title: The West Wing

text: A stage version of the season three episode "Hartsfield's Landing", "A "West Wing" Special to Benefit When We All Vote", premiered on HBO Max in October 2020, featuring the entire surviving original main cast along with key recurring cast in their original roles.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" employed a broad ensemble cast to portray the many positions involved in the daily work of the Executive Branch of the federal government. The president, the first lady, and the president's senior staff and advisers form the core cast. Numerous secondary characters, appearing intermittently, complement storylines that generally revolve around this core group.


title: The West Wing

text: Each of the principal actors made approximately $75,000 per episode, with the established Sheen receiving a confirmed salary of $300,000. Rob Lowe left the series in the fourth season reportedly due to not getting a salary increase. Disparities in cast salaries led to very public contract disputes, particularly by Janney, Schiff, Spencer, and Whitford. During contract negotiations in 2001, the four were threatened with breach of contract suits by Warner Bros. However, by banding together, they were able to persuade the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, the four again demanded a doubling of their salaries, a few months after Warner Bros had signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo.


title: The West Wing

text: John Spencer died of a heart attack on December 16, 2005, about a year after his character experienced a nearly fatal heart attack on the show. Martin Sheen gave a brief memorial message before "Running Mates", the first new episode that aired after Spencer's death. The loss of Spencer's character was addressed beginning with the episode "Election Day", which aired on April 2, 2006.


title: The West Wing

text: In an interview on the first season DVD, Bradley Whitford said that he was originally cast as Sam, even though Aaron Sorkin had created the Josh character specifically for him. In the same interview, Janel Moloney stated she had originally auditioned for the role of C.J. and that Donna, the role for which she was eventually cast, was not meant to be a recurring character. Other actors were seriously considered for other roles, including Alan Alda and Sidney Poitier for the President, Judd Hirsch for Leo, Eugene Levy for Toby, and CCH Pounder for C.J.


title: The West Wing

text: The series was created by Aaron Sorkin, who served as executive producer for the pilot episode alongside director Thomas Schlamme and John Wells. Kristin Harms and Llewellyn Wells were producers for the pilot. Michael Hissrich acted as a co-producer.


title: The West Wing

text: The first season proper saw the return of all of the pilot production team along with the addition of Ron Osborn and Jeff Reno as consulting producers and Rick Cleveland as a second co-producer with Robert W. Glass as an associate producer. Glass left the production team after only five episodes. Julie Herlocker joined as Associate Producer beginning with episode six. Osborn and Reno departed after nine episodes. Paul Redford served as a story editor throughout the first season. Lawrence O'Donnell worked as executive story editor for the second half of the season.


title: The West Wing

text: With the second season, Kevin Falls became a co-executive producer. Cleveland left the production team and Redford and O'Donnell were promoted to co-producer. Peter Parnell and Patrick Caddell became co-producers and Julie Herlocker and Mindy Kanaskie became associate producers. O'Donnell was promoted again to producer five episodes into the season and Hissrich joined him twelve episodes into the season.


title: The West Wing

text: The third season saw the departure of Parnell, Caddell, and Herlocker and the temporary absence of O'Donnell. Director Christopher Misiano became a supervising producer, Patrick Ward joined the series as an associate producer, and Eli Attie joined the writing staff as a staff writer. Redford was promoted to producer. With the thirteenth episode of the third season director Alex Graves became an additional supervising producer and Attie became a story editor.


title: The West Wing

text: The fourth season marked the temporary departure of Hissrich. Misiano and Graves became co-executive producers alongside Falls. Attie was promoted to executive story editor and Debora Cahn became a staff writer. The fourteenth episode of the season saw Redford promoted to supervising producer and Kanaskie, Ward and Attie promoted to co-producers.


title: The West Wing

text: The fifth season saw the departure of both Sorkin and Schlamme as executive producers. Schlamme remained attached to the series as an executive consultant. John Wells remained the sole executive producer and showrunner. Co-executive producer Kevin Falls also left the show. O'Donnell rejoined the production team as a consulting producer. Wells also added Carol Flint, Alexa Junge, Peter Noah, and John Sacret Young as consulting producers. Andrew Stearn came aboard as a producer and Attie was promoted to producer. Cahn became story editor and Josh Singer replaced her as staff writer. With the tenth episode Flint, Junge, Noah and Sacret Young became supervising producers.


title: The West Wing

text: With the sixth season Misiano and Graves were promoted to executive producers. Redford and Junge left the production team and Dylan K. Massin became a co-producer. Cahn was promoted to executive story editor and Singer replaced her as story editor. Lauren Schmidt filled the staff writer role. The fourth episode saw the departure of original crew member Llewellyn Wells. Debora Cahn was promoted to co-producer with the fourteenth episode.


title: The West Wing

text: The seventh season saw Noah and O'Donnell promoted again, this time becoming additional executive producers. Attie became a supervising producer. Hissrich returned to his role as producer for the final season.


title: The West Wing

text: In "The West Wing", as in many serial dramas, multiple story arcs span several episodes and entire seasons. In addition to these long-running narratives, each episode contains smaller storylines that usually begin and end within a single episode.


title: The West Wing

text: Most episodes follow President Bartlet and his staff through particular legislative or political issues. Plots can range from behind-closed-doors negotiating with Congress to personal problems like post-traumatic stress disorder, from which Josh suffers during the second season. The typical episode loosely follows the President and his staff through their day, generally following several plots connected by some idea or theme. A large, fully connected set of the White House allowed the producers to create shots with very few cuts and long, continuous master shots of staff members conversing as they walk through the hallways. These "walk and talks" became a trademark of the show. The final two seasons presented a narrative change, with the focus of the show divided between plots in the West Wing with President Bartlet and his remaining senior staffers and plots revolving around the rest of the main cast on the campaign trail for the 2006 election.


title: The West Wing

text: The series developed following the success of the 1995 theatrical film "The American President", for which Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay, and in which Martin Sheen played the White House Chief of Staff. Unused plot elements from the film and a suggestion from Akiva Goldsman inspired Sorkin to create "The West Wing".


title: The West Wing

text: According to the DVD commentary, Sorkin intended to center the show on Sam Seaborn and the other senior staff with the President in an unseen or a secondary role. However, Bartlet's screen time gradually increased, and his role expanded as the series progressed. Positive critical and public reaction to Sheen's performance raised his character's profile, decreasing Lowe's perceived significance. In addition, the storylines began to focus less on Sam and more on Josh Lyman, the Deputy Chief of Staff. This shift was one of the reasons for Lowe's eventual departure from the show in the fourth season.


title: The West Wing

text: For the first four seasons, drawing on research materials, scene drafts, and occasionally entire draft scripts from his writing staff, Sorkin wrote almost every episode of the series, occasionally reusing plot elements, episode titles, character names, and actors from his previous work, "Sports Night", a sitcom in which he began to develop his signature dialogue style of rhythmic, snappy, and intellectual banter. Fellow executive producer and director Thomas Schlamme championed the walk and talk, a continuous shot tracking in front of the characters as they walk from one place to another that became part of "The West Wing" signature visual style. Sorkin's hectic writing schedule often led to cost overruns and schedule slips, and he opted to leave the show after the fourth season, following increasing personal problems, including an arrest for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Thomas Schlamme also left the show after the fourth season. John Wells, the remaining executive producer, took the helm after their departure.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" aired on Wednesdays at 9:00 pm ET from its debut until the end of its sixth season. NBC elected to move the series to Sundays at 8:00 pm for its seventh season, a move universally regarded as the beginning of the series' end (since NBC and the NFL had reached a deal for "Sunday Night Football" to return to the network in the fall of 2006), and the series finale aired on May 14, 2006. "The West Wing" took a large ratings hit with the move, which put it up against ABC's Top 20 hit "", and CBS' Top 30 hit "Cold Case" in its timeslot.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the fictional Bartlet White House. The show's legitimacy, political slant, and idealist representations of Washington, as well as its notable writing and film merits, have generated considerable discussion.


title: The West Wing

text: In 2011, "The New York Times" reported the then-fledgling government of Myanmar used DVDs of "The West Wing" episodes to study democracy. This was corroborated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the following year.


title: The West Wing

text: While "The West Wing" is not completely accurate in its portrayal of the actual West Wing, former White House staffers and journalists have described the show as capturing the feel of the real West Wing. However, President Gerald Ford's daughter Susan made the comment "I can't watch [the show]. They turn left and right where you are not supposed to." Some West Wing veterans have said it exaggerates the formality and volume of chatter in the West Wing, under-represents the number of people involved in a decision, and over-idealizes its occupants.


title: The West Wing

text: Former Senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell and former White House aide and presidential campaign speechwriter Eli Attie were both longtime writers on the show (O'Donnell for seasons 1–2 and 5–7, Attie for seasons 3–7). Former White House Press Secretaries Dee Dee Myers and Marlin Fitzwater and pollsters Patrick Caddell and Frank Luntz also served as consultants, advising the writing staff for part of the show's run. Other former White House staffers, such as Peggy Noonan and Gene Sperling, served as consultants for brief periods.


title: The West Wing

text: A documentary special in the third season compared the show's depiction of the West Wing to the real thing. Many former West Wing denizens applauded the show's depiction of the West Wing, including advisor David Gergen, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.


