title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas's father Arturas, who suffered from schizophrenia, left the family when Rose was still young and died of pneumonia in Germany in 2008, when Rose was 16. Her mother was a pianist, trained at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Namajunas grew up in Milwaukee in a tough neighborhood, where she was a witness to violence from a young age. Her mother worked a lot and her brother was only rarely home. Her neighborhood friends nicknamed her "Thug Rose", due to the fact that she was the only white girl among them and was the smallest, yet acted tougher than any of them. Namajunas has mentioned being a victim of child sexual abuse, while emphasizing that she does not want to speak about specific details. She graduated from Milwaukee High School of the Arts, where she was an accomplished cross-country runner.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Rose started practicing taekwondo at the age of 5. She earned her poom belt (junior black belt) at age 9. After that, she went on to practice both karate and BJJ. While in high school, she started training in kickboxing and mixed martial arts with Duke Roufus at Roufusport, and she was also a senior-year wrestler at Milwaukee High School of the Arts.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas was scheduled to compete in a grappling match against Danielle Kelly on December 30, 2021, at Fury Pro Grappling 3 but was forced to withdraw from the event at the last minute due to a positive Covid-19 test and was replaced by Carla Esparza.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas began competing in MMA as an amateur in 2010. She trained under Greg Nelson at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy. She racked up a perfect amateur record of 4–0 with 2 wins by TKO and 2 by decision. Both of the finishes came in the first round.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: She made her professional debut against Emily Kagan at on January 5, 2013. After two back-and-forth rounds, Namajunas was able to secure the victory via submission due to a rear-naked choke in round three. The victory in her pro debut also earned her the "Submission of the Night" bonus.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In her second professional appearance, Namajunas faced Kathina Catron at on April 5, 2013. She won the fight by submission due to a flying armbar just 12 seconds into the first round. This performance garnered Namajunas her second Invicta "Submission of the Night" award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas fought fellow undefeated prospect Tecia Torres at on July 13, 2013. Namajunas lost the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: On December 11, 2013, it was announced that Namajunas was signed by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) along with 10 other strawweight fighters to compete on season 20 of "The Ultimate Fighter", which would crown the first-ever UFC strawweight champion.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas was the fourth pick by coach Gilbert Melendez. She defeated Alex Chambers by submission due to a rear-naked choke in the preliminary round of the tournament.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In the quarter-finals, Namajunas faced Joanne Calderwood. She won the fight via kimura in the second round.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In the semi-finals, Namajunas faced Randa Markos. She again won the fight via kimura in the first round.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In the final of the tournament, she fought Carla Esparza on December 12, 2014 at for the inaugural UFC Women's Strawweight Championship. She lost the bout via rear-naked choke in the third round.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Despite losing in The Ultimate Fighter finale, Namajunas was awarded two season $25,000 bonus awards for "Performance of the Season" and "Fight of the Season" for her bout with Joanne Calderwood.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas was expected to face Nina Ansaroff on May 23, 2015, in a preliminary bout at UFC 187. Prior to the fight, Ansaroff missed weight by 4 pounds and was fined 20 percent of her fight purse. The bout was scrapped entirely a couple of hours before the event, as Ansaroff was declared medically unfit to compete due to illness. According to Ansaroff's camp, she contracted the flu the week before, and the weight cut exacerbated the illness, forcing Ansaroff to abandon her weight cut early, and ultimately withdraw from the fight. Though the fight could not take place, Namajunas was paid her full fight purse (show- and win money).


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas fought Angela Hill on October 3, 2015, at UFC 192. After some back-and-forth striking exchanges on the feet, Namajunas took Hill down with a trip off a punch. As Hill stood up, Namajunas quickly secured a rear-naked choke, submitting Hill in the first round.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In a quick turnaround, Namajunas faced streaking prospect Paige VanZant in the main event of UFC Fight Night 80 on December 10, 2015, replacing an injured Joanne Calderwood. Namajunas won the fight midway through the fifth round via submission due to a rear naked choke. The win also earned Namajunas her first "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: On April 16, 2016, Namajunas faced the undefeated Tecia Torres at UFC on Fox 19 in a rematch of their 2013 fight at Invicta FC 6. Namajunas won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: On July 30, 2016, Namajunas fought Karolina Kowalkiewicz at UFC 201 in a match regarded as a title eliminator. Kowalkiewicz defeated Namajunas via split decision. Both participants were awarded "Fight of the Night" for their performance.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas faced Michelle Waterson on April 15, 2017, at UFC on Fox 24. Namajunas won by submission due to a rear-naked choke in round 2, marking the 5th submission finish in her career.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas faced Strawweight champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk at UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden in New York on November 4, 2017. She came in as a big underdog against the undefeated champion. Namajunas, in what was regarded as a huge upset, won by KO in first round to be crowned the new UFC Women's Strawweight Champion. The win also earned Namajunas her second Performance of the Night bonus award. This was Namajunas's first knockout victory in her professional career (2 TKO-wins as an amateur). At the UFC 217 post-fight press conference, Namajunas stated that she intended to use her champion status as a platform to spread awareness of mental illness.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In the first defense of her title, Namajunas faced Jędrzejczyk in a rematch that took place on April 7, 2018, at UFC 223. She won the fight by unanimous decision. Namajunas spent the remainder of the year recovering from a lingering case of spinal stenosis from a C6 vertebral compression fracture, symptoms of which manifested while training with Valentina and Antonina Shevchenko in 2017, and had intensified during training camp for UFC 223.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: In her second title defense, Namajunas faced Jéssica Andrade in the main event at UFC 237 on May 11, 2019, in Andrade's home country of Brazil, in what would be Namajunas's first MMA fight outside the United States. Namajunas lost the fight by knockout via a slam in the second round. The fight earned her the "Fight of the Night" award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas was scheduled to face Jéssica Andrade for a rematch on April 18, 2020 at UFC 249. On April 8, 2020, Namajunas withdrew from the event, with her manager citing a pair of deaths in the family related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason. Instead the bout was rescheduled and eventually took place on July 12, 2020 at UFC 251. Namajunas won the fight via split decision. This fight earned her the" Fight of the Night" award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas faced Zhang Weili for the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship on April 24, 2021 at UFC 261. She won the fight by knockout early in the first round after landing a head kick, claiming the UFC Women's Strawweight World Champion for the second time. Namajunas became the first female fighter to regain a UFC Championship belt. The win earned Namajunas a "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: The rematch between Namajunas and Zhang for the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship took place on November 6, 2021 at UFC 268. After a back and forth bout, Namajunas defended her title, winning the bout via split decision. 14 out of 22 media scores gave it to Namajunas.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas faced Carla Esparza in a rematch for the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship on May 7, 2022 at UFC 274. Namajunas lost the fight and title via split decision in a bout that was heavily criticized for both fighter's low output. Despite the uneventful nature of the fight, Namajunas was given the first place Crypto.com ""Fan Bonus of the Night"" award.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas utilizes forward movement while pressuring opponents with jabs and high kicks. She is known for her advanced technical striking and footwork, using a variety of angles and several creative adjustments. During her fight at Invicta FC 6, she directed a series of axe kicks, front kicks, and forward roundhouse kicks to her opponent's head. After closing the distance, she will sometimes attempt to grapple and execute a submission.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas is a Christian, and is an anti-communist. Prior to her first bout against Chinese fighter Zhang Weili, Namajunas spoke of the history of communist oppression in her ancestral homeland Lithuania and mentioned the documentary "The Other Dream Team" as an inspiration. She said the documentary gives a "good idea as to what my family had to go through, the reason I'm in the United States today, the reason that I do mixed martial arts, all of that stuff". She said that she viewed her fight with Zhang as symbolizing a fight between communism and freedom, saying that "Weili is red" and "represents [communism]", relating it to her family's history under the former USSR regime in Lithuania, and stating that it is "better dead than red". In a further interview, Namajunas stated that her comments were not directed personally at Zhang, and said it was more about her own "internal battles" as well as some "generational PTSD". Zhang later said she ignored Namajunas's comments, stating "I believe as an athlete you have to focus on yourself." In describing her background and motivation for fighting, Namajunas stated, "I’ve got the Christ consciousness, I’ve got Lithuanian blood and I’ve got the American dream."


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas is the fiancée and training partner of former Glory and UFC heavyweight Pat Barry. Namajunas and Barry met at Duke Roufus' gym, where Barry started training after losing his home to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, while Namajunas started training there during high school.


