title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus, also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by "Clostridium tetani", and is characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually lasts a few minutes. Spasms occur frequently for three to four weeks. Some spasms may be severe enough to fracture bones. Other symptoms of tetanus may include fever, sweating, headache, trouble swallowing, high blood pressure, and a fast heart rate. Onset of symptoms is typically three to twenty-one days following infection. Recovery may take months. About ten percent of cases prove to be fatal.


title: Tetanus

text: "C. tetani" is commonly found in soil, saliva, dust, and manure. The bacteria generally enter through a break in the skin such as a cut or puncture wound by a contaminated object. They produce toxins that interfere with normal muscle contractions. Diagnosis is based on the presenting signs and symptoms. The disease does not spread between people.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus can be prevented by immunization with the tetanus vaccine. In those who have a significant wound and have had fewer than three doses of the vaccine, both vaccination and tetanus immune globulin are recommended. The wound should be cleaned and any dead tissue should be removed. In those who are infected, tetanus immune globulin or, if unavailable, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is used. Muscle relaxants may be used to control spasms. Mechanical ventilation may be required if a person's breathing is affected.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus occurs in all parts of the world but is most frequent in hot and wet climates where the soil has a high organic content. In 2015 there were about 209,000 infections and about 59,000 deaths globally. This is down from 356,000 deaths in 1990. In the US there are about 30 cases per year, almost all of which have not been vaccinated. An early description of the disease was made by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. The cause of the disease was determined in 1884 by Antonio Carle and Giorgio Rattone at the University of Turin, and a vaccine was developed in 1924.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus often begins with mild spasms in the jaw muscles—also known as lockjaw. Similar spasms can also be a feature of trismus. The spasms can also affect the facial muscles resulting in an appearance called "risus sardonicus". Chest, neck, back, abdominal muscles and buttocks may be affected. Back muscle spasms often cause arching, called opisthotonus. Sometimes the spasms affect muscles that help with breathing, which can lead to breathing problems.


title: Tetanus

text: Prolonged muscular action causes sudden, powerful, and painful contractions of muscle groups, called tetany. These episodes can cause fractures and muscle tears. Other symptoms include fever, headache, restlessness, irritability, feeding difficulties, breathing problems, burning sensation during urination, urinary retention and loss of stool control.


title: Tetanus

text: Even with treatment, about 10% of people who contract tetanus die. The mortality rate is higher in unvaccinated people and people over 60 years of age.


title: Tetanus

text: The incubation period of tetanus may be up to several months, but is usually about ten days. In general, the farther the injury site is from the central nervous system, the longer the incubation period. The shorter the incubation period, the more severe the symptoms. In "trismus nascentium" (i.e. neonatal tetanus), symptoms usually appear from 4 to 14 days after birth, averaging about 7 days. On the basis of clinical findings, four different forms of tetanus have been described.


title: Tetanus

text: Generalized tetanus is the most common type of tetanus, representing about 80% of cases. The generalized form usually presents with a descending pattern. The first sign is trismus or lockjaw, and the facial spasms are called "risus sardonicus", followed by stiffness of the neck, difficulty in swallowing, and rigidity of pectoral and calf muscles. Other symptoms include elevated temperature, sweating, elevated blood pressure, and episodic rapid heart rate. Spasms may occur frequently and last for several minutes with the body shaped into a characteristic form called opisthotonos. Spasms continue for up to four weeks, and complete recovery may take months.


title: Tetanus

text: Neonatal tetanus ("trismus nascentium") is a form of generalized tetanus that occurs in newborns, usually those born to mothers who themselves have not been vaccinated. If the mother has been vaccinated against tetanus, the infants acquire passive immunity and are thus protected. It usually occurs through infection of the unhealed umbilical stump, particularly when the stump is cut with a non-sterile instrument. As of 1998 neonatal tetanus was common in many developing countries and was responsible for about 14% (215,000) of all neonatal deaths. In 2010 the worldwide death toll was 58,000 newborns. As the result of a public health campaign, the death toll from neonatal tetanus was reduced by 90% between 1990 and 2010, and by 2013 the disease had been largely eliminated from all but 25 countries. Neonatal tetanus is rare in developed countries.


title: Tetanus

text: Local tetanus is an uncommon form of the disease, in which people have persistent contraction of muscles in the same anatomic area as the injury. The contractions may persist for many weeks before gradually subsiding. Local tetanus is generally milder; only about 1% of cases are fatal, but it may precede the onset of generalized tetanus.


title: Tetanus

text: Cephalic tetanus is the rarest form of the disease (0.9–3% of cases) and is limited to muscles and nerves in the head. It usually occurs after trauma to the head area, including skull fracture, laceration, eye injury, dental extraction, and otitis media, but it has been observed from injuries to other parts of the body. Paralysis of the facial nerve is most frequently implicated, which may cause lockjaw, facial palsy, or ptosis, but other cranial nerves can also be affected. Cephalic tetanus may progress to a more generalized form of the disease. Due to its rarity, clinicians may be unfamiliar with the clinical presentation and may not suspect tetanus as the illness. Treatment can be complicated as symptoms may be concurrent with the initial injury that caused the infection. Cephalic tetanus is more likely than other forms of tetanus to be fatal, with the progression to generalized tetanus carrying a 15–30% case fatality rate.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus is caused by the tetanus bacterium "Clostridium tetani". The disease is an international health problem, as "C. tetani" endospores are ubiquitous. Endospores can be introduced into the body through a puncture wound (penetrating trauma). Due to "C. tetani" being an anaerobic bacterium, it and its endospores thrive in environments that lack oxygen, such as a puncture wound. With the changes in oxygen levels, the drumstick-shaped endospore can quickly spread.


title: Tetanus

text: The disease occurs almost exclusively in people who are inadequately immunized. It is more common in hot, damp climates with soil rich in organic matter. Manure-treated soils may contain spores, as they are widely distributed in the intestines and feces of many animals such as horses, sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, rats, guinea pigs, and chickens. In agricultural areas, a significant number of human adults may harbor the organism.


title: Tetanus

text: The spores can also be found on skin surfaces and in contaminated heroin. Rarely, tetanus can be contracted through surgical procedures, intramuscular injections, compound fractures, and dental infections. Animal bites can transmit tetanus.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus is often associated with rust, especially rusty nails. Although rust itself does not cause tetanus, objects that accumulate rust are often found outdoors or in places that harbor anaerobic bacteria. Additionally, the rough surface of rusty metal provides crevices for dirt containing "C. tetani", while a nail affords a means to puncture skin and deliver endospores deep within the body at the site of the wound. An endospore is a non-metabolizing survival structure that begins to metabolize and cause infection once in an adequate environment. Hence, stepping on a nail (rusty or not) may result in a tetanus infection, as the low-oxygen (anaerobic) environment may exist under the skin, and the puncturing object can deliver endospores to a suitable environment for growth. It is a common misconception that rust itself is the cause and that a puncture from a rust-free nail is not a risk.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus neurotoxin (TeNT) binds to the presynaptic membrane of the neuromuscular junction, is internalized and is transported back through the axon until it reaches the central nervous system. Here, it selectively binds to and is transported into inhibitory neurons via endocytosis. It then leaves the vesicle for the neuron cytosol where it cleaves vesicle associated membrane protein (VAMP) synaptobrevin, which is necessary for membrane fusion of small synaptic vesicles (SSV's). SSV's carry neurotransmitter to the membrane for release, so inhibition of this process blocks neurotransmitter release.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus toxin specifically blocks the release of the neurotransmitters GABA and glycine from inhibitory neurons. These neurotransmitters keep overactive motor neurons from firing and also play a role in the relaxation of muscles after contraction. When inhibitory neurons are unable to release their neurotransmitters, motor neurons fire out of control and muscles have difficulty relaxing. This causes the muscle spasms and spastic paralysis seen in tetanus infection.


title: Tetanus

text: The tetanus toxin, tetanospasmin, is made up of a heavy chain and a light chain. There are three domains, each of which contributes to the pathophysiology of the toxin. The heavy chain has two of the domains. The N-terminal side of the heavy chain helps with membrane translocation, and the C-terminal side helps the toxin locate the specific receptor site on the correct neuron. The light chain domain cleaves the VAMP protein once it arrives in the inhibitory neuron cytosol.


title: Tetanus

text: There are four main steps in tetanus's mechanism of action: binding to the neuron, internalization of the toxin, membrane translocation, and cleavage of the target VAMP.


title: Tetanus

text: The toxin travels from the wound site to the neuromuscular junction through the bloodstream where it binds to the presynaptic membrane of a motor neuron. The heavy chain C-terminal domain aids in the binding to the correct site, recognizing and binding to the correct glycoproteins and glycolipids in the presynaptic membrane. The toxin binds to a site that will be taken into the neuron as an endocytic vesicle that will travel down the axon, past the cell body, and down the dendrites to the dendritic terminal at the spine and central nervous system. Here it will be released into the synaptic cleft and allowed to bind with the presynaptic membrane of inhibitory neurons in a similar manner seen with the binding to the motor neuron.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus toxin is then internalized again via endocytosis, this time in an acidic vesicle. In a mechanism not well understood, depolarization caused by the firing of the inhibitory neuron causes the toxin to be pulled into the neuron inside vesicles.


