title: Harpsichord

text: Harpsichords vary in size and shape, but all have the same basic mechanism. The player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length. The other end of the key lifts a jack (a long strip of wood) that holds a small plectrum (a wedge-shaped piece of quill, often made of plastic in the 21st century), which plucks the string. When the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, and the jack falls back; the plectrum, mounted on a tongue mechanism that can swivel backwards away from the string, passes the string without plucking it again. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the string's vibrations. These basic principles are explained in detail below.


title: Harpsichord

text: Each string is wound around a "tuning pin" (also known as a "wrest pin") at the end nearest the player. When rotated with a wrench or tuning hammer, the tuning pin adjusts the tension so that the string sounds the correct pitch. Tuning pins are held tightly in holes drilled in the "pinblock" or "wrestplank", an oblong hardwood plank. Proceeding from the tuning pin, a string next passes over the "nut", a sharp edge that is made of hardwood and is normally attached to the wrestplank. The section of the string beyond the nut forms its "vibrating length", which is plucked and creates sound.


title: Harpsichord

text: At the other end of its vibrating length, the string passes over the bridge, another sharp edge made of hardwood. As with the nut, the horizontal position of the string along the bridge is determined by a vertical metal pin inserted into the bridge, against which the string rests. The bridge itself rests on a "soundboard", a thin panel of wood usually made of spruce, fir or—in some Italian harpsichords—cypress. The soundboard efficiently transmits the vibrations of the strings into vibrations in the air; without a soundboard, the strings would produce only a very feeble sound. A string is attached at its far end by a loop to a "hitchpin" that secures it to the case.


title: Harpsichord

text: While many harpsichords have one string per note, more elaborate harpsichords can have two or more strings for each note. When there are multiple strings for each note, these additional strings are called "choirs" of strings. This provides two advantages: the ability to vary volume and ability to vary tonal quality. Volume is increased when the mechanism of the instrument is set up by the player (see below) so that the press of a single key plucks more than one string. Tonal quality can be varied in two ways. First, different choirs of strings can be designed to have distinct tonal qualities, usually by having one set of strings plucked closer to the nut, which emphasizes the higher harmonics, and produces a "nasal" sound quality. The mechanism of the instrument, called "stops" (following the use of the term in pipe organs) permits the player to select one choir or the other. Second, having one key pluck two strings at once changes not just volume but also tonal quality; for instance, when two strings tuned to the same pitch are plucked simultaneously, the note is not just louder but also richer and more complex.


title: Harpsichord

text: A particularly vivid effect is obtained when the strings plucked simultaneously are an octave apart. This is normally heard by the ear not as two pitches but as one: the sound of the higher string is blended with that of the lower one, and the ear hears the lower pitch, enriched in tonal quality by the additional strength in the upper harmonics of the note sounded by the higher string.


title: Harpsichord

text: When describing a harpsichord it is customary to specify its choirs of strings, often called its disposition. To describe the pitch of the choirs of strings, pipe organ terminology is used. Strings at eight-foot pitch (8') sound at the normal expected pitch, strings at four-foot pitch (4') sound an octave higher. Harpsichords occasionally include a sixteen-foot (16') choir (one octave lower than eight-foot) or a two-foot (2') choir (two octaves higher; quite rare). When there are multiple choirs of strings, the player is often able to control which choirs sound. This is usually done by having a set of jacks for each choir, and a mechanism for "turning off" each set, often by moving the upper register (through which the jacks slide) sideways a short distance, so that their plectra miss the strings. In simpler instruments this is done by manually moving the registers, but as the harpsichord evolved, builders invented levers, knee levers and pedal mechanisms to make it easier to change registration.


title: Harpsichord

text: Harpsichords with more than one keyboard (this usually means two keyboards, stacked one on top of the other in a step-wise fashion, as with pipe organs) provide flexibility in selecting which strings play, since each manual can be set to control the plucking of a different set of strings. This means that a player can have, for instance, an 8' manual and a 4' manual ready for use, enabling him to switch between them to obtain higher (or lower) pitches or different tone. In addition, such harpsichords often have a mechanism (the "coupler") that couples manuals together, so that a single manual plays both sets of strings.


title: Harpsichord

text: The most flexible system is the French "shove coupler", in which the lower manual slides forward and backward. In the backward position, "dogs" attached to the upper surface of the lower manual engage the lower surface of the upper manual's keys. Depending on choice of keyboard and coupler position, the player can select any of the sets of jacks labeled in "figure 4" as A, or B and C, or all three.


title: Harpsichord

text: The English "dogleg" jack system (also used in Baroque Flanders) does not require a coupler. The jacks labeled A in Figure 5 have a "dogleg" shape that permits either keyboard to play A. If the player wishes to play the upper 8' from the upper manual only and not from the lower manual, a stop handle disengages the jacks labeled A and engages instead an alternative row of jacks called "lute stop" (not shown in the Figure). A lute stop is used to imitate the gentle sound of a plucked lute.


title: Harpsichord

text: Some early harpsichords used a short octave for the lowest register. The rationale behind this system was that the low notes F and G are seldom needed in early music. Deep bass notes typically form the root of the chord, and F and G chords were seldom used at this time. In contrast, low C and D, both roots of very common chords, are sorely missed if a harpsichord with lowest key E is tuned to match the keyboard layout. When scholars specify the pitch range of instruments with this kind of short octave, they write "C/E", meaning that the lowest note is a C, played on a key that normally would sound E. In another arrangement, known as "G/B', the apparent lowest key B is tuned to G, and apparent C-sharp and D-sharp are tuned to A and B respectively.


title: Harpsichord

text: The wooden case holds in position all of the important structural members: pinblock, soundboard, hitchpins, keyboard, and the jack action. It usually includes a solid bottom, and also internal bracing to maintain its form without warping under the tension of the strings. Cases vary greatly in weight and sturdiness: Italian harpsichords are often of light construction; heavier construction is found in the later Flemish instruments and those derived from them.


title: Harpsichord

text: The case also gives the harpsichord its external appearance and protects the instrument. A large harpsichord is, in a sense, a piece of furniture, as it stands alone on legs and may be styled in the manner of other furniture of its place and period. Early Italian instruments, on the other hand, were so light in construction that they were treated rather like a violin: kept for storage in a protective outer case, and played after taking it out of its case and placing it on a table. Such tables were often quite high – until the late 18th century people usually played standing up. Eventually, harpsichords came to be built with just a single case, though an intermediate stage also existed: the "false inner–outer", which for purely aesthetic reasons was built to look as if the outer case contained an inner one, in the old style. Even after harpsichords became self-encased objects, they often were supported by separate stands, and some modern harpsichords have separate legs for improved portability.


title: Harpsichord

text: Many harpsichords have a lid that can be raised, a cover for the keyboard, and a music stand for holding sheet music and scores.


title: Harpsichord

text: Harpsichords have been decorated in a great many different ways: with plain buff paint (e.g. some Flemish instruments), with paper printed with patterns, with leather or velvet coverings, with chinoiserie, or occasionally with highly elaborate painted artwork.


title: Harpsichord

text: The virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord having only one string per note; the strings run parallel to the keyboard, which is on the long side of the case.


title: Harpsichord

text: A spinet is a harpsichord with the strings set at an angle (usually about 30 degrees) to the keyboard. The strings are too close together for the jacks to fit between them. Instead, the strings are arranged in pairs, and the jacks are in the larger gaps between the pairs. The two jacks in each gap face in opposite directions, and each plucks a string adjacent to the gap.


title: Harpsichord

text: The English diarist Samuel Pepys mentions his "tryangle" several times. This was not the percussion instrument that we call triangle today; rather, it was a name for octave-pitched spinets, which were triangular in shape.


title: Harpsichord

text: A clavicytherium is a harpsichord with the soundboard and strings mounted vertically facing the player, the same space-saving principle as an upright piano. In a clavicytherium, the jacks move horizontally without the assistance of gravity, so that clavicytherium actions are more complex than those of other harpsichords.


title: Harpsichord

text: Ottavini are small spinets or virginals at four-foot pitch. Harpsichords at octave pitch were more common in the early Renaissance, but lessened in popularity later on. However, the ottavino remained very popular as a domestic instrument in Italy until the 19th century. In the Low Countries, an ottavino was commonly paired with an 8' virginals, encased in a small cubby under the soundboard of the larger instrument. The ottavino could be removed and placed on top of the virginal, making, in effect, a double manual instrument. These are sometimes called 'mother-and-child' or 'double' virginals.


title: Harpsichord

text: Occasionally, harpsichords were built which included another set or sets of strings underneath and played by foot-operated pedal keyboard which trigger the plucking of the lowest-pitched keys of the harpsichord. Although there are no known extant pedal harpsichords from the 18th century or before, from Adlung (1758): the lower set of usually 8' strings "...is built like an ordinary harpsichord, but with an extent of two octaves only. The jacks are similar, but they will benefit from being arranged back to back, since the two [bass] octaves take as much space as four in an ordinary harpsichord Prior to 1980 when Keith Hill introduced his design for a pedal harpsichord, most pedal harpsichords were built based on the designs of extant pedal pianos from the 19th century, in which the instrument is as wide as the pedalboard. While these were mostly intended as practice instruments for organists, a few pieces are believed to have been written specifically for the pedal harpsichord. However, the set of pedals can augment the sound from any piece performed on the instrument, as demonstrated on several albums by E. Power Biggs.


title: Harpsichord

text: The archicembalo, built in the 16th century, had an unusual keyboard layout, designed to accommodate variant tuning systems demanded by compositional practice and theoretical experimentation. More common were instruments with split sharps, also designed to accommodate the tuning systems of the time.


title: Harpsichord

text: The folding harpsichord was an instrument that could be folded up to make it more compact, thus facilitating travelling with it.