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Barry says he fell in love with Namajunas the first time he saw her. In a December 2014 interview, Barry said that he and Namajunas had been dating "for almost five years now", while Namajunas felt like it was "two or three years". The couple got engaged in 2014. UFC middleweight Sean Strickland has been openly critical of this relationship, describing it as predatory, given that Namajunas was allegedly 14 or 15 years old when she and Barry, who was 28, met. Namajunas herself has admitted that Barry and her “Were apparently together a lot longer than [she] was aware of,” and that “It took him a while to chip away at [her] heart, but he did.”


title: Rose Namajunas

text: Namajunas has a brother named Nojus, who once operated a private piano studio. Namajunas herself has played the piano since the age of five. Nojus also is a mixed martial artist, and made his professional debut in March 2021.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film "", widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science fiction writer, an avid populariser of space travel, and a futurist of a distinguished ability. He wrote many books and many essays for popular magazines. In 1961, he received the Kalinga Prize, a UNESCO award for popularising science. Clarke's science and science-fiction writings earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". His science-fiction writings in particular earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership, made him one of the towering figures of the genre. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the BIS, British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again in 1951–1953.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke immigrated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956, to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year, he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient original Koneswaram Temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his popularity in the 1980s, as the host of television shows such as "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World". He lived in Sri Lanka until his death.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was born in Minehead, Somerset, England, and grew up in nearby Bishops Lydeard. As a boy, he lived on a farm, where he enjoyed stargazing, fossil collecting, and reading American science-fiction pulp magazines. He received his secondary education at Huish school in Taunton. Some of his early influences included dinosaur cigarette cards, which led to an enthusiasm for fossils starting about 1925. Clarke attributed his interest in science fiction to reading three items: the November 1928 issue of "Amazing Stories" in 1929; "Last and First Men" by Olaf Stapledon in 1930; and "The Conquest of Space" by David Lasser in 1931.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In his teens, he joined the Junior Astronomical Association and contributed to "Urania", the society's journal, which was edited in Glasgow by Marion Eadie. At Clarke's request, she added an "Astronautics" section, which featured a series of articles written by him on spacecraft and space travel. Clarke also contributed pieces to the "Debates and Discussions Corner", a counterpoint to a "Urania" article offering the case against space travel, and also his recollections of the Walt Disney film "Fantasia". He moved to London in 1936 and joined the Board of Education as a pensions auditor. He and some fellow science-fiction writers shared a flat in Gray's Inn Road, where he got the nickname "Ego" because of his absorption in subjects that interested him, and later named his office filled with memorabilia as his "ego chamber".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: During the Second World War from 1941 to 1946, he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early-warning radar defence system, which contributed to the RAF's success during the Battle of Britain. Clarke spent most of his wartime service working on ground-controlled approach (GCA) radar, as documented in the semiautobiographical "Glide Path", his only non-science-fiction novel. Although GCA did not see much practical use during the war, after several years of development it proved vital to the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949. Clarke initially served in the ranks and was a corporal instructor on radar at No.2 Radio School, RAF Yatesbury in Wiltshire. He was commissioned as a pilot officer (technical branch) on 27 May 1943. He was promoted flying officer on 27 November 1943. He was appointed chief training instructor at RAF Honiley in Warwickshire and was demobilised with the rank of flight lieutenant.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: After the war, he attained a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King's College London. After this, he worked as assistant editor at "Physics Abstracts". Clarke then served as president of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again from 1951 to 1953.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Although he was not the originator of the concept of geostationary satellites, one of his most important contributions in this field was his idea that they would be ideal telecommunications relays. He advanced this idea in a paper privately circulated among the core technical members of the British Interplanetary Society in 1945. The concept was published in "Wireless World" in October of that year. Clarke also wrote a number of nonfiction books describing the technical details and societal implications of rocketry and space flight. The most notable of these may be "" (1950), "The Exploration of Space" (1951), and "The Promise of Space" (1968). In recognition of these contributions, the geostationary orbit above the equator is officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union as the Clarke Orbit.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: His 1951 book, "The Exploration of Space", was used by the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun to convince President John F. Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Following the 1968 release of "2001", Clarke became much in demand as a commentator on science and technology, especially at the time of the Apollo space program. On 20 July 1969, Clarke appeared as a commentator for the CBS News broadcast of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 until his death in 2008, first in Unawatuna on the south coast, and then in Colombo. Initially, he and his friend Mike Wilson travelled around Sri Lanka, diving in the coral waters around the coast with the Beachcombers Club. In 1957, during a dive trip off Trincomalee, Clarke discovered the underwater ruins of a temple, which subsequently made the region popular with divers. He described it in his 1957 book "The Reefs of Taprobane". This was his second diving book after the 1956 "The Coast of Coral". Though Clarke lived mostly in Colombo, he set up a small dive school and a simple dive shop near Trincomalee. He dived often at Hikkaduwa, Trincomalee, and Nilaveli.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: The Sri Lankan government offered Clarke resident guest status in 1975. He was held in such high esteem that when fellow science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein came to visit, the Sri Lanka Air Force provided a helicopter to take them around the country.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In the early 1970s, Clarke signed a three-book publishing deal, a record for a science-fiction writer at the time. The first of the three was "Rendezvous with Rama" in 1973, which won all the main genre awards and spawned sequels that along with the "2001" series formed the backbone of his later career.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1988, he was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, having originally contracted polio in 1962, and needed to use a wheelchair most of the time thereafter. Clarke was for many years a vice-patron of the British Polio Fellowship.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours, Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". The same year, he became the first chancellor of the International Space University, serving from 1989 to 2004. He also served as chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1994, Clarke appeared in a science-fiction film; he portrayed himself in the telefilm "Without Warning", an American production about an apocalyptic alien first-contact scenario presented in the form of a faux newscast.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke also became active in promoting the protection of gorillas and became a patron of the Gorilla Organization, which fights for the preservation of gorillas. When tantalum mining for mobile phone manufacture threatened the gorillas in 2001, he lent his voice to their cause. The dive shop that he set up continues to operate from Trincomalee through the Arthur C Clarke Foundation.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In the 1980s and early 1990s, Clarke presented his television programmes "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World", "Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers", and "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: On a trip to Florida in 1953, Clarke met and quickly married Marilyn Mayfield, a 22-year-old American divorcee with a young son. They separated permanently after six months, although the divorce was not finalised until 1964. "The marriage was incompatible from the beginning," said Clarke. Marilyn never remarried and died in 1991. Clarke himself also never remarried, but was close to a Sri Lankan man, Leslie Ekanayake (13 July 19474July 1977), whom Clarke called his "only perfect friend of a lifetime" in the dedication to his novel "The Fountains of Paradise". Clarke is buried with Ekanayake, who predeceased him by three decades, in Colombo's central cemetery. In his biography of Stanley Kubrick, John Baxter cites Clarke's homosexuality as a reason why he relocated, due to more tolerant laws with regard to homosexuality in Sri Lanka. In 1998, the "Sunday Mirror" reported that he paid Sri Lankan boys for sex, leading to the cancellation of plans for Prince Charles to knight him on a visit to the country. The accusation was subsequently found to be baseless by the Sri Lankan police. Journalists who enquired of Clarke whether he was gay were told, "No, merely mildly cheerful." However, Michael Moorcock wrote:


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In an interview in the July 1986 issue of "Playboy" magazine, when asked if he had had a bisexual experience, Clarke stated, "Of course. Who hasn't?" In his obituary, Clarke's friend Kerry O'Quinn wrote: "Yes, Arthur was gay ... As Isaac Asimov once told me, 'I think he simply found he preferred men.' Arthur didn't publicise his sexualitythat wasn't the focus of his lifebut if asked, he was open and honest."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke accumulated a vast collection of manuscripts and personal memoirs, maintained by his brother Fred Clarke in Taunton, Somerset, England, and referred to as the "Clarkives". Clarke said some of his private diaries will not be published until 30 years after his death. When asked why they were sealed, he answered, "Well, there might be all sorts of embarrassing things in them."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: On 26 May 2000, he was made a Knight Bachelor "for services to literature" at a ceremony in Colombo. The award of a knighthood had been announced in the 1998 New Year Honours list, but investiture with the award had been delayed, at Clarke's request, because of an accusation by the British tabloid the "Sunday Mirror" of paying boys for sex. The charge was subsequently found to be baseless by the Sri Lankan police. According to "The Daily Telegraph", the "Mirror" subsequently published an apology, and Clarke chose not to sue for defamation. "The Independent" reported that a similar story was not published, allegedly because Clarke was a friend of newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Clarke himself said, "I take an extremely dim view of people mucking about with boys", and Rupert Murdoch promised him the reporters responsible would never work in Fleet Street again. Clarke was then duly knighted.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Although he and his home were unharmed by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, his "Arthur C. Clarke Diving School" (now called "Underwater Safaris") at Hikkaduwa near Galle was destroyed. He made humanitarian appeals, and the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation worked towards better disaster notification systems.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Because of his post-polio deficits, which limited his ability to travel and gave him halting speech, most of Clarke's communications in his last years were in the form of recorded addresses. In July 2007, he provided a video address for the Robert A. Heinlein Centennial in which he closed his comments with a goodbye to his fans. In September 2007, he provided a video greeting for NASA's Cassini probe's flyby of Iapetus (which plays an important role in the book of ""). In December 2007 on his 90th birthday, Clarke recorded a video message to his friends and fans bidding them good-bye.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke died in Colombo on 19 March 2008, at the age of 90. His aide described the cause as respiratory complications and heart failure stemming from post-polio syndrome.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Just hours before Clarke's death, a major gamma-ray burst (GRB) reached Earth. Known as GRB 080319B, the burst set a new record as the farthest object that can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. It occurred about 7.5 billion years ago, the light taking that long to reach Earth. Larry Sessions, a science writer for "Sky and Telescope" magazine blogging on earthsky.org, suggested that the burst be named the "Clarke Event". "American Atheist Magazine "wrote of the idea: "It would be a fitting tribute to a man who contributed so much, and helped lift our eyes and our minds to a cosmos once thought to be province only of gods."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: A few days before he died, he had reviewed the manuscript of his final work, "The Last Theorem", on which he had collaborated by e-mail with contemporary Frederik Pohl. The book was published after Clarke's death. Clarke was buried alongside his partner, Leslie Ekanayake, in Colombo in traditional Sri Lankan fashion on 22 March. His younger brother, Fred Clarke, and his Sri Lankan adoptive family were among the thousands in attendance.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: While Clarke had a few stories published in fanzines, between 1937 and 1945, his first professional sale appeared in "Astounding Science Fiction" in 1946: "Loophole" was published in April, while "Rescue Party", his first sale, was published in May. Along with his writing, Clarke briefly worked as assistant editor of "Science Abstracts" (1949) before devoting himself in 1951 to full-time writing.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke began carving out his reputation as a "scientific" science-fiction writer with his first science-fiction novel, "Against the Fall of Night", published as a novella in 1948. It was very popular and considered ground-breaking work for some of the concepts it contained. Clarke revised and expanded the novella into a full novel, which was published in 1953. Clarke later rewrote and expanded this work a third time to become "The City and the Stars" in 1956, which rapidly became a definitive must-read in the field. His third science-fiction novel, "Childhood's End", was also published in 1953, cementing his popularity. Clarke capped the first phase of his writing career with his sixth novel, "A Fall of Moondust", in 1961, which is also an acknowledged classic of the period.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: During this time, Clarke corresponded with C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s and they once met in an Oxford pub, the Eastgate, to discuss science fiction and space travel. Clarke voiced great praise for Lewis upon his death, saying the Ransom trilogy was one of the few works of science fiction that should be considered literature.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1948, he wrote "The Sentinel" for a BBC competition. Though the story was rejected, it changed the course of Clarke's career. Not only was it the basis for "2001: A Space Odyssey", but "The Sentinel" also introduced a more cosmic element to Clarke's work. Many of Clarke's later works feature a technologically advanced but still-prejudiced mankind being confronted by a superior alien intelligence. In the cases of "Childhood's End", and the "2001" series, this encounter produces a conceptual breakthrough that accelerates humanity into the next stage of its evolution. This also applies in the far-distant past (but our future) in "The City and the Stars" (and its original version, "Against the Fall of Night").


