title: The College Dropout

text: "The College Dropout" diverged from the then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop in favor of more diverse, topical subjects for the lyrics. Throughout the album, West touches on a number of different issues drawn from his own experiences and observations, including organized religion, family, sexuality, excessive materialism, self-consciousness, minimum wage labor, institutional prejudice, and personal struggles. Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh wrote, "Throughout the album, Mr. West taunts everyone who didn't believe in him: teachers, record executives, police officers, even his former boss at the Gap". West explained, "My persona is that I'm the regular person. Just think about whatever you've been through in the past week, and I have a song about that on my album". The album was musically notable for West's unique development of his "chipmunk soul" production style, in which R&B and soul music samples were sped up and pitch shifted.


title: The College Dropout

text: The album begins with a skit featuring a college professor asking West to deliver a graduation speech. The skit is followed by "We Don't Care" featuring West comically celebrating drug life with lines like "We wasn't supposed to make it past 25, joke's on you, we still alive" and then criticizing its influence amongst children. The next track, "Graduation Day", features Miri Ben-Ari on violin and vocals by John Legend.


title: The College Dropout

text: On "All Falls Down", West wages an attack on consumerism. The song features singer Syleena Johnson and contains an interpolation of Lauryn Hill's "Mystery of Iniquity". West called upon Johnson to re-sing a vocal portion of "Mystery of Iniquity", which ended up in the final mix. Gospel hymn with doo-wop elements "I'll Fly Away" precedes "Spaceship", a track with a relaxed beat containing a soulful Marvin Gaye sample. The lyrics are mostly critical of the working world, where West muses about flying away in a spaceship to leave his boring job, and guest rappers GLC and Consequence add comparisons to modern day retail environment with slavery.


title: The College Dropout

text: On "Jesus Walks", West professes his belief in Jesus, while also discussing how religion is used by various people and how the media seems to avoid songs that address matters of faith while embracing compositions on violence, sex, and drugs. "Jesus Walks" is built around a sample of "Walk With Me" as performed by the ARC Choir. Garry Mulholland of "The Observer" described it as a "towering inferno of martial beats, fathoms-deep chain gang backing chants, a defiant children's choir, gospel wails, and sizzling orchestral breaks". The first verse of the song is told through the eyes of a drug dealer seeking help from God, and it reportedly took over six months for West to draw inspiration for the second verse.


title: The College Dropout

text: "Never Let Me Down" is influenced by West's near-death car crash. The song features Jay-Z, who rhymes about maintaining status and power given his chart success, while West comments on racism and poverty. The song features verses by spoken word performer J. Ivy who offers comments of upliftment. "Never Let Me Down" reuses a Jay-Z verse first heard in the remix of his song "Hovi Baby". "Get Em High" is a collaboration by West with two socially conscious rappers, Talib Kweli and Common. "The New Workout Plan" is a call to fitness to improve one's love life. "Slow Jamz" features Twista and Jamie Foxx and serves as a tribute to classic smooth soul artists and slow jam songs. The song also appeared on Twista's album "Kamikaze". On the song "School Spirit", West relates the experience of dropping out of school and contains references to well-known fraternities, sororities, singer Norah Jones, and record label Roc-A-Fella Records. "Two Words" features commentary on social issues and features Mos Def, Freeway, and the Harlem Boys Choir.


title: The College Dropout

text: "Through the Wire" features a high-pitched vocal sample of Chaka Khan and relates West's real life experience with being in a car accident. The song provides a mostly comedic account of his difficult recovery, and features West rapping with his jaw still wired shut from the accident. The chorus and instrumentals sample a pitched up version of Chaka Khan's 1985 single "Through the Fire". "Family Business" is a soulful tribute to the godbrother of Tarrey Torae, one of the many collaborators in the album. The song "Last Call" is about West's transition from being a producer to a rapper, and the album ends with a nearly nine-minute autobiographical monologue that follows the song "Last Call", however, this is not a separate track.


title: The College Dropout

text: The album's title is in part a reference to West's decision to drop out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a musician. This action greatly displeased his mother, who was a professor at the university from which he withdrew. She later said, "It was drummed into my head that college is the ticket to a good life... but some career goals don't require college. For Kanye to make an album called "[The] College Dropout" it was more about having the guts to embrace who you are, rather than following the path society has carved out for you".


title: The College Dropout

text: The artwork for the album was developed by Eric Duvauchelle, who was then part of Roc-A-Fella's in-house brand design team. West had already taken pictures dressed as the Dropout Bear - which would reappear in his later work - and Duvauchelle picked the image of him sitting on a set of bleachers, as he was attracted to the loneliness of what was supposed to be "the most popular representation of a school". The image is framed inside gold ornaments, which Duvauchelle found in a book of illustrations from the 16th-century and West wanted to use to "bring a sense of elegance and style to what was typically a gangster-led image of rap artists". The inside cover follows a college yearbook, with photos of the featured artists from their youth.


title: The College Dropout

text: "The College Dropout" was originally scheduled for release in August 2003, but West's perfectionist habits producing the album led to it being postponed three times. It was first delayed to October 2003, then to January 2004, before finally being released to stores on February 10, 2004.


title: The College Dropout

text: In its first week of release, the album sold 441,000 copies and debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, being held off the top spot by Norah Jones' second studio album "Feels Like Home". "The College Dropout" remained at the second spot behind "Feels Like Home" for two consecutive weeks, with 196,000 units sold in the second week and 132,000 in the third week, respectively. In 2004, "The College Dropout" ranked as the twelfth most popular of the year on the "Billboard" 200. The album had sold 2.3 million units in the United States by November 2004. By June 2014, the album had become West's best-selling album in the US, with domestic sales of 3,358,000 copies. On November 23, 2020, "The College Dropout" was certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). On the UK Albums Chart, the album peaked at number 12, and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) had certified it double platinum by November 25, 2004; this indicated shipments of 600,000 copies. As of 2018, "The College Dropout" is the fourteenth highest selling rap album in the UK in the 21st-century. The album has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.


title: The College Dropout

text: Four of the singles released in promotion of the album became top-20 chart hits: "Through the Wire", "Slow Jamz", "All Falls Down" and "Jesus Walks". "The New Workout Plan" was the fifth and last single. "Spaceship" was planned to be the sixth single, but Def Jam decided to move on from "The College Dropout"s promotional campaign to begin marketing West's next album, "Late Registration" (2005). At one point, "Two Words" was also intended to be released as a single, and a video for the song was filmed, and later uploaded by West online in 2009.


title: The College Dropout

text: "The College Dropout" was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 87, based on 25 reviews.


title: The College Dropout

text: The record was hailed by Kelefa Sanneh from "The New York Times" as "2004's first great hip-hop album". Reviewing it for "The A.V. Club", Nathan Rabin observed in the music "substance, social commentary, righteous anger, ornery humanism, dark humor, and even Christianity", calling it "one of those wonderful crossover albums that appeal to a huge audience without sacrificing a shred of integrity". The staff of "Mojo" said its exceptional hip hop production was miraculous during a time when hip hop's practice of sampling was becoming "increasingly litigious", and those of "Urb" deemed it "both visceral and emotive, sprinkling the dancefloors with tears and sweat". Dave Heaton from "PopMatters" found it "musically engaging" and "a genuine extension of Kanye's personality and experiences", while Hua Hsu of "The Village Voice" felt that his sped-up samples "carry a humble, human air", allowing listeners to "hear tiny traces of actual people inside". Fellow "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau wrote that "not only does [West] create a unique role model, that role model is dangerous—his arguments against education are as market-targeted as other rappers' arguments for thug life". In the opinion of "Stylus Magazine"s Josh Love, West "subverts cliches from both sides of the hip-hop divide" while "trying to reflect the entire spectrum of hip-hop and black experience, looking for solace and salvation in the traditional safehouses of church and family". "Entertainment Weekly"s Michael Endelman elaborated on West's avoidance of the then-dominant "gangsta" persona of hip hop:


title: The College Dropout

text: Some reviewers were more qualified in their praise. "Rolling Stone"s Jon Caramanica felt that "West isn't quite MC enough to hold down the entire disc", though claimed that West's "ace in the hole is his signature cozy sound", while "Slant Magazine"s Sal Cinquemani observed "too many guest artists, too many interludes, and just too many songs period" on what he considered a "chest-beatingly self-congratulatory" yet humorous, deeply sincere, and affecting record. It was regarded by "Pitchfork" critic Rob Mitchum as a "flawed, overlong, hypocritical, egotistical, and altogether terrific album". The staff of "Rolling Stone" were more receptive in a retrospective review than Caramanica was previously for the publication, calling the album "a demonstration that hip-hop—real, banging, commercial hip-hop—could be a vehicle for nuanced self-examination and musical subtlety".


title: The College Dropout

text: "The College Dropout" was voted as the best album of the year by "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics. The album elsewhere topped year-end lists by "Rolling Stone", "Spin", "Vibe", and "PopMatters". Dutch magazine "OOR" named it the seventh best album of 2004. "Billboard" named "The College Dropout" the second best album of 2004. Rhapsody named it the seventh best album of the decade and the fourth best hip hop album of the decade.