title: Tetanus

text: The toxin then needs a way to get out of the vesicle and into the neuron cytosol for it to act on its target. The low pH of the vesicle lumen causes a conformational change in the toxin, shifting it from a water-soluble form to a hydrophobic form. With the hydrophobic patches exposed, the toxin can slide into the vesicle membrane. The toxin forms an ion channel in the membrane that is nonspecific for Na, K, Ca, and Cl ions. There is a consensus among experts that this new channel is involved in the translocation of the toxin's light chain from the inside of the vesicle to the neuron cytosol, but the mechanism is not well understood or agreed upon. It has been proposed that the channel could allow the light chain (unfolded from the low pH environment) to leave through the toxin pore, or that the pore could alter the electrochemical gradient enough, by letting in or out ions, to cause osmotic lysis of the vesicle, spilling the vesicle's contents.


title: Tetanus

text: The light chain of the tetanus toxin is zinc-dependent protease. It shares a common zinc protease motif (His-Glu-Xaa-Xaa-His) that researchers hypothesized was essential for target cleavage until this was more recently confirmed by experiment: when all zinc was removed from the neuron with heavy metal chelators, the toxin was inhibited, only to be reactivated when the zinc was added back in. The light chain binds to VAMP and cleaves it between Gln and Phe. Without VAMP, vesicles holding the neurotransmitters needed for motor neuron regulation (GABA and glycine) cannot be released, causing the above-mentioned deregulation of motor neurons and muscle tension.


title: Tetanus

text: There are currently no blood tests for diagnosing tetanus. The diagnosis is based on the presentation of tetanus symptoms and does not depend upon isolation of the bacterium, which is recovered from the wound in only 30% of cases and can be isolated from people without tetanus. Laboratory identification of "C. tetani" can be demonstrated only by production of tetanospasmin in mice. Having recently experienced head trauma may indicate cephalic tetanus if no other diagnosis has been made.


title: Tetanus

text: The "spatula test" is a clinical test for tetanus that involves touching the posterior pharyngeal wall with a soft-tipped instrument and observing the effect. A positive test result is the involuntary contraction of the jaw (biting down on the "spatula") and a negative test result would normally be a gag reflex attempting to expel the foreign object. A short report in "The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene" states that, in an affected subject research study, the spatula test had a high specificity (zero false-positive test results) and a high sensitivity (94% of infected people produced a positive test).


title: Tetanus

text: Unlike many infectious diseases, recovery from naturally acquired tetanus does not usually result in immunity. This is due to the extreme potency of the tetanospasmin toxin. Tetanospasmin will likely be lethal before it will provoke an immune response.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus can be prevented by vaccination with tetanus toxoid. The CDC recommends that adults receive a booster vaccine every ten years, and standard care practice in many places is to give the booster to any person with a puncture wound who is uncertain of when he or she was last vaccinated, or if he or she has had fewer than three lifetime doses of the vaccine. The booster may not prevent a potentially fatal case of tetanus from the current wound, however, as it can take up to two weeks for tetanus antibodies to form.


title: Tetanus

text: In children under the age of seven, the tetanus vaccine is often administered as a combined vaccine, DPT/DTaP vaccine, which also includes vaccines against diphtheria and pertussis. For adults and children over seven, the Td vaccine (tetanus and diphtheria) or Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis) is commonly used.


title: Tetanus

text: The World Health Organization certifies countries as having eliminated maternal or neonatal tetanus. Certification requires at least two years of rates of less than 1 case per 1,000 live births. In 1998 in Uganda, 3,433 tetanus cases were recorded in newborn babies; of these, 2,403 died. After a major public health effort, Uganda in 2011 was certified as having eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus toxoid can be given in case of suspected exposure to tetanus. In such cases, it can be given with or without tetanus immunoglobulin (also called "tetanus antibodies" or "tetanus antitoxin"). It can be given as intravenous therapy or by intramuscular injection.


title: Tetanus

text: The guidelines for such events in the United States for non-pregnant people 11 years and older are as follows:


title: Tetanus

text: Severe cases will require admission to intensive care. In addition to the measures listed above for mild tetanus:


title: Tetanus

text: Drugs such as diazepam or other muscle relaxants can be given to control the muscle spasms. In extreme cases it may be necessary to paralyze the person with curare-like drugs and use a mechanical ventilator.


title: Tetanus

text: To survive a tetanus infection, the maintenance of an airway and proper nutrition are required. An intake of 3,500 to 4,000 calories and at least 150 g of protein per day is often given in liquid form through a tube directly into the stomach (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy), or through a drip into a vein (parenteral nutrition). This high-caloric diet maintenance is required because of the increased metabolic strain brought on by the increased muscle activity. Full recovery takes 4 to 6 weeks because the body must regenerate destroyed nerve axon terminals.


title: Tetanus

text: The antibiotic of choice is metronidazole. It can be given as intravenously, by mouth, or by rectum. Of likewise efficiency is penicillin, but some raise the concern of provoking spasms because it inhibits GABA receptor, which is already affected by tetanospasmin.


title: Tetanus

text: In 2013 it caused about 59,000 deaths – down from 356,000 in 1990. Tetanus – in particular, the neonatal form – remains a significant public health problem in non-industrialized countries with 59,000 newborns worldwide dying in 2008 as a result of neonatal tetanus. In the United States, from 2000 through 2007 an average of 31 cases were reported per year. Nearly all of the cases in the United States occur in unimmunized individuals or individuals who have allowed their inoculations to lapse.


title: Tetanus

text: Tetanus was well known to ancient civilizations who recognized the relationship between wounds and fatal muscle spasms. In 1884, Arthur Nicolaier isolated the strychnine-like toxin of tetanus from free-living, anaerobic soil bacteria. The etiology of the disease was further elucidated in 1884 by Antonio Carle and Giorgio Rattone, two pathologists of the University of Turin, who demonstrated the transmissibility of tetanus for the first time. They produced tetanus in rabbits by injecting pus from a person with fatal tetanus into their sciatic nerves and testing their reactions while tetanus was spreading.


title: Tetanus

text: In 1891, "C. tetani" was isolated from a human victim by Kitasato Shibasaburō, who later showed that the organism could produce disease when injected into animals and that the toxin could be neutralized by specific antibodies. In 1897, Edmond Nocard showed that tetanus antitoxin induced passive immunity in humans, and could be used for prophylaxis and treatment. Tetanus toxoid vaccine was developed by P. Descombey in 1924, and was widely used to prevent tetanus induced by battle wounds during World War II.


