title: Team sport

text: A team sport includes any sport where individuals are organized into opposing teams which compete to win or cooperate to entertain their audience. Team members act together towards a shared objective. This can be done in a number of ways such as outscoring the opposing team. Team members set goals, make decisions, communicate, manage conflict, and solve problems in a supportive, trusting atmosphere in order to accomplish their objectives. Examples are basketball, volleyball, rugby, water polo, handball, lacrosse, cricket, baseball, and the various forms of association football, doubles tennis, and hockey. Team sports require internal coordination between members of the team in order to achieve success.


title: Team sport

text: Team sports are practiced between opposing teams, where the players generally interact directly and simultaneously between them to achieve an objective. The objective often involves teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar object in accordance with a set of rules, in order to score points.


title: Team sport

text: The meaning of a "team sport" has been disputed in recent years. Some types of sports have different objectives or rules than "traditional" team sports. These types of team sports do not involve teammates facilitating the movement of a ball or similar item in accordance with a set of rules, in order to score points. For example, swimming, rowing, sailing, dragon boat racing, and track and field among others can also be considered team sports.


title: Team sport

text: In other types of team sports, there may not be an opposing team or point scoring, for example, mountaineering. Instead of points scored against an opposing team, the relative difficulty of the climb or walk is the measure of the achievement. In some sports where participants are entered by a team, they do not only compete against members of other teams but also against each other for points towards championship standings.


title: Team sport

text: For example, motorsport, particularly Formula One. In cycling however, team members whilst still in competition with each other, will also work towards assisting one, usually a specialist, member of the team to the highest possible finishing position. This process is known as team orders and although previously accepted was banned in Formula One between 2002 and 2010. After a controversy involving team orders at the 2010 German Grand Prix however, the regulation was removed as of the season.


title: Team sport

text: Traces of sprinting as a team sport extend back several thousand years – as evidenced in images in the cave in Lascaux in France which depict people running after animals or "vice versa"; this was an issue of survival of the fittest.


title: Team sport

text: Organized athletics in Greece traditionally date back to 776 BC, with ongoing activity recorded up to 393 BC. These ancient Olympic Games tested warrior skills and consisted of running, long jump, boxing, wrestling, Pankration (combat sport), discus throw, and javelin throw. In the Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia, Neolithic-era cave paintings dating to 7000 BC depict a wrestling match surrounded by crowds. Prehistoric cave-paintings in Japan show a sport similar to sumo wrestling. In Wadi Sura, near Gilf Kebir in Libya, a Neolithic rock painting in the cave of swimmers shows evidence of swimming and archery being practiced around 6000 BC.


title: Team sport

text: the mythological first King of Elis (the location of Olympia) in Greece. The practice of young athletes carrying flaming torches is also traced to the King of Elis, under whose supervision the games took place; some historians regard this as the first record of Olympic sprint racing. The winner of the race was crowned with a wreath of olive or laurel. In subsequent years monetary attractions were introduced as prize money.


title: Team sport

text: The present-day pattern of Olympic Games resembles the practice followed in ancient times. Sprint was the coveted event. The 200 m sprint is known in Greek as "short foot race". The 400 m race is equivalent to two "stades" and called "diaulos" in Greek.


title: Team sport

text: Ice hockey and curling are team sports at the Winter Olympics together with the bobsleigh competition where the men's event has classes for both two-man and four-man sleds, but the women's class is restricted to two persons only.


title: Big Freedia

text: Freddie Ross Jr. (born January 28, 1978), better known by his stage name Big Freedia ( ), is an American rapper and performer known for his work in the New Orleans genre of hip hop called bounce music. Freedia has been credited with helping popularize the genre, which had been largely underground since developing in the early 1990s.


title: Big Freedia

text: Freedia is a gay man who also embraces his "feminine side"; he believes gender is on a spectrum and is ambivalent about his pronouns, stating, "I'm gender nonconforming, fluid, nonbinary. If I had known the 'queen' in Queen Diva would cause so much confusion, I might have called myself the king!"


title: Big Freedia

text: He has collaborated with artists including Beyoncé, who sampled his voice for her song, "Formation" and on her 2022 number-one hit "Break My Soul", Lizzo, Kesha, New Kids on the Block, Jordin Sparks, Naughty by Nature, Boyz II Men, and with Drake on his 2018 number-one hit "Nice for What".


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2011, he was named Best Emerging Artist and Best Hip-Hop/Rap Artist in January's "Best of the Beat Awards", and was nominated for the 2011 22nd GLAAD Media Awards. In 2013, he got his own reality show on the Fuse Channel, which chronicles his life on tour and at home. On July 7, 2015, he released his autobiography "God Save the Queen Diva!".


title: Big Freedia

text: At the end of 2016, Freedia was featured in a local New Orleans television ad for Juan LaFonta Law Office, in which he is shown rapping with bounce music and dancers. In 2018, he released the EP "Third Ward Bounce" and was also sampled on Beyoncé’s 2022 number-one hit "Break My Soul" though he is not credited as a featured artist on either record. Freedia was scheduled to go on tour with Kesha in 2020, but it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Big Freedia

text: Freddie Ross was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child, he took piano lessons and sang in the choir of the neighborhood Baptist church, "Pressing Onward M.B.C.", and has said that music was always a part of his life. Freddie's mother exposed him to artists such as Patti LaBelle, and he was also influenced by disco singer Sylvester, Michael Jackson, and Salt-N-Pepa.


title: Big Freedia

text: Ross attended Walter L. Cohen High School, where he continued to perform in choir and also became the choir director. This experience made him realize he could write and produce. According to Freedia, he initially suffered from stage-fright, and had to coax himself onto stage until he became comfortable performing.


title: Big Freedia

text: In 1998, a young drag queen by the name of Katey Red performed bounce music at a club near the Melpomene Projects where Ross grew up. Ross, who had grown up four blocks away from Katey Red, began performing as a backup dancer and singer in Red's shows. In 1999, Katey Red released "Melpomene Block Party" on the city's leading bounce label, Take Fo' Records. Freedia adopted his stage name after a friend dubbed him "Freedia" (pronounced "Freeda"). According to Ross, "I wanted a catchy name that rhymed, and my mother had a club called Diva that I worked for. I called myself the queen of diva—so I coined it: Big Freedia Queen Diva."


title: Big Freedia

text: In 1999, Freedia began his professional career with the release of his first single, "An Ha, Oh Yeah", and began performing frequently in clubs and other venues in New Orleans. Other local hits included "Rock Around the Clock" and "Gin 'N My System", which was later quoted by local rapper Lil Wayne on a mixtape. He released his first studio album, "Queen Diva", in 2003.


title: Big Freedia

text: Freedia was often described in his early career as an artist within the "sissy bounce" subgenre, though he had stated "there's no such thing as separating it into straight bounce and sissy bounce. It's all bounce music." About his popularity with women at live shows, music journalist Alison Fensterstock wrote, "When Freedia or Sissy Nobby's singing superaggressive, sexual lyrics about bad boyfriends or whatever, there's something about being able to be the 'I' in the sentence... it's tough to sing along about bitches and hoes when you're a girl. When you identify with Freedia, you're the agent of all this aggressive sexuality instead of its object."


title: Big Freedia

text: Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, and Freedia, along with other bounce artists such as Katey Red and Freedia's protege Sissy Nobby, were forced to vacate the city. Freedia settled for several months in Texas, where he began performing bounce shows for the locals, helping spread awareness of the genre like other displaced bounce artists. he moved back to New Orleans at the first opportunity. According to Freedia, "The first club that reopened in New Orleans was Caesar's, and they called me immediately and said let's do a regular night with you here. So we started FEMA Fridays. It was the only club open in the city, and a lot of people had a lot of money from Katrina, the checks and stuff, so the joy inside that club—I don't think that'll ever come back."


title: Big Freedia

text: He played six to ten shows a week at block parties, nightclubs, strip clubs, and other venues while the city recuperated. According to Fensterstock, "Freedia was one of the first artists to come back after the storm and start working, and he worked really, really hard. If you lived here, it became impossible not to know who he was."


title: Big Freedia

text: Freedia began to gain national exposure after a 2009 fest-closing gig with Katey Red and Sissy Nobby at the Bingo Parlour Tent and the 2009 Voodoo Experience. On January 18, 2010, he self-released the album "Big Freedia Hitz Vol. 1" on Big Freedia Records. The album was a collection of previously performed singles from 1999 to 2010.


title: Big Freedia

text: In March 2010, he was booked for a showcase of New Orleans bounce music at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, but cancelled after an injury. He signed to the Windish Agency afterwards, and booked a summer tour. Along with Katey Red, Cheeky Blakk, and Sissy Nobby, he was a guest on the May 2010 album "Ya-ka-may" by funk band Galactic. He joined the band for several gigs, and the album peaked at #161 on the US "Billboard" Chart.


title: Big Freedia

text: In May 2010, Freedia began touring with DJ Rusty Lazer and a team of "bootydancers", along with pop band Matt and Kim. He performed at Hoodstock in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in May 2010, and afterwards was written up in the "Village Voice". He performed for contemporary art mogul Jeffrey Deitch at Basel Miami and at New York's MoMa art museum. Upon returning to New Orleans, he was pursued by a New York journalist and was featured in "The New York Times" on July 22, 2010. He continued to tour throughout the United States, and in Fall 2010 had his first national television appearance on the "Last Call with Carson Daly". In October 2010, the "New Orleans Times-Picayune" called him an "overnight sensation".