title: The College Dropout

text: In 2005, "Pitchfork" named it No. 50 in their best albums of 2000–2004. In 2006, the album was named by "Time" as one of the 100 best albums of all time. In its retrospective 2007 issue, "XXL" named it one of the magazine's "XXL"-rated releases; this perfect rating had previously been given by the magazine to only sixteen other albums. In 2012, "Complex" named the album one of the classic albums of the last decade, and the 20th best hip hop debut album ever. "Dagsavisen" listed the album eleventh in its list of the top forty albums of the 2000s decade. The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". "NME" placed the album at 273 on its 2013 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, while "Rolling Stone" ranked it at 74 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020.


title: The College Dropout

text: "The College Dropout" sparked a resurgence of socially conscious rap in the mid 2000s, arriving at a time when pop rap was saturated with songs featuring product placement and intensely violent lyrics, epitomized by rappers like 50 Cent, Nelly, Ja Rule, Ludacris, and P. Diddy. West instead created a space in the mainstream for rappers to express themselves and black identity without resorting to hip hop's prevalent theme of gang culture. Raul Verma of "The Independent" said "West is charged with proving mainstream hip hop has a conscience with his nourishing messages of substance flying in the face of the amoral majority perpetuating clichés of guns, girls and bling", while "Vibe" senior editor Noah Callahan-Bever argued that West's infusion of "pop sensibility" into his otherwise progressive hip hop had "bridged the gap" and encouraged rappers to gravitate more towards the center between mainstream and alternative forms. "Today" commented that ""The College Dropout", stood out in the rap landscape because of its atypical prose. It avoided the usual plotlines about sex, money and violence and touched on everything from his faith to his fears of failure and other crises from his life."


title: The College Dropout

text: According to "DJBooth" journalist Brad Callas, the album also "helped solidify chipmunk soul as not only the defining sound of the Roc-A-Fella era but also the most popular sub-genre in hip-hop". "It feels like that album birthed an entire sub-genre", Max Weinstein wrote in retrospect for "Vibe", going on to say, "The palette of emotions was so broad, the depth of topics so searingly relevant, that it was bound to make an impression on any artist that heard it. RZA might have birthed chipmunk soul, and Black Star perfected smart lyricism for the JanSport bunch, but 'Ye brought all that to the masses in one single, digestible product, breaking down the divisions between mainstream rap and Rawkus-grade consciousness." Weinstein also credited "The College Dropout" with directly influencing 10 albums: "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor" (2006) by Lupe Fiasco, "School Was My Hustle" (2006) by Kidz in the Hall, "Don't Quit Your Day Job!" (2007) by Consequence, "A Kid Named Cudi" (2008) by Kid Cudi, "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" (2009) by Asher Roth, Kendrick Lamar's self-titled first EP (2009), "Camp" (2011) by Childish Gambino, "" (2011) by J. Cole, "When Fish Ride Bicycles" (2011) by The Cool Kids, and "Acid Rap" (2013) by Chance the Rapper.


title: The College Dropout

text: With the album, West began to develop a following of listeners who could not relate to lyrics glorifying gangster lifestyle but still enjoyed rap music and connected more with his musings on family and love. In 2005, comedian Chris Rock attested to listening to "The College Dropout" while writing his stand-up material. Music journalists such as Meaghan Garvey, Andrew Barber, and Erika Ramirez also connected to the album during their formative years, with Barber saying in a roundtable discussion for "Noisey", "I could identify with this project the most because I was in college at the time, and I felt like an underdog in my own life. I was uncertain of my future. [West's] words on 'Last Call' inspired me to follow my dreams, and motivated me to graduate despite the album title." In the same discussion, music journalist Eric Sundermann cited "The College Dropout" as the first in West's pop rap album trilogy that would be followed by "Late Registration" in 2005 and "Graduation" in 2007, while Craig Jenkins called it "a watershed moment in 2000s rap history where the nerds stormed the school to seize control from the jocks, a shift memorialized two albums later when "Graduation" trounced 50 Cent's "Curtis" album in their 2007 sales showdown."


title: The College Dropout

text: All tracks are produced by Kanye West, except "Last Call" (co-produced by Evidence; additional production by Porse) and "Breathe In Breathe Out" (co-produced by Brian Miller).


title: Will Patton

text: William Rankin Patton (born June 14, 1954) is an American actor and audiobook narrator. He starred as Colonel Dan Weaver in the TNT science fiction series "Falling Skies". He also appeared in the films "Remember the Titans", "Armageddon", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "The Punisher", and "Minari". He appeared opposite Kevin Costner in two films: "No Way Out" (1987) and "The Postman" (1997), as well as having a guest role in seasons 3 and 4 of Costner's Paramount Network series "Yellowstone". He won two Obie Awards for best actor in Sam Shepard's play "Fool for Love" and the Public Theater production of "What Did He See?"


title: Will Patton

text: Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University. Patton was raised on a farm, where his parents ran a foster home for wayward teenagers.


title: Will Patton

text: Patton won two Obie Awards for best actor for his performances in Sam Shepard's play "Fool for Love" and the Public Theater production of "What Did He See?" He portrayed the evil antagonist in "Desperately Seeking Susan", and had a significant role in "No Way Out", his first major film. He was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of General Bethlehem in "The Postman". He portrayed coach Bill Yoast in "Remember the Titans", and FBI agent Melvin Purvis in the 1991 made-for-television film "Dillinger", before an acclaimed supporting actor performance in "Armageddon". Patton provided the voice for the audio version of "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore, as well as the role of Alan Wilson on the TV show "24". He recorded the audio version for 22 books written by best-selling mystery writer James Lee Burke. Patton plays the character of Sam Conroy in the film "American Violet".


title: Will Patton

text: From 2011 to 2015, he starred as Colonel Weaver in the TNT sci-fi television series "Falling Skies", executive-produced by Steven Spielberg.


title: Will Patton

text: In 2018, Patton portrayed Officer Frank Hawkins in the horror reboot of "Halloween", and reprised his role its two sequels "Halloween Kills" (2021) and "Halloween Ends" (2022).


title: G-force

text: The gravitational force equivalent, or, more commonly, g-force, is a measurement of the type of force per unit mass – typically acceleration – that causes a perception of weight, with a g-force of 1 g (not gram in mass measurement) equal to the conventional value of gravitational acceleration on Earth, "g", of about . Since g-forces indirectly produce weight, any g-force can be described as a "weight per unit mass" (see the synonym specific weight). When the g-force is produced by the surface of one object being pushed by the surface of another object, the reaction force to this push produces an equal and opposite weight for every unit of each object's mass. The types of forces involved are transmitted through objects by interior mechanical stresses. Gravitational acceleration (except certain electromagnetic force influences) is the cause of an object's acceleration in relation to free fall.


title: G-force

text: The g-force experienced by an object is due to the vector sum of all non-gravitational forces acting on an object's freedom to move. In practice, as noted, these are surface-contact forces between objects. Such forces cause stresses and strains on objects, since they must be transmitted from an object surface. Because of these strains, large g-forces may be destructive.


title: G-force

text: Gravity acting alone does not produce a g-force, even though g-forces are expressed in multiples of the free-fall acceleration of standard gravity. Thus, the standard gravitational force at the Earth's surface produces g-force only indirectly, as a result of resistance to it by mechanical forces. It is these mechanical forces that actually produce the g-force on a mass. For example, a force of 1 g on an object sitting on the Earth's surface is caused by the mechanical force exerted in the upward direction by the ground, keeping the object from going into free fall. The upward contact force from the ground ensures that an object at rest on the Earth's surface is accelerating relative to the free-fall condition. (Free fall is the path that the object would follow when falling freely toward the Earth's center). Stress inside the object is ensured from the fact that the ground contact forces are transmitted only from the point of contact with the ground.


title: G-force

text: Objects allowed to free-fall in an "inertial trajectory" under the influence of gravitation only feel no g-force, a condition known as weightlessness. This is also termed "zero-g", although the more correct term is "zero g-force". This is demonstrated by the zero g-force conditions inside an elevator falling freely toward the Earth's center (in vacuum), or (to good approximation) conditions inside a spacecraft in Earth orbit. These are examples of coordinate acceleration (a change in velocity) without a sensation of weight.


title: G-force

text: In the absence of gravitational fields, or in directions at right angles to them, proper and coordinate accelerations are the same, and any coordinate acceleration must be produced by a corresponding g-force acceleration. An example here is a rocket in free space, in which simple changes in velocity are produced by the engines and produce g-forces on the rocket and passengers.


title: G-force

text: The unit of measure of acceleration in the International System of Units (SI) is m/s. However, to distinguish acceleration relative to free fall from simple acceleration (rate of change of velocity), the unit g (or g) is often used. One "g" is the force per unit mass due to gravity at the Earth's surface and is the standard gravity (symbol: "g"), defined as  metres per second squared, or equivalently  newtons of force per kilogram of mass. The "unit definition" does not vary with location—the g-force when standing on the Moon is almost exactly that on Earth.


title: G-force

text: The unit "g" is not one of the SI units, which uses "g" for gram. Also, "g" should not be confused with "G", which is the standard symbol for the gravitational constant. This notation is commonly used in aviation, especially in aerobatic or combat military aviation, to describe the increased forces that must be overcome by pilots in order to remain conscious and not g-LOC ("g"-induced loss of consciousness).


title: G-force

text: Measurement of g-force is typically achieved using an accelerometer (see discussion below in Measurement using an accelerometer). In certain cases, g-forces may be measured using suitably calibrated scales. Specific force is another name that has been used for g-force.