title: The West Wing

text: While critics often praised "The West Wing" for its writing, others faulted the show as unrealistically optimistic and sentimental. A large part of this criticism came from the perceived naiveté of the characters. Television critic Heather Havrilesky asked, "What rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under and, more important, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"


title: The West Wing

text: Despite acclaim for the veracity of the series, Sorkin said, "our responsibility is to captivate you for however long we've asked for your attention." Former White House aide Matthew Miller noted that Sorkin "captivates viewers by making the human side of politics more real than life—or at least more real than the picture we get from the news." Miller also noted that by portraying politicians with empathy, the show created a "subversive competitor" to the cynical views of politics in media. In the essay ""The West Wing" and the West Wing", author Myron Levine agreed, stating that the series "presents an essentially positive view of public service and a healthy corrective to anti-Washington stereotypes and public cynicism."


title: The West Wing

text: Dr. Staci L. Beavers, associate professor of political science at California State University, San Marcos, wrote a short essay, ""The West Wing" as a Pedagogical Tool". She concluded, "While the series' purpose is for-profit entertainment, "The West Wing" presents great pedagogical potential." "The West Wing", in her opinion, gave greater depth to the political process usually espoused only in stilted talking points on shows like "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press". However, she noted that the merits of a particular argument may be obscured by the viewer's opinion of the character. Beavers also noted that characters with opposing viewpoints were often set up to be "bad people" in the viewer's eyes. These characters were assigned undesirable characteristics having nothing to do with their political opinions, such as being romantically involved with a main character's love interest. In Beavers' opinion, a critical analysis of the show's political views can present a worthwhile learning experience to the viewer.


title: The West Wing

text: While it aired, "The West Wing" offered viewers an idealist liberal administration that provided a sort of catharsis to those on the left who felt that their political beliefs were largely forgotten or ignored in the era of the Bush administration. Writer Hédi Kaddour remarked that "The West Wing" "show[ed] what [liberals] would have liked to have seen and had: a different American administration, closer to our desires as people more or less on the left."


title: The West Wing

text: One of the stranger effects of the show occurred on January 31, 2006, when "The West Wing" was said to have played a hand in defeating a proposal backed by Tony Blair's government in the British House of Commons, during the so-called ""West Wing" Plot". The plan was allegedly hatched after a Conservative Member of Parliament watched the episode "A Good Day", in which Democrats block a bill aimed at limiting stem cell research, by appearing to have left Washington D.C. but actually hiding in a congressional office until the Republican Speaker calls the vote.


title: The West Wing

text: A number of episodes referred to a practice of the administration having one day each year on which they accepted meetings with people or groups who would not normally receive an audience with high-level White House staffers, referring to the event as "Big Block of Cheese Day". The name came from the fact that President Andrew Jackson had a large wheel of cheese placed in the White House from which the public were invited to eat during a reception, while discussing issues of the day with politicians. In 2014, the White House announced that it was to host an online Q&A with Obama administration officials and staff, called a Virtual "Big Block of Cheese day", on January 29, 2014. The event was promoted with a video featuring stars from "The West Wing". The event was repeated on January 21, 2015, again promoted by stars from the show. On April 29, 2016, Allison Janney appeared in character as C.J. Cregg during a White House press briefing.


title: The West Wing

text: Despite its commercial and critical success, "The West Wing" has also received criticism from the right. "Jewish Journal" columnist Naomi Pfefferman once referred to "The West Wing" as "The Left Wing" because of its portrayal of an ideal liberal administration, and the moniker has also been used by Republican critics of the show. Chris Lehmann, former deputy editor and regular reviewer for "The Washington Post" Book World section, characterized the show as a revisionist look at the Clinton presidency. Other critics have taken issue with the portrayal of conservatives on the show, criticizing "The West Wing" for a form of liberal elitism, as writer Luke Savage remarked, "there is a general tenor to "The West Wing" universe that cannot be called anything other than smug."


title: The West Wing

text: However, criticism of the show has been made from the left as well. The hosts of socialist podcast "Chapo Trap House" are frequent critics of Sorkin and have called "The West Wing" an "expression of the patronizing self-entitlement of liberals."


title: The West Wing

text: On the other hand, some Republicans have admired the show since its inception, even before the departure of Sorkin and the show's resulting shift toward the center. In his 2001 article "Real Liberals versus "The West Wing"," Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote, ″Although his administration is reliably liberal, President Bartlet possesses virtues even a conservative could admire. He obeys the Constitution and the law. He is devoted to his wife and daughters. Being unfaithful to his wife would never cross his mind. He is no wimp when it comes to foreign policy—no "quid pro quo" for him."


title: The West Wing

text: Journalist Matthew Miller wrote, "although the show indeed has a liberal bias on issues, it presents a truer, more human picture of the people behind the headlines than most of today's Washington journalists."


title: The West Wing

text: In its first season, "The West Wing" attracted critical attention in the television community with a record nine Emmy wins. The show has been praised for its high production values and repeatedly recognized for its cinematic achievements. The series has also been praised for Sorkin's rapid-fire and witty scripts.The series had a budget of $2.7 million per episode.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" is noted for developing the "walk-and-talk"—long Steadicam tracking shots showing characters walking down hallways while involved in long conversations. In a typical "walk-and-talk" shot, the camera leads two characters down a hallway as they speak to each other. One of these characters generally breaks off and the remaining character is then joined by another character, who initiates another conversation as they continue walking. These "walk-and-talks" create a dynamic feel for what would otherwise be long expository dialogue, and have become a staple for dialogue-intensive television show scenes.


title: The West Wing

text: In its first season, "The West Wing" garnered nine Emmys, a record for most won by a series in its first season. In addition, the series received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003, tying "Hill Street Blues", "L.A. Law," "Mad Men" and "Game of Thrones" for most won in this category. Each of its seven seasons earned a nomination for the award. With its 26 total awards, "The West Wing" tied with "Hill Street Blues" as the drama with the most Emmy wins until "Game of Thrones" broke the record for most wins in 2016, with 38 total awards.


title: The West Wing

text: The series shares the Emmy Award record for most acting nominations by regular cast members (excluding the guest performer category) for a single series in one year. ("Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law" and "Game of Thrones" also hold that record). For the 2001–2002 season, nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing each won an Emmy (for Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively). The others nominated were Martin Sheen (for Lead Actor), Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill and Bradley Whitford (for Supporting Actor), and Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker (for Supporting Actress). In addition, that same year Mark Harmon, Tim Matheson and Ron Silver were each nominated in the Guest Actor category (although none won the award). This gave the series an Emmy Award record for most acting nominations overall (including guest performer category) in a single year, with 12 acting nominations. Twenty individual Emmys were awarded to writers, actors, and crew members. Allison Janney is the record holder for most wins by a cast member, with a total of four Emmys. "The West Wing" won at least one Emmy in each of its seasons except the sixth.


title: The West Wing

text: In addition to its Emmys, the show won two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, in 2000 and 2001, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Martin Sheen was the only cast member to win a Golden Globe Award, and he and Allison Janney were the only cast members to win SAG Awards. In both 1999 and 2000, "The West Wing" was awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.


title: The West Wing

text: Many cast members were Emmy-nominated for their work on "The West Wing" but did not win, including Martin Sheen—who was nominated for six of the seven seasons of the series without receiving the award—as well as Janel Moloney, who was nominated twice, and Dulé Hill, Rob Lowe, and Mary-Louise Parker, who were all nominated once. Matthew Perry, Oliver Platt, Ron Silver, Tim Matheson, and Mark Harmon also received Emmy nominations for guest starring on the show.


title: The West Wing

text: Thomas Schlamme won two Emmys for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (in 2000 and 2001), and Christopher Misiano won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series in 2003. "The West Wing" only Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series was in its first season, when Rick Cleveland and Aaron Sorkin shared the award for "In Excelsis Deo".


title: The West Wing

text: W. G. Snuffy Walden received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music in 2000 for "The West Wing Opening Theme".


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing Documentary Special" won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program in 2002, with the award shared by Aaron Sorkin, Tommy Schlamme, documentarian Bill Couturie, show writers Eli Attie and Felicia Willson, and others.


title: The West Wing

text: Readers of "TV Guide" voted the cast of "The West Wing" their Best Drama cast of all time, receiving 37% of the votes, beating "Lost", which received 23%.


title: The West Wing

text: A "Wall Street Journal" poll in 2016 named Martin Sheen's Josiah Bartlet as the second greatest fictional president, behind Harrison Ford's President James Marshall in "Air Force One".


title: The West Wing

text: On the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the first season scored respectively 96% and 79/100. Rotten Tomatoes scores the second 81%, the third 64%, the fourth 86%, the fifth 62%, the sixth 50%, and the seventh 92%.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" often featured extensive discussion of current or recent political issues. After the real-world election of Republican President George W. Bush in 2000, many wondered whether the liberal show could retain its relevance and topicality. However, by exploring many of the same issues facing the Bush administration from a Democratic point of view, the show continued to appeal to a broad audience of both Democrats and Republicans.


title: The West Wing

text: In the second-season episode "The Midterms", President Bartlet admonishes fictional radio host Dr. Jenna Jacobs for her views regarding homosexuality at a private gathering at the White House. Dr. Jacobs is a caricature of radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who strongly disapproves of homosexuality. Many of the President's biblical references in his comments to Dr. Jacobs appear to have come from an open letter to Dr. Schlessinger, circulated online in early May 2000.