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2011, Freedia was named Best Emerging Artist and Best Hip-Hop/Rap Artist in January's "Best of the Beat Awards". "Big Freedia Hitz Vol. 1" was nominated by the 22nd GLAAD Media Awards in 2011. The album was re-released on Scion A/V in March 2011, along with a number of music videos. He also won an MTV 0 Award in 2012 for "Too Much Ass for TV".


title: Big Freedia

text: He appeared on HBO's "Treme", a drama following residents of New Orleans as they try to rebuild after Katrina. He performed on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on January 25, 2012. His performance at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2012 was reviewed by "Rolling Stone" as "Probably this writer's favorite SXSW set".


title: Big Freedia

text: Freedia toured with The Postal Service in 2013, opening for the band at numerous venues throughout July and August.


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2013, music television channel Fuse aired the first season of "Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce", a reality show chronicling Freedia's growing mainstream attention and life back in New Orleans. During publicity for the show, Freedia led a crowd of hundreds in New York City to set the Guinness World Record for twerking. The second season of the show aired in 2014 and followed his mother Vera Ross's battle with cancer, which she lost on April 1, 2014, while Freedia was away doing a show. Freedia immediately flew back to New Orleans and planned a jazz funeral through the streets of the city, which the show aired. The show has been airing for six seasons, was expanded from 30 minutes to an hour, and is now called "Big Freedia Bounces Back".


title: Big Freedia

text: On July 31, 2014, Freedia headlined "4th Year Anniversary of Bounce" at Republic, as well as the next year's event at the same venue.


title: Big Freedia

text: The book, "Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva!", written by the "gay, self-proclaimed mama's boy who exploded onto the formerly underground Bounce music scene" along with Nicole Balin, was released July 2015.


title: Big Freedia

text: On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released a surprise single, "Formation", and an accompanying music video, filmed in New Orleans, which sampled speech from Messy Mya and Big Freedia. Freedia is heard saying, "I did not come to play with you hoes, haha. I came to slay, bitch! I like cornbread and collard greens, bitch! Oh yas, you besta believe it," in the music video.


title: Big Freedia

text: Beyoncé also uses Freedia's voice to open her 2016 "Formation" World Tour. Freedia says, "Oh Miss Bey, I know you came to slay! Give them hoes what they came to see. Baby, when I tell you, I'm back by popular demand. I did not come to play with you hoes. I came to slay, bitch! Oh yes, you best believe it, I always slay. You know I don't play!" For the show at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in Freedia's native New Orleans, Beyoncé brought him on stage to introduce the show live.


title: Big Freedia

text: Artists, such as Beyoncé and Drake, promoting Big Freedia have been criticized for using Big Freedia's voice but leaving him completely visually absent from their videos. However, in a 2018 interview with Wendy Williams, Freedia said he was out of the country doing a show and therefore he could not be in the "Formation" video with Beyoncé. Big Freedia has performed onstage with Beyoncé in at least one location of her Formation Tour. In 2021, he collaborated a song "Goin' Looney" for the "" soundtrack.


title: Big Freedia

text: In August 2016, "The Fader" premiered the "big room banger", "Marie Antoinette feat. Big Freedia", a song by New Orleans-based artist Boyfriend. In December 2016, Big Freedia released "A Very Big Freedia Christmazz", which he also collaborated on with Boyfriend, who co-produced and co-wrote 4 songs on the EP.


title: Big Freedia

text: On September 2017, Big Freedia released the single, "Dive" which featured rapper Mannie Fresh, who is also from New Orleans. They decided to work together after Fresh appeared on his show, "Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce". The song was originally going to be included on a joint mixtape called "The Bounce Back", but the album was scrapped for unknown reasons.


title: Big Freedia

text: "Make It Jingle" is part of the track list for the rhythm music game "Just Dance 2018", as well as the song's inclusion on the "Office Christmas Party" soundtrack.


title: Big Freedia

text: In April 2018, Drake's number-one hit "Nice for What" featured uncredited vocals from Freedia in the introduction to the track.


title: Big Freedia

text: After signing his first major record deal with Asylum Records, Freedia released the first single from his June 1 EP, "Third Ward Bounce", featuring artists such as Lizzo. The song, titled "Rent", was also available as a music video.


title: Big Freedia

text: On October 24, 2019, Freedia was featured on Kesha's "Raising Hell", the lead single for her fourth studio album "High Road". They promoted the song together at the 2019 AMA's and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert".


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2020, Freedia released a documentary film about his New Orleans upbringing and the issues of gun violence. The film, "Freedia Got a Gun", is a response to his brother's 2018 murder and explores Freedia's experience with gun violence in the community and tries to uncover the root causes of the issue.


title: Big Freedia

text: In April 2020, Freedia collaborated with New Kids on the Block, Jordin Sparks, Naughty by Nature and Boyz II Men on the song "House Party", a song written during social distancing during COVID-19. The video for "House Party" was shot on cell phones.


title: Big Freedia

text: On February 10, 2021, a remix of Rebecca Black's song "Friday" was released, featuring Big Freedia along with Dorian Electra and 3OH!3.


title: Big Freedia

text: On September 15, 2021, he appeared as a guest judge in episode 3 of the sixth season of "Nailed It!".


title: Big Freedia

text: In April 2022, Freedia was named Artist Ambassador for US Independent Venue Week. In June 2022, Freedia appeared on Beyoncé's single "Break My Soul".


title: Big Freedia

text: Freedia operates an interior design business whose clients included the administration of Ray Nagin when he was the mayor of New Orleans.


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2016, Freedia was indicted on charges of theft of government funds after he failed to report his income earnings between 2010 and 2014 while still claiming Section 8 housing benefits. Later that year, he pled guilty to all charges. He was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service in lieu of a jail sentence. In addition, he was ordered to live in a halfway house prior to sentencing after testing positive for marijuana and methamphetamine and was ordered to undergo drug testing as a condition of his probation. In 2018, Big Freedia revealed in an Instagram video that the judge in the case had granted his request to end his probation one year early for good behavior.


title: Big Freedia

text: In 2021, Big Freedia endorsed Democratic candidate Gary Chambers in the 2021 Louisiana's 2nd congressional district special election, recording a song and filming a music video in support of Chambers and his campaign.


title: Big Freedia

text: While most recently stating this preference, Freedia's pronouns have varied over the years. In a 2013 interview with "Out" Freedia had expressed a slight preference for "she", saying "Whatever makes my fans comfortable—to be able to call me 'he' or 'she,'—I'll allow. I let them have the freedom to choose either one." and "I have fans who say 'he' all the time; I have fans who say 'she' all the time. I'm confident in who I am, and I know what I stand for. When they say either/or, I'm not affected by either/or because, like I said, I know who I am." In a 2015 interview, Freedia stated, "I wear women's hair and carry a purse, but I am a man." and "...I'm a straight-UP gay man. I love my feminine side. She is the diva in me. I think gender identity is on a spectrum and that means there's lots of grey area!" By 2018 and 2020, Freedia updated this and expressed a preference for "fluid" pronouns, and a lack of preference for any one pronoun in particular. In 2020, responding to the question, "Do you feel like you've been pressured to gender yourself?" Freedia responded,


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted E. M. Forster's 1908 novel "A Room with a View". Set in England and Italy, it is about a young woman named Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) in the final throes of the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England, and her developing love for a free-spirited young man, George Emerson (Julian Sands). Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow feature in supporting roles. The film closely follows the novel by use of chapter titles to distinguish thematic segments.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: "A Room with a View" received universal critical acclaim and was a box-office success. At the 59th Academy Awards, it was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture), and won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design. It also won five British Academy Film Awards and a Golden Globe. In 1999, the British Film Institute placed "A Room with a View" 73rd on its list of the top 100 British films.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: In 1907, a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter), and her spinster cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith), stay at the Pensione Bertolini while on holiday in Florence. They are disappointed their rooms lack a view of the Arno as promised. At dinner, they meet other English guests: the Reverend Mr Beebe (Simon Callow), two elderly spinster sisters, the Misses Alan (Fabia Drake and Joan Henley), the romance author Eleanor Lavish (Judi Dench), and the freethinking Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliott) and his handsome philosophical son, George (Julian Sands).


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Learning about Charlotte and Lucy's view predicament, Mr. Emerson and George offer to exchange rooms, though Charlotte considers the suggestion indelicate. Mr Beebe mediates, and the switch is made. While touring the Piazza della Signoria the next day, Lucy witnesses a local man being brutally stabbed. She faints but George Emerson appears and comes to her aid. When Lucy has recovered, the two have a personal discussion before returning to the pensione.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Later, Charlotte, Lucy, and the Emersons join other British tourists for a day trip to the Fiesole countryside. Charlotte and Eleanor Lavish engage in conversation considered "unsuitable" for young ladies, so Lucy goes looking for Mr. Beebe. Instead, the Italian driver mistakenly leads her to where George is admiring the view from a hillside. Seeing Lucy, he suddenly embraces and passionately kisses her. Charlotte appears and intervenes. Worried that Lucy's mother will consider her an inadequate chaperone, Charlotte swears Lucy to secrecy and cuts their trip short.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Upon returning to Surrey in England, Lucy says nothing to her mother about the incident and pretends to forget it. She is soon engaged to Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis), a wealthy and socially prominent man who is snobbish and pretentious. Cecil loves Lucy but he and his mother consider the Honeychurch family as their inferiors, dismaying Mrs Honeychurch. Lucy soon learns that Mr. Emerson is moving into Sir Harry Otway's rental cottage, with George visiting on weekends. Lucy intended for the two Misses Alan to live there and is cross with Cecil upon learning that through a chance meeting with the Emersons in London, Cecil recommended the cottage to them. He proclaims his motive was to annoy Sir Harry, who Cecil considers a snob; he believes Harry will find the Emersons to be "too common."


