and Taiwan. The group also licensed "Wiggles World" sections to various theme parks in the United States and Australia, as well as play centres in both regions.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles became formally consolidated in 2005. The group's board of directors consisted of the original three members, as well as Paul Field, who had been the manager of the group since the mid-1990s, and Mike Conway, who had worked for Ernst & Young in England and became a co-manager in 2001. It was reported that as part owner of the Wiggles, Page was given a A$20 million payout when he left the group in 2006; he officially ceased to be a company shareholder in 2008. After their retirement in 2012, Cook and Fatt, as well as Anthony Field, each retained 30% ownership of the brand, and Paul Field and Conway each owned 5%. Gillespie, Pryce and Watkins were reported to be salaried employees when they joined the group in 2012. Paul Field departed as the company's general manager in March 2020, in the midst of a period of "organisational change". It was reported through corporate filings that Watkins and Gillespie each acquired approximately 8% ownership of the business as well as company directorships in June 2018, while Pryce had not gained equity of the group. At the time of reporting, it was suggested that Anthony Field owned 36% of the brand, becoming the majority shareholder, while Fatt and Cook each owned 24%. By 2021, it was estimated that the group earned A$30 million per year.


title: The Wiggles

text: The Wiggles have enjoyed "almost universal approval" throughout their history. Their songs have been sung and played in pre-schools around the world. Between 2000 and 2010, the Wiggles earned 21 Gold records. The group's albums have been certified by ARIA as double Platinum, Platinum and Gold in Australia, as well as certified Gold in the US. They original group performed, on average, to one million people per year. The Wiggles' music has also received over one billion streams on digital services. In 2014, "The Sydney Morning Herald" called their shows slick and fast-paced.


title: The Wiggles

text: After 2003, front-row tickets to their sold-out concerts in the US were scalped for US$500. The group responded by reducing the number of seats sold per transaction, in order to keep prices down and avoid further tickets scalping. In 2008, the group found themselves in the midst of what "The Daily Telegraph" called a "ticketing scandal"; scalpers tried to sell an A$19 ticket on eBay for almost A$2,000 and a set of three tickets for A$315 for concerts in Melbourne, and a group of three tickets to a Wiggles UNICEF charity concert in Sydney had a price tag of A$510. The tickets were taken off eBay and voided.


title: The Wiggles

text: In what Paul Field called "one of the highlights of their 15 years of being together", The Wiggles were awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Australian Catholic University in 2006. Cook gave an address during the private ceremony honouring them. They were awarded another honorary doctoral degree in 2009 from their alma mater, Macquarie University. The group were named UNICEF goodwill ambassadors in 2008; they held a special concert to raise money for the organisation. In 2010, the four original members of the Wiggles were appointed Members of the Order of Australia for their service to the arts in Australia, especially children's entertainment, and for their contributions and support of several charities. They called the honour their "biggest recognition yet". The group has always invited children with special needs and their families to pre-concert "meet and greet" sessions. According to Fatt, many parents of these children have reported that the Wiggles' music has enhanced their lives, and that children with autism "respond to [the] Wiggles and nothing else". The Wiggles, throughout their history, have visited and performed for patients at the Sydney Children's Hospital every Christmas morning.


title: Revolut

text: Revolut is a British financial technology company that offers banking services, but did not have a UK banking licence. Headquartered in London, it was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. It offers accounts featuring currency exchange, debit cards, virtual cards, Apple Pay, interest-bearing "vaults", commission-free stock trading, crypto, commodities, and other services.


title: Revolut

text: Revolut has expanded into new markets such as Japan and expanded staff from 1500 to around 5000. In November 2020 it was breaking even and, with a £4.2 billion valuation became the UK's most valuable fintech company. In January 2021 it applied for a UK banking licence. A US$800 million funding round in July 2021 brought the company's valuation to US$33 billion, making it the most valuable UK tech startup at the time.


title: Revolut

text: Since Revolut does not have UK bank status, it does not reimburse victims of authorized push payment fraud.


title: Revolut

text: Revolut was founded on 1 July 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky from Russia and Vlad Yatsenko from Ukraine. The company was originally based in Level39, a financial technology incubator in Canary Wharf, London.