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In Clarke's authorised biography, Neil McAleer writes: "many readers and critics still consider "Childhood's End" Arthur C. Clarke's best novel." But Clarke did not use ESP in any of his later stories, saying, "I've always been interested in ESP, and of course, "Childhood's End "was about that. But I've grown disillusioned, partly because after all this time, they're still arguing about whether these things happen. I suspect that telepathy does happen."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: A collection of early essays was published in "The View from Serendip" (1977), which also included one short piece of fiction, "When the Twerms Came". Clarke also wrote short stories under the pseudonyms of E. G. O'Brien and Charles Willis. Almost all of his short stories can be found in the book "The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke" (2001).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: For much of the later 20th century, Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein were informally known as the "Big Three" of science-fiction writers. Clarke and Heinlein began writing to each other after "The Exploration of Space" was published in 1951, and first met in person the following year. They remained on cordial terms for many years, including during visits to the United States and Sri Lanka.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke and Asimov first met in New York City in 1953, and they traded friendly insults and gibes for decades. They established an oral agreement, the "Clarke–Asimov Treaty", that when asked who was better, the two would say Clarke was the better science-fiction writer and Asimov was the better science writer. In 1972, Clarke put the "treaty" on paper in his dedication to "Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1984, Clarke testified before Congress against the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Later, at the home of Larry Niven in California, a concerned Heinlein attacked Clarke's views on United States foreign and space policy (especially the SDI), vigorously advocating a strong defence posture. Although the two later reconciled formally, they remained distant until Heinlein's death in 1988.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: "", Clarke's most famous work, was extended well beyond the 1968 movie as the Space Odyssey series. In 1982, Clarke wrote a sequel to "2001" titled "", which was made into a film in 1984. Clarke wrote two further sequels which have not been adapted into motion pictures: "" (published in 1987) and "" (published in 1997).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: "2061: Odyssey Three" involves a visit to Halley's Comet on its next plunge through the Inner Solar System and a spaceship crash on the Jovian moon Europa. The whereabouts of astronaut Dave Bowman (the "Star Child"), the artificial intelligence HAL 9000, and the development of native life on Europa, protected by the alien Monolith, are revealed.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Finally, in "3001: The Final Odyssey", astronaut Frank Poole's freeze-dried body, found by a spaceship beyond the orbit of Neptune, is revived by advanced medical science. The novel details the threat posed to humanity by the alien monoliths, whose actions are not always as their builders had intended.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke's first venture into film was "", directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick and Clarke had met in New York City in 1964 to discuss the possibility of a collaborative film project. As the idea developed, they decided to loosely base the story on Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short-story competition. Originally, Clarke was going to write the screenplay for the film, but Kubrick suggested during one of their brainstorming meetings that before beginning on the actual script, they should let their imaginations soar free by writing a novel first, on which they would base the film. "This is more or less the way it worked out, though toward the end, novel and screenplay were being written simultaneously, with feedback in both directions. Thus, I rewrote some sections after seeing the movie rushesa rather expensive method of literary creation, which few other authors can have enjoyed." The novel ended up being published a few months after the release of the movie.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Due to the hectic schedule of the film's production, Kubrick and Clarke had difficulty collaborating on the book. Clarke completed a draft of the novel at the end of 1964 with the plan to publish in 1965 in advance of the film's release in 1966. After many delays, the film was released in the spring of 1968, before the book was completed. The book was credited to Clarke alone. Clarke later complained that this had the effect of making the book into a , and that Kubrick had manipulated circumstances to downplay Clarke's authorship. For these and other reasons, the details of the story differ slightly from the book to the movie. The film contains little explanation for the events taking place. Clarke, though, wrote thorough explanations of "cause and effect" for the events in the novel. James Randi later recounted that upon seeing the premiere of "2001", Clarke left the theatre at the intermission in tears, after having watched an eleven-minute scene (which did not make it into general release) where an astronaut is doing nothing more than jogging inside the spaceship, which was Kubrick's idea of showing the audience how boring space travels could be.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1972, Clarke published "The Lost Worlds of 2001", which included his accounts of the production, and alternative versions of key scenes. The "special edition" of the novel "" (released in 1999) contains an introduction by Clarke in which he documents the events leading to the release of the novel and film.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1982, Clarke continued the "2001" epic with a sequel, "2010: Odyssey Two". This novel was also made into a film, "2010", directed by Peter Hyams for release in 1984. Because of the political environment in America in the 1980s, the film presents a Cold War theme, with the looming tensions of nuclear warfare not featured in the novel. The film was not considered to be as revolutionary or artistic as "2001", but the reviews were still positive.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke's email correspondence with Hyams was published in 1984. Titled "The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010", and co-authored with Hyams, it illustrates his fascination with the then-pioneering medium of email and its use for them to communicate on an almost daily basis at the time of planning and production of the film while living on opposite sides of the world. The book also included Clarke's personal list of the best science-fiction films ever made.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke appeared in the film, first as the man feeding the pigeons while Dr. Heywood Floyd is engaged in a conversation in front of the White House. Later, in the hospital scene with David Bowman's mother, an image of the cover of "Time" portrays Clarke as the American President and Kubrick as the Soviet Premier.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke's award-winning novel "Rendezvous with Rama" (1973) was optioned for filmmaking in the early 21st century but this motion picture was in "development hell" . In the early 2000s, actor Morgan Freeman expressed his desire to produce a movie based on "Rendezvous with Rama". After a drawn-out development process, which Freeman attributed to difficulties in getting financing, it appeared in 2003 that this project might be proceeding, but this was very dubious. The film was to be produced by Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment, and David Fincher has been touted on Revelations' "Rama" web page as far back as 2001 as the film's director. After years of no progress, Fincher stated in an interview in late 2007 (in which he also opined the novel as being influential on the films "Alien" and "") that he is still attached to helm. Revelations indicated that Stel Pavlou had written the adaptation.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In late 2008, Fincher stated the movie is unlikely to be made. "It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, Morgan Freeman's not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen." In 2010, though, the film was announced as still planned for future production and both Freeman and Fincher mentioned it as still needing a worthy script.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In late 2021, it was announced that Denis Villeneuve would direct the adaptation of "Rendezvous with Rama", following the successful and critically praised release of Villeneuve's adaption of Frank Herbert's "Dune". Freeman is listed as a producer.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke published a number of nonfiction books with essays, speeches, addresses, etc. Several of his nonfiction books are composed of chapters that can stand on their own as separate essays.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In particular, Clarke was a populariser of the concept of space travel. In 1950, he wrote "Interplanetary Flight", a book outlining the basics of space flight for laymen. Later books about space travel included "The Exploration of Space" (1951), "The Challenge of the Spaceship" (1959), "Voices from the Sky" (1965), "The Promise of Space" (1968, rev. ed. 1970), and "Report on Planet Three" (1972) along with many others.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: His books on space travel usually included chapters about other aspects of science and technology, such as computers and bioengineering. He predicted telecommunication satellites (albeit serviced by astronauts in space suits, who would replace the satellite's vacuum tubes as they burned out).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: His many predictions culminated in 1958 when he began a series of magazine essays which eventually became "Profiles of the Future," published in book form in 1962. A timetable up to the year 2100 describes inventions and ideas including such things as a "global library" for 2005. The same work also contained "Clarke's First Law" and text that became Clarke's three laws in later editions.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In a 1959 essay, Clarke predicted global satellite TV broadcasts that would cross national boundaries indiscriminately and would bring hundreds of channels available anywhere in the world. He also envisioned a "personal transceiver, so small and compact that every man carries one". He wrote: "the time will come when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth merely by dialing a number." Such a device would also, in Clarke's vision, include means for global positioning so "no one need ever again be lost". Later, in "Profiles of the Future", he predicted the advent of such a device taking place in the mid-1980s. Clarke described a global computer network similar to the modern World Wide Web in a 1964 presentation for the BBC's "Horizon" programme, predicting that, by the 21st century, access to information and even physical tasks such as surgery could be accomplished remotely and instantaneously from anywhere in the world using internet and satellite communication.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In a 1974 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the interviewer asked Clarke how he believed the computer would change the future for the everyday person, and what life would be like in the year 2001. Clarke accurately predicted many things that became reality, including online banking, online shopping, and other now commonplace things. Responding to a question about how the interviewer's son's life would be different, Clarke responded: "He will have, in his own house, not a computer as big as this, [points to nearby computer], but at least, a console through which he can talk, through his friendly local computer and get all the information he needs, for his everyday life, like his bank statements, his theatre reservations, all the information you need in the course of living in our complex modern society, this will be in a compact form in his own house ... and he will take it as much for granted as we take the telephone."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: An extensive selection of Clarke's essays and book chapters (from 1934 to 1998; 110 pieces, 63 of them previously uncollected in his books) can be found in the book "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!" (2000), together with a new introduction and many prefatory notes. Another collection of essays, all previously collected, is "By Space Possessed" (1993). Clarke's technical papers, together with several essays and extensive autobiographical material, are collected in "Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography" (1984).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke contributed to the popularity of the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He first described this in a letter to the editor of "Wireless World" in February 1945 and elaborated on the concept in a paper titled "Extra-Terrestrial RelaysCan Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in "Wireless World" in October 1945. The geostationary orbit is sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: It is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. According to John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, who was involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects, he gave a talk upon the subject in 1954 (published in 1955), using ideas that were "in the air", but was not aware of Clarke's article at the time. In an interview given shortly before his death, Clarke was asked whether he had ever suspected that one day communications satellites would become so important; he replied: "I'm often asked why I didn't try to patent the idea of a communications satellite. My answer is always, 'A patent is really a licence to be sued.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Though different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating via satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book "Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen" ("The Rocket into Interplanetary Space"), and then the idea of radio communication by means of those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written under the pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book "Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraumsder Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space TravelThe Rocket Motor)", sections: "Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety", and (possibly referring to the idea of relaying messages via satellite, but not that three would be optimal) "Observing and Researching the Earth's Surface", published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book "Profiles of the Future".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was an avid scuba diver and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club. In addition to writing, Clarke set up several diving-related ventures with his business partner Mike Wilson. In 1956, while scuba diving, Wilson and Clarke uncovered ruined masonry, architecture, and idol images of the sunken original Koneswaram templeincluding carved columns with flower insignia, and stones in the form of elephant headsspread on the shallow surrounding seabed. Other discoveries included Chola bronzes from the original shrine, and these discoveries were described in Clarke's 1957 book "The Reefs of Taprobane".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1961, while filming off Great Basses Reef, Wilson found a wreck and retrieved silver coins. Plans to dive on the wreck the following year were stopped when Clarke developed paralysis, ultimately diagnosed as polio. A year later, Clarke observed the salvage from the shore and the surface. The ship, ultimately identified as belonging to the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, yielded fused bags of silver rupees, cannon, and other artefacts, carefully documented, became the basis for "The Treasure of the Great Reef". Living in Sri Lanka and learning its history also inspired the backdrop for his novel "The Fountains of Paradise" in which he described a space elevator. This, he believed, would make rocket-based access to space obsolete, and more than geostationary satellites, would ultimately be his scientific legacy. In 2008, he said in an interview with IEEE Spectrum, "maybe in a generation or so the space elevator will be considered equally important" as the geostationary satellite, which was his most important technological contribution.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Themes of religion and spirituality appear in much of Clarke's writing. He said: "Any path to knowledge is a path to Godor Reality, whichever word one prefers to use." He described himself as "fascinated by the concept of God". J. B. S. Haldane, near the end of his life, suggested in a personal letter to Clarke that Clarke should receive a prize in theology for being one of the few people to write anything new on the subject, and went on to say that if Clarke's writings had not contained multiple contradictory theological views, he might have been a menace. When he entered the Royal Air Force, Clarke insisted that his dog tags be marked "pantheist" rather than the default, Church of England, and in a 1991 essay entitled "Credo", described himself as a logical positivist from the age of 10. In 2000, Clarke told the Sri Lankan newspaper, "The Island", "I don't believe in God or an afterlife," and he identified himself as an atheist. He was honoured as a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism. He has also described himself as a "crypto-Buddhist", insisting Buddhism is not a religion. He displayed little interest about religion early in his life, for example, only discovering a few months after marrying that his wife had strong Presbyterian beliefs.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: A famous quotation of Clarke's is often cited: "One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion." He was quoted in "Popular Science" in 2004 as saying of religion: "Most malevolent and persistent of all mind viruses. We should get rid of it as quick as we can." In a three-day "dialogue on man and his world" with Alan Watts, Clarke said he was biased against religion and could not forgive religions for what he perceived as their inability to prevent atrocities and wars over time. In his introduction to the penultimate episode of "Mysterious World", entitled "Strange Skies", Clarke said: "I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers," reflecting the dialogue of the episode, in which he stated this concept more broadly, referring to "mankind". Near the very end of that same episode, the last segment of which covered the Star of Bethlehem, he said his favourite theory was that it might be a pulsar. Given that pulsars were discovered in the interval between his writing the short story, "The Star" (1955), and making "Mysterious World" (1980), and given the more recent discovery of pulsar PSR B1913+16, he said: "How romantic, if even now, we can hear the dying voice of a star, which heralded the Christian era."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke left written instructions for a funeral: "Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Regarding freedom of information Clarke believed, "In the struggle for freedom of information, technology, not politics, will be the ultimate decider."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: globe against the stars." Clarke opposed claims of sovereignty over space stating "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was an anti-capitalist, stating that he did not fear automation because, "the goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Regarding human jobs being replaced by robots, Clarke said: "Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!"


