title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the RMS "Titanic" was opened at the hotel on April 19, 1912, and continued there for some time in the Myrtle Room, before moving on to Washington, D.C. John Jacob Astor IV was one of the people who perished on its ill-fated journey. Seven senators were present on the subcommittee, including William Alden Smith (Republican, Michigan) as chair, Jonathan Bourne (R, Oregon), Theodore E. Burton (R, Ohio), Duncan U. Fletcher (Democrat, Florida), Francis G. Newlands (D, Nevada), George Clement Perkins (R, California), and Furnifold McLendel Simmons (D, North Carolina). The composition of the subcommittee was carefully chosen to represent the conservative, moderate, and liberal wings of the two parties.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 1919, restaurateur Louis Sherry announced an "alliance" with the Waldorf-Astoria that involved both his candies and catering services. Although it was not disclosed at that time, at some point, ownership of Louis Sherry Inc. was significantly vested in "Boomer-duPont interests", a reference to Lucius M. Boomer, then chairman of the Waldorf-Astoria, and T. Coleman du Pont. Upon his death that year, William Waldorf Astor was reputed to have been worth £200 million, which he left in trust for his two sons Waldorf and John Jacob. His half share of the Waldorf Astoria and the Astor Hotel at the time were reported to have been worth £10 million. On the evening of November 15, 1926, the National Broadcasting Company broadcast its inaugural program from the grand ballroom of the old Waldorf-Astoria. Among the entertainers heard by radio listeners was Will Rogers. The network became the Red Network on January 1, 1927, when NBC launched its second network, designated the Blue Network. An antitrust suit forced the sale of the Blue Network in 1942; it became the American Broadcasting Company.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel faced stiff competition from the early 20th century, with a range of new hotels springing up in New York City such the Hotel Astor (1904), St. Regis (1904), the Knickerbocker (1906), and the Savoy-Plaza Hotel (1927). By the 1920s, the hotel was becoming dated, and the elegant social life of New York had moved much farther north than 34th Street. The Astor family finally sold the hotel to the developers of the Empire State Building and closed the hotel on May 3, 1929. It was demolished soon after.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The idea of a new Waldorf-Astoria hotel was based on the concept that a large, opulent hotel should be available in New York for distinguished visitors. Financial backing was not difficult to get in the summer of 1929, as times were prosperous; the stock market had not yet crashed nor had the Depression arrived. However, before ground was broken for the new building, some of the investors became dubious about whether this was the right time to be investing in a luxury hotel. The land for the new hotel was formerly owned by the New York Central Railroad, which had operated a power plant for Grand Central Terminal on the site. New York Central had promised $10 million toward the building of the new Waldorf-Astoria. The railroad and all the other investors decided to honor their commitments and take their chances with the uncertain financial climate.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The new building opened on Park Avenue, between East 49th and East 50th streets, on October 1, 1931. It was the tallest and largest hotel in the world at the time, covering the entire block. The slender central tower became known as the Waldorf Towers, with its own private entrance on 50th Street, and consisted of 100 suites, about one-third of which were leased as private residences. President Herbert Hoover said on the radio, broadcast from the White House: "The opening of the new Waldorf Astoria is an event in the advancement of hotels, even in New York City. It carries great tradition in national hospitality...marks the measure of nation's growth in power, in comfort and in artistry...an exhibition of courage and confidence to the whole nation". About 2,000 people were in the ballroom listening to this speech, but by the end of the business day, the 2,200-room hotel had only 500 occupancies. The Waldorf-Astoria did not begin operating at a profit until 1939. Lucius Boomer continued to manage the hotel in the 1930s and 1940s, a commanding figure to whom Tony Rey referred as "the greatest hotelman of his era". Boomer was elected chairman of the board of the Waldorf-Astoria Corporation on February 20, 1945, a position he held until his death in July 1947.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Like the original hotel, from its inception, the Waldorf Astoria gained worldwide renown for its glamorous dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes. Author Ward Morehouse III has referred to the Waldorf Astoria as "comparable to great national institutions" and a "living symbol deep within our collective consciousness". It had the "greatest banquet department in the world" at the time according to restaurateur Tom Margittai, with the center of activity being the Grand Ballroom. On August 3, 1932, some 200 people representing the "cream of New York's literary world" attended the Waldorf Astoria to honor Pearl S. Buck, the author of "The Good Earth", which was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932. One dinner alone, a relatively "small dinner" attended by some 50 people in June 1946, raised over $250,000. During the 1930s and 1940s the hotel's guests were also entertained at the elegant "Starlight Roof" nightclub by the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra and such noted musicians as: Xavier Cugat, Eddie Duchin, Lester Lanin and Glenn Miller.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel played a considerable role in the emerging Cold War and international relations during the postwar years, staging numerous events and conferences. On March 15, 1946, Winston Churchill attended a welcoming dinner at the hotel given by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, 10 days after making his famous Iron Curtain speech, and from November 4 to December 12, 1946, the Big Four Conference was held in Jørgine Boomer's apartment on the 37th floor of the Towers between the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union to discuss the future of Eastern Europe. On November 24, 1947, 48 prominent figures of the Hollywood film industry, including various film executives such as Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, Spyros Skouras of 20th Century Fox, Albert Warner of Warner Bros., and Eric Johnston, the head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, met at the Waldorf Astoria and discussed what would become the Waldorf Statement, banning people with Communist beliefs or tendencies from the Hollywood film industry. The statement was a response to the contempt of Congress charges against the so-called "Hollywood Ten".


