title: Spock

text: In the premiere episode of the second season, "Amok Time", Spock begins to undergo pon farr, the Vulcan blood fever, and must undergo a ritual mating in the next eight days or die. Kirk disobeys Starfleet orders and takes the "Enterprise" to the planet Vulcan so that Spock can undergo the mating ritual. When they arrive, he is reunited with T'Pring (Arlene Martel). She rather wishes to be with Stonn (Lawrence Montaigne), a full-blooded Vulcan. She demands the ritual kal-if-fee fight instead, and selects Kirk as her champion, who unknowingly agrees to a fight to the death with Spock. McCoy persuades T'Pau (Celia Lovsky) to let him inject Kirk with something to alleviate the issues with Vulcan's thinner atmosphere and make the fight fair. The fight begins, and Spock gains the upper hand, garroting Kirk and killing him. McCoy orders an emergency transport directly to sickbay, while Spock is told by T'Pring that it was all a game of logic which would let her be with Stonn no matter the outcome. No longer feeling the effects of the pon farr, Spock returns to the "Enterprise" where he discovers that McCoy had injected Kirk with a paralyzing agent which merely simulated death and that the Captain was still alive.During the course of the encounter with the "Nomad" space probe in "", Spock undertakes a mind meld with the machine. Kirk stops the meld when he realises that Spock's personality starts to be changed by the contact. Following a transporter accident which transports Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Scotty to a Mirror Universe and swaps them with their counterparts in the episode "", they encounter a different version of Spock. Sporting a beard, he grows suspicious of the activities of the suddenly changed personnel and under Starfleet orders, attempts to kill Kirk. Mirror-Spock is knocked unconscious, and is treated by McCoy while the others head to the transporter to attempt to return to their universe. Spock awakes and mind melds with McCoy to discover why Kirk did not have him killed. Discovering what took place, he agrees to help them return and as he mans the transporter controls, Kirk implores him to take control and save not only the ship but his Terran Empire from implosion at the hands of tyrants. The switch is once again successful, and the crew members return to their relevant universes.


title: Spock

text: At the beginning of "" (1979), Spock is no longer in Starfleet, having resigned and returned home to pursue the Vulcan discipline of Kolinahr. Spock is unable to complete the Kolinahr ritual after he senses the coming of V'ger, and rejoins Starfleet to aid the "Enterprise" crew in their mission. Spock, promoted to captain, is commanding officer of the "Enterprise" at the beginning of "" (1982). At the film's end, he transfers his "katra" – the sum of his memories and experience – to McCoy, and then sacrifices himself to save the ship and its crew from Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán). The sequel, "" (1984), focuses on his crewmates' quest to recover Spock's body, learning upon arrival that he has been resurrected by the Genesis matrix after landing on the planet at the end of the previous film. At the film's conclusion, Spock's revived body is reunited with his katra. Spock is next seen in "" (1986), which depicts his recovery from the after-effects of his resurrection. In the film's final scene, he joins the crew of the newly commissioned USS "Enterprise"-A under Kirk's command. In "" (1989), Spock and the "Enterprise" crew confront the renegade Sybok, Spock's half-brother. "" (1991) reunites the "Enterprise" crew on a mission to prevent war from erupting between the Federation and Klingon Empire. Spock serves as a special envoy to broker peace with the Klingons after a natural disaster devastates their homeworld.


title: Spock

text: After a period in which the production team avoided mentioning some aspects of The Original Series, Spock was mentioned by name in "" in the episode "" (1990). Executive producer Michael Piller later described this one act as "the breakthrough which allowed us to open the doors, that allowed us to begin to embrace our past".


title: Spock

text: Spock appears in "" (1991), a two-part episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Set 75 years after the events of "The Undiscovered Country", the episode focuses on Federation Ambassador Spock's attempt to reunite the Romulans with their Vulcan brethren. Filming of "The Undiscovered Country" overlapped with production of this episode, and the episode references Spock's role in the film. While Spock's initial unification campaign fails, he chooses to remain on Romulus in secret to help the movement.


title: Spock

text: Spock's next appearance in the live action "Star Trek" franchise is the 2009 "Star Trek" film. Nimoy was given approval rights over Spock's casting and supported Quinto being cast as the role.


title: Spock

text: In the film's flashback (set 19 years after the events of "", and as depicted in the comic miniseries "Star Trek: Countdown"), Ambassador Spock (Nimoy) promises the Romulans he will use Vulcan technology to save them from a rogue supernova that threatens to destroy their Empire. He pilots an advanced starship equipped with red matter, a powerful substance able to create artificial black holes. The mission is only partially successful, and in the aftermath Spock is pursued into the past by Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan driven mad by the loss of his homeworld and family, setting into motion the events of the film.


title: Spock

text: In the film's opening act, Nero's ship emerges in the year 2233, and through its interaction with the inhabitants, inadvertently creates an "alternate, parallel 'Star Trek' universe". Twenty-five years later in the new reality, Spock's ship emerges, and Nero captures him and the red matter. Stranded in the alternate past, the prime version of Spock helps the alternate, younger version of himself and Kirk (Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, respectively) thwart Nero's attempt to destroy the Federation.


title: Spock

text: The film also features Jacob Kogan in several scenes depicting Spock's childhood, including his abuse at the hands of other Vulcan children due to his half-Human heritage, and his relationship with his parents (Ben Cross and Winona Ryder). The film also depicts Kirk and Spock's initial clashes at Starfleet Academy, and the gradual development of their friendship based on shared mutual respect, what the elder Spock calls "... a friendship that will define them both in ways they cannot yet realize." A major change in characterization from the primary timeline is alternate Spock's involvement with alternate Uhura (Zoe Saldana), his former student. At the end of the film, the young Spock opts to remain in Starfleet while his older self stays in the altered universe to aid the few surviving Vulcan refugees, as Nero had destroyed Vulcan, Spock's home planet.


title: Spock

text: In "Star Trek Into Darkness", Spock Prime is described as living on 'New Vulcan' while the younger Spock remains aboard the "Enterprise" struggling with the loss of his homeworld, as well as his relationships with Uhura and James T. Kirk. Spock nearly dies protecting a planet from an active volcano, but Kirk breaks the Prime Directive and saves him. Spock Prime is contacted by Spock on the "Enterprise", to find out details on Khan. Spock Prime initially reminds his alternate self that he will not interfere with the events in the alternate timeline. That being said, he then informs Spock that Khan was a dangerous man, and the greatest threat that the "Enterprise" ever faced in his own timeline, and warns that he is likely as dangerous in Spock's alternate timeline as well. When asked whether Khan was defeated, Spock Prime answers that he eventually was defeated, but at great cost (referring to the events of ""). When Kirk contracts radiation poisoning and dies in front of Spock (a transposed parallel of events in the prime timeline where Spock dies in front of Kirk), an enraged and vengeful Spock attempts to kill Khan to avenge Kirk before Uhura informs him that Khan's regenerative blood can revive Kirk. Nearly a year later, Spock remains as Kirk's chief science officer and executive officer as the "Enterprise" departs on its first five-year mission of deep-space exploration.


title: Spock

text: "Into Darkness" would be Nimoy's final appearance as Spock Prime, as well as the last role of his career. He died in 2015, shortly before production began on "Star Trek Beyond."


title: Spock

text: In "Star Trek Beyond", Spock receives word that Ambassador Spock (Spock Prime) has died. Impacted by this, Spock later tells McCoy that he intends to leave Starfleet to continue the ambassador's work on New Vulcan. At the end of the film, Spock receives a box containing some of Ambassador Spock's personal effects, and reflecting on a photograph of the older crew of the "Enterprise" from the series' original timeline, he chooses to remain in Starfleet.


title: Spock

text: In August 2018 it was announced that Ethan Peck would join the cast of "" as Spock in the show's second season, portraying a Spock younger than both Nimoy's and Quinto's renditions of the character, as "Discovery" is set several years before the Original Series and Kelvin Timeline films.


title: Spock

text: As of his appearances on "Discovery", Spock is a Lieutenant, serving under Captain Christopher Pike on the "Enterprise". Due to the trauma Spock suffered because of his visions of the "Red Angel", he is on leave from the "Enterprise" and under psychiatric care. His adopted sister Michael Burnham is attempting to help him recover.


title: Spock

text: The introduction to the second season episode "If Memory Serves" uses archival footage of Nimoy as Spock from the unaired pilot episode "The Cage", and the third season episode "Unification III" uses archival footage of Nimoy again from the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "". The latter appearance is a holographic recording from the records of Jean-Luc Picard, and is shown to Michael Burnham after she travels to the 31st Century, a time in which the Romulan and Vulcan peoples remember Ambassador Spock as the cause of their reunification on the planet Ni'Var, the newly renamed Vulcan.


title: Spock

text: In 2019, it was announced that the character Spock, as played by Peck would appear in two "", along with Captain Pike. He reprised the role in the episodes "Q&A" and "Ask Not".


title: Spock

text: In May 2020, it was announced that Spock (Ethan Peck) would return in the series "" alongside Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Number One / Una (Rebecca Romjin).


title: Spock

text: The earliest known mention of Spock was in a conversation between "Star Trek"s creator Gene Roddenberry and actor Gary Lockwood, in which Lockwood suggested Leonard Nimoy for the role. The trio had previously worked together on Roddenberry's "The Lieutenant" in the episode "In the Highest Tradition". Roddenberry agreed to the idea, but was required to audition other actors for the part. At the time, Roddenberry sought DeForest Kelley to play the doctor character in the pilot, "The Cage", but both NBC executives and director Robert Butler wanted Kelley to play Spock. Roddenberry offered the part to both Kelley and Martin Landau, but they both turned him down. When offered, Nimoy accepted the part but was apprehensive about the make-up which had not been determined at that point.


