title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Harvick's win at Atlanta has since been memorable to many NASCAR fans. On the last lap of the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500, he beat Gordon by 0.006 seconds, a similar margin to Earnhardt's win over Bobby Labonte during the same race a year before (.010 seconds), and the images of Earnhardt's longtime gas man, Danny "Chocolate" Myers, crying after the victory, Harvick's tire-smoking burnout on the frontstretch with three fingers held aloft outside the driver's window, and the Fox television call by Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds, and Darrell Waltrip, concluding with "Gordon got loose, but he [Harvick] is gonna get him though, it's Harvick! Harvick by inches!"


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Pepsi 400 on July 7, 2001 which was NASCAR's first return to Daytona since Earnhardt's death. This led to an emotional celebration on the infield with Michael Waltrip (who finished second), whose victory at the Daytona 500 had been rendered hollow by the senior Earnhardt's death. Earnhardt Jr. would win two more races that season (the fall races at Dover and Talladega), for an eighth-place finish in the points standings.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: The team still scored a ninth-place finish in points for the 2001 season, led by Harvick's two wins and Top 10 finishes in the points. Harvick also captured Rookie of the Year honors as well.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Fans honored Earnhardt by holding three fingers aloft on the third lap of every NASCAR Winston Cup race. Meanwhile, NASCAR's television partners also went silent for the third lap, a practice that was repeated until the 2002 race at Rockingham, and returned in the 2011 Daytona 500 and 2021 Daytona 500, ten and twenty years after his death, respectively. After the September 11 attacks, the gestures were also done in remembrance of the victims of the attacks.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt was credited finishing 57th in the final point standings for 2001, despite competing in only one race. He also won the 2001 Most Popular Driver Award at the end of year awards' ceremony. Perennial winner Bill Elliott bowed out of the running and encouraged his supporters to vote for Earnhardt instead.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: At a news conference five days after the crash, NASCAR officials announced that the left lap belt on Earnhardt's seat belt harness had broken. Dr. Steve Bohannon, NASCAR's medical expert, said he thought the faulty belt had allowed Earnhardt's chin to strike the steering wheel, causing the fatal basilar skull fracture. This led to speculation that Earnhardt would have survived if his seat belt had not broken.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: The first paramedics to respond to the crash scene maintained that the seat belts had been loose, but the lap belt was not broken or cut when the belts were unbuckled to cut Earnhardt from the car. However, NASCAR's investigation concluded that each of the EMTs who attended to Earnhardt after the crash reported that the buckle position of Earnhardt's harness was off-center by , which would have been impossible had the lap belt not broken.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: A subsequent medical investigation revealed that belt failure did not play a significant role in Earnhardt's death.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: At the time of the accident, Simpson Performance Products manufactured the seat belts used in nearly every NASCAR competitor's machine. Bill Simpson, the company's founder, maintained that the belt had failed because it had been installed in an unapproved fashion in order to increase Earnhardt's comfort, an allegation that had been supported by some who were familiar with the situation.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Ed Hinton, a sportswriter for the "Orlando Sentinel", attempted to acquire Earnhardt's autopsy records and photos for study, as autopsy records were normally public documents in Florida. However, Earnhardt's widow Teresa Earnhardt petitioned a judge to seal the records. After a short court battle, it was mutually agreed to appoint Dr. Barry Myers, an expert on crash injuries at Duke University, to independently study Earnhardt's death. On April 10, 2001, Myers published his report rejecting NASCAR's explanation, finding that Earnhardt's death was the result of his inadequately restrained head and neck snapping forward, independent of the broken seat belt (rendering the question of improper installation moot).


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Philip Villanueva, a University of Miami neurosurgeon who had previously analyzed the crash for the "Sentinel" before the autopsy records were available, said he had reached the same conclusion but had wanted to examine the autopsy photos to be certain. Dr. Steve Olvey, who had been the medical director of CART for 22 years (and who, just over one year earlier, presided over a race where a driver was killed), and Wayne State University crash expert John Melvin also agreed with Myers' report. Bill Simpson said that the report was "The best news I've heard in seven weeks. I've been living in daily hell."


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: On the same day as Myers' report was made public, NASCAR announced its own investigation, after having remained silent for six weeks since the crash. The official NASCAR report, which had cost over a million dollars and was published on August 21, 2001, concluded that Earnhardt's death was the result of a combination of factors, which included the last-second collision with Schrader's car, the speed and angle of impact, and the separation of the seat belt as being contributing factors. It was also noted that investigators could not determine whether a head and neck support (HANS) device would have saved Earnhardt's life, and that airline-style black boxes would be mandated for all vehicles in order to better understand the forces at work in a crash such as Earnhardt's.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: In July 2001, Bill Simpson left Simpson Performance Products, citing the stress as "too much". The Simpson company attorneys asked NASCAR to unequivocally assert the following in regards to the broken lap belt found in Earnhardt's car:


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: A year after leaving his own company under controversy, Simpson returned to the motorsports safety industry after his one-year non-compete clause expired, starting IMPACT! Racing Products.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: In response to the speculation about the broken lap belt in Earnhardt's car, many teams migrated from traditional five to six-point safety harnesses.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Following the extensive investigation into Earnhardt's death, results from which were released on August 21, 2001, NASCAR did not make any immediate changes regarding use of the HANS device. NASCAR president Mike Helton stated, "We are still not going to react for the sake of reacting." However, NASCAR did wish to "encourage their use". Most drivers had already begun to act voluntarily to wear the devices. Two days before the report was released, 41 out of 43 drivers were wearing them at the Pepsi 400 by Meijer at Michigan International Speedway.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: On October 4, 2001, in an ARCA race being held in conjunction with the fall NASCAR racing weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Blaise Alexander was killed in a two-car incident while battling for the lead in the final laps of the race. Ironically, the other driver racing with Alexander for the lead was Earnhardt's oldest son Kerry Earnhardt. Earnhardt's car flipped on its roof after Alexander went into the wall, but he was in the lead when the race was halted with four laps to go. Due to carnage of the accident, the race was never restarted, so Earnhardt, who was not injured, was declared the winner. NASCAR mandated use of the HANS or Hutchens device in its top three series on October 17, 2001, with the Hutchens device being phased out in 2005, leaving only the HANS device.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: In addition to head and neck restraints, NASCAR began requiring the use of SAFER barriers at race tracks in which its top touring series compete. The soft walls feature foam and move slightly upon impact, dissipating energy and resulting in less force being exerted on the driver during an impact.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: Soon after Earnhardt's death, NASCAR began developing the Car of Tomorrow (CoT), which was used in competition in the NASCAR Cup Series until it was replaced by the so-called "Gen 6" car for the 2013 season. The design of the CoT incorporated the result of research conducted in the aftermath of Earnhardt's death. All of the safety improvements from the CoT remain in the Gen 6 design (which have been credited to have saved Ryan Newman after he suffered a last-lap crash at the 2020 running of the event), as well in its successor, the Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: On February 19, 2001, the Volusia County Medical Examiner performed an autopsy for Earnhardt. The unusual act of notifying NASCAR and Teresa Earnhardt was made prior to releasing the records sought by members of the public and media. Three days later, Teresa Earnhardt filed a legal brief in the Circuit Court of the Seventh Judicial Circuit, in and for Volusia County, Florida "(Case No. 2001-30373-CICI Div. 32)". Once the complaint was filed, the medical examiner's office was barred from releasing the public records, including autopsy photographs, pertaining to Earnhardt, until a formal hearing on the merits of Teresa Earnhardt's case could be heard.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: On February 28, March 13, and March 16, 2001, the "Orlando Sentinel"; Michael Uribe, founder of WebsiteCity.com; and Campus Communications, Inc., publisher of the University of Florida's student newspaper "The Independent Florida Alligator" filed motions to intervene into the Earnhardt v. Volusia litigation in order to uphold their rights to inspect and copy public records held by the Volusia County Medical Examiner to include the photographs and videotape of Dale Earnhardt's autopsy examination.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: From June 12 to June 13, 2001, a trial was then conducted before Judge Joseph Will. Will eventually ruled against Uribe and CCI's original public records requests and constitutional arguments to inspect and copy the medical examiner files pertaining to Earnhardt, to include autopsy photographs. Judge Will's ruling set forth in motion an extensive legal battle later fought in the appellate courts by both Uribe and CCI seeking to deem the denial of their public records request unconstitutional under Florida State and Federal laws. Then on December 1, 2003, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Uribe and CCI's appeal. Thus, the Florida Legislature's March 29, 2001 law preventing release of Earnhardt's public record autopsy photographs would remain in effect.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: The Florida Legislature's March 29, 2001, law, also known as the Earnhardt Family Protection Act, was sponsored by Daytona Beach's Senator Jim King (R-Jacksonville) and changed Florida's previously long standing and historically open public records laws from that day onward. The Earnhardt law deemed Florida's medical examination autopsy photographs, video, and audio recordings exempt from public inspection without the express permission from applicable next of kin.


title: Death of Dale Earnhardt

text: In April 2002, a year after Earnhardt's death, TLC singer Lisa Lopes was killed in a car accident in Honduras. A controversy similar to the release of Earnhardt's autopsy photos occurred, as within days of Lopes' crash, autopsy photos began to circulate on the Internet. All three of Earnhardt's drivers (Steve Park; Dale Earnhardt Jr.; and Michael Waltrip) responded in protest to the leak by painting a single black stripe next to their cars' left headlight decals for the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen ( ), also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language–speaking peoples. The group as a whole is heterogeneous and disparate as many Karen ethnic groups do not associate or identify with each other culturally or linguistically. These Karen groups reside primarily in Kayin State, southern and southeastern Myanmar. The Karen, approximately five million people, account for approximately seven percent of the Burmese population. Many Karen have migrated to Thailand, having settled mostly on the Myanmar–Thailand border. A few Karen have settled in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen groups as a whole are often confused with the Padaung tribe, best known for the neck rings worn by their women, but they are just one sub-group of Red Karens (Karenni), one of the tribes of Kayah in Kayah State, Myanmar.