title: Harpsichord

text: On the whole, earlier harpsichords have smaller ranges than later ones, although there are many exceptions. The largest harpsichords have a range of just over five octaves, and the smallest have under four. Usually, the shortest keyboards were given extended range in the bass with a "short octave". The traditional pitch range for a 5-octave instrument is F–F (FF–f‴).


title: Harpsichord

text: Tuning pitch is often taken to be A = 415 Hz, roughly a semitone lower than the modern standard concert pitch of A = 440 Hz. An accepted exception is for French baroque repertoire, which is often performed with a = 392 Hz, approximately a semitone lower again. See Jean-Philippe Rameau's "Treatise on Harmony" (1722) [Dover Publications], Book One, chapter five, for insight into French baroque tuning; "Since most of these semitones are absolutely necessary in the tuning of organs and other similar instruments, the following chromatic system has been drawn up." Tuning an instrument nowadays usually starts with setting an A; historically it would commence from a C or an F.


title: Harpsichord

text: Some modern instruments are built with keyboards that can shift sideways, allowing the player to align the mechanism with strings at either A = 415 Hz or A = 440 Hz. If a tuning other than equal temperament is used, the instrument requires retuning once the keyboard is shifted.


title: Harpsichord

text: The great bulk of the standard repertoire for the harpsichord was written during its first historical flowering, the Renaissance and Baroque eras.


title: Harpsichord

text: The first music written specifically for solo harpsichord was published around the early 16th century. Composers who wrote solo harpsichord music were numerous during the whole Baroque era in European countries including Italy, Germany, England and France. Solo harpsichord compositions included dance suites, fantasias, and fugues. Among the most famous composers who wrote for the harpsichord were the members of English virginal school of the late Renaissance, notably William Byrd ( 1540–1623). In France, a great number of highly characteristic solo works were created and compiled into four books of "ordres" by François Couperin (1668–1733). Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) began his career in Italy but wrote most of his solo harpsichord works in Spain; his most famous work is his series of 555 harpsichord sonatas. Perhaps the most celebrated composers who wrote for the harpsichord were Georg Friedrich Händel (1685–1759), who composed numerous suites for harpsichord, and especially J. S. Bach (1685–1750), whose solo works (for instance, "The Well-Tempered Clavier" and the "Goldberg Variations"), continue to be performed very widely, often on the piano. Bach was also a pioneer of the harpsichord concerto, both in works designated as such, and in the harpsichord part of his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.


title: Harpsichord

text: Two of the most prominent composers of the Classical era, Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), wrote harpsichord music. For both, the instrument featured in the earlier period of their careers,


title: Harpsichord

text: Through the 19th century, the harpsichord was almost completely supplanted by the piano. In the 20th century, composers returned to the instrument, as they sought out variation in the sounds available to them. Under the influence of Arnold Dolmetsch, the harpsichordists Violet Gordon-Woodhouse (1872–1951) and in France, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), were at the forefront of the instrument's renaissance. Concertos for the instrument were written by Francis Poulenc (the "Concert champêtre", 1927–28), and Manuel de Falla. Elliott Carter's "Double Concerto" is scored for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras. For a detailed account of music composed for the revived harpsichord, see Contemporary harpsichord.


title: John Browning

text: John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855 – November 26, 1926) was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms many of which are still in use around the world. He made his first firearm at age 13 in his father's gun shop and was awarded the first of his 128 firearm patents on October 7, 1879, at the age of 24. He is regarded as one of the most successful firearms designers of the 19th and 20th centuries and pioneered the development of modern repeating, semi-automatic, and automatic firearms.


title: John Browning

text: Browning influenced nearly all categories of firearms design, especially the autoloading of ammunition. He invented, or made significant improvements to, single-shot, lever-action, and pump-action rifles and shotguns. He developed the first reliable and compact autoloading pistols by inventing the telescoping bolt, then integrating the bolt and barrel shroud into what is known as the pistol slide. Browning's telescoping bolt design is now found on nearly every modern semi-automatic pistol, as well as several modern fully automatic weapons. He also developed the first gas-operated firearm, the Colt–Browning Model 1895 machine gun a system that surpassed mechanical recoil operation to become the standard for most high-power self-loading firearm designs worldwide. He also made significant contributions to automatic cannon development.


title: John Browning

text: Browning's most successful designs include the M1911 pistol, the water-cooled M1917, the air-cooled M1919, and heavy M2 machine guns, the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, and the Browning Auto-5 the first semi-automatic shotgun. Some of these arms are still manufactured, often with only minor changes in detail and cosmetics to those assembled by Browning or his licensees. The Browning-designed M1911, and Hi-Power, are some of the most copied firearms in the world.


title: John Browning

text: Browning's father Jonathan—who was among the thousands of pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who made an exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Utah—established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852. As was common in the Latter-day Saint community at the time, Jonathan Browning was a polygamist, having taken three wives. He fathered 22 children, including John Moses Browning, and raised two stepdaughters with his wife Elizabeth Caroline Clark.


title: John Browning

text: John Moses worked in his father's Ogden shop from the age of seven, where he was taught basic engineering and manufacturing principles, and encouraged to experiment with new concepts. There he developed his first rifle, a single-shot falling block action design, then, in 1878, in partnership with his younger brother, co-founded John Moses and Matthew Sandefur Browning Company, later renamed Browning Arms Company, and began to produce this and other non-military firearms. By 1882, the company employed John and Matthew's half-brothers Jonathan (1859–1939), Thomas (1860–1943), William (1862–1919), and George (1866–1948).


title: John Browning

text: Like his father, Browning was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served a two-year mission in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887.


title: John Browning

text: He married Rachel Theresa Child (September 14, 1860 – September 30, 1934) on April 10, 1879, in Ogden, Weber County, Utah Territory, and the couple had 10 children, two of whom died in infancy.


title: John Browning

text: Production examples of the Browning Model 1878 Single Shot Rifle caught the attention of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, who dispatched a representative to evaluate the competition. Winchester bought the design for $8,000 and moved production to their Connecticut factory. From 1883, Browning worked in partnership with Winchester and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the lever action Winchester Model 1887 and the Model 1897 pump shotgun, the falling-block single-shot Model 1885, and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894, Model 1895 rifles. After falling out with Winchester, Browning designed the long recoil operated semi-automatic Remington Model 8 rifle. Many of the models are still in production today in some form; over six million Model 1894s had been produced as of 1983, more than any other sporting rifle in history.


title: John Browning

text: Winchester manufactured several popular small arms designed by John M. Browning. For decades in the late 19th century-early 20th century, Browning designs and Winchester firearms were synonymous and the collaboration was highly successful. This came to an end when Browning proposed a new long recoil operated semi-automatic shotgun design, a prototype finished in 1898, to Winchester management, which ultimately became the Browning Auto-5 shotgun. As was the custom of the time, Browning's earlier designs had been sold exclusively to Winchester for a single fee payment. With this new product, Browning and his brother Matthew sought royalties based upon unit sales, rather than a single front-end fee payment. If the new shotgun became highly successful, the Browning company stood to make substantially more income. Winchester management, which had agreed to royalties for an earlier Browning shotgun design that was never manufactured, now refused to accede to the Brownings' terms. Remington Arms also was approached but the president of the company died of a heart attack while the Brownings were waiting to offer him the gun. Remington would later produce a copy of the Auto-5 as the Model 11 which was used by the US Military and was also sold to the civilian market.


title: John Browning

text: Having recently successfully negotiated firearm licenses with Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium (FN), Browning took the new shotgun design to FN; the offer was accepted and FN manufactured the new shotgun, honoring its inventor, as the Browning Auto-5. The Browning Auto-5 was continuously manufactured as a highly popular shotgun throughout the 20th century. In response, Winchester shifted reliance away from John Browning designs when it adopted a shotgun design of Thomas Crossley Johnson for the new Winchester Model 1911 SL, (Johnson had to work around Browning's patents of what became the Auto-5) and the new Model 1912 pump shotgun, which was based in small part upon design features of the earlier Browning-designed Winchester Model 1897 shotgun. This shift marked the end of an era of Winchester-Browning collaboration.


title: John Browning

text: John Browning was known as a dedicated and tireless innovator and experimenter who sought breakthrough consumer-oriented features and performance and reliability improvements in small arms designs. He did not retire in his later years but dedicated his entire adult life literally to his last day to these pursuits. On November 26, 1926, while working at the bench on a self-loading pistol design for Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN) in Liège, he died of heart failure in the design shop of his son Val A. Browning. Even the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol he was working on when he died had great design merit and was eventually completed in 1935 by Belgian designer Dieudonné Saive. Released as the Fabrique Nationale GP35, it was more popularly known as the successful Browning Hi-Power pistol, a favorite of sportsmen and gun collectors as well as many military and law enforcement agencies around the world.


title: John Browning

text: The premium-priced Browning Superposed shotgun, an over-under shotgun design, was his last completed firearm design. It was marketed originally with twin triggers; a single trigger modification was later completed by his son, Val Browning. Commercially introduced in 1931 by FN, Browning Superposed shotguns, and their more affordable cousins, the Browning Citori made in Asia, continue to be manufactured into the 21st century and come with varying grades of fine hand engraving and premium quality wood.


title: John Browning

text: Throughout his life, Browning designed a vast array of military and civilian small arms for his own company, as well as for Winchester, Colt, Remington, Savage, Stevens, and Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium. Browning firearms have been made, both licensed and unlicensed, by hundreds of factories around the world. Browning Arms Company was established in 1927, the year after Browning's death on November 26, 1926, in Liège, Belgium. In 1977, FN Herstal acquired the company.