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: George's presence upends Lucy's life, and her suppressed feelings for him surface. Meanwhile, Lucy's brother, Freddy (Rupert Graves), has become friends with George. Freddy invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner, the Honeychurch home, during which Cecil mockingly reads aloud from Miss Lavish's latest novel set in Italy. Cecil, still reading, is oblivious when George passionately kisses Lucy in the garden. As Cecil continues reading aloud, Lucy recognizes a scene as being identical to her encounter with George in Fiesole. She confronts Charlotte, who admits to telling Miss Lavish, who used it in her story. Lucy orders George to leave Windy Corner and never return. He says that Cecil sees her only as a possession and will never love her for herself, as he would. Lucy seems unmoved, but soon after ends her engagement to Cecil, saying they are incompatible. To escape the ensuing fallout, she arranges to travel to Greece with the Misses Alan. George, unable to be around Lucy, arranges for his father to move to London, unaware Lucy is no longer engaged. When Lucy stops by Mr. Beebe's home to fetch Charlotte, she is confronted by Mr. Emerson, who happens to be there. She finally realizes her true feelings for George. At the end, newlyweds George and Lucy honeymoon at the Italian pensione where they met, in the room with a view, overlooking Florence's Duomo.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: E. M. Forster began to write "A Room with a View" during a trip to Italy in the winter of 1901–02 when he was twenty-two. It was the first novel he worked on; however, he put it away before returning to it a few years later. Forster finished first two other novels: "Where Angels Fear to Tread" (1905) and then "The Longest Journey" (1907). "A Room with a View" was finally published in 1908. Set in Italy and England, "A Room with a View" follows Lucy Honeychurch, a proper young Englishwoman who discovers passion while on a trip to Italy. At her return to the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England, she must choose between two opposite men: the free-thinking George Emerson and the repressed aesthete Cecil Vyse. The story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel, Forster's third, was very well received, better than his previous two, but it is considered lighter than his two best-regarded later works "Howards End" (1910) and "A Passage to India" (1924). In Forster's own appreciation ""A Room with a View," may not be his best, but may very well be his nicest".


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Forster's early draft of the novel, entitled "Lucy", has the triangle of Lucy, Miss Bartlett, and a shadowy George Emerson already in place, as well as the two Miss Alans and the novelist, Miss Lavish. In these first notes, the story begins in the Pensione Bertolini in Florence but breaks off before the return to England, and its various sketchy episodes bear little resemblance to the finished work. In 1903, Forster went on with his novel, and now Cecil Vyse makes his appearance, as well as old Mr. Emerson, Reverend Beebe, and Lucy's mother and brother Freddy. The action, commencing in Italy as before, is carried forward to England, but the plot was unresolved when Forster laid the novel away for the second time. In this version, the story ended with George riding his bicycle into a tree during a storm.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: These early drafts have been published by Edward Arnold in "The Lucy Novels" (1977), edited by Oliver Stallybrass. In it, one may follow to some extent the development of the novel. He liked, too, the character of Lucy Honeychurch and, somewhat dyspeptically comparing her with the women in "Howards End" (1910), counting her as one of his few successes. The character of Lucy anticipates that of Adela Quested in "A Passage To India", published in 1924. Both women seem to be fighting their own best natures, to be hysterically turning away from any kind of honest introspection, and at a crucial point in the story, to be embarking on an enterprise which will plunge them and everyone who loves them into misery.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The "Lucy Novels" also contain some bits that were used in the film, not in the published novel. The scene between Lucy and the guide in Santa Croce, for instance, with its mishmash of Italian and pidgin English, is from Forster's notebook. It is revealing, too, about the originals of some of the characters: George Emerson began as Forster's Cambridge friend, Hugh Meredith, Forster designating the character by the initials H.O.M. in his notes. As a type, Miss Lavish was based on Emily Spender, a writer Forster and his mother met in their travels, swinging about in a military cape and affecting thin cigars in the "pensione" smoking room.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: In 1946, 20th Century Fox offered $25.000 for the film rights to "A Room with a View", but Forster did not hold cinema in high regard and refused even though the studio was willing to pay him even more. Following Forster's death in 1970, the board of fellows of King's College at Cambridge inherited the rights to his books. However, Donald A Parry, chief executor, turned down all approaches. Ten years later, the film rights for Forster's novels became available when the film enthusiast Professor Bernard Williams became chief executor.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The trustees of Forster's estate invited producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory to Cambridge to discuss filming Forster. Merchant and Ivory surprised their hosts with their interest in "A Room with a View", which the fellows of King's College considered "A little inconsequential early novel", rather than "A Passage to India", which was generally considered to be the writer's best. Merchant and Ivory had no interest in "A Passage to India" because they had just finished a film featuring the British Raj: "Heat and Dust" was released in 1983.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The role of Lucy Honeychurch was Helena Bonham Carter's breakthrough as a film actress. She was nineteen at the time and had just finished the art-house film "Lady Jane" (1986). Ivory gave her the role as he found "she was very quick, very smart, and very beautiful". She fit Forster's description of Lucy as "a young lady with a quantity of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face" .


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Rupert Everett auditioned for the role of Cecil Vyse. He would rather have played George Emerson, but Ivory thought that he was not quite right for it. It was Julian Sands who was cast as the male lead. Sands had gained notice as the British photographer in "The Killing Fields" (1984).


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Daniel Day-Lewis came to the attention of Ivory though his role in the play "Another Country" as the gay student Guy Bennet. Given the choice of either George Emerson or Cecil Vyse, he took on the more challenging role of Cecil.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The role of Freddy Honeychurch, Lucy's brother, went to Rupert Graves, in his film debut. He had had a minor role as one of the schoolboys in the play "Another Country".


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Simon Callow had been Ivory's original choice for the character of Harry Hamilton-Paul, the friend of the Nawab, in the Merchant Ivory film "Heat and Dust", but had committed to a play in London's West End. He had created the role of Mozart in the original London stage production of Peter Shaffer's play "Amadeus" (1979) and made his film debut in a small role in the film adaptation. In "A Room with a View", he was cast as the vicar Mr. Beebe.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The supporting cast included veteran performers: Five years earlier, Maggie Smith had worked in another Merchant Ivory film, "Quartet". Denholm Elliott was known for his role as Indiana Jones' friend Marcus Brody, the museum curator, in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". With a prominent theater career, Judi Dench had made her film debut in 1964, but she took the supporting role of Eleanor Lavish. (She would later become widely known after her starring role in the 1997 film "Mrs Brown".) Dench and Ivory had disagreements during the filming of "A Room with a View" because, among other things, he suggested that she play her character as a Scot.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The film was made on a budget of $3 million that included investment by Cinecom in the U.S, and from Goldcrest Films, The National Finance Corporation, and Curzon Film Distributors in Great Britain.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: "A Room with a View" was shot extensively on location in Florence, where Merchant Ivory had the Piazza della Signoria cleared for filming. Villa di Maiano in Fiesole served as the Pensione Bertolini. From its decoration of the walls they asked a painter to do a series of decorative artworks called grotesques that were used for titles between sections of the film, like chapter headings, following chapter titles in Forster's novel.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Other scenes were filmed in London and around the town of Sevenoaks in Kent where they borrowed the Kent family estate of film critic John Pym for their country scenes. Lucy's engagement party was filmed in the grounds of Emmetts Garden. Foxwold House near Chiddingstone was used for the Honeychurch house and an artificial pond was built in the forest of the property to use as the Sacred Lake. Two years later, the Great Storm of 1987 would tear through the area and destroy the gardens and almost 80 acres of the surrounding forest. In London, the Linley Sambourne House in South Kensington was used for Cecil's house and the Estonian Legation on Queensway was used for the boarding house where the Miss Alans live. In all, "A Room with a View" was shot in ten weeks: four in Italy and six in England. The film includes a notable scene of full frontal male nudity in which George, Freddy, and Mr Beebe go skinnydipping in a pond.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: The film received positive reviews from critics, holding a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.40/10. The site's consensus reads: "The hard edges of E.M Forster novel may be sanded off, but what we get with "A Room with a View" is an eminently entertaining comedy with an intellectual approach to love". According to Metacritic, which sampled the opinions of 21 critics and calculated a score of 83 out of 100, the film received "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, writing: "It is an intellectual film, but intellectual about emotions: It encourages us to think about how we feel, instead of simply acting on our feelings."


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: "A Room With a View" appeared on 61 critics' ten-best lists in 1986, making it one of the most acclaimed films of the year. Only "Hannah and Her Sisters" appeared on more lists.


title: A Room with a View (1985 film)

text: Goldcrest Films invested £460,000 in the film and earned £1,901,000 meaning they made a profit of £1,441,000.


title: Brit milah

text: The brit milah ( "bərīṯ mīlā", ; , "covenant of circumcision"; bris ) is a Jewish religious male circumcision ceremony. The steps, justifications, and imposition of the practice have dramatically varied throughout history; commonly cited reasons for the practice have included it being a way to control male sexuality by reducing sexual pleasure and desire, as a visual marker of the covenant of the pieces, as a metaphor for mankind perfecting creation, and as a means to promote fertility.


title: Brit milah

text: The original version in Judaic history was either a ritual nick or cut done by a father to the "acroposthion", the part of the foreskin that overhangs the glans penis. This form of genital nicking or cutting, known as simply "milah," became adopted among Jews by the Second Temple period and was the predominant form until the second century CE. The notion of "milah" being linked to a biblical covenant is generally believed to have originated in the 6th century BCE as a product of the Babylonian captivity; the practice likely lacked this significance among Jews before the period.