title: Revolut

text: On 26 April 2018, Revolut raised $250 million in Series C funding. It had a post-funding valuation of US$1.7 billion, making it a unicorn. DST Global was founded by Yuri Milner, who has been backed by the Kremlin in his previous investments.


title: Revolut

text: In December 2018, Revolut secured a Challenger bank licence from the European Central Bank, facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania, authorising it to accept deposits and offer consumer credits, but not to provide investment services. At the same time, an Electronic Money Institution licence was also issued by the Bank of Lithuania.


title: Revolut

text: In March 2019 Revolut united with Dax, the same year the company's chief financial officer Peter O'Higgins resigned. "TechCrunch" reported that he had quit following allegations of compliance lapses, however Revolut denied that he had left for these reasons.


title: Revolut

text: In July 2019, Revolut launched commission-free stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, initially for customers in its Metal plan. This was subsequently made available to all users.


title: Revolut

text: In August 2019, the company announced several hires with experience in traditional banking, including Wolfgang Bardorf, formerly executive director at Goldman Sachs and the global head of liquidity models and methodologies at Deutsche Bank, Philip Doyle, previously head of financial crime at ClearBank and fraud prevention manager at Visa, and Stefan Wille, previously senior vice-president of finance at N26 and corporate finance manager at Credit Suisse.


title: Revolut

text: In October 2019, the company announced a global deal with Visa, following which it expanded into 24 new markets and hired around 3500 additional staff.


title: Revolut

text: In February 2020, Revolut completed a funding round that more than tripled its value, valuing the company at £4.2 billion and becoming the United Kingdom's most valuable financial technology startup.


title: Revolut

text: In March 2020, Revolut was launched in the United States. In August, the company launched its financial app in Japan.


title: Revolut

text: In January 2021, the company announced that it had applied for a UK banking licence. In March 2021, Revolut applied for a bank charter in the US via applications with the FDIC and the California Department of Financial Protection.


title: Revolut

text: In July 2021, Revolut raised US$800 million from investors, including SoftBank Group and Tiger Global Management, at a US$33 billion valuation.


title: Revolut

text: In January 2022, Revolut launched as a bank (instead of an e-money institution) in 10 additional European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.


title: Revolut

text: In March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Storonsky publicly opposed the war in Ukraine and Revolut donated £1.5 million to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal. Since March 2022, Revolut has more than 18 million customers around the world and more than 150 million transactions a month.


title: Revolut

text: In September 2022, Revolut confirmed a cyber attack exposed personal data of tens of thousands of users.


title: Revolut

text: Revolut offers banking services including GBP and EUR bank accounts, debit cards, fee-free currency exchange, stock trading, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments. Revolut's mobile app supports spending and ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies and transfers in 29 currencies directly from the app. Payments at weekends incur an extra fee of 0.5% to 2% protecting them against exchange rate fluctuations.


title: Revolut

text: It also provides customers access to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and XRP by exchanging with 25 fiat currencies. A fee of 1.5% for buying or selling applies. Crypto cannot be deposited or spent, only converted back to fiat inside Revolut. Additionally, Revolut banks with Metropolitan Commercial Bank of New York, who do not allow the transfer of Fiat money to or from cryptocurrency exchanges.


title: Revolut

text: It provides an equities trading facility, with access to a range of US stocks and fractional share purchase/sale. Stocks purchased in the app cannot be transferred to another broker, but must be sold/converted back to cash, which can then be withdrawn.


title: Revolut

text: Revolut, in common with traditional financial institutions, uses algorithms to identify money laundering, fraud and other criminal activity, but unlike the rest of the banking industry, Revolut's algorithms additionally trigger an automated suspension of accounts. Revolut explains that "the system is programmed to temporarily lock an account and place it in a queue, until one of our compliance agents can review the case".


