title: Culture Club

text: On 19 July 2014, the band were among the line-up for a two-hour concert in Edinburgh Castle, ahead of the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Hay did not perform with the band because he was in recovery after having knee surgery. The band played two songs, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" and "Karma Chameleon" which were shown on BBC TV.


title: Culture Club

text: In mid-November 2014, two days before the start of their 21-date US and UK tour, Culture Club announced they had to cancel the tour due to George suffering from a serious throat condition. The cancelled tour would have represented the full original line-up's first tour in 12 years. The North American tour was eventually rescheduled and started on 17 July 2015 in Canada. A television documentary, "Boy George and Culture Club: Karma to Calamity", aired on BBC Four on 6 March 2015. The programme documented the band's reunion in 2014 and the making of their new album in Spain, up to the announcement to cancel the tour. Based on the popularity of 2015's mini-tour, Culture Club began a 40-city summer tour in 2016. The major success of this tour culminated in a DVD/CD/Blu-ray release, "Live At Wembley: World Tour 2016".


title: Culture Club

text: In August 2016, the band announced that the album "Tribes" was permanently shelved, and offered refunds to all those who had pre-ordered the album online.


title: Culture Club

text: In 2018, Culture Club toured the US and Europe from June to December. Dubbed "The Life Tour", the band toured in support of their namesake album, along with supporting acts The B-52s, Tom Bailey (formerly of The Thompson Twins) and Belinda Carlisle (Europe dates only). Jon Moss was originally part of the line-up, but did not participate in the European leg of the tour. A spokeswoman for Boy George confirmed: "Jon's taking a break from Culture Club but the door is open in the future." In December 2019, Moss filed a writ at London's High Court naming the band trio as defendants. Moss' lawyers say he was told to "take a break" by manager Paul Kemsley, demanding nearly £200,000 in missing payments and a share of profits. Jon Moss officially left Culture Club in May 2021.


title: Culture Club

text: Culture Club returned to the SSE Arena in Wembley on 19 December 2020 for a livestream concert broadcast around the world, in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Titled "Rainbow in the Dark", the concert saw the band play their classic hits, new material, including a new ballad version of "Karma Chameleon", featuring Mila, and covers of T. Rex's "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" and George's solo cover of Bread's "Everything I Own".


title: Culture Club

text: Culture Club's sound combines British new wave and American soul with Jamaican reggae and also other styles as calypso, salsa or country.


title: Culture Club

text: "Philadelphia Daily News" described Culture Club as a hot new rock act, while William K Knoedelseder Jr from "Los Angeles Times" said about the group, "Boy George of Culture Club, a rock group MTV helped make popular", adding that, "There's some debate in the record industry about MTV's ability to directly increase record sales across the board but there's no doubt that the channel has been responsible for exposing such rock artists as Def Leppard, Duran Duran and Men at Work to a national audience..."


title: Culture Club

text: In the 1980s, Boy George said about the music style of his band Culture Club, "We play rock 'n' roll and I love rock 'n' roll music but I don't like the lifestyle. I don't like people tipping beer over their heads... I just hate rock 'n' roll in that way. It's disgusting and boring. I look at what we're doing as very intelligent."


title: Culture Club

text: Stephen Holden, music critic for "The New York Times", said in his article "Rock: British Culture Club", that "Culture Club blends soul, rock, funk, reggae and salsa into a music that programmatically reconciles white, black and Latin styles", adding that, "Mr. O'Dowd made the group's best songs – the Motown-flavoured "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and the Latin-inflected dance tune "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" – shine like jewels."


title: Culture Club

text: Star-News considered Culture Club as a 'new rock' band of the 1980s; the newspaper said "Now you see the more rhythm-oriented, 'new rock of the 80s,' like Culture Club and the Eurythmics, fitting in more easily with urban contemporary formats."


title: Culture Club

text: Stephen Thomas Erlewine, senior editor for AllMusic, described specifically Culture Club as a new wave band and generically as the most successful pop/rock group in America and England during the 1980s, adding that, "By 1986, the group had broken up, leaving behind several singles that rank as classics of the new wave era."


title: Culture Club

text: The music of Culture Club is described by George as, "The aim is to be creatively fluid to make everything we do a little different. We want to be a bridge between white rock and black soul", adding that, "I want Culture Club to represent all peoples and minorities".


title: Culture Club

text: The band was part of the second British rock invasion of the 1980s in the United States, as R. Serge Denisoff and William L. Schurk said in their book "Tarnished gold: the record industry revisited", "Here comes the rock and roll of 1984. The invaders were a mixed bunch led by Culture Club, whose sound has been described as 'recycled Smokey Robinson' or 'torchy American schmaltz and classic Motown'", adding that, "Boy George's drag-queen appearance made the group a natural for the visual demands of cable television".


title: Culture Club

text: In her book "Magazines for children: a guide for parents, teachers, and librarians", author Selma K. Richardson said that Culture Club's music is soft rock that contains, "enough soul and new wave elements to cover almost all audiences".


title: Culture Club

text: N.B.: Each of the first four songbooks includes a detailed official biography, which is each time updated: this way, such songbooks, corresponding to the band's first four albums, chronicle the early official biography of Culture Club, from 1982 to 1986.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: Midnight in the Switchgrass is a 2021 American crime thriller film directed by Randall Emmett in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Alan Horsnail. It stars Megan Fox, Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch, Lukas Haas, Colson Baker and Lydia Hull.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: It was released in limited theaters and VOD on July 23, 2021, by Lionsgate and was critically panned upon release.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: Based on the true story of Texas' most dangerous serial killer with the dramatization translocated to Florida. FBI agent Karl Helter and his partner, Rebecca Lombardo, are very close to busting a sex-trafficking ring. When they realize their investigation has crossed the path of a brutal serial killer, they team up with Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Byron Crawford who has years on this case. When Rebecca herself is abducted by their target and her life hangs in the balance, Byron has precious few hours to piece together the last clues and put an end to the infamous "Truck Stop Killer".


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: On January 22, 2020, it was announced that film producer Randall Emmett would make his directorial debut on the film, with Emile Hirsch set to star. Megan Fox and Bruce Willis were cast on February 16, with filming beginning on March 9 in Pensacola, FL.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: On March 12, 2020, Lukas Haas, Colson Baker, Sistine Stallone, Caitlin Carmichael, Michael Beach, Welker White, Alec Monopoly and Jackie Cruz joined the cast of the film.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: On March 16, production on the film was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production on the film resumed on June 29.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: "Midnight in the Switchgrass" had its world premiere on June 13, 2021, at the Tampa Theatre where it was the closing night film of the Gasparilla International Film Festival. In attendance were Randall Emmett, Alan Horsnail, Timothy C. Sullivan, Lukas Haas, Emile Hirsch, Caitlin Carmichael, and Katalina Viteri. The screening was followed by a 40-minute Q & A moderated by Tyler Martinolich.


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: The film was later released in limited theaters and VOD on July 23, 2021, by Lionsgate. Megan Fox did not attend the film's Los Angeles premiere citing concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Machine Gun Kelly didn't respond, but on Twitter he mentioned that when he doesn't talk about a movie, it's because it's trash. In response, Emile Hirsch posted a screenshot of Machine Gun Kelly's tweet on Instagram saying:"We definitely disagree here, Colson![Machine Gun Kelly] Nothing but respect to you guys though - especially because you and Megan are so f#*king great in this movie."


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 8% approval rating, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 3.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Dull and predictable, "Midnight in the Switchgrass" squanders an evocative setting and some committed performances on a would-be thriller that rarely raises a sweat." On Metacritic, it has a score of 24 out of 100, based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: Robert Kojder of Flickering Myth said that "the fact that "Midnight in the Switchgrass" is an all-around terrible movie comes as no surprise, but there is a sting since for star Megan Fox, it's coming off a career-best and physically impressive performance in "Till Death."" Jackie K. Cooper rated the film 5 out of 10 saying that "Megan Fox steals the show while Bruce Willis is missing in action."


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: In his review for "The New York Times", Ben Kenigsberg said that "the atmosphere is thoroughly sleazy without being distinctive, and everything about the movie - the emotionless line readings, the half-baked back stories - exudes a terse functionality."


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: Waldemar Dalenogare Neto rated the film 2 out of 10 saying that it is one of the "most generic thrillers of the year (...) I really don't know yet what the purpose of this film is other than the fact that it tries to profit from Megan Fox's image and Bruce Willis". In a positive review for the "San Jose Mercury News", Randy Myers said that "it's worth a watch if you like serial killer thrillers but don't expect to see anything revolutionary going on."


title: Midnight in the Switchgrass

text: Jesse Hassenger was less complimentary in his review for "Paste Magazine" saying that it looks like the filmmakers are trying to punish Megan Fox for her performance in "Till Death", and concluded: "It's entirely because of Fox that "Switchgrass" stays compelling far longer than it should, raising vain hopes that she'll be able to work it into something pulpier and more defined. Despite the eventual disappointment, I hope she sticks with genre fare a bit longer, and finds some more shackles to break."