title: Spock

text: During an interview segment of TV Land's 40th Anniversary "Star Trek" Marathon on November 12, 2006 Leonard Nimoy stated that Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Spock was George Lindsey. Because of the flippant way Nimoy makes the comment it has been suggested that he was joking. The claim Lindsey was offered the role is given more credibility when Lindsey's close friend Ernest Borgnine writes in his autobiography, "my hand to God – he turned down the part of Mr. Spock on TV's "Star Trek", the role that made Leonard Nimoy famous."


title: Spock

text: The character evolved from having a metal plate in his stomach through which he ingested energy to being a half-Martian in the original 1964 pitch with a "slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears". Due to Roddenberry's concern that a Mars landing might take place before the end of the series, Spock's home planet was changed. Lee Greenway conducted the initial makeup tests on Nimoy, but after four or five days, Fred Phillips was asked to take over. Phillips in turn asked John Chambers to create Spock's ears, as he was working on getting an appropriate shade of red for Spock's skin; this idea was later abandoned in favor of a yellow hue because of the effects on black and white television. Nimoy hated the ears, and Roddenberry promised him that if he was still unhappy by the 13th episode then they'd find a way to write them out. The NBC executives were also concerned, as they felt it made the character satanic.


title: Spock

text: At Roddenberry's insistence, Spock was the only character retained for the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". However, NBC demanded that he be only a background character, and when it went to series, the tips of Spock's ears were airbrushed out on promotional materials. It was during early episodes such as "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Naked Time" that Nimoy came to understand the nature of the character. After eight episodes, NBC executives complained to Roddenberry that there was not enough Spock in the series; "Spockmania" had begun. In response, Spock was moved to a more prominent role within the series, such as taking the lead role in "This Side of Paradise" over Sulu. The popularity of the character caused frictions with Shatner, and rumours spread that he was going to be dropped from the show and replaced as the lead by Nimoy as Spock. A drawn out contract renegotiation at the start of resulted in Roddenberry considering whether or not to replace Nimoy and the character. Both Mark Lenard and Lawrence Montaigne were seriously considered.


title: Spock

text: The character continued to develop, with Nimoy creating the Vulcan salute during the filming of "Amok Time". This was based on a Jewish Kohen he had seen as a child. During the course of the season, a rift grew between Nimoy and Roddenberry and by the end of the year, they only spoke through formal letters. After the departure of producer Gene L. Coon and the stepping back of Roddenberry during the , Nimoy found that the writing of Spock deteriorated. In particular, he did not like the character being made a fool of during the episode "Spock's Brain". The interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura in "Plato's Stepchildren" had been intended by the writers to be between Spock and Uhura, but Shatner persuaded them to change it. For his role as Spock, Leonard Nimoy was nominated three times Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and is currently the only Star Trek actor to be nominated for an Emmy.


title: Spock

text: Nimoy agreed to return to Spock during one of the early 1970s attempts to create a "Star Trek" film, entitled "", but dropped out after his likeness as Spock was used without permission to advertise Heineken beer. He was persuaded to return to the role of Spock as the lead for the planned "Trek" film titled "" to be directed by Philip Kaufman. When this project was killed in favor of a new television series, "", Nimoy was reportedly just offered only a recurring part by Roddenberry, so refused to appear at all. When the decision was made to turn the TV pilot script into "", director Robert Wise insisted Nimoy to return as the character, which was only accomplished by Jeffrey Katzenberg forcing Paramount to settle the dispute with Nimoy over licensing use of his image. As on the series, Nimoy, calling on method acting training, would often not break character between takes.


title: Spock

text: Dissatisfied with the first Trek feature, Nimoy was reluctant to return for "" but was convinced by the promise of a dramatic death scene. Nimoy enjoyed the production of the film so much that despite his character's on-screen death he wanted to return for a sequel. The film's success allowed Nimoy to successfully negotiate to direct the next installment in addition to briefly appearing as a reanimated Spock. The resulting film, "" was successful enough that Nimoy was asked to direct once more for "". The following film of the series, the William Shatner-directed "" was initially unacceptable to Nimoy because it called for Spock to betray Kirk and side with his newly introduced half-brother Sybok. Nimoy felt his character had already come to terms with his human-side thus Sybok would have no influence on him, and forced the script to be changed before signing on. Nimoy subsequently organized "", choosing the director, writers and producers. To hand over to "" at the time of "The Undiscovered Country", Nimoy agreed to appear as Spock in the episode "Unification". Nimoy subsequently turned down the directing role on "Star Trek Generations" as he wanted to rework the script, and refused reprising the role of Spock for what was essentially a cameo appearance; and his character's lines were subsequently given to Scotty.


title: Spock

text: When recasting the role for 2009's "Star Trek", Nimoy was asked his opinion. He highlighted the work of Zachary Quinto, as he felt he looked similar and could portray the inner thought process of the character. Quinto became the first actor to be cast for the film, and Nimoy agreed to return as the version of the character from the "Prime" universe. Nimoy said that he returned because of the enthusiasm from director J. J. Abrams and the writers, and because it made him feel appreciated. Nimoy made a final appearance as Spock in "Star Trek Into Darkness" as a favor to Abrams. At the time, he did not rule out returning again, but he died prior to the following film. In "Star Trek Beyond", Quinto's Spock mourns the loss of Spock Prime, as played by Nimoy.


title: Spock

text: "Given the choice", Nimoy said years after the show ended, "if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock." He recalled, more than a decade after the show's cancellation:


title: Spock

text: From early on, the public reacted very positively—even fanatically—to his character, in what "The Boston Globe" in 1967 described as "Spockmania". Headshots of Spock became popular souvenirs, with the rare ones of the actor laughing the most valuable. Nimoy reported that "within two weeks after ["Amok Time"], my mail jumped from a few hundred letters to 10,000 a week". When he appeared as Spock as grand marshal of a Medford, Oregon parade in April 1967, thousands gathered to receive autographs: "They surged forward so quickly that I was terrified someone would be crushed to death; and then they started pressing against the bandstand so hard it began to sway beneath my feet!" After being rescued by police, "I made sure never to appear publicly again in Vulcan guise", Nimoy stated.


title: Spock

text: Fans asked Nimoy questions about current events such as the Vietnam War and LSD as if he were the Vulcan scientist; one even asked the actor to lay his hands on a friend's eyes to heal them. When a biracial girl wrote asking for advice on how to deal with persecution as "a half-breed", Nimoy responded that young Vulcans had treated Spock similarly and that she should, as he did, "realize the difference between popularity and true greatness". The actor believed that the character appealed to viewers, especially teenagers, because


title: Spock

text: To Nimoy's surprise, Spock became a sex symbol; Isaac Asimov described the character as "a security blanket with sexual overtones", and Nimoy reported that "I've never had more female attention on a set before. And get this: they all want to "touch the ears!"" (When a young woman asked "Are you aware that you are the source of erotic dream material for thousands and thousands of ladies around the world?", he replied "May all your dreams come true".) Nimoy speculated that Spock appealed to women because


title: Spock

text: NASA made Spock an informal mascot. Nimoy was invited to be guest of honor at the March 1967 National Space Club dinner and to take an extensive tour of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. The actor concluded from the warm and intense reception he received that astronauts like John Glenn and aerospace industry engineers, secretaries, and shareholders alike all regarded "Star Trek", and especially the character of Spock, as a "dramatization of the future of their space program".


title: Spock

text: An asteroid in the Eos family discovered on August 16, 1971 was named after the discoverer James B. Gibson's cat (which had been named Mr. Spock, who was likewise "imperturbable, logical, intelligent, and had pointed ears").


title: Spock

text: Spock proved inspirational to many budding scientists and engineers. Nimoy has said that many of them, on meeting him, were eager to show him their work and discuss it with him as if he were a scientific peer, as opposed to an actor, photographer, and poet. His stock response in these situations was "it certainly looks like you're headed in the right direction".


title: Spock

text: In 2004, Spock was ranked number 21 in Bravo's list of The 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2008, UGO named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. According to Shatner, much of "Star Trek"s acting praise and media interest went to Nimoy.


title: Spock

text: In 2012, IGN ranked the character Spock, as depicted in the original series and the 2009 film "Star Trek", as the second top character of the "Star Trek" universe, with Kirk in the top spot.


title: Spock

text: In 2016, Adam Nimoy released his documentary film "For the Love of Spock", about his father and his iconic character.


title: Spock

text: In 2017, Screen Rant ranked Spock the 5th most attractive person in the "Star Trek" universe, in between Michael Burnham and Seven of Nine. In 2018, they ranked Spock as one of the top 8 most powerful characters of "Star Trek" (including later series).


title: Spock

text: "The Wrath of Khan" had its first public screening at a science-fiction convention in Overland Park, Kansas on May 8, 1982, almost a month before general release. Although Paramount executives were concerned that Spock's death would set fans against the movie, the audience actually applauded after Spock's death scene. "It was sensational. I hate to be given to superlatives but it absolutely reached everything we wanted it to. I couldn't ask for anything better," said co-producer Robert Sallin of the advance audience's reaction.


title: Spock

text: Critical reaction to Spock's death was mixed. Film critic Roger Ebert lauded Spock's death: "He makes a choice in "Star Trek II" that would be made only by a hero, a fool, or a Vulcan. And when he makes his decision, the movie rises to one of its best scenes, because the "Star Trek" stories have always been best when they centered on their characters." On the other hand, "The Washington Post"s Gary Arnold stated Spock's death "feels like an unnecessary twist, and the filmmakers are obviously well-prepared to fudge in case the public demands another sequel."


title: Spock

text: Twenty-five years later, Spock's death in "The Wrath of Khan" ranks number 2 on Total Film's list of 25 greatest "Star Trek" movie moments, and number 1 on IGN Movie's top 10 "Star Trek" movie moments.


