title: Aunt Jemima

text: Robinson reportedly worked for the company until her death in 1951, although the work was sporadic and for mere weeks in a year. Nevertheless, this was not enough to escape the hard life into which she was born. Her $1,200 total payment in 1939 () was almost the entirety of the household's annual income. The official Aunt Jemima history timeline once stated she was "able to make enough money to provide for her children and buy a 22-room house where she rents rooms to boarders". The same claim was made for Anna Short Harrington. According to the 1940 census, she rented an apartment in a four-flat in Washington Park with her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Rosa Washington Riles became the third face on Aunt Jemima packaging in the 1930s, and continued until 1948. Rosa Washington was born in 1901 near Red Oak in Brown County, Ohio, one of several children of Robert and Julie (Holliday) Washington and a granddaughter of George and Phoeba Washington. She was employed as a cook in the home of a Quaker Oats executive and began pancake demonstrations at her employer's request. She died in 1969, and is buried near her parents and grandparents in the historic Red Oak Presbyterian Church cemetery of Ripley, Ohio. An annual Aunt Jemima breakfast has been a long-time fundraiser for the cemetery, and the church maintains a collection of Aunt Jemima memorabilia.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Anna Short Harrington began her career as Aunt Jemima in 1935 and continued to play the role until 1954. She was born in 1897 in Marlboro County, South Carolina. The Short family lived on the Pegues Place plantation as sharecroppers. In 1927, she moved to Syracuse, New York. Quaker Oats discovered her cooking pancakes at the 1935 New York State Fair. Harrington died in Syracuse in 1955.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Edith Wilson became the face of Aunt Jemima on radio, television, and in personal appearances, from 1948 to 1966. Wilson was the first Aunt Jemima to appear in television commercials. She was born in 1896 in Louisville, Kentucky. Wilson was a classic blues singer and actress in Chicago, New York, and London. She appeared on radio in "The Great Gildersleeve", on radio and television in "Amos 'n' Andy", and on film in "To Have and Have Not" (1944). On March 31, 1981, she died in Chicago.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The Aunt Jemima character, portrayed at the time by Edith Wilson, received the Key to the City of Albion, Michigan, on January 25, 1964. Actresses portraying Aunt Jemima visited Albion, Battle Creek ("Cereal City"), and other Michigan cities many times over three decades. Grand Rapids had an Aunt Jemima's Kitchen, one of 21 locations, until it was changed to Colonial Kitchen in 1968.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Ethel Ernestine Harper portrayed Aunt Jemima during the 1950s. Harper was born on September 17, 1903, in Greensboro, Alabama. Prior to the Aunt Jemima role, Harper graduated from college at the age of 17, taught elementary school for 2 years, high school mathematics for 10 years, moved to New York City where she performed in "The Hot Mikado" in 1939 and "Harlem Cavalcade" in 1942, then toured Europe during and after World War II as one of the Ginger Snaps. On March 31, 1979, she died in Morristown, New Jersey. She was the last individual model for the character's logo.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Rosie Lee Moore Hall portrayed Aunt Jemima from 1950 until her death in 1967. Hall was born on June 22, 1899, in Robertson County, Texas. She worked for Quaker Oats in the company's Oklahoma advertising department until she answered their search for a new Aunt Jemima. She suffered a heart attack on her way to church and died on February 12, 1967. She was buried in the family plot in the Colony Cemetery near Wheelock, Texas. Hall was the last "living" Aunt Jemima. On May 7, 1988, her grave was declared an historical landmark.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Aylene Lewis portrayed Aunt Jemima at the Disneyland Aunt Jemima's Pancake House, a popular eating place at the park on New Orleans Street in Frontierland, from 1957 until her death in 1964. Lewis became well known posing for pictures with visitors and serving pancakes to dignitaries, such as Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. She also developed a close relationship with Walt Disney.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The term "Aunt Jemima" is sometimes used colloquially as a female version of the derogatory epithet "Uncle Tom" or "Rastus". In this context, the slang term "Aunt Jemima" falls within the "mammy archetype" and refers to a friendly black woman who is perceived as obsequiously servile or acting in, or protective of, the interests of whites.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: John Sylvester of WTDY-AM drew criticism after calling Condoleezza Rice an “Aunt Jemima” and Colin Powell an "Uncle Tom", referring to remarks by singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte about their alleged subservience in the George W. Bush administration. He apologized by giving away Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Barry Presgraves, then 77-year-old Mayor of Luray, Virginia, was censured 5-to-1 by the town council because he referred to Kamala Harris as "Aunt Jemima" after she was selected by Joe Biden to be the Democratic Party vice presidential candidate.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Aunt Jemima has been featured in various formats and settings throughout popular culture. Much of the attention drawn to this product in 2020 and 2021 is attributed to the decision by PepsiCo in June 2020 to rename the product, and the misrepresentation of Nancy Green's legacy, amidst heavy racial tension in the United States and around the world. Aunt Jemima has been a present image identifiable by popular culture for well over a century, dating back to Nancy Green's appearance at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, Illinois.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: "Aunt Jemima", a minstrel-type variety radio program, was broadcast January 17, 1929 – June 5, 1953, at times on CBS and at other times on the Blue Network. The program had several hiatuses during its time on the air.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The 1933 novel "Imitation of Life" by Fannie Hurst features an Aunt Jemima-type character, Delilah, a maid struggling in life with her widowed employer, Bea. Their fortunes change dramatically when Bea capitalizes on Delilah's family pancake recipe to open a pancake restaurant that attracts tourists at the Jersey Shore. It became a great success and was eventually packaged and sold as Aunt Delilah's Pancake Mix. They achieve that success due to selling flour with a smiling Delilah on the box dressed in Aunt Jemima fashion. The Academy Award-nominated 1934 film version of "Imitation of Life" starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers retains this part of the plot, which was excised from the 1959 remake of "Imitation of Life" starring Lana Turner and directed by Douglas Sirk.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The 1950s television show "Beulah" came under fire for depicting a "mammy"-like black maid and cook who was somewhat reminiscent of Aunt Jemima.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: In the 1960s, Betye Saar began collecting images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Little Black Sambo, and other stereotyped African-American figures from folk culture and advertising of the Jim Crow era. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into statements of political and social protest.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is one of her most notable works from this era. In this mixed-media assemblage, Saar utilized the stereotypical mammy figure of Aunt Jemima to subvert traditional notions of race and gender.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: "Aunt Jemima's Kitchen" — named Aunt Jemima's Pancake House when it first started operating in 1955 — was a restaurant opened in 1962 during the Civil Rights Movement as the official Aunt Jemima restaurant at Disneyland. In addition to the restaurant, a woman portraying Aunt Jemima was poised at the restaurant to take pictures with its patrons. Aunt Jemima's Kitchen also had additional locations across the United States.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Frank Zappa includes a song titled "Electric Aunt Jemima" on his 1969 album "Uncle Meat". Electric Aunt Jemima was the nickname for Zappa's Standel guitar amplifier.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Faith Ringgold’s first quilt story "Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima?" (1983) depicts the story of Aunt Jemima as a matriarch restaurateur: through mediums of text and imagery used to characterize Aunt Jemima in the public sphere, Ringgold represented the oppressed mammy caricature as an entrepreneur.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: "Burn Hollywood Burn" on Public Enemy's 1990 Album "Fear of a Black Planet" features Big Daddy Kane commenting on the updating of racial tropes with the lyrics, "And black women in this profession / As for playin' a lawyer, out of the question / For what they play Aunt Jemima is the perfect term / Even if now she got a perm."


title: Aunt Jemima

text: Spike Lee's 2000 film "Bamboozled" features Aunt Jemima (played by Tyheesha Collins) as one of the dancing "pickaninnies" in the film's deliberately racist TV show "Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show", alongside other stereotypical black antebellum South characters like Rastus.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: The 2004 mockumentary "" features numerous depictions of Aunt Jemima-type characters as slaves (referred to as servants) in an alternate timeline in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: In the "South Park" episode "Gluten Free Ebola" (2014), Aunt Jemima appears in Eric Cartman's delirious dream (as a parody of Mother Abigail from Stephen King's, "The Stand") to tell him that the food pyramid is upside down.


title: Aunt Jemima

text: On November 7, 2020, the comedy sketch TV series "Saturday Night Live" featured a skit which Aunt Jemima was fired, in addition to Uncle Ben, with roles played by "Count Chocula" and the "Allstate Guy".