title: Karen people

text: Karen insurgent groups, led primarily by the Karen National Union (KNU), have waged war against the Burmese government since early 1949. The original aim of the KNU was to create an independent Karen homeland called Kawthoolei, but since 1976 they have shifted towards calling for a federal system in Myanmar instead. Even so, the KNU has declined invitations to speak with the Burmese government.


title: Karen people

text: Karen legends refer to a "river of running sand" which ancestors reputedly crossed. Many Karen believe this refers to the Gobi Desert, although they have lived in Myanmar for centuries. Most scholars dismiss the notion of a Gobi desert crossing, but rather translate the legend as describing "rivers of water flowing with sand". This could refer to the sediment-laden Yellow River of China, the upper reaches of which is considered to be the "Urheimat" of Sino-Tibetan languages. According to the legends, the Karen took a long time to cook shellfish at the river of flowing sand, until the Chinese taught the Karens to open the shells so as to acquire the meat. It is estimated by linguists Luce and Lehman that the Tibeto-Burman peoples such as the Karen migrated into present-day Myanmar between 300 and 800 CE.


title: Karen people

text: "Karen" refers to a heterogeneous lot of ethnic groups that do not share a common language, culture, religion, or material characteristics. A pan-Karen ethnic identity is a relatively modern creation, established in the 19th century with the conversion of some Karen to Christianity and shaped by various British colonial policies and practices.


title: Karen people

text: "Karen" is an Anglicisation of the Burmese word "Kayin" (), whose etymology is unclear. The word may have originally been a derogatory term referring to non-Buddhist ethnic groups, or it may derive from "Kanyan", a possibly Mon name of a vanished civilisation.


title: Karen people

text: In pre-colonial times, the low-lying Burmese and Mon-speaking kingdoms recognised two general categories of Karen, the "Talaing Kayin" (), generally lowlanders who were recognised as the "original settlers" and essential to Mon court life, and the "Karen" (), highlanders who were subordinated or assimilated by the Bamar.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen people live mostly in the hills bordering the eastern mountainous region and Irrawaddy delta of Myanmar, primarily in Kayin State (formerly Karen State), with some in Kayah State, southern Shan State, Ayeyarwady Region, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Division and in northern and western Thailand.


title: Karen people

text: The total number of Karen is difficult to estimate. The last reliable census of Myanmar was conducted in 1931. A 2006 Voice of America article cites an estimate of seven million Karen in Myanmar. There are another 400,000 Karen in Thailand, where they are by far the largest of the hill tribes. Others live in refugee camps in Thailand.


title: Karen people

text: Some Karen have left the refugee camps in Thailand to resettle elsewhere, including in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. In 2011, the Karen diaspora population was estimated to be approximately 67,000.


title: Karen people

text: Following British victories in the three Anglo-Burmese wars, Myanmar was annexed as a province of British India in 1886. Baptist missionaries introduced Christianity to Myanmar beginning in 1830, and they were successful in converting many Karen. Christian Karens were favoured by the British colonial authorities and were given opportunities not available to the Burmese ethnic majority, including military recruitment and seats in the legislature. Some Christian Karens began asserting an identity apart from their non-Christian counterparts, and many became leaders of Karen ethno-nationalist organisations, including the Karen National Union.


title: Karen people

text: In 1881 the Karen National Associations (KNA) was founded by western-educated Christian Karens to represent Karen interests with the British. Despite its Christian leadership, the KNA sought to unite all Karens of different regional and religious backgrounds into one organisation. They argued at the 1917 Montagu–Chelmsford hearings in India that Myanmar was not "yet in a fit state for self-government". Three years later, after submitting a criticism of the 1920 Craddock Reforms, they won 5 (and later 12) seats in the Legislative Council of 130 (expanded to 132) members. The majority Buddhist Karens were not organised until 1939 with the formation of a Buddhist KNA.


title: Karen people

text: During World War II, when the Japanese occupied the region, long-term tensions between the Karen and Burma turned into open fighting. As a consequence, many villages were destroyed and massacres committed by both the Japanese and the Burma Independence Army (BIA) troops who helped the Japanese invade the country. Among the victims were a pre-war Cabinet minister, Saw Pe Tha, and his family. A government report later claimed the "excesses of the BIA" and "the loyalty of the Karens towards the British" as the reasons for these attacks. The intervention by Colonel Suzuki Keiji, the Japanese commander of the BIA, after meeting a Karen delegation led by Saw Tha Din, appears to have prevented further atrocities.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen people aspired to have the regions where they formed the majority turned into a subdivision or "state" within Myanmar similar to what the Shan, Kachin and Chin peoples had been given. A goodwill mission led by Saw Tha Din and Saw Ba U Gyi to London in August 1946 failed to receive any encouragement from the British government for any separatist demands.


title: Karen people

text: In January 1947 a delegation of representatives of the Governor's Executive Council headed by Aung San was invited to London to negotiate for the Aung San–Attlee Treaty, but none of the ethnic minority groups was included by the British government. The following month at the Panglong Conference, when an agreement was signed between Aung San as head of the interim Burmese government and the Shan, Kachin and Chin leaders, the Karen were present only as observers; the Mon and Arakanese were also absent.


title: Karen people

text: The British promised to consider the case of the Karen after the war. While the situation of the Karen was discussed, nothing practical was done before the British left Myanmar. The 1947 Constitution, drawn without Karen participation due to their boycott of the elections to the Constituent Assembly, also failed to address the Karen question specifically and clearly, leaving it to be discussed only after independence. The Shan and Karenni states were given the right to secession after 10 years, the Kachin their own state, and the Chin a special division. The Mon and Arakanese of Ministerial Myanmar were not given any consideration.


title: Karen people

text: In early February 1947, the Karen National Union (KNU) was formed at a Karen Congress attended by 700 delegates from the Karen National Associations, both Baptist and Buddhist (KNA, founded 1881), the Karen Central Organisation (KCO) and its youth wing, the Karen Youth Organisation (KYO), at Vinton Memorial Hall in Yangon. The meeting called for a Karen state with a seaboard, an increased number of seats (25%) in the Constituent Assembly, a new ethnic census, and a continuance of Karen units in the armed forces. The deadline of 3 March passed without a reply from the British government, and Saw Ba U Gyi, the first president of the KNU, resigned from the Governor's Executive Council the next day.


title: Karen people

text: After the war ended, Myanmar was granted independence in January 1948, and the Karen, led by the KNU, attempted to co-exist peacefully with the Burman ethnic majority. Karen people held leading positions in both the government and the army. In the fall of 1948, the Burmese government, led by U Nu, began raising and arming irregular political militias known as "Sitwundan". These militias were under the command of Major Gen. Ne Win and outside the control of the regular army. In January 1949, some of these militias went on a rampage through Karen communities.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen National Union has maintained its structure and purpose from the 1950s onward. The KNU acts as a governmental presence for the Karen people, offering basic social services for those affected by the insurgency, such as Karen refugees or internally displaced Karen. These services include building school systems, providing medical services, regulating trade and commerce, and providing security through the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the KNU's army.


title: Karen people

text: In late January 1949, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Smith Dun, a Karen, was removed from office and imprisoned. He was replaced by the Burmese nationalist Ne Win. Simultaneously a commission was looking into the Karen problem and this commission was about to report their findings to the Burmese government. The findings of the report were overshadowed by this political shift at the top of the Burmese government. The Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), formed in July 1947, then rose up in an insurgency against the government. They were helped by the defections of the Karen Rifles and the Union Military Police (UMP) units which had been successfully deployed in suppressing the earlier Burmese Communist rebellions, and came close to capturing Yangon itself. The most notable was the Battle of Insein, nine miles from Yangon, where they held out in a 112-day siege till late May 1949.


title: Karen people

text: Years later, the Karen had become the largest of 20 minority groups participating in an insurgency against the military dictatorship in Yangon. During the 1980s, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) fighting force numbered approximately 20,000. After an uprising of the people of Myanmar in 1988, known as the 8888 Uprising, the KNLA had accepted those demonstrators in their bases along the border. The dictatorship expanded the army and launched a series of major offensives against the KNLA. By 2006, the KNLA's strength had shrunk to less than 4,000, opposing what is now a 400,000-man Burmese army. However, the political arm of the KNLA - the KNU - continued efforts to resolve the conflict through political means.


title: Karen people

text: The conflict continues , with a new KNU headquarters in Mu Aye Pu, on the Burmese–Thai border. In 2004, the BBC, citing aid agencies, estimates that up to 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 160,000 more refugees from Myanmar, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. The largest camp is the one in Mae La, Tak province, Thailand, where about 50,000 Karen refugees are hosted.


title: Karen people

text: Reports as recently as February 2010, state that the Burmese army continues to burn Karen villages, displacing thousands of people.


title: Karen people

text: Many Karen, including people such as former KNU secretary Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan and his daughter, Zoya Phan, have accused the military government of Myanmar of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. State Department has also cited the Burmese government for suppression of religious freedom.