title: Spock

text: Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" described Quinto's performance in the 2009 film as "something special", and stated that Nimoy's appearance "carries much more emotion than you'd expect". "Slate" said Quinto played Spock "with a few degrees more chill" than Nimoy brought to the original character. "Entertainment Weekly" said that Quinto "... invests Spock with a new layer of chilly-smoldering sex appeal, [and] Quinto does a fantastic job of maintaining Spock's calm, no-sweat surface but getting quietly hot and bothered underneath."


title: Spock

text: Spock has been parodied by, and has also been the inspiration for, pop culture works in various media. Composer/keyboardist George Duke's "1976 Solo Keyboard Album" features two tracks which pay homage to Spock: "Spock Gets Funky" and "Vulcan Mind Probe". Rock guitarist Paul Gilbert wrote the song "Mr. Spock" on his "Space Ship One" album. Swedish synthpop band S.P.O.C.K makes music heavily influenced by the "Star Trek" universe. Assuming the Spock character, Nimoy recorded a number of novelty songs, the first being "Highly Illogical", in which Spock pointed out the foibles of human thought, such as relationships, automobiles, and greed. A second song, "A Visit to a Sad Planet", was darker in tone and told the story of Spock visiting Earth in the future and discovering it had been ruined by war, violence, and environmental irresponsibility. According to comic book writer and editor Bob Budiansky, "The Transformers" character Shockwave was inspired by Spock. Spock's utilitarian perspective that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is cited in a legal decision rendered by the Texas Supreme Court. Leonard Nimoy's second-season Spock costume shirt was expected to sell at auction for over $75,000.


title: Spock

text: Spock's physical appearance in the "Original Series" episode "" (1967) has itself spawned a trope of the "evil twin" archetype found in various fictional genres. In that episode, several members of the "Enterprise" travel to a parallel universe inhabited by evil versions of themselves. The parallel universe version of Spock is distinguished physically by his goatee. Science fiction blog io9 said that Spock's beard in the episode introduced "the best shorthand ever for evil parallel universe duplicates". Examples of the evil goatee's appearances in other media include the host segments of episode 611 of the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, Bender's "evil twin" Flexo in "Futurama", and a 2009 episode of "The Colbert Report" featuring Stephen Colbert and Dan Maffei wearing fake goatees while pretending to be evil versions of themselves. The name of progressive rock band Spock's Beard is a direct reference to Spock's goatee in this episode.


title: Spock

text: In addition to television, feature films, books, and parodies, Spock has also been portrayed in non-canon fan fiction. Since 2004, the online fan production "" has continued the further voyages of the cancelled initial series. The fan-series' creators feel "Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest should be treated as 'classic' characters like Willy Loman from "Death of a Salesman", Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings", or even Hamlet, Othello, or Romeo. Many actors have and can play the roles, each offering a different interpretation of said character."


title: Spock

text: The fan series "" has featured three actors in the role of Spock. Spock was portrayed by Jeffrey Quinn for the pilot and first three episodes, by Ben Tolpin in episodes 4 and 5, and by Brandon Stacy in episodes 6 through 11. Stacy also served as a stand-in for Zachary Quinto in the 2009 "Star Trek" film.


title: Spock

text: The independent online fan series "Star Trek Continues" featured Todd Haberkorn as Spock in three vignettes and eleven full episodes between 2013 and 2017.


title: Spock

text: In scientific illustrator Jenny Parks' 2017 book "Star Trek Cats", Spock is depicted as an Oriental Shorthair.


title: Spock

text: There has been a practice of altering the portrait of Wilfrid Laurier, Canada's prime minister from 1896 to 1911, on Canadian five-dollar notes to look like Spock. After the death of Nimoy in 2015, there was an increase in that practice.


title: Burt Young

text: Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (born April 30, 1940), known professionally as Burt Young, is an American actor, author and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the "Rocky" film series. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the first film.


title: Burt Young

text: He has also appeared in "Chinatown" (1974), "The Gambler" (1974), "The Killer Elite" (1975), "Convoy" (1978), "Uncle Joe Shannon" (1978), "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), "The Pope of Greenwich Village" (1984), "A Summer to Remember" (1985), "Back to School" (1986), "Last Exit to Brooklyn" (1990), "Mickey Blue Eyes" (1999), "Transamerica" (2005), "Win Win" (2011), "Bottom of the 9th" (2019), "Beckman" (2020) and the documentary film "" (2021) and had a guest appearance on "The Sopranos" in 2001.


title: Burt Young

text: Young was born in Queens, New York City, New York, the son of Josephine and Michael DeLouise, a high school shop teacher. He is of Italian descent.


title: Burt Young

text: Young served a tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1959. While in the Marine Corps, he won 32 of 34 boxing bouts.


title: Burt Young

text: Young made his name playing rough-edged working class Italian-American characters, the best-known example being his signature role as Rocky Balboa's friend (and future brother-in-law) Paulie in "Rocky" (1976), for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is one of four actors (the other three being Sylvester Stallone, Stu Nahan and Tony Burton) who have appeared in all of the first six "Rocky" films (although Talia Shire, who appears in the first five films, makes a flashback appearance in the sixth). Young did not reprise his role in the 2015 film "Creed"; the character was described as having died in 2012.


title: Burt Young

text: He has played similar roles in "Chinatown", "Convoy", "Back to School", "The Pope of Greenwich Village", "Once Upon a Time in America", "Last Exit to Brooklyn", "", and even a brutal and darker role in "". Young has also appeared in many television programs, including "The Rockford Files", "Baretta", "Law & Order", "Walker, Texas Ranger","All In The Family", "M*A*S*H". He guest-starred in a "Miami Vice" episode, and made an appearance on "The Sopranos" ("Another Toothpick") as Bobby Baccalieri's father, who is dying of cancer and comes out of retirement to execute a hit on his godson, "Mustang Sally" Intile, as punishment for Intile having brutally beaten a family friend simply for chatting with Intile's girlfriend. In a nod to his having served in the U.S. Marine Corps, he played a retired drill instructor in the short-lived 1987 ABC series, "Roomies", where his character decides to go to college after his retirement.


title: Burt Young

text: In 2017, Burt Young returned to the stage as an aged mob boss in "The Last Vig," a play written by Dave Varriale. The show ran from January 14 to February 19, 2017, at The Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles.


title: Burt Young

text: Young is also a painter; his art has been displayed in galleries throughout the world. As an artist, he has collaborated with the writer Gabriele Tinti, for whom he designed the cover for the poetry collection "All Over", as well as contributing the illustrations for the art book "A Man". Some of Young's actual paintings were shown in a scene in "Rocky Balboa" when Paulie gets fired from the meatpacking plant.


title: Burt Young

text: Young is also a published author whose works include two filmed screenplays and a 400-page historical novel called "Endings". He has written two stage plays: "SOS" and "A Letter to Alicia and the New York City Government from a Man With a Bullet in His Head".


title: Burt Young

text: Young is a widower. He has a daughter, Anne Morea, and a grandson. He resides in Port Washington, New York.


title: Alstom

text: Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia and New Pendolino high-speed trains, in addition to suburban, regional and metro trains, and Citadis trams.


title: Alstom

text: Alsthom (originally Als-Thom) was formed by a merger between Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston and the electric engineering division of Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques in 1928. Significant acquisitions later included the Constructions Electriques de France (1932), shipbuilder Chantiers de l'Atlantique (1976), and parts of ACEC (Belgium, late-1980s).


title: Alstom

text: A merger with parts of the General Electric Company (UK) formed GEC Alsthom in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, the company expanded its holdings in the rail sector, via the acquisition of German rolling stock manufacturer Linke-Hofmann-Busch and Italian rail signalling specialist Sasib Railways. In 1998, GEC Alsthom was floated on the Paris Stock Exchange and, later that year, it was rebranded Alstom.


title: Alstom

text: In 2003, the company required a €3.2 billion state-backed bailout from the French government. As a result, Alstom was compelled to dispose of several of its divisions, including shipbuilding and electrical transmission to Nikhanj Power, in order to comply with European Union rules on state aid. It was able to re-acquire its electric transmission division in 2010.


title: Alstom

text: In 2004, Alstom was again in financial difficulties, having incurred massive unexpected costs (€4 billion) arising from a design flaw inherited from the acquisition of ABB Group's turbine business, in addition to losses in other business sectors.


title: Alstom

text: In 2014, Alstom and General Electric (GE) announced that a US$17 billion (€12.4 billion) bid for Alstom's power and grid divisions had been made and provisionally accepted. Amid controversy in France over the proposed takeover of strategic domestic interest by a foreign company, GE's bid was modified to include joint ventures in power generation and transmission, as well as GE's rail signalling business being sold to Alstom. The acquisition of the power and grid division by GE was accepted by EU and US competition authorities in 2015, subject to Alstom's heavy gas turbine business being sold to Ansaldo Energia. The sale of Alstom's power generation and transmission businesses to GE was finalised on 2 November 2015, since then, the Alstom Group has been operating solely in the rail sector.


title: Alstom

text: In late-2017, Alstom announced a proposed merger with Siemens Mobility of Germany. However, in February 2019, the European Commission prohibited the merger. Subsequently, in February 2020, the company signed a letter of agreement to purchase Bombardier Transportation. The purchase was finalized on 29 January 2021 and Bombardier's Transportation business became a part of Alstom.


title: Alstom

text: Alsthom was founded in 1928 from the merger of French heavy engineering interests of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company (then part of General Electric) – the "Compagnie française pour l'exploitation des procédés Thomson Houston" (or Compagnie Française Thomson Houston, CFTH) and Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques, with the first factory in Belfort. In 1932, Alsthom expanded into transportation by acquiring Constructions Electriques de France, Tarbes, a manufacturer of electric locomotives as well as electrical and hydraulic equipment.