title: Tetanus

text: There is insufficient evidence that tetanus can be treated or prevented by vitamin C. This is at least partially due to the fact that historically trials conducted trying to look for a possible connection between vitamin C and helping tetanus patients were of poor quality.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Life Is Beautiful (, ) is a 1997 Italian comedy drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his fertile imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The film was partially inspired by the book "In the End, I Beat Hitler" by Rubino Romeo Salmonì and by Benigni's father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The film was an overwhelming critical and commercial success. It received widespread acclaim, with critics praising its story, performances, direction and the union of drama and comedy, despite some criticisms of using the subject matter for comedic purposes. The movie grossed over $230 million worldwide, including $57.6 million in the United States, is the second highest-grossing foreign language film in the U.S. (after "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") and one of the highest-grossing non-English language movies of all time. The National Board of Review included it in the top five best foreign films of 1998.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The movie won the Grand Prix at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, nine David di Donatello Awards (including Best Film), five Nastro d'Argento Awards in Italy, two European Film Awards, and three Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Benigni, the first for a male non-English performance.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: In 1939, in Fascist Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Italian Jewish man who arrives to work in the city of Arezzo, in Tuscany, where his uncle Eliseo works in the restaurant of a hotel. Guido is comical and sharp and falls in love with a Gentile girl named Dora. Later, he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher and set to be engaged to Rodolfo, a rich but arrogant local government official with whom Guido has regular run-ins. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest in Dora.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Finally, Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in, against her better judgment. He steals the lady from her engagement party, on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. They are later married and have a son, Giosuè, and run a bookstore.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: During World War II, in 1944 when Northern Italy is occupied by Nazi Germany, Guido, his uncle Eliseo, and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train bound for a concentration camp. After confronting a guard about her husband and son, and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido do not see each other during the internment. Guido pulls off various stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker to send messages—symbolic or literal—to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. Eliseo is murdered in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Giosuè narrowly avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers, and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers and were told they were showers.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: In the camp, Guido hides the true situation from his son. Guido tells Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: At one point Guido takes advantage of the appearance of visiting German officers and their families to show Giosuè that other children are hiding as part of the game, and he also takes advantage of a German nanny thinking Giosuè is one of her charges in order to feed him as Guido serves the German officers. Guido and Giosuè are almost found out to be prisoners by another server until Guido is found teaching all of the German children how to say "Thank you" in Italian, effectively providing a ruse.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos of shutting down the camp as the Allied forces approach, he tells his son to stay in a box until everybody has left, this being the final task in the competition before the promised tank is his. Guido goes to find Dora, but he is caught by a German soldier. An officer orders Guido to be executed, who is led off by the soldier. While he is walking to his death, Guido passes by Giosuè one last time and winks, still in character and playing the game. Guido is then shot and left for dead in an alleyway.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweat-box, just as a U.S. Army unit led by a Sherman tank arrives and the camp is liberated. Giosuè is overjoyed about winning the game (unaware that his father is dead), thinking that he won the tank, and an American soldier allows Giosuè to ride on the tank.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: While traveling to safety, Giosuè soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp and reunites with his mother. While the young Giosuè excitedly tells his mother about how he had won a tank, just as his father had promised, the adult Giosuè, in an overheard monologue, reminisces on the sacrifices his father made for him and his story.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Director Roberto Benigni, who wrote the screenplay with Vincenzo Cerami, was inspired by the story of Rubino Romeo Salmonì and his book "In the End, I Beat Hitler", which incorporates elements of irony and black comedy. Salmoni was an Italian Jew who was deported to Auschwitz, survived and was reunited with his parents, but found his brothers were murdered. Benigni stated he wished to commemorate Salmoni as a man who wished to live in the right way. He also based the story on that of his father Luigi Benigni, who was a member of the Italian Army after Italy became a co-belligerent of the Allies in 1943. Luigi Benigni spent two years in a Nazi labour camp, and to avoid scaring his children, told about his experiences humorously, finding this helped him cope. Roberto Benigni explained his philosophy, "to laugh and to cry comes from the same point of the soul, no? I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry, it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: His friends advised against making the film, as he is a comedian and not Jewish, and the Holocaust was not of interest to his established audience. Because he is Gentile, Benigni consulted with the Center for Documentation of Contemporary Judaism, based in Milan, throughout production. Benigni incorporated historical inaccuracies in order to distinguish his story from the true Holocaust, about which he said only documentaries interviewing survivors could provide "the truth".


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The film was shot in the "centro storico" (historic centre) of Arezzo, Tuscany. The scene where Benigni falls off a bicycle and lands on Nicoletta Braschi was shot in front of Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla in Arezzo.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: In Italy, the film was released in 1997 by Cecchi Gori Distribuzione. The film was screened in the Cannes Film Festival in May 1998, where it was a late addition to the selection of films. In the U.S., it was released on 23 October 1998, by Miramax Films. In Germany, it was released on 12 November 1998. In Austria, it was released on 13 November 1998. In the UK, it was released on 12 February 1999. After the Italian, English subtitled version became a hit in English speaking territories, Miramax reissued "Life is Beautiful" in an English dubbed version, but it was less successful than the subtitled Italian version.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The film was aired on the Italian television station RAI on 22 October 2001 and was viewed by 16 million people. This made it the most watched Italian film on Italian TV.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: "Life is Beautiful" was commercially successful, making $48.7 million in Italy. It was the highest-grossing Italian film in its native country until 2011, when surpassed by Checco Zalone's "What a Beautiful Day".


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The film was also successful in the rest of the world, grossing $57.6 million in the United States and Canada and $123.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $230.1 million. It surpassed fellow Italian film "" as the highest-grossing foreign language film in the United States until "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000).


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The film was praised by the Italian press, with Benigni treated as a "national hero." Pope John Paul II, who received a private screening with Benigni, placed it in his top five favourite films. It holds a "Fresh" 81% approval rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 89 reviews with an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's consensus reads: "Benigni's earnest charm, when not overstepping its bounds into the unnecessarily treacly, offers the possibility of hope in the face of unflinching horror".


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5/4 stars, stating: "At Cannes, it offended some left-wing critics with its use of humor in connection with the Holocaust. What may be most offensive to both wings is its sidestepping of politics in favor of simple human ingenuity. The film finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter ... The movie actually softens the Holocaust slightly, to make the humor possible at all. In the real death camps there would be no role for Guido. But "Life Is Beautiful" is not about Nazis and Fascists, but about the human spirit. It is about rescuing whatever is good and hopeful from the wreckage of dreams. About hope for the future. About the necessary human conviction, or delusion, that things will be better for our children than they are right now." Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the movie a score of 100/100, calling it: "A deeply moving blend of cold terror and rapturous hilarity. Lovingly crafted by Italy's top comedian and most popular filmmaker, it's that rare comedy that takes on a daring and ambitious subject and proves worthy of it."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Richard Schickel writing for Time argued, "There are references to mass extermination, but that brutal reality is never vividly presented". He concluded that "even a hint of the truth about the Holocaust would crush [Benigni]'s comedy." Owen Glieberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a B−, calling it "undeniably some sort of feat—the first feel-good Holocaust weepie. It's been a long time coming." However, Glieberman stated: "There's only one problem. As shot, it looks like a game".


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Nell Minow of "Common Sense Media" gave it 5/5 stars, saying: "This magnificent film gives us a glimpse of the Holocaust, but it is really about love, and the indomitability of humanity even in the midst of inhumanity." Janet Maslin wrote in "The New York Times" that the film took "a colossal amount of gall" but "because Mr. Benigni can be heart-rending without a trace of the maudlin, it works."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: "The Los Angeles Times"s Kenneth Turan noted the film had "some furious opposition" at Cannes, but said "what is surprising about this unlikely film is that it succeeds as well as it does. Its sentiment is inescapable, but genuine poignancy and pathos are also present, and an overarching sincerity is visible too."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: David Rooney of "Variety" said the film had "mixed results," with "surprising depth and poignancy" in Benigni's performance but "visually rather flat" camera work by Tonino Delli Colli. In 2002, BBC critic Tom Dawson wrote "the film is presumably intended as a tribute to the powers of imagination, innocence, and love in the most harrowing of circumstances," but "Benigni's sentimental fantasy diminishes the suffering of Holocaust victims."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: In 2006, Jewish American comedic filmmaker Mel Brooks spoke negatively of the film in "Der Spiegel", saying it trivialized the suffering in concentration camps.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: By contrast, Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész argues that those who take the film to be a comedy, rather than a tragedy, have missed the point of the film. He draws attention to what he terms 'Holocaust conformism' in cinema to rebuff detractors of "Life Is Beautiful".


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Israeli screenwriter, author and art critic Kobi Niv published the book, "Life is Beautiful, But Not for Jews" (in 2000 in Hebrew and an English translation in 2003) in which he analyzed the movie from a highly critical perspective, suggesting that the film's underlining narrative is harmful for Jews.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: Another academic analysis of the movie was undertaken by Ilona Klein, who analyzes the film's success and refers to the "ambiguous themes hidden within." Klein suggests that one of the reasons the movie was so successful was its appeal of "sentimental optimism". At the same time, she points out that "Miramax's hype billed this film as a fable about 'love, family, and the power of imagination,' yet most Jewish victims of the Nazis' 'Final Solution' were loving, concerned, devoted parents. No amount of love, family, and power of imagination helped their children survive the gas chambers."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: David Sterritt of "The Christian Science Monitor" highlighted that "Enthusiasm for the movie has not been as unanimous as its ad campaign suggests, however, and audiences would do well to ponder its implicit attitudes." He pointed out that the movie implicitly suggests quick-witted confidence was a match for the terrors of fascist death camps, then added that "[Benigni's] fable ultimately obscures the human and historical events it sets out to illuminate."


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: "Life is Beautiful" was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to win the Grand Prix. Upon receiving the award, Benigni kissed the feet of jury president Martin Scorsese.


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: At the 71st Academy Awards, Benigni won Best Actor for his role, with the film winning two more awards for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score and Best Foreign Language Film. Benigni jumped on top of the seats as he made his way to the stage to accept his first award, and upon accepting his second, said, "This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English!"


title: Life Is Beautiful

text: The original score to the film was composed by Nicola Piovani, with the exception of a classical piece which figures prominently: the "Barcarolle" by Jacques Offenbach and A Musical Joke by Mozart. The soundtrack album won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and was nominated for a Grammy Award: "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media", but lost to the score of "A Bug's Life".