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The Black Mafia Family (BMF) was a drug trafficking and money laundering organization in the United States.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The Black Mafia Family was founded in 1985, in Southwest Detroit by brothers Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and Terry "Southwest T" Flenory, and by 2000 had established cocaine distribution sales throughout the United States through their Los Angeles-based drug source and direct links to Mexican drug cartels. The Black Mafia Family operated from two main hubs: one in Atlanta for distribution run by Demetrius Flenory and one in Los Angeles to handle incoming shipments from Mexico run by Terry Flenory.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The Black Mafia Family under Demetrius Flenory entered the hip-hop music business as BMF Entertainment in the early 2000s as a front organization to launder money from cocaine sales and to legitimize itself. BMF Entertainment served as a promoter for several high-profile hip-hop artists, and as a record label for their sole artist Bleu DaVinci. Demetrius Flenory and the Black Mafia Family became famous in hip-hop popular culture for their highly extravagant lifestyles.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicted members of the Black Mafia Family, ultimately securing convictions by targeting the Flenory brothers under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute, and both were sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. Prosecutors alleged the Black Mafia Family made over $270 million in the course of their operations.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Demetrius Edward "Big Meech" Flenory (born June 21, 1968, in Detroit, Michigan) and his brother Terry P.O. Lee "Southwest T" Flenory (born January 10, 1970, in Detroit, Michigan) began selling $50 bags of cocaine on the streets of Detroit during their high school years in the late 1980s. By 2000, the Flenory brothers had established a large organization overseeing multi-kilogram cocaine distribution sales in numerous U.S. states including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee. A two-year federal investigation of the Flenory organization estimated its nationwide membership as over 500.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Around 2003, the organization experienced a schism when the Flenory brothers began to feud, with Terry Flenory moving to Los Angeles to head his own organization, while Demetrius Flenory remained at the main distribution center in Atlanta. By 2003, the two had been involved in a major falling out and rarely spoke to one another. In a conversation with his brothers caught by the DEA on wiretap, Terry discussed his worries that his brother Demetrius was bringing the wrong type of attention to their business with his excessive partying. By the time charges were filed against the Flenorys, the government had 900 pages of typed transcripts of wiretapped conversations from Terry's phone in a 5-month period.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In November 2007, the brothers pleaded guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise. In September 2008, both brothers were sentenced to 30 years in prison for running a nationwide cocaine-trafficking ring, which lasted from 2000 to 2005. Demetrius Flenory is serving out his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Sheridan and is scheduled for release on May 5, 2029, around his 61st birthday. Terry Flenory was released to home confinement on May 5, 2020, after being granted a compassionate release due to health ailments and an effort from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to release certain inmates in order to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic within federal prisons. Demetrius Flenory also sought his release under the same guidelines; however, a federal judge rejected the move, claiming it would be premature to authorize his release as his prison record suggests he has not changed and continues to promote himself as a drug kingpin, further stating his disciplinary record includes violations such as possession of a cell phone and weapons as well as drug use.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In the early 2000s, Demetrius Flenory established BMF Entertainment as a promotion agency and record label for hip-hop music. The Flenory brothers were already known to associate with numerous high-profile hip-hop artist including Diddy, Trina, T.I., Jay-Z, Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Demetrius founded BMF Entertainment as a front organization for money laundering the cash generated by the cocaine distribution network, but was also an attempt to create a legitimate business and legal source of income. Around this time, the Flenory organization formally adopted the name "Black Mafia Family" after previously being unnamed.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In 2005, Bleu Da Vinci's album, "World Is BMF's", was nominated for a Source Award. BMF appeared in numerous underground hip-hop DVD magazines, most notably several issues of "S.M.A.C.K." and "The Come Up". The organization's most highly visible appearance was in a full-length DVD that was produced by "The Raw Report", which gave a detailed inside look at their movement. The DVD was featured "Vibe"'s cover article on BMF in the May 2006. It received wide acclaim from DJs for the Soundsmith Productions produced song "Streets on Lock", headed by BMF affiliate Bleu Davinci and featuring Fabolous and Young Jeezy. A music video was later produced for the single, though it was never released to networks.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: "Creative Loafing" senior editor Mara Shalhoup wrote a three-part series about the Black Mafia Family entitled "Hip-Hop's Shadowy Empire", which was the first in-depth report on the organization. Shalhoup's book on the organization, "BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family", was published in March 2010.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Police investigation into the Black Mafia began sometime in the early 1990s, before the organization operated by Demetrius and Terry Flenory was named or reached peak distribution. The lead-up to the October 2005 indictments began with a series of large drug seizures and subsequent informant testimonies from BMF members. On October 28, 2003, a 2-year Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation began, coordinated by the DEA's Special Operations Division and codenamed "Operation Motor City Mafia".


title: Black Mafia Family

text: On April 11, 2004, BMF courier and high-level distributor Jabari Hayes was pulled over in Phelps County, Missouri along I-44 driving a 40-foot motor home, supposedly for swerving over the fog line. Two suitcases containing approximately 95 kilograms of cocaine and 572 grams of marijuana were found in the back of the Range Rover after a K-9 unit alerted to drugs in the vehicle.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In mid-September 2004, a wiretap on Rafael "Smurf" Allison, a low-level crack dealer in Atlanta, led an HIDTA task force to Decarlo Hoskins, a mid-level dealer. Hoskins informed them that he had grown up with two brothers, Omari McCree and Jeffrey Leahr, who were BMF members and able to supply multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine regularly. Wiretaps revealed that Omari McCree was a high-level distributor for the Flenory organization and was favored by Demetrius.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: On November 5, 2004, Jeffrey Leahr was pulled over with his girlfriend on I-75 in Atlanta due to the wiretaps. In the back seat was a duffel bag containing 10 kilograms of cocaine. They were released later that day in an attempt by HIDTA to gather more information in regards to their supplier and the organization using wiretaps. McCree and Leahr, facing a large debt to BMF for the lost cocaine, went on the run. When picked up June 8, 2005, Unknown signed a confidential-source agreement and described his role in BMF, naming Demetrius Flenory as the source of the cocaine. Chad "J-Bo" Brown, supplied him with cocaine on behalf of Demetrius. These events and a number of others formed the backbone of the government's case. During trial, the government's star witness was William "Doc" Marshall.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Testimony given during various trials say the Flenory organization operated as follows: BMF operated five stash houses in the Atlanta area. Approximately every 10 days, vehicles would arrive with 100–150 kilograms of cocaine packed in secret compartments. Workers at the stash houses were paid to unload the drugs and store them. Customers who ordered would call in and say they had their vehicle ready – meaning a transportation vehicle to put the narcotics in. Depending on the size of their order, they were directed to a particular stash house where they would pull in, go inside, hand over money in $5,000 bundles. The cocaine was usually sold at $20,000 per kilogram. The same vehicles would then be filled with cash (the proceeds from drug sales) to be sent back to the Mexican sources of supply. Workers inside the stash houses had certain duties, such as counting bulk amounts of cash, usually in the millions. Other people were packaging the cocaine for customers. BMF also received drugs through large containers at the airport containing 100–150 kilograms of cocaine, which they picked up and delivered to stash houses.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In October 2005, it was reported that some 30 members of BMF were arrested in a massive drug raid orchestrated by the DEA. During these raids, the DEA seized $3 million in cash and assets, 2.5 kilograms of cocaine, and numerous weapons. Prior to the October 2005 raids, the DEA had arrested 17 BMF members, seized 632 kilograms of cocaine, $5.3 million in cash, and $5.7 million in assets. They claimed BMF was responsible for moving over 2,500 kilograms of cocaine a month throughout the United States.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Demetrius Flenory and Terry Flenory were charged under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute, conspiracy to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine, possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine, conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and two counts of possession with intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine. Demetrius was captured in a large home in a suburb outside Dallas. Inside, police found a small amount of marijuana and a few MDMA pills. In a safe inside the house were several weapons, as well as multiple vehicles at the home. Terry was captured in St. Louis with small amounts of marijuana and weapons found throughout the house, which was also occupied by multiple people at the time of the arrest.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: On June 15, 2006, the U.S. Department of Treasury reported that 16 additional individuals had been charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and money laundering charges under a second, superseding indictment, bringing the number of people charged in the case to 49. The list of accused included Jacob Arabo, popularly known as Jacob the Jeweler, a well-known celebrity jeweler in the hip-hop community. Arabo was charged with conspiracy to launder more than $270 million in illegally obtained funds.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The Department of Justice also shed light on more of the group's alleged activities in the indictment papers, which included running drug money through various banks and money wiring services in an attempt to disguise its origin. The group had also been accused of obtaining several winning Michigan state lottery tickets from a third party, which they paid cash for, and then cashing in the tickets in an attempt to make the money appear legitimate. The indictment sought the forfeiture of "more than 30 pieces of jewelry, 13 residences, 35 vehicles including Lincoln Limousine, BMW's, Range Rovers, Aston-Martin, and Bentleys, numerous bank accounts, over $1.2 million in seized currency, and a money judgment totaling $270 million."


title: Black Mafia Family

text: On July 25, 2007, United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia unveiled an indictment of 16 more members of the Black Mafia Family with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The indictment charged all defendants with participating in the nationwide cocaine distribution conspiracy, which carries a penalty of between 10 years and life in prison, and up to a $4 million fine. The indictments were seen as "shutting down the BMF's once-flourishing drug empire." Eventually, all defendants pleaded guilty before trial except Fleming "Ill" Daniels.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Fleming Daniels, a top member of the Black Mafia Family drug ring, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking on December 17, 2008. The federal judge also fined Daniels $10,000 for taking part in the violent group. Daniels was the 16th defendant indicted in Atlanta on charges stemming from their role in the organization and the only defendant in the Atlanta indictments to go to trial, with 11 others already having pleaded guilty. The government's case relied upon testimony from William "Doc" Marshall and Ralph Simms to convict Daniels. Daniels had not been caught with cocaine nor caught on wiretaps discussing drug business. The testimony from Marshall indicated that he had seen Daniels receive cocaine in the kilograms while he himself was picking up cocaine. Daniels also awaited trial for the July 2004 murder of Rashannibal Drummond. On February 26, 2010, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years for voluntary manslaughter. His 20-year sentence will run concurrent to another 20-year sentence stemming for his role on BMF cocaine charges.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Barima "Bleu DaVinci" McKnight, the rapper and sole artist of BMF Entertainment, was sentenced on October 30, 2008, to five years and four months in federal prison. McKnight claimed Flenory presented himself as being involved in the music industry and it was not until much later that he let him into the cocaine side of the business. McKnight stated at sentencing that when he first met Demetrius Flenory, he did not show him "the other side of his world", in reference to the cocaine trafficking. McKnight was released in 2011 and returned to his music career. He and his younger brother Calico Jonez began the BMF tour. Calico Jonez, who had started Swishgang joined with McKnight to establish a BMF Swishgang. Jonez, who was known to have played a role in Soulja Boy's label SODMG, and gang ties to Long Beach California's Rolling 20s Crips began making music under the BMF Entertainment umbrella. McKnight is also a cousin of Ras Kass.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The last remaining suspect, Vernon Marcus Coleman, was arrested on July 17, 2009, in Atlanta. He was indicted in 2007 for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. With this, the number of arrested BMF members rose to about 150. The federal government believes the 150 they have indicted and arrested account for the command and control structure, as well as other key figures in the organization, such as distributors, stash house operators, and transporters.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Prior to Operation Motor City Mafia and shortly after its commencement, there were numerous acts of violence alleged to have been committed by BMF members:


title: Black Mafia Family

text: Jabari Hayes, an alleged member of the BMF who allegedly served as their courier and distributor, wrote the book "Miles in the Life" (2009) and is also the executive producer of a 2017 documentary by the same name. In both, Hayes recounts his upbringing in public housing in Brooklyn with a crack-addicted mother and a move to St. Louis as a high-schooler to escape his surroundings, eventually landing in Atlanta where after graduating from Morehouse College, he began operating a valet parking service that eventually led to his alleged involvement with the BMF.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: "BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family" was released in 2012. The author is Mara Shalhoup, who wrote the first in-depth report on BMF for Creative Loafing in 2006.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: The 2012 documentary ″BMF: The Rise and Fall of a Hip-Hop Drug Empire″ explores the 14-year investigation that led to one of the largest drugs busts in history.


title: Black Mafia Family

text: In 2021, a drama television series called "Black Mafia Family" premiered on STARZ, produced by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. Demetrius Flenory is played by his real-life son, Demetrius "Lil Meech" Flenory Jr.


title: All in the Family

text: All in the Family is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. Afterwards, it was continued with the spin-off series "Archie Bunker's Place", which picked up where "All in the Family" had ended and ran for four more seasons through 1983.


title: All in the Family

text: Based on the British sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part", "All in the Family" was produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin. It starred Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers, and Rob Reiner. The show revolves around the life of a working-class man and his family. The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for a US network television comedy, such as racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriages, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. Through depicting these controversial issues, the series became arguably one of television's most influential comedic programs, as it injected the sitcom format with more dramatic moments and realistic, topical conflicts.


title: All in the Family

text: "All in the Family" is often regarded in the United States as one of the greatest television series in history. The show soon became the most watched show in the United States during the summer reruns of the first season, and afterwards ranked number one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years. The episode "Sammy's Visit" was ranked number 13 on "TV Guide's" 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. "TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time ranked "All in the Family" as number four. "Bravo" also named the show's protagonist, Archie Bunker, TV's greatest character of all time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked "All in the Family" the fourth-best written TV series ever.


title: All in the Family

text: "All in the Family" is about a working-class white family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch is Archie Bunker (O'Connor), an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone who is not like him or his idea of how people should be. Archie's wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is sweet and understanding, though somewhat naïve and uneducated; her husband sometimes disparagingly calls her "dingbat". Their one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), is generally kind and good-natured like her mother, but displays traces of her father's stubbornness and temper; unlike them, she is a feminist. Gloria is married to graduate student Michael Stivic (Reiner)–referred to as "Meathead" by Archie–whose values are likewise influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunkers' home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other.


title: All in the Family

text: The show is set in the Astoria section of Queens, with the vast majority of scenes taking place in the Bunkers' home at 704 Hauser Street. Occasional scenes take place in other locations, especially during later seasons, such as Kelsey's Bar, a neighborhood tavern that Archie spends a good deal of time in and eventually purchases, and the Stivics' home after Mike and Gloria move out.


title: All in the Family

text: Supporting characters represent the changing demographics of the neighborhood, especially the Jeffersons, a black family, who live in the house next door in the early seasons.


title: All in the Family

text: The show came about when Norman Lear read an article in "Variety" magazine on "Till Death Us Do Part" and its success in the United Kingdom. He immediately knew it portrayed a relationship just like the one between his father and himself.


title: All in the Family

text: Lear bought the rights to the show and incorporated his own family experiences with his father into the show. Lear's father would tell Lear's mother to "stifle herself" and she would tell Lear's father "you are the laziest white man I ever saw" (two "Archieisms" that found their way onto the show).


title: All in the Family

text: The original pilot was titled "Justice for All" and was developed for ABC. Tom Bosley, Jack Warden, and Jackie Gleason were all considered for the role of Archie Bunker. In fact, CBS wanted to buy the rights to the original show and retool it specifically for Gleason, who was under contract to them, but producer Lear beat out CBS for the rights and offered the show to ABC. Mickey Rooney was offered the role but turned it down as he felt the character was "un-American".


title: All in the Family

text: In the pilot, Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton played Archie and Edith Justice. Kelly Jean Peters played Gloria and Tim McIntire played her husband, Richard. It was taped in October 1968 in New York City. After screening the first pilot, ABC gave the producers more money to shoot a second pilot, titled "Those Were the Days", which Lear taped in February 1969 in Hollywood. Candice Azzara played Gloria and Chip Oliver played Richard. D'Urville Martin played Lionel Jefferson in both pilots.


title: All in the Family

text: After stations' and viewers' complaints caused ABC to cancel "Turn-On" (a sketch comedy series developed by Laugh-In's George Schlatter) after only one episode in February 1969, the network became uneasy about airing a show with a "foul-mouthed, bigoted lead" character, and rejected the series at about the time Richard Dreyfuss sought the role of Michael. Rival network CBS was eager to update its image and was looking to replace much of its then popular "rural" programming ("Mayberry R.F.D.", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres") with more "urban", contemporary series and was interested in Lear's project; by this point, Gleason was no longer under contract to CBS (his own show was among those eliminated), allowing Lear to keep Carroll O'Connor on as the lead. CBS bought the rights from ABC and retitled the show "All in the Family". The pilot episode CBS developed had the final cast and was the series' first episode.


title: All in the Family

text: Lear wanted to shoot in black and white as "Till Death Us Do Part" had been. While CBS insisted on color, Lear had the set furnished in neutral tones, keeping everything relatively devoid of color. As costume designer Rita Riggs described in her 2001 Archive of American Television interview, Lear's idea was to create the feeling of sepia tones, in an attempt to make viewers feel as if they were looking at an old family album.


title: All in the Family

text: "All in the Family" was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live studio audience. In the 1960s, most sitcoms had been filmed in the single-camera format without audiences, with a laugh track simulating an audience response. Lear employed the multiple-camera format of shooting in front of an audience, but used tape, whereas previous multiple-camera shows like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" had used film. Due to the success of "All in the Family", videotaping sitcoms in front of an audience became a common format for the genre during the 1970s, onward. The use of videotape also gave "All in the Family" the look and feel of early live television, including the original live broadcasts of "The Honeymooners", to which "All in the Family" is sometimes compared.


title: All in the Family

text: For the show's final season, the practice of being taped before a live audience changed to playing the already taped and edited show to an audience and recording their laughter to add to the original sound track, and the voice-over during the end credits were changed from Rob Stone's voice to Carroll O'Connor's (typically, the audience was gathered for a taping of "One Day at a Time", and got to see "All In the Family" as a bonus.). Throughout its run, Norman Lear took pride in the fact that canned laughter was never used (mentioning this on many occasions); the laughter heard in the episodes was genuine.


title: All in the Family

text: The series' opening theme song "Those Were the Days", was written by Lee Adams (lyrics) and Charles Strouse (music). It was presented in a way that was unique for a 1970s series: Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton were seated at a console or spinet piano (played by Stapleton) and sang the tune together on-camera at the start of every episode, concluding with applause from a studio audience. (The song dates back to the first "Justice For All" pilot filmed in 1968, although on that occasion O'Connor and Stapleton performed the song off-camera and at a faster tempo than the series version.) Six different performances were recorded over the run of the series, including one version that includes additional lyrics. The song is a simple, pentatonic melody (that can be played exclusively with black keys on a piano) in which Archie and Edith wax nostalgic for the simpler days of yesteryear. A longer version of the song was released as a single on Atlantic Records, reaching number 43 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 30 on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart in early 1972; the additional lyrics in this longer version lend the song a greater sense of sadness and make poignant reference to social changes taking place in the 1960s and early 1970s.


title: All in the Family

text: A few perceptible drifts can be observed when listening to each version chronologically. In the original version, the lyric "Those Were The Days" was sung over the tonic (root chord of the song's key), and the piano strikes a dominant 7th passing chord in transition to the next part, which is absent from subsequent versions. Jean Stapleton's screeching high note on the line "And you knew who you WEEERRE then" became louder, longer, and more comical, although only in the original version did the line draw a laugh from the audience. Carroll O'Connor's pronunciation of "welfare state" added more of Archie's trademark whining enunciation, and the closing lyrics (especially "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great") were sung with increasingly deliberate articulation, as viewers had complained that they could not understand the words. Also in the original version, the camera angle was shot slightly from the right side of the talent as opposed to the straight on angle of the next version. Jean Stapleton performed the theme song without glasses beginning in season 6.