title: Karen people

text: A 2005 "New York Times" article on a report by Guy Horton into depredations by the Myanmar Army against the Karen and other groups in eastern Myanmar stated:


title: Karen people

text: Using victims' statements, photographs, maps and film, and advised by legal counsel to the UN tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, he purports to have documented slave labour, systematic rape, the conscription of child soldiers, massacres and the deliberate destruction of villages, food sources and medical services.


title: Karen people

text: Throughout the insurgency, hundreds of thousands of Karen fled to refugee camps while many others (numbers unknown) were internally displaced persons within the Karen state. The refugees were concentrated in camps along the Myanmar–Thailand border. According to refugee accounts, the camps suffered from overcrowding, disease, and periodic attacks by the Myanmar Army.


title: Karen people

text: Around 400,000 Karen people are without housing, and 128,000 are living in camps on the Thailand-Burma border. According to BMC, "79% of refugees living in these camps are Karen ethnicity." Their lives are restricted in the camps because they usually cannot go out, and the Thai police might arrest them if they do. Employment for the Karen refugees is scarce and risky. Former refugee Hla Wah said, "No jobs [...] So if adults wanted to work, they had to leave quietly without getting caught by Thai police." Wah is a Karen refugee who lived in a camp where she went to school and helped her family because her parents sought to go out to work, but they earned little money. Wah suffered from malnutrition because her parents did not have money to buy food for her nine siblings.


title: Karen people

text: Beginning in 2000, the Karen started resettling in the United States and Canada. Many Karen have problems fitting in and adjusting to the new country. "90% of the Karen refugees reported no knowledge of English or French on arrival." An estimated 8,500 Karen live in Minnesota, primarily Saint Paul. In 2014, Ler Htoo was sworn in after graduating from the St. Paul Police Academy in Minnesota as the first Karen police officer in the United States. More than 5,000 Karen live in Nebraska, and the Karen have also resettled in Southern California and central New York. Mu Aye is a young Karen woman who has resettled in San Diego, CA. Aye said, "After growing up in a place like I did, I wanted to become a nurse. I wanted to help sick people [...] travel to refugee camps in Thailand and care for people who cannot afford medication." Additionally, Eh De Gray, who graduated from San Diego's Crawford High School, wants to go back to the camps and share his knowledge with the school children. Gray said, "I want to share my knowledge and experiences with them."


title: Karen people

text: There is a population of 2,500 Karen in India, mostly restricted to Mayabunder Tehsil of the Northern Andaman Islands within the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nearly all of them are Baptist Protestant Christians. They retain their language to intercommunicate within community, but use Hindi as a second language to communicate with non-Karen neighbours.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen languages, members of the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, consist of three mutually unintelligible branches: Sgaw, Eastern Pwo, and Western Pwo.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen languages are almost unique among the Tibeto-Burman languages in having a subject–verb–object word order; other than Karen and Bai, Tibeto-Burman languages typically feature a subject–object–verb order. This anomaly is likely due to the influence of neighbouring Mon and Tai languages.


title: Karen people

text: The majority of Karens are Theravada Buddhists who also practice animism, while approximately 15 percent are Christian. Lowland Pwo-speaking Karens tend to be more orthodox Buddhists, whereas highland Sgaw-speaking Karens tend to be heterodox Buddhists who profess strong animist beliefs.


title: Karen people

text: Like many of the Chinese Indonesians, many of the Karen in Myanmar who identify themselves as Buddhists are actually not Buddhists, but they have their own ethnic religion.


title: Karen people

text: Karen animism is defined by a belief in ကလၤ "k’lar" (soul), thirty-seven spirits that embody every individual. Misfortune and sickness are believed to be caused by "k’lar" that wander away, and death occurs when all thirty-seven "klar" leave the body.


title: Karen people

text: Karen Buddhists are the most numerous of the Karens and account for around 65 percent of the total Karen population. The Buddhist influence came from the Mon who were dominant in Lower Burma until the middle of the 18th century. Buddhist Karen are found mainly in Kayin State, Mon State, Yangon, Bago and Tanintharyi Region. There are Buddhist monasteries in most Karen villages, and the monastery is the centre of community life. Merit-making activities, such as alms giving, are central to Karen Buddhist life.


title: Karen people

text: Buddhism was brought to Pwo-speaking Karens in the late-1700s, and the Yedagon Monastery atop Mount Zwegabin became the leading center of Karen language Buddhist literature. Many millennial sects were founded throughout the 1800s, led by Karen Buddhist "minlaung" rebels. Two sects, Telakhon (or Telaku) and Leke, were founded in the 1860s. The Tekalu sect, founded in Kyaing and considered a Buddhist sect, is a mixture of spirit worship, Karen customs and worship of the future Buddha Metteyya. The Leke sect was founded on the western banks of the Thanlwin River, and is no longer associated with Buddhism (as followers do not venerate Buddhist monks). Followers believe that the future Buddha will return to Earth if they maintain their moral practices (following the Dhamma and precepts), and they practice vegetarianism, hold Saturday services and construct distinct pagodas. Several Buddhist socioreligious movements, both orthodox and heterodox, have arisen in the past century. "Duwae", a type of pagoda worship, with animistic origins, is also practised.


title: Karen people

text: There are several prominent Karen Buddhist monks, including Thuzana (S'gaw) and Zagara, who was conferred the "Agga Maha Saddammajotika" title by the Burmese government in 2004. The Karen of Thailand have their own religion.


title: Karen people

text: Tha Byu, the first convert to Christianity in 1828, was baptised by Rev. George Boardman, an associate of Adoniram Judson, founder of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Today there are Christians belonging to the Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations. Some of the largest Protestant denominations are Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists.


title: Karen people

text: Alongside orthodox Christianity, some of those who identify themselves as Christian also have syncretised elements of animism with Christianity. The Karen of the Irrawaddy delta are mostly Christians, whereas Buddhists tend to be found mainly in Kayin state and surrounding regions. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of Karen identify themselves as Christian today and about 90 percent of Karen people in the US are Christians.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen Baptist Convention (KBC) was established in 1913. Its headquarters is in Yangon with 20 member associations throughout Myanmar. The KBC operates the KBC Charity Hospital in Insein, Yangon. The KBC also operates the Karen Baptist Theological Seminary in Insein. The seminary runs a theology program as well as a secular degree program (Liberal Arts Programme) to fulfill young Karens' intellectual and vocational needs. The Pwo Karen Baptist Convention is in Ahlone, Yangon and also operates the Pwo Karen Theological Seminary. There are other schools for Karen people in Myanmar, such as Paku Divinity School in Taungoo, Kothabyu Bible School in Pathein, and Yangon Home Mission School. The Thailand Karen Baptist Convention is in Chiang Mai, Thailand.


title: Karen people

text: The Seventh-day Adventists have built several schools in the Karen refugee camps in Thailand to convert the Karen people. Eden Valley Academy in Tak and Karen Adventist Academy in Mae Hong Son are the two largest Seventh-day Adventist Karen schools.


title: Karen people

text: The don dance is a traditional Karen performance. "Don" roughly translates to "in agreement". The dance is a series of uniform movements accompanied by music played from traditional Karen instruments. During the performance, a "Don Koh" leads the troupe of dancers. The don dance originated from the Pwo Karen, who developed it as a way to reinforce community values.


title: Karen people

text: The sae klee dance or bamboo dance is a traditional Karen performance held during celebrations such as Christmas and New Year's. Performers are typically divided into two groups. One group creates a platform by holding bamboo sticks in a checkered pattern, while the other group dances on top of the platform. Dancers must be careful to avoid stepping into one of the platform's many holes.


title: Karen people

text: The Karen New Year (ကညီနံၣ်ထီၣ်သီ) is one of the major holidays that the Karen people celebrate. The date of the Karen New Year on the Gregorian calendar varies as the Karen people use the lunar calendar. The Karen New Year usually falls on a date in December or January on the Gregorian calendar.


title: Karen people

text: Karen Wrist Tying (ကညီလါခူးကံၢ်စု) is an important Karen holiday. This holiday is observed annually in August.