title: John Browning

text: The M1895 Machine Gun saw action in the Spanish–American War with the United States Marine Corps. The Colt M1911, Browning 1917/19, and the BAR saw action with US forces in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. The M1911 went on to serve as the U.S.'s standard military side arm until 1986; a variant is still used by special operations units of the United States Marine Corps and the design remains very popular among civilian shooters and some police departments. The Browning Hi-Power has had a similarly lengthy period of military service outside the United States and remains the standard sidearm of the Australian and Canadian armed forces. The .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun – the enduring "Ma Deuce" – was developed in 1918, entered service with the US Armed Forces in 1921, and has remained in active service for over a century with militaries across the world in a variety of roles. The 37mm M4 autocannon was initially designed by Browning in 1921 and entered service in 1938; it was used both in aircraft and on U.S. Navy PT boats during World War II.


title: John Browning

text: Browning is greatly revered by the U.S. gun culture, to the point where he is often referred to only semi-humorously as a saint or prophet. More than one parody of a Bible story circulates about his firearms designs, and some people actually append "(PBUH)" abbreviating "Peace Be Unto Him" to mentions of his name, as devout Muslims do when mentioning their prophet.


title: John Browning

text: Several of Browning's designs are still in production today. Some of his most notable designs include:


title: White rhinoceros

text: The white rhinoceros, white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros, with an estimated 19,682–21,077 wild-living animals in the year 2015, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies has very few remaining individuals, with only two confirmed left in 2018 (two females: Fatu, 18 and Najin, 29), both in captivity. Sudan, the world's last known male Northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya on 19 March 2018 at age 45.


title: White rhinoceros

text: A popular albeit widely discredited theory of the origins of the name "white rhinoceros" is a mistranslation from Dutch to English. The English word "white" is said to have been derived by mistranslation of the Dutch word "wijd", which means "wide" in English. The word "wide" refers to the width of the rhinoceros' mouth. So early English-speaking settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the "wijd" for "white" and the rhino with the wide mouth ended up being called the white rhino and the other one, with the narrow pointed mouth, was called the black rhinoceros. Ironically, Dutch (and Afrikaans) later used a calque of the English word, and now also call it a "white" rhino. This suggests the origin of the word was before codification by Dutch writers. A review of Dutch and Afrikaans literature about the rhinoceros has failed to produce any evidence that the word "wijd" was ever used to describe the rhino outside of oral use.


title: White rhinoceros

text: An alternative name for the white rhinoceros, more accurate but rarely used, is the square-lipped rhinoceros. The white rhinoceros' generic name, "Ceratotherium", given by the zoologist John Edward Gray in 1868, is derived from the Greek terms "keras" (κέρας) "horn" and "thērion" (θηρίον) "beast". "Simum", is derived from the Greek term "simos" (σιμός), meaning "flat nosed".


title: White rhinoceros

text: The white rhinoceros of today was said to be likely descended from "Ceratotherium praecox" which lived around 7 million years ago. Remains of this white rhino have been found at Langebaanweg near Cape Town. A review of fossil rhinos in Africa by Denis Geraads has however suggested that the species from Langebaanweg is of the genus "Ceratotherium", but not "Ceratotherium praecox" as the type specimen of "Ceratotherium praecox" should, in fact, be "Diceros praecox", as it shows closer affinities with the black rhinoceros "Diceros bicornis". It has been suggested that the modern white rhino has a longer skull than "Ceratotherium praecox" to facilitate consumption of shorter grasses which resulted from the long-term trend to drier conditions in Africa. However, if "Ceratotherium praecox" is in fact "Diceros praecox", then the shorter skull could indicate a browsing species. Teeth of fossils assigned to "Ceratotherium" found at Makapansgat in South Africa were analysed for carbon isotopes and the researchers concluded that these animals consumed more than 30% browse in their diet, suggesting that these are not the fossils of the extant "Ceratotherium simum" which only eats grass. It is suggested that the real lineage of the white rhino should be; "Ceratotherium neumayri" → "Ceratotherium mauritanicum" → "C. simum" with the Langebaanweg rhinos being "Ceratotherium" sp. (as yet unnamed), with black rhinos being descended from "C. neumayri" via "Diceros praecox".


title: White rhinoceros

text: Recently, an alternative scenario has been proposed under which the earliest African "Ceratotherium" is considered to be "Ceratotherium efficax" (now synonymous with "C. mauritanicum)", known from the Late Pliocene of Ethiopia and the Early Pleistocene of Tanzania. This species is proposed to have been diversified into the Middle Pleistocene species "C. mauritanicum" in northern Africa, "C. germanoafricanum" in East Africa, and the extant "C. simum". The first two of these are extinct, however, "C. germanoafricanum" is very similar to "C. simum" and has often been considered a fossil and ancestral subspecies to the latter. The study also doubts the ancestry of "C. neumayri" from the Miocene of southern Europe to the African species.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The ancestor of both the black and the white rhinos was likely a mixed feeder, with the two lineages then specializing in browsing and grazing, respectively. The oldest definitive record of the White Rhinoceros is during the mid-Early Pleistocene at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, around 1.8 Ma.


title: White rhinoceros

text: There are two subspecies of white rhino: the southern white rhinoceros ("Ceratotherium simum simum") and the northern white rhinoceros. As of 31 December 2007, there were an estimated 17,460 southern white rhinos in the wild (IUCN 2008), making them by far the most abundant subspecies of rhino in the world; the number of southern white rhinos outnumbers all other rhino subspecies combined. South Africa is the stronghold for this subspecies (93.0%), conserving 16,255 individuals in the wild in 2007 (IUCN 2008). There are smaller reintroduced populations within the historical range of the species in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Eswatini, while a small population survives in Mozambique. Populations have also been introduced outside of the former range of the species to Kenya and Zambia.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Wild-caught southern whites will readily breed in captivity given appropriate amounts of space and food, as well as the presence of other female rhinos of breeding age. However, for reasons that are not currently understood, the rate of reproduction is extremely low among captive-born southern white females.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The northern white rhinoceros or northern square-lipped rhinoceros ("Ceratotherium simum cottoni") is considered critically endangered and possibly extinct in the wild. Formerly found in several countries in East and Central Africa south of the Sahara, this subspecies is a grazer in grasslands and savanna woodlands.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Initially, six northern white rhinoceros lived in the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic. Four of the six rhinos (which were also the only reproductive animals of this subspecies) were transported to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where scientists hoped they would successfully breed and save this subspecies from extinction. One of the two remaining in the Czech Republic died in late May 2011. Both of the last two males capable of natural mating died in 2014 (one in Kenya on 18 October and one in San Diego on 15 December). In 2015, the Kenyan government placed the last remaining male of the subspecies at Ol Pejeta under 24-hour armed guard to deter poachers, but he was put down on 19 March 2018 due to multiple health problems caused by old age, leaving just two females alive which reside at the Ol Pejeta complex. Staff hope to inseminate the remaining females with the last male's semen, although the semen is not preferable due to the age of the rhino.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Following the phylogenetic species concept, recent research has led to the hypothesis that the northern white rhinoceros is a different species, rather than a subspecies of white rhinoceros as was previously thought, in which case the correct scientific name for the former should be "Ceratotherium cottoni". Distinct morphological and genetic differences suggest the two proposed species have been separated for at least a million years. However, the results of the research were not universally accepted by other scientists.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The white rhinoceros is the largest of the five living species of rhinoceros. By mean body mass, the white rhinoceros falls behind only the three extant species of elephant as the largest land animal and terrestrial mammal alive today. It weighs slightly more on average than a hippopotamus despite a considerable mass overlap between these two species. It has a massive body and large head, a short neck and broad chest.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The head and body length is in males and in females, with the tail adding another and the shoulder height is in the male and in the female. The male, averaging about is heavier than the female, at an average of about . The largest size the species can attain is not definitively known; specimens of up to are considered reliable, while larger sizes up to have been claimed but are not verified. On its snout it has two horn-like growths, one behind the other. These are made of solid keratin, in which they differ from the horns of bovids (cattle and their relatives), which are keratin with a bony core, and deer antlers, which are solid bone.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The front horn is larger and averages in length, reaching as much as but only in females. The white rhinoceros also has a noticeable hump on the back of its neck. Each of the four stumpy feet has three toes. The color of the body ranges from yellowish-brown to slate grey. Its only hair is the ear fringes and tail bristles. White rhinos have a distinctive broad, straight mouth which is used for grazing. Its ears can move independently to pick up sounds, but it depends most of all on its sense of smell. The olfactory passages that are responsible for smell are larger than their entire brain. The white rhinoceros has the widest set of nostrils of any land-based animal.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The genome size of the white rhinoceros is 2581.22 Mb. A diploid cell has 2 x 40 autosomals and 2 sex chromosomes (XX or XY).


title: White rhinoceros

text: White rhinos are found in grassland and savannah habitat. Herbivore grazers that eat grass, preferring the shortest grains, the white rhinoceros is one of the largest pure grazers. It drinks twice a day if water is available, but if conditions are dry it can live four or five days without water. It spends about half of the day eating, one-third resting, and the rest of the day doing various other things. White rhinos, like all species of rhinoceros, love wallowing in mud holes to cool down. The white rhinoceros is thought to have changed the structure and ecology of the savanna's grasslands. Comparatively, based on studies of the African elephant, scientists believe the white rhino is a driving factor in its ecosystem. The destruction of the megaherbivore could have serious cascading effects on the ecosystem and harm other animals.


title: White rhinoceros

text: White rhinos produce sounds which include a panting contact call, grunts and snorts during courtship, squeals of distress, and deep bellows or growls when threatened. Threat displays (in males mostly) include wiping its horn on the ground and a head-low posture with ears back, combined with snarl threats and shrieking if attacked. The vocalizations of the two species differ between each other, and the panting contact calls between individual white rhinos in each species can vary as well. The differences in these calls aid the white rhinos in identifying each other and communicating over long distances. The white rhinoceros is quick and agile and can run .