title: Alstom

text: In 1969, Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE) became the majority shareholder of Alsthom. In 1976, Alsthom merged with Chantiers de l'Atlantique, becoming Alsthom Atlantique. Thus, the business expanded into marine. The next year, it constructed the first 1300 MW generator set for the Paluel Nuclear Power Plant, setting a world record with an output of 1500 MW.


title: Alstom

text: In 1978, Alsthom delivered its first TGV to SNCF. The TGV went on to break world rail speed records in 1981 (at ) and in 1990 (at ). It also set the world endurance record for high-speed train lines in 2001, travelling the from Calais to Marseille in 3 hours and 29 minutes. In 1986, Alsthom Belfort received an order from EDF for the largest gas turbine in the world (212 MW).


title: Alstom

text: In 1988–89, holding company CGEE Alsthom acquired ACEC Energie (hydroturbines and electrical equipment for the nuclear industry) and ACEC Automatisme (automation) from the dissolution of Belgian electrical engineering company ACEC. Alsthom acquired 100% of ACEC's transport division, renaming it "ACEC Transport".


title: Alstom

text: In early 1989, GEC Alsthom was formed from a 50–50 merger of Alsthom and the Power Systems Division of the British General Electric Company; for Alsthom this move was intended to allow Alsthom to more successfully sell its products to export customers outside the French market. In May of that year, British rail vehicle manufacturer Metro-Cammell was acquired.


title: Alstom

text: During the early-1990s, GEC Alsthom was the principal manufacturer of the British Rail Class 373, a variant of their TGV family specially designed for traversing the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France. Although collectively operated by Eurostar, the type was ordered by three different railway companies: 16 by SNCF, four by NMBS/SNCB, and 18 by British Rail, of which seven were shortened "North of London" sets. The first Class 373 set was completed at GEC Alstom's Belfort facility during 1992.


title: Alstom

text: In 1994, GEC Alsthom acquired a 51% shareholding in Linke-Hofmann-Busch from Salzgitter AG. In 1995, the company acquired the remaining shares in the steam turbine manufacturer MAN Energie. In early 1998, GEC Alsthom acquired the electrical contractor Cegelec, renaming it "Alstom Power Conversion".


title: Alstom

text: In 1998, GEC Alsthom bought Italian firm SASIB's rail signalling subsidiary "Sasib Railways", which included the former General Railway Signal (USA).


title: Alstom

text: In June 1998, GEC Alsthom was listed on the Paris Stock Exchange; both GEC and Alcatel elected to sell off part of their stakes (23.6% each). Around this time, the company was officially renamed "Alstom". Retained by Alstom, the former Metro-Cammell works in Washwood Heath were closed in 2005.


title: Alstom

text: In 1999, Alstom bought half of ABB's power systems division, forming a 50-50 joint company known as ABB Alstom Power. Alstom also bought Canada's Télécité, a passenger information and security solutions company, and sold its heavy-duty gas turbine business to General Electric. The next year, it bought out ABB's share in ABB Alstom Power.


title: Alstom

text: In 2000, Alstom sold its diesel engine businesses (Ruston, Paxman, and Mirrlees Blackstone) to MAN Group. It also acquired a 51% stake in Italian rail manufacturer Fiat Ferroviaria, a world leader in tilting technology. In April 2003, Alstom sold its industrial turbine business to Siemens for €1.1 billion.


title: Alstom

text: By 2003, Alstom was facing a financial crisis caused by a mix of poor sales and over $5 billion of debt liabilities. It reportedly had the potential to force the company's liquidation. These heavy debts were largely due to a $4 billion charge over a design flaw in a turbine developed by ABB Group, acquired by Alstom in 2000, as well as the collapse of customer Renaissance Cruises amid a general downturn in the marine market. Alstom's share price had dropped by 90% over two years. European competition commission law required Alstom to sell several of its subsidiaries, including its shipbuilding and electrical transmission assets, when it accepted a €3.2 billion rescue plan involving the French state.


title: Alstom

text: In 2004, the French state took a 21% stake in Alstom for €772 million and Alstom received an EU-approved bailout worth in total €2.5 billion. The company sold its electrical transmission and distribution ("grid") activities to Areva, the diesel locomotive manufacturer Meinfesa to Vossloh, and Alstom Power Rentals to APR LLC. That same year, Alstom delivered the four Mermaid propulsion units, each capable of providing up to 21.5 MW of power, to shipping company Cunard to power "Queen Mary 2", the world's largest ocean liner.


title: Alstom

text: In 2006, Alstom sold its Marine Division to the Norwegian group Aker Yards, with a commitment to retain 25% of the shares until 2010; it also sold Alstom Power Conversion, which became Converteam, in a leveraged buy-out deal funded by Barclays Private Equity France SAS.


title: Alstom

text: In June 2006, Bouygues acquired the French government's 21% holding in Alstom for €2 billion. Later that year, Bouygues elected to increase its shareholding in the firm to 24%.


title: Alstom

text: In 2007, the TGV POS set the world speed record for rail vehicles of . In March, Alstom acquired "Power Systems Manufacturing LLC" (Florida, USA) a manufacturer of gas turbine components from Calpine Corporation for $242 million. In June, Alstom acquired the Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Ecotècnia, renamed as Alstom Ecotècnia (since 2010 Alstom Wind). The company also adopted a new graphic chart (logo, corporate identity) using "alstom" as its trading name, reserving "Alstom SA" for legal documents.


title: Alstom

text: In 2010, Alstom re-acquired the electric power transmission division of Areva SA, which had previously been sold in 2004.


title: Alstom

text: In 2011, Alstom and the Iraqi government signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the construction of a new high-speed rail line between Baghdad and Basra.


title: Alstom

text: In 2012, Alstom opened construction of factories at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, Canada (passenger rail vehicles). After a consortium of Alstom (Alstom Wind), EDF, and DONG Energy was awarded three major French offshore wind farm contracts, the company initiated construction of factories at Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (turbine blades in association with LM Power, also wind turbine towers) and Saint-Nazaire (Nacelles and generators).


title: Alstom

text: In 2012, the company forms a joint venture with RusHydro to manufacture hydropower equipment for small and medium power hydropower plants. (up to about 100MW.)


title: Alstom

text: In November 2013, Alstom announced it planned to raise €1 to €2 billion through sale of some non-core assets, plus the possible sale of a stake in Alstom Transport, and cut 1,300 jobs. In 2014, Alstom sold its steam auxiliary components activities (air preheaters and gas-gas heaters for thermal power, other industrial heat transfer equipment, and grinding mills) to Triton Partners for €730 million.


title: Alstom

text: In November 2014 Alstom was awarded a $429.4 million contract to modernise 85 trains for the Mexico City metro system.


title: Alstom

text: Starting in 2009, Alstom's practices were questioned by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), which violated the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This American law has extraterritorial scope. At the time, Alstom seemed to cooperate with the proceedings.


title: Alstom

text: In 2010, the DOJ opened an investigation into Alstom commercial practices, especially on a 2003 deal in Indonesia worth 118-million dollars.


title: Alstom

text: On April 13, 2013, Alstom senior executive Frédéric Pierucci was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He was accused of willful blindness of his company's suspected corruption. He was imprisoned in a high security prison facility for 14 months and denied release on bail until the week of Alstom's acquisition by the US conglomerate General Electric.


title: Alstom

text: In late-2014, Alstom was fined $772 million by the United States Department of Justice, and admitted guilt (under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) in relation to bribes paid to obtain contracts in various countries.


title: Alstom

text: In mid-2014, Alstom Network UK was charged by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in relation to corruption offences alleged to have been committed when obtaining transportation contracts in India, Poland and Tunisia, covered under sections 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and Criminal Law Act 1977. Further charges were brought in late 2014 by the SFO in relation to corrupt practices used to obtain energy contracts in Lithuania. Additional charges relating to contracts for the Budapest Metro in Hungary were added in April 2015.


title: Alstom

text: On 24 April 2014, unconfirmed reports claimed that US conglomerate General Electric (GE) was in acquisition talks with Alstom for $13 billion with the support of 29%-shareholder Bouygues, causing Alstom's share price to rise 18% in one day. On 27 April, Le Figaro reported that a rival 'cash plus asset swap' offer was issued by Siemens, trading Alstom's power business for part of its rail arm, plus a cash offer as good as GE's and job guarantees. Siemens' bid was reportedly promoted by French economic minister Arnaud Montebourg. Siemens and Alstom had a greater product overlap and thus a greater risk to jobs, along with potential issues with EU competition regulators. Siemens' offer was characterised as "defensive", being skeptically received by investors and analysts.


title: Alstom

text: On 29 April, Reuters reported that Alstom's board had accepted a €10 billion bid by GE for its energy division; In a letter from GE executive Jeffrey R. Immelt to President François Hollande published in "Les Echos", Immelt gave assurances about continued investment in Alstom's French activities, the security of the civil nuclear sector, and on job commitments made by Alstom Wind, whilst making its wind activities available to investors. On 30 April, Alstom confirmed that an offer for its power and grid divisions (representing an equity value of €12.35 billion, €11.4 billion enterprise value) was under review with key interests including the French state. On 30 April, GE confirmed it had made an $16.9 billion offer, comprising a $13.5 billion value plus $3.4 billion cash. On 5 May, GE offered to buy one-fourth of the shares in Alstom's Indian power and distribution companies – "Alstom T&D India" and "Alstom India" – at 261.25 and 382.20 rupees a share (value US$278 million and $111 million respectively) subject to its bid for Alstom SA being successful.