title: All in the Family

text: In addition to O'Connor and Stapleton singing, footage is also shown beginning with aerial shots of Manhattan, and continuing to Queens, progressively zooming in, culminating with a still shot of a lower middle-class semidetached home, presumably representing the Bunkers' house in Astoria, suggesting that the visit to the Bunkers' home has begun. The house shown in the opening credits is actually located at 89–70 Cooper Avenue in the Glendale section of Queens, New York. A notable difference exists, between the Cooper Avenue house and the "All in the Family" set: the Cooper Avenue house has no porch, while the Bunkers' home featured a front porch. Since the footage used for the opening had been shot back in 1968 for the series' first pilot, the establishing shot of the Manhattan skyline was completely devoid of the World Trade Center towers, which had not yet been built. When the series aired two years later, the Trade Center towers, although under construction, had still not yet risen high enough to become a prominent feature on the Manhattan skyline (this did not happen until the end of 1971). Despite this change in the Manhattan skyline, the original, somewhat grainy 1968 footage continued to be used for the series opening until the series transitioned into "Archie Bunker's Place" in 1979. At that time, a new opening with current shots of the Manhattan skyline were used with the Trade Center towers being seen in the closing credits. This opening format – showing actual footage of the cities and neighborhoods in which the show was set – became the standard for most of Norman Lear's sitcoms, including others in the "All in the Family" franchise – "Maude", "Good Times", and "The Jeffersons".


title: All in the Family

text: At the end of the opening, the camera then returns to a last few seconds of O'Connor and Stapleton, as they finish the song. At the end of the original version, Edith smiles at Archie and Archie smiles off at a slight distance. In the longest running version (from season 2 to season 5), Edith smiles blissfully at Archie, and Archie puts a cigar in his mouth and returns a rather cynical, sheepish look to Edith. From season six through eight, Edith smiles and rests her chin on Archie's shoulder. In the final season, Edith hugs Archie at the conclusion. Additionally, in the first three versions of the opening, Archie is seen wearing his classic trademark white shirt. In the final version of the opening for the series' ninth season, Archie is seen wearing a grey sweater-jacket over his white shirt. In all versions of the opening, the song's conclusion is accompanied by applause from the studio audience.


title: All in the Family

text: In interviews, Norman Lear explained that the idea for the piano song introduction was a cost-cutting measure. After completion of the pilot episode, the budget would not allow an elaborate scene to serve as the sequence played during the show's opening credits. Lear decided to have a simple scene of Archie and Edith singing at the piano.


title: All in the Family

text: The closing theme (an instrumental) was "Remembering You", played by its composer Roger Kellaway, with lyrics later added by Carroll O'Connor. It was played over footage of the same row of houses in Queens as in the opening (but moving in the opposite direction down the street), and eventually moving back to aerial shots of Manhattan, suggesting the visit to the Bunkers' home has concluded. O'Connor recorded a vocal version of "Remembering You" for a record album, but though he performed it several times on TV appearances, the lyrics (about the end of a romance) were never heard in the actual series. In July 1986, vocalist Helen Merrill's contrastingly jazz-flavored rendition, accompanied by a Kellaway-led trio and introduced by O'Connor, was featured on "The Merv Griffin Show".


title: All in the Family

text: Except for some brief instances in the first season, scenes contained no background or transitional music.


title: All in the Family

text: Lear and his writers set the series in the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. The location of the Bunkers' house at 704 Hauser Street is fictitious (no Hauser Street exists in Queens). The address is not presented the way addresses are given in Queens: most address numbers are hyphenated, identifying the number of the nearest cross street. Nevertheless, many episodes reveal that the Bunkers live near the major thoroughfare Northern Boulevard, which was the location of Kelsey's Bar and later Archie Bunker's Place.


title: All in the Family

text: The exterior of the house shown at the show opening is a home located at 89–70 Cooper Avenue, Glendale, Queens, New York, across from St. John Cemetery ().


title: All in the Family

text: Many real Queens institutions are mentioned throughout the series. Carroll O'Connor, a Queens native from Forest Hills, said in an interview with the Archive of American Television that he suggested to the writers many of the locations to give the series authenticity. For example, Archie is said to have attended Flushing High School, a real school in Flushing, Queens (although in the "Man Of The Year" episode of "Archie Bunker's Place", Archie attended Bryant High School in nearby Long Island City). As another example, the 1976 episode "The Baby Contest" deals with Archie entering baby Joey in a cutest-baby contest sponsored by the "Long Island Daily Press", a then-operating local newspaper in Queens and Long Island.


title: All in the Family

text: The writers of "All in the Family" continued throughout the series to have the Bunkers and other characters use telephone exchange names when giving a telephone number (most other series at the time, such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", were using the standard fictitious 555 telephone exchange) at a time when the Bell System was trying to discontinue them. At different times throughout the series, the exchanges "Ravenswood" and "Bayside" – both valid in the area – were used for the Bunkers' telephone number. Actual residents of the Bunkers' age continued using exchange names into the early 1980s, which is referred to in the 1979 episode "The Appendectomy", in which Edith gets confused between the two versions of a number she is dialing.


title: All in the Family

text: "Sammy's Visit", first broadcast in February 1972, is a particularly notable episode, whose famous episode-ending scene produced the longest sustained audience laughter in the history of the show. Guest star Sammy Davis Jr. plays himself. Archie is moonlighting as a cab driver and Davis visits the Bunker home to retrieve a briefcase he left in Archie's cab earlier that day. After hearing Archie's bigoted remarks, Davis asks for a photograph with him. At the moment the picture is taken, Davis suddenly kisses a stunned Archie on the cheek. The ensuing laughter went on for so long that it had to be severely edited for network broadcast, as Carroll O'Connor still had one line ("Well, what the hell — he said it was in his contract!") to deliver after the kiss. (The line is usually cut in syndication.)


title: All in the Family

text: During the show's sixth season, starting on December 1, 1975, CBS began airing reruns on weekdays at 3p.m. (EST), replacing long-running soap opera "The Edge of Night", which moved to ABC. The show would later move to 3:30p.m. and in September 1978, 10a.m. This lasted until September 1979, when Viacom distributed the reruns to the off-network market where many stations picked up the show. In 1991, Columbia Pictures Television began syndicating the show, and Columbia's successor companies have continued to do so.


title: All in the Family

text: Since the late 1980s, "All in the Family" has been rerun on various cable and satellite networks including TBS (although it held the rights locally in Atlanta, as well), TV Land, Nick at Nite, and Sundance TV. From January 3, 2011, to December 31, 2017, the show aired on Antenna TV. As of January 1, 2018, the show began to air on GetTV.


title: All in the Family

text: "All in the Family" is one of three television shows ("The Cosby Show" and the reality music competition "American Idol" being the others) that have been number one in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive TV seasons. The show remained in the top 10 for seven of its nine seasons.


title: All in the Family

text: , "All in the Family" has the most spin-offs for a prime-time television series, directly spawning five other shows, three of which were very successful, as well as two of those spin-offs each having a spin-off of their own.


title: All in the Family

text: At the height of the show's popularity, Henry Fonda hosted a special one-hour retrospective of "All in the Family" and its impact on American television. It included clips from the show's most memorable episodes up to that time. It was titled "The Best of "All in the Family"", and aired on December 21, 1974.


title: All in the Family

text: On February 16, 1991, CBS aired a 90-minute retrospective, "All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special", hosted by Norman Lear to commemorate the show's 20th anniversary. It featured a compilation of clips from the show's best moments, and interviews with the four main cast members. The special was so well received by the viewing audience CBS aired reruns of "All in the Family" during its summer schedule in 1991, garnering higher ratings than the new series scheduled next to it, Norman Lear's sitcom "Sunday Dinner". The latter was Lear's return to TV series producing after a seven-year absence, and was cancelled after the six-week tryout run due to being poorly received by audiences.


title: All in the Family

text: On May 22, 2019, ABC broadcast "Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons", produced by Lear and Jimmy Kimmel and starring Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, Kerry Washington and Ellie Kemper.


title: All in the Family

text: A second "Live in Front of A Studio Audience" special was announced in early November 2019 to air on Wednesday December 18, this time pairing the show with "Good Times".


title: All in the Family

text: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment) released the first six seasons of "All in the Family" on DVD in Region 1 between 2002 and 2007. No further seasons were released, because the sales figures did not match Sony's expectations.


title: All in the Family

text: On June 23, 2010, Shout! Factory announced that it had acquired the rights to the series, and has since released the remaining three seasons.


title: All in the Family

text: On October 30, 2012, Shout! Factory released "All in the Family – The Complete Series" on DVD in Region 1. The 28-disc boxed set features all 208 episodes of the series, as well as bonus features.


title: All in the Family

text: On February 6, 2018, Sony released "All in the Family- Seasons 1–5" on DVD in Region 1. The 15-disc set features all episodes from the first five seasons.


title: All in the Family

text: As one of US television's most acclaimed and groundbreaking programs, "All in the Family" has been referenced or parodied in countless other forms of media. References on other sitcoms include "That '70s Show", "The Simpsons", and "Family Guy".


title: All in the Family

text: Popular T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers showing O'Connor's image and farcically promoting "Archie Bunker for President" appeared around the time of the 1972 presidential election. In 1998, "All in the Family" was honored on a 33-cent stamp by the USPS.


title: All in the Family

text: Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs are on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The originals had been purchased by the show's set designer for a few dollars at a local Goodwill thrift store, and were given to the Smithsonian (for an exhibit on American television history) in 1978. It cost producers thousands of dollars to create replicas to replace the originals.


title: All in the Family

text: Then-US President Richard Nixon can be heard discussing the show (specifically the 1971 episodes "Writing the President" and "Judging Books by Covers") on one of the infamous Watergate tapes.


title: All in the Family

text: Rapper Redman has made references to Archie Bunker in a few of his songs, specifically his smoking of large cigars.


title: All in the Family

text: "All in the Family" is the first of four sitcoms in which all the lead actors (O'Connor, Stapleton, Struthers, and Reiner) won Primetime Emmy Awards. The other three are "The Golden Girls", "Will and Grace" and "Schitt's Creek".


title: All in the Family

text: In 2013, the Television Critics Association honored "All in the Family" with its Heritage Award for its cultural and social impact on society.