title: White rhinoceros

text: White rhinos live in crashes or herds of up to 14 animals (usually mostly female). Sub-adult bulls will congregate, often in association with an adult cow. Most adult bulls are solitary. Dominant bulls mark their territory with excrement and urine. The dung is laid in well defined piles. It may have 20 to 30 of these piles to alert passing white rhinos that it is his territory. Another way of marking their territory is wiping their horns on bushes or the ground and scraping with their feet before urine spraying. They do this around ten times an hour while patrolling territory. The same ritual as urine marking except without spraying is also commonly used. The territorial male will scrape-mark every or so around its territory boundary. Subordinate males do not mark territory. The most serious fights break out over mating rights with a female. Female territory overlaps extensively, and they do not defend it.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Females reach sexual maturity at 6–7 years of age while males reach sexual maturity between 10 and 12 years of age. Courtship is often a difficult affair. The bull stays beyond the point where the cow acts aggressively and will give out a call when approaching her. The bull chases and or blocks the way of the cow while squealing or wailing loudly if the cow tries to leave his territory. When ready to mate the cow curls her tail and gets into a stiff stance during the half-hour copulation. Breeding pairs stay together between 5–20 days before they part their separate ways. The gestation period of a white rhino is 16 months. A single calf is born and usually weighs between . Calves are unsteady for their first two to three days of life. When threatened, the baby will run in front of the mother, which is very protective of her calf and will fight for it vigorously. Weaning starts at two months, but the calf may continue suckling for over 12 months. The birth interval for the white rhino is between two and three years. Before giving birth, the mother will chase off her current calf. White rhinos can live to be up to 40–50 years old.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Adult white rhinos have no natural predators (other than humans) due to their size, and even young rhinos are rarely attacked or preyed on due to the mother's presence and their tough skin. One exceptional successful attack was perpetrated by a lion pride on a roughly half-grown white rhinoceros, which weighed , and occurred in Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The southern white rhino lives in Southern Africa. About 98.5% of white rhinos live in just five countries (South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Uganda). Almost at the edge of extinction in the early 20th century, the southern subspecies have made a tremendous comeback. In 2001 it was estimated that there were 11,670 white rhinos in the wild with a further 777 in captivity worldwide, making it the most common rhino in the world. By the end of 2007 wild-living southern white rhinos had increased to an estimated 17,480 animals (IUCN 2008).


title: White rhinoceros

text: The northern white rhino ("Ceratotherium simum cottoni") formerly ranged over parts of northwestern Uganda, southern Chad, southwestern Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The last surviving population of wild northern white rhinos are or were in Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) but in August 2005, ground and aerial surveys conducted under the direction of African Parks Foundation and the African Rhino Specialist Group (ARSG) only found four animals: a solitary adult male and a group of one adult male and two adult females. In June 2008 it was reported that the species may have gone extinct in the wild.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Like the black rhino, the white rhino is under threat from habitat loss and poaching, most recently by Janjaweed. Although there are no measurable health benefits, the horn is sought after for traditional medicine and jewelry.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Historically the major factor in the decline of white rhinos was uncontrolled hunting in the colonial era, but now poaching for their horn is the primary threat. The white rhino is particularly vulnerable to hunting because it is a large and relatively unaggressive animal with very poor eyesight and generally lives in herds.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Despite the lack of scientific evidence, the rhino horn is highly prized in traditional Asian medicine, where it is ground into a fine powder or manufactured into tablets to be used as a treatment for a variety of illnesses such as nosebleeds, strokes, convulsions, and fevers. Due to this demand, several highly organized and very profitable international poaching syndicates came into being and would carry out their poaching missions with advanced technologies ranging from night vision scopes, silenced weapons, darting equipment, and even helicopters. The ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and incursions by poachers primarily coming from Sudan have further disrupted efforts to protect the few remaining northern rhinos.


title: White rhinoceros

text: In 2013, poaching rates for white rhinos nearly doubled from the previous year. As a result, the white rhino has now received Near Threatened status as its total population tops out at 20,000 members. Poaching of the animal has gone virtually unchecked in most of Africa, and the non-violent nature of the rhinoceros makes it susceptible to poaching. Mozambique, one of the four main countries the white rhino lives in, is used by poachers as a passageway to South Africa, which holds a fairly large number of white rhinos. Here, rhinos are regularly killed and their horns are smuggled out of the country. As of 2014, Mozambique labels white rhino poaching as a misdemeanor. The white rhino population in South Africa's Kruger National Park fell by 60% between 2013 and 2021, to an estimated 3529 individuals.


title: White rhinoceros

text: In March 2017 the Thoiry Zoo, located in France, was broken into by poachers. A Southern white rhinoceros named Vince was found shot dead in his enclosure; the poachers had removed one of his horns and had attempted to remove his second horn. This is believed to be the first time a rhinoceros had been killed in a European zoo.


title: White rhinoceros

text: Even with increased anti-poaching efforts in many African countries, many poachers are still willing to risk death or prison time because of the tremendous amount of money that they stand to make. Rhino horn can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram on the black market in Asia and, depending on the exact price, can be worth more than its weight in gold. Poachers are also starting to use social media sites for obtaining information on the location of rhino in popular tourist attractions (such as Kruger National Park) by searching for geotagged photographs posted online by unsuspecting tourists. By using GPS coordinates of rhinos in recent photographs, poachers can more easily find and kill their targets.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The northern white rhino is critically endangered to the point that only two of these rhinos are known to remain in the world, both in captivity. Several conservation tactics have been taken to prevent this subspecies from disappearing from the planet. Perhaps the most notable type of conservation effort for these rhinos is having moved them from Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic to Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy on 20 December 2009, where they have been under constant watch every day, and have been given favorable climate and diet, to which they have adapted well, to boost their chances of reproducing.


title: White rhinoceros

text: To save the northern white rhino from extinction, Ol Pejeta Conservancy announced that it would introduce a fertile southern white rhino from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in February 2014. They placed the male rhino in an enclosure with both female northern white rhinos in hopes to cross-breed the subspecies. Having the male rhino with two female rhinos was expected to increase competition for the female rhinos and in theory, should result in more mating experiences. Ol Pejeta Conservancy did not announce any news of rhino mating.


title: White rhinoceros

text: On 22 August 2019, using (ICSI), eggs from Fatu and Najin "were successfully inseminated" using the seminal fluid from Saut and Suni. The male Sudan's sperm was harvested before his death and is still in Kenya. On 11 September 2019, it was announced that "two embryos" were generated and will be kept in a frozen state, until placed in a surrogate female. On 15 January 2020, it was announced that "another embryo" was created using the same techniques; all three embryos are "from Fatu".


title: White rhinoceros

text: Most white rhinos in zoos are southern white rhinos; in 2001 it was estimated that there were 777 white rhinos in captivity worldwide.


title: White rhinoceros

text: The San Diego Zoo Safari Park in San Diego, California, US had two northern white rhinos, one of which was wild-caught. On 22 November 2015, a 41-year-old female named Nola (born in 1974), which had been on loan from the Dvůr Králové Zoo in Dvůr Králové, Czech Republic) since 1989, was euthanized after experiencing a downturn in health. On 14 December 2014, a 44-year-old male named Angalifu died of old age at the San Diego Zoo. The other four captive northern white rhinos were loaned to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, and only two remain alive. Females Najin and Fatu are still living, while males Suni and Sudan died in 2014 and 2018, respectively. The northern white rhinos had been transferred to Ol Pejeta Conservancy from the Dvůr Králové Zoo in 2009 in an attempt to protect the taxa in their natural habitat. The only two northern white rhinos left are maintained under 24-hour armed guard in Kenya.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The De Tomaso Pantera is a mid-engine sports car produced by Italian automobile manufacturer De Tomaso from 1971 to 1992. Italian for "Panther", the Pantera was the automaker's most popular model, with over 7,000 manufactured over its twenty-year production run. More than three quarters of the production was sold by American Lincoln-Mercury dealers from 1972 to 1975; after this agreement ended De Tomaso kept manufacturing the car in ever smaller numbers into the early 1990s.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The Pantera was designed by the Italian design firm Carrozzeria Ghia's American-born designer Tom Tjaarda and replaced the Mangusta. Unlike the Mangusta, which employed a steel backbone chassis, the Pantera's chassis was of a steel monocoque design, the first instance of De Tomaso using this construction technique. The Pantera logo included a T-shaped symbol that was the brand used by De Tomaso's Argentinian cattle ranching ancestors, as well as a version of the Argentinean flag turned on its side, inspired by the company's founder, Alejandro De Tomaso, having been born and raised in Argentina.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The car debuted in Modena in March 1970 and was presented at the 1970 New York Motor Show a few weeks later. Approximately a year later the first production cars were sold, and production was increased to three per day. De Tomaso sold the rights to the Pantera to Ford, who were to distribute the cars in the United States, but Alejandro De Tomaso retained the rights to market the Pantera in Europe.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The slat-backed seats which had attracted criticism at the New York Auto Show were replaced by more conventional body-hugging sports seats in the production cars: leg-room was generous but the pedals were off-set and headroom was insufficient for drivers above approximately tall. Reflecting its makers' transatlantic ambitions, the Pantera came with an abundance of standard features which appeared exotic in Europe, such as electric windows, air conditioning and even "doors that buzz when ... open". By the time the Pantera reached production stage, the interior was in most respects well sorted, although resting an arm on the central console could lead to inadvertently activating the poorly located cigarette lighter.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The first 1971 Pantera models were powered by a "Ford Cleveland" V8 engine having a power output of . The high torque provided by the Ford engine reduced the need for excessive gear changing at low speeds: this made the car much less demanding to drive in urban conditions than many of the locally built offerings.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The ZF transaxle used in the Mangusta was also used for the Pantera: a passenger in an early Pantera recorded that the mechanical noises emanating from the transaxle were more intrusive than the well restrained engine noise. Another Italian car that shared the ZF transaxle is the Maserati Bora, also launched in 1971 although not then available for sale. Power-assisted four-wheel disc brakes and rack and pinion steering were all standard equipment on the Pantera. The 1971 Pantera could accelerate to 97 km/h (60 mph) in 5.5 seconds according to "Car and Driver".