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke supported the use of renewable energy, saying: "I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources... Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Early in his career, Clarke had a fascination with the paranormal and said it was part of the inspiration for his novel "Childhood's End". Citing the numerous promising paranormal claims that were later shown to be fraudulent, Clarke described his earlier openness to the paranormal having turned to being "an almost total sceptic" by the time of his 1992 biography. Similarly, in the prologue to the 1990 Del Rey edition of "Childhood's End", he writes "...after ... researching my "Mysterious World" and "Strange Powers" programmes, I am an almost total skeptic. I have seen far too many claims dissolve into thin air, far too many demonstrations exposed as fakes. It has been a long, and sometimes embarrassing, learning process." During interviews, both in 1993 and 2004–2005, he stated that he did not believe in reincarnation, saying there was no mechanism to make it possible, though "I'm always paraphrasing J. B. S. Haldane: 'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we "can" imagine.'" He described the idea of reincarnation as fascinating, but favoured a finite existence.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was known for hosting several television series investigating the unusual: "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World" (1980), "Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Power" (1985), and "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe" (1994). Topics examined ranged from ancient, man-made artifacts with obscure origins (e.g., the Nazca lines or Stonehenge), to cryptids (purported animals unknown to science), or obsolete scientific theories that came to have alternate explanations (e.g., Martian canals).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke's programmes on unusual phenomena were parodied in a 1982 episode of the comedy series "The Goodies", in which his show is cancelled after it is claimed that he does not exist.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke's work is marked by an optimistic view of science empowering mankind's exploration of the Solar System and the world's oceans. His images of the future often feature a Utopian setting with highly developed technology, ecology, and society, based on the author's ideals. His early published stories usually featured the extrapolation of a technological innovation or scientific breakthrough into the underlying decadence of his own society.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: A recurring theme in Clarke's works is the notion that the evolution of an intelligent species would eventually make them something close to gods. This was explored in his 1953 novel "Childhood's End" and briefly touched upon in his novel "Imperial Earth". This idea of transcendence through evolution seems to have been influenced by Olaf Stapledon, who wrote a number of books dealing with this theme. Clarke has said of Stapledon's 1930 book "Last and First Men" that "No other book had a greater influence on my life ... [It] and its successor "Star Maker" (1937) are the twin summits of [Stapledon's] literary career."