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The siege of Leningrad (; ; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while the German-allied Finnish army invaded from the north and completed the ring around the city.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The siege began on 8 September 1941, when the Wehrmacht severed the last road to the city. Although Soviet forces managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the Red Army did not lift the siege until 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The blockade became one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and it was possibly the costliest siege in history due to the number of casualties which were suffered throughout its duration. While not classed as a war crime at the time,


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: in the 21st century, some historians have classified it as a genocide due to the systematic starvation and intentional destruction of the city's civilian population.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Leningrad's capture was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. The strategy was motivated by Leningrad's political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution and the hated Bolshevism, the city's military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories. By 1939, the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: It has been reported that Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had invitations printed to the victory celebrations to be held in the city's Hotel Astoria.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Although various theories have been put forward about Germany's plans for Leningrad, including making it the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich in Generalplan Ost, it is clear Hitler intended to utterly destroy the city and its population. According to a directive sent to Army Group North on 29 September:


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Army Group North under Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective. By early August, Army Group North was seriously over-extended, having advanced on a widening front and dispersed its forces on several axes of advance. Leeb estimated he needed 35 divisions for all of his tasks, while he only had 26. The attack resumed on 10 August but immediately encountered strong opposition around Luga. Elsewhere, Leeb's forces were able to take Kingisepp and Narva on 17 August. The army group reached Chudovo on 20 August, severing the rail link between Leningrad and Moscow. Tallinn fell on 28 August.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Finnish military forces were north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south. Both German and Finnish forces had the goal of encircling Leningrad and maintaining the blockade perimeter, thus cutting off all communication with the city and preventing the defenders from receiving any supplies – although Finnish participation in the blockade mainly consisted of a recapture of lands lost in the Winter War. The Germans planned on lack of food being their chief weapon against the citizens; German scientists had calculated the city would reach starvation after only a few weeks.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On Friday, 27 June 1941, the Council of Deputies of the Leningrad administration organised "First response groups" of civilians. In the next days, Leningrad's civilian population was informed of the danger and over a million citizens were mobilised for the construction of fortifications. Several lines of defences were built along the city's perimeter to repulse hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: In the south, the fortified line ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo and then through the Neva River. Another line of defence passed through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushy. In the north the defensive line against the Finns, the Karelian Fortified Region, had been maintained in Leningrad's northern suburbs since the 1930s, and was now returned to service. A total of of timber barricades, of wire entanglements, of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth-and-timber emplacements and reinforced concrete weapon emplacements and of open trenches were constructed or excavated by civilians. Even the guns from the cruiser were removed from the ship to be used to defend Leningrad.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The 4th Panzer Group from East Prussia took Pskov following a swift advance and reached Novgorod by 16 August. After the capture of Novgorod, General Hoepner's 4th Panzer Group continued its progress towards Leningrad. However, the 18th Army – despite some 350,000 men lagging behind – forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov after the Soviet troops of the Northwestern Front retreated towards Leningrad. On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the Luga River line. This had the effect of creating siege positions from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, with the eventual aim of isolating Leningrad from all directions. The Finnish Army was then expected to advance along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The last rail connection to Leningrad was cut on 30 August, when the German forces reached the River Neva. In early September, Leeb was confident Leningrad was about to fall. Having received reports on the evacuation of civilians and industrial goods, Leeb and the OKH believed the Red Army was preparing to abandon the city. Consequently, on 5 September, he received new orders, including the destruction of the Red Army forces around the city. By 15 September, Panzer Group 4 was to be transferred to Army Group Centre so it could participate in a renewed offensive towards Moscow. The expected surrender did not materialise although the renewed German offensive cut off the city by 8 September. Lacking sufficient strength for major operations, Leeb had to accept the army group might not be able to take the city, although hard fighting continued along his front throughout October and November.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The 14th Army of the Soviet Red Army defended Murmansk and the 7th Army defended Ladoga Karelia; thus they did not participate in the initial stages of the siege. The 8th Army was initially part of the Northwestern Front and retreated through the Baltics. It was transferred to the Northern Front on 14 July when the Soviets evacuated Tallinn.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 23 August, the Northern Front was divided into the Leningrad Front and the Karelian Front, as it became impossible for front headquarters to control everything between Murmansk and Leningrad.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Zhukov states, "Ten volunteer "opolcheniye" divisions were formed in Leningrad in the first three months of the war, as well as 16 separate artillery and machine-gun "opolcheniye" battalions."


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 6 August, Hitler repeated his order: "Leningrad first, Donetsk Basin second, Moscow third." Arctic convoys using the Northern Sea Route delivered American Lend-Lease and British food and war materiel supplies to the Murmansk railhead (although the rail link to Leningrad was cut off by Finnish armies just north of the city), as well as several other locations in Lapland.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Finnish intelligence had broken some of the Soviet military codes and read their low-level communications. This was particularly helpful for Hitler, who constantly requested intelligence information about Leningrad. Finland's role in Operation Barbarossa was laid out in Hitler's "Directive 21", "The mass of the Finnish army will have the task, in accordance with the advance made by the northern wing of the German armies, of tying up maximum Russian (sic – Soviet) strength by attacking to the west, or on both sides, of Lake Ladoga". The last rail connection to Leningrad was severed on 30 August, when the Germans reached the Neva River. On 8 September, the road to the besieged city was severed when the Germans reached Lake Ladoga at Shlisselburg, leaving just a corridor of land between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad which remained unoccupied by Axis forces. Bombing on 8 September caused 178 fires.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 21 September, German High Command considered how to destroy Leningrad. Occupying the city was ruled out "because it would make us responsible for food supply". The resolution was to lay the city under siege and bombardment, starving its population. "Early next year, we [will] enter the city (if the Finns do it first we do not object), lead those still alive into inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions, and hand the area north of the Neva to the Finns." On 7 October, Hitler sent a further directive signed by Alfred Jodl reminding Army Group North not to accept capitulation.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: By August 1941, the Finns advanced to within of the northern suburbs of Leningrad at the 1939 Finnish-Soviet border, threatening the city from the north; they were also advancing through East Karelia, east of Lake Ladoga, and threatening the city from the east. The Finnish forces crossed the pre-Winter War border on the Karelian Isthmus by eliminating Soviet salients at Beloostrov and Kirjasalo, thus straightening the frontline so that it ran along the old border near the shores of Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and those positions closest to Leningrad still lying on the pre-Winter War border.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: According to Soviet claims, the Finnish advance was stopped in September through resistance by the Karelian Fortified Region; however, Finnish troops had already earlier in August 1941 received orders to halt the advance after reaching their goals, some of which lay beyond the pre-Winter War border. After reaching their respective goals, the Finns halted their advance and started moving troops to East Karelia.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: For the next three years, the Finns did little to contribute to the battle for Leningrad, maintaining their lines. Their headquarters rejected German pleas for aerial attacks against Leningrad and did not advance farther south from the Svir River in occupied East Karelia (160 kilometres northeast of Leningrad), which they had reached on 7 September. In the southeast, the Germans captured Tikhvin on 8 November, but failed to complete their encirclement of Leningrad by advancing further north to join with the Finns at the Svir River. On 9 December, a counter-attack of the Volkhov Front forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from their Tikhvin positions in the Volkhov River line.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 6 September 1941, Germany's Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl visited Helsinki. His main goal was to persuade Mannerheim to continue the offensive. In 1941, President Ryti declared to the Finnish Parliament that the aim of the war was to restore the territories lost during the Winter War and gain more territories in the east to create a "Greater Finland". After the war, Ryti stated: "On August 24, 1941 I visited the headquarters of Marshal Mannerheim. The Germans aimed us at crossing the old border and continuing the offensive to Leningrad. I said that the capture of Leningrad was not our goal and that we should not take part in it. Mannerheim and Minister of Defense Walden agreed with me and refused the offers of the Germans. The result was a paradoxical situation: the Germans could not approach Leningrad from the north..." There was little or no systematic shelling or bombing from the Finnish positions.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The proximity of the Finnish border – from downtown Leningrad – and the threat of a Finnish attack complicated the defence of the city. At one point, the defending Front Commander, Popov, could not release reserves opposing the Finnish forces to be deployed against the Wehrmacht because they were needed to bolster the 23rd Army's defences on the Karelian Isthmus. Mannerheim terminated the offensive on 31 August 1941, when the army had reached the 1939 border. Popov felt relieved, and redeployed two divisions to the German sector on 5 September.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Subsequently, the Finnish forces reduced the salients of Beloostrov and Kirjasalo, which had threatened their positions at the sea coast and south of the River Vuoksi. Lieutenant General Paavo Talvela and Colonel Järvinen, the commander of the Finnish Coastal Brigade responsible for Ladoga, proposed to the German headquarters the blocking of Soviet convoys on Lake Ladoga. The idea was proposed to the Germans on their own behalf going past both Finnish Navy HQ and General HQ. Germans responded positively to the proposition and informed the slightly surprised Finns—who apart from Talvela and Järvinen had very little knowledge of the proposition—that transport of the equipment for the Ladoga operation was already arranged. The German command formed the 'international' naval detachment (which also included the Italian "XII Squadriglia MAS") under Finnish command and the "Einsatzstab Fähre Ost" under German command. These naval units operated against the supply route in the summer and autumn of 1942, the only period the units were able to operate as freezing waters then forced the lightly equipped units to be moved away, and changes in front lines made it impractical to reestablish these units later in the war.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The Leningrad Front (initially the Leningrad Military District) was commanded by Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. It included the 23rd Army in the northern sector between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and the 48th Army in the western sector between the Gulf of Finland and the Slutsk–Mga position. The Leningrad Fortified Region, the Leningrad garrison, the Baltic Fleet forces, and Koporye, Pulkovo, and Slutsk–Kolpino operational groups were also present.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: According to Zhukov, "Before the war Leningrad had a population of 3,103,000 and 3,385,000 counting the suburbs. As many as 1,743,129, including 414,148 children were evacuated" between 29 June 1941 and 31 March 1943. They were moved to the Volga area, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: By September 1941, the link with the Volkhov Front (commanded by Kirill Meretskov) was severed and the defensive sectors were held by four armies: 23rd Army in the northern sector, 42nd Army on the western sector, 55th Army on the southern sector, and the 67th Army on the eastern sector. The 8th Army of the Volkhov Front had the responsibility of maintaining the logistic route to the city in coordination with the Ladoga Flotilla. Air cover for the city was provided by the Leningrad military district PVO Corps and Baltic Fleet naval aviation units.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The defensive operation to protect the 1,400,000 civilian evacuees was part of the Leningrad counter-siege operations under the command of Andrei Zhdanov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Aleksei Kuznetsov. Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with Baltic Fleet naval forces under the general command of Admiral Vladimir Tributs. The Ladoga Flotilla under the command of V. Baranovsky, S.V. Zemlyanichenko, P.A. Traynin, and B.V. Khoroshikhin also played a major military role in helping with evacuation of the civilians.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The first success of the Leningrad air defence took place on the night of 23 June. The Ju-88A bomber from the 1st air corps KGr.806 was damaged by the AA guns fire of the 15th battery of the 192nd anti-aircraft artillery regiment, and made an emergency landing. All crew members, including commander, Lieutenant Hans Turmeyer, were captured on the ground. The commander of the 15th battery, lieutenant, Alexey Pimchenkov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: By Monday, 8 September, German forces had largely surrounded the city, cutting off all supply routes to Leningrad and its suburbs. Unable to press home their offensive, and facing defences of the city organised by Marshal Zhukov, the Axis armies laid siege to the city for "900 days and nights".