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: In the spring of 1972, De Tomaso introduced the more sporting GTS model for the European market. The GTS was developed for Group 3 racing and received a more powerful engine with DIN at 6000 rpm, thanks to a 11.0 : 1 compression ratio (versus 8.0 : 1 in the US market Pantera), larger Holley carburettors, a forged aluminum intake manifold, and freer flowing exhaust headers. The GTS also has considerably wider wheels, a more aggressive steering rack setup, ventilated disc brakes, adjusted spring rates and gear ratios, and conspicuous matte black body elements.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Late in 1971, Ford began importing the Pantera for the American market to be sold through its Lincoln-Mercury dealers. The first 75 cars were simply European imports and are known for their "push-button" door handles and hand-built Carrozzeria Vignale bodies. A total of 1,007 cars reached the United States that year. As with most Italian cars of the day, rust-proofing was minimal and the quality of fit and finish on these early models was poor with large amounts of body solder being used to cover body panel flaws. Subsequently, Ford increased their involvement in the production of the later cars with the introduction of precision stampings for body panels which resulted in improved overall quality.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Several modifications were made to the Pantera for the 1972 model year. A new four-bolt main Cleveland Engine, was used with lower compression ratio (from 11:1 to 8.6:1, chiefly to meet US emissions standards and run on lower octane standard fuel) but with the more aggressive "Cobra Jet" camshaft (featuring the same lift and duration as the 428 Cobra Jet's factory performance cam) in an effort to reclaim some of the power lost through the reduction in compression ratio along with a dual point distributor. Many other engine changes were made, including the use of a factory exhaust header.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The "Lusso" (luxury) Pantera L was also introduced in August 1972 as a 1972 model. For the US market, it featured a large black single front bumper that incorporated a built-in airfoil to reduce front end lift at high speeds, rather than the separate bumperettes still used abroad, as well as the Cleveland engine now having a power output of at 5400 rpm. The "L" model featured many factory upgrades and updates that fixed most of the problems and issues the earlier cars experienced. It was so improved that the 1973 DeTomaso Pantera was Road Test Magazine's Import car of the year beating offerings from Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Porsche. During 1973 the dashboard was changed, deviating from two separate pods for the gauges to a unified unit with the dials angled towards the driver.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The European GTS model had sparked interest in the United States, with several grey market cars being imported and many of the performance parts being offered. In the first half of 1974 a US version of the Pantera GTS was introduced, with the first 40 cars only being available in California. This model featured GTS badging and matte black sections as well as a special steering wheel and an electric clock, but not the higher compression engine nor the wheels or other performance modifications of its European counterpart.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Ford stopped importing the Pantera to the US in 1975, having sold around 5,500 cars. De Tomaso continued to build the car in ever-escalating forms of performance and luxury for almost two decades for sale in the rest of the world. A small number of cars were imported to the US by gray market importers in the 1980s, notably Panteramerica and AmeriSport. After 1974, Ford discontinued the Cleveland 351 engine, but production continued in Australia until 1982. De Tomaso started sourcing their engines from Australia once the American supplies stopped. These engines were tuned in Switzerland and were available with a range of outputs up to .


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: According to De Tomaso the chassis was completely revised in 1980, beginning with chassis number 9000. From May 1980, the lineup included the GT5, which had bonded and riveted-on fibreglass wheelarch extensions and from November 1984 the GT5-S model which had blended arches and a distinctive wide-body look. The GT5 also incorporated better brakes, a more luxurious interior, much larger wheels and tires and the fiberglass body kit also included an air dam and side skirts. Production of the wide body GT5 (and similarly equipped narrow body GTS models) continued until 1985, when the GT5-S replaced the GT5. Although the factory has not made its records available, an analysis based on Vehicle Identification Numbers by the Pantera Owners Club of America (POCA) late model (9000 series) registrar has shown that fewer than 197 GT5 Pantera models were likely to have been built. The GT5-S featured single piece flared steel fenders instead of the GT5's bolted-on fiberglass flares, and a smaller steel front air dam. The 'S' in the GT5-S name stood for "steel". Otherwise the GT5-S was largely identical to the GT5. The POCA 9000 series registrar's VIN analysis indicates that fewer than 183 GT5-S Panteras were built. Concurrent GTS production continued, on a custom order and very limited basis, until the late 1980s.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The car continued to use a Ford V8 engine, although in 1988, when the supply of Ford 351 Cleveland engines from Australia ran out, De Tomaso began installing Ford 351 Windsor engines in the Pantera instead. In all, about 7,260 cars in total were built.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: For 1990 the 351 engine was replaced by the 5.0-litre Ford 302 engine featuring electronic fuel injection and modified cylinder heads, intake manifolds, camshafts, valves, and pistons. Stopping power was improved by the addition of four-wheel ventilated and drilled disc brakes with Brembo calipers that were shared with the Ferrari F40. The Pantera received new styling penned by Marcello Gandini, suspension redesign and a partial chassis redesign. The new model was called the Pantera 90 Si and it was introduced in 1990. Only 41 90 Si models were made before the Pantera was finally phased out in 1993 to make way for the radical Guarà. Out of the 41 cars made, two were used for crash testing, and one was reserved for the De Tomaso museum. As such, only 38 were sold to the public, of which four were converted to Targas by Pavesi. In the UK, the model was sold as Pantera 90.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: De Tomaso offered a Pantera competition car built to special order according to the Group 3 class racing rules between 1972 and 1984 based on the Pantera GTS. 30 cars were built for private customer teams. Group 3 rules were very strict and allowed little modifications to the original road going production cars. Earlier Group 3 cars are infamously called "push button" chassis cars as they were built by hand because De Tomaso did not have a proper assembly line when the Pantera began production. Special equipment of the Group 3 cars included Campagnolo wheels (15 x 8 inches at the front and 15 x 10 inches at the rear), adjustable Koni shocks, racing brakes and special safety equipment required at the time: plexi-glass windows with cutouts, a roll bar, fire extinguisher and racing bucket seats. The engine modifications included a reinforced camshaft, a 10-litre oil pan and a Holley racing 4 barrel carburetor. Displacement of the engine was also enlarged to 5.8-litres. The engine had a power output of . The engine was mated to a 5-speed close ratio gearbox with a heavy duty single plate clutch and a limited slip differential. It was reported that with the long ratio gears, the Group 3 cars could achieve a top speed up to . The Group 3 cars were so competitive that this prompted Porsche to speed up development of the more powerful 911 Carrera RS and Carrera RSR race cars. The use of racing brakes for the Pantera Group 3 was not allowed until 1975 and the car competed with the brakes of the road legal Pantera which proved to be its weak point. Due to an accident in 1973 at the Charade circuit, reinforced hubs developed by De Tomaso for the Group 3 car were approved in Group 3.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: After the Pantera had begun production, De Tomaso introduced a motorsport oriented Group 3 version of the car. This was followed by a modified Group 4 version in 1972. British engineer and driver Mike Parkes, who had previously developed racing cars for Ferrari was tasked with the development of the new car.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: As per the regulations, the Group 4 car was based around the road car's steel monocoque chassis. The double wishbone suspension was substantially modified and Koni adjustable shocks were used in order to improve handling at the track and make room for wider Campagnolo wheels and tyres. Bigger ventilated brakes supplied by Girling and a quick ratio steering rack were used to refine handling and stopping power. The standard steel body shell of the Pantera also received modifications such as aluminium doors, front lid and engine cover along with flared fibre glass wheel arches in order to accommodate the wide wheels and tyres. Plexi glass windows were used throughout and holes were cut into the chassis where possible in order to reduce weight. The car had no front or rear bumpers and a front deep chin spoiler. It also had no rustproofing or interior amenities. The interior was fitted with a cut-off switch instead of a radio, light weight cloth bucket racing seats, a vinyl trim, a roll-cage and drilled aluminium pedals. The final car had a weight of .


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Ford, providing a good amount of financial backing in the development of the road going Pantera had little interest in the motorsport version of the car and refused to supply engines for the Group 4 Pantera. De Tomaso engaged a private US based engine builder Bud Moore to supply engines for the car.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Based on the same Ford 351 Cleveland V8 engine used in the road going Pantera, the engine in the Group 4 Pantera was fitted with bespoke aluminium heads, TRW forged pistons, large capacity oil pans and titanium valves. Initially, a single Holley Racing 1150 CFM four barrel carburetor was fitted but this was replaced by four Weber carburetors and a revised intake. The engine had a higher compression ratio of 12.0:1. Displacement of the racing engine was unchanged from road going Pantera's engine. The "spaghetti" styled exhaust system similar to the one used in the Ford GT40 was used. The engine had a claimed power output of , although the cars ran at a power output of at 7,000 rpm, which was increased to when the Weber 850 CFM carburetors were used. The engine was mated to a ZF 5-speed close ratio manual transmission with a heavy duty single clutch plate.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The first Group 4 Panteras were entered into the 1972 24 Hours of LeMans. The problems of the car then began to become apparent. The engine proved to be unreliable and the car was also subject to a weight penalty, increasing the weight to . This was set reportedly high due to Porsche's influence over the governing body of the race. Another problem of the car was the rigidity of its chassis. Nevertheless, the car continued to compete in Group 4 and the engine problem was addressed by sourcing replacement engines with a lower compression ratio. A total of 14 Group 4 cars were made. Some Group 3 cars were modified to Group 4 specifications by privateers.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: The Group 5 Pantera race cars were converted by private racing teams from Group 4 and Group 3 cars and competed in Group 5 class racing from 1976 to 1981. The Group 5 cars only had wider body panels and no significant design, mechanical and chassis modifications.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: However, two cars were extensively modified to compete in the IMSA GTX and Group 5 class respectively. The first car having chassis number #001 was constructed from a new chassis by Italian racing team Sala and Marveti. The second car, having chassis number #1603 was a Group 4 car campaigned by Hugh Kleinpeter in the US and then underwent modification. Afterwards, the former was converted to Group C class specifications in 1983 and the latter was converted to IMSA GTP class specifications respectively. Both cars were uncompetitive in their categories.