title: Revolut

text: It was reported in the past that Revolut's algorithms suspend accounts in error for weeks or months at a time because Revolut did not have sufficient compliance agents to review the automated suspensions sooner. While Revolut paid no interest on the large suspended balances, it could earn interest on the funds in wholesale money markets. Customers whose accounts were suspended were blocked from contacting Revolut's usual chat support channel and instead received automated responses from a chatbot. The "Daily Telegraph" reported in February 2020 that Revolut suspended an account containing £90,000 for more than two months and that another customer travelled 500 miles from Auvergne in France to Revolut's London offices in an unsuccessful attempt to recover £15,000 in an account that Revolut had similarly frozen without any justification being given. In a further case reported by "The Times", Revolut suspended and subsequently closed a business account containing €300,000 belonging to Priorité Energie, which "helps low-income families in Paris to insulate their homes under a government initiative", preventing the company from paying its staff.


title: Revolut

text: According to Finews.com, Revolut's public internet forums in 2020 contained almost 500 complaints by customers about locked accounts and a lack of response from Revolut's support team.


title: Revolut

text: In March 2019, "Wired" published an exposé of the company's employment practices and work culture. This found evidence of unpaid work, high staff turnover and employees being ordered to work weekends to meet performance indicators. A later article in December 2019 by "Sifted" noted that Revolut had a higher rating than its peers on Glassdoor.


title: Revolut

text: In June 2020, "Wired" published a further exposé of Revolut's dismissal of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which employees, particularly in Kraków, were given the choice of being terminated for underperformance or a mutual agreement to leave the company voluntarily, in order to reduce the headline number of 62 redundancies announced by Revolut. The report explained that "Current and former Revolut employees say staff were coerced into accepting terminations, even though the company had no legal grounds to fire them" and that employees in Porto were pressured into agreeing to a salary sacrifice scheme in order to keep their jobs. According to "Wired", in a message sent to the 495-strong customer support team on Slack shortly after the salary sacrifice scheme was announced, head of support Inna Grynova urged them to participate:


title: Revolut

text: Revolut, as an e-money company offering digital banking services rather than a UK bank, is not signed up to the voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model Scheme (CRM) and, unlike banks, refused to reimburse victims of authorized push payment fraud.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned for his prowess as a hitter and for his durability, which earned him his nickname "the Iron Horse". He was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice, and a member of six World Series champion teams. He had a career .340 batting average, .632 slugging average, and a .447 on base average. He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 runs batted in (RBI). He still has the highest ratio of runs scored plus runs batted in per 100 plate appearances (35.08) and per 100 games (156.7) among Hall of Fame players. In 1939, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and was the first MLB player to have his uniform number (4) retired by a team.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: A native of New York City and a student at Columbia University, Gehrig signed with the Yankees on April 29, 1923. He set several major-league records during his career, including the most career grand slams (23; since broken by Alex Rodriguez) and most consecutive games played (2,130), a record that stood for 56 years and was long considered unbreakable until surpassed by Cal Ripken Jr., in 1995. Gehrig's consecutive game streak ended on May 2, 1939, when he voluntarily took himself out of the lineup, stunning both players and fans, after his performance on the field became hampered by an undiagnosed ailment subsequently confirmed to be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable neuromuscular illness; it is now commonly referred to in North America as "Lou Gehrig's disease".