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The Seal of Solomon or Ring of Solomon (, '; , ') is the legendary signet ring attributed to the Israelite king Solomon in medieval mystical traditions, from which it developed in parallel within Jewish mysticism, Islamic mysticism and Western occultism. It is the predecessor to the Star of David, the contemporary cultural and religious symbol of the Jewish people.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: It was often depicted in the shape of either a pentagram or a hexagram. In religious lore, the ring is variously described as having given Solomon the power to command the supernatural, including ' and ', and also the ability to speak with animals. Due to the proverbial wisdom of Solomon, it came to be seen as an amulet or talisman, or a symbol or character in medieval magic and Renaissance magic, occultism, and alchemy.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The varied traditions refer to a seal, stamp or die, utilized to mark an impression often or most frequently by means of a signet ring owned, possessed or fabricated by King Solomon and was thus referred to as the "Seal of Solomon" or "Solomon's Seal". The mark it made left either the name of God or that of a hexagram and was used to attest to the authority of its bearer, often to magical effect.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The name "Solomon's seal" was given to the hexagram engraved on the bottom of drinking-cups in Arab tradition. In the "Arabian Nights" (chapter 20), Sindbad presented Harun al-Rashid with such a cup, on which the "Table of Solomon" was engraved.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The earliest references to Solomon's seal / signet stem from within Jewish traditions. It is first mentioned by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, and is similarly referenced by the third-century Jewish magical text Sefer HaRazim and then again finds expression in an aggadic section of the Tractate Gittin within the Babylonian Talmud as well. In parallel a first century Greek manual of Judeo-Christian magic known as Testament of Solomon also makes reference to the Seal of Solomon.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The tradition of Solomon's Seal later made its way into Islamic Arab sources, as Gershom Scholem (the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah) attests "It is difficult to say for how long certain definite names have been used for several of the most common seals. The Arabs made many such terms especially popular, but just the names Seal of Solomon and Shield of David, which are often used interchangeably for the two emblems, go back to pre-Islamic Jewish magic. They did not originate among the Arabs who, incidentally, know only the designation Seal of Solomon."


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The legend of the Seal of Solomon was developed primarily by medieval Middle Eastern writers, who related that the ring was engraved by God and was given to the king directly from heaven. The ring was made from brass and iron, and the two parts were used to seal written commands to good and evil spirits, respectively. In one tale, a demon — either "Asmodeus" or "Sakhr" — obtained possession of the ring and ruled in Solomon's stead for forty days. In a variant of the tale of the ring of Polycrates from Herodotus, the demon eventually threw the ring into the sea, where it was swallowed by a fish, caught by a charitable fisherman, who unknowingly fed it to the displaced Solomon, restoring him to power.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: A legend of a magic ring with which the possessor could command demons was already current in the 1st century (Josephus telling of one Eleazar who used such a ring in the presence of Vespasian), but the association of the name of Solomon with such a ring is likely medieval notwithstanding the 2nd century apocryphal text the Testament of Solomon. The Tractate Gittin (fol. 68) of the Talmud has a story involving Solomon, Asmodeus, and a ring with the divine name engraved: Solomon gives the ring and a chain to one Benaiahu son of Jehoiada to catch the demon Ashmedai, to obtain the demon's help to build the temple; Ashmedai later tricks Solomon into giving him the ring and swallows it.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The specification of the design of the seal as a hexagram seems to arise from a medieval Arab tradition, and most scholars assume that the symbol entered the Kabbalistic tradition of medieval Spain from Arabic literature. The representation as a pentagram, by contrast, seems to arise in the Western tradition of Renaissance magic (which was in turn strongly influenced by medieval Arab and Jewish occultism); W. Kennett (1660–1728) makes reference to a "pentangle of Solomon" with the power of exorcising demons.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: Hexagrams feature prominently in Jewish esoteric literature from the early medieval period, and it has been hypothesized that the tradition of Solomon's Seal may possibly predate Islam and date to early Rabbinical esoteric tradition, or to early alchemy in Hellenistic Judaism in 3rd century Egypt.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: The hexagram or "Star of David", which became a symbol of Judaism in the modern period and was placed on the flag of Israel in 1948, has its origins in 14th century depictions of the Seal of Solomon.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: In 1354, King of Bohemia Charles IV prescribed for the Jews of Prague a red flag with both David's shield and Solomon's seal, while the red flag with which the Jews met King Matthias of Hungary in the 15th century showed two pentagrams with two golden stars.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: Lippmann Moses Büschenthal (d. 1818) wrote a tragedy with the title "Der Siegelring Salomonis" ("the signet-ring of Solomon"). An "Order of the Seal of Solomon" was established in 1874 in Ethiopia, where the ruling house claimed descent from Solomon.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: In many representations of the Seal of Solomon, the two triangles are interlaced giving the appearance of a 3-dimensional figure. This was said in the Testament of Solomon to make demons confused and dizzy, unable to do Solomon any harm.


title: Seal of Solomon

text: In Islamic eschatology, some believe that the Beast of the Earth, which should appear near the Last Judgment day, will come bearing "the Seal of Solomon", and will use the latter to stamp the noses of the unbelievers.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Natalie Anne Merchant (born October 26, 1963) is an American alternative rock singer-songwriter. She joined the band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and was lead vocalist and primary lyricist for the group. She remained with the group for their first seven albums and left it to begin her solo career in 1993. She has since released seven studio albums as a solo artist.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Natalie Merchant was born October 26, 1963, in Jamestown, New York, the third of four children of Anthony and Anne Merchant. Her paternal grandfather, who played the accordion, mandolin and guitar, immigrated to the United States from Sicily; his surname was "Mercante" before it was Anglicized.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: When Merchant was a child, her mother listened to music (primarily Petula Clark but also the Beatles, Al Green, Aretha Franklin) and encouraged her children to study music, but would not allow television after Natalie was 12. "I was taken to the symphony a lot because my mother loved classical music. But I was dragged to see Styx when I was 12. We had to drive 100 miles to Buffalo, New York. Someone threw up next to me and people were smoking pot. It was terrifying. I remember Styx had a white piano which rose out of the stage. It was awe-inspiring and inspirational." "She [her mother] had show tunes, she had the soundtrack from "West Side Story" and "South Pacific". And then eventually... she'd always liked classical music and then she married a jazz musician, so that's the kind of music I was into. I never really had friends who sat around and listened to the stereo and said 'hey, listen to this one', so I'd never even heard of who Bob Dylan was until I was 18." Merchant says she did not have a television set between 1988 and 1989: "I grew up in a house where no one watched the news on television and no one read the paper. I've been discovering these things as I get older, and the news has affected me more than it ever has before."


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant started working in a health food store at 16. She considered a career in special education after taking part in a summer program for disabled children, but in 1981 she started singing for a band, Still Life, that became 10,000 Maniacs.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant was lead singer and primary lyricist for 10,000 Maniacs, joining in its infancy in 1981 while she was a student at Jamestown Community College. The group recorded their first album "Human Conflict Number Five", and recorded a corresponding music video at the Hotel Franklin and at Group W Westinghouse studios in Jamestown, New York, in 1982. Merchant sang lead vocals, and later played the piano as well on seven studio albums with 10,000 Maniacs. In 1993 she announced that she was leaving the group, citing a lack of creative control over the music she wrote with the band. Her last recording with the band, a cover of Bruce Springsteen's and Patti Smith's "Because the Night" at the 10,000 Maniacs "MTV Unplugged" performance, reached #11 on the Hot 100 chart on February 18, 1994; becoming the band's highest-charting song in the U.S.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: After her split with 10,000 Maniacs, Merchant was so eager to begin writing her own material that she went home that very day and composed the song "I May Know the Word", which was originally meant to appear on the soundtrack to the Tom Hanks movie "Philadelphia". The song was eventually cut from the soundtrack, but it would go on to appear on Merchant's debut solo album, "Tigerlily", which was released on the Elektra label in 1995.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: The third song on the album, "Beloved Wife", was featured as the first song in the trailer for the film "Message in a Bottle".


title: Natalie Merchant

text: "Tigerlily" was a critical and commercial success, spawning her first top-ten hit in the single "Carnival", and achieving top-40 success with subsequent singles "Wonder" and "Jealousy". The album would go on to sell over five million copies, and continues to be Merchant's most successful album to date. She did extensive touring for it and made numerous television appearances, including performances on "Saturday Night Live", at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and on late-night talk shows. The media's immediate and critical effect on culture and cultural icons was of particular interest to Merchant. In "River", a song from "Tigerlily", Merchant defends River Phoenix as she castigates the media for systematically dissecting the child actor after his death.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Three years passed before Merchant released her second solo effort, "Ophelia". While "Tigerlily" contained sparse instrumentation, the music on "Ophelia" had lusher arrangements. The reprise at the close of the album featured a symphonic arrangement composed and conducted by British composer Gavin Bryars with whom she would collaborate nine years later to put Shakespeare's sonnets to music. Merchant treated the recording of "Ophelia" as a series of workshops, where she would invite various musicians she had met over the years into her home studio to collaborate and record. While "Ophelia" is not a concept record in the traditional sense, the name of the album and the title track are a literary reference to Shakespeare's Ophelia.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: The first single off the album was a happy and uncharacteristically simple song called "Kind and Generous", which received massive airplay on VH1 and which solidified Merchant's role as a bona fide solo artist. That summer, Sarah McLachlan invited Merchant to co-headline the year's biggest music festival with her, Lilith Fair. The exposure from the tour helped the album reach Platinum status in just under a year, with subsequent singles "Break Your Heart" and "Life Is Sweet" receiving moderate airplay on adult contemporary stations. No video was filmed for the latter, however, with a clip from Merchant's appearance on "VH1 Storytellers" being used instead. She would also go on to appear on PBS' "Sessions at West 54th" and VH1's "Hard Rock Live" before the year's end. In 1998, Merchant also recorded George Gershwin's "But Not for Me" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album "Red Hot + Rhapsody", a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: The "Ophelia" tour ended in 1999 with the final few shows being performed and recorded on Broadway. The performance would be released as the album "Natalie Merchant: Live in Concert" with a companion video of the same name. The performance was notable in that it featured numerous covers including songs by David Bowie, Neil Young, and Katell Keineg.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 1998, Merchant collaborated on the making of the album "Mermaid Avenue" with Billy Bragg and Wilco, which set previously unreleased Guthrie lyrics to music by Bragg. She provided lead vocals for the song "Birds and Ships" and backing vocals for "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key", and returned for the second volume of the album, 2000s "Mermaid Avenue Vol. II", providing vocals on the song "I Was Born".