title: De Tomaso Pantera

text: Coachbuilder Italian car manufacturer Ares Design manufactured the Project1. It is a modern reinterpretation of the Pantera based on the Lamborghini Huracán chassis.


title: Doo-wop

text: Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables (such as "doo-wop") is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.


title: Doo-wop

text: Doo-wop's style is a mixture of precedents in composition, orchestration, and vocals that figured in American popular music created by songwriters and vocal groups, both black and white, from the 1930s to the 1940s.


title: Doo-wop

text: Such composers as Rodgers and Hart (in their 1934 song "Blue Moon"), and Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser (in their 1938 "Heart and Soul") used a I–vi–ii–V-loop chord progression in those hit songs; composers of doo-wop songs varied this slightly but significantly to the chord progression I–vi–IV–V, so influential that it is sometimes referred to as the '50s progression. This characteristic harmonic layout was combined with the AABA chorus form typical for Tin Pan Alley songs.


title: Doo-wop

text: Hit songs by black groups such as the Ink Spots ("If I Didn't Care", one of the best selling singles worldwide of all time, and "Address Unknown") and the Mills Brothers ("Paper Doll", "You Always Hurt the One You Love" and "Glow Worm") were generally slow songs in swing time with simple instrumentation. Doo-wop street singers generally performed without instrumentation, but made their musical style distinctive, whether using fast or slow tempos, by keeping time with a swing-like off-beat, while using the "doo-wop" syllables as a substitute for drums and a bass vocalist as a substitute for a bass instrument.


title: Doo-wop

text: Doo-wop's characteristic vocal style was influenced by groups such as the Mills Brothers, whose close four-part harmony derived from the vocal harmonies of the earlier barbershop quartet.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Four Knights' "Take Me Right Back to the Track" (1945), the Cats and the Fiddle's song "I Miss You So" (1939), and the Triangle Quartette's even earlier record "Doodlin' Back" (1929) prefigured doo-wop's rhythm and blues sound long before doo-wop became popular.


title: Doo-wop

text: In their book entitled "The Complete Book of Doo-Wop", co-authors Gribin and Schiff (who also wrote “Doo-Wop, the Forgotten Third of Rock 'n' Roll“), identify 5 features of doo-wop music: 1) it is vocal music made by groups; 2) it features a wide range of vocal parts, "usually from bass to falsetto"; 3) it includes nonsense syllables; 4) there is a simple beat and low key instrumentals; and 5) it has simple words and music. While these features provide a helpful guide, they need not all be present in a given song for aficionados to consider it doo-wop, and the list does not include the aforementioned typical doo-wop chord progressions. Bill Kenny, lead singer of the Ink Spots, is often credited with introducing the "top and bottom" vocal arrangement featuring a high tenor singing the intro and a bass spoken chorus. The Mills Brothers, who were famous in part because in their vocals they sometimes mimicked instruments, were an additional influence on street vocal harmony groups, who, singing "a cappella" arrangements, used wordless onomatopoeia to mimic musical instruments. For instance, "Count Every Star" by the Ravens (1950) includes vocalizations imitating the "doomph, doomph" plucking of a double bass. The Orioles helped develop the doo-wop sound with their hits "It's Too Soon to Know" (1948) and "Crying in the Chapel" (1953).


title: Doo-wop

text: Although the musical style originated in the late 1940s and was very popular in the 1950s, the term "doo-wop" itself did not appear in print until 1961, when it was used in reference to the Marcels' song, "Blue Moon", in "The Chicago Defender", just as the style's vogue was nearing its end. Though the name was attributed to radio disc jockey Gus Gossert, he did not accept credit, stating that "doo-wop" was already in use in California to categorize the music.


title: Doo-wop

text: "Doo-wop" is itself a nonsense expression. In the Delta Rhythm Boys' 1945 recording, "Just A-Sittin' And A-Rockin", it is heard in the backing vocal. It is heard later in the Clovers' 1953 release "Good Lovin'" (Atlantic Records 1000), and in the chorus of Carlyle Dundee & the Dundees' 1954 song "Never" (Space Records 201). The first hit record with "doo-wop" being harmonized in the refrain was the Turbans' 1955 hit, "When You Dance" (Herald Records H-458). The Rainbows embellished the phrase as "do wop de wadda" in their 1955 "Mary Lee" (on Red Robin Records; also a Washington, D.C. regional hit on Pilgrim 703); and in their 1956 national hit, "In the Still of the Night", the Five Satins sang across the bridge with a plaintive "doo-wop, doo-wah".


title: Doo-wop

text: The vocal harmony group tradition that developed in the United States post-World War II was the most popular form of rhythm and blues music among black teenagers, especially those living in the large urban centers of the eastern coast, in Chicago, and in Detroit. Among the first groups to perform songs in the vocal harmony group tradition were the Orioles, the Five Keys, and the Spaniels; they specialized in romantic ballads that appealed to the sexual fantasies of teenagers in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The nonsense string of syllables, "doo doo doo doo-wop", from which the name of the genre was later derived, is used repeatedly in the song "Just A Sittin' And A Rockin", recorded by the Delta Rhythm Boys in December 1945. By the mid-1950s, vocal harmony groups had transformed the smooth delivery of ballads into a performance style incorporating the nonsense phrase as vocalized by the bass singers, who provided rhythmic movement for "a cappella" songs. Soon, other doo-wop groups entered the pop charts, particularly in 1955, which saw such cross-over doo-wop hits as "Sincerely" by the Moonglows, "Earth Angel" by the Penguins, the Cadillacs' "Gloria", the Heartbeats' "A Thousand Miles Away", Shep & the Limelites' "Daddy's Home", the Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You", and the Jive Five's "My True Story".


title: Doo-wop

text: Teenagers who could not afford musical instruments formed groups that sang songs "a cappella", performing at high school dances and other social occasions. They rehearsed on street corners and apartment stoops, as well as under bridges, in high school washrooms, and in hallways and other places with echoes: these were the only spaces with suitable acoustics available to them. Thus they developed a form of group harmony based in the harmonies and emotive phrasing of black spirituals and gospel music. Doo-wop music allowed these youths not only a means of entertaining themselves and others, but also a way of expressing their values and worldviews in a repressive white-dominated society, often through the use of innuendo and hidden messages in the lyrics.


title: Doo-wop

text: Particularly productive doo-wop groups were formed by young Italian-American men who, like their black counterparts, lived in rough neighborhoods (e.g., the Bronx and Brooklyn), learned their basic musical craft singing in church, and would gain experience in the new style by singing on street corners. New York was the capital of Italian doo-wop, and all its boroughs were home to groups that made successful records.


title: Doo-wop

text: By the late 1950s and early 1960s, many Italian-American groups had national hits: Dion and the Belmonts scored with "I Wonder Why", "Teenager in Love", and "Where or When"; the Capris made their name in 1960 with "There's a Moon Out Tonight"; Randy & the Rainbows, who charted with their Top #10 1963 single "Denise". Other Italian-American doo-wop groups were the Earls, the Chimes, the Elegants, the Mystics, the Duprees, Johnny Maestro & the Crests, and the Regents.


title: Doo-wop

text: Some doo-wop groups were racially mixed. Puerto Rican Herman Santiago, originally slated to be the lead singer of the Teenagers, wrote the lyrics and the music for a song to be called "Why Do Birds Sing So Gay?", but whether because he was ill or because producer George Goldner thought that newcomer Frankie Lymon's voice would be better in the lead, Santiago's original version was not recorded. To suit his tenor voice Lymon made a few alterations to the melody, and consequently the Teenagers recorded the song known as "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?". Chico Torres was a member of the Crests, whose lead singer, Johhny Mastrangelo, would later gain fame under the name Johnny Maestro. Racially integrated groups with both black and white performers included the Del-Vikings, who had major hits in 1957 with "Come Go With Me" and "Whispering Bells", the Crests, whose "16 Candles" appeared in 1958, and the Impalas, whose "Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home)" was a hit in 1959.


title: Doo-wop

text: Female doo-wop singers were much less common than males in the early days of doo-wop. Lillian Leach, lead singer of the Mellows from 1953 to 1958, helped pave the way for other women in doo-wop, soul and R&B. Margo Sylvia was the lead singer for the Tune Weavers.


title: Doo-wop

text: Like other urban centers in the US during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Baltimore developed its own vocal group tradition. The city produced rhythm and blues innovators such as the Cardinals, the Orioles, and the Swallows. The Royal Theatre in Baltimore and the Howard in Washington, D.C. were among the most prestigious venues for black performers on the so-called "Chitlin Circuit", which served as a school of the performing arts for blacks who had migrated from the deep South, and even more so for their offspring. In the late 1940s, the Orioles rose from the streets and made a profound impression on young chitlin' circuit audiences in Baltimore. The group, formed in 1947, sang simple ballads in rhythm and blues harmony, with the standard arrangement of a high tenor singing over the chords of the blended mid-range voices and a strong bass voice. Their lead singer, Sonny Til, had a soft, high-pitched tenor, and like the rest of the group, was still a teenager at the time. His style reflected the optimism of young black Americans in the postmigration era. The sound they helped develop, later called '"doo-wop", eventually became a "sonic bridge" to reach a white teen audience.


title: Doo-wop

text: In 1948, Jubilee Records signed the Orioles to a contract, following which they appeared on Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scout" radio show. The song they performed, "It's Too Soon to Know", often cited as the first doo-wop song, went to number 1 on "Billboard"'s "Race Records" chart, and number 13 on the pop charts, a crossover first for a black group. This was followed in 1953 by "Crying in the Chapel", their biggest hit, which went to number 1 on the R&B chart and number 11 on the pop chart. The Orioles were perhaps the first of the many doo-wop groups who named themselves after birds.