title: Brit milah

text: Intact genitals were considered a sign of beauty, civility, and masculinity throughout the Greco-Roman world; it was custom to spend an hour a day or so exercising nude in the "gymnasium" and in Roman baths; many Jewish men did not want to be seen in public deprived of their foreskins, where matters of business and politics were discussed. To expose one's glans in public was seen as indecent, vulgar, and a sign of sexual arousal and desire. Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman culture widely found circumcision to be barbaric, cruel, and utterly repulsive in nature. By the period of the Maccabees, many Jewish men attempted to hide their circumcisions through the process of epispasm due to the circumstances of the period, although Jewish religious writers denounced these practices as abrogating the covenant of Abraham in 1 Maccabees and the Talmud. After Christianity and Second Temple Judaism split apart from one another, "Milah" was declared spiritually unnecessary as a condition of justification by Christian writers such as Paul the Apostle and subsequently in the Council of Jerusalem, while it further increased in importance for Jews.


title: Brit milah

text: In the mid-2nd century CE, the Tannaim, the successors of the newly ideologically dominant Pharisees, introduced and made mandatory a secondary step of circumcision known as the "Periah." Without it circumcision was newly declared to have no spiritual value. This new form removed as much of the inner mucosa as possible, the frenulum and its corresponding delta from the penis, and prevented the movement of shaft skin, in what creates a "low and tight" circumcision. It was intended to make it impossible to restore the foreskin. This is the form practiced among the large majority of Jews today, and, later, became a basis for the routine neonatal circumcisions performed in the United States. Today, brit milah is performed by a mohel on the eighth day after the infant's birth and is followed by a celebratory meal known as "seudat mitzvah".


title: Brit milah

text: Since the 18th century, a growing number of Jewish philosophers and theologians have criticized the practice of circumcision, advocating an abolishment of the practice and alternatives such as "Brit Shalom".


title: Brit milah

text: The origin of circumcision is not known with certainty; however, artistic and literary evidence from ancient Egypt suggests it was practiced in the ancient Near East from at least the Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2345–ca. 2181 BCE). According to some scholars, it appears that it only appeared as a sign of the covenant during the Babylonian Exile. Scholars who posit the existence of a hypothetical J source (likely composed during the seventh century BCE) of the Pentateuch in hold that it would not have mentioned a covenant that involves the practice of circumcision. Only in the P source (likely composed during the sixth century BCE) of does the notion of circumcision become linked to a covenant.


title: Brit milah

text: According to the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh commanded the biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised, an act to be followed by his descendants:


title: Brit milah

text: According to the Hebrew Bible, it was "a reproach" for an Israelite to be uncircumcised. The plural term ("uncircumcised") is used opprobriously, denoting the Philistines and other non-Israelites and used in conjunction with (unpure) for heathen. The word ("uncircumcised" [singular]) is also employed for "impermeable"; it is also applied to the first three years' fruit of a tree, which is forbidden.


title: Brit milah

text: However, the Israelites born in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt were not circumcised. Joshua 5:2–9, explains, "all the people that came out" of Egypt were circumcised, but those "born in the wilderness" were not. Therefore, Joshua, before the celebration of the Passover, had them circumcised at Gilgal specifically before they entered Canaan. Abraham, too, was circumcised when he moved into Canaan.


title: Brit milah

text: The prophetic tradition emphasizes that God expects people to be good as well as pious, and that non-Jews will be judged based on their ethical behavior, see Noahide Law. Thus, Jeremiah 9:25–26 says that circumcised and uncircumcised will be punished alike by the Lord; for "all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."


title: Brit milah

text: The penalty of non-observance is "kareth" (spiritual excision from the Jewish nation), as noted in Genesis 17:1-14. Conversion to Judaism for non-Israelites in Biblical times necessitated circumcision, otherwise one could not partake in the Passover offering. Today, as in the time of Abraham, it is required of converts in Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism.


title: Brit milah

text: As found in Genesis 17:1–14, "brit milah" is considered to be so important that should the eighth day fall on the Sabbath, actions that would normally be forbidden because of the sanctity of the day are permitted in order to fulfill the requirement to circumcise. The Talmud, when discussing the importance of Milah, compares it to being equal to all other mitzvot (commandments) based on the gematria for "brit" of 612.


title: Brit milah

text: Covenants in ancient times were sometimes sealed by severing an animal, with the implication that the party who breaks the covenant will suffer a similar fate. In Hebrew, the verb meaning "to seal a covenant" translates literally as "to cut". It is presumed by Jewish scholars that the removal of the foreskin symbolically represents such a sealing of the covenant.


title: Brit milah

text: A mohel is a Jew trained in the practice of "brit milah", the "covenant of circumcision." According to traditional Jewish law, in the absence of a grown free Jewish male expert, anyone who has the required skills is also authorized to perform the circumcision, if they are Jewish. Yet, most streams of non-Orthodox Judaism allow female mohels, called (, plural of , feminine of ), without restriction. In 1984, Deborah Cohen became the first certified Reform ; she was certified by the Berit Mila program of Reform Judaism.


title: Brit milah

text: It is customary for the brit to be held in a synagogue, but it can also be held at home or any other suitable location. The brit is performed on the eighth day from the baby's birth, taking into consideration that according to the Jewish calendar, the day begins at the sunset of the day before. If the baby is born on Sunday before sunset, the brit will be held the following Sunday. However, if the baby is born on Sunday night after sunset, the brit is on the following Monday. The brit takes place on the eighth day following birth even if that day is Shabbat or a holiday. A brit is traditionally performed in the morning, but it may be performed any time during daylight hours.


title: Brit milah

text: The Talmud explicitly instructs that a boy must not be circumcised if he had two brothers who died due to complications arising from their circumcisions, and Maimonides says that this excluded paternal half-brothers. This may be due to a concern about hemophilia.


title: Brit milah

text: If the child is born prematurely or has other serious medical problems, the brit milah will be postponed until the doctors and mohel deem the child strong enough for his foreskin to be surgically removed.


title: Brit milah

text: In recent years, the circumcision of adult Jews who were not circumcised as infants has become more common than previously thought. In such cases, the brit milah will be done at the earliest date that can be arranged. The actual circumcision will be private, and other elements of the ceremony (e.g., the celebratory meal) may be modified to accommodate the desires of the one being circumcised.


title: Brit milah

text: Most prominent "acharonim" rule that the "mitzvah" of brit milah lies in the pain it causes, and anesthetic, sedation, or ointment should generally not be used. However, it is traditionally common to feed the infant a drop of wine or other sweet liquid to soothe him.


title: Brit milah

text: Eliezer Waldenberg, Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, Shmuel Wosner, Moshe Feinstein and others agree that the child should not be sedated, although pain relieving ointment may be used under certain conditions; Shmuel Wosner particularly asserts that the act ought to be painful, per Psalms 44:23.


title: Brit milah

text: In a letter to the editor published in "The New York Times" on January 3, 1998, Rabbi Moshe David Tendler disagrees with the above and writes, "It is a biblical prohibition to cause anyone unnecessary pain". Rabbi Tendler recommends the use of an analgesic cream. Lidocaine should not be used, however, because lidocaine has been linked to several pediatric near-death episodes.


title: Brit milah

text: The title of "kvater" () among Ashkenazi Jews is for the person who carries the baby from the mother to the father, who in turn carries him to the "mohel." This honor is usually given to a couple without children, as a merit or "segula" (efficacious remedy) that they should have children of their own. The origin of the term is Middle High German "gevater/gevatere" ("godfather").


title: Brit milah

text: After the ceremony, a celebratory meal takes place. At the "birkat hamazon", additional introductory lines, known as "Nodeh Leshimcha", are added. These lines praise God and request the permission of God, the Torah, Kohanim and distinguished people present to proceed with the grace. When the four main blessings are concluded, special "ha-Rachaman" prayers are recited. They request various blessings by God that include:


title: Brit milah

text: The "mitzvah" is executed only when this epithelium is either removed, or permanently peeled back to uncover the glans.


title: Brit milah

text: On medical circumcisions performed by surgeons, the epithelium is removed along with the foreskin, to prevent post operative penile adhesion and its complications.


title: Brit milah

text: However, on ritual circumcisions performed by a mohel, the epithelium is most commonly peeled off only after the foreskin has been amputated. This procedure is called "priah" (), which means: 'uncovering'. The main goal of "priah" (also known as "bris periah"), is to remove as much of the inner layer of the foreskin as possible and prevent the movement of the shaft skin, what creates the look and function of what is known as a "low and tight" circumcision.


title: Brit milah

text: According to Rabbinic interpretation of traditional Jewish sources, the 'priah' has been performed as part of the Jewish circumcision since the Israelites first inhabited the Land of Israel.


title: Brit milah

text: The "Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion" states that many Hellenistic Jews attempted to restore their foreskins, and that similar action was taken during the Hadrianic persecution, a period in which a prohibition against circumcision was issued. The writers of the dictionary hypothesize that the more severe method practiced today was probably begun in order to prevent the possibility of restoring the foreskin after circumcision, and therefore the rabbis added the requirement of cutting the foreskin in periah.


title: Brit milah

text: According to Shaye J. D. Cohen, the Torah only commands milah. David Gollaher has written that the rabbis added the procedure of priah to discourage men from trying to restore their foreskins: "Once established, priah was deemed essential to circumcision; if the mohel failed to cut away enough tissue, the operation was deemed insufficient to comply with God's covenant," and "Depending on the strictness of individual rabbis, boys (or men thought to have been inadequately cut) were subjected to additional operations."


title: Brit milah

text: In the Metzitzah (), the guard is slid over the foreskin as close to the glans as possible to allow for maximum removal of the former without any injury to the latter. A scalpel is used to detach the foreskin. A tube is used for "metzitzah"


title: Brit milah

text: In addition to ' (the initial cut amputating the akroposthion) and ' and subsequent circumcision, mentioned above, the Talmud (Mishnah Shabbat 19:2) mentions a third step, "", translated as suction, as one of the steps involved in the circumcision rite. The Talmud writes that a "Mohel (Circumciser) who does not suck creates a danger, and should be dismissed from practice". Rashi on that Talmudic passage explains that this step is in order to draw some blood from deep inside the wound to prevent danger to the baby.