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke was also well known as an admirer of Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, also having corresponded with him until Dunsany's death in 1957. He described Dunsany as "one of the greatest writers of the century".


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: Clarke won the 1963 Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute for the concept of satellite communications, and other honours. He won more than a dozen annual literary awards for particular works of science fiction.


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 1986, Clarke provided a grant to fund the prize money (initially £1,000) for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom in the previous year. In 2001 the prize was increased to £2001, and its value now matches the year (e.g., £2005 in 2005).


title: Arthur C. Clarke

text: In 2005 he lent his name to the inaugural Sir Arthur Clarke Awardsdubbed the "Space Oscars". His brother attended the awards ceremony, and presented an award specially chosen by Arthur (and not by the panel of judges who chose the other awards) to the British Interplanetary Society.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This family of card games also includes the British game of Pontoon, the European game, Vingt-et-Un and the Russian game . Blackjack players do not compete against each other. The game is a comparing card game where each player competes against the dealer.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack's immediate precursor was the English version of "twenty-one" called "Vingt-Un", a game of unknown (but likely Spanish) provenance. The first written reference is found in a book by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes was a gambler, and the protagonists of his "Rinconete y Cortadillo", from "Novelas Ejemplares", are card cheats in Seville. They are proficient at cheating at "veintiuna" (Spanish for "twenty-one") and state that the object of the game is to reach 21 points without going over and that the ace values 1 or 11. The game is played with the Spanish "baraja" deck.


title: Blackjack

text: "Rinconete y Cortadillo" was written between 1601 and 1602, implying that "ventiuna" was played in Castile since the beginning of the 17th century or earlier. Later references to this game are found in France and Spain.


title: Blackjack

text: The first record of the game in France occurs in 1888 and in Britain during the 1770s and 1780s, but the first rules appeared in Britain in 1800 under the name of "Vingt-Un". Twenty-One, still known then as Vingt-Un, appeared in the United States in the early 1800s. The first American rules were an 1825 reprint of the 1800 English rules. English Vingt-Un later developed into an American variant in its own right which was renamed blackjack around 1899.


title: Blackjack

text: According to popular myth, when "Vingt-Un" ("Twenty-One") was introduced into the United States (in the early 1800s, during the First World War, or in the 1930s, depending on the source), gambling houses offered bonus payouts to stimulate players' interest. One such bonus was a ten-to-one payout if the player's hand consisted of the ace of spades and a black jack (either the jack of clubs or the jack of spades). This hand was called a "blackjack", and the name stuck even after the ten-to-one bonus was withdrawn.


title: Blackjack

text: French card historian Thierry Depaulis debunks this story, showing that prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99) gave the name blackjack to the game of American Vingt-Un, the bonus being the usual ace and any 10-point card. Since 'blackjack' also refers to the mineral zincblende, which was often associated with gold or silver deposits, he suggests that the mineral name was transferred by prospectors to the top bonus hand. He could not find any historical evidence for a special bonus for having the combination of an ace with a black jack.


title: Blackjack

text: In September 1956, Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott published a paper titled "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack" in the "Journal of the American Statistical Association"., the first mathematically sound optimal blackjack strategy. This paper became the foundation of future efforts to beat blackjack. Ed Thorp used Baldwin's hand calculations to verify the basic strategy and later published (in 1963) "Beat the Dealer".


title: Blackjack

text: At a blackjack table, the dealer faces five to nine playing positions from behind a semicircular table. Between one and eight standard 52-card decks are shuffled together. To start each round, players place bets in the "betting box" at each position. In jurisdictions allowing back betting, up to three players can be at each position. The player whose bet is at the front of the betting box controls the position, and the dealer consults the controlling player for playing decisions; the other bettors "play behind". A player can usually control or bet in as many boxes as desired at a single table, but an individual cannot play on more than one table at a time or place multiple bets within a single box. In many U.S. casinos, players are limited to playing one to three positions at a table.


title: Blackjack

text: The dealer deals from their left ("first base") to their far right ("third base"). Each box gets an initial hand of two cards visible to the people playing on it. The dealer's hand gets its first card face up, and, in "hole card" games, immediately gets a second card face down (the hole card), which the dealer peeks at but only reveals when it makes the dealer's hand a blackjack. Hole card games are sometimes played on tables with a small mirror or electronic sensor used to peek securely at the hole card. In European casinos, "no hole card" games are prevalent; the dealer's second card is not drawn until the players have played their hands.


title: Blackjack

text: Dealers deal the cards from one or two handheld decks, from a dealer's shoe, or from a shuffling machine. Single cards are dealt to each wagered-on position clockwise from the dealer's left, followed by a single card to the dealer, followed by an additional card to each of the positions in play. The players' initial cards may be dealt face up or face down (more common in single-deck games).


title: Blackjack

text: The object of the game is to win money by creating card totals higher than those of the dealer's hand but not exceeding 21, or by stopping at a total in the hope that the dealer will bust. On their turn, players choose to "hit" (take a card), "stand" (end their turn and stop without taking a card), "double" (double their wager, take a single card, and finish), "split" (if the two cards have the same value, separate them to make two hands), or "surrender" (give up a half-bet and retire from the game).


title: Blackjack

text: Number cards count as their number, the jack, queen, and king ("face cards" or "pictures") count as 10, and aces count as either 1 or 11 according to the player's choice. If the total exceeds 21 points, it busts, and all bets on it immediately lose.


title: Blackjack

text: After the boxes have finished playing, the dealer's hand is resolved by drawing cards until the hand achieves a total of 17 or higher (a dealer total of 17 including an ace valued at 11, also known as a "soft 17", must be drawn to in some games and must stand in others). The dealer never doubles, splits, or surrenders. If the dealer busts, all remaining player hands win. If the dealer does not bust, each remaining bet wins if its hand is higher than the dealer's and loses if it is lower.


title: Blackjack

text: A player total of 21 on the first two cards is a "natural" or "blackjack", and the player wins immediately unless the dealer also has one, in which case the hand ties. In the case of a tie ("push" or "standoff"), bets are returned without adjustment. A blackjack beats any hand that is not a blackjack, even one with a value of 21.


title: Blackjack

text: Wins are paid out at even money, except for player blackjacks, which are traditionally paid out at 3 to 2 odds. Many casinos today pay blackjacks at less than 3:2. This is common in single-deck blackjack games.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack games usually offer a side bet called "insurance", which may be placed when the dealer's face-up card is an ace. Additional side bets, such as "Dealer Match" which pays when the player's cards match the dealer's up card, are also sometimes available.


title: Blackjack

text: After the initial two cards, the player has up to five options: "hit", "stand", "double down", "split", or "surrender". Each option has a corresponding hand signal.


title: Blackjack

text: Hand signals help the "eye in the sky" make a video recording of the table, which resolves disputes and identifies dealer mistakes. It is also used to protect the casino against dealers who steal chips or players who cheat. Recordings can also identify advantage players. When a player's hand signal disagrees with their words, the hand signal takes precedence.


title: Blackjack

text: A hand can "hit" as often as desired until the total is 21 or more. Players must stand on a total of 21. After a bust or a stand, play proceeds to the next hand clockwise around the table. After the last hand is played, the dealer reveals the hole card and stands or draws according to the game's rules. When the outcome of the dealer's hand is established, any hands with bets remaining on the table are resolved (usually in counterclockwise order); bets on losing hands are forfeited, the bet on a push is left on the table, and winners are paid out.


title: Blackjack

text: If the dealer shows an ace, an "insurance" bet is allowed. Insurance is a side bet that the dealer has a blackjack. The dealer asks for insurance bets before the first player plays. Insurance bets of up to half the player's current bet are placed on the "insurance bar" above the player's cards. If the dealer has a blackjack, insurance pays 2 to 1. In most casinos, the dealer looks at the down card and pays off or takes the insurance bet immediately. In other casinos, the payoff waits until the end of the play.


title: Blackjack

text: In face-down games, if a player has more than one hand, they can look at all their hands before deciding. This is the only condition where a player can look at multiple hands.


title: Blackjack

text: Insurance bets lose money in the long run. The dealer has a blackjack less than one-third of the time. In some games, players can also take insurance when a 10-valued card shows, but the dealer has an ace in the hole less than one-tenth of the time.


title: Blackjack

text: The insurance bet is susceptible to advantage play. It is advantageous to make an insurance bet whenever the hole card has more than a one in three chance of being a ten. Card counting techniques can identify such situations.


title: Blackjack

text: "Note: where changes in the house edge due to changes in the rules are stated in percentage terms, the difference is usually stated here in percentage points, not a percentage. For example, if an edge of 10% is reduced to 9%, it is reduced by one percentage point, not reduced by ten percent."