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The air attack of Friday, 19 September was particularly brutal. It was the heaviest air raid Leningrad would suffer during the war, as 276 German bombers hit the city killing 1,000 civilians. Many of those killed were recuperating from battle wounds in hospitals that were hit by German bombs. Six air raids occurred that day. Five hospitals were damaged in the bombing, as well as the city's largest shopping bazaar. Hundreds of people had run from the street into the store to take shelter from the air raid.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Artillery bombardment of Leningrad began in August, increasing in intensity during 1942 with the arrival of new equipment. It was stepped up further during 1943, when several times as many shells and bombs were used as in the year before. Against this, the Soviet Baltic Fleet Navy aviation made over 100,000 air missions to support their military operations during the siege. German shelling and bombing killed 5,723 and wounded 20,507 civilians in Leningrad during the siege.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: To sustain the defence of the city, it was vitally important for the Red Army to establish a route for bringing a constant flow of supplies into Leningrad. This route, which became known as the Road of Life (), was effected over the southern part of Lake Ladoga and the corridor of land which remained unoccupied by Axis forces between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad. Transport across Lake Ladoga was achieved by means of watercraft during the warmer months and land vehicles driven over thick ice in winter (hence the route becoming known as "The Ice Road"). The security of the supply route was ensured by the Ladoga Flotilla, the Leningrad PVO Corps, and route security troops. Vital food supplies were thus transported to the village of Osinovets, from where they were transferred and transported over via a small suburban railway to Leningrad. The route had to be used also to evacuate civilians, since no evacuation plans had been executed in the chaos of the first winter of the war, and the city was completely isolated until 20 November, when the ice road over Lake Ladoga became operational. Vehicles risked becoming stuck in the snow or sinking through broken ice caused by constant German bombardments, but the road brought necessary military and food supplies in and took civilians and wounded soldiers out, allowing the city to continue resisting the enemy.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The two-and-a-half-year siege caused the greatest destruction and the largest loss of life ever known in a modern city. On Hitler's direct orders the Wehrmacht looted and then destroyed most of the imperial palaces, such as the Catherine Palace, Peterhof Palace, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina, and other historic landmarks located outside the city's defensive perimeter, with many art collections transported to Germany. A number of factories, schools, hospitals and other civil infrastructure were destroyed by air raids and long range artillery bombardment.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The 872 days of the siege caused extreme famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more (mainly women and children), many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery in Leningrad holds half a million civilian victims of the siege alone. Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, or the bombing of Tokyo. The siege of Leningrad ranks as the most lethal siege in world history, and some historians speak of the siege operations in terms of genocide, as a "racially motivated starvation policy" that became an integral part of the unprecedented German war of extermination against populations of the Soviet Union generally.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in the winter of 1941–42. From November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread per day, of which 50–60% consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures. In conditions of extreme temperatures (down to ), and with city transport out of service, even a distance of a few kilometres to a food distribution kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. Deaths peaked in January–February 1942 at 100,000 per month, mostly from starvation. People often died on the streets, and citizens soon became accustomed to the sight of death.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: While reports of cannibalism appeared in the winter of 1941–42, NKVD records on the subject were not published until 2004. Most evidence for cannibalism that surfaced before this time was anecdotal. Anna Reid points out that "for most people at the time, cannibalism was a matter of second-hand horror stories rather than direct personal experience". Indicative of Leningraders' fears at the time, police would often threaten uncooperative suspects with imprisonment in a cell with cannibals. Dimitri Lazarev, a diarist during the worst moments in the Leningrad siege, recalls his daughter and niece reciting a terrifying nursery rhyme adapted from a pre-war song:


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: NKVD files report the first use of human meat as food on 13 December 1941. The report outlines thirteen cases, which range from a mother smothering her eighteen-month-old to feed her three older children to a plumber killing his wife to feed his sons and nieces.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: By December 1942 the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals – dividing them into two legal categories: corpse-eating ("trupoyedstvo") and person-eating ("lyudoyedstvo"). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to prison. The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism, so all convictions were carried out under Code Article 59–3, "special category banditry". Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers. 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate or with only basic education, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal records. More cases occurred in the outlying districts than in the city itself. Cannibals were often unsupported women with dependent children and no previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal proceedings.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Given the scope of mass starvation, cannibalism was relatively rare. Far more common was murder for ration cards. In the first six months of 1942, Leningrad witnessed 1,216 such murders. At the same time, Leningrad was experiencing its highest mortality rate, as high as 100,000 people per month. Lisa Kirschenbaum notes that rates "of cannibalism provided an opportunity for emphasizing that the majority of Leningraders managed to maintain their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances."


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 9 August 1942, the Symphony No. 7 ""Leningrad"" by Dmitri Shostakovich was performed by the Leningrad Radio Orchestra. The concert was broadcast on loudspeakers placed throughout the city and also aimed towards the enemy lines. The same day had been previously designated by Hitler to celebrate the fall of the city with a lavish banquet at Leningrad's Astoria Hotel, and was a few days before the Sinyavino Offensive.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The Sinyavino Offensive was a Soviet attempt to break the blockade of the city in early autumn 1942. The 2nd Shock and the 8th armies were to link up with the forces of the Leningrad Front. At the same time the German side was preparing an offensive to capture the city, Operation Nordlicht (Northern Light), using the troops made available by the capture of Sevastopol. Neither side was aware of the other's intentions until the battle started.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The offensive began on 27 August 1942 with some small-scale attacks by the Leningrad front, pre-empting ""Nordlicht"" by a few weeks. The successful start of the operation forced the Germans to redirect troops from the planned ""Nordlicht"" to counterattack the Soviet armies. The counteroffensive saw the first deployment of the Tiger tank, though with limited success. After parts of the 2nd Shock Army were encircled and destroyed, the Soviet offensive was halted. However, the German forces also had to abandon their offensive.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The encirclement was broken in the wake of Operation Iskra (Spark), a full-scale offensive conducted by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts. This offensive started in the morning of 12 January 1943. After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the south of Lake Ladoga, and on 18 January 1943, the Volkhov Front's 372nd Rifle Division met troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a wide land corridor, which could provide some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The Spanish Blue Division faced a major Soviet attempt to break the siege of Leningrad in February 1943, when the 55th Army of the Soviet forces, reinvigorated after the victory at Stalingrad, attacked the Spanish positions at the Battle of Krasny Bor, near the main Moscow-Leningrad road. Despite very heavy casualties, the Spaniards were able to hold their ground against a Soviet force seven times larger and supported by tanks. The Soviet assault was contained by the Blue Division.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The siege continued until 27 January 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. This was a combined effort by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, along with the 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts. The Baltic Fleet provided 30% of aviation power for the final strike against the Wehrmacht. In the summer of 1944, the Finnish Defence Forces were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: During the siege some 3,200 residential buildings, 9,000 wooden houses were burned, and 840 factories and plants were destroyed in Leningrad and suburbs.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Historian Michael Walzer summarized that "The Siege of Leningrad killed more civilians than bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined."