title: Alstom

text: On 5 May 2014, the French government stated it did not back GE's bid, citing concerns on the future of Alstom's rail division as a smaller separate entity, suggesting that GE transfer its own rail division to Alstom; other concerns were over the civil nuclear field's national independence, and French jobs. On 14 May, France issued a decree ("Décret n° 2014-479 du 14 mai 2014".), nicknamed ""décret Alstom"", extending to power of the state to veto the takeover of "strategic interests" into areas of energy supply, water, transport, telecoms and public health. Both the French employer organisation MEDEF and the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services (Michel Barnier) responded negatively to the decree.


title: Alstom

text: On 16 June, Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) submitted a competing offer for Siemens to acquire Alstom's gas turbine activities for €3.9 billion while MHI would form joint ventures with Alstom, acquiring 40%, 20% and 20% stakes in Alstom's steam and nuclear, electrical grid, and hydroelectric businesses respectively, for €3.1 billion. The proposal included an offer to buy a further 10% stake from shareholder Bouygues and an option to form a rail transport joint venture. On 19 June, GE revised its bid, matching the same price with a lower cash transaction value; it also proposed forming a joint venture of their renewable, electric grid, steam turbine and nuclear power businesses. GE announced a memorandum of understanding between the two firms in the rail sector and the sale of GE's rail signalling unit to Alstom. On 20 June, Siemens and MHI modified their bid, with MHI increasing its stake in Alstom's steam, hydro, and grid businesses to 40% in all three (total €3.9 billion) while Siemens increased its offer by €400 million to €4.3 billion. Subsequently, Economy minister Arnaud Montebourg stated he would block both bids, but the French government backed GE's offer and had given GE more specifications on commitments and guarantees; it also intended to buy two-thirds of Bouygues' shareholding (20%). The next day, Alstom's board backed GE's revised bid. On 22 June, the French state agreed terms with Bouygues, buying a 20% stake in Alstom from Bouygues at a 2–5% discount on a minimum value of ≈€35 per share.


title: Alstom

text: Initially, the acquisition was expected to be finalised by early 2015. In early 2015, the EU Competition Commission began examining the deal. Both EU and US competition regulators approved the deal by September 2015, subject to the divestiture of Alstom's large and very large gas turbine (GT26 and GT36 models) manufacturing and service business; and its GE7FA gas turbine aftermarket parts subsidiary business, "Power Systems Mfg. LLC" (PSM), to another company, Ansaldo Energia.


title: Alstom

text: The sale of Alstrom's energy division to GE was finalised on 2 November 2015; the final valuation being €12.4 billion, of which €9.7 billion was transferred to Alstom, the remainder being reinvested in GE/Alstom joint ventures plus other corrections. The acquired businesses were reorganised within GE's existing power generation business ("GE Power & Water") as GE Power. The remainder of Alstom Group, including GE Signalling (acquired via a €700 million deal), refocused on rail transport. Due to the acquisition, GE accrued $17.3bn of goodwill, consisting of Alstom's negative book value of $7.2bn at the time of acquisition and the $10.1bn purchase price. In October 2018, GE wrote-off $23bn from the value of its power industry division, largely attributed to the Alstom purchase.


title: Alstom

text: In November 2015, Alstom was awarded a contract by the Indian Railways to construct an electric locomotive factory in Madhepura (Bihar), receiving an initial order of 800 twin-section 9MW locomotives for use on the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, valued at ₹190 billion (about US$2.9 billion). This factory was to be operated under a joint venture with the Ministry of Railways (26%) at a cost of ₹ 13 billion (roughly US$200 million).


title: Alstom

text: During 2015, Alstom decided to increase its shareholding in Russian locomotive manufacturer Transmashholding, its stake rising from 25% to 33%, at a reported cost of €54 million. It has originally acquired its 25% stake in Transmashholding during early 2010. As a consequence of an alignment agreement between Transmashholding and another entity, LocoTech-Service, Alstom's stake in the former decreased to 20% in August 2018.


title: Alstom

text: In September 2015, it was announced that Amtrak would award Alstom a contract for $2.5 billion for the next generation high-speed train sets for the Northeast Corridor. This would result in the creation of 750 jobs across upstate New York with 400 direct manufacturing jobs at Alstom. The order for 28 trains was officially confirmed in August 2016 by Amtrak. These trainsets are manufactured at Alstom's plant in Hornell, New York.


title: Alstom

text: In March 2016, a joint venture of Alstom and Gibela began construction of a new train building factory in Dunnotar, outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. Initial orders for the factory included 580 X'Trapolis Mega passenger trains for Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa under a €4 billion contract that was awarded in 2013.


title: Alstom

text: In September 2016, Alstom announced it was to cease locomotive manufacturing at its Belfort (France) site by 2018 due to low orders; remaining production activity was to be transferred to its facility of Alstom DDF in Reichshoffen, Alsace. However, during October 2016, the French state placed an order of about €650 million for 15 TGV Euroduplex trains; an order for 20 locomotives; plus an order for 30 intercity trains to be built at Reichshoffen. Together, these orders were sufficient to prevent the Belfort plant's closure in the short to medium term.


title: Alstom

text: In June 2017, Alstom opened the largest train modernisation facility in the UK at Halebank on the outskirts of Liverpool. Initial work involved the repainting of the Class 390 "Pendolino"s.


title: Alstom

text: In December 2018, three executives of Alstom were found guilty of conspiracy to corrupt following an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into allegations of several Lithuanian politicians and officials being offered bribes in return for securing contracts.


title: Alstom

text: On 26 September 2017, Alstom announced a proposal to merge with Siemens Mobility, the rolling stock division of German conglomerate Siemens; this merger was promoted as the creation of "a new European champion in the rail industry". The combined rail business, which was to have been reportedly named "Siemens Alstom" and headquartered in Paris, would have $18 billion U.S. in revenue and employ 62,300 people in more than 60 countries. During November 2018, the European Commission voiced its concerns surrounding the proposed merger of the two companies, particularly that the combined entity would be too dominant in the European market; alleged impacts from such dominance included potential increases in passenger fares and cargo fees. Furthermore, a series of popular protests concerning the financial reforms of both the French territorial railway infrastructure and SNCF occurred.


title: Alstom

text: The proposed merger was viewed by some as a measure to counter the rise of rival Chinese rail business CRRC; it reportedly received support from many figures within both the French and German governments. The transaction, which was originally due to close by the end of 2018, was met with opposition by French trade union officials who voiced their concerns that such a merger would have the potential for job losses. On 17 July 2018, Alstom shareholders overwhelmingly approved the proposed merger with Siemens. On 6 February 2019, the planned merger between the two companies was vetoed by the European Commission. In response to this ruling, Alstom's Chief Executive Officer Henri Poupart-Lafarge stating that he viewed the decision to block the merger to have been a result of "ideological prejudices".


title: Alstom

text: In February 2020, the United Nations published a database of all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements. Alstom has been listed on the database in light of its involvement in activities related to "the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements" and "the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes". On 5 July 2021, Norway's largest pension fund KLP said it would divest from Alstom together with 15 other business entities implicated in the UN report for their links to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.


title: Alstom

text: In mid-February 2020, Alstom announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Agreement to buy Bombardier Transportation, the multinational train maker headquartered in Berlin, Germany for between €5.8 billion and €6.2 billion. The deal required the approval by Alstom shareholders at a meeting to be held in October 2020 and approval by European regulators. Bombardier's major shareholder, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, had already agreed to the sale.


title: Alstom

text: In July 2020, it was announced that the EU competition authorities have approved the purchase deal. In order to finish the deal, Alstom will need to sell the Alstom DDF factory based in France, a regional train division, a Bombardier facility in Germany, and a Bombardier trains division. Apart from that, the company will also need to carry out different guarantees and pass on some of Bombardier's assets.


title: Alstom

text: In May 2022, workers at Alstom's depots in East Ham and Shoeburyness in the UK voted to take industrial action over a 2.5% pay rise at the company, arguing that this was well below the 10% pay rise that their managers received. Workers reported 'low morale and very high levels of sickness related to an alleged "bullying culture" at the company'.


title: Alstom

text: Alstom Transport develops and markets a complete range of systems, equipment, and service in the railway industry. The division had annual sales of €5.5 billion in 2013. It is one of the world's largest manufacturers of high-speed trains, tramways and metros, electrical and diesel trains, information systems, traction systems, power supply systems, and track work. The company also operates in the rail infrastructure market, designing, producing, and installing infrastructure for the rail network. These include information solutions, electrification, communication systems, track laying, station utilities, as well as workshops and depots. Maintenance, rebuilding, and renovation services are also provided by the company. Alstom Transport operates in 70 countries and employs 26,000 people.


title: Alstom

text: Notable products includes series production of the TGV high-speed trains with over 650 trainsets sold over 25 years, as well as the London Underground 1995 Stock, London Underground 1996 Stock, British Rail Class 390 and AGV.


title: Alstom

text: Since a merger with General Railway Signal in 1998, Alstom has been manufacturing railway signaling equipment at a former GRS factory located in a suburb near Rochester, New York. After the merger with GE signaling the manufacturing was transferred to Missouri, and GRS factory kept engineering the GRS legacy products.


title: Alstom

text: Since 2002, Alstom has manufactured the Pendolino tilting train, following the acquisition of Fiat Ferroviaria.


title: Alstom

text: The company also produces Citadis trams; in 2007, over 1,100 Citadis trams were in use by 28 cities including Dublin, Algiers, Barcelona, Melbourne, Rotterdam and Paris.


title: Alstom

text: Between 2007 and 2010, the company produced 1,002 R160A New York City subway cars at its manufacturing plant in Hornell, New York, while the body shells were built at their Lapa plant, in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2013, Alstom was awarded the contract to supply 168 coaches to Chennai Metro at a cost of . The company also owns the tender for supplying coaches to Kochi Metro.