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack rules are generally set by regulations that establish permissible rule variations at the casino's discretion. Blackjack comes with a "house edge"; the casino's statistical advantage is built into the game. Most of the house's edge comes from the fact that the player loses when both the player and dealer bust. Blackjack players using basic strategy lose on average less than 1% of their action over the long run, giving blackjack one of the lowest edges in the casino. The house edge for games where blackjack pays 6 to 5 instead of 3 to 2 increases by about 1.4%, though. Player deviations from basic strategy also increase the house edge.


title: Blackjack

text: Each game has a rule about whether the dealer must hit or stand on soft 17, which is generally printed on the table surface. The variation where the dealer must hit soft 17 is abbreviated "H17" in blackjack literature, with "S17" used for the stand-on-soft-17 variation. Substituting an "H17" rule with an "S17" rule in a game benefits the player, decreasing the house edge by about 0.2%.


title: Blackjack

text: All things being equal, using fewer decks decreases the house edge. This mainly reflects an increased likelihood of player blackjack, since if the player draws a ten on their first card, the subsequent probability of drawing an ace is higher with fewer decks. It also reflects the decreased likelihood of a blackjack-blackjack push in a game with fewer decks.


title: Blackjack

text: Casinos generally compensate by tightening other rules in games with fewer decks, to preserve the house edge or discourage play altogether. When offering single-deck blackjack games, casinos are more likely to disallow doubling on soft hands or after splitting, restrict resplitting, require higher minimum bets, and to pay the player less than 3:2 for a winning blackjack.


title: Blackjack

text: The following table illustrates the mathematical effect on the house edge of the number of decks, by considering games with various deck counts under the following ruleset: double after split allowed, resplit to four hands allowed, no hitting split aces, no surrendering, double on any two cards, original bets only lost on dealer blackjack, dealer hits soft 17, and cut-card used. The increase in house edge per unit increase in the number of decks is most dramatic when comparing the single-deck game to the two-deck game, and becomes progressively smaller as more decks are added.


title: Blackjack

text: Surrender, for those games that allow it, is usually not permitted against a dealer blackjack; if the dealer's first card is an ace or ten, the hole card is checked to make sure there is no blackjack before surrender is offered. This rule protocol is consequently known as "late" surrender. The alternative, "early" surrender, gives the player the option to surrender "before" the dealer checks for blackjack, or in a no-hole card game. Early surrender is much more favorable to the player than late surrender.


title: Blackjack

text: For late surrender, however, while it is tempting to opt for surrender on any hand which will probably lose, the correct strategy is to only surrender on the very worst hands, because having even a one-in-four chance of winning the full bet is better than losing half the bet and pushing the other half, as entailed by surrendering.


title: Blackjack

text: If the cards of a post-split hand have the same value, most games allow the player to split again, or "resplit". The player places a further wager, and the dealer separates the new pair dealing a further card to each as before. Some games allow unlimited resplitting, while others may limit it to a certain number of hands, such as four hands (for example, "resplit to 4").


title: Blackjack

text: After splitting aces, the common rule is that only one card will be dealt to each ace; the player cannot split, double, or take another hit on either hand. Rule variants include allowing resplitting aces or allowing the player to hit split aces. Games allowing aces to be resplit are not uncommon, but those allowing the player to hit split aces are extremely rare. Allowing the player to hit hands resulting from split aces reduces the house edge by about 0.13%; allowing resplitting of aces reduces the house edge by about 0.03%. Note that a ten-value card dealt on a split ace (or vice versa) will not be counted as a blackjack but as a soft 21.


title: Blackjack

text: After a split, most games allow doubling down on the new two-card hands. Disallowing doubling after a split increases the house edge by about 0.12%.


title: Blackjack

text: Under the "Reno rule", doubling down is only permitted on hard totals of 9, 10, or 11 (under a similar European rule, only 10 or 11). The basic strategy would otherwise call for some doubling down with hard 9 and soft 13–18, and advanced players can identify situations where doubling on soft 19–20 and hard 8, 7, and even 6 is advantageous. The Reno rule prevents the player from taking advantage of double down in these situations and thereby increases the player's expected loss. The Reno rule increases the house edge by around 1 in 1,000, and its European version by around 1 in 500.


title: Blackjack

text: In most non-U.S. casinos, a "no hole card" game is played, meaning that the dealer does not draw nor consult their second card until after all players have finished making decisions. With no hole card, it is rarely the correct basic strategy to double or split against a dealer ten or ace, since a dealer blackjack will result in the loss of the split and double bets; the only exception is with a pair of aces against a dealer 10, where it is still correct to split. In all other cases, a stand, hit, or surrender is called for. For instance, holding 11 against a dealer 10, the correct strategy is to double in a hole card game (where the player knows the dealer's second card is not an ace), but to hit in a no-hole card game. The no-hole card rule adds approximately 0.11% to the house edge.


title: Blackjack

text: The "original bets only" rule variation appearing in certain no-hole card games states that if the player's hand loses to a dealer blackjack, only the mandatory initial bet ("original") is forfeited, and all optional bets, meaning doubles and splits, are pushed. "Original bets only" is also known by the acronym OBO; it has the same effect on basic strategy and the house edge as reverting to a hole card game.


title: Blackjack

text: In many casinos, a blackjack pays only 6:5 or even 1:1 instead of the usual 3:2. This is most common at tables with lower table minimums. Although this payoff was originally limited to single-deck games, it has spread to double-deck and shoe games. Among common rule variations in the U.S., these altered payouts for blackjack are the most damaging to the player, causing the greatest increase in house edge. Since blackjack occurs in approximately 4.8% of hands, the 1:1 game increases the house edge by 2.3%, while the 6:5 game adds 1.4% to the house edge. Video blackjack machines generally pay a 1:1 payout for a blackjack.


title: Blackjack

text: The rule that bets on tied hands are lost rather than pushed is catastrophic to the player. Though rarely used in standard blackjack, it is sometimes seen in "blackjack-like" games such as in some charity casinos.


title: Blackjack

text: Each blackjack game has a basic strategy, the optimal method of playing any hand. When using basic strategy, the long-term house advantage (the expected loss of the player) is minimized.


title: Blackjack

text: An example of a basic strategy is shown in the table below, which applies to a game with the following specifications:


title: Blackjack

text: Most basic strategy decisions are the same for all blackjack games. Rule variations call for changes in only a few situations. For example, to use the table above on a game with the stand-on soft 17 rule (which favors the player, and is typically found only at higher-limit tables today) only 6 cells would need to be changed: hit on 11 "vs." A, hit on 15 "vs." A, stand on 17 "vs." A, stand on A,7 "vs." 2, stand on A,8 "vs." 6, and split on 8,8 "vs." A. Regardless of the specific rule variations, taking insurance or "even money" is never the correct play under a basic strategy.


title: Blackjack

text: Estimates of the house edge for blackjack games quoted by casinos and gaming regulators are based on the assumption that the players follow basic strategy.


title: Blackjack

text: Most blackjack games have a house edge of between 0.5% and 1%, placing blackjack among the cheapest casino table games for the player. Casino promotions such as complimentary matchplay vouchers or 2:1 blackjack payouts allow players to acquire an advantage without deviating from basic strategy.


title: Blackjack

text: The basic strategy is based on a player's point total and the dealer's visible card. Players can sometimes improve on this decision by considering the composition of their hand, not just the point total. For example, players should ordinarily stand when holding 12 against a dealer 4. But in a single deck game, players should hit if their 12 consists of a 10 and a 2. The presence of a 10 in the player's hand has two consequences:


title: Blackjack

text: Even when basic and composition-dependent strategies lead to different actions, the difference in expected reward is small, and it becomes smaller with more decks. Using a composition-dependent strategy rather than a basic strategy in a single-deck game reduces the house edge by 4 in 10,000, which falls to 3 in 100,000 for a six-deck game.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack has been a high-profile target for advantage players since the 1960s. Advantage play attempts to win more using skills such as memory, computation, and observation. While these techniques are legal, they can give players a mathematical edge in the game, taking advantage of players' unwanted customers for casinos. Advantage play can lead to ejection or blacklisting. Some advantageous play techniques in blackjack include:


title: Blackjack

text: During the course of a blackjack shoe, the dealer exposes the dealt cards. Players can infer from their accounting of the exposed cards which cards remain. These inferences can be used in the following ways:


title: Blackjack

text: A card counting system assigns a point score to each card rank (e.g., 1 point for 2–6, 0 points for 7–9, and −1 point for 10–A). When a card is exposed, a counter adds the score of that card to a running total, the 'count'. A card counter uses this count to make betting and playing decisions. The count starts at 0 for a freshly shuffled deck for "balanced" counting systems. Unbalanced counts are often started at a value that depends on the number of decks used in the game.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack's house edge is usually between 0.5%–1% when players use basic strategy. Card counting can give the player a house edge over up to minus 2%.


title: Blackjack

text: Card counting works best when a few cards remain. This makes single-deck games better for counters. As a result, casinos are more likely to insist that players do not reveal their cards to one another in single-deck games. In games with more decks, casinos limit penetration by ending the shoe and reshuffling when one or more decks remain undealt. Casinos also sometimes use a shuffling machine to reintroduce the cards whenever a deck has been played.


title: Blackjack

text: Card counting is legal unless the counter is using an external device, but a casino might inform counters that they are no longer welcome to play blackjack. Sometimes a casino might ban a card counter from the property.