title: Karen people

text: Karen Martyrs' Day ("Ma Tu Ra") commemorates the Karen soldiers who have died fighting for Karen self-determination. It is observed annually on 12 August, the anniversary of the death of Saw Ba U Gyi, the first President of the Karen National Union.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the Heat of the Night is an American police procedural crime drama television series loosely based on the 1967 film and 1965 novel of the same title. It starred Emmy winner Carroll O'Connor as police chief Bill Gillespie and Emmy and Oscar-nominated actor Howard Rollins as police detective Virgil Tibbs, and was broadcast on NBC from March 6, 1988, until May 19, 1992, then on CBS from October 28, 1992, until May 16, 1995. Its executive producers were Fred Silverman, Juanita Bartlett, and O'Connor.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The show itself is a sequel to the 1967 film, set several years in the future. In the premiere episode, Philadelphia homicide detective and criminal profiler Virgil Tibbs has returned to his hometown of Sparta, Mississippi, for his mother's funeral. Under his relationship with Bill Gillespie, the white police chief fostered during a previous murder investigation in which he assisted, Tibbs is persuaded by the mayor to remain in Sparta as Chief of Detectives. The events of the first film, although 21 years in the past, are said to have occurred "a few years ago" in a type of retcon to explain the ages of the characters.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Mayor Findlay himself has an ulterior motive for hiring Tibbs: he wants to have some kind of record on civil rights to run for Congress, and hiring Tibbs to integrate the all-white Sparta police department would help to overcome the local squad's reputation of being racist and underskilled — and it also benefits him. Although the team suffers friction over Tibbs' dissatisfaction with the department's limited resources and racial attitudes, and Gillespie is annoyed at the detective's condescending suspicions about his hometown, the two men prove highly effective in enforcing the law.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: At the beginning of the seventh season, Tibbs takes a leave of absence, moving to Jackson, Mississippi, to complete his law degree on a compressed schedule. Upon his return to Sparta, he and his wife Althea have separated, and they later divorce. She moves back to Philadelphia with their twins to be near her parents. Through the hard work of Sparta Councilwoman Harriet DeLong, Tibbs is able to retire and keep his city pension, although he was two months shy of the qualifying period. He begins practicing law when he accepts a position in Ben Taylor's law office. Rollins' final appearance on the series was February 2, 1994.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Meanwhile, the Sparta city council dismisses Gillespie as chief of police. The council selects Hampton Forbes (Carl Weathers) to take Gillespie's place. Forbes is the town's first African American to serve in that position. Gillespie finds a new post of equivalent authority as county sheriff. The two senior police officials find that they get along excellently, in both professional and personal spheres.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The show dealt with a variety of issues, including racism, police brutality, interracial relationships, hate crimes, drug trafficking, drug addiction, alcoholism, AIDS, misogyny, incest, child abuse, sexual harassment, euthanasia, anti-Semitism, political corruption, prostitution, domestic violence, mental disorders, dysfunctional families, suicide, capital punishment, poverty, and drunk driving.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The first season was filmed in Hammond, Louisiana. Hammond was selected by executive producer Juanita Bartlett to represent the small southern town of Sparta, Mississippi. The producers had difficulty finding usable filming locations, because other, more modern structures were close enough to be picked up in the images. Eight episodes were filmed—the two-hour pilot movie and six regular one-hour episodes. The series premiered on March 6, 1988, with the season finale airing on May 3, 1988.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Many conflicts arose between Juanita Bartlett and series star Carroll O'Connor over the writing of the series. At first, she allowed him to consult on the series per his contract. After the pilot, however, she ordered scripts from her writers. O'Connor described these as "recycled material from other crime shows". He was disappointed in the writing, feeling that the writers were taking big-city stories and imposing them on a small town. He believed that the key to this show's success was to express its small-town locale and characters through the stories. Scripts would be given to him marked "FINAL: NO REWRITES", but O'Connor often rewrote scripts anyway. This angered the production staff members, which felt they were burning up fax machines with the changes. O'Connor described Bartlett as a very arrogant person. If the show was going to be renewed, then O'Connor was not interested and threatened to quit the show if Bartlett was not replaced as executive producer.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The early episodes were gritty, raw and considered groundbreaking for that time. There was an emphasis on grisly murders or other crimes, rather than the lives of the New South-era characters, for which the series later became known.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Season 2 premiered on December 4, 1988, due to a writers strike; the season introduced a new look and set of executive producers, Jeri Taylor and her husband David Moessinger, with on-location shooting moved from Louisiana to Covington, Georgia, which remained as the primary filming location of the show for the duration of the series. The season premiere was aired as a two-hour TV movie originally entitled "The Voodoo Murders", now known in syndication as "Don't Look Back". The plot revolved around a copycat murder of one that Gillespie had investigated 20 years earlier. Also, the Sparta city council was pushing Virgil Tibbs to run as a possible candidate for Chief of Police to replace Gillespie, but Virgil wasn't interested in doing so; regardless, a rumor begins that Tibbs is after Gillespie's job, causing dissension between the two men. Althea, who was a stay-at-home wife in Season 1, is offered a position as a teacher and guidance counselor at the local high school by city Councilman Ted Marcus (Thom Gossom Jr.).


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Gone was Christian LeBlanc, who portrayed Officer Junior Abernathy and added were two new regular characters—Joanne St. John (played by Lois Nettleton), the chief's sometime girlfriend and owner of the local diner, The Magnolia Cafe; and rookie officer Wilson Sweet (Geoffrey Thorne), fresh out of the Police Academy. The season also introduced the first of several new recurring characters, including Dr. Frank Robb, the county coroner (played by veteran actor Dan Biggers). "The Creek" saw the introduction of the first new police character and the second prominent Georgia performer to claim a regular role on the series, Officer Randy Goode (1988–1993) played by Randall Franks, who was cast following the show's move to Covington. "Gunshot", where Virgil experiences guilt and mental trauma after he shoots and kills a female robbery suspect, introduces a character with a criminal past who later becomes invaluable in supplying Gillespie and the Sparta P.D. with information, Jimmy Dawes (Afemo Omilami).


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Plots in this season included Gillespie witnessing the execution of a man whom he arrested years ago, an episode that Carroll O'Connor wrote himself under the pseudonym Matt Harris ("A Trip Upstate").


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: During the filming of the episode "Walkout", Carroll O'Connor began to experience fatigue. It was discovered that he needed sextuple heart bypass surgery, due to years of heavy smoking. During the last four episodes of the season, Joe Don Baker was brought in as Tom Dugan, a replacement for Chief Gillespie, who was said to be away at a police training conference at Quantico. The episodes where Gillespie was away were "Fifteen Forever", "Ladybug, Ladybug", "The Pig Woman of Sparta" and "Missing". Dugan was appointed acting chief by Councilwoman White, but he was actually working undercover for the FBI in an attempt to stop the assassination of a civil rights preacher during a visit to the town by a white supremacist group (that is not revealed until the Season 3 episode "Anniversary"). The season finale "Missing" has the chief being kidnapped upon his return to Sparta by two men in pig masks, and the police and the FBI are trying to locate him and those responsible. O'Connor wanted the chief to undergo heart surgery in the storyline, but the husband and wife producers came up with this storyline instead. It was the final straw in a long line of complaints; these producers were fired at the end of the season, with O'Connor becoming the executive producer for season three and beyond.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: When Taylor and Moessinger decided to do the show, Taylor was quoted, "I was one of those in the '60's that was out marching for civil rights," and "I was one of those who thought the major work had all been done. When we decided to do the show, we took research trips to the South, and we saw that there had been an enormous amount of change. We came back with a renewed vigor but also with the realization that there is still a lot more to be done. There is still deeply entrenched racism. And addressing that became a much larger element in our thinking about the show."


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: "What makes race relations a constant in our show is the two lead characters—one is white and one is black," Moessinger said. "Whether they are angry at each other, whether they're happy or sad, we're showing the interaction of two men who are trying to do the best in life. If we never put one race issue into it, if we never said one word about it, the message is there because it's showing how people ought to interrelate, how they ought to work together, how they ought to get along."


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the third season, Carroll O'Connor took complete control of the show, after firing husband and wife executive producing team David Moessinger and Jeri Taylor. From that point on, he brought aboard writers and showrunners who shared his vision of where he wanted the series to go.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Althea Tibbs grapples with the effects and aftermath of rape in the explosive Season 3 premiere after she was brutally assaulted and violated by the new music teacher at Sparta High. She had an uneasy relationship with him from the outset and it culminated in the attack. Althea and Virgil are frustrated trying to bring the rapist to justice because the new district attorney Gerard Darnelle (Wilbur Fitzgerald) doesn't have enough evidence to prosecute the teacher. Althea was blindfolded during the attack, so she didn't see him but she recognized his voice, and the teacher's wife provides him with an alibi. After being excoriated by Gillespie for her complicity, she finally comes forward and implicates him. The teacher invades Virgil and Althea's home during this and attempts to assault her again, but Althea defends herself and he is subsequently arrested.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The second part of the Season 2 finale, "Missing", is resumed in Episode 6, entitled "Anniversary" – a decision made by O'Connor that displeased the network because the episodes were not shown in chronological order. The Season 2 cliffhanger depicted Gillespie being kidnapped and Dugan murdered; with the displacement of the episodes, it was as if none of that ever happened. O'Connor selected the "Rape" episode to kick off the new season instead because he thought it was more powerful, and would attract higher viewer ratings.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The character of Joanne St. John was eliminated to make room for Sparta city Councilwoman Harriet DeLong (Denise Nicholas) as Chief Gillespie's future love interest, first as a recurring character, then later, as a main cast member. An attractive, much younger African-American divorcée, DeLong was college-educated (an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority pledge), outspoken, and brimming with attitude, which was a turn-off to Gillespie at first and the two of them did not get along.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In "First Girl", Gillespie hires Christine Rankin, Sparta PD's first female officer. She is killed her first day on duty in a shootout with a drug dealer and murder suspect, causing Gillespie despair and guilt. As a result, he is temporarily suspended from his duties as chief of police pending an investigation and intent on seeking out Rankin's killer. Her replacement was Officer LuAnn Corbin, played by Crystal R. Fox. LuAnn would remain a prominent character throughout the rest of the series, although Crystal Fox was listed in the ending credits as a guest star until season seven where she finally appeared in the opening credits. LuAnn's hiring opened the door for more female police officers to join the force: Officer Dee Shepard (Dee Shaw) is hired later in the season.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the two-part season finale, "Citizen Trundel" (written by O'Connor, Cynthia Deming, and William J. Royce), Harriet DeLong's sister Natalie is murdered by order of her secret lover and the married father of her nine-year-old son, millionaire businessman V.J. "Vidge" Trundel. The situation causes Harriet anguish, rage, and frustration, not only because of Natalie's murder but because Chief Gillespie is reluctant to pursue the powerful Trundel as a suspect. These are the first episodes in which we see Bill and Harriet's relationship blossom. During this period, he is able to see beyond her hardened exterior and finds a vulnerable and sensitive woman behind it; she discovers his compassionate side. From this point on, a camaraderie is formed between the two.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: This story arc was of special significance to series co-star Denise Nicholas, who played Harriet DeLong. Ten years before, her real-life sister had been murdered and the culprit had never been caught. When Carroll O'Connor approached Nicholas about the storyline, it had upset her greatly and she had to write him a note explaining the situation, as he was unaware of the circumstances. He offered to have her not appear in the episode, but she chose to do so to bring closure for her and her family. She was able to channel her unresolved grief into the role. Only O'Connor and director Leo Penn knew the truth during filming.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: During the back half of season 3, Howard Rollins took six weeks off when he entered a drug and alcohol rehab program to battle his addiction issues. He missed five episodes: "King's Ransom", "Triangle", "Hello In There", "December Days", and "An Angry Woman". MGM worked around his rehab schedule. Episodes were not necessarily aired in the order they were filmed, which explains why Tibbs was present one week and not the next. To explain his absence, he was said to be in New Orleans working for the FBI. He considered suicide shortly before Christmas 1989, prompting his stay in rehab. Carroll O'Connor threatened to sue a tabloid which published a story saying that MGM and Carroll had fired Rollins for being absent from the set due to his problems. Denise Nicholas, who played Harriet DeLong, said "Carroll set the standard for loyalty. If he liked you, he really liked you and would be there for you." [TV Guide, July 14–20, 2001]