title: Brit milah

text: There are other modern antiseptic and antibiotic techniques—all used as part of the "brit milah" today—which many say accomplish the intended purpose of "metzitzah", however, since "metzitzah" is one of the four steps to fulfill Mitzvah, it continues to be practiced by a minority of Orthodox and Hassidic Jews.


title: Brit milah

text: The ancient method of performing "metzitzah b'peh" ()—or oral suction—has become controversial. The process has the "mohel" place his mouth directly on the circumcision wound to draw blood away from the cut. The vast majority of Jewish circumcision ceremonies do not use metzitzah b'peh, but some Haredi Jews continue to use it. It has been documented that the practice poses a serious risk of spreading herpes to the infant. Proponents maintain that there is no conclusive evidence that links herpes to "Metzitza", and that attempts to limit this practice infringe on religious freedom.


title: Brit milah

text: The practice has become a controversy in both secular and Jewish medical ethics. The ritual of "metzitzah" is found in Mishnah Shabbat 19:2, which lists it as one of the four steps involved in the circumcision rite. Rabbi Moses Sofer, also known as the Chatam Sofer (1762–1839), observed that the Talmud states that the rationale for this part of the ritual was hygienic — i.e., to protect the health of the child. The Chatam Sofer issued a leniency ("Heter") that some consider to have been conditional, to perform "metzitzah" with a sponge to be used instead of oral suction in a letter to his student, Rabbi Lazar Horowitz of Vienna. This letter was never published among Rabbi Sofer's responsa but rather in the secular journal "Kochvei Yitzchok." along with letters from Dr. Wertheimer, the chief doctor of the Viennese General Hospital. It relates the story that a mohel (who was suspected of transmitting herpes via metzizah to infants) was checked several times and never found to have signs of the disease and that a ban was requested because of the "possibility of future infections". Moshe Schick (1807–1879), a student of Moses Sofer, states in his book of Responsa, "She’eilos u’teshuvos Maharam Schick" (Orach Chaim 152,) that Moses Sofer gave the ruling in that specific instance only because the mohel refused to step down and had secular government connections that prevented his removal in favor of another mohel, and the Heter may not be applied elsewhere. He also states ("Yoreh Deah" 244) that the practice is possibly a Sinaitic tradition, i.e., Halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai. Other sources contradict this claim, with copies of Moses Sofer's responsa making no mention of the legal case or of his ruling applying in only one situation. Rather, that responsa makes quite clear that "metzizah" was a health measure and should never be employed where there is a health risk to the infant.


title: Brit milah

text: Chaim Hezekiah Medini, after corresponding with the greatest Jewish sages of the generation, concluded the practice to be Halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai and elaborates on what prompted Moses Sofer to give the above ruling. He tells the story that a student of Moses Sofer, Lazar Horowitz, Chief Rabbi of Vienna at the time and author of the responsa "Yad Elazer", needed the ruling because of a governmental attempt to ban circumcision completely if it included "metztitzah b'peh." He therefore asked Sofer to give him permission to do "brit milah" without "metzitzah b’peh." When he presented the defense in secular court, his testimony was erroneously recorded to mean that Sofer stated it as a general ruling. The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which claims to be the largest American organization of Orthodox rabbis, published an article by mohel Dr Yehudi Pesach Shields in its summer 1972 issue of "Tradition" magazine, calling for the abandonment of Metzitzah b'peh. Since then the RCA has issued an opinion that advocates methods that do not involve contact between the mohel's mouth and the open wound, such as the use of a sterile syringe, thereby eliminating the risk of infection. According to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Edah HaChareidis "metzitzah b'peh" should still be performed.


title: Brit milah

text: The practice of "metzitzah b'peh" posed a serious risk in the transfer of herpes from mohelim to eight Israeli infants, one of whom suffered brain damage. When three New York City infants contracted herpes after "metzizah b'peh" by one "mohel" and one of them died, New York authorities took out a restraining order against the "mohel" requiring use of a sterile glass tube, or pipette. The mohel's attorney argued that the New York Department of Health had not supplied conclusive medical evidence linking his client with the disease. In September 2005, the city withdrew the restraining order and turned the matter over to a rabbinical court. Dr. Thomas Frieden, the Health Commissioner of New York City, wrote, "There exists no reasonable doubt that ‘metzitzah b'peh’ can and has caused neonatal herpes infection...The Health Department recommends that infants being circumcised not undergo metzitzah b'peh." In May 2006, the Department of Health for New York State issued a protocol for the performance of metzitzah b'peh. Dr. Antonia C. Novello, Commissioner of Health for New York State, together with a board of rabbis and doctors, worked, she said, to "allow the practice of metzizah b'peh to continue while still meeting the Department of Health's responsibility to protect the public health." Later in New York City in 2012 a 2-week-old baby died of herpes because of metzitzah b'peh.


title: Brit milah

text: In three medical papers done in Israel, Canada, and the US, oral suction following circumcision was suggested as a cause in 11 cases of neonatal herpes. Researchers noted that prior to 1997, neonatal herpes reports in Israel were rare, and that the late incidences were correlated with the mothers carrying the virus themselves. Rabbi Doctor Mordechai Halperin implicates the "better hygiene and living conditions that prevail among the younger generation," which lowered to 60% the rate of young Israeli Chareidi mothers who carry the virus. He explains that an "absence of antibodies in the mothers’ blood means that their newborn sons received no such antibodies through the placenta, and therefore are vulnerable to infection by HSV-1."


title: Brit milah

text: Because of the risk of infection, some rabbinical authorities have ruled that the traditional practice of direct contact should be replaced by using a sterile tube between the wound and the mohel's mouth, so there is no direct oral contact. The Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Modern Orthodox rabbis, endorses this method. The RCA paper states: "Rabbi Schachter even reports that Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik reports that his father, Rav Moshe Soloveitchik, would not permit a mohel to perform metzitza be’peh with direct oral contact, and that his grandfather, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, instructed mohelim in Brisk not to do metzitza be’peh with direct oral contact. However, although Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik also generally prohibited metzitza be’peh with direct oral contact, he did not ban it by those who insisted upon it." The sefer Mitzvas Hametzitzah by Rabbi Sinai Schiffer of Baden, Germany, states that he is in possession of letters from 36 major Russian (Lithuanian) rabbis that categorically prohibit Metzitzah with a sponge and require it to be done orally. Among them is Rabbi Chaim Halevi Soloveitchik of Brisk.


title: Brit milah

text: In September 2012, the New York Department of Health unanimously ruled that the practice of metztizah b'peh should require informed consent from the parent or guardian of the child undergoing the ritual. Prior to the ruling, several hundred rabbis, including Rabbi David Neiderman, the executive director of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, signed a declaration stating that they would not inform parents of the potential dangers that came with metzitzah b'peh, even if informed consent became law.


title: Brit milah

text: In a motion for preliminary injunction with intent to sue, filed against New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, affidavits by Awi Federgruen, Brenda Breuer, and Daniel S. Berman argued that the study on which the department passed its conclusions is flawed.


title: Brit milah

text: The "informed consent" regulation was challenged in court. In January 2013 the U.S. District court ruled that the law did not specifically target religion and therefore must not pass strict scrutiny. The ruling was appealed to the Court of Appeals.


title: Brit milah

text: On August 15, 2014 the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision by the lower court, and ruled that the regulation does have to be reviewed under strict scrutiny to determine whether it infringes on Orthodox Jews' freedom of religion.


title: Brit milah

text: On September 9, 2015 after coming to an agreement with the community The New York City Board of Health voted to repeal the informed consent regulation.


title: Brit milah

text: A brit milah is more than circumcision; it is a sacred ritual in Judaism, as distinguished from its non-ritual requirement in Islam. One ramification is that the brit is not considered complete unless a drop of blood is actually drawn. The standard medical methods of circumcision through constriction do not meet the requirements of the halakhah for brit milah, because they are done with hemostasis, "i.e.", they stop the flow of blood. Moreover, circumcision alone, in the absence of the brit milah ceremony, does not fulfill the requirements of the mitzvah. Therefore, in cases involving a Jew who was circumcised outside of a brit milah, an already-circumcised convert, or an aposthetic (born without a foreskin) individual, the mohel draws a symbolic drop of blood (, ) from the penis at the point where the foreskin would have been or was attached.


title: Brit milah

text: A "milah l'shem giur" is a "circumcision for the purpose of conversion". In Orthodox Judaism, this procedure is usually done by adoptive parents for adopted boys who are being converted as part of the adoption or by families with young children converting together. It is also required for adult converts who were not previously circumcised, e.g., those born in countries where circumcision at birth is not common. The conversion of a minor is valid in both Orthodox and Conservative Judaism until a child reaches the age of majority (13 for a boy, 12 for a girl); at that time the child has the option of renouncing his conversion and Judaism, and the conversion will then be considered retroactively invalid. He must be informed of his right to renounce his conversion if he wishes. If he does not make such a statement, it is accepted that the boy is halakhically Jewish. Orthodox rabbis will generally not convert a non-Jewish child raised by a mother who has not converted to Judaism.


title: Brit milah

text: The laws of conversion and conversion-related circumcision in Orthodox Judaism have numerous complications, and authorities recommend that a rabbi be consulted well in advance.