title: Blackjack

text: Another advantage play technique, mainly applicable in multi-deck games, involves tracking groups of cards (also known as slugs, clumps, or packs) through the shuffle and then playing and betting according to when those cards come into play from a new shoe. Shuffle tracking requires excellent eyesight and powers of visual estimation but is harder to detect; shuffle trackers' actions are largely unrelated to the composition of the cards in the shoe.


title: Blackjack

text: Arnold Snyder's articles in "Blackjack Forum" magazine brought shuffle tracking to the general public. His book, "The Shuffle Tracker's Cookbook", mathematically analyzed the player edge available from shuffle tracking based on the actual size of the tracked slug. Jerry L. Patterson also developed and published a shuffle-tracking method for tracking favorable clumps of cards and cutting them into play and tracking unfavorable clumps of cards and cutting them out of play.


title: Blackjack

text: The player can also gain an advantage by identifying cards from distinctive wear markings on their backs, or by hole carding (observing during the dealing process the front of a card dealt face down). These methods are generally legal although their status in particular jurisdictions may vary.


title: Blackjack

text: The side wager is typically placed in a designated area next to the box for the main wager. A player wishing to wager on a side bet usually must place a wager on blackjack. Some games require that the blackjack wager should equal or exceed any side bet wager. A non-controlling player of a blackjack hand is usually permitted to place a side bet regardless of whether the controlling player does so.


title: Blackjack

text: The house edge for side bets is generally higher than for the blackjack game itself. Nonetheless, side bets can be susceptible to card counting. A side count designed specifically for a particular side bet can improve the player's edge. Only a few side bets, like "Insurance" and "Lucky Ladies", offer a sufficient win rate to justify the effort of advantage play.


title: Blackjack

text: In team play, it is common for team members to be dedicated to only counting a side bet using a specialized count.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack can be played in tournament form. Players start with an equal number of chips; the goal is to finish among the top chip holders. Depending on the number of competitors, tournaments may be held over several rounds, with one or two players qualifying from each table after a set number of deals to meet the qualifiers from the other tables in the next round. Another tournament format, Elimination Blackjack, drops the lowest-stacked player from the table at pre-determined points in the tournament. A good strategy for blackjack tournaments can differ from a non-tournament strategy because of the added dimension of choosing the amount to be wagered. As in poker tournaments, players pay the casino an initial entry fee to participate in a tournament, and re-buys are sometimes permitted.


title: Blackjack

text: Some casinos, as well as general betting outlets, provide blackjack among a selection of casino-style games at electronic consoles. Video blackjack game rules are generally more favorable to the house; e.g., paying out only even money for winning blackjacks. Video and online blackjack games generally deal each round from a fresh shoe (i.e., use an RNG for each deal), rendering card counting ineffective in most situations.


title: Blackjack

text: Blackjack is a member of the family of traditional card games played recreationally worldwide. Most of these games have not been adapted for casino play. Furthermore, the casino game development industry actively produces blackjack variants, most of which are ultimately not adopted by casinos. The following are the most prominent and established variants in casinos.


title: Blackjack

text: Examples of local traditional and recreational related games include French "Vingt-et-un" ("Twenty-One") and German "Siebzehn und Vier" ("Seventeen and Four"). Neither game allows splitting. An ace counts only eleven, but two aces count as a blackjack. It is mostly played in private circles and barracks. The popular British member of the Vingt-Un family is called Pontoon, the name being probably a corruption of "Vingt-et-un".


title: Blackjack

text: In 2002, professional gamblers worldwide were invited to nominate great blackjack players for admission into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Seven members were inducted in 2002, with new people inducted every year after. The Hall of Fame is at the Barona Casino in San Diego. Members include Edward O. Thorp, author of the 1960s book "Beat the Dealer"; Ken Uston, who popularized the concept of team play; Arnold Snyder, author and editor of the "Blackjack Forum" trade journal; and Stanford Wong, author and popularizer of "Wonging".


title: Masters of the Air

text: Masters of the Air is an upcoming American war drama miniseries based on the actions of the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It is being produced by Playtone, Parliament of Owls and Amblin Television, which also made its precursors "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific".


title: Masters of the Air

text: Reports of a third World War II based miniseries in the same vein as "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg began in October 2012, focusing on United States Army Air Forces aircrews of the Mighty Eighth. In January 2013, HBO confirmed it was developing the miniseries, based on Donald L. Miller's book "Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany".


title: Masters of the Air

text: In October 2019, it was reported that Apple had made a deal with Spielberg's and Hanks's respective production companies to stream the series exclusively on Apple TV+ instead of HBO. HBO confirmed that it decided not to move forward with the series in a statement. "Deadline Hollywood" reported the series contains ten episodes at a production cost of over $200 million, while "The Hollywood Reporter" said it contains nine episodes at a production cost of $250 million. The website Footsteps Research reported the series would focus on the 100th Bombardment Group of the Eighth Air Force.


title: Masters of the Air

text: In October 2020, Cary Joji Fukunaga was announced to be directing the first three episodes of the series. In February 2021, Austin Butler and Callum Turner were cast to star in the series. Anthony Boyle and Nate Mann joined the cast in March, with Raff Law, James Murray and Tommy Jessop added in April. Freddy Carter revealed his casting in a May interview, while set photos revealed Barry Keoghan was also cast. In June, Dee Rees was announced as directing episodes of the series. In July, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were also announced as directing episodes. Colleen Atwood will serve as costume designer.


title: Masters of the Air

text: In February 2021, it was reported that production in Britain had begun, at Dalton Barracks in Oxfordshire, England. Retrospective temporary 12 month planning permission has been applied for at Newland Park, Chalfont St Peter, following the construction of a WWII barracks on the site. Filming paused briefly in July due to positive COVID-19 tests. Production also occurred in Hemel Hempstead.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Suns are the only team in their division not to be based in California, and play their home games at the Footprint Center. The Suns are one of four major league sports teams based in the Phoenix area, but are the only one to bill themselves as representing the city (the other teams - the Cardinals, Coyotes, and Diamondbacks - all bill themselves as representing the state of Arizona).