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 2000, Merchant embarked on a folk tour in the United States with many shows being supported by alt-country band Wilco.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant's next studio album on the Elektra label was "Motherland", released in 2001. "Motherland" saw Merchant at her most experimental musically. "Motherland" achieved Gold on the Billboard charts after debuting at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 and No. 13 on the Top Internet Albums of 2001, respectively. "Rolling Stone" favored this album with 3½ stars, and also noticed a difference in Merchant's voice, which was more deep and gritty like that of Sade than her previous albums. Singles that were released from "Motherland" were "Just Can't Last", "Build a Levee" and "Tell Yourself".


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant embarked on a year-and-a-half-long world tour to promote "Motherland". The first leg of the tour started in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 17, 2001, with performances across the United States, and heading to Europe with some special acoustic shows in Europe. Merchant also participated in the Rock am Ring Festival and Rock im Park in 2002. In the summer of 2002, she was paired with Chris Isaak and played at stadiums and arenas.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: After her contract with Elektra expired in August 2002, Merchant decided not to sign with them again, or any other major label. Her next studio album, "The House Carpenter's Daughter", was released in September 2003 on her own label, Myth America Records. To date this has been the only release on Myth America.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In October 2009, the websites of Nonesuch Records and Natalie Merchant announced that she had signed with the label. "Leave Your Sleep" was released on April 13, 2010 and is a compilation of five years of inspiration from a "conversation" with her daughter over the "first 6 years of her life". The album debuted on the Billboard Top 200 at No. 17, Billboard Folk Albums at No. 1, Amazon.com at No.1, and iTunes, No. 3. The album was co-produced by Andres Levin.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant contributed a cover of Buddy Holly's "Learning the Game" to the tribute album "", released September 6, 2011.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In February 2014, Merchant announced her eponymous album. The album consists of new works. It is her first collection of original material since 2001's "Motherland". "Natalie Merchant" was released May 6, 2014, on Nonesuch Records and was named Album of the Week by "The Daily Telegraph." The album debuted at #20 on "Billboard"s Top 200 albums and #2 on "Billboard"s Folk Albums charts for the week of May 24, 2014. She toured from July 3, 2014, kicking off in Kingston, New York, concluding at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee on July 25, 2014.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 2015, Merchant released an album of new recordings of the songs from her multi-platinum solo album. She enhanced many of the tracks with strings and stripped others bare. She says, "The distance this music traveled once it left my hands is humbling, and I am moved by how many lives it has touched along the way."


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 2017, Merchant released "Butterfly", a collection of new songs and orchestral versions of previously recorded songs.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: On November 29, 2022, Merchant announced that she will release her eighth studio album, "Keep Your Courage", on April 14, 2023 via Nonesuch Records. The album will be Merchant's first of new material since her 2014 eponymous album "Natalie Merchant".


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant met Michael Stipe of the band R.E.M. in 1983. The two became close friends and eventually had a romantic relationship. The two credit each other as inspirations for some of their songwriting. In an interview with "The Independent", Stipe said "Natalie was really the reason my work became politicised in the late Eighties."


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 2003, Merchant married Daniel de la Calle and had a daughter named Lucia. In an interview in 2012, she indicated that she was divorced.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant enjoys gardening and painting. Some of her paintings can be seen on her website. She has been a vegetarian since 1980, except for the duration of her pregnancy when she temporarily resumed eating meat. In 1997, she said:


title: Natalie Merchant

text: In 2012, Merchant, along with actor and writer Mark Ruffalo, organized a concert to protest oil and gas fracking in New York state. A documentary, written and directed by Jon Bowermaster, was made of the event and titled "Dear Governor Cuomo". She directed a short 2013 documentary titled "Shelter: A Concert Film to Benefit Victims of Domestic Violence", that shone light on a group of women living in the mid-Hudson region of New York State responding to the crisis of domestic violence in their community with compassion and creativity. It was inspired by an event for One Billion Rising, a global campaign calling for an end to violence against women, held on February 14, 2013. Merchant presented a screening of the film at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston, New York, on the day of One Billion Rising for Justice.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant, an outspoken critic of then-President-elect Donald Trump, participated in an anti-Trump protest organized by Mark Ruffalo and Michael Moore, held outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City on January 19, 2017. Merchant performed her single "Motherland". She concluded the event with a group sing-along of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land". The event was covered by CNN and broadcast live.


title: Natalie Merchant

text: Merchant is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism and has worked with them in the past on awareness campaigns.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Wheel of Fortune (often known simply as Wheel) is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show has aired continuously since January 1975. The show features a competition in which contestants solve word puzzles, similar to those used in hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a giant carnival wheel. The current version of the series, which airs in nightly syndication, premiered on September 19, 1983. It stars Pat Sajak and Vanna White as host and co-host. The original version of "Wheel" was a network daytime series that originally ran on NBC from January 6, 1975, to June 30, 1989, and subsequently aired on CBS from July 17, 1989, to January 11, 1991; it returned to NBC on January 14, 1991, and was cancelled that year, ending on September 20, 1991. (The network daytime and syndicated nighttime versions aired concurrently with each other from 1983 until the former's conclusion.)


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The network version was originally hosted by Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford. Woolery left in 1981, and was replaced by Sajak. Sajak left the network version in January 1989 to host his own late-night talk show, while remaining as host of the nighttime "Wheel". Sajak was replaced in daytime by Rolf Benirschke, who was in turn replaced by Bob Goen when the network show moved to CBS. Goen remained as host for the second NBC run. Stafford left in 1982, and was replaced by White, who remained on the network show for the rest of its run. Sajak and White have hosted the nighttime version since its inception in 1983. The show has also had four announcers in its history: Charlie O'Donnell, Jack Clark, M. G. Kelly, and Jim Thornton.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Two spin-off versions exist as well. The first was "Wheel 2000", a version featuring child contestants which aired simultaneously on CBS and Game Show Network between 1997 and 1998. This version's hosts were David Sidoni and Tanika Ray, the latter in the role of a CGI hostess named "Cyber Lucy". The second, "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", began airing on ABC on January 7, 2021.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" ranks as the longest-running syndicated game show in the United States, with 7,000 episodes taped and aired as of May 10, 2019. "TV Guide" named it the "top-rated syndicated series" in a 2008 article, and in 2013, the magazine ranked it at No. 2 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever. The program has also come to gain a worldwide following with 60 international adaptations. The syndicated series' 40th season premiered on September 12, 2022, and Sajak became the longest-running host of any game show, surpassing Bob Barker, who hosted "The Price Is Right" from 1972 to 2007.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" is based on hangman. In each round, three players compete to be the first to guess all of the unknown words in a word puzzle, which is displayed visually on a board containing 52 spaces. At the start of each round, the host reveals the category. Crossword puzzles were added to the rotation in 2016. In such rounds, the host gives a clue bonding the words in the puzzle instead of a category. Contestants win by solving all the words in the crossword by saying them in any order, as long as all of the words are said without any repetition or additional words.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The titular Wheel of Fortune is a roulette-style wheel with 24 wedges. Most wedges are labeled with dollar amounts ranging from $500 to $900, with a top value in each round: $2,500 in round 1, $3,500 in rounds 2 and 3, and $5,000 for round 4 and any subsequent rounds. The wheel also features two Bankrupt wedges and one Lose a Turn wedge. Landing on either forfeits the contestant's turn, with the Bankrupt wedge also eliminating any cash or prizes the contestant has accumulated within the round.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Most matches consist of three contestants, although some variants feature three teams of two people each. Contestants in control spin the wheel to determine a dollar value, then guess a consonant. Landing on a dollar amount and calling a correct letter results in the hostess revealing every instance of that letter and awards the value of the spin multiplied by the number of times the letter appears in the puzzle. Calling a correct consonant allows the contestant to spin again, buy a vowel for a flat rate of $250 (until no more remain in the puzzle), or attempt to solve the puzzle. Control passes to the next contestant clockwise if the contestant lands on Lose a Turn or Bankrupt, calls a letter not in the puzzle, calls a letter already called in that round, fails to call a letter, or attempts unsuccessfully to solve the puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Each game also features five toss-up puzzles, which reveal the puzzle one random letter at a time and award cash to whoever rings in with the right answer. The first, worth $1,000, determines who the host interviews first. The second, worth $2,000, determines who spins first in round one. The third through fifth, collectively the "Triple Toss-Up", take place prior to the fourth round. In the Triple Toss-Up round, three consecutive puzzles are played, each with the same category and a common theme. Solving any awards $2,000 cash, while solving the third also earns the right to start the fourth round. Beginning in 2021, an additional $4,000 is awarded for a total of $10,000 if the same contestant solves all three. In "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", each Triple Toss-Up puzzle is worth $5,000. Contestants may only ring in once for each toss-up puzzle, and no cash is awarded if all three contestants fail to solve; if this occurs, then the contestant at the red arrow controls the next portion of the game. In addition to the toss-ups, each game has a minimum of four rounds, with more played if time permits. Rounds 2 and 3 are respectively started by the next two contestants clockwise from the contestant who began round 1.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In the first three rounds, the wheel contains two special tokens which are claimed by calling a correct letter. The first is the Wild Card, which allows the opportunity to call a second letter after a correct letter for the same value as the present spin; it may also be taken to the bonus round and used to select an extra consonant. The other is the Gift Tag, which awards $1,000 credit to a sponsored company. There is also a special wedge which offers a pre-determined prize, typically a trip or credit to a company, if claimed. All three of these also offer $500 per correct letter. The first three rounds also contain a special wedge which, if won and taken to the bonus round, offers an opportunity to play for $1 million. A contestant must solve the puzzle in order to keep any cash, prizes, or extras accumulated during that round except for the Wild Card. Bankrupt does not affect score from previous rounds, but it takes away the Wild Card and/or million dollar wedge if either was claimed in a previous round. Contestants who solve a round for less than $1,000 in cash and prizes ($2,000 on weeks with two-contestant teams) have their scores increased to that amount. In " Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", each round features a cash bonus if the celebrity solves a puzzle: $5,000 in Round 1, $10,000 in Round 2 and $20,000 in Round 3 (and additional rounds in the second game).