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: From March 27 to 29, 1949, the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, also known as the Waldorf World Peace Conference, was held at the hotel to discuss the emerging Cold War and the growing divide between the US and the Soviet Union. The conference came at a time when deep anti-Communist sentiment and suspicion of the Soviet Union existed in the United States, following the Berlin Blockade and the Czechoslovak "coup d'état" the previous year. The event was organized by the struggling American Communist Party. It was sponsored by many individuals who were not Stalinists, such as Leonard Bernstein, Marlon Brando, Albert Einstein, and Aaron Copland. They joined with the intention of promoting peace, and the Party found them useful. The conference was attended by the likes of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Vyshinsky, composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich, and writer Alexsander Fadeyev. Tension mounted during the controversial event, and culminated when Shostakovich, in front of a crowd of some 800 people, launched a scathing attack on western civilization, announcing, "a small clique of hatemongers was preparing world public opinion for the transition from the cold war to outright aggression". The event was picketed in a counterattack by anti-Stalinists running under the banner of America for Intellectual Freedom, and prominent individuals such as Irving Howe, Dwight Macdonald, Mary McCarthy, Robert Lowell, and Norman Mailer angrily denounced Stalinism at the hotel.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 1954, Israeli statesman and archaeologist Yigael Yadin met secretly with the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Mar Samuel in the basement of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to negotiate the purchase of four Dead Sea Scrolls for Israel. The scrolls were kept in a vault at the Waldorf-Astoria branch of New York's Chemical Bank. At the request of the Israeli government, respected biblical scholar Dr. Harry Orlinsky examined the scrolls and verified their authenticity; Yadin paid $250,000 for all four.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Restaurateur George Lang began working at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1955, and on December 13, 1955, he helped organize the American Theatre Wing's First Night Ball to celebrate Helen Hayes's 50th year in show business. He did much to organize dinners at the Waldorf to assist Hungarian issues and relief. On one occasion, an event was attended by Edward G. Robinson and pianist Doklady and some $60,000 were raised.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The April in Paris Ball was an annual gala event whose mission was to improve Franco-American relations, to share cultures, and to help assist the US and French charities, aside from commemorating the 2000th anniversary of the founding of Paris. It was established by Claude Philippe, the hotel banquet manager, in 1952. While the hotel's management handled invitations and publicity, other details were coordinated by socialites. Elsa Maxwell was given the primary responsibility in organizing it. It was initially held annually in April, but according to Ann Vaccaro, former executive director of the ball, it was changed to October because "Mr. Philippe decided that because there are so many balls in the spring, he would make it in October". After being changed to October, it often marked the start of the US fall social season. It was staged in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf for eight years before moving to the Hotel Astor in 1960, the Seventh Regiment Armory in 1961, and other venues.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The ball was designed to cater to "very, very high-class people" according to Vaccaro. Raffle tickets cost US$100 per person and offered opulent prizes such as a US$5000 bracelet and other jewels, expensive furs, perfumes, and even cars. In the 1960 event, prizes given included a Ford Thunderbird car, a chinchilla coat, a Renault Dauphine, a TV Hi-Fi system, an electric typewriter, 25 cases of expensive French wines, original paintings and porcelains, jewels, clocks, evening bags, and a pedigreed poodle; guests were given gift boxes containing gold key rings and jewelry, champagne and brandy, Maxim ashtrays, pipes, silver bottle openers, hats and scarves, and flowers. Every guest was said to have gone home with at least one gift in return. In the 1979 event, some US$106,000 worth of prizes were given out. Over its history, the ball, which was exempt from taxes, earned millions of dollars, which went primarily to over 20 American charities such as the American Cancer Society, with 15 to 20% going towards French charities. A staff of three people was paid full-time throughout the year to organize it. Of the expenses of the ball, founder Philippe stated, "We charge the most, give the most, and make the most – it's a success formula". Bernard F. Gimbel served as chief treasurer.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Paris Ball became a notable event in the annual calendar during the 1950s, with one early show featuring a "three-hour spectacular of five tableaux, directed by Stuart Chaney", [depicting] a 12th-century scene of troubadours at the court of Eleanor of Aquitane, Henry VIII's meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Louis XIV at Versailles, and a fashion show of 40 creations by Dior, Fath, Balmain, Desses, and Givenchy". French stars Juliette Gréco, Jean Sablon, Beatrice Lillie, John Loder and many others were flown over for the ball. The 1957 event was attended by some 1300 guests, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Senator John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jackie, and Marilyn Monroe, who paid $100 each and donated $130,000 to charities. The following year, the ballroom was decorated with high chestnut trees, earning US$170,000 for charities. The final ball to be hosted in the hotel was held on April 10, 1959, with the main theme being the Parisian circus of the 18th century. Genuine circus costumes from the period were flown over from France, and the ball was attended by Marlene Dietrich, who performed two Maurice Chevalier songs, wearing a top hat, trousers, a waistcoat, and white gloves.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: On May 6, 1963, "Time" celebrated its 40th anniversary at the hotel. The event was attended by some 1500 celebrities, including General Douglas MacArthur, Jean Monnet, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Bob Hope, Joe Louis, David O. Selznick, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Edward Kennedy, Henry Ford II, and many others. On October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI made the first papal visit to the United States. He met with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Waldorf Astoria. In 1968, British rock band The Who checked into the hotel, where they encountered difficulties with the staff of the Waldorf Astoria. Due to the band's reputation for trashing their hotel rooms and rowdy behavior, the Waldorf demanded that they pay cash upfront. However, following their gig, the band members were refused access to their hotel rooms, where their luggage was being kept. Tony Fletcher, in his biography on Keith Moon, claims that Moon challenged the staff and blew the door to their room off the hinges with his cherry bombs and retrieved their luggage, which prompted The Who to be shown the door and banned from the hotel for life. However, clearly the ban was later revoked as they performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction at the Waldorf on January 17, 1990.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Soon after the opening of the hotel in 1931, hotelier Conrad Hilton, almost bankrupt at the time, reportedly cut out a photograph of the hotel from a magazine and wrote across it, "The Greatest of Them All". He acquired management rights to the hotel on October 12, 1949. The Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In the 1970s, the Waldorf Astoria continued to play an important role in international politics, particularly between the US and the Middle East. In November 1974, a "20-car motorcade, with eight shotgun-toting police marksmen aboard in bullet-proof vests" brought Palestinian Fatah party leader Farouk Kaddoumi to the Waldorf from John F. Kennedy International Airport. The Waldorf was on red alert, and German Shepherd sniffer dogs were brought in prior to his arrival to look for possible bombs. Fifteen suites of the hotel were reserved for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation. The following month, President Ford met with Nelson Rockefeller after he was voted Vice President, and a 90-minute press conference was held in a suite in the hotel. In November 1975, the US government insisted that PLO leader Yasser Arafat stay at the Waldorf during his visit to America, against the wishes of the hotel staff; security was stepped up severely. On August 12, 1981, IBM unveiled its Personal Computer in a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria, and in 1985, the NBA held its first-ever draft lottery between non-playoff teams at the Starlight Room. The lottery was for the 1985 NBA Draft in which Patrick Ewing was the consensus number-one pick.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Lee Jablin, of Harman Jablin Architects, fully renovated and upgraded the historical property to its original grandeur during the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s in a $150 million renovation. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Waldorf Astoria's exterior as a New York City landmark in January 1993, which prevented Hilton from demolishing or altering the hotel's facade without the LPC's permission. At the time, Hilton did not have any plans to alter the hotel's facade.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: On May 27, 2001, the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America had a grand banquet at the hotel to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Armenia's conversion to Christianity, with Ambassador Edward Djerejian as guest speaker. On May 7, 2004, a press conference was held by MGM, discussing Steve Martin's "The Pink Panther" of the Pink Panther series. The 5th Annual DGA Honors Gala was held at the Waldorf on September 29.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 2006, Hilton launched Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, a brand named for the hotel. Branches of the Waldorf Astoria were launched in Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, and Louisiana in the United States, and abroad in France, Israel, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. In 2006, Hilton was reported to be considering opening a new Waldorf Astoria hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2008, the Waldorf Astoria opened the Guerlain and Spa Chakra, Inc. spa at the hotel, as part of the Waldorf Astoria Collection, which offers a "body massage and facial using Guerlain's age-defying Orchidee Imperiale skincare". The Waldorf Astoria New York is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria" continued to operate as a boutique "hotel within a hotel".


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In October 2014, Chinese company Anbang Insurance Group was announced to have purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold. On July 1, 2016, Anbang announced plans to refurbish the hotel and turn some rooms into condominiums, The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria. Under the plan, some of the hotel's rooms will be turned into apartments, with the remainder of the rooms remaining hotel suites operated by Hilton. The final event in the Grand Ballroom, on February 28, 2017, was a charity gala celebrating NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital with Stevie Wonder playing for the sold-out crowd. As part of the refurbishment process, the hotel closed on March 1, 2017. The hotel's restaurants, including Peacock Alley, The Bull and Bear Steak House, and the recently opened La Chine, closed along with the hotel; they will reopen when the renovation is completed. A week after the hotel closed, on March 7, 2017, the LPC voted unanimously to list the interiors of the hotel's famous public spaces as New York City landmarks, protecting them from major alterations.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In November 2019 it was announced that the 375 condos in the Waldorf-Astoria would go on sale starting in early 2020, while the 375 remaining hotel rooms would not reopen until 2021. The hotel rooms were set to be on the lowest 18 floors. Following Anbang's bankruptcy in 2020, Dajia Insurance Group Co. took over Anbang's American assets, including the Waldorf Astoria. In March 2020, sales started on the 375 condos in the Waldorf-Astoria. By late 2020, the hotel was set to open at the end of 2022; however, , the hotel was expected to open in early 2023. The renovation of the Waldorf Astoria stalled in mid-2022 as the project exceeded its $2 billion budget. According to the "Wall Street Journal", this had pushed the renovation back to at least 2024.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel was designed by architects Schultze and Weaver and constructed at 301 Park Avenue, just north of Grand Central Terminal. That area was developed atop the existing railroad tracks leading to the station, as part of the Terminal City complex, wherein buildings like the Waldorf Astoria using "air rights" to the space above the tracks. "Travel America" stated: "To linger in the sumptuous salons of the Waldorf-Astoria is to step back in time. Your trip down memory lane is a flashback to the glamor days of the 1930s when this Art Deco masterpiece was the tallest hotel in the world and the epicenter of elite society. A legendary limestone landmark occupying a whole block of prime real estate in midtown Manhattan, it's still a prestigious address that embodies luxury and power in the richest city on earth."