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangea, () commonly named the hortensia, is a genus of over 75 species of flowering plants native to Asia and the Americas. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Korea, and Japan. Most are shrubs tall, but some are small trees, and others lianas reaching up to by climbing up trees. They can be either deciduous or evergreen, though the widely cultivated temperate species are all deciduous.


title: Hydrangea

text: "Hydrangea" is derived from Greek and means ‘water vessel’ (from "húdōr" "water" + "ángos" or "angeîon" "vessel"), in reference to the shape of its seed capsules. The earlier name, "Hortensia", is a Latinised version of the French given name Hortense, honoring French astronomer and mathematician Nicole-Reine Hortense Lepaute. This claim is disputed in page 88 on citation 10 at Nicole-Reine Hortense Lepaute page, which says: "Larousse considers this an injustice, and remarks that it has led many persons to the erroneous notion that "Hortensia" was one of her names; it was probably only the Latin adjective from "hortus." The flowers of hydrangea act as natural pH indicators, sporting blue flowers when the soil is acidic and pink when the soil is alkaline.


title: Hydrangea

text: "Hydrangea" flowers are produced from early spring to late autumn; they grow in flowerheads (corymbs or panicles) most often at the ends of the stems. Typically the flowerheads contain two types of flowers: small non-showy fertile flowers in the center or interior of the flowerhead, and large, sterile showy flowers with large colorful sepals (tepals). These showy flowers are often extended in a ring, or to the exterior of the small flowers. Plants in wild populations typically have few to none of the showy flowers, while cultivated hydrangeas have been bred and selected to have more of the larger type flowers.


title: Hydrangea

text: There are two flower arrangements in hydrangeas with corymb style inflorescences, which includes the commonly grown "bigleaf hydrangea"—"Hydrangea macrophylla". Mophead flowers are large round flowerheads resembling pom-poms or, as the name implies, the head of a mop. In contrast, lacecap flowers bear round, flat flowerheads with a center core of subdued, small flowers surrounded by outer rings of larger flowers having showy sepals or tepals. The flowers of some rhododendrons and viburnums can appear, at first glance, similar to those of some hydrangeas.


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangea flowers, when cut, dehydrate easily and wilt very quickly due to the large surface area of the petals. A wilted hydrangea may have its hydration restored by first having its stem immersed in boiling water; as the petals of the hydrangea can also absorb water, the petals may then be immersed, in room-temperature water, to restore the flower's hydration.


title: Hydrangea

text: In most species, the flowers are white, but in others (notably "H. macrophylla"), they can be blue, red, pink, light purple, or dark purple. In these species, floral color change occurs due to the presence of aluminum ions which are available or tied up depending upon the soil pH. For "H. macrophylla" and "H. serrata" cultivars, the flower color can be determined by the relative acidity of the soil: an acidic soil (pH below 7), will have available aluminum ions and typically produce flowers that are blue to purple, whereas an alkaline soil (pH above 7) will tie up aluminum ions and result in pink or red flowers. This is caused by a color change of the flower pigments in the presence of aluminum ions which can be taken up into hyperaccumulating plants. Lowering the pH of potting soils or mixes usually does not change the flower color to blue, because these soils have no aluminum ions. The ability to blue or pink a hydrangea is also influenced by the cultivar. Some plants are selected for their ability to be blued, while others are bred and selected to be red, pink, or white. The flower color of most other Hydrangea species is not affected by aluminum and cannot be changed or shifted. Hydrangeas are also nicknamed 'Change Rose'.


title: Hydrangea

text: Four fossil seeds of "Hydrangea polonica" have been extracted from borehole samples of the Middle Miocene fresh water deposits in Nowy Sacz Basin, West Carpathians, Poland.


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangeas are popular ornamental plants, grown for their large flowerheads, with "Hydrangea macrophylla" being by far the most widely grown. It has over 600 named cultivars, many selected to have only large sterile flowers in the flowerheads. "Hydrangea macrophylla", also known as bigleaf hydrangea, can be broken up into two main categories; mophead hydrangea and lacecap hydrangea. Some are best pruned on an annual basis when the new leaf buds begin to appear. If not pruned regularly, the bush will become very 'leggy', growing upwards until the weight of the stems is greater than their strength, at which point the stems will sag down to the ground and possibly break. Other species only flower on 'old wood'. Thus new wood resulting from pruning will not produce flowers until the following season.


title: Hydrangea

text: The following cultivars and species have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit under the synonym "Schizophragma":


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangea root and rhizome are indicated for treatment of conditions of the urinary tract in the Physicians' Desk Reference for Herbal Medicine and may have diuretic properties. Hydrangeas are moderately toxic if eaten, with all parts of the plant containing cyanogenic glycosides. "Hydrangea paniculata" is reportedly sometimes smoked as an intoxicant, despite the danger of illness and/or death due to the cyanide.


title: Hydrangea

text: The flowers on a hydrangea shrub can change from blue to pink or from pink to blue from one season to the next depending on the acidity level of the soil. Adding organic materials such as coffee grounds, citrus peel or eggshells will increase acidity and turn hydrangea flowers blue, as described in an article on Gardenista.


title: Hydrangea

text: A popular pink hydrangea called Vanilla Strawberry has been named "Top Plant" by the "American Nursery and Landscape Association".


title: Hydrangea

text: The hybrid "Runaway Bride Snow White", bred by Ushio Sakazaki from Japan, was named Plant of the Year at the 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.


title: Hydrangea

text: In Japan, "ama-cha", 甘茶, meaning sweet tea, is another herbal tea made from "Hydrangea serrata", whose leaves contain a substance that develops a sweet taste (phyllodulcin). For the fullest taste, fresh leaves are crumpled, steamed, and dried, yielding dark brown tea leaves. Ama-cha is mainly used for "kan-butsu-e" (the Buddha bathing ceremony) on April 8 every year—the day thought to be Buddha's birthday in Japan. During the ceremony, Ama-cha is poured over a statue of Buddha and served to people in attendance. A legend has it that on the day Buddha was born, nine dragons poured Amrita over him; ama-cha is substituted for Amrita in Japan.


title: Hydrangea

text: In Korean tea, "Hydrangea serrata" (hangul:산수국 hanja:) is used for an herbal tea called "sugukcha" (수국차) or "isulcha" (이슬차).


title: Hydrangea

text: The pink hydrangea has risen in popularity all over the world, especially in Asia. The given meaning of pink hydrangeas is popularly tied to the phrase, "You are the beat of my heart," as described by the celebrated Asian florist Tan Jun Yong, where he was quoted saying, "The light delicate blush of the petals reminds me of a beating heart, while the size could only match the heart of the sender!"


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangeas were used by the Cherokee Indians. A mild diuretic and cathartic, it was considered a valuable remedy for removal of stone and gravel in the bladder.


title: Hydrangea

text: Hydrangea variants vary in bee-friendliness and their ability to feed pollinators. In general, common hydrangeas are not bee-friendly because their flowers are sterile, e.g. "Hydrangea macrophylla hortensis" ("mophead") and "H. paniculata" ("limelight").


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Operation Red Wings (often incorrectly referred to as "Operation Redwing" or "Operation Red Wing"), informally referred to as the Battle of Abbas Ghar, was a joint military operation conducted by the United States in the Pech District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. It was carried out from late-June to mid-July 2005 on the slopes of a mountain named "Sawtalo Sar", situated approximately west of the provincial capital of Asadabad. The operation was intended to disrupt the activities of local Taliban-aligned anti-coalition militias (ACM), thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the September 2005 parliamentary election for the National Assembly of Afghanistan. At the time, Taliban ACM activity in the region was carried out predominantly by a small group led by a local man from Nangarhar Province known as Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of achieving regional prominence among Muslim fundamentalists. Consequently, Shah and his group were one of the primary targets of the American military operation.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Operation Red Wings was conceived by the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines (2/3) of the U.S. Marine Corps based on an operational model developed by 2/3's sister battalion, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines (3/3), which had preceded the 2/3 in their combat deployment. It utilized special operations forces (SOF) units and assets, including members of the U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) 160th Airborne Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR), for the opening phase of the operation. A team of four Navy SEALs, tasked with surveillance and reconnaissance of a group of structures known to be used by Shah and his men, were ambushed by Shah and his group just hours after inserting into the area by fast-roping from an MH-47 Chinook helicopter. Three of the four SEALs were killed during the ensuing battle, and one of the two quick reaction force (QRF) helicopters sent in for their aid was shot down by an RPG-7 fired by Shah's insurgents, killing all eight U.S. Navy SEALs and all eight U.S. Army Special Operations aviators on board.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The operation then became known as Red Wings II and lasted approximately three more weeks, during which time the bodies of the killed SEALs and Army Special Operations aviators were recovered and the only surviving member of the initial SEAL team, Marcus Luttrell, was rescued. While the goal of the operation was partially achieved, Shah regrouped in neighbouring Pakistan and returned with more men and armaments, boosted by the notoriety he gained from his ambush and helicopter shoot-down during Red Wings. Several weeks later, Shah's group was attacked in Kunar Province and disabled while Shah was later seriously wounded during Operation Whalers in August 2005. In April 2008, Shah was killed by Pakistani troops during a gunfight in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: When the 2/3 took the Operation Stars model and developed the specifics of it, 2/3's operations officer, Major Thomas Wood, instructed an assistant operations officer, 1st Lieutenant Lance Seiffert, to compose a list of hockey team names. 2/3 continued the use of hockey team names for large operations. Seiffert's list included ten teams, and the battalion settled on the fourth name on the list, "Red Wings", since the first three, New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks, and New Jersey Devils, each could be misconstrued as a reference to military units currently in Afghanistan at the time.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The name has been widely mis-stated as "Operation Redwing" and sometimes "Operation Red Wing". This error began with the publication of the book "", which was written by Patrick Robinson based on interviews with Marcus Luttrell.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: 2/3 eventually abandoned this naming convention out of sensitivity to the local population, instead opting for using Dari names for animals, including "Pil" (elephant) and "Sorkh Khar" (red donkey).