title: Brit milah

text: In Conservative Judaism, the milah l'shem giur procedure is also performed for a boy whose mother has not converted, but with the intention that the child be raised Jewish. This conversion of a child to Judaism without the conversion of the mother is allowed by Conservative interpretations of halakha. Conservative Rabbis will authorize it only under the condition that the child be raised as a Jew in a single-faith household. Should the mother convert, and if the boy has not yet reached his third birthday, the child may be immersed in the mikveh with the mother, after the mother has already immersed, to become Jewish. If the mother does not convert, the child may be immersed in a mikveh, or body of natural waters, to complete the child's conversion to Judaism. This can be done before the child is even one year old. If the child did not immerse in the mikveh, or the boy was too old, then the child may choose of their own accord to become Jewish at age 13 as a Bar Mitzvah, and complete the conversion then.


title: Brit milah

text: Where the procedure was performed but not followed by immersion or other requirements of the conversion procedure (e.g., in Conservative Judaism, where the mother has not converted), if the boy chooses to complete the conversion at Bar Mitzvah, a "milah l'shem giur" performed when the boy was an infant removes the obligation to undergo either a full brit milah or "hatafat dam brit".


title: Brit milah

text: The desire to control male sexuality has been central to "Milah" throughout history. Jewish theologians, philosophers, and ethicists have often justified the practice by claiming that the ritual substantially reduces male sexual pleasure and desire.


title: Brit milah

text: The political scientist Thomas Pangle concluded:As Maimonides — the greatest legal scholar, and also the preeminent medical authority, in traditional Judaism — teaches, the most obvious purpose of circumcision is the weakening of the male sexual capacity and pleasure... Closely related would appear to be the aim of setting before any potential adult male convert the trial of submitting to a mark that incurs shame among most if not all other peoples, as well as being frighteningly painful: "Now a man does not perform this act upon himself or upon a son of his unless it be in consequence of a genuine belief... Finally, this mark, and the gulf it establishes, not only distinguishes but unifies the chosen people. The peculiar nature of the pain, of the debility, and of the shame serves to underline the fact that dedication to God calls for a severe mastery over and ruthless subordination of sexual appetite and pleasure. It is surely no accident, Maimonides observes in the same passage just quoted, it was the chaste Abraham who was the first to be called upon to enact ritual circumcision. But of course we must add since the commandment applies to Ishmael as well as to Issac, circumcision is the mark uniting those singular peoples, descended from Abraham, who recall not only his chastity but above all his dread in the presence of God; who share in that dread, and who understand the dread and the circumcision to be in part their response as mortal, hence reproductive, hence sexual creatures — created in the image of God — to the presence of the holy or pure God Who as Creator utterly transcends His mortal, reproductive creatures, and especially their sexuality. The Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus argued that "Milah" is a way to "mutilate the organ" in order to eliminate "all superfluous and excessive pleasure."


title: Brit milah

text: Similarly, while not claiming that circumcision limited sexual pleasure, Maimonides proposed that two important purposes of circumcision are to temper sexual desire and to join in an affirmation of faith and the covenant of Abraham:


title: Brit milah

text: Rabbi Saadia Gaon considers something to be "complete" if it lacks nothing, but also has nothing that is unneeded. He regards the foreskin an unneeded organ that God created in man, and so by amputating it, the man is completed. The author of Sefer ha-Chinuch provides three reasons for the practice of circumcision:


title: Brit milah

text: Talmud professor Daniel Boyarin offered two explanations for circumcision. One is that it is a literal inscription on the Jewish body of the name of God in the form of the letter "yud" (from "yesod"). The second is that the act of bleeding represents a feminization of Jewish men, significant in the sense that the covenant represents a marriage between Jews and (a symbolically male) God.


title: Brit milah

text: In "Of the Special Laws, Book 1", the Jewish philosopher Philo additionally gave other reasons for the practice of circumcision.


title: Brit milah

text: He attributes four of the reasons to "men of divine spirit and wisdom." These include the idea that circumcision:


title: Brit milah

text: The 1st-century Jewish author Philo Judaeus defended Jewish circumcision on several grounds. He thought that circumcision should be done as early as possible as it would not be as likely to be done by someone's own free will. He claimed that the foreskin prevented semen from reaching the vagina and so should be done as a way to increase the nation's population. He also noted that circumcision should be performed as an effective means to reduce sexual pleasure.


title: Brit milah

text: There was also division in Pharisaic Judaism between Hillel the Elder and Shammai on the issue of circumcision of proselytes.


title: Brit milah

text: The Reform societies established in Frankfurt and Berlin regarded circumcision as barbaric and wished to abolish it. However, while prominent rabbis such as Abraham Geiger believed the ritual to be barbaric and outdated, they refrained from instituting any change in this matter. In 1843, when a father in Frankfurt refused to circumcise his son, rabbis of all shades in Germany stated it was mandated by Jewish law; even Samuel Holdheim affirmed this. By 1871, Reform rabbinic leadership in Germany reasserted "the supreme importance of circumcision in Judaism," while affirming the traditional viewpoint that non-circumcised Jews are Jews nonetheless. Although the issue of circumcision of converts continues to be debated, the necessity of Brit Milah for Jewish infant boys has been stressed in every subsequent Reform rabbis manual or guide. Since 1984 Reform Judaism has trained and certified over 300 of their own practicing "mohalim" in this ritual.


title: Brit milah

text: Among the reasons for their choice is the claim that circumcision is a form of bodily and sexual harm forced on men and violence against helpless infants, a violation of children's rights, and their opinion that circumcision is a dangerous, unnecessary, painful, traumatic and stressful event for the child, which can cause even further psychophysical complications down the road, including serious disability and even death. They are assisted by a number of Reform, Liberal, and Reconstructionist rabbis, and have developed a welcoming ceremony that they call the "Brit shalom" ("Covenant [of] Peace") for such children, also accepted by Humanistic Judaism. The ceremony of "Brit shalom" is not officially approved of by the Reform or Reconstructionist rabbinical organizations, who make the recommendation that male infants should be circumcised, though the issue of converts remains controversial and circumcision of converts is not mandatory in either movement.


title: Brit milah

text: The connection of the Reform movement to an anti-circumcision, pro-symbolic stance is a historical one. From the early days of the movement in Germany and Eastern Europe, some classical Reformers hoped to replace ritual circumcision "with a symbolic act, as has been done for other bloody practices, such as the sacrifices". In the US, an official Reform resolution in 1893 announced converts are no longer mandated to undergo the ritual, and this ambivalence toward the practice has carried over to classical-minded Reform Jews today. In Elyse Wechterman's essay "A Plea for Inclusion", she argues that, even in the absence of circumcision, committed Jews should never be turned away, especially by a movement "where no other ritual observance is mandated." She goes on to advocate an alternate covenant ceremony, , for both boys and girls as a welcoming ritual into Judaism. With a continuing negativity towards circumcision still present within a minority of modern-day Reform, Judaic scholar Jon Levenson has warned that if they "continue to judge "brit milah" to be not only medically unnecessary but also brutalizing and mutilating ... the abhorrence of it expressed by some early Reform leaders will return with a vengeance", proclaiming that circumcision will be "the latest front in the battle over the Jewish future in America".


title: Brit milah

text: Many European Jewish fathers during the nineteenth century chose not to circumcise their sons, including Theodor Herzl. However, unlike many other forms of religious observance, it remained one of the last rituals Jewish communities could enforce. In most of Europe, both the government and the unlearned Jewish masses believed circumcision to be a rite akin to baptism, and the law allowed communities not to register uncircumcised children as Jewish. This legal maneuver spurred several debates addressing the advisibility of its use, since many parents later chose to convert to Christianity. In early 20th-century Russia, Chaim Soloveitchik advised his colleagues to reject this measure, stating that uncircumcised Jewish males are no less Jewish than Jews who violate other commandments.