title: G-force

text: The term g-"force" is technically incorrect as it is a measure of "acceleration", not force. While acceleration is a vector quantity, g-force accelerations ("g-forces" for short) are often expressed as a scalar, with positive g-forces pointing downward (indicating upward acceleration), and negative g-forces pointing upward. Thus, a g-force is a vector of acceleration. It is an acceleration that must be produced by a mechanical force, and cannot be produced by simple gravitation. Objects acted upon "only" by gravitation experience (or "feel") no g-force, and are weightless.


title: G-force

text: g-forces, when multiplied by a mass upon which they act, are associated with a certain type of mechanical "force" in the correct sense of the term "force", and this force produces compressive stress and tensile stress. Such forces result in the operational sensation of weight, but the equation carries a sign change due to the definition of positive weight in the direction downward, so the direction of weight-force is opposite to the direction of g-force acceleration:


title: G-force

text: The reason for the minus sign is that the actual "force" (i.e., measured weight) on an object produced by a g-force is in the opposite direction to the sign of the g-force, since in physics, weight is not the force that produces the acceleration, but rather the equal-and-opposite reaction force to it. If the direction upward is taken as positive (the normal cartesian convention) then "positive" g-force (an acceleration vector that points upward) produces a force/weight on any mass, that acts "downward" (an example is positive-g acceleration of a rocket launch, producing downward weight). In the same way, a "negative-g force" is an acceleration vector "downward" (the negative direction on the y axis), and this acceleration downward produces a weight-force in a direction "upward" (thus pulling a pilot upward out of the seat, and forcing blood toward the head of a normally oriented pilot).


title: G-force

text: If a g-force (acceleration) is vertically upward and is applied by the ground (which is accelerating through space-time) or applied by the floor of an elevator to a standing person, most of the body experiences compressive stress which at any height, if multiplied by the area, is the related mechanical force, which is the product of the g-force and the supported mass (the mass above the level of support, including arms hanging down from above that level). At the same time, the arms themselves experience a tensile stress, which at any height, if multiplied by the area, is again the related mechanical force, which is the product of the g-force and the mass hanging below the point of mechanical support. The mechanical resistive force spreads from points of contact with the floor or supporting structure, and gradually decreases toward zero at the unsupported ends (the top in the case of support from below, such as a seat or the floor, the bottom for a hanging part of the body or object). With compressive force counted as negative tensile force, the rate of change of the tensile force in the direction of the g-force, per unit mass (the change between parts of the object such that the slice of the object between them has unit mass), is equal to the g-force plus the non-gravitational external forces on the slice, if any (counted positive in the direction opposite to the g-force).


title: G-force

text: For a given g-force the stresses are the same, regardless of whether this g-force is caused by mechanical resistance to gravity, or by a coordinate-acceleration (change in velocity) caused by a mechanical force, or by a combination of these. Hence, for people all mechanical forces feels exactly the same whether they cause coordinate acceleration or not. For objects likewise, the question of whether they can withstand the mechanical g-force without damage is the same for any type of g-force. For example, upward acceleration (e.g., increase of speed when going up or decrease of speed when going down) on Earth feels the same as being stationary on a celestial body with a higher surface gravity. Gravitation acting alone does not produce any g-force; g-force is only produced from mechanical pushes and pulls. For a free body (one that is free to move in space) such g-forces only arise as the "inertial" path that is the natural effect of gravitation, or the natural effect of the inertia of mass, is modified. Such modification may only arise from influences other than gravitation.


title: G-force

text: A classic example of negative g-force is in a fully inverted roller coaster which is accelerating (changing velocity) toward the ground. In this case, the roller coaster riders are accelerated toward the ground faster than gravity would accelerate them, and are thus pinned upside down in their seats. In this case, the mechanical force exerted by the seat causes the g-force by altering the path of the passenger downward in a way that differs from gravitational acceleration. The difference in downward motion, now faster than gravity would provide, is caused by the push of the seat, and it results in a g-force toward the ground.


title: G-force

text: All "coordinate accelerations" (or lack of them), are described by Newton's laws of motion as follows:


title: G-force

text: The "Second Law of Motion", the law of acceleration states that: , meaning that a force "F" acting on a body is equal to the mass "m" of the body times its acceleration "a".


title: G-force

text: The "Third Law of Motion", the law of reciprocal actions states that: all forces occur in pairs, and these two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. Newton's third law of motion means that not only does gravity behave as a force acting downwards on, say, a rock held in your hand but also that the rock exerts a force on the Earth, equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.


title: G-force

text: In an airplane, the pilot's seat can be thought of as the hand holding the rock, the pilot as the rock. When flying straight and level at 1 g, the pilot is acted upon by the force of gravity. His weight (a downward force) is . In accordance with Newton's third law, the plane and the seat underneath the pilot provides an equal and opposite force pushing upwards with a force of . This mechanical force provides the 1.0 g-force upward proper acceleration on the pilot, even though this velocity in the upward direction does not change (this is similar to the situation of a person standing on the ground, where the ground provides this force and this g-force).


title: G-force

text: If the pilot were suddenly to pull back on the stick and make his plane accelerate upwards at 9.8 m/s, the total g‑force on his body is 2 g, half of which comes from the seat pushing the pilot to resist gravity, and half from the seat pushing the pilot to cause his upward acceleration—a change in velocity which also is a "proper acceleration" because it also differs from a free fall trajectory. Considered in the frame of reference of the plane his body is now generating a force of downwards into his seat and the seat is simultaneously pushing upwards with an equal force of .


title: G-force

text: Unopposed acceleration due to mechanical forces, and consequentially g-force, is experienced whenever anyone rides in a vehicle because it always causes a proper acceleration, and (in the absence of gravity) also always a coordinate acceleration (where velocity changes). Whenever the vehicle changes either direction or speed, the occupants feel lateral (side to side) or longitudinal (forward and backwards) forces produced by the mechanical push of their seats.


title: G-force

text: The expression means that "for every second that elapses," velocity changes metres per second (≡). This rate of change in velocity can also be denoted as (metres per second) per second, or For example: An acceleration of 1 g equates to a rate of change in velocity of approximately for each second that elapses. Therefore, if an automobile is capable of braking at 1 g and is traveling at , it can brake to a standstill in one second and the driver will experience a deceleration of 1 g. The automobile traveling at three times this speed, , can brake to a standstill in three seconds.


title: G-force

text: In the case of an increase in speed from 0 to "v" with constant acceleration within a distance of "s" this acceleration is v/(2s).


title: G-force

text: Preparing an object for g-tolerance (not getting damaged when subjected to a high g-force) is called g-hardening. This may apply to, e.g., instruments in a projectile shot by a gun.


title: G-force

text: Human tolerances depend on the magnitude of the gravitational force, the length of time it is applied, the direction it acts, the location of application, and the posture of the body.


title: G-force

text: The human body is flexible and deformable, particularly the softer tissues. A hard slap on the face may briefly impose hundreds of g locally but not produce any real damage; a constant for a minute, however, may be deadly. When vibration is experienced, relatively low peak g levels can be severely damaging if they are at the resonant frequency of organs or connective tissues.


title: G-force

text: To some degree, g-tolerance can be trainable, and there is also considerable variation in innate ability between individuals. In addition, some illnesses, particularly cardiovascular problems, reduce g-tolerance.


title: G-force

text: Aircraft pilots (in particular) sustain g-forces along the axis aligned with the spine. This causes significant variation in blood pressure along the length of the subject's body, which limits the maximum g-forces that can be tolerated.


title: G-force

text: Positive, or "upward" g, drives blood downward to the feet of a seated or standing person (more naturally, the feet and body may be seen as being driven by the upward force of the floor and seat, upward around the blood). Resistance to positive g varies. A typical person can handle about (meaning some people might pass out when riding a higher-g roller coaster, which in some cases exceeds this point) before losing consciousness, but through the combination of special g-suits and efforts to strain muscles—both of which act to force blood back into the brain—modern pilots can typically handle a sustained (see High-G training).


title: G-force

text: In aircraft particularly, vertical g-forces are often positive (force blood towards the feet and away from the head); this causes problems with the eyes and brain in particular. As positive vertical g-force is progressively increased (such as in a centrifuge) the following symptoms may be experienced:


title: G-force

text: Resistance to "negative" or "downward" g, which drives blood to the head, is much lower. This limit is typically in the range. This condition is sometimes referred to as red out where vision is figuratively reddened due to the blood-laden lower eyelid being pulled into the field of vision. Negative g is generally unpleasant and can cause damage. Blood vessels in the eyes or brain may swell or burst under the increased blood pressure, resulting in degraded sight or even blindness.


title: G-force

text: The human body is better at surviving g-forces that are perpendicular to the spine. In general when the acceleration is forwards (subject essentially lying on their back, colloquially known as "eyeballs in"), a much higher tolerance is shown than when the acceleration is backwards (lying on their front, "eyeballs out") since blood vessels in the retina appear more sensitive in the latter direction.


title: G-force

text: Early experiments showed that untrained humans were able to tolerate a range of accelerations depending on the time of exposure. This ranged from as much as for less than 10 seconds, to for 1 minute, and for 10 minutes for both eyeballs in and out. These forces were endured with cognitive facilities intact, as subjects were able to perform simple physical and communication tasks. The tests were determined to not cause long- or short-term harm although tolerance was quite subjective, with only the most motivated non-pilots capable of completing tests. The record for peak experimental horizontal g-force tolerance is held by acceleration pioneer John Stapp, in a series of rocket sled deceleration experiments culminating in a late 1954 test in which he was clocked in a little over a second from a land speed of Mach 0.9. He survived a peak "eyeballs-out" acceleration of 46.2 times the acceleration of gravity, and more than for 1.1 seconds, proving that the human body is capable of this. Stapp lived another 45 years to age 89 without any ill effects.