title: Operation Red Wings

text: After the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, U.S. military and coalition partner operations shifted from "kinetic" operations to those of a counterinsurgency nature. One of the primary goals of the coalition by 2004 in Afghanistan was nation-building, that is, providing a security environment conducive to the establishment and growth of a democratically elected government, as well as infrastructure support. A key milestone in this campaign was the September 18, 2005, Afghan national parliamentary elections. While many of Afghanistan's provinces at this time had stable security environments, one of the most restive continued to be the Kunar Province, which lies in eastern Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan. For election results to be seen as legitimate by the citizens of Afghanistan and the world at large, all elections throughout the country would need to proceed "unencumbered" (without external influence, by either American and coalition forces or Taliban and anti-American and coalition forces), including those in Kunar.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Insurgent activity in Kunar Province during this time came from 22 identified groups, some of which had tenuous ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda while the majority were little more than local criminals. These groups were collectively known as anti-coalition militia (ACM), and the common thread among all was a strong resistance to the unification of the country and subsequent increasing presence of national government entities in the Kunar. This would pose a threat to their activities, some of which included attempting to aid a resurgent neo-Taliban and lumber smuggling. With the goal of successful elections in Kunar, military operations in the area focused primarily on the disruption of ACM activity, and these military operations utilized a number of different units and operational constructs to achieve this goal.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The 3/3, which deployed to Regional Command East (which included Kunar Province) in late 2004 to conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, identified a number of operational barriers because of Special Operations Command doctrine for the battalion's counterinsurgency work in the area. These barriers included non-sharing of intelligence with the battalion and non-disclosure of impending raids by special operations units in the area. To mitigate these problems, 3/3's staff developed an operational model which integrated special operations forces units into their operations, allowing the sharing of intelligence between the battalion and special operations forces as well as maintaining solid operational control of operations with integrated special operations assets and units by the battalion. Operations that 3/3 conducted based on this model proved successful in disrupting ACM activity. The first of these, Operation Spurs (named after the San Antonio Spurs basketball team), conducted in February 2005, took place in the Korangal Valley, in Kunar Province's Pech District. Spurs utilized Navy SEALs for the opening two phases of the five-phase operation. Similar operations that followed included Operation Mavericks (named after the Dallas Mavericks basketball team) in April 2005, and Operation Celtics (named after the Boston Celtics basketball team) in May 2005. These operations, all of which included Navy SEALs, were conceived and planned by the battalion, with the specifics of those phases involving Navy SEALs being planned by the SEALs. Each operation lasted between three and four weeks. 3/3 planned and executed approximately one of these operations per month, maintaining a consistent operational tempo. The culmination of 3/3's efforts was the April 2005 forced surrender of a regional (and national) high value target, an ACM commander known as Najmudeen, who based his operations out of the Korangal Valley. With the surrender of Najmudeen, ACM activity in the region dropped significantly. Najmudeen's surrender, however, left a power vacuum in the region.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: 3/3 tracked a number of known ACM groups they determined to be possibly seeking to fill the power void in the region. The battalion began planning a new operation, tentatively called Operation Stars, which was named after the Dallas Stars professional hockey team (3/3's battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Cooling, hailed from Texas, hence most operations were named after Texas sports teams) Stars, like the other operations before it, focused on disrupting ACM activity, although Najmudeen's surrender caused activity to drop, and specific groups proved difficult to pinpoint.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: In May 2005, the advance party of 3/3's sister battalion, the 2/3, arrived in Regional Command East. Even before deploying to Afghanistan 2/3's, intelligence officer Captain Scott Westerfield and his assistants had been tracking a small cell led by a man named Ahmad Shah, based on intelligence sent back by 3/3's intelligence officer. Shah was from a remote region in Nangarhar Province, which borders the south side of Kunar Province. Shah, they determined, was responsible for approximately 11 incidents against coalition forces and government of Afghanistan entities, including small arms ambushes and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. By June 2005, 2/3 had relieved-in-place 3/3 and, using the Stars concept, had developed a comprehensive operation which they called Operation Red Wings. Red Wings' goal was disrupting ACM activity, with an emphasis on disrupting Ahmad Shah's activities, which were based near the summit of Sawtalo Sar.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: 2/3's battalion staff began planning Operation Red Wings when they arrived in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew MacMannis, 2/3's battalion commander, and his staff wanted to maintain the operational tempo set by 3/3. 2/3's operations officer, Major Thomas Wood, began planning the five-phase Red Wings operation off the Operation Stars model. During this time, 2/3's intelligence officer, Captain Scott Westerfield, focused further on learning about Ahmad Shah. His overall intelligence picture of Shah took a substantial leap when 2nd Lieutenant Regan Turner, a platoon commander with 2/3's "Whiskey Company" – a weapons company augmented to function like an infantry line company, gathered a wealth of human intelligence about Shah during a patrol including his full name: Ahmad Shah Dara-I-nur (Ahmad Shah of the Valley of the Enlightened ones); his birthplace, the Kuz Kunar District of Nangarhar Province; his primary alias: Ismael; his chief allegiance: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was based out of the Shamshato Refugee Camp near Peshawar, Pakistan; his group's size: fifty to one hundred fighters; and his goals: to impede the upcoming elections and attempt to aid a resurgent Taliban in the region. Although Shah was a relatively unknown entity in the region, he apparently held regional aspirations and possibly had the assistance of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. 2nd Lieutenant Turner also gathered a number of photographs of Shah.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Further intelligence, including human intelligence and signals intelligence, indicated that Shah based his operations out of some small structures outside of the village of Chichal, high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar mountain in the upper Korangal Valley, approximately to the west of Kunar's provincial capital Asadabad. Using imagery intelligence taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle on June 17, 2005, Westerfield identified likely structures used for housing his team, IED making, and overwatch of the area below for IED strikes. The intelligence staff identified four named areas of interest containing specific structures which Shah might be using. Westerfield and his staff determined that Shah and his men had been responsible for approximately 11 incidents against American, Coalition, and Afghan government entities, including IED strikes and small arms ambushes. They determined that Shah and his men would be occupying the area of Chichal in late June, a time of low lunar illumination. The operation would require a helicopter insertion of forces to cordon the area and search for Shah and his men. They sought to conduct this operation at night, after positive identification of Shah by a Marine Corps scout sniper team, which would walk into the area under cover of darkness some nights before.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: As with 3/3 before them, 2/3 sought to use Special Operations Forces assets for Red Wings but, unlike 3/3, they sought only the use of Special Operations Aviation assets, specifically, MH-47 Special Operations Aircraft of the 160th SOAR, not any ground forces. Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan refused this request, stating that in order for Red Wings to be supported with Special Operations aviation the battalion would have to task the opening phases of the operation to Special Operations ground forces. During the opening phases, the Marines of 2/3 would act in a supporting role. After the initial phases were completed, 2/3 could become the lead element. The battalion agreed to this, believing, however, that this unconventional command structure defied a fundamental tenet of successful military operations – "unity of command". The operation was presented to a number of Special Operations units working in the area for possible "buy in". U.S. Navy SEALs from SEAL Team 10 and SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 expressed interest.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: While the Marines planned the overall operation, the SEALs planned the specifics of their roles of Red Wings.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Late in the night of June 27, 2005, two MH-47 helicopters approached Sawtalo Sar. While one of the aircraft performed a number of "decoy drops" to mislead any enemy observers, the other inserted a four-man Navy SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team via fast rope in a saddle between Sawtalo Sar and Gatigal Sar, a peak just to the south of Sawtalo Sar. The insert point was roughly one and one half miles from the nearest Named Area of Interest. The team members were team leader Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1, based out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2, based out of Virginia Beach, Virginia; Petty Officer Second Class Matthew G. Axelson from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1; and Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class Marcus Luttrell, of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1. After moving to a pre-determined covered overwatch position, from which the SEALs could observe the Named Areas of Interest, the team was discovered by local goat herders. Determining that they were civilians, not combatants, Lieutenant Murphy released them, according to rules of engagement.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The team, surmising that they would likely be compromised, retreated to a fallback position. Within an hour, the SEAL Reconnaissance and Surveillance team was attacked by Shah and his men who were armed with RPK machine guns, AK-47s, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades, and an 82mm mortar. The intensity of the incoming fire, combined with the type of attack, forced the SEAL team into the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar, on the Shuryek Valley side of Sawtalo Sar. The SEALs made a number of attempts to contact their combat operations center with an AN/PRC-148 multi-band radio and then with a satellite phone. The team could not establish consistent communication other than for a period long enough to indicate that they were under attack. Three of the four team members were killed and the only survivor, Marcus Luttrell, was left unconscious with a number of fractures and other serious wounds. He regained consciousness and was rescued by local Pashtun, who ultimately saved his life. In his condition, without assistance, he would probably have been killed or captured by the Taliban.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Since the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team had been ambushed, the focus of the operation immediately shifted from disrupting ACM activity to finding, aiding, and extracting the team members. The operation became known as Operation Red Wings II.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: After the broken transmission from the SEAL team, their position and situation were unknown. Members of SEAL Team 10, U.S. Marines, and aviators of the 160th SOAR were prepared to dispatch a quick reaction force, but approval for launch from higher special operations headquarters was delayed for several hours. A quick reaction force finally launched, consisting of two MH-47 Special Operations Aircraft of the 160th, two conventional Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. The two MH-47s took the lead. Upon reaching Sawtalo Sar, the two MH-47s received small arms fire. During an attempt to insert SEALs riding in one of the MH-47 helicopters, one of Ahmad Shah's men fired an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade which struck the transmission below the rear rotor assembly, causing the aircraft to immediately plummet to the ground. All eight 160th SOAR aviators and crew and all eight Navy SEALs onboard were killed, including commander of the 160th, Major Stephen C. Reich, and ground commander LCDR Erik S. Kristensen, of SEAL Team 10.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Command and control was lost and neither visual nor radio contact could be established with the SEAL team. At this point, late in the afternoon, storm clouds were moving in over the region and the aircraft returned to their respective bases. A massive search began, at first from the ground, and then with aviation assets which was able to retrieve the bodies of the 16 killed in the MH-47 shootdown. Meanwhile, Marcus Luttrell had been taken in by a local Afghan, Gulab, from the village of Salar Ban, roughly down the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar from the location of the ambush. After word was received of his survival, Luttrell and Gulab were recovered by Pararescuemen Josh Appel and Chris Piercecchi. Based on Luttrell's descriptions of the area, Appel and Piercecchi returned to the site of the battle two days later and retrieved the remains of Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson.<ref name="appel/piercecchi docs"></ref>