title: Brit milah

text: In 2017, Iceland proposed a bill banning circumcision especially for non-medical reasons, with a six-year jail term for anyone carrying out a circumcision for non-medical reasons, as well as anyone guilty of removing a child's sexual organs in whole or in part, arguing that the practice violates the child's rights. Religious groups have condemned the bill because it goes against their traditions.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Charles Julius Guiteau ( ; September 8, 1841June 30, 1882) was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, president of the United States, on July 2, 1881. Guiteau falsely believed he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. He was so offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris that he decided to kill Garfield, and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died two months later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime, and was hanged five months later.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Charles J. Guiteau was born in Freeport, Illinois, the fourth of six children of Jane August ( Howe) and Luther Wilson Guiteau, whose family was of French Huguenot ancestry. He moved with his family to Ulao, Wisconsin (near current-day Grafton), in 1850 and lived there until 1855, when his mother died. Soon after, Guiteau and his father moved back to Freeport.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau inherited $1,000 () from his grandfather as a young man and went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to attend the University of Michigan. Due to inadequate academic preparation, he failed the entrance examinations. He crammed in French and algebra at Ann Arbor High School while receiving numerous letters from his father about his progress, but quit before completing the program. In June 1860 he joined the Oneida Community, the utopian religious sect in Oneida, New York, with which Guiteau's father already had close affiliations. According to Brian Resnick of "The Atlantic", Guiteau "worshiped" the group's founder, John Humphrey Noyes, once writing that he had "perfect, entire and absolute confidence in him in all things".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Despite the "group marriage" aspects of the Oneida Community, Guiteau was generally rejected during his five years there and his name was turned into a play on words to create the nickname "Charles Gitout". He left the community twice; the first time, he went to Hoboken, New Jersey, and attempted to start a newspaper based on the Oneida religion, called "The Daily Theocrat". This failed and he returned to Oneida, only to leave again and file lawsuits against Noyes, in which he demanded payment for the work he had supposedly performed on behalf of the Oneida Community. Guiteau's embarrassed father wrote letters in support of Noyes, who considered Guiteau irresponsible and insane.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau worked as a clerk at a Chicago law firm and passed a cursory examination to attain admission to the bar. He was not successful as a lawyer, arguing only one case in court, and the bulk of his business was in bill collecting. In 1869 he met and married librarian Annie Bunn. She later detailed his dishonest dealings, describing how he would keep disproportionate amounts from his collections and rarely give the money to his clients.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: In 1872, Guiteau and his wife moved to New York City one step ahead of bill collectors and dissatisfied clients. Guiteau took an interest in politics and identified with the Democratic Party. In the 1872 presidential election, he supported Horace Greeley, the Liberal Republican and Democratic candidate, against incumbent Republican Ulysses S. Grant. Guiteau prepared a disorganized speech in support of Greeley, which he delivered once. Greeley was badly defeated, but during the campaign Guiteau became convinced that if Greeley won, he would appoint Guiteau as minister (ambassador) to Chile. Guiteau was physically abusive with his wife; when she wanted a divorce in 1874, he obliged by having sex with a prostitute who then testified to his infidelity.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Turning back to religion, Guiteau published a book on the subject called "The Truth", which was almost entirely plagiarized from the work of Noyes. By 1875, Guiteau's father had become convinced that his son was possessed by Satan. Conversely, Guiteau himself became increasingly convinced that his actions were divinely inspired, and that his destiny was to "preach a new Gospel" like Paul the Apostle. He wandered from town to town lecturing to any and all who would listen to his religious ramblings, and in December 1877 gave a lecture at the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau spent the first half of 1880 in Boston, which he left owing money and under suspicion of theft. On June 11, 1880, he was a passenger on the SS "Stonington" when it collided with the SS "Narragansett" at night in heavy fog near the mouth of the Connecticut River. "Stonington" was able to return to port, but "Narragansett" burned to the waterline and sank with significant loss of life. Although none of his fellow passengers on "Stonington" were injured, the incident left Guiteau believing that he had been spared for a higher purpose.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau's interest then turned again to politics. During the 1880 presidential campaign, the Republican Party was largely split into factions – the Stalwarts, led by Roscoe Conkling, who supported Grant for a third term, and the Half-Breeds, who supported James G. Blaine. Guiteau decided to support the Stalwarts and wrote a speech in support of Grant called "Grant against Hancock", which he revised to "Garfield against Hancock" after Garfield (not affiliated with either faction) won the Republican nomination. Ultimately, Guiteau changed little more in the text than switching Grant's name to Garfield's. The speech was delivered at most twice, and printed copies were passed out to members of the Republican National Committee at their summer 1880 meeting in New York, but Guiteau believed himself to be largely responsible for Garfield's victory over Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock that November. He insisted he should be awarded a consulship for his supposedly vital assistance, first asking for Vienna, then deciding that he would rather have the one in Paris. Guiteau's personal requests to Garfield and his cabinet as one of many job seekers who lined up every day to see them in person were continually rejected, as were his numerous letters.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: By the early days of Garfield's administration, which commenced in March 1881, Guiteau was living in Washington, D.C., destitute and forced to sneak between rooming houses without paying for his lodging and meals, and to walk around the cold, snowy city in a threadbare suit, without a coat, hat or boots. He spent his days in hotel lobbies reading discarded newspapers to keep track of the schedules of Garfield and his cabinet and making use of the hotels' complimentary stationery to write letters to them pressing his claim for a consulship. In the spring, Guiteau was still in Washington, and on May 14, 1881, he once more encountered Blaine, now Secretary of State, and inquired about a consular appointment; an exasperated Blaine finally snapped, "Never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as long as you live!"


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau considered himself a loyal Republican and a Stalwart, and convinced himself that his work for the party had been critical to Garfield's election to the presidency. Later convinced that Garfield was going to destroy the Republican Party by scrapping the patronage system, and distraught after his final encounter with Blaine, he decided the only solution was to remove Garfield and elevate Vice President Chester A. Arthur, an acolyte of Senator Conkling, the Stalwart leader who managed Grant's 1880 campaign and who was not on friendly terms with Garfield.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau conceded that the president would be too strong to kill with a knife, stating, "Garfield would have crushed the life out of me with a single blow of his fist!" He settled on a gun after contemplating what weapon he would use. Guiteau felt that God told him to kill the president; he felt that such an act would be a "removal" as opposed to an assassination. He also felt that Garfield needed to be killed to rid the Republican Party of Blaine's influence. Borrowing $15 from George Maynard, a relative by marriage, Guiteau set out to purchase a revolver. He knew little about firearms, but believed he would need a large-caliber gun. While shopping at O'Meara's store in Washington, he had to choose between a .442 Webley caliber British Bulldog revolver with wooden grips or one with ivory grips. He preferred the one with the ivory handle because he thought it would look better as a museum exhibit after the assassination. Though he could not afford the extra dollar for the ivory grips, the store owner dropped the price for him. He spent the next few weeks in target practice – the recoil from the revolver almost knocked him over the first time he fired it. Guiteau's weapon was recovered after the assassination, and even photographed by the Smithsonian in the early 20th century, but it has since been lost.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: On one occasion, Guiteau trailed Garfield to the since-demolished Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station as the president was seeing his wife off to a beach resort in Long Branch, New Jersey, but he decided to postpone his plan because Garfield's wife Lucretia was in poor health and Guiteau did not want to upset her. Having been alerted to the president's schedule by a newspaper article, on July 2, 1881, he lay in wait for Garfield at the railroad station, getting his shoes shined, pacing, and engaging a cab to take him to the station later. As Garfield entered the station, looking forward to a vacation with his wife in Long Branch, Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield twice from behind, the second shot piercing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord. As he surrendered to authorities, Guiteau said: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. ... [Chester A.] Arthur is president now!"


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: After a long, painful battle with infections, possibly brought on by his doctors' poking and probing the wound with unwashed hands and non-sterilized instruments, Garfield died on September 19, eleven weeks after being shot. Modern physicians familiar with the case state that Garfield would have easily recovered from his wounds with sterile medical care, which was not common in the United States until a decade later, while Candice Millard argues that Garfield would have survived Guiteau's bullet wound had his doctors simply left him alone. However, Garfield's biographer Allan Peskin stated that medical malpractice did not contribute to Garfield's death; the inevitable infection and blood poisoning that would ensue from a deep bullet wound resulted in damage to multiple organs and spinal bone fragmentation. Rutkow, a professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, has argued that starvation also played a role. Rutkow suggests "Garfield had such a nonlethal wound. In today's world, he would have gone home in a matter of two or three days." The conventional narrative regarding Garfield's post-shooting medical condition was also challenged by Theodore Pappas and Shahrzad Joharifard in a 2013 article in "The American Journal of Surgery". They argued that Garfield died from a late rupture of a splenic artery pseudoaneurysm, which developed secondary to the path of the bullet adjacent to the splenic artery. They also argued that his sepsis was actually caused by post-traumatic acute acalculous cholecystitis. Based on the autopsy report, the authors speculate that his gallbladder subsequently ruptured, leading to the development of a large bile-containing abscess adjacent to the gallbladder. Pappas and Joharifard suggest this caused the septic decline in Garfield's condition that was visible starting from July 23, 1881.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Once Garfield died, the government officially charged Guiteau with murder. He was formally indicted on October 14, 1881, on the charge of murder, which previously had been attempted murder after his arrest. Guiteau pleaded not guilty to the charge. The trial began in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1881, in the Supreme Court for the District of Columbia (now the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). The presiding judge in the case was Walter Smith Cox. Although Guiteau would insist on trying to represent himself during the entire trial, the court appointed Leigh Robinson to defend him. In less than a week of trial, Robinson retired from the case. George Scoville then became lead counsel for the defense. While Scoville's legal experience lay in land title examination, he had married Guiteau's sister and was thus obliged to defend him in court when no one else would. Wayne MacVeagh, the U.S. Attorney General, served as the chief prosecutor. MacVeagh named five lawyers to the prosecution team: George Corkhill, Walter Davidge, retired judge John K. Porter, Elihu Root, and E. B. Smith.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau's trial was one of the first high-profile cases in the United States where a defense based on a claim of temporary insanity was considered. Guiteau vehemently insisted that while he had been legally insane at the time of the shooting (because God had taken away his free will) he was not really medically insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between him and his defense lawyers. The judge gave the jury instructions based on the M'Naghten test.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: The defense hired Edward Charles Spitzka, who as a psychiatrist was a leading alienist to testify as an expert witness to support an insanity defense. (An alienist is a now-archaic term for a psychiatrist or psychologist who specializes in determining the sanity of a patient for legal purposes, now the field of forensic psychology.) Spitzka had stated that it was clear "Guiteau is not only now insane, but that he was never anything else." While on the stand, Spitzka testified that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral monstrosity". He came to the conclusion that Guiteau had "the insane manner" he had so often observed in asylums, adding that Guiteau was a "morbid egotist" with "a tendency to misinterpret the real affairs of life". He thought the condition to be the result of "a congenital malformation of the brain".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Corkhill, who was the District of Columbia's district attorney and on the prosecuting team, summed up the prosecution's opinion of Guiteau's insanity defense in a pre-trial press statement that also mirrored public opinion on the issue.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau became something of a media sensation during his entire trial for his bizarre behavior, which included him frequently cursing and insulting the judge, most of the witnesses, the prosecution, and even his defense team, as well as formatting his testimony in epic poems which he recited at length, and soliciting legal advice from random spectators in the audience via passed notes. He dictated an autobiography to the "New York Herald", ending it with a personal ad for "a nice Christian lady under 30 years of age". He was oblivious to the American public's hatred of him, even after he was almost assassinated twice himself. He frequently smiled and waved at spectators and reporters in and out of the courtroom.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau sent a letter in which he argued that Arthur should set him free because he had just increased Arthur's salary by making him president. At one point, Guiteau argued before Cox that Garfield was killed not by the bullets but by medical malpractice, "The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him." Throughout the trial and up until his execution, Guiteau was housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the southeastern quadrant of Washington, D.C. While in prison and awaiting execution, Guiteau wrote a defense of the assassination he had committed and an account of his own trial, which was published as "The Truth and the Removal".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: To the end, Guiteau was making plans to start a lecture tour after his perceived imminent release and to run for president himself in 1884, while at the same time continuing to delight in the media circus surrounding his trial. He was found guilty on January 25, 1882, and sentenced to death. After the guilty verdict was read, Guiteau stepped forward, despite his lawyers' efforts to tell him to be quiet, and yelled at the jury saying, "You are all low, consummate jackasses!" plus a further stream of curses and obscenities before he was taken away by guards to his cell to await execution. Guiteau appealed his conviction, but the appeal was rejected.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Twenty-nine days before his execution, Guiteau composed a lengthy poem asserting that God had commanded him to kill Garfield to prevent Blaine's "scheming" to war with Chile and Peru. Guiteau also claimed in the poem that now-President Arthur knew the assassination had saved the United States and that Arthur's refusal to pardon him was the "basest ingratitude". He also (incorrectly) presumed that Arthur would pressure the Supreme Court into hearing his court appeal.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882, in the District of Columbia, just two days before the first anniversary of the shooting.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: While being led to his execution, Guiteau was said to have continued to smile and wave at spectators and reporters. He notoriously danced his way to the gallows and shook hands with his executioner. On the scaffold, he delivered a "last dying prayer" in which he declared that God "did inspire the act for which I am now murdered" and predicted that "This government and this nation, by this act, will incur They eternal enmity," adding that "Thy divine law of retribution will strike this nation and my murderers." He also excoriated President Arthur as "a coward and an ingrate