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel, with 47 stories, was the tallest and largest hotel in the world for several years after its completion. The structure uses of black marble imported from Belgium, of Brech Montalto and of Alps Green from Italy, and some 300 antique mantles. In addition, 200 railroad cars brought some of limestone for the building's facing, 27,100 tons of steel for the skeleton superstructure, and of terra cotta and gypsum block.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The massing of the hotel rises from a pair of 20-story-high slabs at the base, which run parallel to Park and Lexington Avenues. The slabs contain setbacks at the 18th story on their western elevation and at the 13th and 16th stories on the eastern elevation. The slab on Park Avenue contained a retractable metal and glass roof above the 18th and 19th stories, above the Starlight Roof nightclub. The slabs are covered with gray limestone and lack colorful ornamentation. The facade of the lower stories is divided vertically into numerous bays, which contain recessed windows and spandrel panels. There are three patterns of spandrels on the western and eastern elevations of the facade, facing Park and Lexington Avenues respectively. Gilded letters with the hotel's name are placed above the entrances on either avenue. On Park Avenue, the letters are flanked by representations of maidens.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Above the 20th story, the hotel rises as a single slab to the 42nd story. this slab is oriented parallel to the side streets and is also faced in gray limestone. The 42-story slab is topped by a pair of towers with copper pinnacles. The upper stories of the towers are faced in brick, which was intentionally designed to match the stonework on the lower stories. The use of brick led many to believe that the builders ran out of money. The Waldorf Astoria's facade has undergone few changes over the years, except for the installation of openings for air conditioners; replacement of aluminum windows; and modifications to storefronts, marquees, and entrances at ground level.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Such is the architectural and cultural heritage of the hotel that tours are conducted of the hotel for guests. Frommer's has cited the hotel as an "icon of luxury", and highlights the "wide stately corridors, the vintage Deco door fixtures, the white-gloved bellmen, the luxe shopping arcade", the "stunning round mosaic under an immense crystal chandelier", and the "free-standing Waldorf clock, covered with bronze relief figures" in the main lobby. They compare the decor of the rooms to those of an English country house, and describe the corridors as being wide and plush-carpeted, which "seem to go on forever".