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The US Military Academy evaluated that Russian casualties during the siege were bigger than combined American and British casualties during the entire war.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Some 21st century historians, including Timo Vihavainen and Nikita Lomagin, have classified the siege of Leningrad as genocide due to the systematic starvation and intentional destruction of the city's civilian population.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Almost all Finnish historians regard the siege as a German operation and do not consider that the Finns effectively participated in the siege. Russian historian Nikolai Baryshnikov argues that active Finnish participation did occur, but other historians have been mostly silent about it, most likely due to the friendly nature of post-war Soviet–Finnish relations.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The main issues which count in favour of the former view are: (a) the Finns mostly stayed at the pre-Winter War border at the Karelian Isthmus (with small exceptions to straighten the frontline), despite German wishes and requests, and (b) they did not bombard the city from planes or with artillery and did not allow the Germans to bring their own land forces to Finnish lines. Baryshnikov explains that the Finnish military in the region was strategically dependent on the Germans, and lacked the required means and will to press the attack against Leningrad any further.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Deportations of Finns and Germans from the Leningrad area to inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union began in March 1942 using the Road of Life; many of their descendants still remain in those areas today. However, the situation in Leningrad during the blockade was worse in comparison with the eastern areas where most of the city residents were evacuated. Inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union hosted millions of the evacuees; many factories, universities, and theatres were also evacuated there.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Even during the siege itself, war artifacts were collected and shown to the public by city authorities, such as the German aeroplane that was shot down and fell to the ground in Tauricheskiy Garden (Таврический сад). Such objects were displayed as a sign of the people's courage, and gathered in a specially allocated building of the former 19th century . The exhibition was soon turned into a full-scale (Государственный мемориальный музей обороны и блокады Ленинграда).


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Several years after World War II, in the late 1940s – early 1950s, Stalin's supposed jealousy of Leningrad city leaders caused their destruction in the course of politically motivated show trials forming the post-WWII Leningrad Affair (the pre-war purge followed the 1934 assassination of the popular city ruler Sergey Kirov). Now another generation of state and Communist Party functionaries of the city was wiped out, supposedly for publicly overestimating the importance of the city as an independent fighting unit and their own roles in defeating the enemy. Their brainchild, the Leningrad Defence Museum, was also destroyed, and many valuable exhibits were destroyed.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The museum was revived in the late 1980s with the then wave of glasnost, when new shocking facts were published, showing both heroism of the wartime city and hardships and even cruelties of the period. The exhibition opened in its originally allocated building, but has not yet regained its original size and area, most of its former premises having been given before its revival over to the military and other governmental offices. Plans for a new modern building of the museum have been suspended due to the financial crisis, but, under the present Defence Secretary Sergey Shoigu, promises have been made to expand the museum at its present location.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Commemoration of the siege got a second wind during the 1960s. Local artists dedicated their achievements to the Victory and memory of the war they saw. A leading local poet and war participant Mikhail Dudin suggested erecting a ring of monuments on the places of heaviest siege-time fighting and linking them into a belt of gardens around the city showing where the advancing enemy armies were stopped forever. That was the beginning of the Green Belt of Glory (ru: Зелёный пояс Славы).


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: On 29 October 1966, a monument entitled "Broken Ring" (of the Siege, ) was erected at the 40th kilometer of the Road of Life, on the shore of Lake Ladoga near the village of Kokkorevo. Designed and created by Konstantin Simun, the monument pays tribute not only to the lives saved via the frozen Ladoga, but also the many lives broken by the blockade.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The " (Монумент героическим защитникам Ленинграда) was erected on 9 May 1975 in Victory Square, Saint Petersburg.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: The monument is a huge bronze ring with a gap in it, pointing towards the site that the Soviets eventually broke through the encircling German forces. In the centre a Russian mother cradles her dying soldier son. The monument has an inscription saying "900 days 900 nights". An exhibit underneath the monument contains artifacts from this period, such as journals.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: During the siege, numerous deaths of civilians and soldiers led to considerable expansion of burial places later memorialised, of which the best known is Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.


title: Siege of Leningrad

text: Every year, on 27 January, as part of the celebrations of the lifting of the siege, a military parade of the troops of the Western Military District and the Saint Petersburg Garrison on Palace Square takes place. Close to 3,000 soldiers and cadets take part in the parade, which includes historical reenactors in Red Army uniforms, wartime tanks such as the T-34 and color guards carrying wartime flags such as the Banner of Victory and the standards of the different military fronts. Musical support is provided by the Massed Military Bands of the St. Petersburg Garrison under the direction of the Senior Director of Music of the Military Band of the Western Military District.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and concurrently as Ambassador to Nepal.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school. He made his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator during World War II and was wounded in an accident. Prior to the Everest expedition, Hillary had been part of the British reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 as well as an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958. He subsequently reached the North Pole, making him the first person to reach both poles and summit Everest. "Time" named him one of the .


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Beginning in 1960, Hillary devoted himself to assisting the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he established. His efforts are credited with the construction of many schools and hospitals in Nepal. Hillary had numerous honours conferred upon him, including the Order of the Garter in 1995. Upon his death in 2008, he was given a state funeral in New Zealand.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary was born to Percival Augustus (1885–1965) and Gertrude (née Clark) (1892–1965) Hillary in Auckland, New Zealand, on 20 July 1919. His father Percy had served at Gallipoli with the 15th (North Auckland) Regiment, and was discharged "medically unfit" from the Army in 1916; he had married Gertrude after his return to New Zealand. His grandfather Edmund Raymond Hillary (b. 1836) from Lancashire, England was a watchmaker, who immigrated to northern Wairoa in the mid-19th century. He married Annie "Ida" Fleming from Ireland having four children. His maternal great-grandparents, the Clarks, were both from Yorkshire.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: His family moved to Tuakau, south of Auckland, in 1920, after Percy was allocated eight acres (3.2 ha) of land there as a returned soldier. Percy had been a journalist prewar, and soon became founding editor of the weekly "Tuakau District News" as well as an apiarist. Ed had a sister June (born 1917) and a brother Rex (born 1920).


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary was educated at Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar School. He finished primary school aged 11 or two years early, and at "Grammar" achieved average marks. His mother wanted him to go to a "good school" and he commuted by train, cycling to Tuakau station before 7 am and returning after 6 pm for years (a one-hour and 40 minutes journey each way) until the family moved to Remuera, Auckland in 1935, his last of four years at "Grammar".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: He was initially smaller than his peers and shy, and did not enjoy "Grammar", where commuting barred him from after-school activities. He grew to be and gained confidence after taking up boxing.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: He became interested in climbing when he was 16 following a 1935 school trip to Mount Ruapehu, after which he showed more interest in tramping than in studying and said he "wanted to see the world". He then attended Auckland University College, and joined the Tramping Club there. But in 1938, "after two notably unsuccessful years studying mathematics and science" he gave up on formal education.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: He then became an apiarist (beekeeper) with his father and brother Rex; with 1600 hives to attend, thousands of 90 lb (41 kg) boxes of honey comb to handle, and 12 to 100 bee-stings daily. He kept bees in summer, and concentrated on climbing in winter. His father also edited the journal "The N.Z. Honeybee" and his mother Gertrude was famous for breeding and selling queen bees.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1938, he went to hear Herbert Sutcliffe, the proponent of a life philosophy called "Radiant Living", with his family. The family all became foundation members, and his mother became its secretary in 1939. He went to Gisborne as Sutcliff's assistant, and in 1941 sat examinations to become a teacher of Radiant Living, getting a 100% pass mark. His test lecture was on "Inferiority – cause and cure". He said of his five-year association with the movement that "I learned to speak confidently from the platform; to think more freely on important topics; to mix more readily with a wide variety of people". Tenets included healthy eating (the salads that June took to university for lunch) and pacificism. He joined the Radiant Living Tramping Club, and further developed his love of the outdoors in the Waitākere Ranges.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1939, he completed his first major climb, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, near Aoraki / Mount Cook in the Southern Alps. Climbing brought new friends; Harry Ayres and George Lowe became "the first real friends I'd ever had".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: At the outbreak of World War II, Hillary applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) but quickly withdrew the application, later writing that he was "harassed by [his] religious conscience". In 1943, with the Japanese threat in the Pacific and the arrival of conscription, he joined the RNZAF as a navigator in No. 6 Squadron RNZAF and later No. 5 Squadron RNZAF on Catalina flying boats. In 1945, he was sent to Fiji and to the Solomon Islands, where he was badly burnt in an accident.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In January 1948, Hillary and others ascended the south ridge of Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak. He took part in an arduous rescue on La Perouse in 1948, befriending fellow climber Norman Hardie.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1951 he was part of a British reconnaissance expedition to Everest led by Eric Shipton, before joining the successful British attempt of 1953. In 1952, Hillary and George Lowe were part of the British team led by Shipton, that attempted Cho Oyu. After that attempt failed due to the lack of a route from the Nepal side, Hillary and Lowe crossed the Nup La pass into Tibet and reached the old Camp II, on the northern side, where all the previous expeditions had camped.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1949, the long-standing climbing route to the summit of Everest was closed by Chinese-controlled Tibet. For the next several years, Nepal allowed only one or two expeditions per year. A Swiss expedition (in which Tenzing took part) attempted to reach the summit in 1952, but was forced back by bad weather and problems with oxygen sets below the summit.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1952, Hillary learned that he and Lowe had been invited by the Joint Himalayan Committee for the 1953 British attempt and immediately accepted. Shipton had been named as leader but was replaced by Hunt. Hillary objected but was immediately impressed by Hunt's energy and determination. Hunt asked Charles Evans and Hillary to form with him a small three-man planning group on the expedition. Hunt wrote that:


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary had hoped to climb with Lowe, but Hunt named two teams for the ascent: Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans; and Hillary and Tenzing. Hillary, therefore, made a concerted effort to forge a working friendship with Tenzing. Hillary wrote, "Tenzing had substantially greater personal ambition than any Sherpa I had met."