title: G-force

text: The highest recorded g-force experienced by a human who survived was during the 2003 IndyCar Series finale at Texas Motor Speedway on October 12, 2003 in the 2003 Chevy 500 when the car driven by Kenny Bräck made wheel-to-wheel contact with Tomas Scheckter's car. This immediately resulted in Bräck's car impacting the catch fence that would record a peak of .


title: G-force

text: Impact and mechanical shock are usually used to describe a high-kinetic-energy, short-term excitation. A shock pulse is often measured by its peak acceleration in ·s and the pulse duration. Vibration is a periodic oscillation which can also be measured in ·s as well as frequency. The dynamics of these phenomena are what distinguish them from the g-forces caused by a relatively longer-term accelerations.


title: G-force

text: After a free fall from a height formula_1 followed by deceleration over a distance formula_2 during an impact, the shock on an object is formula_3· . For example, a stiff and compact object dropped from 1 m that impacts over a distance of 1 mm is subjected to a 1000 deceleration.


title: G-force

text: Jerk is the rate of change of acceleration. In SI units, jerk is expressed as m/s; it can also be expressed in standard gravity per second (/s; 1 /s ≈ 9.81 m/s).


title: G-force

text: Recent research carried out on extremophiles in Japan involved a variety of bacteria (including "E. coli" as a non-extremophile control) being subject to conditions of extreme gravity. The bacteria were cultivated while being rotated in an ultracentrifuge at high speeds corresponding to 403,627 g. "Paracoccus denitrificans" was one of the bacteria that displayed not only survival but also robust cellular growth under these conditions of hyperacceleration, which are usually only to be found in cosmic environments, such as on very massive stars or in the shock waves of supernovas. Analysis showed that the small size of prokaryotic cells is essential for successful growth under hypergravity. Notably, two multicellular species, the nematodes "Panagrolaimus superbus" and "Caenorhabditis elegans" were shown to be able to tolerate 400,000 × "g" for 1 hour.


title: G-force

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> Including contribution from resistance to gravity.<br>† Directed 40 degrees from horizontal.


title: G-force

text: An accelerometer, in its simplest form, is a damped mass on the end of a spring, with some way of measuring how far the mass has moved on the spring in a particular direction, called an 'axis'.


title: G-force

text: Accelerometers are often calibrated to measure g-force along one or more axes. If a stationary, single-axis accelerometer is oriented so that its measuring axis is horizontal, its output will be 0 g, and it will continue to be 0 g if mounted in an automobile traveling at a constant velocity on a level road. When the driver presses on the brake or gas pedal, the accelerometer will register positive or negative acceleration.


title: G-force

text: If the accelerometer is rotated by 90° so that it is vertical, it will read +1 g upwards even though stationary. In that situation, the accelerometer is subject to two forces: the gravitational force and the ground reaction force of the surface it is resting on. Only the latter force can be measured by the accelerometer, due to mechanical interaction between the accelerometer and the ground. The reading is the acceleration the instrument would have if it were exclusively subject to that force.


title: G-force

text: A three-axis accelerometer will output zero‑g on all three axes if it is dropped or otherwise put into a ballistic trajectory (also known as an inertial trajectory), so that it experiences "free fall," as do astronauts in orbit (astronauts experience small tidal accelerations called microgravity, which are neglected for the sake of discussion here). Some amusement park rides can provide several seconds at near-zero g. Riding NASA's "Vomit Comet" provides near-zero g for about 25 seconds at a time.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was a massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army. It occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: "Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála") on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside approached Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns. They were responding to concerns of the settlers who were worried the Ghost Dance might be a prelude to an armed attack.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: On the morning of December 29, the U.S. Cavalry troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it. Black Coyote's rifle went off at that point; the U.S. Army began shooting at the Indians. The Lakota warriors fought back, but many had already been stripped of their guns and disarmed.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: By the time the massacre was over, more than 250 men, women and children of the Lakota had been killed and 51 were wounded (4 men and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead as high as 300. Twenty-five soldiers also died and thirty-nine were wounded (six of the wounded later died). Twenty soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor. In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the military awards and called on the federal government to rescind them. The Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, site of the massacre, has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1990, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a resolution on the historical centennial formally expressing "deep regret" for the massacre.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In the years leading up to the conflict, the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. The once-large bison herds of the Great Plains, a staple of the Plains Indians, had been hunted to near-extinction. Treaty promises to protect reservation lands from encroachment by settlers and gold miners were not implemented as agreed. As a result, there was unrest on the reservations.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: During this time, news spread among the reservations of a Paiute prophet named Wovoka, founder of the Ghost Dance religion. He had a vision that the Christian Messiah, Jesus Christ, had returned to Earth in the form of a Native American.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: According to Wovoka, the white invaders would disappear from Native lands, the ancestors would lead them to good hunting grounds, the buffalo herds and all the other animals would return in abundance, and the ghosts of their ancestors would return to Earth—hence the "Ghost Dance". They would then live in peace. All this would be brought about by the performance of the slow and solemn Ghost Dance, performed as a shuffle in silence to a slow, single drumbeat. Lakota ambassadors to Wovoka, Kicking Bear and Short Bull, taught the Lakota that while performing the Ghost Dance, they would wear special Ghost Dance shirts, as had been seen by Black Elk in a vision. Kicking Bear misunderstood the meaning of the shirts, and said that the shirts had the power to repel bullets. Some tribes, including the Sioux, believed that a great earthquake and flood would occur which would drown all the whites.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Ghost Dance movement was a result of the slow but ever present destruction of the Native Americans' way of life. Tribal land was being seized at alarming rates. The once numerous bison herds were nearly hunted to extinction. The entire livelihood of the plains tribes revolved around the bison, and without the resources the animal offered, their cultures rapidly lost stability and security. This forced them to rely on the United States government to provide rations and goods, or else face starvation. The way of life of these independent people was rapidly fading. The Ghost Dance brought hope: the white man would soon disappear; the buffalo herds would return; people would be reunited with loved ones who had since passed away; the old way of living before the white man would return. This was not just a religious movement but a response to the gradual cultural destruction.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: U.S. settlers were alarmed by the sight of the many Great Basin and Plains tribes performing the Ghost Dance, worried that it might be a prelude to armed attack. Among them was the U.S. Indian agent at the Standing Rock Agency where Chief Sitting Bull lived. U.S. officials decided to take some of the chiefs into custody in order to quell what they called the "Messiah craze". The military first hoped to have Buffalo Bill—a friend of Sitting Bull—aid in the plan, to reduce the chance of violence. Standing Rock agent James McLaughlin overrode the military and sent the Indian police to arrest Sitting Bull.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: On December 15, 1890, 40 Native American policemen arrived at Sitting Bull's house to arrest him. When Sitting Bull refused to comply, the police used force on him. The Lakota in the village were enraged. Catch-the-Bear, a Lakota, shouldered his rifle and shot Lt. Bullhead, who reacted by firing his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull. Another police officer, Red Tomahawk, shot Sitting Bull in the head, and he dropped to the ground. He died between 12 and 1 p.m. After Sitting Bull's death, 200 members of his Hunkpapa band, fearful of reprisals, fled Standing Rock to join Chief Spotted Elk (later known as "Big Foot") and his Miniconjou band at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Spotted Elk and his band, along with 38 Hunkpapa, left the Cheyenne River Reservation on December 23 to journey to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to seek shelter with Red Cloud.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Former Pine Ridge Indian agent Valentine T. McGillycuddy was asked his opinion of the "hostilities" surrounding the Ghost Dance movement, by General Leonard Wright Colby, commander of the Nebraska National Guard (portion of letter dated January 15, 1891):