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The season opens with a two-hour movie entitled "Brotherly Love" and the birth of Virgil and Althea's twins. While Althea is waiting to go into labor, Tibbs' friend and ex-colleague from the Philadelphia P.D. is found dead, and it's at first labeled as a suicide. Tibbs heads up to the big city to attend his funeral, only to learn his friend's death was not by his own hand, but murder. Tibbs soon recognizes there is corruption going on within the police department, and his friend was framed for the murder of a drug dealer. In the process of trying to clear his friend's name, he first becomes a target, then framed for murder himself. Chief Gillespie travels to Philly to get Virgil out of jail, help him solve the mystery of what happened to his friend and seek justice for him, expose the corrupt officers and make it back home to Sparta in time for the twins' birth. William and Sarah Tibbs were welcomed into the world on September 18, 1990.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Other stories include Bubba going to Los Angeles to extradite a Sparta resident responsible for a fire that killed two people, which was actually the first of two backdoor pilots for a series that featured Alan Autry, but neither were picked up by the network.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The fifth season begins with the revelation that Chief Gillespie has a 19-year-old daughter by the name of Lana Farren, played by Christine Elise (formerly of "Beverly Hills, 90210"). The chief is now good friends with her mother, Georgia Farren, played by actress Stella Stevens. Lana was conceived during a period where her mother was separated from her husband, and she and Gillespie had an affair. However, she was never divorced from her husband, Ken Farren.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the episode "The More Things Change", Gillespie and Harriet share their first kiss after he drives her home after attending a party, and he finally reveals his affections for her. They both lament the very likely possibility that a relationship between the two of them would not be accepted by most in Sparta.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Other storylines include Sweet's quest to discover the truth about the murder of his grandfather in 1948 and those responsible for it (a story loosely based on the murder of Medgar Evers, "Sweet, Sweet Blues") and racists sabotaging a celebration honoring a Sparta civil rights pioneer in "Odessa", the first of six scripts that Denise Nicholas wrote. She enjoyed her role as Harriet, but was bothered about the lack of black writers on the show. She complained to Carroll O'Connor about it, and he had to admit she was right. He asked her to write a script, which she did. When she submitted it to him, he liked it so much that he encouraged her to write others for the series.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the two-part season finale "Sanctuary" and "The Law on Trial", Sheriff McComb has Gillespie and Tibbs brought up on obstruction charges and harboring a fugitive after an escaped prisoner, who is an El Salvadoran immigrant seeking asylum, is given sanctuary in a monastery and the two don't arrest him when he refuses to give himself up. The prisoner is later shot to death in a standoff with the sheriff's department. Father DiMarco's heartfelt summation to the jury contributes to the case being dismissed (though that is not revealed until the start of Season 6). In between court appearances, Harriet pays Gillespie an inconspicuous visit and the two share a tender and romantic moment.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The conflict between Sheriff McComb and Chief Gillespie lingers on throughout the following season, and that conflict affects every crossover dealing with subsequent interactions between McComb's deputies and Gillespie's officers. It isn't until the arrival of Chief Hampton Forbes (Carl Weathers) in Season 7 that we see Sheriff McComb and Chief Gillespie as friends again.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The episode and the season end with both Gillespie and Tibbs awaiting the verdict in their respective residences the evening the case is given to the jury. At the end of the original and final broadcast on NBC, it was revealed that the jury couldn't reach a verdict, a mistrial is declared and the two men are freed. Bill and Harriet spend the night together for the first time.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: At the beginning of Season 6, "In the Heat of the Night" moved from NBC to CBS. It was not publicly known at the time when Season 5 ended whether or not the show would continue. NBC had decided not to renew the series, although the ratings were still respectable and there were still some open-ended plots that hadn't been resolved. A deal was made with rival network CBS to keep the show on the air. Originally, CBS opted to pick up the series for only a set of six two-hour movies. However, it was eventually picked up for a full 22-episode order.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The first two episodes of the season see the secret romance between Gillespie and DeLong intensify. They frequently meet in a studio apartment that doubles as Harriet's art studio. In the midst of all this, Harriet's son Eugene is a witness to a drive-by shooting involving rival drug gangs.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Other highlights from the season include a faded country music singer (Robert Goulet) who ends up committing murder; the reconciliation between Gillespie and his estranged daughter Lana; and a two-part episode directed by Larry Hagman involves a white supremacist politician whose visit to Sparta has a couple of ulterior motives, including aspirations for a presidential run ("The Leftover Man"). Burgess Meredith (in one of his last acting roles) also appears as an eccentric judge overseeing a case (he would return for a brief cameo in Season 7.)


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The season ends with Bill and Harriet forced to confront the impending execution of Harriet's ex-husband and Eugene's disapproval of their relationship.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Rollins was dropped from the show due to health reasons plus three outstanding warrants in Rockdale County and the city of Covington, GA. He was replaced for season seven by Carl Weathers. Filming began on April 28, 1993. Rollins had not been seen on the set since January 1993, when season six wrapped. Despite numerous attempts by the media to contact Rollins, who was believed to be living in New York City, only series star Carroll O'Connor was in contact with Rollins during this period. It was hoped that Rollins would get his legal and personal issues resolved and return to the series — but unfortunately, that was not the case.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: After season 6, Anne-Marie Johnson and Geoffrey Thorne left the series alongside Rollins. Rollins would return occasionally as a guest star, while Johnson took a starring role on the final season of Fox's sketch comedy series "In Living Color".


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Thorne left to pursue a career as a novelist and screenwriter; his character simply vanished from the series without any explanation.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Season 7 opens with Bill Gillespie being forced out of office and former Memphis, Tennessee Police Department Inspector Hampton Forbes (Carl Weathers) is hired as the new police chief by the city council. After nearly three decades on the Sparta police force, Gillespie does not receive a new contract from the council because his romance with Harriet is now out in the open, although other excuses are made for his dismissal. He seems to be accepting of the outcome, while Harriet doesn't hesitate to show her fury over the decision. The transition from Gillespie being in charge to Forbes taking over is slightly uneasy at the very start, but soon things smooth out.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: However, Gillespie is soon appointed as the acting Sheriff of Newton County when Nathan McComb suffers a heart attack and is too ill to continue his duties. This new appointment for Gillespie angers several on the city council. They want an investigation, which is upsetting and hurtful for Harriet.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Other cases involve a nine-year-old girl being killed because of a drunk driver (Hagman directed), the return of Parker's stepfather, Roy Eversole (Pat Hingle, first seen in Season 6) and his lady friend Miss Roda (Anne Meara). Gillespie must once again confront his racist past when a new synagogue moves into Sparta and the rabbi (Jerry Stiller) detests Gillespie, who in the 1960s was serving as an officer on the Sparta Police, for his failure to oppose the then serving anti-Semitic Sparta police chief, who was then Gillespie's boss, and who refused to investigate the burning of the local synagogue back in the 1960s. Lana Farren also makes one final appearance as Bill's daughter in the Hagman-directed episode "A Love Lost", in which he must protect her from a former boyfriend who is involved in a gun-running scheme with someone in Sparta.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Virgil Tibbs returns from Jackson with his juris doctor — which explains his absence – in his new capacity as attorney in three episodes ("Virgil Tibbs: Attorney At Law", "Good Cop, Bad Cop", "Conspiracy of One") and assists the Sparta P.D. with several cases after having moved into Ben Taylor's law office. Virgil reveals to Gillespie in "Virgil Tibbs: Attorney At Law" that Althea has left him and took their twins back home to Philadelphia to live, fed up with her life in Sparta and traumatized from all that had happened to her while living there. She didn't want to make the marriage work and later files for divorce, which a heartbroken Virgil does not contest, although he has difficulty accepting his new status as a divorced man. The episode "Conspiracy of One", where Virgil suspects that one of his law firm's clients orchestrated an "accident" which resulted in his spouse's death, marks Howard Rollins' final appearance on the show (air date February 2, 1994).