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The Hunt expedition totalled over 400 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides, and of baggage. Lowe supervised the preparation of the Lhotse Face, a huge and steep ice face, for climbing. Hillary forged a route through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The expedition set up base camp in March 1953 and, working slowly, set up its final camp at the South Col at . On 26 May, Bourdillon and Evans attempted the climb but turned back when Evans's oxygen system failed. The pair had reached the South Summit, coming within 300 vertical feet (91 m) of the summit. Hunt then directed Hillary and Tenzing to attempt the summit.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Snow and wind delayed them at the South Col for two days. They set out on 28 May with the support of Lowe, Alfred Gregory, and Ang Nyima. The two pitched a tent at on 28 May, while their support group returned down the mountain. On the following morning Hillary discovered that his boots had frozen solid outside the tent. He spent two hours warming them over a stove before he and Tenzing, wearing packs, attempted the final ascent. The final obstacle was the 40-foot (12 m) rock face later called "Hillary Step"; Hillary later wrote:


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Tenzing in his 1955 autobiography wrote that Hillary took the first step onto the summit and he followed. They reached Everest's 29,028 ft (8,848 m) summitthe highest point on earthat 11:30 am.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: They spent about 15 minutes at the summit. Hillary took a photo of Tenzing posing with his ice-axe, but there is no photo of Hillary; Tenzing's autobiography says that Hillary simply declined to have his picture taken. They also took photos looking down the mountain.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Tenzing left chocolates at the summit as an offering, and Hillary left a cross given to him by John Hunt. Their descent was complicated by drifting snow which had covered their tracks. The first person they met was Lowe; Hillary said, "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off."


title: Edmund Hillary

text: They returned to Kathmandu a few days later and learned that Hillary had already been appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Hunt a Knight Bachelor. News reached Britain on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and the press called it a coronation gift.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The 37 members of the party later received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal with engraved along the rim.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In addition to the knighting of Hillary and Hunt, Tenzingineligible for knighthood as a Nepalese citizenreceived the George Medal. Tenzing also received the Star of Nepal from King Tribhuvan.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary climbed ten other peaks in the Himalayas on further visits in 1956, 1960–1961, and 1963–1965. He also reached the South Pole as part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, for which he led the New Zealand section, on 4 January 1958. His party was the first to reach the Pole overland since Amundsen in 1911 and Scott in 1912, and the first ever to do so using motor vehicles.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1960, Hillary organised the 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition, with Griffith Pugh; and Pugh showed that Mount Everest could be climbed without oxygen, with a long period of acclimatisation by living at for six months.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: An assault on Makalu, the world's fifth-highest mountain, was unsuccessful. Hillary was with the expedition for five months, although it lasted for ten.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The expedition also searched for the fabled abominable snowman. No evidence of Yetis was found, instead footprints and tracks were proven to be from other causes. During the expedition, Hillary travelled to remote temples which contained "Yeti scalps"; however after bringing back three relics, two were shown to be from bears and one from a goat antelope. Hillary said after the expedition: "The yeti is not a strange, superhuman creature as has been imagined. We have found rational explanations for most yeti phenomena".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1962, he was a guest on the television game show "What's My Line?"; he stumped the panel, comprising Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, and Merv Griffin.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1977, he led a jetboat expedition, titled "Ocean to Sky", from the mouth of the Ganges River to its source. From 1977 to 1979 he commentated aboard Antarctic sightseeing flights operated by Air New Zealand, and was scheduled to act as the guide for the fatal Flight 901, but had to cancel owing to other commitments.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1985, he accompanied Neil Armstrong in a small twin-engined ski plane over the Arctic Ocean and landed at the North Pole. Hillary thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest. This accomplishment inspired generations of explorers to compete over what later was defined as Three Poles Challenge.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In January 2007, Hillary travelled to Antarctica as part of a delegation commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Scott Base.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: On 6 June 1953, Hillary was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and he received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal the same year. On 6 February 1987, he was the fourth appointee to the Order of New Zealand. He was also awarded the Polar Medal in 1958 for his part in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the class of commander of the Order of Sports Merit of France in about 1960, the Order of Gorkha Dakshina Bahu, 1st Class of the Kingdom of Nepal in 1953 and the Coronation Medal in 1975. On 22 April 1995, Hillary was appointed Knight Companion of The Most Noble Order of the Garter. On 17 June 2004, Hillary was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. The Government of India conferred on him its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, posthumously, in 2008.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: To mark the 50th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest, the Nepalese government conferred honorary citizenship upon Hillary at a special Golden Jubilee celebration in Kathmandu, Nepal. He was the first foreign national to receive that honour.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Since 1992, New Zealand's $5 note has featured Hillary's portrait, making him the only living person not a current head of state ever to appear on a New Zealand banknote. In giving his permission, Hillary insisted that Aoraki / Mount Cook rather than Mount Everest be used as the backdrop.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Annual "Reader's Digest" polls from 2005 to 2007 named Hillary as "New Zealand's most trusted individual".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary's favoured New Zealand charity was the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre, of which he was patron for 35 years. He was particularly keen on how this organisation introduced young New Zealanders to the outdoors in a very similar way to his first experience of a school trip to Mt Ruapehu at the age of 16. A bronze statue of Hillary was erected outside The Hermitage Hotel at Mount Cook Village; it was unveiled by Hillary himself in 2003. Various streets, institutions and organisations around New Zealand and abroad are named after him – for example, the Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in Otara, which was established by Hillary in 2001.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Two Antarctic features are named after Hillary. The Hillary Coast is a section of coastline south of Ross Island and north of the Shackleton Coast. The Hillary Canyon, an undersea feature in the Ross Sea, appears on the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans, published by the International Hydrographic Organization.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary married Louise Mary Rose (19301975) on 3 September 1953, soon after the ascent of Everest; he admitted he was terrified of proposing to her and relied on her mother to propose on his behalf. They had three children: Peter (born 1954), Sarah (born 1956) and Belinda (19591975). On 31 March 1975, while en route to join Hillary in the village of Phaphlu, where he was helping to build a hospital, Louise and Belinda were killed in a plane crash (1975 Royal Nepal Airlines Pilatus PC-6 Porter crash) near Kathmandu airport shortly after take-off. In 1989 he married June Mulgrew, the widow of his close friend Peter Mulgrew, who died on Air New Zealand Flight 901 in 1979.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: His son Peter Hillary also became a climber, summiting Everest in 1990. In May 2002 Peter climbed Everest as part of a 50th anniversary celebration; Jamling Tenzing Norgay (son of Tenzing who had died in 1986) was also part of the expedition.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary's home for most of his life was a property on Remuera Road in Auckland City, where he enjoyed reading adventure and science fiction novels in his retirement.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: He also built a bach at Whites Beach, one of Auckland's west coast beaches in West Auckland, between Anawhata and North Piha; a friend called it Hillary's place of solace, where he could escape media attention.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The Hillary family has had a connection with the west coast of Auckland since 1925, when Louise's father built a bach at Anawhata. The family donated land at Whites Beach that is now crossed by trampers on the Hillary Trail, named for Edmund.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary said of the area: "That is the thing that international travel brings home to me – it's always good to be going home. This is the only place I want to live in; this is the place I want to see out my days."