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: "As for the 'Ghost Dance' too much attention has been paid to it. It was only the symptom or surface indication of a deep-rooted, long-existing difficulty; as well treat the eruption of smallpox as the disease and ignore the constitutional disease."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: "As regards disarming the Sioux, however desirable it may appear, I consider it neither advisable, nor practicable. I fear it will result as the theoretical enforcement of prohibition in Kansas, Iowa and Dakota; you will succeed in disarming and keeping disarmed the friendly Indians because you can, and you will not succeed with the mob element because you cannot."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: "If I were again to be an Indian agent, and had my choice, I would take charge of 10,000 armed Sioux in preference to a like number of disarmed ones; and furthermore agree to handle that number, or the whole Sioux nation, without a white soldier. Respectfully, etc., V.T. McGillycuddy."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: "P.S. I neglected to state that up to date there has been neither a Sioux outbreak or war. No citizen in Nebraska or Dakota has been killed, molested or can show the scratch of a pin, and no property has been destroyed off the reservation."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: After being called to the Pine Ridge Agency, Spotted Elk of the Miniconjou Lakota nation and 350 of his followers were making the slow trip to the agency on December 28, 1890, when they were met by a 7th Cavalry detachment under Major Samuel M. Whitside southwest of Porcupine Butte. John Shangreau, a scout and interpreter who was half Lakota, advised the troopers not to disarm the Indians immediately, as it would lead to violence. The troopers escorted the Native Americans about westward to Wounded Knee Creek where they told them to make camp. Later that evening, Colonel James W. Forsyth and the remainder of the 7th Cavalry arrived, bringing the number of troopers at Wounded Knee to 500. In contrast, there were 350 Lakota: 230 men and 120 women and children. The troopers surrounded Spotted Elk's encampment and set up four rapid-fire Hotchkiss-designed M1875 mountain guns.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: At daybreak on December 29, 1890, Forsyth ordered the surrender of weapons and the immediate removal of the Lakota from the "zone of military operations" to awaiting trains. A search of the camp confiscated 38 rifles, and more rifles were taken as the soldiers searched the Indians. None of the old men were found to be armed. A medicine man named Yellow Bird allegedly harangued the young men who were becoming agitated by the search, and the tension spread to the soldiers.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Specific details of what triggered the massacre are debated. According to some accounts, Yellow Bird began to perform the Ghost Dance, telling the Lakota the falsehood that their "ghost shirts" were "bulletproof". As tensions mounted, Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle; he spoke no English and was deaf, and had not understood the order. Another Indian said: "Black Coyote is deaf," and when the soldier persisted, he said, "Stop. He cannot hear your orders." At that moment, two soldiers seized Black Coyote from behind, and (allegedly) in the struggle, his rifle discharged. At the same moment, Yellow Bird threw some dust into the air, and approximately five young Lakota men with concealed weapons threw aside their blankets and fired their rifles at Troop K of the 7th. After this initial exchange, the firing became indiscriminate.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Eyewitness accounts state that Black Coyote's gun went off when he was seized from behind by soldiers. Survivor Wasumaza, one of Big Foot's warriors who later changed his name to Dewey Beard, recalled Black Coyote was unable to hear. “If they had left him alone he was going to put his gun down where he should. They grabbed him and spinned him in the east direction. He was still unconcerned even then. He hadn’t his gun pointed at anyone. His intention was to put that gun down. They came on and grabbed the gun that he was going to put down. Right after they spun him around there was the report of a gun, was quite loud. I couldn’t say that anyone was shot, but following that was a crash". Theodor Ragnar of the 7th Cavalry also stated that Black Coyote was deaf. The account of Turning Hawk, an American Indian who was present at the massacre and was sympathetic to the U.S. government, made no mention of Black Coyote's supposed deafness, instead calling him "a crazy man, a young man of very bad influence, and in fact a nobody."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: According to commanding General Nelson A. Miles, a "scuffle occurred between one deaf warrior who had [a] rifle in his hand and two soldiers. The rifle was discharged and a battle occurred, not only the warriors but the sick Chief Spotted Elk, and a large number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering over the prairie were hunted down and killed."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Modern historians, including Dee Brown, author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", have supported that Black Coyote was deaf, and that he owned a new Winchester rifle. Historian David Grua wrote, "Portraying the young warrior as deaf and confused rather than 'treacherous', substantially altered how the lead-up to Wounded Knee would be remembered".


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: At first all firing was at close range; half the Indian men were killed or wounded before they had a chance to get off any shots. Some of the Indians grabbed rifles from the piles of confiscated weapons and opened fire on the soldiers. With no cover, and with many of the Indians unarmed, this lasted a few minutes at most. While the Indian warriors and soldiers were shooting at close range, other soldiers used the Hotchkiss guns against the tipi camp full of women and children. It is believed that many of the soldiers were victims of friendly fire from their own Hotchkiss guns. The Indian women and children fled the camp, seeking shelter in a nearby ravine from the crossfire. The officers had lost all control of their men. Some of the soldiers fanned out and finished off the wounded. Others leaped onto their horses and pursued the Natives (men, women, and children), in some cases for miles across the prairies. In less than an hour, at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded. Other estimates indicate nearly 300 of the original 350 having been killed or wounded, with a blizzard preventing immediate search following the massacre. Reports indicate that the soldiers loaded 51 survivors (4 men and 47 women and children) onto wagons and took them to the Pine Ridge Reservation. Army casualties numbered 25 dead and 39 wounded. Black Coyote died at Wounded Knee.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Following a three-day blizzard, the military hired civilians to bury the dead Lakota. The burial party found the deceased frozen; they were gathered up and placed in a mass grave on a hill overlooking the encampment from which some of the fire from the Hotchkiss guns originated. It was reported that four infants were found alive, wrapped in their deceased mothers' shawls. In all, 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children reportedly died on the field, while at least seven Lakota were mortally wounded. Miles denounced Forsyth and relieved him of command. An exhaustive Army Court of Inquiry convened by Miles criticized Forsyth for his tactical dispositions but otherwise exonerated him of responsibility. The Court of Inquiry, however, was not conducted as a formal court-martial.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Secretary of War concurred with the decision and reinstated Forsyth to command of the 7th Cavalry. Testimony had indicated that for the most part, troops attempted to avoid non-combatant casualties. Miles continued to criticize Forsyth, whom he believed had deliberately disobeyed his commands in order to destroy the Indians. Miles promoted the conclusion that Wounded Knee was a deliberate massacre rather than a tragedy caused by poor decisions, in an effort to destroy the career of Forsyth. This was later whitewashed and Forsyth was promoted to major general.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Many non-Lakota living near the reservations interpreted the battle as the defeat of a murderous cult; others confused Ghost Dancers with Native Americans in general. In an editorial response to the event, the young newspaper editor L. Frank Baum, later the author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", wrote in the "Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer" on January 3, 1891:


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Soon after the event, Dewey Beard, his brother Joseph Horn Cloud, and others formed the Wounded Knee Survivors Association, which came to include descendants. They sought compensation from the U.S. government for the many fatalities and injured. Today the association is independent and works to preserve and protect the historic site from exploitation, and to administer any memorial erected there. Papers of the association (1890–1973) and related materials are held by the University of South Dakota and are available for research. It was not until the 1990s that a memorial to the Lakota was included in the National Historic Landmark. In 1968 James Czywczynski purchased 40 acres of property adjacent to Wounded Knee, operating a trading post and museum.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The battalion of 9th Cavalry was scouting near the White River (Missouri River tributary) about north of Indian agency at Pine Ridge when the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred, and rode south all night to reach the reservation. In the early morning of December 30, 1890, F, I, and K Troops reached the Pine Ridge agency, however, their supply wagon guarded by D Troop located behind them was attacked by 50 Lakota warriors near Cheyenne Creek (about from the Indian agency). One soldier was immediately killed. The wagon train protected itself by circling the wagons. Corporal William Wilson volunteered to take a message to the agency at Pine Ridge to get help after the Indian scouts refused to go. Wilson took off through the wagon circle with Lakota in pursuit and his troops covering him. Wilson reached the agency and spread the alarm. The 9th Cavalry within the agency came to rescue the stranded troopers and the Lakota dispersed. For his actions, Corporal Wilson received the Medal of Honor.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Historically, Wounded Knee is generally considered to be the end of the collective multi-century series of conflicts between colonial and U.S. forces and American Indians, known collectively as the Indian Wars. It was not however the last armed conflict between Native Americans and the United States.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Drexel Mission Fight was an armed confrontation between Lakota warriors and the United States Army that took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on December 30, 1890, the day following Wounded Knee. The fight occurred on White Clay Creek approximately north of Pine Ridge, where Lakota fleeing from the continued hostile situation surrounding the massacre at Wounded Knee had set up camp.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Company K of the 7th Cavalry—the unit involved at Wounded Knee—was sent to force the Lakotas to return to the areas they were assigned on their respective reservations. Some of the "hostiles" were Brulé Lakota from the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Company K was pinned down in a valley by the combined Lakota forces and had to be rescued by the 9th Cavalry, an African American regiment nicknamed the "Buffalo Soldiers".


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Among the Lakota warriors was a young Brulé from Rosebud named Plenty Horses, who had recently returned from five years at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. A week after this fight, Plenty Horses shot and killed army lieutenant Edward W. Casey, commandant of the Cheyenne Scouts (Troop L, 8th Cavalry). The testimony introduced at the trial of Plenty Horses and his subsequent acquittal also helped abrogate the legal culpability of the U.S. Army for the deaths at Wounded Knee.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The 9th Cavalry were stationed on the Pine Ridge reservation through the rest of the winter of 1890–1891 until March 1891, lodging in their tents. By then, the 9th Cavalry was the only regiment on the reservation after being the first to arrive in November 1890.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In the Nebraska State Historical Society's summer 1994 quarterly journal, Jerry Green construes that pre-1916 Medals of Honor were awarded more liberally; however, "the number of medals does seem disproportionate when compared to those awarded for other battles." Quantifying, he compares the three awarded for the Battle of Bear Paw Mountain's five-day siege, to the twenty awarded for this short and one-sided action.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Historian Will G. Robinson notes that, in contrast, only three Medals of Honor were awarded among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of World War II.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Native American activists have urged the medals be withdrawn, calling them "medals of dishonor". According to Lakota tribesman William Thunder Hawk, "The Medal of Honor is meant to reward soldiers who act heroically. But at Wounded Knee, they didn't show heroism; they showed cruelty." In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the Medals of Honor awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: A small number of the citations on the medals awarded to the troopers at Wounded Knee state that they went in pursuit of Lakota who were trying to escape or hide. Another citation was for "conspicuous bravery in rounding up and bringing to the skirmish line a stampeded pack mule."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In February 2021, the South Dakota Senate unanimously called upon the United States Congress to investigate the 20 medals of honor awarded to members of the 7th Cavalry for their participation in the massacre. Lawmakers argued that the medals given to the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment tarnished Medals of Honor given to soldiers for genuine acts of courage. Previous efforts to rescind the medals have failed. In March 2021, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Congressman Kaiali'i Kahele (D-HI) answered the South Dakota Senate's call and reintroduced a bill to revoke the Medals of Honor awarded to the soldiers who perpetrated the Wounded Knee massacre.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In 1891 The Ghost Shirt, thought to have been worn by one who died in the massacre, was brought to Glasgow, Scotland, by George C Crager, a Lakota Sioux interpreter with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He sold it to the Kelvingrove Museum, which displayed the shirt until it was returned to Wounded Knee Survivors Association in 1998.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: St. John's Episcopal Mission Church was built on the hill behind the mass grave in which the victims had been buried, some survivors having been nursed in the then-new Holy Cross Mission Church. In 1903, descendants of those who died in the battle erected a monument at the gravesite. The memorial lists many of those who died at Wounded Knee along with an inscription that reads:


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: "This monument is erected by surviving relatives and other Ogalala and Cheyenne River Sioux Indians in memory of the Chief Big Foot massacre December 29, 1890. Col. Forsyth in command of US troops. Big Foot was a great chief of the Sioux Indians. He often said, 'I will stand in peace till my last day comes.' He did many good and brave deeds for the white man and the red man. Many innocent women and children who knew no wrong died here."