title: The West Wing

text: The Bartlet administration experiences a scandal during the second and third seasons that has been compared to the Monica Lewinsky affair. President Bartlet has known that he has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) since 1992. The scandal centers on President Bartlet's nondisclosure of his illness to the electorate during the election. He is investigated by an opposition Congress for defrauding the public and eventually accepts Congressional censure. Multiple sclerosis advocacy groups praised the show for its accurate portrayal of the symptoms of MS and stressing that it is not fatal. The National MS Society commented:


title: The West Wing

text: Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the start of the third season was postponed for a week, as were most American television premieres that year. A script for a special episode was quickly written and began filming on September 21. The episode "Isaac and Ishmael" aired on October 3 and addresses the sobering reality of terrorism in America and the wider world, albeit with no specific reference to September 11. While "Isaac and Ishmael" received mixed critical reviews, it illustrated the show's flexibility in addressing current events. The cast of the show state during the opening of the episode that it is not part of "The West Wing" continuity.


title: The West Wing

text: While the September 11 attacks are not referred to in "The West Wing" continuity, the country enters into a variation of the War on Terrorism. Al Qaeda, mentioned briefly by Nancy McNally in the beginning of Season 2, plays no role in the longer terrorism story arcs of Seasons 3, 4 and 5. It is only mentioned again in Seasons 6 and 7. The stand-in used instead is the fictional Bahji terror group who first plots to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. In response, the President orders the assassination of foreign leader Abdul ibn Shareef, one of Bahji's primary backers. This storyline has similarities to the real-world U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as well as U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, as it brings the Middle East to the forefront of U.S. foreign relations and elevates terrorism as a serious threat.


title: The West Wing

text: In the middle of the fourth season, Bartlet's White House is confronted with genocide in the fictional African country of Equatorial Kundu, which was compared to the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The result is new foreign policy doctrine for the Bartlet Administration and military intervention to stop the violence, which come after much hesitation and reluctance to call the conflict a genocide. In reality, the Clinton Administration did not intervene in Rwanda.


title: The West Wing

text: In the sixth and seventh seasons, "The West Wing" explores a leak of top-secret information by a senior staffer at the White House. This leak has been compared to events surrounding the Valerie Plame affair. In the storyline, the International Space Station is damaged and can no longer produce oxygen for the astronauts to breathe. With no other methods of rescue available, the President is reminded of the existence of a top-secret military space shuttle. Following the President's inaction, the shuttle story is leaked to a White House reporter, Greg Brock (analogous to Judith Miller), who prints the story in "The New York Times". Brock will not reveal his source and goes to jail for failing to do so, as did Miller. In order to stop the investigation, in which authorities suspect Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg, Toby Ziegler admits to leaking the information, and the President is forced to dismiss him. In comparison, the Plame affair resulted in the arrest and conviction of "Scooter" Libby, the Vice President's chief of staff. However, Libby was convicted of perjury in testimony to a grand jury. No one was convicted for "blowing the cover" of Plame. (Richard Armitage, an official in the Bush State Department, acknowledged leaking information about Plame to reporters but was never charged with a crime.) Libby's two and a half-year prison sentence was later commuted by President Bush, though the other facet of his sentence ($250,000 fine) stood until his 2018 pardon by President Donald Trump and was duly paid. In the series finale, President Bartlet, as his last official act, pardons Ziegler.


title: The West Wing

text: All contemporary domestic government officials in "The West Wing" universe are fictional. President Bartlet has made three appointments to the fictional Supreme Court and maintains a full cabinet, although not all names and terms of the members are revealed. Some cabinet members, such as the Secretary of Defense, appear more often than others. Many other government officials, such as mayors, governors, judges, representatives, and senators, are mentioned and seen as well.


title: The West Wing

text: San Andreo is a fictional California city. It is located near San Diego, has a population of 42,000 and is the location of the San Andreo Nuclear Generating Station. The fictional station was based on the real life San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County.


title: The West Wing

text: A near meltdown at the nuclear plant becomes the focus of an October surprise for Republican nominee Senator Arnold Vinick during the 2006 presidential election, due to Vinick's strong pro-nuclear stance and revelations of his active lobbying for the construction of the plant. This is seen to be a key factor in Vinick's narrow defeat in the election by Democratic nominee Congressman Matt Santos.


title: The West Wing

text: Hartsfield's Landing is a fictional town in New Hampshire. It is stated to be a very small community of only 63 people, of whom 42 are registered voters, that votes at one minute past midnight on the day of the New Hampshire primary, hours before the rest of the state, and has accurately predicted the winner of every presidential election since William Howard Taft in 1908. It is based on three real-life New Hampshire communities, one of which is Hart's Location, which indeed vote before the rest of the state during the primaries.


title: The West Wing

text: Kennison State is a fictional university in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, used as the setting of a bombing in the beginning of the fourth season.


title: The West Wing

text: While several real-world leaders exist in the show's universe, most foreign countries depicted or referred to on the show have fictional rulers. Real people mentioned in "The West Wing" include Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Carl XVI Gustaf, Thabo Mbeki and Osama bin Laden.


title: The West Wing

text: Entire countries are invented as composite pictures that epitomize many of the problems that plague real nations in certain areas of the world:


title: The West Wing

text: The "West Wing" universe diverges from history after Richard Nixon's presidency, although there is occasional overlap; for instance, in the second episode of the series' second season "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen" Toby Ziegler speaks to a Secret Service agent outside a building named for Ronald Reagan, although this may have just been a production oversight. Fictional Presidents who are shown to have served between Nixon and Bartlet include one-term Democrat D. Wire Newman (James Cromwell) and two-term Republican Owen Lassiter.


title: The West Wing

text: Leo McGarry is mentioned as being Labor Secretary in the administration that was in office in 1993 and 1995. In the first season, an outgoing Supreme Court Justice tells Jed Bartlet that he had been wanting to retire for five years, but waited "for a Democrat" because he did not want a Republican president to replace him with a conservative justice (the Justice then tells President Bartlet, snidely, "Instead, I got you."). The season four episode "Debate Camp" features a flashback to the days just before Bartlet's inauguration, as Donna Moss meets with her Republican predecessor, Jeff Johnson. In season six Leo says that the Republicans have been "out of power for eight years", and Republicans at their convention say "eight (years) is enough".


title: The West Wing

text: The passage of time on the show relative to that of the real world is somewhat ambiguous when marked by events of shorter duration (such as votes and campaigns). Sorkin noted in a DVD commentary track for the second-season episode "18th and Potomac" that he tried to avoid tying "The West Wing" to a specific period of time. Despite this, real years are occasionally mentioned, usually in the context of elections and President Bartlet's two-term administration.


title: The West Wing

text: The show's presidential elections are held in 2002 and 2006, which are the years of the midterm elections in reality (these dates come from the fact that in the season 2 episode "17 People", Toby mentions 2002 as the year of the President's reelection campaign). The election timeline in "The West Wing" matches up with that of the real world until early in the sixth season, when it appears that a year is lost. For example, the filing deadline for the New Hampshire primary, which would normally fall in January 2006, appears in an episode airing in January 2005.


title: The West Wing

text: In an interview, John Wells stated that the series began one and a half years into Bartlet's first term and that the election to replace Bartlet was being held at the correct time. However, the season 1 episode "He Shall from Time to Time" shows the preparations for Bartlet's first regular State of the Union address, which would occur one year into his presidency. In the Season 1 episode "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet", Josh Lyman asks Toby Ziegler, "Our second year isn't going much better than our first year, is it?"


title: The West Wing

text: In the season 5 episode "Access", it is mentioned that the Casey Creek crisis occurred during Bartlet's first term and got his presidency off to a calamitous start, and network footage of the crisis carries the date of November 2001.


title: The West Wing

text: Bartlet's first campaign for president is never significantly explored in the series. Bartlet is stated to have won the election with 48% of the popular vote, 48 million votes, and a 303–235 margin in the Electoral College. Of three debates between Bartlet and his Republican opponent, it is mentioned that Bartlet won the third and final debate, held eight days before election day in St. Louis, Missouri. Josh Lyman says that in the days prior to the election "Bartlet punched through a few walls" as the result seemed too close to call, before the result broke his way. Leo McGarry says the same thing in "Bartlet for America" when he says, "It was eight days to go, and we were too close to call".


title: The West Wing

text: The campaign for the Democratic nomination is extensively addressed. In the episodes "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I", "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part II" and "Bartlet for America", flashbacks are used to show Bartlet defeating Texas Senator John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) and Washington Senator William Wiley for the Democratic nomination and later choosing Hoynes as his running mate. The flashbacks also show Leo McGarry persuading Bartlet, then Governor of New Hampshire, to run for president.


title: The West Wing

text: "The West Wing" 2002 presidential election pits Bartlet and Vice President John Hoynes against Florida Governor Robert Ritchie (James Brolin) and his running mate, Jeff Heston. Bartlet faces no known opposition for renomination, though Minnesota Democratic Senator Howard Stackhouse launches a brief independent campaign for the presidency. Ritchie, not originally expected to contend for the nomination, emerges from a field of seven other Republican candidates by appealing to the party's conservative base with simple, "homey" sound bites.


title: The West Wing

text: Bartlet's staff contemplates replacing Vice President John Hoynes on the ticket with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Percy Fitzwallace (John Amos), among others. After it is clear that Ritchie will be the Republican nominee, Bartlet dismisses the idea, declaring that he wants Hoynes in the number two spot because of "four words," which he writes down and hands to Hoynes and McGarry to read: "Because I could die."


title: The West Wing

text: Throughout the season it is anticipated that the race will be close, but a stellar performance by Bartlet in the sole debate between the candidates helps give Bartlet a landslide victory in both the popular and electoral vote.