title: Operation Red Wings

text: In the years following Operation Red Wings more details emerged about the circumstances surrounding Luttrell survival, including that he was given sanctuary by local villagers. Many of the details regarding the Afghans who aided Luttrell were reported incorrectly in the American press during the days after the events occurred.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The SEALs' firefight with Ahmad Shah's Taliban forces began along a high-elevation ridgeline called Sawtalo Sar (whose highest peak is ). A descent down the east side of the ridgeline leads into the Shuryek Valley. The northeastern gulch in which the SEALs became trapped was in this direction, above the village of Salar Ban. To the west of the Sawtalo Sar ridgeline is the Korangal Valley. As the wounded Luttrell descended the gulch, he encountered a Pashtun named Mohammad Gulab Khan from the mountain village of Salar Ban. Known simply as Gulab, he took Luttrell into his home that first day in accordance with the Pashtunwali custom of "Nanawatai", whereby asylum is given to a person to protect them from their enemies. Gulab then invoked the assistance of fellow villagers to help protect Luttrell until American forces could be contacted.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Not long before Operation Red Wings, relations with the Americans had improved in the Shuryek Valley and the greater Pech River region because of humanitarian work that had taken place. Medical services had been provided and a girls' school was built at Nangalam. Gulab was aware of these developments and had introduced himself to the Marine commander at Nangalam, Matt Bartels, when he was visiting Matin. It was partly because of this goodwill that Gulab gave Luttrell sanctuary. The Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah, knew that the wounded man he was tracking had to have passed through the village of Salar Ban as he made his way downhill. Through intimidation, Shah was able to ascertain which house sheltered the wounded man and demanded that he be turned over. However, Gulab had invoked the assistance of fellow villagers in protecting Luttrell until American forces could be contacted. Shah could not risk a fight at that stage as he was outnumbered. It is likely Luttrell would have been turned over to the Taliban had he descended into the Korangal instead of Shuryek. Luttrell was subsequently moved to different places until forces could arrive to extract him.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Luttrell wrote a note and asked that it be taken to the American base at Asadabad. Because Gulab had previously met the Marine commander based at Nangalam, he asked an older man, Shina, from another part of the village of Salar Ban to make the trek with the note to the base in his stead and gave him 1,000 Afghanis (about twenty U.S. dollars) for the trip. This required a longer journey down the trails of the Shuryek valley to Matin, where he then hired a cab to drive the Pech road to Nangalam. When Shina reached the base in Nangalam in the middle of the night, he met with the commander and related the story about a wounded American soldier in their village. He then gave him the note Luttrell had written.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: In the weeks following Marcus Luttrell's rescue, Gulab and his family received threats from the Taliban, and they were relocated to Asadabad.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Ahmad Shah and his group recovered a large amount of weapons, ammunition, and other materials, including three SOPMOD M4 Carbines fitted with M203 40mm grenade launchers, a ruggedized laptop with an intact hard drive containing maps of embassies in Kabul, night-vision devices, and a sniper spotting scope, among other items from the Navy SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team, items which they could then use against American, Coalition, and Afghan government entities. Shah had two videographers with him during the ambush and As-Sahab Media released their video of the ambush and images of the items recovered from the SEALs.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: A large amount of resources were devoted to the search, rescue, and recovery operations of Red Wings II. As a result, Ahmad Shah and his men left the region and regrouped in Pakistan. During the following weeks of Red Wings II, ground units of 2/3 undertook a number of patrols, as did members of the Afghan National Army, Army Special Operations units, and Navy Special Operations units. These "presence operations" achieved the goal of disrupting ACM activity but at great cost, and upon the exfiltration of troops, Ahmad Shah and his reinforced cell were able to return to the area weeks later.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: Significant international media attention was focused on the ambush and the MH-47 shootdown. The size of Shah's group increased as additional fighters joined his ranks. With the withdrawal of American and Coalition troops at the end of Red Wings II, Shah and his group were able to return to the Kunar Province and begin attacks again. Some survivors from the rescue mission, Operation Red Wings II, have reported suffering from PTSD.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The "sequel" to the original mission, Operation Red Wings, was Operation Whalers, which 2/3 planned and executed in August 2005. Ahmad Shah's group in Kunar Province was neutralized, and Shah was seriously wounded during Operation Whalers weeks later in August 2005. In April 2008, Shah was killed during a shootout with Pakistani police in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: On September 14, 2006, Dietz and Axelson were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for "undaunted courage" and heroism. Luttrell was also awarded the Navy Cross, in a ceremony at the White House. In 2007, Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: On June 28, 2008, Luttrell and the family members of soldiers killed overseas were honored at a San Diego Padres game. In addition, the United States Navy Parachute Team, the Leap Frogs, brought in the American flag, the POW/MIA flag and the San Diego Padres flag. The attendees were given a standing ovation by the more than 25,000 there to watch the game.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: W. Stanley Proctor sculpted a work for the Veteran's Memorial Park in Cupertino, California, called "The Guardians", which commemorates the SEALS killed in the operation. It is one of the first sculptured memorials to those who served in the War in Afghanistan. It was dedicated by Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter in November 2007. The sculpture depicts Matthew Axelson and James Suh in full combat equipment. Proctor offered his opinion to the "Tallahassee Democrat" that it is "my best work yet". Because of his scrupulous devotion to realistic depictions of humans, Proctor was the personal choice of Axelson's family for the project, and they made that recommendation to the committee.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: There has been some conflict over the number of Taliban forces involved in the engagement. In Luttrell's own official after-action report filed with his superiors after his rescue, he estimated the size of the Taliban force to be around 20–35. Luttrell claims in his book that during the briefing his team was told around 80 to 200 fighters were expected to be in the area. Initial intel estimated approximately 10 to 20. Official media reports from the military estimated the size of the Taliban force to be around 20 as well, while in the Medal of Honor citation for Murphy, the Navy cited 30–40 enemies. In the Summary of Action related to the same citation, the Navy cites an "enemy force of more than 50 anti-coalition militia". In his book, "Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalers – the Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan", military journalist Ed Darack cites a military intelligence report stating the strength of the Taliban force to be 8–10. The military intelligence estimate cited by Darack is based on research sourced from intelligence reports, including aerial and eye-witness studies of the battlefield after the fact, including the men sent in to rescue Luttrell, as well as reports from Afghan intelligence.


title: Operation Red Wings

text: The claim in Luttrell's book that Lieutenant Murphy considered and put to the vote the possible execution of unarmed civilians who stumbled upon the SEAL team has been criticized and dismissed by many as fiction. In an article by Sean Naylor, "Army Times" senior correspondent, Navy Special Warfare Command spokesman Lieutenant Steve Ruh stated that with respect to making command decisions in the field, "Whether they're officer or enlisted, the senior guy ultimately has the ultimate authority." And with regards to voting whether or not to execute unarmed civilians, he admitted, "This is the first time I've ever heard of anything put to a vote like that. In my 14 years of Navy experience, I've never seen or heard of anything like that."


title: Operation Red Wings

text: In the June 12, 2007 article "Survivor's book dishonors son's memory" by Michael Rothfeld in "Newsday", Michael P. Murphy's father Dan claims that Lieutenant Murphy would never have considered executing unarmed civilians, let alone putting such a grave decision up for a vote (in reference to the purported vote of execution of unarmed locals). Military protocol, United States and international military doctrine, and rules of engagement strictly forbid harming unarmed non-combatant civilians, with one of the specific rules of engagement in effect at the time stating, "Civilians are not targets!"