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Unlike in other American hotels, the lobby floor of the Waldorf Astoria is raised one story above ground level, which both created the impression of grandeur and allowed storefronts to be placed at ground level. The main lobby, at the center of the lobby floor, measures across and high; it originally had four wood-paneled walls with archways. The lobby is furnished with polished nickel-bronze cornices and rockwood stone. The grand clock, a 4000-lb bronze, was built by the Goldsmith's Company of London originally for the 1893 World Columbia Exposition in Chicago, but was purchased by the Waldorf owners. Its base is octagonal, with eight commemorative plaques of presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, and Grover Cleveland, and Queen Victoria and Benjamin Franklin. A shield once belonging to the Waldorf was moved to the Alexis restaurant on W. Franklin Street in 1984. Initially, the north wall of the lobby had a porter and cigar store; the east wall had a transportation desk; and the south wall had a cashier's desk and front-office desk. Special desks in the lobby are allocated to transportation and theatre, where exclusive tickets to many of the city's prominent theaters can be purchased.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In the main foyer is a chandelier measuring by .The elevator is furnished with paneled pollard oak and Carpathian elm. The Park Avenue lobby contains classical-style square columns as well as pastoral murals by Louis Rigal. The lobby floor contains the room registration and cashier desks, the Empire Room and Hilton Room, the private Marco Polo Club, the Wedding Salon, Kenneth's Salon, the Peacock Alley lounge and restaurant, and Sir Harry's Bar. From 1992 to 2013, Kenneth, sometimes called the world's first celebrity hairdresser, famed for creating Jacqueline Kennedy's bouffant in 1961, moved his hairdressing and beauty salon to the Waldorf after a 1990 fire destroyed his shop on 19 East 54th Street.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The main lobby is surrounded on all four sides by a system of secondary corridors. The eastern corridor allowed direct access from Lexington Avenue to the various rooms on the third and fourth stories. The architects used different colors of marbles for the lobby-floor lounges to distinguish them from each other. The west lounge has French walnut burl panels separated by red French marble; the former north lounge had yellow Siena marble; the south lounge has white gray Breche Montalto marble; and the east arcade has serpentine cladding. Several boutiques surround the lobby, which contains Cole Porter's Steinway & Sons floral print-decorated grand piano on the Cocktail Terrace, which the hotel had once given him as a gift. Porter was a resident at the hotel for 30 years and composed many of his songs here. The Empire Room is where many of the musical and dance performances were put on, from Count Basie, to Victor Borge, Gordon MacRae, Liza Minnelli, George M. Cohan, and Lena Horne, the first black performer at the hotel.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The third floor contains the Grand Ballroom, the Silver Corridor, the Basildon Room, the Jade Room, and the Astor Gallery. Numerous organizations hold their annual dinners in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf, including St. John's University President's Dinner, the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York's annual gala, during which the Deus Caritas Est Award for philanthropy is presented, and the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. The NASCAR Sprint Cup end-of-season awards banquet was held at the Waldorf-Astoria every year between 1981 and 2008 before moving to the Wynn in Las Vegas. It was held initially in the Starlight Room, but from 1985, it was staged in the Grand Ballroom, except in 2001 and 2002. On May 1, 2004, the Waldorf-Astoria was the venue for the Manhattan Hungarian Network Grand Europe Ball, a historic black-tie charitable affair co-chaired by Archduke Georg of Austria-Hungary which celebrated the enlargement of the European Union. Bob Hope was such a regular performer at the Ballroom that he said, "I've played so many dinners in the Grand Ballroom, I always make a crack when I get up to speak that I leave my dinner jacket in the lobby so that I don't have to ship it to the Coast all the time". Of note in the Astor Gallery are 12 allegorical females, painted by Edward Emerson Simmons. Every October, the Paris Ball was held in the Grand Ballroom, before moving to the Americana (now the Sheraton Center). It hosted a memorable New Year's Eve party with Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, and Lombardo used to broadcast live on the radio there from the "Starlight Roof". Maurice Chevalier performed at the ballroom in 1965 in his last appearance. Louis Armstrong performed at the Waldorf for two weeks in March 1971. This was Armstrong's last performance. Since 1986, most Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies have been held in the Grand Ballroom. The Silver Corridor outside the ballroom bears a resemblance to the Peacock Alley, but is shorter and wider.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The fourth floor has the banquet and sales offices, and most of the suites were named after guests including Barron, Vanderbilt, Windsor, Conrad, Vertès, Louis XVI, and Cole Porter. The fourth floor was where the notorious Sunday-night card games were played. Before its 2021 renovation, the hotel had a model of one of the living rooms of apartment 31A, then the suite of former U.S. President Herbert Hoover. A living room from the suite is also recreated as a display at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 2009, when it had 1,416 rooms, the main hotel had 1,235 single and double rooms and 208 minisuites, 17 of which were classified as "Astoria Level", which are upgraded rooms with deluxe amenities and complimentary access to the Astoria Lounge. The Waldorf Towers, from the 28th floor up to the 42nd, had 181 rooms, of which 115 were suites, with one to four bedrooms. As of the late 1990s, the hotel had a housekeeping staff of nearly 400, with 150-day maids and 24-night maids.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The rooms retain the original Art Deco motifs, although each room is decorated differently. The guests rooms, classified as Deluxe, Superior, and Luxury, feature "Waldorf Serenity" beds and have a marble bath or shower with amenities designed by Salvatore Ferragamo. The suites featured king or double beds and start in size at . The smallest are the one-bedroom suites, which range from , then the Signature Suites have a separate living room and one or two bedrooms, which range from , and finally, the suites of The Towers are generally larger and costlier still, and have a twice-daily maid service.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Tower suites are divided into standard ones, The Towers Luxury Series, which have their own sitting room, the Towers Penthouse Series, the Towers Presidential-Style Suites, and finally the most expensive Presidential Suite on the 35th floor. The Penthouse Series contains three suites, The Penthouse, The Cole Porter Suite, and The Royal Suite, named after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They start at in size, with two or more bedrooms, and are fitted with a kitchen and dining room which can accommodate for 8–12 guests. The Towers Presidential-Style Suites are divided into the MacArthur Suite and the Churchill Suite, and have their own grand entry foyer. Like the Penthouse Series, they have their own kitchen and dining room. The Presidential Suite is designed with Georgian-style furniture to emulate that of the White House. It has three large bedrooms and three bathrooms, and boasts numerous treasures, including the desk of General MacArthur and rocking chair of John F. Kennedy.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: A fitness center is on the 5th floor. The $21.5 million Waldorf Astoria Guerlain Spa was inaugurated on September 1, 2008 on the 19th floor. It features 16 treatment rooms and two relaxation lounges. The hotel has its own Business Center, a digital facility, where guests can access the Internet and photocopy. In 2004 the hotel launched a line of products in keeping with the Art Deco style of the hotel, reportedly becoming the first individual hotel in the world to have its own merchandise collection.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel has its own railway platform, Track 61, that was part of the New York Central Railroad (later Metro-North Railroad), and was connected to the Grand Central Terminal complex. The platform was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, James Farley, Adlai Stevenson, and Douglas MacArthur, among others. The platform was also used for the exhibition of American Locomotive Company's new diesel locomotive in 1946. In 1948, Filene's and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad also staged a fashion show on the platform. An elevator large enough for Franklin D. Roosevelt's automobile provides access to the platform. There is a pedestrian entrance from E 50th St., just to the left of the Waldorf Towers entrance. However, it is rarely opened to the public.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Waldorf Astoria was the first hotel to offer room service and was the first major hotel in the world to hire women as chefs, beginning in 1931. An extensive menu is available for guests, with special menus for children and for dieters. The executive chef of the Waldorf for many years was John Doherty, following the Austrian Arno Schmidt who held the position for ten years from 1969 to 1979. Restaurateur George Lang was awarded the Hotelman of the Year Award in 1975. As of the early 1990s, the hotel served over three million dishes a year and got through 27,000 pounds of lobster, 100 pounds of beluga caviar, 380,000 pints of strawberries annually. The hotel has gained significant renown for its lavish feasts. During one grand feast for Francis Cardinal Spellman, over 200 VIP guests, according to Arno Schmidt, devoured some 3,600 pounds of fillet, 600 pounds of fresh halibut, 1,500 pounds of potatoes, and 260 pounds of petit fours, eaten on gold china plates. One 1973 feast by the Explorer's Club devoured hippo meat, a alligator, a baby shark, an amberjack tuna, a boa, wild boar hams, 480 pieces of breaded-fried cod tongues and cheeks, antelope steaks, two boxes of Chinese rabbit, and 20 pounds of rattlesnake.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel has three main restaurants, "Peacock Alley", "The Bull and Bear Steak House", and "Oscar's Brasserie", as well as a secondary restaurant, the Japanese "Inagiku". At its peak in the late 1940s, the hotel once had nine restaurants. "Peacock Alley", situated in the heart of the lobby, features an Art Deco design with gilded ceilings and includes the main restaurant, a bar and lounge, and three private dining salons. It is known primarily for its fish and seafood dishes. Sunday Brunch is particularly popular with locals and features over 180 gourmet dishes divided into 12 themed displays, with cuisine ranging from lobster and oysters to Belgian waffles, Eggs Benedict, and omelettes to hollandaise sauces. "The Bull and Bear Steak House" is furnished in richly polished mahogany in the English Regency style, and has a "den-like" atmosphere, and is reportedly the only restaurant on the East Coast which serves 28 days prime grade USDA Certified Angus Beef. It has won awards from the National Restaurant Association and "Holiday" magazine. Between 2007 and 2010, the restaurant was the filming location for "Fox Business Happy Hour", presented live between 5 and 6  pm. The "Bull and Bear Bar" is based on the original Waldorf Astoria Bar, which was a favorite haunt of many of the financial elite of the city from the hotel's inception in 1893, and adventurers such as Diamond Jim Brady, Buffalo Bill Cody and Bat Masterson. Behind the bar are bronze statues of a bull and a bear, which represent the successful men of Wall Street. The "Inagiku", meaning the "rice chrysanthemum", serves contemporary Japanese cuisine. The restaurant opens for lunch on weekdays and cocktails and dinner in the evenings. Designed by Henry Look of San Francisco, the restaurant has four "distinctly different" rooms, including one which represents an old Japanese farmhouse, and the Kinagu Room, resembling a Japanese temple. Guests have the option to reserve private orthodox tatami rooms.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: "Oscar's Brasserie", overlooking Lexington Avenue in what was once a Savarin restaurant, is designed by Adam Tihany. The restaurant takes its name from Oscar Tschirky (Oscar of the Waldorf) and serves traditional American cuisine, with many dishes based upon his cookbook which have gained world renown, including the Waldorf salad, Eggs Benedict, Thousand Island dressing, and Veal Oscar. The Waldorf salad—a salad made with apples, walnuts, celery, grapes, and mayonnaise or a mayonnaise-based dressing—was first created in 1896 at the Waldorf by Oscar. The original recipe, however, did not contain nuts, but they had been added by the time the recipe appeared in "The Rector Cook Book" in 1928. Tschirky was also noted for his "Oscar's Sauce", which became so popular that it was sold at the hotel. Another of the hotel's specialties was red velvet cake, which became one of its most popular desserts.