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: In the episode "Ches and the Grand Lady", Bobby Short reprises his role as Ches Collins, the blues musician from "Sweet, Sweet Blues" in Season 5. The episode also guest stars Jean Simmons as the dying grand dame of Sparta who also happens to be Ches's old flame and the overbearing great-aunt of Lonnie Jamison. Harriet's son Eugene once again finds himself at odds with the police, endangering his parole trying to help a friend. Maybelle Chesboro (played by Elizabeth Ashley), the ex-madam, returns. (The role of Maybelle was initially played by Diane Ladd in Season 3's "Home Is Where The Heart Is".) She has returned to operate a legal phone sex business.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Finally, in "Dangerous Engagement", Gillespie and DeLong tie the knot at the same sanctuary involved in the "Sanctuary" case from Season 5. Chief Forbes serves as best man.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The season and the TV series wraps up with a two-hour movie of the week, "Give Me Your Life", starring Peter Fonda as Marcantony Appfel, leader of a religious cult in which the sexual abuse of children is rumored to have occurred. The story (by O'Connor and written by Cynthia Deming & William J. Royce) is loosely based on the real-life drama in Waco, Texas, in 1993 with the cult leader David Koresh and his followers.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Four made-for-television movies were produced during the 1994–95 season, which was supposedly the continuation of the series. Once released on DVD, these combined movies were considered the eighth season of the show. The movies were:


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Carroll's son and series cast member Hugh O'Connor died by suicide nearly two months before the fourth film aired. He had been struggling with a substance abuse issue since his teen years which culminated in his demise. When the film was broadcast in its original, two-hour format, a black screen was added in between the intro tag and the opening title; it read "In memory of Hugh O'Connor: 1962–1995".


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: During the series' 7-season run, many familiar, unfamiliar, and longtime character actors and actresses have made guest appearances, and others were newcomers who went on to become well-known. Some of those appearing in "In the Heat of the Night" episodes were:


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Future "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" stars, Helene Udy, William Shockley and Chad Allen made guest appearances. Future "Desperate Housewives" star Doug Savant and veteran actor Kevin McCarthy also made their guest appearances on the two-part pilot episode, as well as O. J. Simpson (whom NBC executives originally wanted for the role of Virgil Tibbs, but O'Connor selected Rollins), who made a cameo appearance in Season 2. William Schallert, who played Mayor Schubert in the original 1967 film, also made an appearance on the show in Season 4.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The series debuted as a midseason replacement for the short-lived NBC series "J.J. Starbuck", premiering on March 6, 1988. The series ran on the network until May 19, 1992, then was shown on CBS until its finale after an eighth season, on May 16, 1995.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Like the original movie, the television series also took place in a fictionalized version of Sparta, Mississippi. While there is a real Sparta, the version of Sparta shown on television is very different from the real town. For example, the TV Sparta is situated along Interstate 20, while the real town is nowhere near any interstate. During the first season, Hammond, Louisiana was the site of the show's production. In the second season, the show was moved to Georgia, to an area east of Atlanta and it remained there for the rest of its run. The principal area of Sparta was in fact downtown Covington, Georgia. Rural scenes were filmed in a wide surrounding area, in the Georgia counties of Newton (where Covington is located), Rockdale, Walton, Morgan, and Jasper. Decatur in Dekalb County was used as a stand-in for an episode as the Mississippi Capital city of Jackson, and Atlanta itself was used in one episode, in which Bubba worked on a case there. In fact, during the series' run, many of the cast members had homes in the area and were often spotted in local restaurants and retail stores. The cast members would also go around to local schools to speak to students.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The series also airs in broadcast syndication on Ovation. Ovation airs the show every Monday and Tuesday afternoon for five hours from 2:00 PM ET to 7:00 PM ET back to back. WGN America previously aired the series every weekday morning starting at 11AM ET for 4 hours usually until 3PM ET Monday through Thursday. WGN aired the show Fridays, too, at the same time. Ovation now has moved the show to Mondays mornings from 8 AM to 2 PM as part of their "Morning Mysteries" crime and mystery drama block, and Thursdays at 10 PM/9 PM ET/CT (or sometimes 11 PM/10 PM ET/CT.). The show also aired Tuesdays nights at 7PM ET, but was scaled down to just a Thursday airing starting December 7, 2020. MeTV also acquired the rights to the show and it began airing in around either 2018 or 2019, running it every weekday beginning at 11AM ET/10AM CT. MGM's ThisTV network, a classic movie-focused network, also airs the show weekdays. The show previously aired on TNT from 1995 to 2005. The show has remained relatively strong in syndication to this day, particularly airing on some local stations. Bounce TV began airing reruns of the series starting September 13, 2021.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: TGG Direct released the first season on DVD in Region 1 on August 30, 2012. The eighth and final season was released on June 11, 2013.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: On October 23, 2012, TGG Direct released an 8-disc best-of set entitled " In the Heat of the Night – 24hr Television Marathon".


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: TGG Direct released seasons 4 and 5 onto DVD on December 10, 2013. However, due to licensing issues, the following episodes are missing from the box set: Brotherly Love, Shine On Sparta Moon, Sweet, Sweet Blues, Sanctuary, Law On Trial.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: TGG Direct released seasons 2 & 3 in a single boxed set onto DVD on March 11, 2014. However, due to clearance issues, the following episodes are excluded –


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Season 2 Excluded Episodes: The Family Secret, The Hammer and the Glove, A Trip Upstate, Intruders, Sister Sister, Walkout;


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Season 3 Excluded Episodes: Fairest of Them All, Crackdown, Anniversary, My Name is Hank, King's Ransom, A Loss of Innocence, Home is Where the Heart Is, Indiscretions, Citizen Trundel Part 1 and Part 2


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: TGG Direct also released seasons 6 and 7 in individual boxed sets onto DVD on March 11, 2014. However, due to clearance issues, the following episode is excluded from Season 6: Random's Child and the following episodes are excluded from Season 7: Singin' The Blues, Every Man's Family, Maybelle Returns, Ches and the Grand Lady, Dangerous Engagement.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Both Carroll O'Connor and Howard Rollins received prestigious awards for their work on the show in 1989. O'Connor received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and Rollins the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, his second.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: "In the Heat of the Night" won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series (formally Outstanding Drama Series, Mini-Series or Television Movie), two years in a row, 1992 and 1993. The 1992 win was specifically for the Season 5 episode, "Sweet, Sweet Blues".


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The theme song, "In the Heat of the Night," was originally recorded by Quincy Jones, with Ray Charles on vocals and piano for the movie. It is usually paired with "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs" on albums. Bill Champlin of the band Chicago sang the opening theme song for the television series.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: The original song itself is supposed to be from Virgil's point of view, being in a stranger in a hostile environment. In the case of the TV series, the lyrics refer to both main characters fighting crime in the tiny town of Sparta.


title: In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

text: Randall Franks and Alan Autry co-produced the cast CD "Christmas Time's A Comin'" for Sonlite and MGM/UA, featuring the entire cast and a host of music stars. It was released Christmas 1991 and 1992, and was among the top holiday recordings of those years around the South and Midwest.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Arthur "Harpo" Marx (born Adolph Marx; November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, mime artist, and harpist, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. In contrast to the mainly verbal comedy of his brothers Groucho and Chico, Harpo's comic style was visual, being an example of vaudeville, clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blond wig and was silent in all his movie appearances, instead blowing a horn or whistling to communicate. Marx frequently employed props such as a horn cane constructed from a lead pipe, tape, and a bulbhorn.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo was born on November 23, 1888, in Manhattan, New York City. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill (known at the time as Yorkville) on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue. The turn-of-the-century tenement that Harpo later called "the first real home I can remember" was situated in a neighborhood populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans. The neighborhood hosted many historic homes and other buildings, such as the William Goadby Loew House (now the Spence School), the Congregation Shaare Zedek, and the Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt house.


title: Harpo Marx

text: His parents were Sam Marx (known by his nickname "Frenchie"/"Frenchy") and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx, sister of comedian and Vaudeville performer Al Shean. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from East Frisia, Germany, and his father, a tailor, was from Alsace, which was part of the Second French Empire at the time the elder Marx was born and for most of his childhood.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo received little formal education and dropped out of New York Public School 86 at age eight (mainly due to bullying) during his second attempt to pass the second grade. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his older brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an office errand boy.


title: Harpo Marx

text: In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his younger brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales", which would later be renamed "The Marx Brothers". Multiple unverified stories attempt to explain Harpo's evolution as the "silent" character in the brothers' act. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialogue, and thus was ideal to portray the archetypal Vaudeville role of the "dunce who couldn't speak."