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Round 2 features two "mystery wedges." Calling a correct letter on one offers the chance to accept its face value of $1,000 per letter, or forfeit that to flip over the wedge and see whether its reverse side contains a $10,000 cash prize or Bankrupt. Once one is flipped over, the other becomes a standard $1,000 space and cannot be flipped. In Round 2 of every game of "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", a home viewer will have to enter the puzzle solution to enter the contest for a chance to win $10,000. Round 3, or the final round of the first game in "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" starting from Season 3, is a prize puzzle, which offers a prize (usually a trip) to the contestant who solves. Starting from Season 3 of "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", a home viewer will have to enter the name of the celebrity who solved the puzzle to enter the contest for a chance to win a trip. Starting in 2013, an "Express" wedge is also placed on the wheel in round 3. A contestant who lands on this space and calls a consonant that appears in the puzzle receives $1,000 per appearance. The contestant can then either "pass" and continue the round normally, or "play" and keep calling consonants for $1,000 each (without spinning) and buying vowels for $250. Express play ends when the contestant either calls an incorrect letter (which has the same effect as landing on a Bankrupt wedge) or solves the puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The final round of every game, or the second game in "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", is always played at least in part as a "speed-up", which is indicated by a bell sounding. At this point, the contestant who is in control of the wheel takes the "final spin". Prior to Season 39, the host performed the final spin. When the final spin lands on a dollar amount, that amount has $1,000 added to create the value of a consonant for the rest of the game, and vowels are free. If the final spin lands on anything that is not a dollar amount, it is edited from the broadcast and another one is performed until one lands on a dollar amount. The contestant in control calls one letter and has three seconds to attempt solving after doing so. Calling a wrong or repeated letter, or failing to solve within three seconds, passes control to the next contestant clockwise, and this process repeats until the puzzle is solved.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: After the speed-up round, the contestant with the highest total winnings wins the game and advances to the bonus round. Contestants who did not solve any puzzles are awarded a consolation prize of $1,000 (or $2,000 on weeks with two-contestant teams; $30,000 in "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" for the combined total after the second game, regardless of solving a puzzle). In the first game of each episode of "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", the final spin does not occur, in which it is only done in the second game. Scores are also reset at the start of second game and are contributed for a combined total.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: If a tie for first place occurs after the speed-up, an additional toss-up puzzle is played between the tied contestants. The contestant who solves the toss-up puzzle wins $1,000 and advances to the bonus round.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Since 2017, the winning contestant chooses one of three puzzle categories before the round begins (prior to 2017, the category and puzzle were predetermined). After doing so, the contestant spins a smaller wheel with 24 envelopes to determine the prize. The puzzle is revealed, as is every instance of the letters R, S, T, L, N, and E. The contestant provides three more consonants and one more vowel, plus a fourth consonant if he or she has the Wild Card. After any instances of those letters are revealed, the contestant has 10 seconds to solve the puzzle; he or she may make multiple guesses, as long as the entire answer is started before time expires. Whether or not the contestant solves the puzzle, the host opens the envelope at the end of the round to reveal the prize at stake. Prizes in the bonus round include various cash amounts (with the lowest being the season number multiplied by $1,000), a vehicle (or two vehicles during weeks with two-contestant teams), and a top prize of $100,000. In Home Sweet Home Week, another top prize was added, in a form of a house, courtesy of Latitude Margaritaville, worth $375,000 ($350,000 in Season 35 and 36) for participants aged 55 or over, and with a smaller option for other contestants, or a cash alternative, which can be won by getting the special House wedge, in the same vein as the million dollar wedge in Seasons 35 to 38. Starting in Season 39, two house envelopes will be on the prize wheel (one house envelope will always be in the prize wheel, regardless of possession of the House wedge). In "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", the prizes are all cash amounts for the celebrity's charity, which includes $25,000, $50,000, $75,000, and $100,000.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: If the contestant has the Million Dollar Wedge, the $100,000 envelope (or one of four in "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune") is replaced with a $1,000,000 envelope. The $1,000,000 prize has been awarded four times overall (three from the regular version and one from "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune") to Michelle Loewenstein (Regular version; October 14, 2008), Autumn Erhard (Regular version; May 30, 2013), Sarah Manchester (Regular version; September 17, 2014), and Melissa Joan Hart (Youth Villages) ("Celebrity Wheel of Fortune"; October 17, 2021). In the regular version, contestants who win the $1,000,000 may receive it in installments over 20 years, or in a lump sum of that amount's present value. If the bonus round wheel's spin did not land on the $1,000,000 envelope, the host reveals the location of the $1,000,000 envelope after the bonus round.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Originally, after winning a round, contestants spent their winnings on prize showcases that were presented onstage. At any time during a shopping round, a contestant could choose to put his or her winnings either on a gift certificate or "on account" for use in a later shopping round. Money put "on account" was lost if the contestant hit Bankrupt or failed to solve another puzzle. The shopping element was eliminated from the syndicated version on the episode that aired October 5, 1987, both to speed up gameplay and to alleviate the taxes paid by contestants. However, the network version continued to use shopping until the end of its first NBC run on June 30, 1989.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Before the introduction of toss-up puzzles in 2000, the contestant at the red arrow always started the first round, with the next contestant clockwise starting each subsequent round. In addition, ties for first place were broken by another speed-up round. If a tie for first place occurred on the daytime version, all three players returned to continue the game on the next episode, and it counted as a single appearance. The wheel formerly featured a Free Spin wedge, which automatically awarded a token that the contestant could turn in after a lost turn to keep control of the wheel. It was replaced in 1989 with a single Free Spin token placed over a selected cash wedge. Free Spin was retired in 2009. From 2009 to 2021, landing on the Free Play was a wedge that allowed a contestant to call any consonant or a free vowel and keep his or her turn even if the letter was not in the puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Between September 16, 1996 and 2013, the show featured a progressive Jackpot wedge, which had been in several different rounds in its history. The jackpot began at $5,000 and had the value of every spin within the round added to it. To claim the jackpot, a contestant had to land on the wedge, call a correct letter, and solve the puzzle all in the same turn. In later years, it also offered $500 per correct letter and $500 to the jackpot, regardless of whether or not it was won in that turn.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The network version allowed champions to appear for up to five days originally, which was later reduced to three. The syndicated version, which originally retired contestants after one episode, adopted the three-day champion rule in 1989. In 1996, this was changed to have the top three winners from the week's first four shows returned to compete in the "Friday Finals". When the jackpot wedge was introduced, it began at $10,000 instead of $5,000 on Fridays. The rules allowing returning champions were eliminated permanently beginning with the syndicated episode aired September 21, 1998, and contestants appear only on a single episode, reverting to the pre-1989 rules.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Before December 1981, the show did not feature a permanent bonus round. However, two experimental bonus rounds were attempted before then. In 1978, some episodes featured a round known as the "Star Bonus", where a star-shaped token was placed on the wheel. Contestants who picked up the token played an additional round at the end of the game to win one of four prizes, whose value determined the difficulty of the puzzle. The contestant provided four consonants and a vowel, and was given 15 seconds to attempt solving. In one week of episodes airing in March 1980, contestants who won the main game were given 30 seconds to attempt solving a puzzle for a chance to win a luxury automobile, in a week called "Super Wheel Bonus Week". When the current bonus round was introduced in 1981, no letters were provided automatically. The contestant asked for five consonants and a vowel, and then had fifteen seconds to attempt solving the puzzle. Also, bonus prizes were selected by the contestant at the start of the round. The current time limit and rules for letter selection were introduced on October 3, 1988. Starting on September 4, 1989, bonus prizes were selected by the contestant choosing from one of five envelopes labeled W, H, E, E, and L. One prize was always $25,000 in cash, and the rest were changed weekly. Any prize that was won was taken out of rotation for the rest of the week. From 1998 to 2001, the $25,000 remained in-place for each episode during the entire week, regardless if it was won. In 2001, three car envelopes and two $25,000 envelopes were available the entire week of shows. These envelopes were replaced with the bonus wheel on October 22, 2001.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Merv Griffin conceived "Wheel of Fortune" using inspiration from hangman, which he would play with his sister on family road trips. After he discussed the idea with Merv Griffin Enterprises' staff, they thought that the idea would work as a game show if it had a "hook". He decided to add a roulette-style wheel because he was always "drawn to" such wheels when he saw them in casinos. He and Merv Griffin Enterprises' then-president Murray Schwartz consulted an executive of Caesars Palace to find out how to build such a wheel.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: When Griffin pitched the idea for the show to Lin Bolen, then the head of NBC's daytime programming division, she approved, but wanted the show to have more glamour to attract the female audience. She suggested that Griffin incorporate a shopping element into the gameplay, and so, in 1973, he created a pilot episode titled "Shopper's Bazaar", with Chuck Woolery as host and Mike Lawrence as announcer. The pilot started with the three contestants being introduced individually, with Lawrence describing the prizes that they chose to play for. The main game was played to four rounds, with the values on the wheel wedges increasing after the second round. Unlike the show it evolved into, "Shopper's Bazaar" had a vertically mounted wheel, which was spun automatically rather than by the contestants. This wheel lacked the Bankrupt wedge and featured a wedge where a contestant could call a vowel for free, as well as a "Your Own Clue" wedge that allowed contestants to pick up a rotary telephone and hear a private clue about the puzzle. At the end of the game, the highest-scoring contestant played a bonus round called the "Shopper's Special" where all the vowels in the puzzle were already there, and the contestant had 30 seconds to call out consonants in the puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Edd Byrnes, an actor from "77 Sunset Strip", served as host for the second and third pilots, both titled "Wheel of Fortune". These pilots were directed by Marty Pasetta, who gave the show an aesthetic that more closely resembled the look and feel that the actual show ended up having, a wheel that was now spun by the contestants themselves, and a lighted mechanical puzzle board with letters that were now manually turnable. Showcase prizes on these pilots were located behind the puzzle board, and during shopping segments a list of prizes and their price values scrolled on the right of the screen. By the time production began in December 1974, Woolery was selected to host, the choice being made by Griffin after he reportedly heard Byrnes reciting "A-E-I-O-U" to himself in an effort to remember the vowels. Susan Stafford turned the letters on Byrnes' pilot episodes, a role that she also held when the show was picked up as a series.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The original host of "Wheel of Fortune" was Chuck Woolery, who hosted the series from its 1975 premiere until December 25, 1981, save for one week in August 1980 when Alex Trebek hosted in his place. Woolery's departure came over a salary dispute with show creator Merv Griffin, and his contract was not renewed. On December 28, 1981, Pat Sajak made his debut as the host of "Wheel". Griffin said that he chose Sajak for his "odd" sense of humor. NBC president and CEO Fred Silverman objected as he felt Sajak, who at the time of his hiring was the weatherman for KNBC, was "too local" for a national audience. Griffin countered by telling Silverman he would stop production if Sajak was not allowed to become host, and Silverman acquiesced.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Sajak hosted the daytime series until January 9, 1989, when he left to host a late-night talk show for CBS. Rolf Benirschke, a former placekicker in the National Football League, was chosen as his replacement and hosted for a little more than five months. Benirschke's term as host came to an end due to NBC's cancellation of the daytime "Wheel" after fourteen years, with its final episode airing on June 30, 1989. When the newly formatted daytime series returned on CBS on July 17, 1989, Bob Goen became its host. The daytime program continued for a year and a half on CBS, then returned to NBC on January 14, 1991, and continued until September 20, 1991, when it was cancelled for a second and final time.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Susan Stafford was the original hostess, serving in that role from the premiere until October 1982. Stafford was absent for two extended periods, once in 1977 after fracturing two vertebrae in her back and once in 1979 after an automobile accident. During these two extended absences, former Miss USA Summer Bartholomew was Stafford's most frequent substitute, with model Cynthia Washington and comedian Arte Johnson also filling in for Stafford.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: After Stafford left to become a humanitarian worker, over two hundred applicants signed up for a nationwide search to be her replacement. Griffin eventually narrowed the list to three finalists, which consisted of Summer Bartholomew, former "Playboy" centerfold Vicki McCarty, and Vanna White. Griffin gave each of the three women an opportunity to win the job by putting them in a rotation for several weeks after Stafford's departure. In December 1982, Griffin named White as Stafford's successor, saying that he felt she was capable of activating the puzzle board letters (which is the primary role of the "Wheel" hostess) better than anyone else who had auditioned. White became highly popular among the young female demographic, and also gained a fanbase of adults interested in her daily wardrobe, in a phenomenon that has been referred to as "Vannamania". White also hosted the daytime version until its cancellation in 1991, except for one week in June 1986 when Stafford returned so that White could recover after her fiancé, John Gibson, died in a plane crash.