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: "Sir Harry's Bar" is one of the principal bars of the hotel, situated just off the main lobby. It is named after British Sir Harry Johnston (1858–1927). In the 1970s the bar was renovated in a "plush African safari" design to honor Johnston, a notable explorer of Africa, with "zebra-striped wall coverings and carpeting, with bent-cane furnishings". It has since been redecorated back to a more conservative design, with walnut paneling and leather banquettes, and featured a by ebony bar as of the early 1990s. Frank Sinatra frequented "Sir Harry's Bar" for many years. In 1991, while drinking at "Sir Harry's" with Jilly Rizzo and Steve Lawrence, he was approached by a fan asking for an autograph. Sinatra responded, "Don't you see I'm on my own time here? You asshole. What's wrong with you?" The fan said something which angered Sinatra, who lunged at the fan, and Sinatra had to be restrained.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Albert Stevens Crockett, the hotel's veteran publicist and historian, wrote his first cocktail book "Old Waldorf Bar Days" in 1931 during Prohibition and the construction of the current hotel on Park Avenue. It was an homage to the original hotel and its famous bar and clientele. The book contains Crockett's takes on the original hand-written leather-bound book of recipes that was given to him at the time of the closure by bartender Joseph Taylor. This edition was never reprinted.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 1934, Crockett wrote a second book, "The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book", in response to the repeal of the Volstead Act and the end of the Prohibition era. He edited out most of the text from the first book. Drawing from his experiences as a travel writer, Crockett added nearly 150 more recipes, the bulk of which can be found in the "Cuban Concoctions" and "Jamaican Jollifers" chapters. These books became reference books on the subject of pre-Prohibition cocktails and their culture.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 2016, the long-time hotel bar manager of Peacock Alley and La Chine, Frank Caiafa, added a completely new edition to the canon. Caiafa's "The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book" includes all of the recipes in Crockett's books; many of the hotel's most important recipes created since 1935; and his own creations. In 2017, it was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Beverage Book.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Other notable books with connections to the hotel include "Drinks" (1914) by Jacques Straub, a wine steward and friend of Oscar Tschirky who had written about the first hotel's notable recipes. Tschirky himself compiled a list of 100 recipes for his own book "100 Famous Cocktails" (1934), a selection of favorites from Crockett's books. Finally, hotel publicist Ted Saucier wrote "Bottoms Up" in 1951, consisting of a compendium of popular, national recipes of the day.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: On the 100th anniversary of the hotel in 1993, one publication wrote: "It isn't the biggest hotel in New York, nor the most expensive. But when it comes to prestige, the Waldorf-Astoria has no peer. When presidents come to New York, they stay at the Waldorf-Astoria. Kings and queens make it their home away from home, as have people as diverse as Cary Grant, the Dalai Lama and Chris Evert. Some of them liked the hotel so well, they made their home there." From its inception, the Waldorf was always a "must stay" hotel for foreign dignitaries. The viceroy of China, Li Hung Chang stayed at the hotel in 1896 and feasted on hundred-year-old eggs which he brought with him. Over the years many royals from around the world stayed at the Waldorf Astoria including Shahanshah of Iran and Empress Farah, King Frederick IX and Queen Ingrid of Denmark, Princess Astrid of Norway, Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium and Queen Fabiola, Prince Albert and Princess Paola of Belgium, King Hussein I of Jordan, Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace of Monaco, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, King Michael of Romania, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of the Commonwealth realms, Mohammed Zahir Shah and Homaira Shah of Afghanistan, King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit of Thailand, and Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko of Japan,The great great grandson of King Joseph Bonaparte and many others. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stayed at the hotel during their first visit to America on October 21, 1957, and a banquet was held for them in the Grand Ballroom. In the Bicentennial year in 1976, most of the heads of state from around the world and all of the Kings and Queens of Europe were invited to the hotel, and it also served the presidential candidates in the run up to the elections of that year.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In modern times, the clientele of the Waldorf is more typically wealthy politicians and businessmen than playboys and royalty. An entire floor was often rented out to wealthy Saudi Arabians with their own staff. Wealthy Japanese businessmen during their stay would sometimes remove the furniture and replace it with their own floor mats. One early wealthy resident was Chicago businessman J. W. Gates who would gamble on stocks on Wall Street and play poker at the hotel. He paid up to $50,000 a year to hire suites at the hotel. Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was invited by Waldorf president Lucius Bloomer to stay at the hotel in the 1920s. Demands by people of prominence could often be exorbitant or bizarre, and Fidel Castro once walked into the hotel with a flock of live chickens, insisting that they be killed and freshly cooked on the premises to his satisfaction, only to be turned away. While serving as Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger ordered all of the antiques to be removed from one suite and replaced with 36 desks for his staff. An unnamed First Lady also once demanded that all of the bulbs in her suite be changed to 100-watt ones and kept on all day and night to simulate daylight; she further insisted that there be an abundance of chewing gum available.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Postmaster General James Farley occupied two adjoining suites in the current Waldorf Astoria during his tenure as the chairman of the board of Coca-Cola's International division from 1940 until his death in 1976, arguably one of the landmark's longest housed tenants. The Presidential Suite at the hotel come from when, during the 1950s and early 1960s, former U.S. president Herbert Hoover and retired U.S. General Douglas MacArthur lived in suites on different floors of the hotel. Hoover lived at the Waldorf Astoria for over 30 years from after the end of his presidency until he died in 1964; former President Dwight D. Eisenhower lived there between 1967 and his death in 1969. MacArthur's widow, Jean MacArthur, lived there from 1952 until her death in 2000. A plaque affixed to the wall on the 50th Street side commemorates this. John F. Kennedy was fond of the Waldorf Astoria and had a number of private meetings at the hotel, including one with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Since Hoover, every President of the United States has either stayed over or lived in the Waldorf Astoria, although Jimmy Carter claimed to have never stayed overnight at the hotel. Nancy Reagan was reputedly not fond of the Presidential Suite.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The official residence of the United States' Permanent Representative to the United Nations, an unnamed 42nd-floor apartment, was located in the Waldorf Towers for many years. On June 17, 2015, however, the US Department of State announced that it was moving its headquarters during meetings of the UN General Assembly to The New York Palace Hotel.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Carlos P. Romulo, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines and member of the UN had suite 3600, below Hoover's, for some 45 years from 1935 onwards, and former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos also spent much time and money at the hotel. Another connection with the Philippines is that many meetings were held here between President Manuel L. Quezon and high ranking American politicians and senators. Through the meetings, Quezon encouraged investment into the country and convinced General MacArthur to accompany him back to the Philippines as his military adviser.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza Debayle and his wife Hope Portocarrero had a penthouse suite at the Waldorf Towers, where Somoza received political leaders.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel has had many well-knowns under its roof throughout its history, including Charlie Chaplin, Ava Gardner, Liv Ullmann, Edward G. Robinson, Gregory Peck, Ray Bolger, John Wayne, Tony Bennett, Jack Benny, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Muhammad Ali, Vince Lombardi, Judy Garland, Sonny Werblin, Greer Garson, Harold Lloyd, Liberace, Burt Reynolds, Robert Montgomery, Cesar Romero, and many others. Due to the number of high-profile guests staying at the hotel at any one time, author Ward Morehouse III has referred to the Towers as a "kind of vertical Beverly Hills. On any one given night you might find Dinah Shore, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra [or] Zsa Zsa Gabor staying there". Gabor married Conrad Hilton in 1941.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: During the 1930s, gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel owned an apartment at the Waldorf, and Frank Costello was said to have got his haircut and nails done in the Barber's Shop at the Waldorf. Around the time of World War I, inventor Nikola Tesla lived in the earlier Waldorf-Astoria.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: In 1955, Marilyn Monroe and her husband, Arthur Miller stayed at the hotel for several months, but due to costs of trying to finance her production company "Marilyn Monroe Productions", only being paid $1,500 a week for her role in "The Seven Year Itch" and being suspended from 20th Century Fox for walking out on Fox after creative differences, living at the hotel became too costly and Monroe had to move into a different hotel in New York City. Around the same time that Monroe lived in the hotel, Cole Porter and his wife Linda Lee Thomas had an apartment in the Waldorf Towers, where Thomas died in 1954. Porter's 1934 song "You're the Top", contains the lyric, "You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad". The Cole Porter Suite, Suite 33A, was the place where Porter lived and entertained for a period. Frank Sinatra paid nearly $1 million a year to keep it as his suite at the hotel between 1979 and 1988, which he called home when out of Los Angeles. Sinatra took over part of the hotel during the filming of "The First Deadly Sin" in 1980.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Grace Kelly and Rainier III were regular guests at the hotel. At one time Kelly was reputed to be in love with the hotel banquet manager of the Waldorf, Claudius Charles Philippe. Elizabeth Taylor frequented the hotel, and would often attend galas at the hotel to talk about her various causes. Her visits were excitedly awaited by the hotel staff, who would prepare long in advance. Taylor was honored at the 1983 Friars Club dinner at the hotel.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Brooke Shields has stated that her very first encounter with the paparazzi was in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf at the age of 12, stating that she "stood like a statue wondering why they were all hired to photograph me", and that she "debuted at the Waldorf". During her childhood in the 1980s and 1990s, Paris Hilton lived with her family in the hotel.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: One of the most prestigious debutante balls in the world is the invitation-only International Debutante Ball held biennially in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where girls from prominent world families are presented to high society. Since 1954 the musical entertainment at the ball has traditionally been provided by the musicians of the Lester Lanin Orchestra.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Waldorf Astoria has been a filming location for numerous films and TV series. Ginger Rogers headlined an all star ensemble cast in the 1945 film "Week-End at the Waldorf", set at the hotel and filmed partially on location there. Other films shot at the hotel include "The Out-of-Towners" (1970), "Broadway Danny Rose" (1984), "Coming to America" (1988), "Scent of a Woman" (1992), "The Cowboy Way" (1994), "Random Hearts" (1999), "Analyze This" (1999), "For Love of the Game" (1999), "Serendipity" (2001), "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001), "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), "Two Weeks Notice" (2002), "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), "End of the Century" (2005), "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" (2005), "The Pink Panther" (2006), and "The Hoax" (2006). Television series that have filmed at the Waldorf include "Law and Order", "Rescue Me", "Sex and the City", "The Sopranos" and "Will and Grace".