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Wounded Knee was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1965 and was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1966.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Beginning in 1986, the group named "Big Foot Memorial Riders" was formed where they will go to continue to honor the dead. The ceremony has attracted more participants each year and riders and their horses live with the cold weather, as well as the lack of food and water, as they retrace the path that their family members took to Wounded Knee. They carry with them a white flag to symbolize their hope for world peace, and to honor and remember the victims so that they will not be forgotten.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: When the 7th Cavalry Regiment returned to duty at Fort Riley from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the soldiers of the regiment raised money for a monument for members of the regiment killed at Wounded Knee. About $1,950 was collected, and on July 25, 1893, the monument was dedicated with 5,500 people in attendance. The stone edifice stands near Waters Hall.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The incident was initially referred to as the "Battle of Wounded Knee". Some American Indian groups have objected to this description and refer to it as the "Wounded Knee Massacre". The location of the conflict is officially known as the "Wounded Knee Battlefield". The U.S. Army currently refers to it as "Wounded Knee".


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In his 1931 poem "American Names", Stephen Vincent Benét coined the phrase "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". The poem is about his love of American place names, not making reference to the "battle." When the line was used as the title of historian Dee Brown's 1970 best-selling book, awareness was raised and Benet's phrase became popularly associated with the incident.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Since the publication of the book, the phrase "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" has been used many times in reference to the battle, especially in music.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In 1972, Robbie Basho released the song "Wounded Knee Soliloquy" on the album The Voice of the Eagle.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In 1992, Beverly (Buffy) Sainte-Marie released her song titled "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" on "Coincidence and Likely Stories".


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: Artists who have written or recorded songs referring to the battle at Wounded Knee include: Walela "Wounded Knee" from the 1997 self-titled album. Nightwish ("Creek Mary's Blood" from their 2004 album "Once" featuring John Two-Hawks); Manowar ("Spirit Horse Of The Cherokee" from the 1992 album "The Triumph Of Steel" ); Grant Lee Buffalo ("Were You There?" from the album "Storm Hymnal" 2001); Johnny Cash (1972's "Big Foot," which is strongly sympathetic); Gordon Lightfoot ("Protocol" from his 1976 album "Summertime Dream"); Indigo Girls (a 1995 cover of Sainte-Marie's song); Charlie Parr ("1890" on his 2010 album "When the Devil Goes Blind"); Nik Kershaw ("Wounded Knee" on his 1989 album "The Works"); 1982 Single by Southern Death Cult ("Moya"); The Waterboys ("Bury My Heart"); Uriah Heep; Primus; Nahko and Medicine for the People; Patti Smith; Robbie Robertson; Five Iron Frenzy wrote the 2001 song "The Day We Killed" with mentions of Black Kettle, and quotes Black Elk's account from "Black Elk Speaks" on the album ; Toad the Wet Sprocket; Marty Stuart; Bright Eyes; and "Pocahontas" by Neil Young. On Sam Roberts' 2006 "Chemical City" album, the song "The Bootleg Saint" contains line critical of Knee Massacre. There is also a Welsh song titled "Gwaed Ar Yr Eira Gwyn" by Tecwyn Ifan on this incident. The song "American Ghost Dance" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers makes extensive reference to the massacre as well.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In 2010, composer Roland Barrett published a song titled "Ghost Dances" for concert band. It was acclaimed as one of his better works, and it includes traditional music and rhythms.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In 1973, the American rock band Redbone, formed by Native Americans Patrick and Lolly Vasquez, released the song "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee". The song ends with the subtly altered sentence "We were all wounded by Wounded Knee." The song reached the number-one chart position across Europe. In the U.S., the song was initially withheld from release and then banned by several radio stations. Richard Stepp's 2008 Native American Music Awards "Native Heart" nominated album "The Sacred Journey", has "Wounded Knee" as its final track.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The massacre has been referred to in films, including "Thunderheart" (1992), "Legends of the Fall" (1994), "Hidalgo" (2004), and "Hostiles" (2017). The 2005 TNT mini-series" Into the West" included scenes of the massacre. In 2007, HBO Films released a film adaptation of the Dee Brown bestseller "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". The 2016 film "Neither Wolf Nor Dog" has its climax at the massacre site and was filmed on location there.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In the 1992 video game "", one level is called "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee." It takes place in 1885 AD on a train in the Old American West.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In the 1996 DC comic book "Saint of Killers", written by Garth Ennis, the main character becomes a surrogate Angel of Death, reaping souls whenever men kill other men violently. The story is set in the 1880s, and near the end of chapter 4, it is said that "four years later" he was called upon at Wounded Knee.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: In the 2013 video game "BioShock Infinite", several main characters are veterans of Wounded Knee. The protagonist, Booker DeWitt, is haunted by his deeds during the battle and at one point confronts one of his (fictional) superiors from the event.


title: Wounded Knee Massacre

text: The Wounded Knee Massacre, and the events leading to it, constitute the final chapter of "Złoto Gór Czarnych" ("Gold of the Black Hills"), a trilogy of novels told from the perspective of the Santee Dakota tribe by Polish author Alfred Szklarski and his wife Krystyna Szklarska.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, "Holy Grail" (1975) and "Life of Brian" (1979).


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman was born in Leicester and was raised in Melton Mowbray. He enjoyed science, acting and comedy and, after graduating from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, he turned down a career as a doctor to be a comedian instead. Chapman eventually established a writing partnership with John Cleese, which reached its critical peak with Monty Python during the 1970s. He subsequently left Britain for Los Angeles, where he attempted to be a success on American television, speaking on the college circuit and producing the pirate film "Yellowbeard" (1983), before returning to Britain in the early 1980s.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In his personal life, Chapman was openly homosexual and a supporter of gay rights, and was in a long-term partnership with David Sherlock. He was an alcoholic during his time at Cambridge and the Python years; he quit drinking shortly before working on "Life of Brian". He became an enthusiast and patron of the Dangerous Sports Club in his later years. Chapman died in 1989, on the Pythons' 20th anniversary, of tonsil cancer which had spread to his spine. His life and legacy were commemorated at a private memorial service at St Bartholomew's with the other five Pythons.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Graham Chapman was born on 8 January 1941 at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester, Leicestershire, the son of policeman Walter Chapman and Edith Towers. Walter Chapman was a police constable at the time of Graham's birth; he ended his career as a chief inspector. He had been trained as a French polisher for a coffin-maker before entering the police force in the 1930s.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman had an elder brother, John, who was born in 1936. They had, according to Chapman and his brother, an "extremely poor upbringing". One of Chapman's earliest memories was seeing the remains of Polish airmen who had suffered an aeroplane accident near Leicester, later saying the sight remained in his memory.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School. He showed a strong affinity for science, sports and amateur dramatics and was singled out for attention when a local paper reviewed his performance of Mark Antony in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". Graham and his brother John were both avid fans of radio comedy, being especially fond of "The Goon Show" and Robert Moreton's skill of telling jokes the wrong way round and reversing punchlines. Biographer Jim Yoakum said "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh".