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Sajak and White have starred on the syndicated version continuously as host and hostess, respectively, since it began, except for very limited occasions. During two weeks in January 1991, Tricia Gist, the girlfriend and future wife of Griffin's son Tony, filled in for White when she and her new husband, restaurateur George San Pietro, were honeymooning. Gist returned for the week of episodes airing March 11 through 15, 1991, because White had a cold at the time of taping. On an episode in November 1996, when Sajak proved unable to host the bonus round segment because of laryngitis, he and White traded places for that segment. On the March 4, 1997 episode, Rosie O'Donnell co-hosted the third round with White after O'Donnell's name was used in a puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: On April 1, 1997, Sajak and Alex Trebek traded jobs for the day. Sajak hosted that day's edition of "Jeopardy!" in place of Trebek. Trebek presided over a special two-contestant "Wheel" celebrity match between Sajak and White, who were playing for the Boy Scouts of America and the American Cancer Society, respectively. Lesly Sajak, Pat's wife, was the guest hostess for the day. In January and February 2011, the show held a "Vanna for a Day" contest in which home viewers submitted video auditions to take White's place for one episode, with the winner determined by a poll on the show's website. The winner of this contest, Katie Cantrell of Wooster, Ohio (a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design), took White's place for the second and third rounds on the episode that aired March 24, 2011.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In November 2019, three weeks of episodes were taped with White hosting in Sajak's place while he recovered from intestinal surgery. During her time as hostess, several guests appeared at the puzzle board, including costumed performers of Mickey and Minnie Mouse (during the Secret Santa shows), and Maggie Sajak (Sajak's daughter). Maggie joined the show as a special correspondent, making appearances similar to the "Clue Crew" on companion program "Jeopardy!", in September 2021.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Charlie O'Donnell was the program's first and longest tenured announcer. In 1980, NBC was discussing cancelling "Wheel" and O'Donnell agreed to take the position as announcer on "The Toni Tennille Show". The network decided against the cancellation but O'Donnell decided to honor his commitment and left the series. His replacement was Jack Clark, who added the syndicated series to his responsibilities when it premiered in 1983 and announced for both series until his death in July 1988. Los Angeles radio personality M. G. Kelly was Clark's replacement, starting on the daytime series in August 1988 and on the syndicated series a month later. Kelly held these positions until O'Donnell was able to return to the announcer position, doing so after his duties with Barris Industries came to an end at the end in 1989. O'Donnell remained with the series until shortly before his death in November 2010. Don Pardo, Don Morrow, and Johnny Gilbert have occasionally served as substitute announcers.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: After O'Donnell's death, the producers sought a permanent replacement, and a series of substitutes announced, including Gilbert, John Cramer, Joe Cipriano, Rich Fields, Lora Cain, and Jim Thornton. In 2011, Thornton was chosen to be the show's fourth announcer. In season 39, Thornton appeared on-camera at the start of every episode.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" typically employs a total of 100 in-house production personnel, with 60 to 100 local staff joining them for those episodes that are taped on location. Griffin was the executive producer of the network version throughout its entire run, and served as the syndicated version's executive producer until his retirement in 2000. Since 1999, the title of executive producer has been held by Harry Friedman, who had shared his title with Griffin for his first year, and had earlier served as a producer starting in 1995.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: On August 1, 2019, Sony Pictures Television announced that Friedman would retire as executive producer of both "Wheel" and "Jeopardy!" at the end of the 2019–20 season. On August 29, 2019, Sony Pictures Television announced that Mike Richards would replace Friedman at the start of 2020–21 season. Following Richards' earlier resignation as permanent host of "Jeopardy!", he was fired on August 31, 2021, from his executive producer position at both "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel". A Sony memo indicated that Michael Davies from Embassy Row would serve as interim executive producer of both "Wheel" and "Jeopardy!"; however, Davies was not credited on any episodes of "Wheel", and "Deadline" subsequently reported that supervising producer Steve Schwartz oversaw the balance of the show's 39th season. Sajak was named a consulting producer in September 2021. On March 23, 2022, Bellamie Blackstone was announced to be a permanent executive producer for "Wheel", with Schwartz getting promoted to co-executive producer.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: John Rhinehart was the program's first producer, but departed in August 1976 to become NBC's West Coast Daytime Program Development Director. Afterwards, his co-producer, Nancy Jones, was promoted to sole producer, and served as such until 1995, when Friedman succeeded her. In 1997, Karen Griffith and Steve Schwartz joined Friedman as producers. They were later promoted to supervising producers, with Amanda Stern occupying Griffith's and Schwartz's former position.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The show's original director was Jeff Goldstein, who was succeeded by Dick Carson (a brother of Johnny Carson) in 1978. Mark Corwin, who had served as associate director under Carson, took over for him upon his retirement at the end of the 1998–99 season, and served as such until he himself died in July 2013 (although episodes already taped before his death continued airing until late 2013). "Jeopardy!" director Kevin McCarthy, Corwin's associate director Bob Cisneros, and "Wheel" and "Jeopardy!" technical director Robert Ennis filled in at various points, until Cisneros became full-time director in November 2013. Ennis returned as guest director for the weeks airing October 13 through 17 and November 17 through 21, 2014, as Cisneros was recovering from neck surgery at the time of taping. On September 14, 2015, Ennis was promoted to full-time director.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" is owned by Sony Pictures Television (previously known as Columbia TriStar Television, the successor company to original producer Merv Griffin Enterprises). The production company and copyright holder of all episodes to date is "Califon Productions, Inc.", which like SPT has Sony Pictures for its active registered agent, and whose name comes from a New Jersey town where Griffin once owned a farm. The rights to distribute the show worldwide are owned by CBS Media Ventures, into which original distributor King World Productions was folded in 2007.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" originally taped at NBC Studios in Burbank. The first fourteen years of the daytime series, as well as the first six of the syndicated series, emanated from Studio 4.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: At the conclusion of the 1988–89 television season, which saw NBC drop the daytime series from its lineup, "Wheel" left Burbank and production moved to CBS Television City in Los Angeles. Both the nightly series and a relaunched daytime series taped in Studio 33 upon the move. The daytime series remained in production until 1991, by which point it had returned to NBC, while the syndicated series remained at Television City until 1995. After that, the show moved to its current home at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, where it occupies Stage 11. Some episodes are also recorded on location, a tradition which began with two weeks of episodes taped at Radio City Music Hall in late 1988. Recording sessions usually last for five or six episodes in one day.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Various changes have been made to the basic set since the syndicated version's premiere in 1983. In 1997, a large video display was added center stage, which was then upgraded in 2003 as the show began the transition into high-definition broadcasting. In the mid-1990s, the show began a long-standing tradition of nearly every week coming with its own unique theme. As a result, in addition to its generic design, the set also uses many alternate designs, which are unique to specific weekly sets of themed programs. The most recent set design was conceived by production designer Renee Hoss-Johnson, with later modifications by Jody Vaclav. Previous set designers included Ed Flesh and Dick Stiles.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Shopper's Bazaar" used a vertically mounted wheel which was often difficult to see on-screen. Ed Flesh, who also designed the sets for "The $25,000 Pyramid" and "Jeopardy!", redesigned the wheel mechanism, in which the wheel lays flat while a camera zooms in from above. The first incarnation of the wheel was mostly made of paint and cardboard, and has since seen multiple design changes. Until the mid-1990s, the wheel spun automatically during the opening and closing of the show. The current incarnation, in use since 2003, is framed on a steel tube surrounded by Plexiglas panels and contains more than 200 lighting instruments. It is held by a stainless steel shaft with roller bearings. Altogether, the wheel weighs approximately . The wheel, including its light extensions, is in diameter.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The show's original puzzle board had three rows of 13 manually operated trilons, for a total of 39 spaces. On December 21, 1981, a larger board with 48 trilons in four rows (11, 13, 13, and 11 trilons) was adopted. This board was surrounded by a double-arched border of lights which flashed at the beginning and end of the round. Each trilon had three sides: a green side to represent spaces not used by the puzzle, a blank side to indicate a letter that had not been revealed, and a side with a letter on it. While the viewer saw a seamless transition to the next puzzle, with these older boards in segments where more than one puzzle was present, a stop-down of taping took place during which the board was wheeled offstage and the new puzzle loaded in by hand out of sight of the contestants. On February 24, 1997, the show introduced a computerized puzzle board composed of 52 touch-activated monitors in four rows (12 on the top and bottom rows, 14 in the middle two). During regular gameplay, when a contestant chose a letter that is in the puzzle, the monitors at those positions became illuminated and the hostess touched the right edge of each one to reveal the letter. The puzzle board was refurbished for season 40 in 2022, replacing the individual monitors for each letter with a singular video board, and using lidar sensors for touch input.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Although not typically seen by viewers, the set also includes a used letter board that shows contestants which letters are remaining in play, a scoreboard that is visible from the contestants' perspective, and a countdown clock. The used letter board is also used during the bonus round, and in at least one case, helped the contestant to see unused letters to solve a difficult puzzle.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In March 2020, Sony suspended production of the show due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2020, taping resumed with new safety measures. These new episodes began airing September 14, 2020. When production began again after shutting down, new episodes taped without studio audiences with only essential staff and crew allowed onstage.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: At tapings during that time, personal protective equipment was provided to everyone off-camera and behind the scenes for their safety. All staff and crew underwent testing on a regular basis, while contestants were tested before they stepped onto the set. Additionally, social distancing measures were enforced both on the set and off stage, and Sajak's and the players' podiums were widened to allow for greater physical distance between contestants during gameplay. Contestants spun the wheel with a white, tube-like device that fit over the wheel's pegs so they did not have to touch the wheel directly.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In July 2022, the show's producers announced on Facebook that live audiences would return for season 40, and posted a link for fans to secure tickets to taping dates.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: At the start of season 40, most other COVID era protocols had also been lifted, with the contestants standing closer together, no longer using the white tube device to spin the wheel, and Sajak walking up and down the podium to shake hands/hug contestants at the end of the game.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Alan Thicke composed the show's original theme, which was titled "Big Wheels". In 1983, it was replaced by Griffin's own composition, "Changing Keys", to allow him to derive royalties from that composition's use on both the network and syndicated versions. Steve Kaplan became music director starting in 1997, and continued to serve as such until he was killed when the Cessna 421C Golden Eagle he was piloting crashed into a home in Claremont, California, in December 2003. His initial theme was a remix of "Changing Keys", but by 2000, he replaced it with a composition of his own, which was titled "Happy Wheels". Since 2006, music direction has been handled by Frankie Blue and John Hoke. Themes they have written for the show include a remix of "Happy Wheels" and an original rock-based composition. A rearranged version of "Changing Keys" composed by Hoke and performed by Bleeding Fingers Music has been used as the main theme music starting in 2021.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In addition to "Changing Keys", Griffin also composed various incidental music cues for the syndicated version which were used for announcements of prizes in the show's early years. Among them were "Frisco Disco" (earlier the closing theme for a revival of "Jeopardy!" which aired in 1978 and 1979), "A Time for Tony" (whose basic melody evolved into "Think!", the longtime theme song for "Jeopardy!"), "Buzzword" (later used as the theme for "Merv Griffin's Crosswords"), "Nightwalk", "Struttin' on Sunset", and an untitled vacation cue.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Anyone at least 18 years old has the potential to become a contestant through "Wheel of Fortune"s audition process. Exceptions include employees and immediate family members of ViacomCBS, Sony Pictures Entertainment, or any of their respective affiliates or subsidiaries; any firm involved in supplying prizes for the show; and television stations that broadcast "Wheel" and/or "Jeopardy!", their sister radio stations or newspapers (if any), and those advertising agencies that are affiliated with them. Also ineligible to apply as contestants are individuals who have appeared on a different game show within the previous year, three other game shows within the past ten years, or on any version of "Wheel of Fortune" itself, including the 1997–98 children's version, "Wheel 2000".