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Several biographies have been written about the Waldorf, including Edward Hungerford's "Story of the Waldorf" (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1925) and Horace Sutton's "Confessions of a Grand Hotel: The Waldorf-Astoria" (New York: Henry Holt, 1953).


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Langston Hughes wrote a poem entitled "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria", criticizing the hotel and inviting the jobless and homeless to take over the space of the hotel. Wallace Stevens wrote a poem entitled "Arrival at the Waldorf", in which he contrasts the wild country of the jungles of Guatemala to being "back at the Waldorf". In Meg Cabot's novel "Jinx", the Chapman School Spring Formal takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria. It is at this point that Tory (the main antagonist) reveals Jean's first attempt at a love spell, which catalyzed the novel's events.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: Waldorf of the Muppets series was named after the hotel. In the episode starring Dizzy Gillespie his heckling partner Statler (named after Statler Hilton, also in Manhattan) couldn't make it due to illness so Waldorf's wife Astoria came with him. Ayn Rand biographer Anne Heller wrote that the Waldorf Astoria inspired the "Wayne-Falkland Hotel" in Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged".


title: Cancer staging

text: Cancer staging is the process of determining the extent to which a cancer has developed by growing and spreading. Contemporary practice is to assign a number from I to IV to a cancer, with I being an isolated cancer and IV being a cancer that has spread to the limit of what the assessment measures. The stage generally takes into account the size of a tumor, whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many regional (nearby) lymph nodes it has spread to (if any), and whether it has appeared in more distant locations (metastasized).


title: Cancer staging

text: The staging system is not applicable to astrocytoma, which is instead expressed as "grade I–IV". Grade IV astrocytoma, more commonly referred to as glioblastoma multiforme, is a universally fatal primary brain cancer most commonly seen in the seventh decade of life.


title: Cancer staging

text: Cancer staging can be divided into a clinical stage and a pathologic stage. In the TNM (Tumor, Node, Metastasis) system, clinical stage and pathologic stage are denoted by a small "c" or "p" before the stage (e.g., cT3N1M0 or pT2N0). This staging system is used for most forms of cancer, except brain tumors and hematological malignancies.


title: Cancer staging

text: Because they use different criteria, clinical stage and pathologic stage often differ. Pathologic staging is usually considered to be more accurate because it allows direct examination of the tumor in its entirety, contrasted with clinical staging which is limited by the fact that the information is obtained by making indirect observations of a tumor which is still in the body. However, clinical staging and pathologic staging often complement each other. Not every tumor is treated surgically, so pathologic staging is not always available. Also, sometimes surgery is preceded by other treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy which shrink the tumor, so the pathologic stage may underestimate the true stage.


title: Cancer staging

text: Correct staging is critical because treatment (particularly the need for pre-operative therapy and/or for adjuvant treatment, the extent of surgery) is generally based on this parameter. Thus, incorrect staging would lead to improper treatment.


title: Cancer staging

text: For some common cancers the staging process is well-defined. For example, in the cases of breast cancer and prostate cancer, doctors routinely can identify that the cancer is early and that it has low risk of metastasis. In such cases, medical specialty professional organizations recommend against the use of PET scans, CT scans, or bone scans because research shows that the risk of getting such procedures outweighs the possible benefits. Some of the problems associated with overtesting include patients receiving invasive procedures, overutilizing medical services, getting unnecessary radiation exposure, and experiencing misdiagnosis.


title: Cancer staging

text: Pathologic staging, where a pathologist examines sections of tissue, can be particularly problematic for two specific reasons: visual discretion and random sampling of tissue. "Visual discretion" means being able to identify single cancerous cells intermixed with healthy cells on a slide. Oversight of one cell can mean mistaging and lead to serious, unexpected spread of cancer. "Random sampling" refers to the fact that lymph nodes are cherry-picked from patients and random samples are examined. If cancerous cells present in the lymph node happen not to be present in the slices of tissue viewed, incorrect staging and improper treatment can result.


title: Cancer staging

text: New, highly sensitive methods of staging are in development. For example, the mRNA for GCC (guanylyl cyclase c), present only in the luminal aspect of intestinal epithelium, can be identified using molecular screening (RT-PCR) with a high degree of sensitivity and exactitude. Presence of GCC in any other tissue of the body represents colorectal metaplasia. Because of its high sensitivity, RT-PCR screening for GCC greatly reduces underestimation of disease stage. Researchers hope that staging with this level of precision will lead to more appropriate treatment and better prognosis. Furthermore, researchers hope that this same technique can be applied to other tissue-specific proteins.


title: Cancer staging

text: Staging systems are specific for each type of cancer (e.g., breast cancer and lung cancer), but some cancers do not have a staging system. Although competing staging systems still exist for some types of cancer, the universally-accepted staging system is that of the UICC, which has the same definitions of individual categories as the AJCC.


title: Cancer staging

text: For solid tumors, TNM is by far the most commonly used system, but it has been adapted for some conditions.


title: Cancer staging

text: Overall Stage Grouping is also referred to as Roman Numeral Staging. This system uses numerals I, II, III, and IV (plus the 0) to describe the progression of cancer.


title: Cancer staging

text: Within the TNM system, a cancer may also be designated as recurrent, meaning that it has appeared again after being in remission or after all visible tumor has been eliminated. Recurrence can either be local, meaning that it appears in the same location as the original, or distant, meaning that it appears in a different part of the body.


title: Cancer staging

text: Stage migration is a change in the distribution of stages in a particular cancer population, induced by either a change in the staging system itself or else a change in technology which allows more sensitive detection of tumor spread and therefore more sensitivity in detecting spread of disease (e.g., the use of MRI scans). Stage migration can lead to curious statistical phenomena (for example, the Will Rogers phenomenon).


title: Ree Drummond

text: Anne Marie "Ree" Drummond (née Smith, born January 6, 1969) is an American blogger, author, food writer, photographer and television personality who lives on a working ranch outside of Pawhuska, Oklahoma with her husband. In February 2010, she was listed as No. 22 on "Forbes" Top 25 Web Celebrities. Her blog, "The Pioneer Woman", which documents Drummond's daily life as a ranch wife and mother, was named Weblog of the Year 2009, 2010 and 2011 at the Annual Weblog Awards (The Bloggies).


title: Ree Drummond

text: Capitalizing on the success of her blog, Drummond stars in her own television program, also entitled "The Pioneer Woman", on The Food Network which began in 2011. She has also appeared on "Good Morning America", "Today Show", "The View", "The Chew" and "The Bonnie Hunt Show". She has been featured in "Ladies' Home Journal", "Woman's Day", "People" and "Southern Living". She has also written numerous cookbooks, a children's book, and an autobiography. In 2015, Drummond launched a “homey lifestyle” product line that has become very popular with the public. Cookware, cutlery, appliances, clothing and outdoor living products are currently marketed under the brand name "The Pioneer Woman".