title: Harpo Marx

text: Differing stories exist regarding the origin of the Harpo stage name. The first suggests the pseudonym originated during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. In this version of the story, Marx was referred to by Art Fisher, the dealer that night, as "Harpo" because he played harp. However, this version of events is disputed, at least partially because the Orpheum Theatre was not constructed until late 1916, whereas Harpo later remembered acquiring the name in 1914. There is no dispute that Fisher coined the name, but some sources give an earlier date for its origin and suggest the game may have instead taken place at the Galesburg Auditorium Theatre or the same town's Gaiety Theatre. Harpo learned how to hold the harp by emulating a harp-playing angel in a picture he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it the best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. He began learning to play the instrument without lessons. Three years later, he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but that his method placed much less tension on the strings. Despite Harpo's musical talent, he never learned to read or write music. Although he paid top musicians handsome fees to teach him "proper" harp-playing technique, he maintained his unique style his entire life (his "teachers," fascinated by his technique, spent their sessions watching and listening as Marx performed). The major exception was Mildred Dilling, the professional harpist who finally taught Harpo proper harp technique and collaborated with him regularly when he had difficulty composing. Upon his death, one of Harpo's harps was donated to the State of Israel, and eventually found a home in an Israeli orchestra.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Chico found Harpo some of his first jobs. He and Chico were co-workers, playing piano to accompany silent films. Unlike Chico, Harpo could play only two songs on the piano, "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie" and "Love Me and the World Is Mine", but he adapted this small repertoire in different tempos to suit the action on the screen. He was also seen playing a portion of Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# minor" in "A Day at the Races", and played piano in "A Night at the Opera." Ultimately, he relinquished the piano to Chico in favor of his trademark harp, upon which he performed Nacio Herb Brown's 1935 song "Alone", which was sung in the film by Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo had changed his name from "Adolph", a name he disliked (as a child, he was routinely called "Ahdie" instead), to "Arthur" by 1911. The similarity to the name of prominent Chicago show business attorney Adolph Marks may have further encouraged the change. Urban legends stating that the name change came about during World War I due to anti-German sentiment in the US, or during World War II because of the stigma that Adolf Hitler imposed on the name, are groundless.


title: Harpo Marx

text: His first screen appearance was in the film "Humor Risk" (1921), with his brothers, although according to Groucho it was screened only once and then lost. Four years later, Harpo appeared without his brothers as the "Village Peter Pan" in "Too Many Kisses" which predated the brothers' first collaborative film, "The Cocoanuts", by 4 years. Not only is "The Cocoanuts" historical by virtue of being the first of the Marx's many talkies, but also for being the first film to feature an overhead camera shot, at least 5 years before Busby Berkeley's renowned first use of the technique in his 1936 film Lullaby of Broadway to film a kaleidoscopic women's dance routine. In "Too Many Kisses", Harpo spoke the only line he would ever speak on-camera in a film: "You sure you can't move?" (said to the film's tied-up hero before punching him). Fittingly, it was a silent film, and the audience saw only his lips move and the line on a title card.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo was often cast as Chico's eccentric partner-in-crime, whom he would often help by playing charades to tell of Groucho's problem, and/or annoy by giving Chico his leg, as an alternative to a handshake or simply to rest the leg.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo became known for prop-laden sight gags, in particular the seemingly infinite number of odd things stored in his topcoat's oversized pockets. In the film "Horse Feathers" (1932), Groucho, referring to an impossible situation, tells Harpo that he cannot "burn the candle at both ends". Harpo immediately produces from within his coat pocket a lit candle burning at both ends. In the same film, a homeless man on the street asks Harpo for money for a cup of coffee, and he subsequently produces a steaming cup, complete with saucer, from inside his coat. Also in "Horse Feathers", he has a fish and a sword, and when he wants to go to his speakeasy, he stabs the fish in its mouth with his sword to give the password, "Swordfish". In "Duck Soup", he produces a lit blowtorch to light a cigar.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo often used facial expressions and mime to get his point across instead of speaking. One of his facial expressions, which he used in every Marx Brothers film and stage play, beginning with "Fun in Hi Skule", was known as "the Gookie". Harpo created it by mimicking the expression of Mr. Gehrke, a New York tobacconist who would make a similar face while concentrating on rolling cigars.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo further distinguished his character by wearing a "fright wig". Early in his career, it was dyed pink, as evidenced by color film posters of the time and by allusions to it in films, with character names such as "Pinky" in "Duck Soup". This wig sometimes appeared blond on-screen due to the black-and-white film stock used at the time. In some films, however, Harpo actually wore a blonde wig. Over time, he darkened the pink to more of a reddish color, which films again alluded to with character names, such as the name of his character in A Night in Casablanca, "Rusty".


title: Harpo Marx

text: His non-speaking in his early films was occasionally referred to by the other Marx Brothers, who were careful to imply that his character's not speaking was a choice rather than a disability. In reality, the decision to remain silent began when Harpo received a negative review, part of which suggested that Harpo's portrayal of a fool was convincing only until he spoke. Soon after, the Brothers' uncle shared with Harpo a script he had written for them. Harpo was dismayed to find he had just three lines and said to his uncle, "Well, maybe I won't talk at all!" This was meant sarcastically, but his uncle genuinely liked the idea. His brothers would make joking reference to this part of his act. For example, in "Animal Crackers", his character was ironically dubbed "The Professor". In "The Cocoanuts", this exchange occurred:


title: Harpo Marx

text: In later films, Harpo was repeatedly put in situations where he attempted to convey a vital message by whistling and pantomime, reinforcing the idea that his character was unable to speak.


title: Harpo Marx

text: The Marxes' film "At the Circus (1939)" contains a unique scene where Harpo is heard saying "A-choo!" twice, as he sneezes.


title: Harpo Marx

text: In 1933, following U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, Harpo spent six weeks in Moscow as a performer and goodwill ambassador. His tour was a huge success, and the show ran for six weeks. Harpo's name was transliterated into Russian, using the Cyrillic alphabet, as "ХАРПО МАРКС," which is how he was billed during his Soviet Union appearances. Harpo, having no knowledge of Russian, pronounced it as "Exapno Mapcase". At that time, Harpo and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov became friends and even performed a routine on stage together.


title: Harpo Marx

text: During this time he served as a secret courier, delivering communiques to and from the US embassy in Moscow at the request of Ambassador William Christian Bullitt Jr., smuggling the messages in and out of the Soviet Union by taping a sealed envelope to his leg beneath his trousers. Marx recounted his relief at his voyage's end: "I pulled up my pants, ripped off the tape, unwound the straps, handed over the dispatches from Ambassador Bullitt, and gave my leg its first scratch in ten days."


title: Harpo Marx

text: Marx's Soviet trip helped inspire Randall Garrett's science fiction tale of telepathic spies, "The Foreign Hand Tie." The novella contains numerous other Marx Brothers references as well. (The title itself is a Marx-like pun on the dual ideas of a "foreign hand" and a style of neckwear known as a "four-in-hand tie".)


title: Harpo Marx

text: In 1936, he rode an ostrich on a team of polo-playing film stars who appeared as caricatures in the Walt Disney Production's "Mickey's Polo Team", alongside Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. Walt Disney would later feature Harpo (with Groucho and Chico) as one of King Cole's "Fiddlers Three" in the Silly Symphony "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood".


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo was also caricatured in Fleischer Studios' Popeye cartoon "Sock-A-Bye Baby" (1934), in which Harpo's harp playing awakens Popeye's baby resulting in Popeye punching Marx, apparently fatally (as suggested when Harpo develops a halo and ascends to the heavens). Friz Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon "The Coo-Coo Nut Grove" caricatured Harpo, one of multiple celebrities appearing as an animal, as a bird with a red beak who chases a "woman" who is later revealed to be Groucho.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo also took an interest in painting. Some of his works can be seen in his autobiography, in which he recalls having tried to paint a nude female model, but that he had frozen up because he simply did not know how to paint properly. The model, pitying Marx, taught him some basic brush strokes. Eventually, the original project was abandoned in lieu of a painting, by the model herself, of a fully-clothed Harpo. Marx himself was the subject of a sketch by Salvador Dalí, who was Harpo's friend and authored Giraffes on Horseback Salad.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo recorded an album of harp music for RCA Victor ("Harp by Harpo", 1952) and two for Mercury Records ("Harpo in Hi-Fi", 1957; "Harpo at Work", 1958).


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo made television appearances through the 1950s and 60s, including a 1955 episode of "I Love Lucy," in which he and Lucille Ball re-enacted the famous mirror scene from "Duck Soup." Both Marx and Ball, clad in his typical clothes, portray Harpo. He also appeared on NBC's "The Martha Raye Show" circa 1950. Harpo and Chico appeared in the May 8, 1959 episode of "General Electric Theater" entitled "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery" entirely in pantomime. The episode concluded with a brief surprise appearance by Groucho. In 1960, Marx appeared in his first dramatic role, the "A Silent Panic" episode of "The DuPont Show with June Allyson." Harpo plays a deaf-mute who witnesses a gangland murder while working as a "mechanical man" in a department store window. In 1961, to publicize his autobiography "Harpo Speaks!", he appeared on "The Today Show", "Play Your Hunch", "Candid Camera", "I've Got a Secret", "Here's Hollywood", "Art Linkletter's House Party", Groucho's "You Bet Your Life", "The Ed Sullivan Show".


title: Harpo Marx

text: In November 1961, he guest-starred with Carol Burnett in an installment of "The DuPont Show of the Week" entitled "The Wonderful World of Toys". The show was filmed in Central Park and featured Marx playing "Autumn Leaves" on the harp. Other stars appearing in the episode included Eva Gabor, Audrey Meadows, Mitch Miller and Milton Berle. A visit to the set inspired poet Robert Lowell to pen his poem "Harpo Marx."


title: Harpo Marx

text: Late 1962 brought Harpo's final pair of television appearances, which aired within a month of each other. He portrayed a guardian angel on the September 25 episode of CBS's "The Red Skelton Hour". His final role, opposite show star Fess Parker, was as himself on the October 20th episode "Musicale" of ABC's sitcom "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (based on Frank Capra's film of the same name) .


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo's September 28, 1936, marriage to actress Susan Fleming became public knowledge the next month due to a congratulatory telegram sent by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harpo's marriage, like Gummo's, was lifelong (Groucho was divorced three times, Zeppo twice, and Chico once). The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When he was asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered, "I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye."