title: The West Wing

text: A speed-up in "The West Wing" timeline, in part due to the expiration of many cast members' contracts and a desire to continue the program with lower production costs, resulted in the omission of the 2004 midterm elections and an election during the seventh season. The sixth season extensively details the Democratic and Republican primaries. The seventh season covers the lead-up to the general election, the election, and the transition to a new administration. The timeline slows down to concentrate on the general election race. The election, normally held in November, takes place across two episodes originally broadcast on April 2 and 9, 2006.


title: The West Wing

text: Congressman Matt Santos (D-TX) (Jimmy Smits) is nominated on the fourth ballot at the Democratic National Convention, during the sixth-season finale. Santos, having planned to leave Congress before being recruited to run for the presidency by Josh Lyman, polls in the low single digits in the Iowa caucus. He is virtually out of the running in the New Hampshire primary before a last-ditch live television commercial vaults him to a third-place finish with 19% of the vote. Josh Lyman, Santos's campaign manager, convinces Leo McGarry to become Santos's running mate.


title: The West Wing

text: Senator Arnold Vinick (R-CA) (Alan Alda) secures the Republican nomination, defeating Glen Allen Walken (John Goodman) and the Reverend Don Butler (Don S. Davis), among others. Initially, Vinick wants Butler to become his running mate. However, Butler does not want to be considered because of Vinick's stance on abortion. Instead, West Virginia Governor Ray Sullivan (Brett Cullen) is chosen as Vinick's running mate. Vinick is portrayed throughout the sixth season as virtually unbeatable because of his popularity in California, a typically Democratic state, his moderate views, and his wide crossover appeal. Vinick, however, faces difficulty with the anti-abortion members of his party as an abortion rights candidate, and criticism for his support of nuclear power following a serious accident at a Californian nuclear power station.


title: The West Wing

text: On the evening of the election, Leo McGarry suffers a massive heart attack and is pronounced dead at the hospital, with the polls still open on the West Coast. The Santos campaign releases the information immediately, while Arnold Vinick refuses to use Leo's death as a "stepstool" to the presidency. Santos emerges as the winner in his home state of Texas, while Vinick wins his home state of California. The election comes down to Nevada, where both candidates need a victory to secure the presidency. Vinick tells his staff repeatedly that he will not allow his campaign to demand a recount of the votes if Santos is declared the winner. Josh Lyman gives Santos the same advice, although the Santos campaign sends a team of lawyers down to Nevada. Santos is pronounced the winner of the election, having won Nevada by 30,000 votes, with an electoral vote margin of 272–266.


title: The West Wing

text: According to executive producer Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr., the writers originally intended for Vinick to win the election. However, the death of Spencer forced him and his colleagues to consider the emotional strain that would result from having Santos lose both his running mate and the election. It was eventually decided by John Wells that the last episodes would be rescripted. Other statements from John Wells, however, have contradicted O'Donnell's claims about a previously planned Vinick victory. The script showing Santos winning was written long before the death of John Spencer. In 2008 O'Donnell stated to camera, "We actually planned at the outset for Jimmy Smits to win, that was our .. just .. plan of how this was all going to work, but the Vinick character came on so strong in the show, and was so effective, it became a real contest ... and it became a real contest in the West Wing writer's room."


title: The West Wing

text: Similarities between the fictional 2006 election and the real-life 2008 U.S. presidential election have been noted in the media:


title: The West Wing

text: According to David Remnick's biography of Obama, "The Bridge", when writer and former White House aide Eli Attie was tasked with fleshing out the first major Santos storylines, he looked to then-U.S. Senator Obama as a model. Attie called David Axelrod, with whom he had worked in politics, "and grilled him about Obama." While Attie says that he "drew inspiration from [Obama] in drawing [the Santos] character," actor Jimmy Smits also says that Obama "was one of the people that I looked to draw upon" for his portrayal of the character. Writer and producer Lawrence O'Donnell says that he partly modeled Vinick after McCain. Obama's former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is said to be the basis of the Josh Lyman character, who becomes Santos's Chief of Staff. However, O'Donnell denied this claim.


title: The West Wing

text: As the series sunsets with Bartlet's final year in office, little is revealed about Matt Santos's presidency, with the last few episodes mainly focusing on the Santos team's transition into the White House. Santos chooses Josh Lyman as Chief of Staff, who in turn calls on former colleague Sam Seaborn to be Deputy Chief of Staff. In need of experienced cabinet members, Santos taps Arnold Vinick as Secretary of State, believing the senior statesman to be one of the best strategists available and respected by foreign leaders. Santos eventually decides on Eric Baker, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania and at one point the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, as his choice for vice president, and submits his name to Congress under the terms of the 25th Amendment. While the show ends before he can be confirmed, it is implied he may face little opposition from Republicans due to the backing of Secretary of State Vinick.


title: The West Wing

text: President Bartlet's final act as President of the United States is pardoning Toby Ziegler, who had violated federal law by leaking classified information about a military space shuttle. The series ends with Bartlet returning to New Hampshire. Having said his goodbyes to his closest staff, former President Bartlet tells President Santos, "Make me proud, Mr. President," to which Santos responds, "I'll do my best, Mr. President."


title: The West Wing

text: The series is available on DVD, with a complete series set released in 2006. Season 1 is in the original 4:3 format while Season 2 onward are presented as anamorphic widescreen.


title: The West Wing

text: In 2010 the series was released in high-definition for the first time on streaming platforms Amazon Video and iTunes, with the first two seasons remastered in to match the aspect ratio and resolution change in the third season.


title: The West Wing

text: Several books have been published about "The West Wing". One of the first, in 2001, was Paul C. Challe's "Inside the West Wing: An Unauthorized Look at Television's Smartest Show". In 2002, Newmarket Press published "The West Wing Script Book", which included episode scripts from Aaron Sorkin. Also in 2002, Ian Jackman wrote "The West Wing (The Official Companion)". Analytical books about the series include Peter Rollins' "The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama" (2003), "The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism" by Trevor Parry-Giles and Shawn J. Parry-Giles (2006), "The West Wing (TV Milestones Series)" by Janet McCabe (2012), and Claire Handscombe's "Walk with Us: How the West Wing Changed Our Lives" (2016).


title: The West Wing

text: In 2010, Twitter accounts for many of the primary characters on "The West Wing" began to appear, including accounts for President Bartlet, Josh Lyman, Leo McGarry, Matt Santos and Mrs. Landingham. Tweets from the fictional characters have been featured on "The Rachel Maddow Show", CNN and questions from the fictional accounts have been answered by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs during a White House Press Conference and from Vice President Joe Biden during a Twitter Town Hall. The success of "The West Wing" accounts has resulted in several copycats, including accounts from several minor or obscure "West Wing" characters, including Gail, the fish in C.J.'s office.


title: The West Wing

text: In March 2016, "The West Wing Weekly" podcast hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway and Joshua Malina began. Each episode of the podcast discusses an episode of "The West Wing" and has featured various cast and crew members from the series.


title: The West Wing

text: On March 25, 2019, screenwriters Josh Olson (Oscar-nominated for "A History of Violence") and Dave Anthony launched "The West Wing Thing", in which the hosts "watch and then discuss" an episode of the series, analyzing and critiquing the show itself as well as its relationship to real-life American politics, both at the time it originally aired and in the present day.


title: The West Wing

text: A major fan convention, "West Wing Weekend" took place in September 28–30, 2018, at the Marriott Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland. The convention featured guest appearances from some members of the series' cast, as well as a number of panels, fan-based programming, and special events. A Kickstarter campaign for the convention was started on January 4, 2018, to raise $10,000, and it was fully funded within two days.


title: The West Wing

text: Many venues, including Funny or Die, "Mad TV", "30 Rock", and the "Late Night with Seth Meyers" have parodied the walk-and-talk cliche of the show, including the "ping-pong" dialogue, in which one character would speak barely a word before the other said another, and then repeated back and forth.


title: The West Wing

text: Toward the end of a 2016 episode of "Mom" entitled "Pure Evil and a Free Piece of Cheesecake", main character Bonnie Plunkett, played by former "West Wing" cast member Allison Janney, fantasizes about becoming president of the United States, doing a walk-and-talk scene with former "West Wing" cast member Richard Schiff.


title: The West Wing

text: During the 2012 campaign season, most of the cast—including Mary McCormack as Kate Harper—appeared in a video paid for by the campaign to elect McCormack's sister Bridget Mary McCormack to a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court. Gently parodying the television series, the characters earnestly discuss the fact that voters often fail to vote in the non-partisan section of their ballots, which in this case would include court candidates such as Bridget McCormack, whose qualifications they praise. Although she is referred to as the sister of actress Mary McCormack, the characters do not recognize the name, except for Harper who finds it vaguely familiar. Bridget McCormack was subsequently elected.