title: Ree Drummond

text: Anne Marie, nicknamed "Ree", grew up in a home overlooking the grounds of a country club in the oil town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with two brothers, Doug and Mike, and a younger sister, Betsy. She graduated from Bartlesville High School in 1987 after which she left Oklahoma to attend college in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 1991, having first studied journalism before switching to gerontology. After graduation she hoped to attend law school in Chicago, but her plans changed unexpectedly when she met and married her husband, Ladd Drummond.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Her father, William Dale Smith, an orthopedic surgeon, and her mother Gerre Schwert are divorced. "Bill" Smith, as he is more commonly known, later married his current wife, Patsy.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Drummond began blogging in May 2006, initially using the subdomain "pioneerwoman.typepad.com" within the Typepad blogging service. She registered her own domain thepioneerwoman.com on October 18, 2006. Drummond's blog, "The Pioneer Woman", was originally titled "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman". The latter is now the title of a section within the site. The site is hosted by Rackspace.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Drummond writes about topics such as ranch life and homeschooling. About a year after launching her blog, she posted her first recipe and a tutorial on "How to Cook a Steak". The tutorial was accompanied by 20 photos explaining the cooking process in what she calls "ridiculous detail". Her stories about her husband, family, and country living, and her step-by-step cooking instructions and elaborate food photography, proved highly popular with readers. "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" won honors at the Weblog Awards (also known as the Bloggies) in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. In 2009 and 2010 it took the top prize as Weblog of the Year.


title: Ree Drummond

text: As of September 2009, Drummond's blog reportedly received 13 million page views per month. On May 9, 2011, the blog's popularity had risen to approximately 23.3 million page views per month and 4.4 million unique visitors. According to an article in "The New Yorker", "This is roughly the same number of people who read The Daily Beast". An article in the Toronto newspaper "The Globe and Mail" described it as "[s]lickly photographed with legions of fans . . . arguably the mother of all farm girl blogs." The blog has been referenced in the "Los Angeles Times", "The New York Times", and "BusinessWeek". In 2009, "Time" named Drummond's "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" one of the "25 Best Blogs" in the world. Estimates for her site's income suggest it earns $1 million or more per year from display (advertisement) income.


title: Ree Drummond

text: In April 2008, Drummond held a giveaway contest in the cooking section of her blog "The Pioneer Woman" in which she asked readers to share one of their favorite recipes. The response was an unexpected 5,000+ recipes in less than 24 hours. She realized that she had not only grown a community of loyal readers but a community of food lovers as well. She immediately sought a way to catalog the recipes and make them searchable for all.


title: Ree Drummond

text: A little over a year later, on July 14, 2009, Drummond announced the launch of "TastyKitchen.com" – a simple and free online community website with the tagline "Favorite Recipes from Real Kitchens Everywhere!". The site was built for her food-loving readers as a place where they could easily contribute, search for and print recipes. In addition to sharing recipes, users can create personal membership profiles and communicate with one another via posts and direct messages. Users also have the ability to rate and review recipes.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Drummond's first cookbook, "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl", was published in October 2009 after reaching the top spot on Amazon.com's preorder list for hardcover books. A "New York Times" reviewer described Drummond as "funny, enthusiastic and self-deprecating", and commented: "Vegetarians and gourmands won’t find much to cook here, but as a portrait of a real American family kitchen, it works."


title: Ree Drummond

text: In 2007, Drummond began writing a series on her blog titled "From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels". In the series, she chronicled her personal love story detailing how, in the process of relocating from Los Angeles to Chicago, she wound up settling down with a cowboy on a cattle ranch in rural Oklahoma. In February 2011, the series was compiled into a book and published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. It quickly rose to No. 2 on both "The New York Times" Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction and The Wall Street Journal's list.


title: Ree Drummond

text: In April 2011, Drummond published a children's book titled "Charlie the Ranch Dog", featuring her family's beloved Basset Hound "Charlie". According to "Publishers Weekly", “Adult readers will recognize in Charlie’s voice the understated humor that has made Drummond’s blog so successful; kids should find it irresistible.” The book was illustrated by Diane deGroat, an illustrator of more than 120 children's books.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Drummond's second cookbook, "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier", released in March 2012 and was a #1 New York Times Bestseller.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Diane deGroat again illustrates this children book about the family's Basset Hound. Released in December 2012.


title: Ree Drummond

text: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays: 140 Step-by-Step Recipes for Simple, Scrumptious Celebrations


title: Ree Drummond

text: Another children's book about the family's basset hound, illustrated by Diane deGroat. Released on April 29, 2014.


title: Ree Drummond

text: An I Can Read story about Charlie the basset hound's trip to the doctor, illustrated by Diane deGroat. Released June 17, 2014.


title: Ree Drummond

text: An I Can Read story about Charlie the basset hound, illustrated by Diane deGroat. Released January 6, 2015.


title: Ree Drummond

text: A Children's book about Charlie the basset hound, illustrated by Diane deGroat. Released March 24, 2015.


title: Ree Drummond

text: An I Can Read story about Charlie the basset hound, illustrated by Diane deGroat. Released November 17, 2015.


title: Ree Drummond

text: A children's book about a little girl named Ree and her adventures in the country, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers. Released March 28, 2017


title: Ree Drummond

text: A children's book about a little girl named Ree and her best friend, Hyacinth, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers. Released March 27, 2018


title: Ree Drummond

text: This cookbook is perfect for the families who are always on the move! Not only does it provide simple recipes, but it also clues you in on some "shortcut ingredients". Released October 19, 2021.


title: Ree Drummond

text: This spiralbound cookbook allows you to plan a meal every night of the week! With the new format of the spiral bound book and the step by step instructions with photos, your meal planning was just made easier. Released online August 2, 2022.


title: Ree Drummond

text: Drummond made her television debut on an episode of "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" when the celebrity chef was challenged by her (in a change from the show's normal format) to a special Thanksgiving face-off. Flay traveled to her Oklahoma ranch for the event. The episode aired on the Food Network on Wednesday, November 17, 2010. Drummond's home cooking beat Flay's gourmet-style spread in a tight contest. Music artist and fellow Oklahoma resident Trisha Yearwood was one of the judges.


title: Ree Drummond

text: In April 2011, the Food Network announced that Drummond would host her own daytime television series on the network. "The Pioneer Woman" premiered on Saturday, August 27, 2011.


title: Ree Drummond

text: On March 19, 2010, Drummond confirmed media reports that Columbia Pictures had acquired the film rights to her book "From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels". The production company was reported to be in talks with Reese Witherspoon to star as Drummond in a motion picture based on the book.


title: Ree Drummond

text: On September 21, 1996, Drummond married Ladd Drummond (born January 22, 1969), a fourth-generation member of the prominent Osage County cattle ranching Drummond family whom she refers to as "the Marlboro Man" in her books and her blog. They spent their honeymoon in Australia and lived on a remote working cattle ranch approximately 8 miles west of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. They have five children – Alex, Paige, Bryce, Jamar and Todd. Alex and her husband Mauricio Scott are graduates of Texas A&M University. Paige is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and Bryce is a student and plays football at the University of North Texas. Their foster son Jamar is a student and football player at the University of Central Oklahoma. Ladd's second cousin is Gentner Drummond.


title: Ree Drummond

text: In late 2016, the Drummonds opened The Mercantile, a restaurant retail store located in a 100-year-old downtown Pawhuska building that they bought and began renovating in 2012.


title: Ree Drummond

text: In 2018, the Drummonds opened a bed and breakfast in downtown Pawhuska, "The Boarding House", as well as a pizzeria, "P-Town Pizza". The Drummonds opened "Charlie's Sweet Shop", an ice cream and candy shop, in 2020. The shop was named for their basset hound Charlie, who died in 2017 and was the inspiration for Drummond's "Charlie" children's book series.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Mehdi Raza Hasan (born July 1979) is a British-American political journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian descent.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has been the host of "The Mehdi Hasan Show" on Peacock since October 2020 and on MSNBC since February 2021.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In 2015, Hasan moved to Washington, D.C., United States to work full-time for Al Jazeera on "UpFront" and host the "Deconstructed" podcast produced by the online publication "The Intercept" from 2018 to 2020.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan is the co-author of a biography of Ed Miliband and was formerly the political editor of the UK edition of "The Huffington Post" and the presenter of the Al Jazeera English shows: "The Café", "Head to Head" and "UpFront".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Mehdi Raza Hasan was born in Swindon to immigrant Indian Hyderabadi Shia Muslim parents from the city of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, South India (now in Telangana).