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Throughout the year, the show uses a custom-designed Winnebago recreational vehicle called the "Wheelmobile" to travel across the United States, holding open auditions at various public venues. Participants are provided with entry forms which are then drawn randomly. Individuals whose names are drawn appear on stage, five at a time, and are interviewed by traveling host Marty Lublin. The group of five then plays a mock version of the speed-up round, and five more names are selected after a puzzle is solved. Everyone who is called onstage receives a themed prize, usually determined by the spin of a miniature wheel. Auditions typically last two days, with three one-hour segments per day. After each Wheelmobile event, the "most promising candidates" are invited back to the city in which the first audition was held, to participate in a second audition. Alternatively, a participant may submit an audition form with a self-shot video through the show's website to enter an audition. Contestants not appearing on stage at Wheelmobile events have their applications retained and get drawn at random to fill second-level audition vacancies. At the second audition, potential contestants play more mock games featuring a miniature wheel and puzzle board, followed by a 16-puzzle test with some letters revealed. The contestants have five minutes to solve as many puzzles as they can by writing in the correct letters. The people who pass continue the audition, playing more mock games which are followed by interviews.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" premiered on January 6, 1975, at 10:30 am (9:30 Central) on NBC. Lin Bolen, then the head of daytime programming, purchased the show from Griffin to compensate him for canceling the original "Jeopardy!" series, which had one year remaining on its contract. "Jeopardy!" aired its final episode on the Friday before "Wheel"'s premiere. The original "Wheel" aired on NBC, in varying time slots between 10:30 am and noon, until June 30, 1989. Throughout that version's run, episodes were generally 30 minutes in length, except for six weeks of shows aired between December 1975 and January 1976 which were 60 minutes in length. NBC announced the cancellation of the show in August 1980, but it stayed on the air following a decision to cut the duration of "The David Letterman Show" from 90 to 60 minutes. The network "Wheel" moved to CBS on July 17, 1989, and remained there until January 14, 1991. After that, it briefly returned to NBC, replacing "Let's Make a Deal", but was canceled permanently on September 20 of that year.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The daily syndicated nighttime version of "Wheel" premiered on September 19, 1983. From its debut, the syndicated version offered a larger prize budget than its network counterpart. The show came from humble beginnings: King World chairmen Roger, Michael, and Robert King could initially find only 50 stations that were willing to carry the show, and since they could not find affiliates for the syndicated "Wheel" in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, Philadelphia was the largest market in which the show could succeed in its early days. Only nine stations carried the show from its beginning, but by midseason it was airing on all 50 of the stations that were initially willing to carry it, and by the beginning of 1984 the show was available to 99 percent of television households. Soon, "Wheel" succeeded "Family Feud" as the highest-rated syndicated show, and at the beginning of the 1984–85 season, Griffin followed up on the show's success by launching a syndicated revival of "Jeopardy!", hosted by Alex Trebek. The syndicated success of "Wheel" and "Jeopardy!" siphoned ratings from the period's three longest-running and most popular game shows, "Tic-Tac-Dough", "The Joker's Wild", and "Family Feud", to the point that all three series came to an end by the fall of 1986. At this point, "Wheel" had the highest ratings of any syndicated television series in history, and at the peak of the show's popularity, over 40 million people were watching five nights per week. The series, along with companion series "Jeopardy!", remained the most-watched syndicated program in the United States until dethroned by "Judge Judy" in 2011. The program has become America's longest-running syndicated game show and its second-longest in either network or syndication, second to the version of "The Price Is Right" which began airing in 1972. In 1992, the show began airing on most of the owned-and-operated stations for ABC, currently known as the ABC Owned Television Stations. The syndicated "Wheel" has become part of the consciousness of over 90 million Americans, and awarded a total of over $200 million in cash and prizes to contestants.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: The popularity of "Wheel of Fortune" has led it to become a worldwide franchise, with over forty known adaptations in international markets outside the United States. Versions of the show have existed in such countries as Australia, , Denmark, France, , Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and . The American version of "Wheel" has honored its international variants with an occasional theme of special weeks known as "Wheel Around the World", the inaugural episode of which aired when the 23rd syndicated season premiered on September 12, 2005.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Between September 1997 and January 1998, CBS and Game Show Network concurrently aired a special children's version of the show titled "Wheel 2000". It was hosted by David Sidoni, with Tanika Ray providing voice and motion capture for a CGI hostess named "Cyber Lucy". Created by Scott Sternberg, the spin-off featured special gameplay in which numerous rules were changed. For example, the show's child contestants competed for points and prizes instead of cash, with the eventual winner playing for a grand prize in the bonus round.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In November 2020, ABC ordered a prime time spin-off show, "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune", with Richards as executive producer and Sajak and White as hosts, which premiered on January 7, 2021. Each hour-long episode consists of two complete games each consisting of three rounds, along with toss-ups and a bonus round in each game. The game features modified rules, including an additional cash bonus for each puzzle solved by a celebrity. Games in this format are played entirely for cash, with all winnings donated to a charity selected by that celebrity. In May 2021, ABC renewed "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" for a second season, which premiered on September 26, 2021. In May 2022, ABC renewed "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" for a third season, which premiered on September 25, 2022.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel of Fortune" has long been one of the highest-rated programs on U.S. syndicated television. It was the highest-rated show in all of syndication before it was dethroned by "Two and a Half Men" in 2010. The syndicated "Wheel" shared the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show with "Jeopardy!" in 2011, and Sajak won three Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show Host—in 1993, 1997, and 1998. In a 2001 issue, "TV Guide" ranked "Wheel" number 25 among the 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time, and in 2013, the magazine ranked it number 2 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever, second only to "Jeopardy!" In August 2006, the show was ranked number 6 on GSN's list of the 50 Greatest Game Shows.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel" was the subject of many nominations in GSN's "Game Show Awards" special, which aired on June 6, 2009. The show was nominated for Best Game Show, but lost to "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". Sajak and White were nominated for Best Game Show Host, but lost to "Deal or No Deal"s Howie Mandel; and O'Donnell was considered for Best Announcer but lost to Rich Fields from "The Price Is Right". One of the catchphrases uttered by contestants, ""I'd like to buy a vowel"", was considered for Favorite Game Show Catch Phrase, but lost to ""Come on down!"", the announcer's catchphrase welcoming new contestants to "Price". The sound effect heard at the start of a new regular gameplay round won the award for Favorite Game Show Sound Effect. The sound heard when the wheel lands on Bankrupt was also nominated. Despite having been retired from the show for nearly a decade by that point, "Changing Keys" was nominated for Best Game Show Theme Song. However, it lost to its fellow Griffin composition, "Think!" from "Jeopardy!"