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott, alongside whom he became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. He once said his main contribution was to be the audience for the quips of other members. In their play "The Man Who Came to Dinner", George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of "Banjo" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Woollcott, himself the inspiration for the character of Sheridan Whiteside.


title: Harpo Marx

text: In 1961, Harpo published his autobiography, "Harpo Speaks!" Because he never spoke a word in character, many believed he actually was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, in documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs. A reporter who interviewed him in the early 1930s wrote that "he [Harpo] ... had a deep and distinguished voice, like a professional announcer", and like his brothers, spoke with a New York accent his entire life. According to those who personally knew him, Harpo's voice was much deeper than Groucho's, but it also sounded very similar to Chico's. His son, Bill, recalled that in private, Harpo had a very deep and mature soft-spoken voice, but that he was "not verbose" like the other Marx brothers, instead preferring to listen and learn from others.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo's final public appearance came on January 19, 1963, when he announced his retirement, causing singer/comedian Allan Sherman to burst into tears. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo spoke for several minutes about his career, and how he would miss it all, and repeatedly interrupted Sherman when he tried to speak. Allen remembered that although the audience found this rare speech from Harpo charmingly ironic, his personal opinion was that Harpo "wouldn't shut up!" Harpo, an avid croquet player, was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964 (his 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75 in a West Los Angeles hospital, one day after undergoing heart surgery. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. In his will, Harpo Marx donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel, where it was later used in an Israeli orchestra. His remains were cremated at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and a portion of his ashes were allegedly scattered in the sand trap at the 7th hole of a golf course in Rancho Mirage, California. He was survived by his wife Susan, four children Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie and younger brothers Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo,


title: Harpo Marx

text: Harpo's trademark outfit consisted of a trench coat with over-large pockets, red wig (he switched to a blond one for every film after "The Cocoanuts" because the red wig photographed dark in black-and-white), top hat, the comical horn heard in his movies, and his ever-present harp. In time, his talent earned him an international reputation as he performed in films as well as in stage shows around the globe. His talent extended to piano and clarinet (on which he played "When My Dreams Come True" in "The Cocoanuts"), which, as he had with the harp, Harpo mostly learned independent of professional instruction. Marx's son Bill went on to display his own musical abilities, performing his own compositions on piano live in concert alongside harpist Carrol McLaughlin. In 2002, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars, located at 190 E. Tahquitz Way, was dedicated to Harpo's memory.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Marx was portrayed by actor Daniel Fortus in the Broadway production of "Minnie's Boys", a Broadway musical that ran for 64 performances at the Imperial Theatre from March to May 1970. The show focused on the early days of the Marx Brothers' act and the importance of their mother Minnie's strong hand in guiding and molding them into a successful vaudeville and film comedy team.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Actress Priscilla Lopez played Gino, a character based on Harpo, in 1980's Broadway send-up of Hollywood filmmaking "A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine." This role earned Lopez a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical.


title: Harpo Marx

text: Les Marsden portrayed Harpo in "", written by Groucho's son, Arthur Marx, and Robert Fisher. The play, held at the off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre, boasted a 264 show run from September 8, 1986, to May 3, 1987.


title: ServiceNow

text: ServiceNow is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California that develops a cloud computing platform to help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy, ServiceNow is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Russell 1000 Index and S&P 500 Index. In 2018, "Forbes" magazine named it number one on its list of the world's most innovative companies.


title: ServiceNow

text: ServiceNow was founded as Glidesoft, Inc. in 2003 by Fred Luddy (previously CTO at software companies Peregrine Systems and Remedy Corporation), and later incorporated in California in 2004. Luddy had previously served as chief technology officer for Peregrine Systems, an enterprise software company based in San Diego, until 2002. In founding the company, Luddy intended to provide the same services previously available from the then defunct Peregrine Systems.


title: ServiceNow

text: Until mid-2005, Luddy was the only employee and concentrated on developing the software which the company would offer.


title: ServiceNow

text: Then came the first hires, five people, and raising in venture financing from JMI Equity. In 2006, the company changed its name to ServiceNow. In 2007, ServiceNow reported an annual revenue of and opened their first Silicon Valley office, in San Jose. 2007 was also the first year that the company "went cash flow positive".


title: ServiceNow

text: , the company had 275 employees in its San Diego, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, London and Frankfurt offices, as well as a partnership with Accenture who had more than 100 ServiceNow consultants. At this time, the company was sometimes known as "Service-now". By April 2011, the company had named Frank Slootman as chief executive officer.


title: ServiceNow

text: In June 2012, ServiceNow became a publicly traded company following a IPO. Shortly thereafter, the company relocated its headquarters from San Diego to Santa Clara, California. It was taken public by Morgan Stanley one month after they took Facebook public.


title: ServiceNow

text: In October 2019, the company announced that CEO John Donahoe would be succeeded by Bill McDermott, formerly CEO of SAP SE at the end of the calendar year.


title: ServiceNow

text: ServiceNow is a platform-as-a-service provider, providing technical management support, such as IT service management, to the IT operations of large corporations, including providing help desk functionality. The company's core business revolves around management of "incident, problem, and change" IT operational events. Their fee model was based on a cost per user (seat) per month, with that cost ranging down from .


title: ServiceNow

text: In March 2020, ServiceNow released "Orlando", a version of its cloud software paired with artificial intelligence technology aimed at fixing practical problems.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova (; born 24 December 1975) is the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (Spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation) since 2015.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: Zakharova was born to a family of diplomats on 24 december 1975. Her father, Vladimir Zakharov, moved the family to Beijing in 1981 when he was appointed to the Soviet embassy there. The family left Beijing for Moscow in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union had collapsed. Her mother, Irina Zakharova, is an art historian who has worked at Moscow's Pushkin Museum.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: In 1998, Maria Zakharova graduated from the Faculty of International Journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the field of orientalism and journalism. Her pre-diploma apprenticeship was carried out at the Russian Embassy in Beijing.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: From 2003 to 2005 and from 2008 to 2011, she worked at the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. From 2005 to 2008, she was the press secretary of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York City.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: From 2011 to 10 August 2015, Zakharova was the Deputy Head of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Her duties included organizing and conducting briefings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, the organization of work of official Ministry accounts in social networks and information support of foreign visits of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: Zakharova is known for her participation in political talk shows on Russian television and for contributing commentary on sensitive political issues on social media. She is one of the most quoted Russian diplomats. She often opposed Jen Psaki (the official representative of the US State Department before 31 March 2015).


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 10 August 2015, by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zakharova was appointed director of the Information and Press Department. Zakharova became the first woman to hold this post.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: In 2017, Zakharova accused the European Union of hypocrisy over its different behaviour towards the separatist crises in Crimea and Catalonia, after hundreds were injured by Spanish security forces preventing Catalans from voting during the Catalan independence referendum, saying "I see and read what is happening in Catalonia. And Europe will say something to us about the referendum in Crimea and the protection of human rights".


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 28 April 2017, Zakharova appeared on Yahoo! News discussing the current international relations with Katie Couric. When Couric brought up the reports of torture against LGBT individuals by the Chechen government, Zakharova said that Russia was conducting an investigation into the matter.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: In June 2019, Reuters reported that Zakharova "offered a tribute to those who died on the western front of World War II and said Moscow appreciated the Allied war effort", adding "It should of course not be exaggerated. And especially not at the same time as diminishing the Soviet Union’s titanic efforts, without which this victory simply would not have happened". Zakharova stated, "As historians note, the Normandy landing did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War II and the Great Patriotic War. It had already been pre-determined as a result of the Red Army’s victories, mainly at Stalingrad (in late 1942) and Kursk (in mid-1943). There was a wish to wait for the maximum weakening of Germany’s military power from its enormous losses in the east, while reducing losses in the west."


title: Maria Zakharova

text: In 2021, Zakharova criticised a NATO military exercise called Defender-Europe 21, one of the largest NATO-led military exercises in Europe in decades, which began in March 2021. It included "nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas" in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries. She claimed that by conducting these exercises, NATO is gathering a "strike fist" near Russia's borders. On 15 April 2021, she stated that in 2021 alone "NATO is planning seven military exercises in Ukraine. The active phase of the Defender Europe 2021 exercise, the most extensive exercise for many years, is to commence near Ukraine soon."


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 16 February 2022, Zakharova ridiculed Western media predictions of an imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russia when she had mockingly asked for the schedule of Russian invasion so that she could, ostensibly, "plan [her] vacation" accordingly. On 28 February 2022, she wrote that "Russia did not start a war, it is ending it" and claimed that Russia was acting to end the "systematic extermination of the Donbas population" that had allegedly been ongoing since 2014.


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 2 June 2022, Zakharova warned that Turkey's invasion of northern Syria "would be a direct violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity" and would "cause a further escalation of tensions in Syria."


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 15 June 2022, she praised Russia's strategic partnership with China, adding that "Energy supplies are steadily increasing: China knows what it wants and doesn't shoot itself in the foot. While to the west of Moscow, they shoot themselves in the head."


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 5 July 2022, Zakharova warned that Israel's incursions and strikes into southern Syria "is completely unacceptable. We strongly condemn such irresponsible actions that violate Syria's sovereignty and the basic norms of international law, and we demand their unconditional cessation."


title: Maria Zakharova

text: On 23 February, the day before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, she was sanctioned by the European Union alongside other prominent Russian media figures, as "a central figure of the government propaganda," and for having "promoted the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine." The sanctions include being placed on a No Fly list and the freezing of assets. On 8 March, Australia also imposed sanctions on Zakharova. On 18 March, Zakharova was included in Japan's expanded sanctions list.