title: Lou Gehrig

text: The disease forced him to retire at age 36, and claimed his life two years later. The pathos of his farewell from baseball was capped off by his iconic 1939 "Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech at Yankee Stadium.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In 1969, the Baseball Writers' Association of America voted Gehrig the greatest first baseman of all time, and he was the leading vote-getter on the MLB All-Century Team chosen by fans in 1999. A monument in Gehrig's honor, originally dedicated by the Yankees in 1941, currently resides in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. The Lou Gehrig Memorial Award is given annually to the MLB player who best exhibits Gehrig's integrity and character.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig was born June 19, 1903, at 1994 Second Avenue (according to his birth certificate) in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan; he weighed almost at birth. He was the second of four children of German immigrants, Christina Foch (1881–1954) and Heinrich Gehrig (1867–1946). His father was a sheet-metal worker by trade who was frequently unemployed due to alcoholism and epilepsy, and his mother, a maid, was the main breadwinner and disciplinarian in the family. Gehrig was the only one of his four other siblings to live past childhood. His two sisters died at an early age from whooping cough and measles; a brother also died in infancy. From an early age, Gehrig helped his mother with work, doing tasks such as folding laundry and picking up supplies from the local stores. Gehrig spoke German during his childhood, not learning English until the age of five. In 1910 he lived with his parents at 2266 Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights. In 1920 the family resided on 8th Avenue in Manhattan. His name was often anglicized to Henry Louis Gehrig but he was known as "Lou" so he would not be confused with his identically named father, who was known as Henry.Gehrig first garnered national attention for his baseball ability while playing in a game at Cubs Park (now Wrigley Field) in Chicago on June 26, 1920. His New York School of Commerce team was playing a local team from Lane Tech High School in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 spectators. With his team leading 8–6 in the top of the ninth inning, Gehrig hit a grand slam completely out of the major league park, which was an unheard-of feat for a 17-year-old.Gehrig attended PS 132 in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, then went to Commerce High School, graduating in 1921. He then studied engineering at Columbia University for two years, finding the schoolwork difficult before leaving to pursue a career in professional baseball. He had been recruited to play football at the school, earning a scholarship there, later joining the baseball squad. Before his first semester began, New York Giants manager John McGraw advised him to play summer professional baseball under an assumed name, Henry Lewis, despite the fact that it could jeopardize his collegiate sports eligibility. After he played a dozen games for the Hartford Senators in the Eastern League, he was discovered and banned from collegiate sports his freshman year. In 1922 Gehrig returned to collegiate sports as a fullback for the Columbia Lions football program. Later, in 1923, he played first base and pitched for the Columbia baseball team. At Columbia, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On April 18, 1923, the same day Yankee Stadium opened for the first time and Babe Ruth inaugurated the new stadium with a home run against the Boston Red Sox, Columbia pitcher Gehrig struck out 17 Williams Ephs batters to set a team record, though Columbia lost the game. Only a handful of collegians were at Columbia's South Field that day, but more significant was the presence of Yankee scout Paul Krichell, who had been trailing Gehrig for some time. Gehrig's pitching did not particularly impress him; rather, it was Gehrig's powerful left-handed hitting. Krichell observed Gehrig hit some of the longest home runs ever seen on various eastern campuses, including a home run on April 28 at South Field, which landed at 116th Street and Broadway. Scouts saw Gehrig as "the next Babe Ruth"; he signed a contract with the Yankees on April 30. Gehrig returned to the minor-league Hartford Senators to play parts of two seasons, 1923 and 1924, batting .344 and hitting 61 home runs in 193 games. Except for his games with Hartford, a two-hour car ride away, Gehrig would play his entire baseball life — sandlot, high school, college and professional — with teams based in New York City.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig joined the New York Yankees midway through the 1923 season and made his major-league debut as a pinch hitter at age 19 on June 15, 1923. In his first two seasons, he was mired behind Yankee stalwart Wally Pipp at first base, a two-time AL home run champion and one of the premier power hitters in baseball's Deadball era. Gehrig saw limited playing time, mostly as a pinch hitter, playing in only 23 games and being left off the Yankees' 1923 World Series roster in spite of producing both years (with lofty batting averages of .423 in 1923 and .500 in 1924). Taking over for a slumping Pipp part way into 1925, he batted .295, with 20 home runs and 68 runs batted in (RBIs) over 126 games.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Unlike Ruth, Gehrig was not a gifted position player so he played first base, often the position for a strong hitter but weaker fielder. The 23-year-old Yankee's breakout season came in 1926, when he batted .313 with 47 doubles, an American League-leading 20 triples, 16 home runs, and 112 RBIs. In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gehrig hit .348 with two doubles and four RBIs. The Cardinals won the series four games to three.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In 1927, Gehrig put together one of the greatest seasons by any batter in history, hitting .373, with 218 hits: 101 singles, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, a then-record 175 RBIs (surpassing teammate Babe Ruth's 171 six years earlier), a .474 on-base percentage and a .765 slugging percentage. His 117 extra-base hits that season are second all-time to Babe Ruth's 119 extra-base hits in 1921 and his 447 total bases are third all-time, after Babe Ruth's 457 total bases in 1921 and Rogers Hornsby's 450 in 1922. Gehrig's production helped the 1927 Yankees to a 110–44 record, the AL pennant (by 19 games), and a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Although the AL recognized his season by naming him league MVP, Gehrig's accomplishments were overshadowed by Babe Ruth's record-breaking 60 home runs and the overall dominance of the 1927 Yankees, a team often cited as having the greatest lineup of all time – the famed "Murderers' Row". Ruth's celebrity was so great that Gehrig's ghostwritten syndicated newspaper column that year was called "Following the Babe".