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The franchise began play in 1968 as an expansion team, and their early years were shrouded in mediocrity, but their fortunes changed in the 1970s after partnering Dick Van Arsdale and Alvan Adams with Paul Westphal; the team reached the 1976 NBA Finals, in what is considered to be one of the biggest upsets in NBA history. However, after failing to capture a championship, the Suns would rebuild around Walter Davis for a majority of the 1980s, until the acquisition of Kevin Johnson in 1988.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: Under Johnson, and after trading for perennial NBA All-Star Charles Barkley, and combined with the output of Tom Chambers and Dan Majerle, the Suns reached the playoffs for a franchise-record thirteen consecutive appearances and remained a regular title contender throughout the 1990s, and reached the 1993 NBA Finals. However, the team would again fail to win a championship, and entered into another period of mediocrity until the early part of the 2000s.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In 2004, the Suns signed free agent Steve Nash (who had blossomed for the Dallas Mavericks after being traded from Phoenix six years earlier), and returned into playoff contention. With Nash, Shawn Marion, and Amar'e Stoudemire, and under head coach Mike D'Antoni, the Suns became renowned worldwide for their quick, dynamic offense, which led them to tie a franchise record in wins in the 2004–05 season. Two more top two Conference placements followed, but the Suns again failed to attain an NBA championship, and were forced into another rebuild. After ten consecutive seasons without a playoff berth, the Suns reached the 2021 NBA Finals after acquiring Chris Paul, forming a quartet with their young core of Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns own the NBA's fifth-best all-time winning percentage, and have the second highest winning percentage of any team to have never won an NBA championship. 11 Hall of Famers have played for Phoenix, while two — Barkley and Nash — won NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) while playing for the team.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns were one of two franchises to join the NBA at the start of the 1968–69 season, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks from Milwaukee. They were the first major professional sports franchise in the Phoenix market and in the entire state of Arizona, and remained the only one for the better part of 20 years (a Phoenix Roadrunners team played in the World Hockey Association from 1974 to 1977) until the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League relocated from St. Louis in 1988. The Suns played their first 24 seasons at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, called the "Madhouse on McDowell", located slightly northwest of downtown Phoenix. The franchise was formed by an ownership group led by Karl Eller, owner of a public enterprise, the investor Donald Pitt, Don Diamond, Bhavik Darji, Marvin Meyer, and Richard L. Bloch. Other owners with a minority stake consisted of entertainers, such as Andy Williams, Bobbie Gentry and Ed Ames. There were many critics, including then-NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy, who said that Phoenix was "too hot," "too small," and "too far away" to be considered a successful NBA market. This was despite the fact that the Phoenix metropolitan area was growing rapidly, and the Suns would have built-in geographical foes in places like in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: After continual prodding by Bloch (who became president of the Phoenix Suns), in 1968 the NBA Board of Governors granted franchises to Phoenix and Milwaukee on January 22, 1968, with an entry fee of $2 million. The Suns nickname was among 28,000 entries that were formally chosen in a name-the-team contest sponsored by "The Arizona Republic", with the winner awarded $1,000 and season tickets for the inaugural season. Suns was preferred over Scorpions, Rattlers, Thunderbirds, Wranglers, Mavericks, Tumbleweeds, Mustangs and Cougars. Stan Fabe, who owned a commercial printing plant in Tucson, designed the team's first iconic logo for a mere $200; this was after the team paid $5,000 to a local artist to design the team's logo. However, they were disappointed with the results.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In the 1968 NBA expansion draft, notable Suns' pickups were future Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich and Dick Van Arsdale.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: Jerry Colangelo, then a player scout, came over from the Chicago Bulls, a franchise formed two years earlier, as the Suns' first general manager at the age of 28, along with Johnny "Red" Kerr as head coach. Unlike the first-year success that Colangelo and Kerr had in Chicago, in which the Bulls finished with a first-year expansion record of 33 wins and a playoff berth (plus a Coach of the Year award for Kerr), Phoenix finished its first year at 16–66, and finished 25 games out of the final playoff spot.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: Both Goodrich and Van Arsdale were selected to the All-Star Game in their first season with the Suns. Goodrich returned to his former team, the Lakers, after two seasons with the Suns, but Van Arsdale spent the rest of his playing days as a Sun and a one-time head coach for Phoenix.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns' last-place finish that season led to a coin flip for the number-one overall pick for the 1969 NBA draft with the expansion-mate Bucks. Milwaukee won the flip, and the rights to draft UCLA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), while Phoenix settled on drafting center Neal Walk from Florida. The 1969–70 season posted better results for the Suns, finishing 39–43, but losing to the eventual Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. The next two seasons (1970–71 and 1971–72), the Suns finished with 48- and 49-win seasons, but did not qualify for the playoffs in either year, and did not reach the playoffs again until 1976. The major draw for the franchise in this era was the dramatic play of Connie Hawkins.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The 1975–76 season proved to be a pivotal year for the Suns as they made several key moves, including the off-season trade of former All-Star guard Charlie Scott to the Boston Celtics in exchange for guard Paul Westphal, a member of Boston's 1974 championship team. They also drafted center and eventual fan favorite Alvan Adams from the University of Oklahoma and guard Ricky Sobers of UNLV. The Suns and Buffalo Braves made a midseason trade, with Phoenix sending forward/center John Shumate to Buffalo in exchange for forward Garfield Heard.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: Phoenix had an inconsistent regular season, starting out at 14–9 (then the best start in team history), then went 4–18 during a stretch where the team sustained several injuries (including Dick Van Arsdale breaking his right arm in a February game). The Suns then went 24–13 in the final 37 games to finish 42–40, clinching their first playoff spot since 1970. The Suns faced the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, winning the series four games to two, and beat the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, four games to three, to advance to their first NBA Finals.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns faced an experienced Celtics team, led by eventual Hall of Famers Dave Cowens, John Havlicek and Jo Jo White. Game five of the 1976 NBA Finals took place at Boston Garden, where the Suns came back from a 22-point first-half deficit to force overtime. Havlicek made what was supposed to be a game-winning basket, but due to fans rushing the floor before time officially expired, officials put one second back on the clock with Phoenix having possession of the ball, but under their own basket. Instead of attempting a desperation heave, the Suns' Westphal intentionally called a timeout that they did not have, a technical foul, giving the Celtics a free throw, which Jo Jo White converted to put them up 112–110. However, this advanced the ball to half-court, and once the Suns had possession, Garfield Heard made a buzzer-beating turnaround jump shot to force a third overtime. The Suns' hard-fought battle was short-lived, as Boston's reserve player Glenn McDonald scored six of his eight points in the third overtime to lead the Celtics to a 128–126 win. Boston eventually won the series in six games, clinching the championship at the Coliseum, defeating Phoenix in game six, 87–80.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Suns enjoyed several successful seasons, making the playoffs eight seasons in a row. Problems arose on and off the court in the mid-1980s. In 1987, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office indicted 13 people on drug-related charges, three of whom were active Suns' players James Edwards, Jay Humphries and Grant Gondrezick. These indictments were partially based on testimony from star player Walter Davis, who was given immunity. No defendants ever went to trial: two of the players went into a prosecution diversion program, while another received probation. Nevertheless, the scandal, although now perceived in many respects to be a witch hunt tarnished the reputation of the franchise both nationally and within the community. The scandal did provide an opening for general manager Jerry Colangelo to lead a group that bought the team from its owners for $44 million at the start of the 1987–88 season, a record at that time. With a drug scandal and the loss of promising young center Nick Vanos, who was killed in the crash of Northwest Airlines Flight 255, the franchise was in turmoil both on and off the court.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns' luck began to turn around in 1988 with the acquisition of Kevin Johnson from the Cleveland Cavaliers, along with Mark West and Tyrone Corbin, for All-Star power forward Larry Nance and Mike Sanders. This was the beginning of a franchise-record 13 consecutive playoff appearances. All-Star Tom Chambers came over from the Seattle SuperSonics (the first unrestricted free agent in NBA history), 1986 second-round draft pick Jeff Hornacek continued to develop, and "Thunder" Dan Majerle was drafted with the 14th pick in the 1988 draft. Kurt Rambis was added from the Charlotte Hornets in 1989, and the team upset the Los Angeles Lakers in five games during the playoffs that season, before falling to the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference Finals. In 1990–91, the Suns went 55–27 but lost in the first round to the Utah Jazz, 3–1. In 1991–92, the Suns went 53–29. Having sent four players to the All-Star Game in the previous two seasons (Chambers, Johnson, Hornacek, and Majerle), the Suns swept the San Antonio Spurs in three games in the first round of the 1992 NBA playoffs. The Suns then were defeated in five games to the Trail Blazers in the Conference Semifinals. The series was punctuated by a game four in which the Suns lost in double overtime 153–151 (the highest-scoring game in NBA playoff history to date). That game was the last Suns game ever played at the Coliseum.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In 1992, the Suns moved into their new arena in downtown Phoenix, the America West Arena. The arena is occasionally referred to as the "Purple Palace" due to its purple seats, one of the Suns' colors. All-Star power forward Charles Barkley was traded from the Philadelphia 76ers for Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang, and Tim Perry. Barkley went on to win the MVP award that 1992–93 season.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In addition to Barkley, the Suns added key players to their roster, including Danny Ainge and draftees Arkansas center Oliver Miller and forward Richard Dumas (who was actually drafted in 1991 but was suspended for his rookie year for violating the NBA drug policy).


title: Phoenix Suns

text: Under rookie head coach Paul Westphal, a former Suns assistant and player with the 1976 Suns in the NBA Finals, the Suns won 62 games in 1992–93, setting a franchise record. In the first round of the playoffs, they defeated the eighth-seeded Lakers, coming back from a 0–2 deficit in the five-game series. The Suns then eliminated the Spurs and SuperSonics, advancing to the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history. They eventually lost to the Chicago Bulls, led by eventual Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. The series also included a triple-overtime game in game three, making this and their previous game five in the 1976 series the only triple-overtime games in the history of the NBA Finals. Approximately 300,000 fans braved the 105° heat to celebrate the memorable season in the downtown streets of Phoenix after the Finals had ended.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The Suns continued to be successful in the regular season, going 178–68 during the 1992–93, 1993–94, and 1994–95 seasons. They continued to bolster their roster by adding players such as A. C. Green, Danny Manning, Wesley Person, Wayman Tisdale, and Elliot Perry. Despite a Pacific Division title in 1995, the Suns were eliminated in consecutive Western Conference Semifinal rounds by the Houston Rockets, both series going a full seven games. Manning was rarely at full strength with the Suns, injuring his ACL in 1995 just before the All-Star break. In both years, the Suns led the series by two games at one point (2–0 in 1994, 3–1 in 1995) only to see the Rockets come back to win each series.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: At the end of the 1994–95 season, Phoenix general manager Bryan Colangelo, the son of Jerry, initiated an eventually costly trade, sending the All-Star Majerle and a first-round draft pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for John "Hot Rod" Williams. Majerle was a fan favorite in Phoenix and in the Suns' locker room. The trade was made to address the Suns' need of a shot-blocking center but Majerle's presence was missed and Williams's production never met expectations.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: The 1995–96 season was a disappointing year for the Suns, despite drafting NBA All-Rookie First Team member Michael Finley, who became unavailable for the playoffs due to injury. The Suns posted a 41–41 record and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs. Westphal was fired midway through the season and replaced by Fitzsimmons, his third stint as head coach. A combination of front office unrest, along with the dwindling possibility of winning a championship, led to turmoil in Barkley's relationship with Jerry Colangelo, who both spurned each other publicly. This led to Barkley being traded to Houston for Sam Cassell, Robert Horry, Mark Bryant, and Chucky Brown. Three of the four players were not with the franchise one year later, and two of the most talented players (Horry and Cassell) constantly clashed with the coach and seemed to be a negative influence in the locker room.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: In the 1996 NBA draft, the Suns used their 15th pick for Santa Clara guard Steve Nash. Upon hearing the draft announcement, Suns fans booed in disapproval of the relatively unknown player, because he had not played in one of the major college conferences. During his first two seasons in the NBA, he played a supporting role behind star point guards Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson.


title: Phoenix Suns

text: After the Barkley trade, the Suns began the 1996–97 season 0–13, a franchise record for the worst start. During the 13-game losing streak, Fitzsimmons stepped down as the coach and was replaced by former player Danny Ainge.