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: A hall of fame honoring "Wheel of Fortune" is part of the Sony Pictures Studios tour, and was introduced on the episode aired May 10, 2010. Located in the same stage as the show's taping facility, this hall of fame features memorabilia related to "Wheel"s syndicated history, including retired props, classic merchandise, photographs, videos, and a special case dedicated to White's wardrobe. Two years later, in 2012, the show was honored with a Ride of Fame on a double-decker tour bus in New York City.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Numerous board games based on "Wheel of Fortune" have been released by different toy companies. The games are all similar, incorporating a wheel, puzzle display board, play money and various accessories like Free Spin tokens. Milton Bradley released the first board game in 1975. In addition to all the supplies mentioned above, the game included 20 prize cards to simulate the "shopping" prizes of the show, with prizes ranging in value from $100 to $3,000. Two editions were released, with the only differences being the box art and the included books of puzzles. Other home versions were released by Pressman Toy Corporation, Tyco/Mattel, Parker Brothers, Endless Games, and Irwin Toys.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: Additionally, several video games based on the show have been released for personal computers, the Internet, and various gaming consoles spanning multiple hardware generations. Most games released in the 20th century were published by GameTek, which produced a dozen "Wheel" games on various platforms, starting with a Nintendo Entertainment System game released in 1987 and continuing until the company closed in 1998 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Subsequent games were published by Hasbro Interactive and its acquirer Infogrames/Atari; Sony Online Entertainment, THQ and Ubisoft.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: "Wheel" has also been licensed to International Game Technology for use in its slot machines. The games are all loosely based on the show, with contestants given the chance to spin the wheel to win a jackpot prize. Since 1996, over 200 slot games based on the show have been created, both for real-world casinos and those on the Internet. With over 1,000 wins awarded in excess of $1,000,000 and over $3 billion in jackpots delivered, "Wheel" has been regarded as the most successful slots brand of all time.