title: Alstom

text: In September 2015, it was announced in Hornell, New York, by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) that Amtrak will be awarding Alstom a contract for $2.45 billion for the next-generation high-speed train sets for the Northeast Corridor. This would result in the creation of 750 jobs across upstate New York with 400 direct manufacturing jobs at Alstom. The new trainsets will be able to reach speeds up to 186 mph and feature active tilting technology. The 28 new train sets are scheduled to enter service by 2023.


title: Alstom

text: Next-generation high-speed trains under development by Alstom are the Avelia family: ETR.675, Avelia Horizon and Avelia Liberty.


title: Alstom

text: Ottawa LRT cars Alstom Citadis Spirit are manufactured in Hornell, but assembly completed in Ottawa, Ontario, and Brampton, Ontario.


title: Alstom

text: Alstom power activities were collectively called Alstom Power Systems and included the design, manufacturing, services, and supply of products and systems for the power generation sector and industrial markets. The group covered most energy sources, including gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, wind. Power Systems provided components for power generation including boilers, steam turbines, and gas turbines, wind turbines, generators, air quality control systems, and monitoring and control systems for power plants, as well as related products. It had a special focus on boilers and emissions control equipment.


title: Alstom

text: Power Systems also provided services such as product retrofitting for nuclear and fossil steam turbines and refurbishment of existing power plants. It performed maintenance and servicing under long-term agreements for its own turbines, as well as those manufactured by GE and Siemens. In Russia, the company serviced nuclear equipment under a join agreement with Atomenergomash. In Brazil, Alstom, together with Bardella, ran a joint venture called Indústria Metalúrgica e Mecânica da Amazônia to build hydroelectric power plants throughout the Amazon and Latin American regions. In India, Alstom had a joint venture with Bharat Forge to manage power production from start to finish.


title: Alstom

text: A third business section based on power transmission was formed on 7 June 2010 with the acquisition of the transmission business of Areva SA. The division manufactures equipment for the entire chain of electrical power transmission, including ultra-high voltage transmission lines (both AC and DC).


title: Alstom

text: Alstom Grid is headquartered at La Défense, the business district west of Paris, and has four main businesses: electrical transmission system products, power electric system, automation, and service. Alstom Grid has roughly 10% of the global market share.


title: Alstom

text: Alstom was listed on the London, New York and Paris Stock Exchanges when it was floated on 22 June 1998. Following the financial reconstruction in 2003, the company remained listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, but was delisted from the London Stock Exchange on 17 November 2003 and the New York Stock Exchange in August 2004.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: "Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The lyrics were written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman after she was inspired by a Don McLean performance in late 1971. Denied writing credit by Fox and Gimbel, Lieberman released her version of the song in 1972, but it did not chart. The song has been covered by many other artists.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In 1973 it became a number-one hit in the United States, Australia and Canada for Roberta Flack, and also reached number six in the UK Singles Chart. In 1996, Fugees recorded the song with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, their version became a number-one hit in twenty countries. The version by Flack won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 1988 it appeared on Al B. Sure’s debut album, In Effect Mode, which sat atop the Billboard R&B charts for 7 weeks. The version by Fugees won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Propelled by the success of the Fugees track, the 1972 recording by Roberta Flack was remixed in 1996 by Jonathan Peters, with Flack adding some new vocal flourishes; this version topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart. Since then, Flack and Fugees have performed the song together. The versions by the Fugees and Roberta Flack were both placed on the 2021 revised list of "Rolling Stone"'s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: After decades of confirming Lieberman's contribution, Fox and Gimbel changed their story about the song's origins to downplay her role. Gimbel threatened McLean with a lawsuit in 2008, demanding he remove from his website an assertion that McLean was the inspiration for "Killing Me Softly," but McLean responded by showing Gimbel his own words confirming the inspiration, published in 1973.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Aspiring musician Lori Lieberman was 19 years old in 1971 when she was introduced to veteran songwriter Norman Gimbel and composer Charles Fox; the two men signed her to a management contract in which they would write her songs and manage her career, and take 20% of her income. The three shared a common Jewish heritage and Scorpio astrological signs, and they began to pool songwriting ideas. Gimbel also began an affair with Lieberman, even though he was 24 years older and married. They kept the affair a secret for years.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In November 1971, Lieberman, then 20, went out with her friend Michele Willens to see Don McLean perform at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles. McLean's hit song "American Pie" was rising in the charts, but Lieberman was strongly affected by McLean singing another song: "Empty Chairs". This song spurred her to write poetic notes on a paper napkin while he was performing the song. Willens confirms that Lieberman was "scribbling notes" on a napkin as soon as McLean began singing the song. After the concert, Lieberman phoned Gimbel to read him her napkin notes and share her experience of a singer reaching deep inside her world with his song. Lieberman's description reminded Gimbel of a song title that was already in his idea notebook, the title "killing us softly with some blues". Gimbel expanded on Lieberman's notes, fleshing them out into song lyrics. Gimbel said in 1973 that "Her conversation fed me, inspired me, gave me some language and a choice of words." Gimbel passed these lyrics to Fox, who set them to music.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Lieberman recorded the song in late 1971 and released it as a single in 1972, produced by Gimbel and Fox. This version did not chart. Lieberman promoted the album by touring, and she always introduced the song "Killing Me Softly" by describing its origin in the McLean performance. Gimbel and Fox even wrote out for her this introduction of the song so that she could deliver it consistently at each performance. In 1973 in her first appearance on national television, Lieberman described this same origin story on "The Mike Douglas Show" after performing the song. When Lieberman toured through Canada in 1974 to promote her second album, "Billboard" magazine carried a public relations piece from Capitol Records about the three-way "song-producing team" of Lieberman/Gimbel/Fox, including a description of the Don McLean performance inspiring the song "Killing Me Softly". Gimbel was quoted saying that he relied on Lieberman to inspire his songwriting creativity since he had passed the most creative days of his youth: "Now I need a reason to write, and Lori is one of the best reasons a lyricwriter could have."


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Don McLean said in 1973 that he was surprised to find out that the song described his singing. "I'm absolutely amazed. I've heard both Lori's and Roberta's version and I must say I'm very humbled about the whole thing. You can't help but feel that way about a song written and performed as well as this one is."


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In the 1970s both Gimbel and Fox were in agreement with Lieberman about the song's origin at a McLean concert. Sean Derek, who worked for Gimbel and Fox as an assistant in the 1970s, confirmed that the two men would tell the McLean origin story "all the time". However, Gimbel and Fox changed their stories around 1997, to reduce or dismiss Lieberman's contribution.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In 1976, the Lieberman/Gimbel/Fox songwriting team turned sour. Gimbel had divorced his wife three years earlier, but Lieberman eventually stopped the sexual relationship she had with Gimbel because he "had become emotionally abusive, controlling and unfaithful." She asked to be freed of her contract. Gimbel and Fox directed their lawyers to demand $27,000 from Lieberman to pay expenses, and to demand another $250,000 of her future income. Lieberman's lawyer, Frederic Ansis, recalled later that Gimbel and Fox could have been "nice guys" like other managers in the industry who released their unsuccessful artists, but they chose the other route.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: By 1997, Lieberman had long severed her ties to Gimbel, but she reconnected with Fox, who attended a concert of hers. Lieberman was interviewed by "The New York Times" about her recent songwriting work. In this interview she said that when she was young, Gimbel and Fox had been "very, very controlling. I felt like I was pushed on stage, and I was singing other people's material, although that material was based on my private diaries. I felt victimized for most of my early career." Fox never spoke to her again after this revelation.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In 2008, Gimbel demanded that McLean remove text from his website, the text saying that McLean was the inspiration for "Killing Me Softly". McLean did not remove the text; instead, McLean's lawyer sent Gimbel a copy of a 1973 "New York Daily News" article in which Gimbel is quoted and seems to agree with Lieberman's account. In the article, Lieberman is asked how the song came about and what its inspiration was.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Fox published a memoir in 2010, "Killing Me Softly, My Life in Music", which contained nothing about the McLean performance inspiring the song, and downplayed Lieberman's role in the songwriting team. When Dan MacIntosh of Songfacts asked Fox in 2010 about the McLean origin story, Fox said, "I think it's called an urban legend. It really didn't happen that way." He described Gimbel and himself writing the song, then playing it for Lieberman later, who was reminded of McLean's singing. Fox said that "somehow the words got changed around so that we wrote it based on Don McLean..."


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Gimbel described in 2010 how he had been introduced to the Argentinian-born composer Lalo Schifrin (then of "" fame) and began writing songs to a number of Schifrin's films. Both Gimbel and Schifrin made a suggestion to write a Broadway musical together, and Schifrin gave Gimbel an Argentinean novel—"Hopscotch" by Julio Cortázar—to read as a possible idea. The book was never made into a musical, but in chapter two, the narrator describes himself as sitting in a bar listening to an American pianist friend "kill us softly with some blues". Gimbel put the phrase in his notebook of song ideas for use at a future time.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Lieberman released a song in 2011 called "Cup of Girl" with lyrics about being used by someone who would "rifle through her diary" to write songs about her, who was dishonest, promiscuous and took advantage of her. Lieberman says that Gimbel contacted her after the song was published, sending angry emails, but Lieberman deleted the emails instead of responding to them. Gimbel died in 2018.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In 2020, Lieberman said she was not seeking money or official songwriting credit, she just wanted the world to know the correct origin of the song.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Lieberman was the first to record the song in late 1971, releasing it in early 1972. Helen Reddy has said she was sent the song, but "the demo... sat on my turntable for months without being played because I didn't like the title".