title: The West Wing

text: In August 2020, it was announced that cast members Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney would reprise their roles for a stage version of the episode "Hartsfield's Landing". The episode was intended to raise awareness and support for "When We All Vote", a nonprofit organization founded to increase participation in United States elections by Michelle Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda and others. Production began in early October 2020 at Los Angeles' Orpheum Theatre and premiered on October 15 on HBO Max.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. The club's motto is "", meaning "By Skill and Hard Work" in Latin. They have a long-standing rivalry with nearby club Burnley, with whom they contest the East Lancashire derby.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: The club was established in 1875, becoming a founding member of The Football League in 1888. They won five FA Cup finals in the 19th century: 1884, 1885, 1886, 1890 and 1891. The team was crowned English League champions in 1911–12 and 1913–14, then won a sixth FA Cup in 1928. However, they were relegated for the first time in 1936, though returned to the top-flight as Second Division champions in 1938–39. Relegated in 1948, Rovers secured promotion again in 1957–58, though would be relegated in 1966 and again in 1971. Blackburn won the Third Division title in 1974–75, and were again promoted in 1979–80 after suffering relegation the previous year. They won the Full Members' Cup in 1987.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In 1992, Rovers gained promotion to the new Premier League via the play-offs; this achievement came a year after being taken over by local entrepreneur Jack Walker, who installed Kenny Dalglish as manager. In 1994–95, Rovers became Premier League champions. Relegated just four seasons after being crowed champions, they secured promotion at the end of the 2000–01 season, and went on to win the League Cup in 2002. They this time spent eleven successive seasons in the Premier League, though were relegated in 2012 and again into the third tier in 2017. Blackburn secured promotion out of League One at the end of the 2017–18 season.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: The club was founded following a meeting, at the Leger Hotel, Blackburn, on 5 November 1875. The meeting was organised by two young men, namely John Lewis and Arthur Constantine, two old-boys of Shrewsbury School. The purpose of the meeting was "to discuss the possibility of forming a football club to play under Association rules". The first match played by Blackburn Rovers took place in Church, Lancashire on 18 December 1875 and was a 1–1 draw.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: On 28 September 1878, Blackburn Rovers became one of 23 clubs to form the Lancashire Football Association. On 1 November 1879 the club played in the FA Cup for the first time, beating the Tyne Association Football Club 5–1. Rovers were eventually put out of the competition in the third round after suffering a heavy 6–0 defeat by Nottingham Forest.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: On 25 March 1882 the club won through to the final of the FA Cup against the Old Etonians. Blackburn Rovers was the first provincial team to reach the final, but the result was a 1–0 defeat by the Old Etonians.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Rovers finally won the FA Cup on 29 March 1884 with a 2–1 victory over the Scottish team Queen's Park. The same teams played the FA Cup final again the next season, with Blackburn Rovers again emerging victorious, with a 2–0 score. Rovers repeated this success yet again the next season, winning the final replay 2–0 against West Bromwich Albion. For this three-in-a-row of FA Cup victories, the club was awarded a specially commissioned silver shield.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: The 1885–86 season was the birth of the legal professional footballer, and Blackburn Rovers spent £615 on player wages for the season.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers again reached the FA Cup final on 29 March 1890 at the Kennington Oval. The club claimed the trophy for the fourth time, by beating Sheffield Wednesday a hefty 6–1 with left forward William Townley scoring three goals and becoming the first player to achieve a hat-trick in the FA Cup final.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: The 1890–91 season saw Blackburn Rovers win the FA Cup for the fifth time against Notts County with a 3–1 victory. During the 1897–98 season the club were relegated but were elected back into the first division at the Football League's AGM along with Newcastle United. The season did, however, mark the beginning of Bob Crompton's 45-year association with the club, both as a player and eventually as an FA Cup winning manager.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers continued to struggle during the early years of the 20th century, but the results began a gradual improvement. Major renovations were made to Ewood Park: in 1905 the Darwen End was covered at a cost of £1680 and the new Nuttall Stand was opened on New Year's Day 1907. During the first three decades of the 20th century, Blackburn Rovers were still considered a top side in the English league. They were First Division champions in 1911–12 and 1913–14, and F.A Cup winners in 1927–28 with a 3–1 victory against Huddersfield Town, but the F.A Cup win was their last major trophy for nearly 70 years.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers maintained a respectable mid-table position in the First Division until they were finally relegated (along with Aston Villa) from the top flight (for the first time since the foundation of the league) in the 1935–36 season.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: When the league resumed after the war, Blackburn Rovers were relegated in their second season (1947–48). At this time the tradition of burying a coffin began. The club remained in the second division for the following ten years. After promotion in 1958, they again returned to the mid-table position they had occupied in the earlier part of the century. During this time, they seldom made a serious challenge for a major trophy – although they did reach the 1960 FA Cup Final when managed by Scot Dally Duncan. Rovers lost this game 3–0 to Wolverhampton Wanderers after playing most of the game with only 10 men on the field following an injury to Dave Whelan, who broke a leg.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: There were brief hopes of a return to glory in the 1963–64 season, when a remarkable 8–2 away win over West Ham United in east London on Boxing Day took them to the top of the league. However, their lead of the league was short-lived, and they finished the season some way down the table, as the title was seized by a Liverpool side who would record a further 12 league titles over the next 26 years, while Blackburn's fortunes took a very different route. They were relegated from the First Division in 1966 and began a 26-year exile from the top division.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: During the 1970s, Blackburn Rovers bounced between the Second and Third Divisions, winning the Third Division title in 1975, but never mounted a challenge for promotion to the First Division despite the efforts of successive managers to put the club back on track, and fell back into the Third Division in 1979. They went up as runners-up in the Third Division in 1980 and, save for one season in League One in 2017–18, have remained in the upper two tiers of the English league ever since. A second successive promotion was nearly achieved the following year, but the club missed out on goal difference, and promotion-winning manager Howard Kendall moved to Everton that summer. Kendall's successor, Bobby Saxton only managed mid-table finishes for the next three seasons, then nearly achieved promotion in the 1984–85 season, but a poor finish the following year (just one place above relegation) followed by an abysmal start to the 1986–87 season cost Saxton his job.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Saxton was replaced by Don Mackay, who steered them to a decent finish that season and also victory in the Full Members Cup. In the following three seasons Mackay re-established Rovers as promotion contenders, but they fell just short of promotion each time; the closest they came was in 1988–89 reached the Second Division play-off final in its last season of the home-away two-legged format – but lost to Crystal Palace. A defeat in the 1989–90 Second Division playoff semi-finals brought more frustration to Ewood Park, but the following season saw the club taken over by local steelworks owner and lifelong supporter Jack Walker (1929–2000).


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Following the Walker takeover Rovers finished 19th in the Second Division at the end of the 1990–91 season, but the new owner had made millions of pounds available to spend on new players and appointed Kenny Dalglish as manager in October 1991. Rovers secured promotion to the new FA Premier League at the end of 1991–92 season as play-off winners, ending 26 years outside the top flight.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Rovers made headlines in the summer of 1992 by paying an English record fee of £3.5million for the 22-year-old Southampton and England centre forward Alan Shearer. After finishing fourth in 1992–93 and runners-up in 1993–94, they went on to win the Premier League title in 1994–95. The title chase went down to the last game of the season, but despite Rovers losing to Liverpool they edged out rivals Manchester United to win the championship.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Kenny Dalglish moved upstairs to the position of Director of Football at the end of the Premier League winning season, and handed over the reins to his assistant Ray Harford. Blackburn Rovers made a poor start to the 1995–96 season, and found themselves in the bottom half for most of the first half of the season. Rovers also struggled in the Champions League and finished bottom of their group with just four points. A terrible start to the 1996–97 Premier League campaign saw Harford resign in late October with the club bottom of the division, having failed to win any of their first ten games. Relegation looked a real possibility, just two seasons after winning the league. After an abortive attempt to bring in Sven-Göran Eriksson as manager, long-serving coach Tony Parkes took over as manager for the rest of the campaign, narrowly steering the side to survival. That summer, the manager's job was taken by Roy Hodgson, who joined the club from Internazionale. UEFA Cup football was secured with a 6th-place finish. However, Rovers made a poor start to the 1998–99 campaign and Hodgson was sacked in December less than an hour after a 2–0 home defeat by bottom side Southampton, a result that locked Rovers in the relegation zone. He was replaced as manager by Brian Kidd. However Kidd failed to save Rovers from relegation.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In 1999–2000 Rovers began the season as promotion favourites, but with the club hovering just above the Division One relegation zone Brian Kidd was sacked in October and replaced in March by Graeme Souness. Jack Walker died just after the start of the 2000–01 season, and the club dedicated its promotion challenge in memory of their benefactor. Fittingly, they returned to the Premier League after a much improved season, finishing second behind Fulham.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In 2001–02, record signing Andy Cole was bought in for £8million, and Rovers won their first-ever League Cup by beating Tottenham Hotspur 2–1 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Cole scoring the winner in the 69th minute. The following season Rovers finished sixth to qualify for the UEFA Cup for the second season running. Souness left just after the start of 2004–05 to take charge at Newcastle, and he was replaced by Welsh national coach Mark Hughes. Hughes secured Rovers' Premier League survival for the 2004–05 season as well as an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal, with Rovers finishing 15th once again. He led the team to sixth the following season and Rovers's third European qualification in five years.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Rovers reached the semi-final of the 2006–07 FA Cup, but lost to Chelsea in extra time, and finished that season's league in tenth, qualifying for the Intertoto Cup, which led to a short run in the 2007–08 UEFA Cup. In May 2008, Mark Hughes left Blackburn Rovers for the vacancy at Manchester City. He was replaced by Paul Ince, Ince's first job was to persuade some of the wantaway players to stay. with Archie Knox coming in as his assistant. Ince's time in charge started well, but following a run of eleven games without a win he was sacked in December 2008. Sam Allardyce was appointed as Ince's replacement and in 2009–10 he led the team to a tenth-place finish and a League Cup semi-final.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In November 2010, the Indian company V H Group bought Blackburn Rovers under the name of Venky's London Limited for £23 million. The new owners immediately sacked manager Sam Allardyce and replaced him with first-team coach Steve Kean, initially on a temporary basis, but by January 2011 he had been awarded a full-time contract until June 2013. Kean's appointment was shrouded in a great deal of controversy since his agent Jerome Anderson had earlier played a major role in advising Venky's during the takeover of the club in the preceding months.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In December 2011, Blackburn Rovers posted an annual pre-tax loss of £18.6m for the year ending 30 June 2011. Despite this, the owners of Blackburn Rovers provided assurances over the continued funding of the club, even if they were relegated.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: On 7 May 2012, Blackburn were relegated to the Championship after being defeated at home by Wigan Athletic in the penultimate game of the season, ending eleven years in the Premier League. At the start of the 2012–2013 season, Kean was given a chance by the owners to win promotion and kept his job as the manager. Ultimately though, pressure from the supporters who had been calling for the manager's removal for months resulted in his resignation as manager on 29 September 2012.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: On 7 May 2017, Blackburn were relegated to League One. On 24 April 2018, the club were promoted back to the second tier with a 1–0 win at Doncaster Rovers.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: In recent years, they have finished 15th (2018–2019), 11th (2019–2020), 15th (2020–2021), and 8th (2021–2022) in the Championship.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: "For a list of notable Blackburn Rovers players in sortable-table format see List of Blackburn Rovers F.C. players."