title: Doo-wop

text: The sexual innuendo in the Orioles' songs was less disguised than in the vocal group music of the swing era. Their stage choreography was also more sexually explicit, and their songs were simpler and more emotionally direct. This new approach to sex in their performances did not target the white teen audience at first—when the Orioles took the stage, they were appealing directly to a young black audience, with Sonny Til using his entire body to convey the emotion in the lyrics of their songs. He became a teen sex symbol for black girls, who reacted by screaming and throwing pieces of clothing onto the stage when he sang. Other young male vocalists of the era took note and adjusted their own acts accordingly. The Orioles were soon displaced by newer groups who imitated these pioneers as a model for success.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Swallows began in the late 1940s as a group of Baltimore teenagers calling themselves the Oakaleers. One of the members lived across the street from Sonny Til, who went on to lead the Orioles, and their success inspired the Oakaleers to rename themselves the Swallows. Their song "Will You Be Mine", released in 1951, reached number 9 on the US "Billboard" R&B chart. In 1952, the Swallows released "Beside You", their second national hit, which peaked at number 10 on the R&B chart.


title: Doo-wop

text: Some Baltimore doo-wop groups were connected with street gangs, and a few members were active in both scenes, such as Johnny Page of the Marylanders. As in all the major urban centers of the US, many of the teen gangs had their own street corner vocal groups in which they took great pride and which they supported fiercely. Competitive music and dance was a part of African American street culture, and with the success of some local groups, competition increased, leading to territorial rivalries among performers. Pennsylvania Avenue served as a boundary between East and West Baltimore, with the East producing the Swallows and the Cardinals and the Blentones, while the West was home to the Orioles and the Four Buddies.


title: Doo-wop

text: Baltimore vocal groups gathered at neighborhood record stores, where they practiced the latest hits in hopes that the store owners' connections with record companies and distributors might land them an audition. A King Records talent scout discovered the Swallows as they were rehearsing in Goldstick's record store. Sam Azrael's Super Music Store and Shaw's shoeshine parlor were also favored hangouts for Baltimore vocal groups; Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun auditioned the Cardinals at Azrael's. Some groups cut demos at local studios and played them for recording producers, with the aim of getting signed to a record deal.


title: Doo-wop

text: The city of Chicago was outranked as a recording center in the United States only by New York City in the early years of the music recording industry. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, independent record labels gained control of the black record market from the major companies, and Chicago rose as one of the main centers for rhythm and blues music. This music was a vital source for the youth music called rock 'n' roll. In the mid-1950s, a number of rhythm and blues acts performing in the vocal ensemble style later known as "doo-wop" began to cross over from the R&B charts to mainstream rock 'n' roll. The Chicago record companies took note of this trend and scouted for vocal groups from the city that they could sign to their labels. The record labels, record distributors, and nightclub owners of Chicago all had a part in developing the vocal potential of the doo-wop groups, but Chicago doo-wop was "created and nourished" on the street corners of the city's lower-class neighborhoods.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Chicago doo-wop groups, like those in New York, started singing on street corners and practiced their harmonies in tiled bathrooms, hallways, and subways, but because they came originally from the deep South, the home of gospel and blues music, their doo-wop sound was more influenced by gospel and blues.


title: Doo-wop

text: Vee-Jay Records and Chess Records were the main labels recording doo-wop groups in Chicago. Vee-Jay signed the Dells, the El Dorados, the Magnificents, and the Spaniels, all of whom achieved national chart hits in the mid-1950s. Chess signed the Moonglows, who had the most commercial success (seven Top 40 R&B hits, six of those Top Ten) of the 1950s doo-wop groups, and the Flamingos, who had national hits as well.


title: Doo-wop

text: In 1945, Joe Von Battle opened Joe's Record Shop at 3530 Hastings Street in Detroit; the store had the largest selection of rhythm and blues records in the city, according to a 1954 "Billboard" business survey. Battle, a migrant from Macon, Georgia, established his shop as the first black-owned business in the area, which remained primarily Jewish up to the late 1940s. Young aspiring performers would gather there in hopes of being discovered by the leading independent record company owners who courted Battle to promote and sell records, as well as to find new talent at his shop and studio. Battle's record labels included JVB, Von, Battle, Gone, and Viceroy; he also had subsidiary arrangements with labels such as King and Deluxe. He supplied Syd Nathan with many blues and doo-wop masters recorded in his primitive back-of-the-store studio from 1948 to 1954. As the pivotal recording mogul in the Detroit area, Battle was an important player in the independent label network.


title: Doo-wop

text: Jack and Devora Brown, a Jewish couple, founded Fortune Records in 1946 and recorded a variety of eccentric artists and sounds; in the mid-1950s they became champions of Detroit rhythm and blues, including the music of local doo-wop groups. Fortune's premier act was the Diablos, featuring the soaring tenor of lead vocalist Nolan Strong, a native of Alabama. The group's most notable hit was "The Wind". Strong, like other R&B and doo-wop tenors of the time, was profoundly influenced by Clyde McPhatter, lead singer of the Dominoes and later of the Drifters. Strong himself made a lasting impression on the young Smokey Robinson, who went out of his way to attend Diablo shows.


title: Doo-wop

text: In late 1957, seventeen-year-old Robinson, fronting a Detroit vocal harmony group called the Matadors, met the producer Berry Gordy, who was beginning to take up new styles, including doo-wop. Gordy wanted to promote a black style of music that would appeal to both the black and white markets, performed by black musicians with roots in gospel, R&B, or doo-wop. He sought artists who understood that the music had to be updated to appeal to a broader audience and attain greater commercial success. Early recordings by Gordy's Tamla Records, founded several months before he established the Motown Record Corporation in January 1959, were of either blues or doo-wop performances.


title: Doo-wop

text: "Bad Girl", a 1959 doo-wop single by Robinson's group, the Miracles, was the first single released (and the only one released by this group) on the Motown label—all previous singles from the company (and all those following from the group) were released on the Tamla label. Issued locally on the Motown Records label, it was licensed to and released nationally by Chess Records because the fledgling Motown Record Corporation did not, at that time, have national distribution. "Bad Girl" was the group's first national chart hit, reaching #93 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson and Motown Records' president Berry Gordy, "Bad Girl" was the first of several of the Miracles' songs performed in the doo-wop style during the late 1950s.


title: Doo-wop

text: Doo-wop groups also formed on the west coast of the United States, especially in California, where the scene was centered in Los Angeles. Independent record labels owned by black entrepreneurs such as Dootsie Williams and John Dolphin recorded these groups, most of which had formed in high schools. One such group, the Penguins, included Cleveland "Cleve" Duncan and Dexter Tisby, former classmates at Fremont High School in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. They, along with Bruce Tate and Curtis Williams, recorded the song "Earth Angel" (produced by Dootsie Williams), which rose to number one on the R&B charts in 1954.


title: Doo-wop

text: Most of the Los Angeles doo-wop groups came out of the Fremont, Belmont, and Jefferson high schools. All of them were influenced by the Robins, a successful R&B group of the late 1940s and the 1950s who formed in San Francisco, or by other groups including the Flairs, the Flamingos (not the Chicago group) and the Hollywood Flames. Many other Los Angeles doo-wop groups of the time were recorded by Dootsie Williams' Dootone Records and by John Dolphin's Central Avenue record store, Dolphin's of Hollywood. These included the Calvanes, the Crescendos, the Cuff Linx, the Cubans, the Dootones, the Jaguars, the Jewels, the Meadowlarks, the Silks, the Squires, the Titans, and the Up-Fronts. A few groups, such as the Platters and Rex Middleton's Hi-Fis, had crossover success.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Jaguars, from Fremont High School, was one of the first interracial vocal groups; it consisted of two African Americans, a Mexican American, and a Polish-Italian American. Doo-wop was popular with California Mexican Americans, who were attracted in the 1950s to its "a capella" vocals; the romantic style of the doo-wop groups appealed to them, as it was reminiscent of the traditional ballads and harmonies of Mexican folk music.


title: Doo-wop

text: In 1960, Art Laboe released one of the first oldies compilations, "Memories of El Monte", on his record label, Original Sound. The record was a collection of classic doo-wop songs by bands that used to play at the dances Laboe organized at El Monte Legion Stadium in El Monte, California, beginning in 1955. It included songs by local bands such as the Heartbeats and the Medallions. Laboe had become a celebrity in the Los Angeles area as a disc jockey for radio station KPOP, playing doo-wop and rhythm and blues broadcast from the parking lot of Scriverner's Drive-In on Sunset Boulevard.


title: Doo-wop

text: In 1962, Frank Zappa, with his friend Ray Collins, wrote the doo-wop song "Memories of El Monte". This was one of the first songs written by Zappa, who had been listening to Laboe's compilation of doo-wop singles. Zappa took the song to Laboe, who recruited the lead vocalist of the Penguins, Cleve Duncan, for a new iteration of the group, recorded it, and released it as a single on his record label.


title: Doo-wop

text: Early doo-wop music, dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s, was especially popular in the Northeast industrial corridor from New York to Philadelphia, and New York City was the world capital of doo-wop. There, African American groups such as the Ravens, the Drifters, the Dominoes, the Charts, and the so-called "bird groups", such as the Crows, the Sparrows, the Larks, and the Wrens, melded rhythm and blues with the gospel music they had grown up singing in church. Street singing was almost always "a cappella"; instrumental accompaniment was added when the songs were recorded. The large numbers of blacks who had migrated to New York City as part of the Great Migration came mostly from Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. In the 1940s black youths in the city began to sing the rhythm and blues styling that came to be known as doo-wop. Many of these groups were found in Harlem.


title: Doo-wop

text: Blacks were forced by legal and social segregation, as well as by the constraints of the built environment, to live in certain parts of New York City of the early 1950s. They identified with their own wards, street blocks and streets. Being effectively locked out of mainstream white society increased their social cohesion and encouraged creativity within the context of African American culture. Young singers formed groups and rehearsed their songs in public spaces: on street corners, apartment stoops, and subway platforms, in bowling alleys, school bathrooms, and pool halls, as well as at playgrounds and under bridges.