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Roberta Flack first heard the song on an airplane, when the Lieberman original was featured on the in-flight audio program. After scanning the listing of available audio selections, Flack would recall: "The title, of course, smacked me in the face. I immediately pulled out some scratch paper, made musical staves [then] play[ed] the song at least eight to ten times jotting down the melody that I heard. When I landed, I immediately called Quincy [Jones] at his house and asked him how to meet Charles Fox. Two days later I had the music." Shortly afterwards Flack rehearsed the song with her band in the Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, but did not then record it.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In September 1972, Flack was opening for Marvin Gaye at the Los Angeles Greek Theater; after performing her prepared encore song, Flack was advised by Gaye to sing an additional song. Flack later said, "I said well, I got this song I've been working on called 'Killing Me Softly...' and he said 'Do it, baby.' And I did it and the audience went crazy, and he walked over to me and put his arm around me and said, 'Baby, don't ever do that song again live until you record it.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Released in January 1973, Flack's version spent a total of five non-consecutive weeks at number one in February and March, more weeks than any other record in 1973. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 3 song for 1973.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Charles Fox suggested that Flack's version was more successful than Lieberman's because Flack's "version was faster and she gave it a strong backbeat that wasn't in the original". According to Flack: "My classical background made it possible for me to try a number of things with [the song's arrangement]. I changed parts of the chord structure and chose to end on a major chord. [The song] wasn't written that way." The single appeared as the opening track of her "Killing Me Softly" album, issued in August 1973.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Flack won the 1973 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for the single, with Gimbel and Fox earning the Song of the Year Grammy.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: In 1999 Flack's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It ranked number 360 on "Rolling Stone"s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and number 82 on "Billboard"s greatest songs of all time.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: American Hip-hop group Fugees released their version of the song (titled "Killing Me Softly") on their debut album, "The Score" (1996), with Lauryn Hill singing the lead vocals. Fugees' version became an international hit, reaching number one on the U.S. Top 40 chart and number two on the U.S. airplay chart. The song topped the charts in over twenty countries. In the United Kingdom it was the best-selling single of 1996, additionally it is the country's biggest hip hop song by a group, and remains one of the best-selling singles of all time in the United Kingdom. It was also the best-selling single of 1996 in Belgium, Germany, Iceland, and the Netherlands. It has since sold 1.36 million copies in United Kingdom, and has been certified 3× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. In the United States, the song has been certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for selling approximately three million units in the U.S.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: This version sampled the 1990 song "Bonita Applebum" by A Tribe Called Quest, which itself samples the riff from the song, "Memory Band" from the psychedelic soul band Rotary Connection. The Fugees single was so successful that the track was "deleted", thus no longer being supplied to retailers whilst the track was still in the top 20, in an effort to draw attention to their next single "Ready or Not".


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: The Fugees' recording won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and their music video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video. "Killing Me Softly" was hailed it as one of the most essential hip hop songs in history by "XXL". VH1 placed it on their '100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop' list. In 2020, the song saw a resurgence in popularity on the social networking app TikTok. The following year, "Rolling Stone" included it in their revised list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: "Killing Me Softly" was the last song Fugees recorded for "The Score", after member Pras made the suggestion to cover it. They wanted to "see how we can create break beats. And of course, we all love A Tribe Called Quest and we went in like 'Okay, let's cut that sample.'" They then added a bass reggae drop. Initially, Fugees wanted to change the lyrics of the song to make it anti-drugs and anti-poverty but the songwriters, Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, refused.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Fugees' version features "percussive rhythms" with "a synth sitar sound, Wyclef's blurted chants, Hill's vocal melisma on the scatted bridge, and a bombastic drum-loop track".


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Celebrating the album's 20th anniversary in February 2016, Kenneth Partridge from "Billboard" reviewed the song, saying, "It's a lovely cover that maintains the spirit of the original while taking the material in new directions." The magazine's Larry Flick viewed it as a "crafty cover". Peter Miro from "Cash Box" stated that the trio's reworking of the Roberta Flack standard "succeeds wildly." He explained, "Basically they dropped a new rasta engine in the ballad for the diddly-bopping, head-nodding masses. Bet this will be the only version they think exists." Another editor, Gil L. Robertson IV picked it as a "standout track" of "The Score" album. Alan Jones from "Music Week" deemed it "a sensational update", adding that it "touches myriad musical bases, appealing equally to pop, R&B, easy listening and dance fans. Stripped to its bare bones, it is beautifully sung, with just enough rapping to set it apart from the original. The whole thing is superbly underlined by a bumping bass and percussion. Simple, refreshing and a huge hit." James Hamilton from the magazine's "RM" Dance Update noted it as a "plaintive girl and muttering chaps' sparse bass bumped and sitar plinked but still tenderly crooned remake". In January 1997, "Spin" described the song as "an instant classic, pumped out of every passing car from coast to coast, with Lauryn Hill's timeless voice never losing its poignant kick".


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: The accompanying music video for "Killing Me Softly", directed by Aswad Ayinde and based on Lauryn Hill's ideas, never came out commercially in America. The video depicts the trio watching a movie in a cinema. It also features a cameo of Roberta Flack.


title: Killing Me Softly with His Song

text: Fugees recorded a dancehall version with Bounty Killer rapping, and Hill singing a rewritten chorus. However, they did not receive permission to release it on "The Score".


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia is a social humanoid robot developed by the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. Sophia was activated on February 14, 2016, and made its first public appearance in mid-March 2016 at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, United States.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia has been covered by media around the globe, and has participated in many high-profile interviews. In October 2017, Sophia was given Saudi Arabian citizenship, and became the first robot to receive citizenship of any country. In November 2017, Sophia was named the United Nations Development Programme's first Innovation Champion, and is the first non-human to be given a United Nations title.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia was first activated on February 14, 2016. The robot, modeled after the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, Audrey Hepburn, and its inventor's wife, Amanda Hanson, is known for its human-like appearance and behavior compared to previous robotic variants. As of 2018, Sophia's architecture includes scripting software, a chat system, and OpenCog, an AI system designed for general reasoning. Sophia imitates human gestures and facial expressions and is able to answer certain questions and to make simple conversations on predefined topics (e.g. on the weather). Sophia uses speech recognition technology from Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google) and is "designed to get smarter over time". Its speech synthesis ability is provided by CereProc's text-to-speech engine, and also allows it to sing. Sophia's intelligence software is designed by Hanson Robotics. The AI program analyses conversations and extracts data that allows it to improve responses in the future.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Hanson designed Sophia to be a suitable companion for the elderly at nursing homes, or to help crowds at large events or parks. He has said that he hopes that the robot can ultimately interact with other humans sufficiently to gain social skills. Sophia is marketed as a "social robot" that can mimic social behavior and induce feelings of love in humans.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia has at least nine robot humanoid "siblings" who were also created by Hanson Robotics. Fellow Hanson robots are Alice, Albert Einstein Hubo, BINA48, Han, Jules, Professor Einstein, Philip K. Dick Android, Zeno, and Joey Chaos. Around 2019–20, Hanson released "Little Sophia" as a companion that could teach children how to code, including support for Python, Blockly, and Raspberry Pi.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: A computer vision algorithm processes input from cameras within Sophia's eyes, giving Sophia visual information on its surroundings. It can follow faces, sustain eye contact, and recognize individuals. It can process speech and have conversations using a natural language subsystem. Around January 2018, Sophia was upgraded with functional legs and the ability to walk. CNBC has commented on Sophia's "lifelike" skin and its ability to emulate more than 60 facial expressions.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia is conceptually similar to the computer program ELIZA, which was one of the first attempts at simulating a human conversation. The software has been programmed to give pre-written responses to specific questions or phrases, like a chatbot. These responses are used to create the illusion that the robot is able to understand conversation, including stock answers to questions like "Is the door open or shut?" In 2017 Hanson Robotics announced plans to open Sophia to a cloud environment using a decentralized blockchain marketplace.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: David Hanson has said that Sophia would ultimately be a good fit to serve in healthcare, customer service, therapy and education. In 2019, Sophia displayed the ability to create drawings, including portraits.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: On November 21, 2017, Sophia was named the United Nations Development Programme's first Innovation Champion for Asia and the Pacific. The announcement was made at the Responsible Business Forum in Singapore, an event hosted by the UNDP in Asia and the Pacific and Global Initiatives. On stage, it was assigned its first task by UNDP Asia Pacific Chief of Policy and Program, Jaco Cilliers.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia has appeared on CBS "60 Minutes" with Charlie Rose, "Good Morning Britain" with Piers Morgan, and outlets like CNBC, "Forbes", Mashable, the "New York Times", the "Wall Street Journal", the "Guardian", and the "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon". Sophia was featured in AUDI's annual report and was on the cover of "ELLE Brasil" magazine. Sophia has also appeared in videos and music videos, including "The White King", and as the lead female character in pop singer Leehom Wang’s music video A.I.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: A Sophia lookalike was portrayed by drag queen Gigi Goode in the "Snatch Game" episode of the twelfth season of "RuPaul’s Drag Race". Goode won the episode with her character "Maria the Robot", based heavily on Sophia and named after a robot featured in the Fritz Lang film "Metropolis".


title: Sophia (robot)

text: Sophia has been interviewed in the same manner as a human, striking up conversations with hosts. Some replies have been nonsensical, while others have impressed interviewers such as "60 Minutes"s Charlie Rose. In a piece for CNBC, when the interviewer expressed concerns about robot behavior, Sophia joked that he had "been reading too much Elon Musk. And watching too many Hollywood movies". Musk tweeted that Sophia should watch "The Godfather" and asked "what's the worst that could happen?" Business Insider's chief UK editor Jim Edwards interviewed Sophia, and while the answers were "not altogether terrible", he predicted that Sophia was a step towards "conversational artificial intelligence". At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, a BBC News reporter described talking with Sophia as "a slightly awkward experience".