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1959, Chapman began to study medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He joined the Cambridge Footlights, where he first began writing with John Cleese. Following graduation, Chapman joined the Footlights show "Cambridge Circus" and toured New Zealand, deferring his medical studies for a year. After the tour, he continued his studies at St Bartholomew's Medical College, but became torn between whether to pursue a career in medicine or acting. His brother John later said, "He [Graham] wasn't ever driven to go into medicine... it wasn't his life's ambition."


title: Graham Chapman

text: Following their Footlights success, Chapman and Cleese began to write professionally for the BBC, initially for David Frost but also for Marty Feldman. Frost had recruited Cleese, and in turn Cleese decided he needed Chapman as a sounding board. Chapman also contributed sketches to the radio series "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" and wrote material on his own and with Bill Oddie. He wrote for "The Illustrated Weekly Hudd" (starring Roy Hudd), "Cilla Black", "This Is Petula Clark" and "This Is Tom Jones". Chapman, Cleese and Tim Brooke-Taylor later joined Feldman in the television comedy series "At Last the 1948 Show". It was Chapman's first significant role as a performer as well as a writer and he displayed a gift for deadpan comedy (such as in the sketch "The Minister Who Falls to Pieces") and imitating various British dialects. The series was the first to feature Chapman's sketch of wrestling with himself.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Despite the series' success, Chapman was still unsure about abandoning his medical career. In between the two series of "At Last The 1948 Show", he completed his studies at St Bartholomew's and became professionally registered as a doctor. Chapman and Cleese also wrote for the long-running television comedy series "Doctor in the House", and both appeared on a one-off television special, "How to Irritate People" alongside Brooke-Taylor and future Python member Michael Palin. One of Cleese's and Chapman's sketches, featuring a used car salesman refusing to believe a customer's model had broken down, became the inspiration for the Dead Parrot sketch. Chapman also co-wrote several episodes of "Doctor in the House" follow up, "Doctor in Charge", with Bernard McKenna.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1969, Chapman and Cleese joined the other Pythons, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, for their sketch comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus". The group's writing was split into well-defined teams, with Chapman collaborating almost exclusively with Cleese. Chapman was particularly keen to remove stereotypical punchlines in sketches and created The Colonel, who would stop them in mid-flow by saying they were "too silly".


title: Graham Chapman

text: Although the pair were officially equal partners, Cleese later thought that Chapman contributed comparatively little in the way of direct writing, saying "he would come in, say something marvellous and then drift off in his own mind". The other Pythons have said that Chapman's biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition for what was funny. Gilliam later recalled that "Graham would do the nudge that would push it into something extraordinary". The series was an immediate success, and Chapman was delighted to learn that medical students at St Bartholomew's crowded round the television in the bar to watch it. Chapman was frequently late for rehearsing or recording, leading to the other Pythons calling him "the late Graham Chapman".


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman's main contribution to the "Dead Parrot sketch", derived from the piece within "How to Irritate People" and involving a customer returning a faulty toaster, was "How can we make this "madder"?", turning the toaster into a dead Norwegian Blue parrot. Cleese later said he and Chapman believed that "there was something very funny there, if we could find the right context for it". Cleese was in particular concerned that the Cheese Shop sketch simply was not funny, in that it was just mainly a man listing different makes of cheese. Chapman urged his partner to continue with it, telling him "Trust me, it's funny." When it was read out at the next script meeting, Cleese found that the others, particularly Palin, thought it was hilarious. The group felt that Chapman had the best acting skills among them. Cleese complimented Chapman by saying that he was "particularly a wonderful actor".


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman played the lead role in two Python films, "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian". He was chosen to play the lead in "Holy Grail" because of the group's respect for his straight acting skills, and because the other members wanted to play lesser, funnier characters. Chapman did not mind being filmed fully nude in front of a crowd in "Life of Brian", but the scene, filmed in Tunisia, caused problems with the female Muslim extras.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1975, Chapman and Douglas Adams wrote a pilot for a television series, entitled "Out of the Trees", but it received poor ratings after being broadcast at the same time as "Match of the Day" and only the initial episode was produced. In 1978, Chapman co-wrote the comedy film "The Odd Job" with McKenna and starred as one of the main characters. Chapman wanted his friend Keith Moon to play a co-lead role alongside him, but Moon could not pass an acting test, so the part went to David Jason who had previously appeared on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" with Pythons Idle, Jones and Palin. The film was moderately successful. Chapman guest-starred on several television series including "The Big Show".


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1976, Chapman began writing a pirate film, "Yellowbeard" (1983), which came out of conversations between Chapman and Moon while in Los Angeles. Moon had always wanted to play Long John Silver, so Chapman began to write a script for him. Moon died in 1978 and the work stalled, eventually being rewritten by McKenna, then by Peter Cook. The film, which starred Chapman as the eponymous pirate, also featured appearances from Cook, Marty Feldman, Cleese, Idle, Spike Milligan and Cheech & Chong. It marked the last appearance of Feldman, who suffered a fatal heart attack in December 1982. The project was fraught with financial difficulties and at times there was not enough money to pay the crew. It was released to mixed reviews. David Robinson, reviewing the film in "The Times", said that "the Monty Python style of comic anarchy requires more than scatology, rude words and funny faces".


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman published his memoirs, "A Liar's Autobiography", in 1980, choosing the title because he said "it's almost "impossible" to tell the truth". He returned to Britain permanently after "Yellowbeard" was released. He became involved with the extreme sports club Dangerous Sports Club, which popularised bungee jumping. Chapman was scheduled to perform a bungee jump himself, but it was cancelled due to safety concerns.


title: Graham Chapman

text: After reuniting with the other Pythons in the film "The Meaning of Life" (1983), Chapman began a lengthy series of US college tours, talking about The Pythons, the Dangerous Sports Club and his friend Moon, among other subjects. "Saturday Night Live" creator and Python fan Lorne Michaels persuaded Chapman to star in "The New Show".


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1988, Chapman appeared in the Iron Maiden video "Can I Play with Madness". The same year, he starred in a pilot of a proposed television series, "Jake's Journey", but financial problems prevented a full series from being made. In 1988, he also appeared on stage with three other Pythons (Gilliam, Jones and Palin) at the 41st British Academy Film Awards where Monty Python received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Broadcast in November 1989, the 20th anniversary television special, "Parrot Sketch Not Included – 20 Years of Monty Python", hosted by Python fan Steve Martin, was Chapman's final onscreen appearance with the other five Python members. Chapman was intended to be cast in the "Red Dwarf" episode "Timeslides", but died before shooting could begin.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman first met his long-term partner David Sherlock in Ibiza in 1966. He later described realising he was homosexual as "an important moment in my life".


title: Graham Chapman

text: The following year, he told his close friends, including Cleese and Feldman, about his relationship. Chapman and Sherlock moved to Belsize Park in 1968, and the pair enjoyed visiting gay clubs in Central London. In the early 1970s, after Chapman had found fame with Monty Python, they moved to a house in Highgate, North London.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1972, on a television show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, Chapman first disclosed his homosexuality publicly, becoming one of the first celebrities to do so. He was a vocal spokesman for gay rights, supporting the Gay Liberation Front. In 1972, Chapman supported the newspaper "Gay News", which listed him as one of the publication's "special friends" in recognition. During a college tour, Chapman mentioned that a television audience member had written to the Pythons to complain about them having a gay member, citing a Bible passage that said any man who lies with a man should be taken out and stoned. Idle replied jokingly that they had found the perpetrator and killed him.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1971, Chapman and Sherlock adopted John Tomiczek as their son. Chapman met Tomiczek when Tomiczek was a 14-year-old run-away from Liverpool. After discussions with Tomiczek's father, it was agreed that Chapman would become Tomiczek's legal guardian. Both Sherlock and Tomiczek remained a constant presence in Chapman's life. During the 1970s, Chapman became increasingly concerned about the Pythons' income and finances. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles to avoid British income tax. In the mid-1980s, he returned to the UK and moved to Maidstone, Kent, with Sherlock and Tomiczek. Tomiczek later became Chapman's business manager, and got engaged, but died of a heart attack in 1992 at age 35.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman took up pipe smoking aged 15, which became a lifelong habit. He began drinking heavily during his time at Cambridge and St. Bartholomew's, favouring gin. By the time Monty Python went out on tour in 1973, Chapman's drinking had begun to affect his performance, causing him to miss cues to go on stage. He was known to suffer from delirium tremens. He stopped drinking during Christmas 1977, concerned about being able to act in "Life of Brian" successfully, and remained sober for the rest of his life.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1988, Chapman made a routine visit to a dentist, who found a small, malignant tumour on one of his tonsils, leading to both being removed via a tonsillectomy. The following year, the cancer had spread into Chapman's spinal column, where another tumour was surgically removed. Chapman had several chemotherapy treatments and surgeries during the final months of his life, but ultimately the cancer was declared inoperable. According to his brother, Chapman was visibly upset by the death of his mother that July, by which time he was terminally ill. Shortly afterwards, Chapman filmed scenes for the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of "Monty Python's Flying Circus", the final time he appeared on television.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Chapman died on 4 October 1989 in Maidstone Hospital from resulting complications, aged 48. At the time of his death, he was being visited by Sherlock, brother John and his sister-in-law, and fellow Pythons Palin and Cleese, the latter of whom had to be led out of the room to deal with his grief. Peter Cook had intended to visit, but arrived too late and was visibly shaken by the news. Chapman's death occurred on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the Pythons' collective debut on British television, and Jones called it "the worst case of party-pooping in all history".


title: Graham Chapman

text: The five surviving Python members had decided to stay away from Chapman's private funeral to prevent it from becoming a media circus and to give his family some privacy. They sent a wreath in the shape of the Python foot, with the message: "To Graham from the other Pythons with all our love. PS: Stop us if we're getting too silly". The Rolling Stones also sent a floral arrangement, saying "Thanks for all the laughs."


title: Graham Chapman

text: A public memorial service for Chapman was held at St Bartholomew's on 3 December, two months after his death. The service began with a chorus of the hymn "Jerusalem" sung in Engrish with a mock Chinese accent. Cleese delivered a eulogy to Chapman with shock humour that he believed Chapman would have appreciated, and became the first person at a televised British memorial service to say "fuck". Palin also delivered a eulogy to Chapman, as did Idle, quipping that Chapman had decided to die rather than listen to Palin again. Idle led the other surviving Pythons and Chapman's close friends and family in a rendition of the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", from "Life of Brian", and later closed his remarks by saying: "I'd just like to be the last person at this meeting to say 'fuck'."