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Unlike most teams, Blackburn Rovers have only ever had one design to their home kit. The distinctive blue and white halved jersey is widely acknowledged as the "town colour". Although the design has remained the same, the side in which the colours fall has often changed. Blue has resided on the wearers left since 1946 however prior to this regulation the blue and white often switched order almost yearly.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers' first ever kit is however indefinite. The 1905 book; Book of Football by Jonathan Russell describes Blackburn Rovers' first kit as a white jersey with Maltese Cross on the wearers left breast, Trousers and a blue and white skull cap. The Maltese Cross notorious with the public schools in which the founders of the club were educated. In contrast an account from the "Blackburn Standard" on 6 January 1894 accounts the first kit as navy blue and white quartered jersey (quartered accounting for the shirts four panels front and back), white knickers and navy hose. This account is much more synonymous with the kit today. Photographic evidence from 1878 shows the team in Blue and white halved (quartered) jerseys, white shorts and blue socks, complete with blue and white cap and Maltese Cross.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Through its history the club has adopted four badges as its crest; the Maltese Cross, the towns coat of arms, Lancashire Rose and the present day Blackburn Rovers Badge. From 1875 to approximately 1882 The Maltese Cross was present on the club's first ever home kit and was worn by both the Shrewsbury and Malvern school teams. Two former Malvernians and two former Salopians played in that first team, so there is a clear link with these public schools.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: During FA Cup finals it is tradition for the club to adopt the town's coat of arms as their badge. This tradition has carried through all eight FA Cup finals the club has been a part of all the way to their last FA Cup final against Woverhampton Wanderers in 1960.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: From roughly 1882 and excluding cup finals the club did not use a badge until 1974. In this year the club opted for an embroidered Lancashire Rose with the club's initials "B.R.F.C." below. This badge lasted unchanged for 15 years until it was 1989 due to visibility issues of the dark red rose on the dark blue of the shirt.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: From 1989 to the present day the current Blackburn Rovers badge has been used. It has encompassed the previous badge in a newer design for the Lancashire Red Rose. Circling the rose is the team name "Blackburn Rovers F.C." and the date in which the club was founded "1875". At the base of the badge is the club motto, "Arte Et Labore" which translated means, "by skill and by labour". This motto has been taken from the town motto which was adopted in 1852.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: As of 2021, the club's kit has been manufactured by Macron, and sponsored by vaping brand, Totally Wicked, since January 2022.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Rovers first home ground was a field at Oozehead on Preston New Road to the north west of the town. This field was farmland and was owned by a local farmer; when Blackburn Rovers weren't using the field it was used to graze cows. In the centre of the field was a large watering hole, which on match days was covered with timber and turf.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Due to the rough conditions at Oozehead, the committee felt an established sports ground would be best to play on. Therefore, during the 1877 season they acquired the use of Pleasington's cricket ground to the south west of the town. Play stopped on this ground after Henry Smith of Preston North End died of a heart attack whilst playing.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Still adopting cricket grounds, the committee acquired the use of the East Lancashire Cricket Club's ground in the centre of the town, Alexandra Meadows. Sources differ as to the date of the first match played by Rovers at Alexandra Meadows. A programme from Clitheroe F.C. states that Clitheroe was the first team to beat Blackburn at Alexandra Meadows on 17 November 1877. Other sources indicate that the first match took place on 2 January 1878 with a Blackburn victory against Partick Thistle. It was on this ground Blackburn Rovers played for the first time under artificial light against Accrington on 4 November 1878.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Due to the increasing demand in football in the area and in particular for Blackburn Rovers the committee felt that a private ground was more fitting. Therefore, in 1881 the club moved to Leamington Road, Blackburn Rovers' first purpose built ground including a 700-person capacity seated grandstand, costing £500. The first game played at this ground was held on 8 October 1881 against Blackburn Olympic resulting in a 4–1 win for Rovers. Whilst at Leamington Road and under James Fielding the club won three FA Cups and was inaugurated into the Football League as a founding Member in 1888. However, despite the club's success, they had to leave Leamington Road due to increases in lease costs.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Built in April 1882 as Ewood Bridge. The ground was an all purpose sporting venue hosting football, athletics and dog racing. The Blackburn Rovers committee felt this was the ideal venue for the club after having already played numerous games there in 1882. The first game played at the new Ewood Park ground was on 13 September 1890 against Accrington, the 0–0 draw was viewed by 10,000 people and on 31 October 1892 artificial lights were installed. Ewood sits on the bank of the River Darwen in Blackburn, Lancashire.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: An attempt was made to destroy the ground in 1913. As part of the suffragette bombing and arson campaign, suffragettes carried out a series of bombings and arson attacks nationwide to publicise their campaign for women's suffrage. In November 1913, suffragettes attempted to burn down Ewood Park's grandstand but were foiled. In the same year, suffragettes succeeded in burning down Arsenal's then South London stadium, and also attempted to burn down Preston North End's ground. More traditionally male sports were targeted in order to protest against male dominance.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn Rovers supporters have formed several support clubs related to the team, and almost all of them are partially focused on making trips to Ewood Park easier. Rovers home games were well attended as a percentage of the Blackburn population throughout the 2000s with average attendances of around 25,000, equal to roughly a quarter of Blackburn's population (approximately 100,000). The supporters' long-running fanzine is called "4,000 Holes".


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Clement Charnock and his brother Harry were Blackburn Rovers fans who introduced football into Russia in the 1880s.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: Blackburn's primary rivals are Burnley, with whom they contest the East Lancashire derby. Other rivalries for Rovers include Preston North End, Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic, all by proximity.


title: Blackburn Rovers F.C.

text: £8m to Manchester United for Andrew Cole in December 2001£8m to Huddersfield Town for Jordan Rhodes in August 2012


title: Michelin Guide

text: The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a star or stars can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. Michelin also publishes the Green Guides, a series of general guides to cities, regions, and countries.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 1900, there were fewer than 3,000 cars on the roads of France. To increase the demand for cars and, accordingly, car tyres, car tyre manufacturers and brothers Édouard and André Michelin published a guide for French motorists, the Michelin Guide. Nearly 35,000 copies of this first, free edition of the guide were distributed. It provided information to motorists, such as maps, tyre repair and replacement instructions, car mechanics listings, hotels, and petrol stations throughout France.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 1904, the brothers published a guide for Belgium similar to the Michelin Guide. Michelin subsequently introduced guides for Algeria and Tunisia (1907); the Alps and the Rhine (northern Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria, and the Netherlands) (1908); Germany, Spain, and Portugal (1910); the British Isles (1911); and "The Countries of the Sun" (") (Northern Africa, Southern Italy and Corsica) (1911). In 1909, an English-language version of the guide to France was published.


title: Michelin Guide

text: During World War I, publication of the guide was suspended. After the war, revised editions of the guide continued to be given away until 1920. It is said that André Michelin, whilst visiting a tyre merchant, noticed copies of the guide being used to prop up a workbench. Based on the principle that "man only truly respects what he pays for", Michelin decided to charge a price for the guide, which was about 750 francs or $2.15 in 1922. They also made several changes, notably listing restaurants by specific categories, adding hotel listings (initially only for Paris), and removing advertisements in the guide. Recognizing the growing popularity of the restaurant section of the guide, the brothers recruited a team of inspectors to visit and review restaurants, who were always anonymous.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Following the usage of the Murray's and Baedeker guides, the guide began to award stars for fine dining establishments in 1926. Initially, there was only a single star awarded. Then, in 1931, the hierarchy of zero, one, two, and three stars was introduced. Finally, in 1936, the criteria for the starred rankings were published:


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 1931 the cover of the guide was changed from blue to red and has remained so in all subsequent editions. During World War II, publication was again suspended. In 1944, at the request of the Allied Forces, the 1939 guide to France was specially reprinted for military use; its maps were judged the best and most up-to-date available. Publication of the annual guide resumed on 16 May 1945, a week after VE Day.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In the early post-war years, the lingering effects of wartime shortages led Michelin to impose an upper limit of two stars; by 1950 the French edition listed 38 establishments judged to meet this standard. The first Michelin Guide to Italy was published in 1956. It awarded no stars in the first edition. In 1974, the first guide to Britain since 1931 was published. Twenty-five stars were awarded.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 2005, Michelin published its first American guide, covering 500 restaurants in the five boroughs of New York City and 50 hotels in Manhattan. In 2007, a Tokyo Michelin Guide was launched. In the same year, the guide introduced a magazine, ". In 2008, a Hong Kong and Macau volume was added. As of 2013, the guide is published in 14 editions covering 23 countries.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 2008, German restaurateur Juliane Caspar was appointed editor-in-chief of the French edition of the guide. She had previously been responsible for the Michelin guides to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. She became the first woman and first non-French national to occupy the French position. The German newspaper " commented on the appointment, "In view of the fact German cuisine is regarded as a lethal weapon in most parts of France, this decision is like Mercedes announcing that its new director of product development is a Martian."


title: Michelin Guide

text: The first Canadian guide, which is to be debuted in Toronto, is expected to be published in the fall of 2022.


title: Michelin Guide

text: The guide announced its first list of restaurants in the state of Florida on 9 June 2022, after striking a deal the year prior with tourism boards in the state. The guide gave out a single two-star ranking and fourteen one-star rankings, as well as 29 Bib Gourmands.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Red Guides have historically listed many more restaurants than rival guides, relying on an extensive system of symbols to describe each one in as little as two lines. Reviews of starred restaurants also include two to three culinary specialties. Short summaries (2–3 lines) were added in 2002/2003 to enhance descriptions of many establishments. These summaries are written in the language of the country for which the guide is published (though the Spain and Portugal volume is in Spanish only) but the symbols are the same throughout all editions.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Michelin reviewers (commonly called "inspectors") are anonymous; they do not identify themselves, and their meals and expenses are paid for by Michelin, never by a restaurant being reviewed:


title: Michelin Guide

text: The French chef Paul Bocuse, one of the pioneers of in the 1960s, said, "Michelin is the only guide that counts." In France, when the guide is published each year, it sparks a media frenzy which has been compared to that for annual Academy Awards for films. Media and others debate likely winners, speculation is rife, and TV and newspapers discuss which restaurant might lose, and who might gain a Michelin star.


title: Michelin Guide

text: The Michelin Guide also awards "Rising Stars", an indication that a restaurant has the potential to qualify for a star, or an additional star.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 2020, the Michelin Guide launched a sustainability emblem to symbolise excellence in sustainable gastronomy. An establishment awarded this green star is given space on the Guide's website for the chef to describe the restaurant's vision.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Since 1955, the guide has also highlighted restaurants offering "exceptionally good food at moderate prices", a feature now called "". They must offer menu items priced below a maximum determined by local economic standards. () is the company's nickname for the Michelin Man, its corporate logo for over a century.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 2014, Michelin introduced a separate listing for gastropubs in Ireland. In 2016, the Michelin Guide for Hong Kong and Macau introduced an overview of notable street-food establishments. In the same year, the Singapore guide introduced the first Michelin stars for street-food locations, for Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle.


title: Michelin Guide

text: All listed restaurants, regardless of their star, , or Plate status, also receive a "fork and spoon" designation, as a subjective reflection of the overall comfort and quality of the restaurant. Rankings range from one to five: one fork and spoon represents a "comfortable restaurant" and five signifies a "luxurious restaurant".


title: Michelin Guide

text: Restaurants, independently of their other ratings in the guide, can also receive a number of other symbols next to their listing:


title: Michelin Guide

text: The Michelin Green Guides review and rate attractions other than restaurants. There is a Green Guide for France as a whole, and a more detailed one for each of ten regions within France. Other Green Guides cover many countries, regions, and cities outside France. Many Green Guides are published in several languages. They include background information and an alphabetical section describing points of interest. Like the Red Guides, they use a three-star system for recommending sites, ranging from "worth a trip" to "worth a detour", and "interesting".


title: Michelin Guide

text: Pascal Rémy, a veteran France-based Michelin inspector, and also a former Gault Millau employee, wrote a tell-all book published in 2004 entitled "L'Inspecteur se met à table" (literally, "The Inspector Sits Down at the Table"; idiomatically, "The Inspector Spills the Beans", or "The Inspector Lays It All on the Table"). Rémy's employment was terminated in December 2003 when he informed Michelin of his plans to publish his book. He brought a court case for unfair dismissal, which was unsuccessful.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Rémy described the French Michelin inspector's life as lonely, underpaid drudgery, driving around France for weeks on end, dining alone, under intense pressure to file detailed reports on strict deadlines. He maintained that the guide had become lax in its standards. Though Michelin states that its inspectors visited all 4,000 reviewed restaurants in France every 18 months, and all starred restaurants several times a year, Rémy said only about one visit every years was possible because there were only 11 inspectors in France when he was hired, rather than the 50 or more hinted by Michelin. That number, he said, had shrunk to five by the time he was fired in December 2003.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Rémy also accused the guide of favouritism. He alleged that Michelin treated famous and influential chefs, such as Paul Bocuse and Alain Ducasse, as "untouchable" and not subject to the same rigorous standards as lesser-known chefs. Michelin denied Rémy's charges, but refused to say how many inspectors it actually employed in France. In response to Rémy's statement that certain three-star chefs were sacrosanct, Michelin said, "There would be little sense in saying a restaurant was worth three stars if it weren't true, if for no other reason than that the customer would write and tell us."


title: Michelin Guide

text: Some non-French food critics have alleged that the rating system is biased in favour of French cuisine or French dining standards. The UK "The Guardian" commented in 1997 that "some people maintain the guide's principal purpose is as a tool of Gallic cultural imperialism". When Michelin published its first New York City Red Guide in 2005 Steven Kurutz of "The New York Times" noted that Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe, a restaurant rated highly by "The New York Times", Zagat Survey, and other prominent guides, received a no-star rating from Michelin (he did, however, acknowledge that the restaurant received positive mention for its ambiance, and that two other restaurants owned by Meyer received stars). Kurutz also said the guide appeared to favour restaurants that "emphasized formality and presentation" rather than a "casual approach to fine dining". He said over half of the restaurants that received one or two stars "could be considered French". The Michelin Guide New York 2007 included 526 restaurants, compared to 2,014 in Zagat New York 2007; after The Four Seasons Restaurant received no stars in that edition, co-owner Julian Niccolini said Michelin "should stay in France, and they should keep their guide there". The 2007 guide does, however, include menus, recipes, and photographs, and descriptions of the atmosphere of starred restaurants.


title: Michelin Guide

text: In 2007 Tokyo's restaurants were awarded with the most stars and in 2010 other Japanese cities like Kyoto and Osaka also received many stars. At the time this sparked questions from some over whether these high ratings were merited for Japanese restaurants, or whether the Michelin guide was too generous in giving out stars to gain an acceptance with Japanese customers and to enable the tyre-selling parent company to market itself in Japan. But the discrepancy is easily explained by the number of restaurants in total: Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants while Paris, for example, has just 40,000. "The Wall Street Journal" reported in 2010 that some Japanese chefs were surprised at receiving a star and were reluctant to accept one because the publicity caused an unmanageable jump in booking, affecting their ability to serve their traditional customers without lowering their quality.


title: Michelin Guide

text: Some restaurateurs have asked Michelin to revoke a star, because they felt that it created undesirable customer expectations or pressure to spend more on service and decor. Notable cases include:


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Gina Alexis Rodriguez (born July 30, 1984) is an American actress. She is known for her leading role as Jane Villanueva in The CW satirical romantic dramedy series "Jane the Virgin" (2014–2019), for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 2015.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Born and raised in Chicago, Rodriguez began her career in 2003 in theater productions and made her screen debut in an episode of the police procedural drama series "Law & Order". Her breakthrough came in 2012, in the independent musical-drama film "Filly Brown". She has gone on to star in such films as "Deepwater Horizon" (2016), "Ferdinand" (2017), "Annihilation" (2018), "Miss Bala" (2019), "Someone Great" (2019) and "Scoob!" (2020). She also voiced the titular character of the Netflix animated action-adventure series "Carmen Sandiego".