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: "whose ingratitude to the man that made him and saved his party and land from overthrow has no parallel in history." Then, as a last request, he recited a poem "that I wrote this morning about 10 o'clock" called "I am Going to the Lordy", which he had written during his incarceration. He had originally requested an orchestra to play as he sang his poem, but this request was denied.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: As per request with the executioner, Guiteau signaled that he was ready to die by dropping the paper. After he finished reading his poem, a black hood was placed over the smiling Guiteau's head and moments later the gallows trapdoor was sprung, the rope breaking his neck instantly with the fall. Guiteau's body was not returned to his family, as they were unable to afford a private funeral, but was instead autopsied and buried in a corner of the jailyard. Upon his autopsy it was discovered that Guiteau had the condition known as phimosis, an inability to retract the foreskin, which at the time was thought to have caused the insanity that led him to assassinate Garfield.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: With tiny pieces of the hanging rope already being sold as souvenirs to a fascinated public, rumors immediately began to swirl that jail guards planned to dig up Guiteau's corpse to meet demands of this burgeoning new market. Fearing scandal, the decision was made to disinter the corpse. The body was sent to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland, which preserved Guiteau's brain as well as his enlarged spleen discovered at autopsy and bleached the skeleton. These were placed in storage by the museum. Parts of Guiteau's brain remain on display in a jar at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Allan McLane Hamilton said in 1881 that he believed that Guiteau was sane when he assassinated Garfield. An autopsy of Guiteau's brain revealed that his dura mater was abnormally thick, suggesting he may have had neurosyphillis, a disease which causes mental instability; he could have contracted syphilis from a prostitute. George Paulson, formerly the chair of neurology at the Ohio State University, disputed the neurosyphillis diagnosis, arguing that Guiteau had both schizophrenia and "grandiose narcissism".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: In 2014, the criminal psychologist Kent Kiehl diagnosed Guiteau as a psychopath, giving him a score of 37.5 out of 40 on the PCL-R scale.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: The life of Guiteau, focusing on his psychological disturbances and his plan to kill Garfield, is the subject of "Portrait of an Assassin", a radio play by James Agate Jr. The play was produced as Episode 1125 of "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" and was first broadcast on October 8, 1980, where he was played by John Lithgow.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Guiteau is depicted in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical "Assassins", wherein he mentors Sara Jane Moore, a woman who attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford. Guiteau sings parts of "I am Going to the Lordy" in the musical's song "The Ballad of Guiteau".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: In the "American Dad!" episode "Garfield and Friends", Hayley Smith uses Guiteau's DNA to revive him and uses him like a bloodhound to track down a revived Garfield.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: In the alternate history short story "I Shall Have a Flight to Glory" by Michael P. Kube-McDowell in the 1992 anthology "Alternate Presidents" edited by Mike Resnick, Guiteau and Garfield are allies against Samuel J. Tilden, who has become a tyrannical president.


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: Actor Will Janowitz plays Guiteau in the 2016 PBS documentary "American Experience: Murder of a President".


title: Charles J. Guiteau

text: The Ramblin' Jack Elliott song "The Death of Mister Garfield" recounts the assassination and the reactions of a fictional witness. Johnny Cash learned the song from Elliott, and later recorded a re-worked version as "Mr. Garfield".


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel "The Master and Margarita", published posthumously, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: He is also known for his novel "The White Guard"; his plays "Ivan Vasilievich", "Flight" (also called "The Run"), and "The Days of the Turbins"; and other works of the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote mostly about the horrors of the Russian Civil War and about the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil War.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: Some of his works ("Flight", all his works between the years 1922 and 1926, and others) were banned by the Soviet government, and personally by Joseph Stalin, after it was decided by them that they "glorified emigration and White generals". On the other hand, Stalin loved "The Days of the Turbins" (also called " The Turbin Brothers") very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: Mikhail Bulgakov was born on in Kiev, Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, into a Russian family. He was one of the seven children (the oldest of three brothers) of a state councilor, a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, as well as a prominent Russian Orthodox essayist, thinker and translator of religious texts. His mother was Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakova ("nee" Pokrovskaya), a former teacher. Both of his grandfathers were clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: Afanasiy Bulgakov was born in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, where his father was a priest, and he moved to Kiev to study in the academy. Varvara Bulgakova was born in Karachev, Russia. According to Edythe C. Haber, in his "autobiographical remarks" Bulgakov stated that she was a descendant of Tartar hordes, which supposedly influenced some of his works. From childhood, Bulgakov was drawn to theater. At home, he wrote comedies, which his brothers and sisters acted out.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: In 1901, Bulgakov joined the First Kiev Gymnasium, where he developed an interest in Russian and European literature (his favourite authors at the time being Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Dickens), theatre and opera. The teachers of the Gymnasium exerted a great influence on the formation of his literary taste. After the death of his father in 1907, Mikhail's mother, a well-educated and extraordinarily diligent person, assumed responsibility for his education. After graduation from the Gymnasium in 1909, Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University, which he finished with special commendation. He then took a position as a physician at the Kiev Military Hospital.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: In 1913, Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa. At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered with the Red Cross as a medical doctor and was sent directly to the front, where he was badly injured at least twice. Bulgakov's suffering from these wounds had deleterious long-term effects. To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected himself with morphine. Over the next year his addiction grew stronger. In 1918, he abandoned morphine and never used it again. "Morphine," a book released in 1926, is his account of that trying period.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: In 1916, Bulgakov graduated from the Medical Department of Kiev University and after serving as a surgeon at Chernovtsy hospital, was appointed provincial physician to Smolensk province. His life in those days is reflected in his "A Country Doctor's Notebook." In September 1917, Bulgakov was moved to the hospital in Vyazma, near Smolensk. In February 1918, he returned to Kiev, Ukraine, where he opened a private practice at his home at Andreyevsky Descent, 13. Here he lived through the Civil War and witnessed ten coups. Successive governments drafted the young doctor into their service while two of his brothers were serving in the White Army against the Bolsheviks.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: In February 1919, he was mobilised as an army physician by the White Army and assigned to the Northern Caucasus. There, he became seriously ill with typhus and barely survived. In the Caucasus, he started working as a journalist, but when he and others were invited to return as doctors by the French and German governments, Bulgakov was refused permission to leave Russia because of the typhus. That was when he last saw his family; after the Civil War and the rise of the Soviets most of his relatives emigrated to Paris.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: After his illness, Bulgakov abandoned his medical practice to pursue writing. In his autobiography, he recalled how he began: "Once in 1919 when I was traveling at night by train I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story". His first book was an almanac of feuilletons called "Future Perspectives", written and published the same year. In December 1919, Bulgakov moved to Vladikavkaz. He wrote and saw his first two plays, "Self Defence" and "The Turbin Brothers", being produced for the city theater stage with great success.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: After travelling through the Caucasus, Bulgakov headed for Moscow, intending "to remain here forever". It was difficult to find work in the capital, but he was appointed secretary to the literary section of Glavpolitprosvet (Central Committee of the Republic for Political Education). In September 1921, Bulgakov and his wife settled near Patriarch's Ponds, on Bolshaya Sadovaya street, 10 (now close to Mayakovskaya metro station). To make a living, he started working as a correspondent and feuilletons writer for the newspapers "Gudok", "Krasnaia Panorama" and "Nakanune", based in Berlin. For the almanac "Nedra", he wrote "Diaboliad", "The Fatal Eggs" (1924), and "Heart of a Dog" (1925), works that combined bitter satire and elements of science fiction and were concerned with the fate of a scientist and the misuse of his discovery. The most significant features of Bulgakov's satire, such as a skillful blending of fantastic and realistic elements, grotesque situations, and a concern with important ethical issues, had already taken shape; these features were developed further in his most famous novel.


title: Mikhail Bulgakov

text: Between 1922 and 1926, Bulgakov wrote several plays (including "Zoyka's Apartment"), none of which were allowed production at the time. "The Run", treating the horrors of a fratricidal war, was personally banned by Joseph Stalin after the Glavrepertkom (Department of Repertoire) decided that it "glorified emigration and White generals". In 1924, Bulgakov divorced his first wife and the next year married Lyubov Belozerskaya.