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Nicolas Hülkenberg (, born 19 August 1987) is a German professional racing driver who is scheduled to make a full-time racing return to Formula 1 with Haas F1 Team in 2023, after serving as a reserve driver for Aston Martin F1 Team for the year of 2022. In 2015, he also contested two rounds of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season for Porsche, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans on his first attempt. He was the 2009 GP2 Series champion, and is a previous champion of both the Formula 3 Euro Series and A1 Grand Prix, as part of A1 Team Germany. He is one of six drivers since 2005 to win the GP2 Series/Formula 2 championship in his debut season, the others being Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, and Oscar Piastri. , Hülkenberg holds the record for the most Formula One career starts without a podium finish, a record he broke when he failed to finish in his 129th race (the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix) and in so doing passed Adrian Sutil's previous record of 128; Hülkenberg's record stands at . he also holds the record for most career points without a single race win, the record was attributed after the previous holder, Carlos Sainz Jr. won the 2022 British Grand Prix.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg raced in Formula One in with the Williams team. Despite claiming the first pole position for Williams in more than five years, he was not retained for and joined Force India as a test and reserve driver. He was promoted to a race seat with the team for the season, joining Paul di Resta. In he drove for the Sauber team, with Mexican driver Esteban Gutiérrez as his teammate. Hülkenberg returned to Force India for the season. In October 2016, it was confirmed that he would switch to Renault for . He was replaced by Esteban Ocon for the 2020 Formula One season. He returned to Formula One in 2020, driving for Racing Point in three races. He then returned again to replace Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin at the first two races of the 2022 season, following Vettel's positive COVID test. He will return as a full-time driver for the 2023 season set to drive for Haas F1 Team.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg was born in Emmerich am Rhein, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany to Klaus Dieter and Susanne Hülkenberg. Dieter Hülkenberg owns a shipping company, Hülkenberg Spedition e. K, based in Emmerich am Rhein. Hülkenberg trained as a freight forwarding agent at his father's company. He is fluent in German, Dutch, French and English.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg made his karting debut in 1997, at the age of 10. In 2002 he was German Junior Karting Champion and the following year he won the German Kart Championship.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg was previously managed by Willi Weber, the long-time manager of Michael Schumacher. Weber predicted that Hülkenberg would be ready for Formula One by . He also praised Hülkenberg as an "unbelievable talent" and said he reminded him of Schumacher as a young driver. He also stated that he nicknamed him "The Hulk", after the fictional superhero, in reference to Hülkenberg changing his personality whilst at the wheel.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg made his German Formula BMW debut in 2005, dominating the championship and winning the title comfortably. He finished first in the Formula BMW world final but was stripped of the win after it was claimed he had brake-tested his rivals during a safety car period.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg also joined the German A1 Grand Prix team for the 2006–07 season. Nine wins in his rookie season made him the most successful driver in A1GP history. It meant he almost single-handedly won Germany the championship with 128 points, 35 more than Team New Zealand.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg finished fifth in the German Formula Three Championship (ATS Formel 3 Cup) in 2006. For 2007 he switched to the Formula 3 Euro Series with the ASM team that had taken Lewis Hamilton and Paul di Resta to the last two championships. His first win came at the Norisring from 18th on the grid, he won again in the rain at Zandvoort and added a third at the Nürburgring. But he ran into trouble at Magny-Cours, being penalised in qualifying for passing the chequered flag twice, and crashing into Filip Salaquarda in the race. Hülkenberg finished his rookie season 3rd in the championship, with four wins and 72 points.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg won the non-championship Masters of Formula 3 race at Zolder from teammate (and F3 Euro Series championship leader) Romain Grosjean after Grosjean stalled at the start. Hülkenberg won the Formula 3 Euro Series championship in 2008. He amassed 76 of his total of 85 points during the feature races on Saturdays, taking seven wins in the progress.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg made his GP2 Asia Series début for the ART Grand Prix team at the third round of the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series in Bahrain, where he took pole position at his first attempt. He finished both races in fourth place and this left him in seventh place in the championship. His second race weekend in Qatar, saw him become the first night race pole-sitter, and promptly turned that into becoming the first race-winner under lights after a dominant performance. Such was his performance that he ended up over thirteen seconds clear of second-placed driver Sergio Pérez. He finished third in the sprint race, taking his championship points tally to 27 from just four races. Despite this, he finished sixth in the championship.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg continued with ART into the 2009 GP2 Series, partnering Pastor Maldonado, and took his first win in dominant fashion, during his home round of the series at the Nürburgring. With the series' top eight inverted grid, Hülkenberg started eighth for the sprint race. He won the sprint race as well, becoming the first driver to do the weekend double since Giorgio Pantano at Monza in the 2006 season. In doing so, he became only the second driver to complete the clean sweep, with pole position, two fastest laps and two wins; equalling the achievements of Nelson Piquet Jr., who achieved it at the Hungaroring, also in 2006. Hülkenberg clinched the title with two races to spare, after a third-place finish in the Monza sprint race, shadowing Brazilians Luiz Razia and Lucas di Grassi home. The result left him with an unassailable 22-point lead heading to the final round, and in the process becoming the first driver to clinch the championship without the need for a final round decider. He became the third rookie GP2 champion after Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, and the second behind Hamilton to win the GP3/F3 title, and the GP2/F2 title in consecutive years. A fifth win followed at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, allowing Hülkenberg to break the 100-point barrier, and eventually won the title by 25 points from Vitaly Petrov. Worthy of note is that Hülkenberg ended the season 64 points clear of his teammate Pastor Maldonado, who would later go on to get his Williams race seat for the 2011 Formula One season.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg first drove a Formula One car in a test for Williams in 2007. His manager, Willi Weber, had organised the test after failing to conclude a deal with Renault boss Flavio Briatore. The two-day test was held at the Circuito de Jerez in Spain, and Hülkenberg outpaced Williams's driver Kazuki Nakajima, and set laptimes 0.4 seconds slower than Nico Rosberg. Hülkenberg's performance at the test led to the Williams team signing him as a test driver, and he competed in several test sessions in addition to racing in lower formulae. His test contract with Williams was extended for 2009, despite in-season tests being banned from that season. Hülkenberg would also act as the team's reserve driver, in the event of the regular drivers being unable to compete.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 2 November 2009, Hülkenberg was confirmed to race for Williams in . Hülkenberg's teammate for his first season would be the experienced driver Rubens Barrichello, who moved from Brawn GP which in turn was bought out by Mercedes-Benz.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg made his debut at the , recovering from an early spin to finish in fourteenth position. At the second round in Australia, he was involved in a first-lap incident with Kamui Kobayashi, after the Japanese driver's front wing failed and sent him into the barrier, rebounding into the path of Hülkenberg. At the third round in Malaysia, Hülkenberg made it to Q3 for the first time, qualifying in fifth place; out-qualifying teammate Barrichello for the first time. Hülkenberg looked set to finish eleventh in the race until Fernando Alonso blew his engine three laps from the end, thus promoting Hülkenberg to tenth place and with the new-for-2010 points system, Hülkenberg along with Jaime Alguersuari scored their first points in Formula One. He was tenth again at Silverstone, and at the he finished sixth, a career best. He also picked up points finishes in Italy, Singapore, and Korea. At the , Renault driver Vitaly Petrov misjudged a move at the start and cut across Hülkenberg's nose thus taking them both out of the race. Towards the end of the season there were reports that he could lose his seat at Williams to the GP2 Series champion Pastor Maldonado due to the money Maldonado could bring to the team. Force India's Adrian Sutil was also linked to replace Hülkenberg at Williams.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 6 November Hülkenberg gained his first Formula One pole position, by 1.049 seconds over Sebastian Vettel at the in a rain-affected qualifying session. This was the Williams team's first pole position since the 2005 European Grand Prix. Hülkenberg completed a final lap after pole position was already secured, increasing his gap to the rest of the field. After losing the lead on the opening lap, he eventually finished the race in eighth place, having been passed by drivers in more competitive cars.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: After the , team boss Frank Williams confirmed that Hülkenberg would not be driving for the team in .


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 26 January 2011, Hülkenberg was confirmed as Force India's reserve driver for the season, where he would drive for the team in the Friday practice sessions. He replaced Paul di Resta, who was promoted to a race position in the team. Hülkenberg competed in the first practice sessions of all the races apart from Monaco, Hungary, Korea, India and Abu Dhabi.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 16 December 2011, Force India announced di Resta and Hülkenberg would be their drivers for the 2012 season.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg qualified ninth for the , six places ahead of di Resta, but his race ended on the first lap after picking up damage in a first-corner incident before retiring further round the course. He picked up his first points for Force India the following weekend, at the ; he finished in ninth place, having started the race in sixteenth. He again qualified sixteenth, for the . He achieved his best Formula One finish with a fourth place at the . He had been running 2nd in the race, when he was jumped by Kimi Räikkönen during the pit stops, before the faster Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel passed them both. Hülkenberg did not score any points in Italy or Singapore, but collected points at all of the next five , except on the Yas Marina Circuit where he was involved in a collision on the first lap, and subsequently retired. This was the first time he scored points in more than two races in a row.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: In the last race of the season, the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, Hülkenberg qualified 7th but was promoted to 6th after Pastor Maldonado received a 10 place grid penalty. By lap three he had moved forward two places and on lap five he passed Fernando Alonso for third place. He moved into second position when McLaren's Lewis Hamilton pitted on lap 11. Hülkenberg then passed Jenson Button at the start of lap 19 to take the lead. He and Button built up a 45-second lead before the safety car was deployed because of debris on the track. He still led until he was passed by Hamilton, after sliding at the entry of Turn 8 on lap 49. On lap 55 he collided with Hamilton when the rear of Hülkenberg's car slid out while trying to pass him at Turn 1. This ended Hamilton's last race for McLaren. After being given a drive-through penalty as a result of the incident, Hülkenberg finished fifth - letting his first race win and podium finish slip through his fingers. Nevertheless, this allowed him to take 11th place in the Drivers' Championship from Kamui Kobayashi.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg finished the year 17 points ahead of his teammate Paul di Resta and he out-qualified him 12 times, to di Resta's eight.