title: Wheel of Fortune (American game show)

text: In May 2022, a touring staged production show, "Wheel of Fortune Live!", was announced, to be produced by Right Angle Entertainment in partnership with Sony and United Talent Agency, with an initial run of over 60 dates from September to December 2022, and 2023 dates to be announced at a later time. Similar to "The Price Is Right Live!", the touring version will feature alternate hosts that have yet to be announced, not Sajak or White.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. "Encyclopædia Britannica" considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867). Apart from his work in his homeland, he spent a substantial amount of his career abroad, in both Canada and the United Kingdom.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In early work, Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. This work was performed at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances", for which he was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada. In 1904, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford moved in 1907 to the Victoria University of Manchester (today University of Manchester) in the UK, where he and Thomas Royds proved that alpha radiation is helium nuclei. Rutherford performed his most famous work after he became a Nobel laureate. In 1911, although he could not prove that it was positive or negative, he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small nucleus, and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model of the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering by the gold foil experiment of Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden. He performed the first artificially induced nuclear reaction in 1917 in experiments where nitrogen nuclei were bombarded with alpha particles. As a result, he discovered the emission of a subatomic particle which, in 1919, he called the "hydrogen atom" but, in 1920, he more accurately named the proton.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1919. Under his leadership the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932 and in the same year the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner was performed by students working under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton. After his death in 1937, he was buried in Westminster Abbey near Sir Isaac Newton. The chemical element rutherfordium (element 104) was named after him in 1997.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Ernest Rutherford was the son of James Rutherford, a farmer, and his wife Martha Thompson, originally from Hornchurch, Essex, England. James had emigrated to New Zealand from Perth, Scotland, "to raise a little flax and a lot of children". Ernest was born at Brightwater, near Nelson, New Zealand. His first name was mistakenly spelled 'Earnest' when his birth was registered. Rutherford's mother Martha Thompson was a schoolteacher.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: He studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, where he participated in the debating society and played rugby. After gaining his BA, MA and BSc, and doing two years of research during which he invented a new form of radio receiver, in 1895 Rutherford was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, to travel to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He was among the first of the 'aliens' (those without a Cambridge degree) allowed to do research at the university, under the leadership of J. J. Thomson, which aroused jealousies from the more conservative members of the Cavendish fraternity. With Thomson's encouragement, he managed to detect radio waves at half a mile and briefly held the world record for the distance over which electromagnetic waves could be detected, though when he presented his results at the British Association meeting in 1896, he discovered he had been outdone by Guglielmo Marconi, who was also lecturing.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1898, Thomson recommended Rutherford for a position at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He was to replace Hugh Longbourne Callendar who held the chair of Macdonald Professor of physics and was coming to Cambridge. Rutherford was accepted, which meant that in 1900 he could marry Mary Georgina Newton (1876–1954) to whom he had become engaged before leaving New Zealand; they married at St Paul's Anglican Church, Papanui in Christchurch, they had one daughter, Eileen Mary (1901–1930), who married the physicist Ralph Fowler. In 1901, Rutherford gained a DSc from the University of New Zealand. In 1907, he returned to Britain to take the chair of physics at the Victoria University of Manchester.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford was knighted in 1914. During World War I, he worked on a top secret project to solve the practical problems of submarine detection by sonar. In 1916, he was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal. In 1919, he returned to the Cavendish succeeding J. J. Thomson as the Cavendish professor and Director. Under him, Nobel Prizes were awarded to James Chadwick for discovering the neutron (in 1932), John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton for an experiment which was to be known as "splitting the atom" using a particle accelerator, and Edward Appleton for demonstrating the existence of the ionosphere. In 1925, Rutherford pushed calls to the New Zealand Government to support education and research, which led to the formation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in the following year. Between 1925 and 1930, he served as President of the Royal Society, and later as president of the Academic Assistance Council which helped almost 1,000 university refugees from Germany. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in the 1925 New Year Honours and raised to the peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand and of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge in 1931, a title that became extinct upon his unexpected death in 1937. In 1933, Rutherford was one of the two inaugural recipients of the T. K. Sidey Medal, set up by the Royal Society of New Zealand as an award for outstanding scientific research.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: For some time before his death, Rutherford had a small hernia, which he had neglected to have fixed, and it became strangulated, causing him to be violently ill. Despite an emergency operation in London, he died four days afterwards of what physicians termed "intestinal paralysis", at Cambridge. After cremation at Golders Green Crematorium, he was given the high honour of burial in Westminster Abbey, near Isaac Newton and other illustrious British scientists such as Charles Darwin.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: At Cambridge, Rutherford started to work with J. J. Thomson on the conductive effects of X-rays on gases, work which led to the discovery of the electron which Thomson presented to the world in 1897. Hearing of Becquerel's experience with uranium, Rutherford started to explore its radioactivity, discovering two types that differed from X-rays in their penetrating power. Continuing his research in Canada, he coined the terms alpha ray and beta ray in 1899 to describe the two distinct types of radiation. He then discovered that thorium gave off a gas which produced an emanation which was itself radioactive and would coat other substances. He found that a sample of this radioactive material of any size invariably took the same amount of time for half the sample to decay – its "half-life" (11 minutes in this case).


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: From 1900 to 1903, he was joined at McGill by the young chemist Frederick Soddy (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1921) for whom he set the problem of identifying the thorium emanations. Once he had eliminated all the normal chemical reactions, Soddy suggested that it must be one of the inert gases, which they named thoron (later found to be an isotope of radon). They also found another type of thorium they called Thorium X, and kept on finding traces of helium. They also worked with samples of "Uranium X" from William Crookes and radium from Marie Curie.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1903, they published their "Law of Radioactive Change", to account for all their experiments. Until then, atoms were assumed to be the indestructible basis of all matter and although Curie had suggested that radioactivity was an atomic phenomenon, the idea of the atoms of radioactive substances breaking up was a radically new idea. Rutherford and Soddy demonstrated that radioactivity involved the spontaneous disintegration of atoms into other, as yet, unidentified matter. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908 was awarded to Ernest Rutherford "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1903, Rutherford considered a type of radiation discovered (but not named) by French chemist Paul Villard in 1900, as an emission from radium, and realised that this observation must represent something different from his own alpha and beta rays, due to its very much greater penetrating power. Rutherford therefore gave this third type of radiation the name of gamma ray. All three of Rutherford's terms are in standard use today – other types of radioactive decay have since been discovered, but Rutherford's three types are among the most common.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1904, Rutherford suggested that radioactivity provides a source of energy sufficient to explain the existence of the Sun for the many millions of years required for the slow biological evolution on Earth proposed by biologists such as Charles Darwin. The physicist Lord Kelvin had argued earlier for a much younger Earth (see also ) based on the insufficiency of known energy sources, but Rutherford pointed out at a lecture attended by Kelvin that radioactivity could solve this problem.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In Manchester, he continued to work with alpha radiation. In conjunction with Hans Geiger, he developed zinc sulfide scintillation screens and ionisation chambers to count alphas. By dividing the total charge they produced by the number counted, Rutherford decided that the charge on the alpha was two. In late 1907, Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds allowed alphas to penetrate a very thin window into an evacuated tube. As they sparked the tube into discharge, the spectrum obtained from it changed, as the alphas accumulated in the tube. Eventually, the clear spectrum of helium gas appeared, proving that alphas were at least ionised helium atoms, and probably helium nuclei.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: A long-standing myth existed, at least as early as 1948, running at least to 2017, that Rutherford was the first scientist to observe and report an artificial transmutation of a stable element into another element: nitrogen into oxygen. It was thought by many people to be one of Rutherford's greatest accomplishments. The New Zealand government even issued a commemorative stamp in the belief that the nitrogen-to-oxygen discovery belonged to Rutherford. Beginning in 2017, many scientific institutions corrected their versions of this history to indicate that the discovery credit for the reaction belongs to Patrick Blackett. Rutherford did detect the ejected proton in 1919 and interpreted it as evidence for disintegration of the nitrogen nucleus (to lighter nuclei). In 1925, Blackett showed that the actual product is oxygen and identified the true reaction as N + α → O + p. Rutherford therefore recognized "that the nucleus may increase rather than diminish in mass as the result of collisions in which the proton is expelled".


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford performed his most famous work after receiving the Nobel prize in 1908. Along with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden in 1909, he carried out the Geiger–Marsden experiment, which demonstrated the nuclear nature of atoms by deflecting alpha particles passing through a thin gold foil. Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha particles with very high deflection angles, of a type not expected from any theory of matter at that time. Such deflections, though rare, were found, and proved to be a smooth but high-order function of the deflection angle. It was Rutherford's interpretation of this data that led him to formulate the Rutherford model of the atom in 1911that a very small charged nucleus, containing much of the atom's mass, was orbited by low-mass electrons.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1919–1920, Rutherford found that nitrogen and other light elements ejected a proton, which he called a "hydrogen atom", when hit with α (alpha) particles. This result showed Rutherford that hydrogen nuclei were a part of nitrogen nuclei (and by inference, probably other nuclei as well). Such a construction had been suspected for many years on the basis of atomic weights which were whole numbers of that of hydrogen; see Prout's hypothesis. Hydrogen was known to be the lightest element, and its nuclei presumably the lightest nuclei. Now, because of all these considerations, Rutherford decided that a hydrogen nucleus was possibly a fundamental building block of all nuclei, and also possibly a new fundamental particle as well, since nothing was known from the nucleus that was lighter. Thus, confirming and extending the work of Wilhelm Wien who in 1898 discovered the proton in streams of ionized gas, Rutherford postulated the hydrogen nucleus to be a new particle in 1920, which he dubbed the "proton".


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: In 1921, while working with Niels Bohr (who postulated that electrons moved in specific orbits), Rutherford theorized about the existence of neutrons, (which he had christened in his 1920 Bakerian Lecture), which could somehow compensate for the repelling effect of the positive charges of protons by causing an attractive nuclear force and thus keep the nuclei from flying apart from the repulsion between protons. The only alternative to neutrons was the existence of "nuclear electrons" which would counteract some of the proton charges in the nucleus, since by then it was known that nuclei had about twice the mass that could be accounted for if they were simply assembled from hydrogen nuclei (protons). But how these nuclear electrons could be trapped in the nucleus, was a mystery.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford is widely quoted as saying, regarding the results of these experiments: "It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford's theory of neutrons was proved in 1932 by his associate James Chadwick, who recognized neutrons immediately when they were produced by other scientists and later himself, in bombarding beryllium with alpha particles. In 1935, Chadwick was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford is considered to have been among the greatest scientists in history. At the opening session of the 1938 Indian Science Congress, which Rutherford had been expected to preside over before his death, astrophysicist James Jeans spoke in his place and deemed him "one of the greatest scientists of all time", saying:


title: Ernest Rutherford

text: Rutherford's research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process. Patrick Blackett, a research fellow working under Rutherford, using natural alpha particles, demonstrated "induced" nuclear transmutation. Rutherford's team later, using protons from an accelerator, demonstrated "artificially-induced" nuclear reactions and transmutation. He is known as the father of nuclear physics. Rutherford died too early to see Leó Szilárd's idea of controlled nuclear chain reactions come into being. However, a speech of Rutherford's about his artificially-induced transmutation in lithium, printed on 12 September 1933 London paper "The Times", was reported by Szilárd to have been his inspiration for thinking of the possibility of a controlled energy-producing nuclear chain reaction. Szilard had this idea while walking in London, on the same day.