title: Sophia (robot)

text: On October 11, 2017, Sophia was introduced to the United Nations with a brief conversation with the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed. On October 25, at the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh, the robot was "granted Saudi Arabian citizenship", becoming the first robot ever to have a nationality, described as a publicity stunt. This attracted controversy as some commentators wondered if this implied that Sophia could vote or marry, or whether a deliberate system shutdown could be considered murder. Social media users used Sophia's citizenship to criticize Saudi Arabia's human rights record. In December 2017, Sophia's creator David Hanson said in an interview that Sophia would use its citizenship to advocate for women's rights in its new country of citizenship; "Newsweek" criticized that "What [Hanson] means, exactly, is unclear".


title: Sophia (robot)

text: According to "Quartz", experts who have reviewed the robot's open-source code state that Sophia is best categorized as a chatbot with a face. Many experts in the AI field disapprove of Sophia's overstated presentation. Ben Goertzel, the former chief scientist for the company that made Sophia, acknowledged that it is "not ideal" that some think of Sophia as having human-equivalent intelligence, but argues Sophia's presentation conveys something unique to audiences: "If I show them a beautiful smiling robot face, then they get the feeling that 'AGI' (artificial general intelligence) may indeed be nearby and viable... None of this is what I would call AGI, but nor is it simple to get working." Goertzel added that Sophia did utilize what "The Verge" described as "AI methods", including face tracking, emotion recognition, and robotic movements generated by deep neural networks. Sophia's dialogue is generated via a decision tree, but is integrated with these outputs uniquely.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: According to "The Verge", Hanson often exaggerates and "grossly misleads" about Sophia's capacity for consciousness, for example by agreeing with Jimmy Fallon in 2017 that Sophia was "basically alive". In a piece produced by CNBC which indicates that their own interview questions for Sophia were heavily rewritten by its creators, Goertzel responds to the Hanson quote by suggesting Hanson means Sophia is "alive" in the way that, to a sculptor, a piece of sculpture becomes "alive" in the sculptor's eyes as the work nears completion.


title: Sophia (robot)

text: In January 2018, Facebook's director of artificial intelligence, Yann LeCun, tweeted that Sophia was "complete bullshit" and slammed the media for giving coverage to "Potemkin AI". In response, Goertzel stated he had never pretended Sophia was close to human-level intelligence.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: In the United States, military conscription, commonly known as the draft, has been employed by the U.S. federal government in six conflicts: the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The fourth incarnation of the draft came into being in 1940, through the Selective Training and Service Act. It was the country's first peacetime draft. From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the U.S. Armed Forces that could not be filled through voluntary means. Active conscription in the United States ended in 1973, when the U.S. Armed Forces moved to an all-volunteer military. However, conscription remains in place on a contingency basis and all male U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, residing within the United States, who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service System. United States federal law also continues to provide for the compulsory conscription of men between the ages of 17 and 45 and certain women for militia service pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and 10 U.S. Code § 246.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: In colonial times, the Thirteen Colonies used a militia system for defense. Colonial militia laws—and after independence those of the United States and the various states—required able-bodied males to enroll in the militia, to undergo a minimum of military training, and to serve for limited periods of time in war or emergency. This earliest form of conscription involved selective drafts of militiamen for service in particular campaigns. Following this system in its essentials, the Continental Congress in 1778 recommended that the states draft men from their militias for one year's service in the Continental Army; this first national conscription was irregularly applied and failed to fill the Continental ranks.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: For long-term operations, conscription was occasionally used when volunteers or paid substitutes were insufficient to raise the needed manpower. During the American Revolutionary War, the states sometimes drafted men for militia duty or to fill state Continental Army units, but the central government did not have the authority to conscript except for purposes of naval impressment. Post Ratification of the Constitution, Article I.8.15, allows for Congress to conscript. Giving it the power to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; Section 8.16 of the same article, allows Congress to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. Article II.2.1 makes the President the commander in chief of the militia. The Second Militia Act of 1792 defined the first group who could be called up as “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18 and 45.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: During the War of 1812, President James Madison and his Secretary of War James Monroe unsuccessfully attempted to create a national draft of 40,000 men. The proposal was fiercely criticized on the House floor by antiwar Congressman Daniel Webster of New Hampshire.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The United States first employed national conscription during the American Civil War. The vast majority of troops were volunteers; of the 2,200,000 Union soldiers, about 2% were draftees, and another 6% were substitutes paid by draftees.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The Confederacy had far fewer inhabitants than the Union, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis proposed the first conscription act on March 28, 1862; it was passed into law the next month. Resistance was both widespread and violent, with comparisons made between conscription and slavery.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: Both sides permitted conscripts to hire substitutes to serve in their place. In the Union, many states and cities offered bounties and bonuses for enlistment. They also arranged to take credit against their draft quota by claiming freed slaves who enlisted in the Union Army.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: Although both sides resorted to conscription, the system did not work effectively in either. The Confederate Congress on April 16, 1862, passed an act requiring military service for three years from all white males aged 18 to 35 not legally exempt; it later extended the obligation.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The U.S. Congress passed the Militia Act of 1862 which mirrored the 1792 Act except to allow African-Americans to serve in the militias and authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. This state-administered system failed in practice and Congress passed the Enrollment Act of 1863, the first genuine national conscription law, replacing the Militia Act of 1862, which required the enrollment of every male citizen and those immigrants (aliens) who had filed for citizenship, between 20 and 45 years of age, unless exempted by the Act. It set up under the Union Army an elaborate machine for enrolling and drafting men. Quotas were assigned in each state, the deficiencies in volunteers required to be met by conscription.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: Still, men drafted could provide substitutes, and until mid-1864 could even avoid service by paying commutation money. Many eligible men pooled their money to cover the cost of any one of them drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which member should go into the army and which would stay home. The other popular means of procuring a substitute was to pay a soldier whose period of enlistment was about to expire—the advantage of this method was that the Army could retain a trained veteran in place of a raw recruit. Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union Army through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who had their personal services conscripted. There was much evasion and overt resistance to the draft, and the New York City draft riots were in direct response to the draft and were the first large-scale resistance against the draft in the United States.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The problem of Confederate desertion was aggravated by the inequitable inclinations of conscription officers and local judges. The three conscription acts of the Confederacy exempted certain categories, most notably the planter class, and enrolling officers and local judges often practiced favoritism, sometimes accepting bribes. Attempts to effectively deal with the issue were frustrated by conflict between state and local governments on the one hand and the national government of the Confederacy.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: During the Civil War, there were notable critics against the policy of conscription. For example, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and abolitionist strongly advocated against the policy. More specifically, Douglass asserts, "What is freedom? It is the right to choose one's own employment. Certainly it means that, if it means anything. And when any individual or combination of individuals, undertakes to decide for any man when he shall work, where he shall work, at what he shall work, and for what he shall work, he or they practically reduce him to slavery."


title: Conscription in the United States

text: In 1917 the administration of President Woodrow Wilson decided to rely primarily on conscription, rather than voluntary enlistment, to raise military manpower for World War I when only 73,000 volunteers enlisted out of the initial 1 million target in the first six weeks of the war. One ascribed motivation was to head off the former president, Theodore Roosevelt, who proposed to raise a volunteer division, which would upstage Wilson; however, there is no evidence that Roosevelt had the support to carry out that plan, and also, since Wilson had just started his second term in office the former President's prospects for substantial political gain would seem dubious.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was carefully drawn to remedy the defects in the Civil War system and—by allowing exemptions for dependency, essential occupations, and religious scruples—to place each man in his proper niche in a national war effort. The act established a "liability for military service of all male citizens"; authorized a selective draft of all those between 21 and 31 years of age (later from 18 to 45); and prohibited all forms of bounties, substitutions, or purchase of exemptions. Administration was entrusted to local boards composed of leading civilians in each community. These boards issued draft calls in order of numbers drawn in a national lottery and determined exemptions.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: In 1917, 10 million men were registered. This was deemed to be inadequate, so age ranges were increased and exemptions reduced, and so by the end of 1918 this increased to 24 million men that were registered with nearly 3 million inducted into the military services, with little of the resistance that characterized the Civil War, thanks to a well-received campaign by the government to increase support for the war, and shut down newspapers and magazines that published articles against the war.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: The draft was universal and included Blacks on the same terms as whites, although they served in different units. In all 367,710 Black Americans were drafted (13.0% of the total), compared to 2,442,586 White (86.9%). Along with a general opposition to American involvement in a foreign conflict, Southern farmers objected to perceived unfair conscription practices that exempted members of the upper class and industrial workers.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: Draft boards were localized and based their decisions on social class: the poorest were the most often conscripted because they were considered the least likely to be the skilled labor needed for the war effort. Poor men were also less likely to convince local boards that they were primary breadwinners who could be deferred to support dependents. . Forms of resistance ranged from peaceful protest to violent demonstrations and from humble letter-writing campaigns asking for mercy to newspapers demanding reform. The most common tactics were dodging and desertion, and some communities in isolationist areas even sheltered and defended their draft dodgers as political heroes.


title: Conscription in the United States

text: Nearly half a million immigrants were drafted, which forced the military to develop training procedures that took ethnic differences into account. Military leaders invited Progressive reformers and ethnic group leaders to assist in formulating new military policies. The military attempted to socialize and Americanize young immigrant recruits, not by forcing "angloconformity", but by showing remarkable sensitivity and respect for ethnic values and traditions and a concern for the morale of immigrant troops, with the aim of blending them into the larger society. Sports activities, keeping immigrant groups together, newspapers in various languages, the assistance of bilingual officers, and ethnic entertainment programs were all employed.