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Gina Alexis Rodriguez was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Magali and Gino Rodriguez, a boxing referee. She has two sisters and an older brother. She was raised in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: At the age of seven, Rodriguez performed at the salsa dance company Fantasia Juvenil. Rodriguez was raised Catholic, and went to high school at St. Ignatius College Prep where she was two years behind the comedian John Mulaney. She has stated that she did not attend "Jake McNamara's party" which is the subject of one of Mulaney's bits. She focused on salsa dancing until age 17 when she began acting more.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: At the age of 16, she was among thirteen teenagers to be accepted into Columbia University's Theatrical Collaboration. She attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She trained for four years at the Atlantic Theater Company and Experimental Theatre Wing, and earned with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: She portrayed Frida Kahlo in the world premiere of "Casa Blue" in the United Kingdom, in the play called "The Last Moments in the Life of Frida Kahlo" at the American Stage Theatre.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Rodriguez made her screen debut appearing in an episode of "Law & Order" in 2004. She later has appeared on "Eleventh Hour", "Army Wives" and "The Mentalist". On October 19, 2011, Rodriguez landed the recurring role, Beverly, in the soap opera series "The Bold and the Beautiful". She received a role in the musical film "Go for It!", for which she received a 2011 Imagen Awards nomination.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In 2012, Rodriguez played young hip-hop artist Majo Tenorio in the independent musical-drama film "Filly Brown", for which she won an Imaged Award. She received good reviews for her performance in film. She also was the recipient of the Best Actor Award at the First Run Film Festival in New York. On June 9, 2013, Gina won the Inaugural Lupe Award. On April 16, 2013, during an interview, she revealed she was offered a role in the Lifetime television series "Devious Maids", but turned it down. On October 16, 2013, she joined the cast of the movie "Sleeping With The Fishes". She is also working on an album.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: On February 27, 2014, "Entertainment Weekly" announced that Rodriguez would play the titular role of Jane Villanueva in "Jane the Virgin", for which she went on to win a Golden Globe Award. On June 4, 2014, Rodriguez joined the cast of the upcoming drama film "Sticky Notes". In August 2015, she co-hosted the 2015 Teen Choice Awards with Ludacris and Josh Peck. She voiced Mary in the animated film "The Star", which was released in November 2017, as well as Una in Blue Sky Studios' "Ferdinand" a month later and played Anya in the science fiction thriller film "Annihilation", opposite Natalie Portman. She also voices Carmen Sandiego in the Netflix animated series "Carmen Sandiego" which premiered on January 18, 2019. In March 2018, Netflix announced that they had acquired the live-action film rights for "Carmen Sandiego" and that Rodriguez would star as Sandiego in the film.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Rodriguez owns the production company I Can & I Will Productions. She worked on projects at CBS and The CW centered around the Latino community. She served as a producer and starred in the 2019 Netflix romantic comedy film "Someone Great", where her character sang and danced in her underwear to Lizzo's Truth Hurts, ultimately making the song more popular and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In 2019, Rodriguez starred as the title character in the action thriller film "Miss Bala". In the same year, it was announced that Rodriguez was cast in the upcoming Netflix science fiction thriller "Awake". She also voiced the role of Velma Dinkley in the computer animated adventure film "Scoob!".


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Rodriguez served as the executive producer for the Disney+ show "Diary of a Future President", where she also starred as the title character as an adult. She was nominated for the Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performance for the show's second season.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In an interview, Rodriguez revealed that she has suffered from Hashimoto's disease, a thyroid condition, since the age of 19.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In a 2014 interview, she said, "I grew up Catholic. I have Jewish in my family and I attend a Christian church in Hollywood. I am basically all over the place."


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In 2016, Rodriguez began dating actor, model, and MMA fighter Joe LoCicero, whom she met on the set of "Jane the Virgin". On August 7, 2018, Rodriguez confirmed in an interview with "Us Weekly" that she and LoCicero were engaged. On May 4, 2019, the couple married.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Rodriguez has been increasingly involved with various charities and philanthropic efforts, made possible by her rising visibility as a film and television actress. Most notably, she became involved with various organizations in 2015, ranging from CustomInk to Naja Lingerie, all of which Rodriguez has stated have a special connection to her life and experiences.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: On March 16, 2015, she was announced as a new member of the HSF's (Hispanic Scholarship Fund) Board of Directors. The HSF is the United States' biggest non-profit organization which supports Hispanic American higher education. Because attaining an education was the biggest priority in Rodriguez's household, coupled with her determination to work towards a degree, she was able to work towards receiving a HSF scholarship. For her placement on the Board of Directors, Rodriguez will help to support HSF in a matchless and meaningful way, therefore making sure that HSF's mission will continue to support the original values and commitment to education. Rodriguez has stated that this is a great opportunity to say thank you [to the HSF] and to help open doors for Latino students to follow.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Later in 2015, PACER's (The Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights) National Bullying Prevention Center teamed up with CustomInk and enlisted the help of various celebrities, Rodriguez among them, to raise money for their fifth annual "Be Good to Each Other Campaign". Throughout the month of October 2015, people were encouraged to purchase a "celebri-tee" from CustomInk, who would donate all the proceeds from bullying prevention T-shirts to PACER. Rodriguez, in designing a "celebri-tee" which featured the phrase "Kindness Is Always In Style" in cursive print, took a stand for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion in support of bullying prevention, and stated that her parents always taught [her] the power of thinking positively and treating others with respect. She also hopes that through the Be Good to Each Other Campaign, such a message could be continued to be spread to younger generations.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: Also in October 2015, Rodriguez was announced as a partner of Naja, a lingerie line founded in 2014 with ambitions to help women and the environment. Because Naja is vertically integrated, thereby shortening manufacturing lead times by up to eighty percent, it allows the company's savings to go towards school books, lunches, and uniforms for employees' children, and there's also an emphasis on a flexible work environment. Having seen the hardships of single mothers through a close friend from college, Rodriguez wanted to support a company that primarily employed single mothers and allowed them to work from home and provide for their families. She also cites Naja's commitment to creating lingerie for women of all shapes and sizes and encouraging body confidence as a factor for becoming involved with the lingerie line; admitting that it was a process for her to fall in love with her own body, Rodriguez also spoke on the importance of empowering women to love their own bodies and what they wear. Naja is also environmentally-conscious in its production, as more than half of all of its pieces are made of synthetics (like nylon)—that have been fabricated from recycled plastic bottles—and makes use of digital printing as a more environmentally-friendly measure.


title: Gina Rodriguez

text: In 2016, Rodriguez was named to Oprah's "SuperSoul 100" list of visionaries and influential leaders. In 2017, Rodriguez, among several other artists, sang on the single "Almost Like Praying". Sparked by Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Broadway's "Hamilton", all proceeds from the song benefited those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.


title: Jeff Beck

text: Geoffrey Arnold Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He rose to prominence with the Yardbirds and after fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to a mainly instrumental style, with a focus on innovative sound, and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica.


title: Jeff Beck

text: Beck ranked in the top five of "Rolling Stone" and other magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists. He is often called a "guitarist's guitarist". "Rolling Stone" describes him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not established or maintained the sustained commercial success of many of his contemporaries and bandmates. He has recorded with many artists.


title: Jeff Beck

text: Beck has earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times and Best Pop Instrumental Performance once. In 2014 he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Beck has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).


title: Jeff Beck

text: Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born on 24 June 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, England. As a 10-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir. He attended Sutton Manor School and Sutton East County Secondary Modern School.


title: Jeff Beck

text: Beck has cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Beck has said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was 6 years old and heard Paul playing "How High the Moon" on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, "That's for me". Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, was also an early musical influence, followed by B.B. King and Steve Cropper. Beck considers Lonnie Mack "a rock guitarist [who] was unjustly overlooked [and] a major influence on him and many others."


title: Jeff Beck

text: As a teenager he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-post for the neck with model aircraft control-lines and frets simply painted on.


title: Jeff Beck

text: Upon leaving school, he attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course and a car paint-sprayer. Beck's sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.


title: Jeff Beck

text: While still attending Wimbledon College of Art, Beck was playing in a succession of groups, including Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages during 1962 when they recorded "Dracula's Daughter"/"Come Back Baby" for Oriole Records.


title: Jeff Beck

text: In 1963, after Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones introduced him to R&B, he formed the Nightshift with whom he played at the 100 Club in Oxford Street, and recorded a single, "Stormy Monday" backed with "That's My Story", for the Piccadilly label. Beck joined the Rumbles, a Croydon band, in 1963 for a short period as lead guitarist, playing Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly songs, displaying a talent for mimicking guitar styles. Later in 1963, he joined the Tridents, a band from the Chiswick area. "They were really my scene because they were playing flat-out R&B, like Jimmy Reed stuff, and we supercharged it all up and made it really rocky. I got off on that, even though it was only twelve-bar blues." He was a session guitarist on a 1964 Parlophone single by the Fitz and Startz titled "I'm Not Running Away", with B-side "So Sweet".


title: Jeff Beck

text: In March 1965, Beck was recruited by the Yardbirds to succeed Eric Clapton on the recommendation of fellow session musician Jimmy Page, who had been their initial choice. The Yardbirds recorded most of their Top 40 hit songs during Beck's short but significant 20-month tenure with the band allowing him only one full album, which became known as "Roger the Engineer" (titled "Over Under Sideways Down" in the US), released in 1966. In May 1966, Beck recorded an instrumental titled "Beck's Bolero". Rather than members of the Yardbirds, he was backed by Page on 12-string rhythm guitar, Keith Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. In June, Page joined the Yardbirds, at first on bass and later on second lead guitar. This dual lead-guitar lineup was filmed performing an adaptation of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", titled "Stroll On", for the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film "Blow Up".


title: Jeff Beck

text: Beck was fired during a US tour for being a consistent no-show—as well as difficulties caused by his perfectionism and explosive temper. In 1967, he recorded several solo singles for pop producer Mickie Most, including "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman", which also included his vocals. He then formed the Jeff Beck Group, which included Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Aynsley Dunbar on drums (replaced by Micky Waller).


title: Jeff Beck

text: The group produced two albums for Columbia Records (Epic in the United States): "Truth" (as Jeff BecK, August 1968) and "Beck-Ola" (July 1969). "Truth," released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features "You Shook Me", a song written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters, also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut with a similar arrangement. It sold well (reaching No. 15 on the "Billboard" charts). "Beck-Ola" saw drummer Micky Waller replaced by Tony Newman, and, while well-received, was less successful both commercially and critically. Resentment, coupled with touring incidents, led the group to dissolve in July 1969.


title: Jeff Beck

text: In his autobiography, Nick Mason recalls that during 1967 Pink Floyd had wanted to recruit Beck to be its guitarist after the departure of Syd Barrett but "None of us had the nerve to ask him." In 1969, following the death of Brian Jones, Beck was approached about joining the Rolling Stones.