title: Graham Chapman

text: Ten years after Chapman's death, his ashes were first rumoured to have been "blasted into the skies in a rocket" with assistance from the Dangerous Sports Club. In a second rumour, Chapman's ashes had been scattered on the mountains of Snowdonia, Wales, where he had visited regularly as a climber.


title: Graham Chapman

text: Following Chapman's death, reformations of the Pythons have included an urn said to contain his ashes. At the 1998 Aspen Comedy Arts festival, the urn, brought onstage by a stiff English butler, was "accidentally" knocked over by Terry Gilliam, spilling the "ashes" on-stage. The apparently cremated remains were then removed with a DustBuster. Idle recalled meeting Sherlock, saying "I wish he [Chapman] was here now" and Sherlock replied "Oh, but he is. He's in my pocket!"


title: Graham Chapman

text: Asteroid 9617 Grahamchapman, named in Chapman's honour, is one of six asteroids named after the Python members.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In 1997, Sherlock allowed Jim Yoakum to start the 'Graham Chapman Archives'. Later that year, the novel "Graham Crackers: Fuzzy Memories, Silly Bits, and Outright Lies" was released. It is a semi-sequel to "A Liar's Autobiography", with Chapman's works compiled by Yoakum. A compendium of writings, "Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas", also compiled and edited by Yoakum, was published in 2005 in association with the David Sherlock and John Tomiczek trust. In 2000, Chapman's play "O Happy Day" was performed by Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia, with the assistance of Cleese and Palin. In 2006, the album and DVD release "Looks Like Another Brown Trouser Job" came out, featuring a college lecture recorded in April 1988.


title: Graham Chapman

text: In June 2011, it was announced that Cleese, Jones, Gilliam and Palin would perform in a 3D-animated version of Chapman's memoir "A Liar's Autobiography: Volume VI". Co-director Jeff Simpson worked closely with Chapman's estate and the surviving Python members to "get this exactly right". The film, titled "", was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2012 and premiered in the UK the following month as part of the BFI London Film Festival. The voices of Cleese, Gilliam, Jones and Palin were spliced into commentary recorded by Chapman reading from his memoir and taped shortly before his death. The film's official trailer quoted Chapman as saying, "This is the best film I've been in since I died."


title: Graham Chapman

text: In September 2012, a British Comedy Society blue plaque commemorating Chapman was unveiled at The Angel pub in Highgate by Jones, Palin, Barry Cryer, Ray Davies and Carol Cleveland. Palin said, "Highgate was his patch, and he should be celebrated because he was a very good, brilliant, funny, nice, wise, kind man, who occasionally drank too much."


title: Graham Chapman

text: In December 2014, a green plaque funded by Leicestershire County Council was placed on Chapman's former home in Burton Road, Melton Mowbray. A year later, a blue plaque at the entrance of Chapman's old school, King Edward VII School was reported as stolen but was later found inside the building. In March 2017, the plaque was moved to Melton Mowbray town centre.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: In Search of Lost Time (), first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past, and sometimes referred to in French as La Recherche ("The Search"), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early 20th-century work is his most prominent, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory. The most famous example of this is the "episode of the madeleine", which occurs early in the first volume. The novel gained fame in English in translations by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin as "Remembrance of Things Past", but the title "In Search of Lost Time", a literal rendering of the French, became ascendant after D. J. Enright adopted it for his revised translation published in 1992.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: "In Search of Lost Time" follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century high-society France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world. The novel began to take shape in 1909. Proust continued to work on it until his final illness in the autumn of 1922 forced him to break off. Proust established the structure early on, but even after volumes were initially finished, he continued to add new material and edited one volume after another for publication. The last three of the seven volumes contain oversights and fragmentary or unpolished passages, as they existed only in draft form at the death of the author; the publication of these parts was overseen by his brother Robert.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The work was published in France between 1913 and 1927. Proust paid for the publication of the first volume (by the Grasset publishing house) after it had been turned down by leading editors who had been offered the manuscript in longhand. Many of its ideas, motifs and scenes were anticipated in Proust's unfinished novel "Jean Santeuil" (1896–1899), though the perspective and treatment there are different, and in his unfinished hybrid of philosophical essay and story, "Contre Sainte-Beuve" (1908–09).


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The novel had great influence on twentieth-century literature; some writers have sought to emulate it, others to parody it. For the centenary of the French publication of the novel's first volume, American author Edmund White pronounced "In Search of Lost Time" "the most respected novel of the twentieth century."


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator (who is never definitively named) while he is growing up, learning about art, participating in society, and falling in love.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator begins by noting, "For a long time, I went to bed early." He comments on the way in which sleep seems to alter one's surroundings, and the way habit makes one indifferent to them. He remembers being in his room in the family's country home in Combray, while downstairs his parents entertain their friend Charles Swann, an elegant man of Jewish origin with strong ties to society. Due to Swann's visit, the Narrator is deprived of his mother's goodnight kiss, but he gets her to spend the night reading to him. This memory is the only one he has of Combray until years later the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea inspires a nostalgic incident of involuntary memory. He remembers having a similar snack as a child with his invalid aunt Léonie, and it leads to more memories of Combray. He describes their servant Françoise, who is uneducated but possesses an earthy wisdom and a strong sense of both duty and tradition. He meets an elegant "lady in pink" while visiting his uncle Adolphe. He develops a love of the theater, especially the actress Berma, and his awkward Jewish friend Bloch introduces him to the works of the writer Bergotte. He learns Swann made an unsuitable marriage but has social ambitions for his beautiful daughter Gilberte. Legrandin, a snobbish friend of the family, tries to avoid introducing the boy to his well-to-do sister. The Narrator describes two routes for country walks the child and his parents often enjoyed: the way past Swann's home (the Méséglise way), and the Guermantes way, both containing scenes of natural beauty. Taking the Méséglise way, he sees Gilberte Swann standing in her yard with a lady in white, Mme. Swann, and her supposed lover: Baron de Charlus, a friend of Swann's. Gilberte makes a gesture that the Narrator interprets as a rude dismissal. During another walk, he spies a lesbian scene involving Mlle. Vinteuil, daughter of a composer, and her friend. The Guermantes way is symbolic of the Guermantes family, the nobility of the area. The Narrator is awed by the magic of their name and is captivated when he first sees Mme. de Guermantes. He discovers how appearances conceal the true nature of things and tries writing a description of some nearby steeples. Lying in bed, he seems transported back to these places until he awakens.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: Mme. Verdurin is an autocratic hostess who, aided by her husband, demands total obedience from the guests in her "little clan". One guest is Odette de Crécy, a former courtesan, who has met Swann and invites him to the group. Swann is too refined for such company, but Odette gradually intrigues him with her unusual style. A sonata by Vinteuil, which features a "little phrase", becomes the motif for their deepening relationship. The Verdurins host M. de Forcheville; their guests include Cottard, a doctor; Brichot, an academic; Saniette, the object of scorn; and a painter, M. Biche. Swann grows jealous of Odette, who now keeps him at arm's length, and suspects an affair between her and Forcheville, aided by the Verdurins. Swann seeks respite by attending a society concert that includes Legrandin's sister and a young Mme. de Guermantes; the "little phrase" is played and Swann realizes Odette's love for him is gone. He tortures himself wondering about her true relationships with others, but his love for her, despite renewals, gradually diminishes. He moves on and marvels that he ever loved a woman who was not his type.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: At home in Paris, the Narrator dreams of visiting Venice or the church in Balbec, a resort, but he is too unwell and instead takes walks in the Champs-Élysées, where he meets and befriends Gilberte. He holds her father, now married to Odette, in the highest esteem, and is awed by the beautiful sight of Mme. Swann strolling in public. Years later, the old sights of the area are long gone, and he laments the fleeting nature of places.


title: In Search of Lost Time

text: The Narrator's parents invite M. de Norpois, a diplomat colleague of the Narrator's father, to dinner. With Norpois's intervention, the Narrator is finally allowed to go and see the Berma perform in a play, but is disappointed by her acting. Afterwards, at dinner, he watches Norpois, who is extremely diplomatic and correct at all times, expound on society and art. The Narrator gives him a draft of his writing, but Norpois gently indicates it is not good. The Narrator continues to go to the Champs-Élysées and play with Gilberte. Her parents distrust him, so he writes to them in protest. He and Gilberte wrestle and he has an orgasm. Gilberte invites him to tea, and he becomes a regular at her house. He observes Mme. Swann's inferior social status, Swann's lowered standards and indifference towards his wife, and Gilberte's affection for her father. The Narrator contemplates how he has attained his wish to know the Swanns, and savors their unique style. At one of their parties he meets and befriends Bergotte, who gives his impressions of society figures and artists. But the Narrator is still unable to start writing seriously. His friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, where there is a Jewish prostitute named Rachel. He showers Mme. Swann with flowers, being almost on better terms with her than with Gilberte. One day, he and Gilberte quarrel and he decides never to see her again. However, he continues to visit Mme. Swann, who has become a popular hostess, with her guests including Mme. Bontemps, who has a niece named Albertine. The Narrator hopes for a letter from Gilberte repairing their friendship, but gradually feels himself losing interest. He breaks down and plans to reconcile with her, but spies from afar someone resembling her walking with a boy and gives her up for good. He stops visiting her mother also, who is now a celebrated beauty admired by passersby, and years later he can recall the glamour she displayed then.