title: Doo-wop

text: Bobby Robinson, a native of South Carolina, was an independent record producer and songwriter in Harlem who helped popularize doo-wop music in the 1950s. He got into the music business in 1946 when he opened "Bobby's Record Shop" (later "Bobby's Happy House") on the corner of 125th Street and Eighth Avenue, near the Apollo Theater, a noted venue for African-American performers. The Apollo held talent contests in which audience members indicated their favorites with applause. These were a major outlet for doo-wop performers to be discovered by record company talent scouts. In 1951, Robinson started Robin Records, which later became Red Robin Records, and began recording doo-wop; he recorded the Ravens, the Mello-Moods, and many other doo-wop vocal groups. He used the tiny shop to launch a series of record labels which released many hits in the US. Robinson founded or co-founded Red Robin Records, Whirlin' Disc Records, Fury Records, Everlast Records, Fire Records and Enjoy Records.


title: Doo-wop

text: Arthur Godfrey's long-running (1946–1958) morning radio show on CBS, Talent Scouts, was a New York venue from which some doo-wop groups gained national exposure. In 1948, the Orioles, then known as the Vibra-Nairs, went to the city with Deborah Chessler, their manager and main songwriter, and appeared on the show. They won only third place, but Godfrey invited them back twice. Chessler leveraged a few demo recordings the group had cut, along with the recent radio exposure, to interest a distributor in marketing the group on an independent label. They cut six sides, one of which was a doo-wop ballad written by Chessler called "It's Too Soon to Know". It reached no. 1 on "Billboard's" national Most-Played Juke Box Race Records chart, and, in a first for a doo-wop song, the record crossed over to the mainstream pop chart, where it reached no. 13.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Du Droppers formed in Harlem in 1952. Members of the band were experienced gospel singers in ensembles dating to the 1940s, and were one of the oldest groups to record during the era. Among the Du Droppers' most enduring songs are "I Wanna Know" and "I Found Out (What You Do When You Go Round There)", which both reached number three on the "Billboard" R&B charts in 1953.


title: Doo-wop

text: Frankie Lymon, lead vocalist of the Teenagers, was the first black teen idol who appealed to both black and white audiences. He was born in Harlem, where he began singing doo-wop songs with his friends on the streets. He joined a group, the Premiers, and helped members Herman Santiago and Jimmy Merchant rewrite a song they had composed to create "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", which won the group an audition with Gee Records. Santiago was too sick to sing lead on the day of the audition, consequently Lymon sang the lead on "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" instead, and the group was signed as the Teenagers with Lymon as lead singer. The song quickly charted as the number one R&B song in the United States and reached number six on the pop chart in 1956, becoming the number one pop hit in the United Kingdom as well.


title: Doo-wop

text: The Willows, an influential street corner group from Harlem, were a model for many of the New York City doo-wop acts that rose after them. Their biggest hit was "Church Bells May Ring", featuring Neil Sedaka, then a member of the Linc-Tones, on chimes. It reached number 11 on the US R&B chart in 1956.


title: Doo-wop

text: Although they never had a national chart hit, the Solitaires, best known for their 1957 hit single "Walking Along", were one of the most popular vocal groups in New York in the late 1950s.


title: Doo-wop

text: The heyday of the girl group era began in 1957 with the success of two teen groups from the Bronx, the Chantels and the Bobbettes. The six girls in the Bobettes, aged eleven to fifteen, wrote and recorded "Mr. Lee", a novelty tune about a schoolteacher that was a national hit. The Chantels were the second African-American girl group to enjoy nationwide success in the US. The group was established in the early 1950s by five students, all of them born in the Bronx, who attended the Catholic St. Anthony of Padua School in the Bronx, where they were trained to sing Gregorian Chants. Their first recording was "He's Gone" (1958), which made them the first pop rock girl group to chart. Their second single, "Maybe" hit the charts, No. 15 on "Billboard"s Hot 100.


title: Doo-wop

text: In 1960, the Chiffons began as a trio of schoolmates at James Monroe High School in the Bronx. Judy Craig, fourteen years old, was the lead singer, singing with Patricia Bennett and Barbara Lee, both thirteen. In 1962, the girls met songwriter Ronnie Mack at the after-school center; Mack suggested they add Sylvia Peterson, who had sung with Little Jimmy & the Tops, to the group. The group was named the Chiffons when recording and releasing their first single, "He's So Fine". Written by Mack, it was released on the Laurie Records label in 1963. "He's So Fine" hit No. 1 in the US, selling over one million copies.


title: Doo-wop

text: Public School 99, which sponsored evening talent shows, and Morris High School were centers of musical creativity in the Bronx during the doo-wop era. Arthur Crier, a leading figure in the doo-wop scene in the Morrissania neighborhood, was born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx; his mother was from North Carolina. Crier was a founding member of a doo-wop group called the Five Chimes, one of several different groups with that name, and sang bass with the Halos and the Mellows. Many years later he observed that there was a shift in the music sung on the streets from gospel to secular rhythm and blues between 1950 and 1952.


title: Doo-wop

text: New York was also the capital of Italian doo-wop, and all its boroughs were home to groups that made successful records. The Crests were from the Lower East Side in Manhattan; Dion and the Belmonts, the Regents, and Nino and the Ebb Tides were from the Bronx; the Elegants from Staten Island; the Capris from Queens; the Mystics, the Neons, the Classics, and Vito & the Salutations from Brooklyn.


title: Doo-wop

text: Although Italians were a much smaller proportion of the Bronx's population in the 1950s than Jews and the Irish, only they had significant influence as rock 'n' roll singers. Young people of other ethnicities were listening to rock 'n' roll, but it was Italian Americans who established themselves in performing and recording the music. While relationships between Italian Americans and African Americans in the Bronx were sometimes fraught, there were many instances of collaboration between them.


title: Doo-wop

text: Italian Americans kept African Americans out of their neighborhoods with racial boundary policing and fought against them in turf wars and gang battles, yet they adopted the popular music of African Americans, treated it as their own, and were an appreciative audience for black doo-wop groups. Similarities in language idioms, masculine norms, and public comportment made it possible for African American and Italian American young men to mingle easily when societal expectations did not interfere. These cultural commonalities allowed Italian Americans to appreciate the singing of black doo-woppers in deterritorialized spaces, whether on the radio, on records, at live concerts, or in street performances. Dozens of neighborhood Italian groups formed, some of which recorded songs at Cousins Records, a record shop turned label, on Fordham Road. Italian American groups from the Bronx released a steady stream of doo-wop songs, including "Teenager In Love" and "I Wonder Why" by Dion and the Belmonts, and "Barbara Ann" by the Regents. Johnny Maestro, the Italian American lead singer of the interracial Bronx group the Crests, was the lead on the hit "Sixteen Candles". Maestro said that he became interested in R&B vocal group harmony listening to the Flamingos, the Harptones, and the Moonglows on Alan Freed's radio show on WINS in New York. Freed's various radio and stage shows had a crucial role in creating a market for Italian doo-wop.


title: Doo-wop

text: Young black singers in Philadelphia helped create the doo-wop vocal harmony style developing in the major cities of the US during the 1950s. Early doo-wop groups in the city included the Castelles, the Silhouettes, the Turbans, and Lee Andrews & the Hearts. They were recorded by small independent rhythm and blues record labels, and occasionally by more established labels in New York. Most of these groups had limited success, scoring only one or two hit songs on the R&B charts. They had frequent personnel changes and often moved from label to label hoping to achieve another hit.


title: Doo-wop

text: The migration of blacks to Philadelphia from the southern states of the US, especially South Carolina and Virginia, had a profound effect not only on the city's demographics, but on its music and culture as well. During the Great Migration, the black population of Philadelphia increased to 250,000 by 1940. Hundreds of thousands of southern African Americans migrated to the metropolitan area, bringing their secular and religious folk music with them. After World War II, the black population of the metro grew to about 530,000 by 1960.


title: Doo-wop

text: Black doo-wop groups had a major role in the evolution of rhythm and blues in early 1950s Philadelphia. Groups like the Castelles and the Turbans helped develop the music with their tight harmonies, lush ballads, and distinctive falsettos. Many of these vocal groups got together in secondary schools such as West Philadelphia High School, and performed at neighborhood recreation centers and teen dances. The Turbans, Philadelphia's first nationally charting R&B group, formed in 1953 when they were in their teens. They signed with Herald Records and recorded "Let Me Show You (Around My Heart)" with its B side, "When We Dance", in 1955. "When We Dance" became a national hit,


title: Doo-wop

text: The Silhouettes' crossover hit "Get a Job", released in 1957, reached number one on the pop and R&B charts in February 1958, while Lee Andrews & the Hearts had hits in 1957 and 1958 with "Teardrops", "Long Lonely Nights", and "Try the Impossible".


title: Doo-wop

text: Kae Williams, a Philadelphia deejay, record label owner and producer, managed the doo-wop groups Lee Andrews & the Hearts, the Sensations, who sold nearly a million records in 1961 with the song "Let Me In", and the Silhouettes, who had a number 1 hit in 1958 with "Get a Job". After the nationally distributed Ember label acquired the rights to "Get a Job", Dick Clark began to play it on "American Bandstand", and subsequently it sold over a million copies, topping the Billboard R&B singles chart and pop singles chart.


title: Doo-wop

text: Although "American Bandstand"'s programming came to rely on the musical creations of black performers, the show marginalized black teens with exclusionary admissions policies until it moved to Los Angeles in 1964. Featuring young whites dancing to music popularized by local deejays Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas, with steps created by their black teenage listeners, "Bandstand" presented to its national audience an image of youth culture that erased the presence of black teenagers in Philadelphia's youth music scene.