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In 1929, the New York Yankees debuted wearing numbers on their uniforms. Gehrig wore number 4 because he hit behind Babe Ruth, who batted third in the lineup.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In 1932, Gehrig became the first player in the 20th century to hit four home runs in a game, when he accomplished the feat on June 3 against the Philadelphia Athletics. He narrowly missed getting a fifth home run when Athletics center fielder Al Simmons made a leaping catch of another fly ball at the center-field fence. After the game, manager Joe McCarthy told him, "Well, Lou, nobody can take today away from you." On the same day, however, John McGraw announced his retirement after 30 years of managing the New York Giants. McGraw, not Gehrig, got the main headlines in the sports sections the next day.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On August 17, 1933, Gehrig played in his 1,308th consecutive game against the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park, which broke the longest consecutive games-played streak, held by Everett Scott. Scott attended as a guest of the Browns.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig lived with his parents until 1933, when he was 30 years old. His mother ruined all of Gehrig's romances until he met Eleanor Twitchell (1904–1984) in 1932; they began dating the next year and married in September. She was the daughter of Chicago Parks Commissioner Frank Twitchell. She helped Gehrig leave his mother's influence and hired Christy Walsh, Ruth's sports agent; Walsh helped Gehrig become the first athlete on Wheaties boxes.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On April 30, 1934, Gehrig hit his 300th home run versus the Washington Senators, becoming the second player to reach the milestone after Ruth. Gehrig won the American League Triple Crown in 1934, leading the league with 49 home runs, 166 RBIs, and a .363 batting average.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In a 1936 World Series cover story about Gehrig and Carl Hubbell, "Time" proclaimed Gehrig "the game's No. 1 batsman", who "takes boyish pride in banging a baseball as far, and running around the bases as quickly, as possible".


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Also in 1936, at the urging of his wife, Gehrig agreed to hire Babe Ruth's agent, who, in turn, persuaded him to audition for the role of Tarzan in the independent film "Tarzan's Revenge". Gehrig only got as far, though, as posing for a widely distributed, and embarrassing, photo of himself in a leopard-spotted costume. When Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs spotted the outfit, he telegrammed Gehrig, "I want to congratulate you on being a swell first baseman." Producer Sol Lesser was unimpressed with Gehrig's legs, calling them "more functional than decorative," and passed on him for the role which eventually went to the 1936 Olympic decathlon gold medalist Glenn Morris.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On June 1, 1925, Gehrig entered the game as a pinch hitter, substituting for shortstop Paul "Pee Wee" Wanninger. The next day, June 2, Yankee manager Miller Huggins started Gehrig in place of regular first baseman Wally Pipp, who had a headache. Pipp was in a slump, as was the team, so Huggins made several lineup changes in an attempt to boost their performance, replacing Pipp, Aaron Ward, and Wally Schang. Fourteen years later, Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games, shattering the previous record of 1,307 along the way.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: During the streak sportswriters in 1931 nicknamed Gehrig "the Iron Horse". In a few instances, Gehrig managed to keep the streak intact through pinch-hitting appearances and fortuitous timing; in others, the streak continued despite injuries. For example:


title: Lou Gehrig

text: In addition, x-rays taken late in his life disclosed that Gehrig had sustained several fractures during his playing career, although he remained in the lineup despite those previously undisclosed injuries. However, the streak was helped when Yankees general manager Ed Barrow postponed a game as a rainout on a day when Gehrig was sick with the flu, though it was not raining.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: He was also persuaded, but not convinced, by his wife, Eleanor, to end the streak at 1,999 games by acting sick, as he had already played through flu bouts before, and already had a nearly 700-game lead over the previous record.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games endured for 56 years until Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. surpassed it on September 6, 1995; Ripken finished with 2,632 consecutive games.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Although his performance in the second half of the 1938 season was slightly better than in the first half, Gehrig reported physical changes at the midway point. At the end of that season, he said, "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." Although his final 1938 statistics were above average (.295 batting average, 114 RBIs, 170 hits, .523 slugging percentage, 689 plate appearances with only 75 strikeouts, and 29 home runs), they were significantly down from his 1937 season, in which he batted .351 and slugged .643. In the 1938 World Series, he had four hits in 14 at-bats, all singles.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: When the Yankees began their 1939 spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, Gehrig clearly no longer possessed his once-formidable power. Even his base running was affected, and at one point he collapsed at Al Lang Stadium, then the Yankees' spring training park. By the end of spring training, he had not hit a home run. Throughout his career, Gehrig was considered an excellent base runner, but as the 1939 season got under way, his coordination and speed had deteriorated significantly.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: By the end of April, his statistics were the worst of his career, with one RBI and a .143 batting average. Fans and the press openly speculated on Gehrig's abrupt decline. James Kahn, a reporter who wrote often about Gehrig, said in one article:


title: Lou Gehrig

text: He was indeed meeting the ball, with only one strikeout in 28 at-bats, but hitless in five of the first eight games. However, Joe McCarthy found himself resisting pressure from Yankee management to switch Gehrig to a part-time role. Things came to a head when Gehrig struggled to make a routine put-out at first base. The pitcher, Johnny Murphy, had to wait for him to drag himself over to the bag so he could field the throw. Murphy said, "Nice play, Lou." Gehrig's later assessment was very dismissive. "That was the simplest play you could ever make in baseball, and I knew then: There was something wrong with me".


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On April 30, Gehrig went hitless against the Washington Senators. He had just played his 2,130th consecutive major league game.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: On May 2, the next game after a day off, Gehrig approached McCarthy before the game in Detroit against the Tigers and said, "I'm benching myself, Joe", telling the Yankees' skipper that he was doing so "for the good of the team". McCarthy acquiesced, putting Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren in at first base, and also said that whenever Gehrig felt he could play again, the position was his. Gehrig, as Yankee captain, himself took the lineup card out to the shocked umpires before the game, ending the 14-year streak. Before the game began, the Briggs Stadium announcer told the fans, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time Lou Gehrig's name will not appear on the Yankee lineup in 2,130 consecutive games." The Detroit Tigers' fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes. Coincidentally, among those attending the game was Wally Pipp, whom Gehrig had replaced at first base 2,130 games previously. A wire-service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation's newspapers. He stayed with the Yankees as team captain for the rest of the season, but never played in a major-league game again.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: As Gehrig's debilitation became steadily worse, his wife Eleanor called the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her call was transferred to Charles William Mayo, who had been following Gehrig's career and his mysterious loss of strength. Mayo told Eleanor to bring Gehrig as soon as possible.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig flew alone to Rochester from Chicago, where the Yankees were playing at the time, and arrived at the Mayo Clinic on June 13, 1939. After six days of extensive testing at the clinic, doctors confirmed the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) on June 19, 1939, which was Gehrig's 36th birthday. The prognosis was grim: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking, and a life expectancy less than three years, although no impairment of mental functions would occur. Eleanor Gehrig was told that the cause of ALS was unknown, but that it was painless, not contagious, and cruel; the motor function of the central nervous system is destroyed, but the mind remains fully aware until the end.


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Gehrig often wrote letters to Eleanor, and one such note written shortly after the diagnosis said in part:


title: Lou Gehrig

text: Following Gehrig's visit to the Mayo Clinic, he briefly rejoined the Yankees in Washington, D.C. As his train pulled into Union Station, he was greeted by a group of Boy Scouts happily waving and wishing him luck. Gehrig waved back, but he leaned forward to his companion, Rutherford "Rud" Rennie of the "New York Herald Tribune", and said, "They're wishing me luck — and I'm dying."