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Following his ascent of Everest he devoted himself to assisting the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he established in 1960 and led until his death in 2008. His efforts are credited with the construction of many schools and hospitals in this remote region of the Himalayas. He was the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation, a United States non-profit body that helps improve the ecology and living conditions in the Himalayas. He was also the Honorary President of Mountain Wilderness, an international NGO dedicated to the worldwide protection of mountains.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Hillary supported the Labour Party in the 1975 New Zealand general election, as a member of the "Citizens for Rowling" campaign. His involvement in this campaign was seen as precluding his nomination as Governor-General; the position was offered to Keith Holyoake in 1977. In 1985, Hillary was appointed New Zealand High Commissioner to India (concurrently High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal) and spent four and a half years based in New Delhi.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In 1975, Hillary served as a vice president for the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand, a national pro-choice advocacy group. He was also a patron of REPEAL, an organization seeking repeal of the restrictive Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: On 22 April 2007, while on a trip to Kathmandu, Hillary suffered a fall, and was hospitalised after returning to New Zealand.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: Flags were lowered to half-mast on New Zealand public buildings and at Scott Base in Antarctica, and the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, called Hillary's death a "profound loss to New Zealand".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: A state funeral was held on 22 January 2008, after which his body was cremated. On 29 February 2008, most of his ashes were scattered in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf per his desire. The remainder went to a Nepalese monastery near Everest; a plan to scatter them on the summit was cancelled in 2010.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In January 2008, Lukla Airport, in Lukla, Nepal, was renamed to Tenzing–Hillary Airport in recognition of their promotion of its construction.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: On 2 April 2008, a service of thanksgiving in Hillary's honour at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, New Zealand dignitaries including Prime Minister Helen Clark, and members of Hillary's and Norgay's families; Gurkha soldiers from Nepal stood guard outside the ceremony.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: In October 2008, it was announced that future rugby test matches between England and New Zealand would be played for the Hillary Shield. In 2009 the Duke of Edinburgh's Award in New Zealandformerly the Young New Zealanders' Challengewas renamed "The Duke of Edinburgh's Hillary Award".


title: Edmund Hillary

text: There have been many calls for lasting tributes to Hillary. The first major public tribute has been by way of the "Summits for Ed" tribute tour organised by the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation. This tribute tour went from Bluff at the bottom of the South Island to Cape Reinga at the tip of the North Island, visiting 39 towns and cities along the way. In each venue, school children and members of the public were invited to join to climb a significant hill or site in their area to show their respect for Hillary. The public were also invited to bring small rocks or pebbles that had special significance to them, that would be included in a memorial to Hillary at the base of Mt Ruapehu, in the grounds of the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre. Funds donated during the tour are used by the foundation to sponsor young New Zealanders on outdoor courses. Over 8,000 persons attended these "Summit" climbs between March and May 2008.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The tribute song "Hillary 88", by the New Zealand duo The Kiwis, is the official world memorial song for Hillary, with the endorsement of Lady Hillary.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: A four-day track in the Waitākere Ranges, along Auckland's west coast, is named the Hillary Trail, in honour of Hillary. Hillary's father-in-law, Jim Rose, who had built a bach at Anawhata in 1925, wrote in his 1982 history of Anawhata Beach, "My family look forward to the time when we will be able to walk from Huia to Muriwai on public walking tracks like the old-time Maori could do". Hillary loved the area, and had his own bach near Anawhata. The track was opened on 11 January 2010, the second anniversary of Hillary's death. Rose Track, descending from Anawhata Road to Whites Beach, is named after the Rose family.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The South Ridge of Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, was renamed Hillary Ridge on 18 August 2011. Hillary and three other climbers were the first party to successfully climb the ridge in 1948. In September 2013 the Government of Nepal proposed naming a mountain in Nepal Hillary Peak in his honour. After the "New Horizons" mission discovered a mountain range on Pluto on 14 July 2015, it was informally named Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains) by NASA.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal, awarded by the Nepalese NGO Mountain Legacy "for remarkable service in the conservation of culture and nature in mountainous regions" was inaugurated in 2003, with the approval of Sir Edmund Hillary.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: A bronze bust of Hillary (circa 1953) by Ophelia Gordon Bell is in the Te Papa museum in Wellington, New Zealand.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: The Sir Edmund Hillary Archive was added to the UNESCO Memory of the world archive in 2013, it is currently held by Auckland War Memorial Museum.


title: Edmund Hillary

text: From 2016 to 2020, a pilot immigration programme to New Zealand awarded "Edmund Hillary Fellowships", the benefits of which included a 3-year "Global Impact Visa" to create, support, and incubate ventures and models that result in positive global impact, from New Zealand. After 3 years, migrants could qualify for permanent residency. The Edmund Hillary Foundation, which operated the pilot, claims that more than 250 of the allocated 400 visas were awarded before the pilot closed.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The M113 is a fully tracked armored personnel carrier (APC) that was developed and produced by the FMC Corporation. The M113 was sent to United States Army Europe in 1961 to replace the mechanized infantry's M59 APCs. The M113 was first used in combat in April 1962 after the United States provided the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) with heavy weaponry such as the M113, under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) program. Eventually, the M113 was the most widely used armored vehicle of the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War and was used to break through heavy thickets in the midst of the jungle to attack and overrun enemy positions. It was largely known as an "APC" or an "ACAV" (armored cavalry assault vehicle) by the allied forces.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The M113 was the first aluminum hull combat vehicle to be put into mass production. Much lighter than earlier similar vehicles, its aluminum armor was designed to be thick enough to protect the crew and passengers against small arms fire, but light enough that the vehicle was air transportable and moderately amphibious.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: In the U.S. Army, the M113 series have long been replaced as front-line combat vehicles by the M2 and M3 Bradleys, but large numbers are still used in support roles such as armored ambulance, mortar carrier, engineer vehicle, and command vehicle. The U.S. Army's heavy brigade combat teams are equipped with approximately 6,000 M113s and 4,000 Bradleys.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The M113's versatility spawned a wide variety of adaptations that live on worldwide and in U.S. service. These variants together currently represent about half of U.S. Army armored vehicles. To date, it is estimated that over 80,000 vehicles in the M113 family have been produced and used by over 50 countries worldwide, making it one of the most widely used armored fighting vehicles of all time.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: M113 production was terminated in 2007. The Army initiated the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) program to search for a replacement. In 2014, the U.S. Army selected BAE Systems' proposal of a turretless variant of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to replace over 2,800 M113s in service.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: Thousands of M113s continue to see combat service in the Israel Defense Forces, although as of 2014 the IDF was seeking to gradually replace many of its 6,000 M113s, with Namers.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The M113 was developed by FMC Corporation, which had produced the earlier M59 and M75 Armored personnel carriers. The M113 bears a very strong resemblance to both of these earlier vehicles. The M75 was too heavy and expensive to be useful, as its weight precluded amphibious use and transport by air. The lightened M59 addressed both of these problems, but ended up with too little armor, and was unreliable as a result of efforts to reduce its cost.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The army was looking for a vehicle that combined the best features of both designs, the "airborne armored multi-purpose vehicle family" (AAM-PVF) of all-purpose, all-terrain armored fighting vehicles. FMC had been working with Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Co. in the late 1950s to develop suitable aluminum armor. It was known that use of this armor could produce a vehicle that provided the protection of the M75 and the low weight and mobility of the M59.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: FMC responded with two proposals; two versions of the aluminum T113 – a thickly and a more thinly-armored one, along with the similar but mostly steel T117. The thickly-armored version of the T113 – effectively the prototype of the M113 – was chosen because it weighed less than its steel competitor, whilst offering the same level of protection. An improved T113 design, the T113E1, was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1960 as the "M113". A diesel prototype, T113E2, was put into production in 1964 as the "M113A1", and quickly supplanted the gasoline-engined M113. In 1994, FMC transferred the M113's production over to its newly formed defense subsidiary, United Defense. Then in 2005, United Defense was acquired by BAE Systems.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The M113 was developed to provide a survivable and reliable light tracked vehicle able to be air-lifted and air-dropped by C-130 and C-141 transport planes. The original concept was that the vehicle would be used solely for transportation, bringing the troops forward under armor and then having them dismount for combat, after which the M113 would retreat to the rear. Entering service with the U.S. Army in 1960, the M113 required only two crewmen, a driver and a commander, and carried 11-15 passengers inside the vehicle. Its main armament was a single .50-caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine gun operated by the commander.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: On 30 March 1962, the first batch of 32 M113s arrived in Vietnam, and were sent to two Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) mechanized rifle companies, each equipped with 15 of the APCs. On 11 June 1962, the two mechanized units were fielded for the first time. During the Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963, at least fourteen of the exposed .50 caliber gunners aboard the M113s were killed in action, necessitating modifications to improve crew survivability. Makeshift shields formed from metal salvaged from the hulls of sunken ships were soon fitted to the carriers, affording better protection. However it was found that this material could be penetrated by small arms fire, so subsequent shields were constructed from scrapped armored vehicles.


title: M113 armored personnel carrier

text: The ARVN 80th Ordnance Unit in South Vietnam developed the shield idea further and commenced engineering general issue gun shields for the M113. These shields became the predecessor to the standardized armored cavalry assault vehicle (or ACAV) variant and were issued to all ARVN mechanized units during the early 1960s. The ARVNs had modified the M113s to function as "amphibious light tanks" and not as battle taxis as U.S. designers had intended.