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan was privately educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, a day independent school for boys at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers District of Hertfordshire, near the town of Northwood in North West London. He then attended Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), and graduated in 2000.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan worked as a researcher and then producer on LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, with a brief period in between on BBC One's "The Politics Show". Following this, he became deputy executive producer on Sky's breakfast show "Sunrise" before moving to Channel 4 as their editor of news and current affairs. He was appointed senior editor for politics at the "New Statesman" in late spring of 2009, where he stayed until May 2012, then becoming political director of "The Huffington Post" website.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan became a presenter on Al Jazeera's English news channel in May 2012. Hasan has appeared (six times) on the BBC's "Question Time" programme, and the Sunday morning programmes "The Big Questions" and "Sunday Morning Live".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In 2013, Hasan took part in a debate at the Oxford Union to consider whether Islam is a peaceful religion. Hasan, who is an Ithna’Asheri Shia Muslim, vouched for Islam as a religion of peace, citing political and cultural reasons for violence in Muslim majority countries, as opposed to holding the religion of Islam responsible. In the vote on the motion, the house affirmed with Hasan and the other proposers that Islam is a religion of peace with 286 votes in favor and 168 votes against. The video of the debate remains one of the most viewed videos on Oxford Union's YouTube channel.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Recorded at the Oxford Union, "Head to Head" was a programme on Al Jazeera English in which Hasan interviewed public figures; it had run for three series by December 2014. Since 2015, working full-time for the network in Washington, D.C., Hasan has hosted a weekly interview and discussion programme.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan began a podcast in 2018 entitled "Deconstructed", produced by the investigative journalism website "The Intercept". On air, Hasan would discuss recent news topics and host guests. Notable topics covered on the podcast include police brutality, inequality, QAnon, and President Donald Trump's activity on Twitter. Notable podcast guests have included Noam Chomsky, Ilhan Omar, and Bernie Sanders. On 2 October 2020, Hasan announced that he would no longer host the show as part of his move to host "The Mehdi Hasan Show" on NBC's new streaming service, Peacock.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan became a naturalized citizen of the United States on 9 October 2020, in time to vote in the 2020 United States presidential election.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan currently hosts "The Mehdi Hasan Show" on the online service Peacock since Oct 2020 airing weeknights at 7 pm Eastern. Notable guests on "The Mehdi Hasan Show" have included Mark Ruffalo, Jon Stewart, John Bolton, Keith Ellison, Ro Khanna, John Legend, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In March 2021, Hasan launched the same show on MSNBC every Sunday evening. He is also the fill-in host on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes", "The Rachel Maddow Show", "The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle" and "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: The Iraq war was a strategic disaster – or, as the Tory minister Kenneth Clarke put it in a recent BBC radio discussion, 'the most disastrous foreign policy decision of my lifetime ... worse than Suez'. The invasion and occupation of the country undermined the moral standing of the western powers; empowered Iran and its proxies; heightened the threat from al-Qaeda at home and abroad; and sent a clear signal to 'rogue' regimes that the best (the only?) means of deterring a pre-emptive, US-led attack was to acquire weapons of mass destruction. ... Iraq has been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of innocent people have lost their lives, as the direct result of an unnecessary, unprovoked war that, according to the former chief justice Lord Bingham, was a 'serious violation of international law'.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: A regular contributor to "The Guardian", Hasan argued in November 2011 regarding the issue of Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons: "Wouldn't it be rational for Iran – geographically encircled, politically isolated, feeling threatened – to want its own arsenal of nukes, for defensive and deterrent purposes?" Pointing out the difference between America, and its allies, going to "war with non-nuclear Iraq" and their "diplomacy with nuclear-armed North Korea", Hasan concluded: "The simple fact is there is no alternative to diplomacy, no matter how truculent or paranoid the leaders of Iran might seem to western eyes."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan wrote an article in "The Guardian" in September 2011 condemning the Iranian government for its proposed execution of Youcef Nadarkhani, who had been arrested on charges of apostasy. "The death sentence given to Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran is an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to Muslims."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan, a Shia Muslim, has written articles about Islam and Muslims for the "New Statesman" and newspapers. "My Islamic faith is based on the principles of peace, moderation and mercy", he wrote in September 2012. He also said that while Muslims "have every right to be angry", such "anger, however, is not an excuse for extremism."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In April 2009, Hasan argued against the concept and idea of an Islamic state. He argues that "Today it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify a Muslim-majority nation that could plausibly be identified as a modern, viable and legitimate 'Islamic state'" and that "contrary to popular Muslim opinion, there is not a shred of theological, historical or empirical evidence to support the existence of such an entity."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In November 2009, Hasan wrote a column denouncing suicide bombing from an Islamic perspective. Hasan argued that "There is, in fact, nothing Islamic about so-called Islamic terrorism… So why are many Muslims so reluctant to condemn such cold-blooded tactics of terror?"


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In April 2010, Hasan wrote a piece condemning the controversial Islamic advocacy of the death penalty for apostasy in the "New Statesman". He states that "The sharia (or Islamic law), it is claimed, sanctions the death penalty for any adult Muslim who chooses to leave the faith, or apostatise. This is an intellectually, morally and, perhaps above all, theologically unsustainable position."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In January 2012, Hasan wrote a piece emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the Holocaust as a "uniquely horrific crime against humanity," and called on British Muslims and the larger Muslim world to take it more seriously.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In April 2012, Hasan wrote an article criticising British Muslims for an apparent fixation with issues relating to foreign affairs and the anti-war movement. He criticised British Muslims' apparent apathy towards national issues: "Why is it that most British Muslims get so excited and aroused by foreign affairs, yet seem so bored by and uninterested in domestic politics and the economy?"


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Following allegations of Jewish conspiracy by British peer Lord Ahmed in March 2013, Hasan referred to antisemitism in the British Muslim community as being "routine and commonplace".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In May 2013, he appeared at an Oxford Union debate proposing a motion arguing that Islam is a religion of peace. The motion was carried.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Following the 2017 Westminster attack, Hasan wrote an article in "The Intercept" criticising what he referred to as the "common stereotype of the Middle Eastern, Muslim-born terrorist." He pointed out that the perpetrator of the attack, Khalid Masood, was born and raised in the United Kingdom and, therefore, would not have been affected by any immigration ban. He also pointed out that Masood converted to Islam late in life and had a history of criminality prior to his conversion. Hasan concluded, ergo, that while "a distorted, simplistic and politicized form of Islam" provided the justification for Masood's actions, the main motivation lay in "social networks and family ties; issues of identity and belonging; a sense of persecution; mental illness; socio-economic grievances; moral outrage over conflict and torture; a craving for glory and purpose, action and adventure." Hasan also referenced a 2008 leaked report by researchers for MI5, a 2010 Demos study, and a 2016 Egmont study, that came to similar conclusions "challeng[ing] the conventional... wisdom on the role of religion in the radicalization process."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has stated that the media should be sanctioned for "dishonest, demonising press coverage" of Muslims and other minorities, saying: "I'm all in favour of free speech and the robust criticism of all religious beliefs. But it's the made-up stories and the smearing of individuals and whole communities that I have an issue with. Why isn't anti-Muslim bigotry as unacceptable in the press as anti-Jewish bigotry?"


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In October 2013, on the BBC's "Question Time", Hasan claimed that the "Daily Mail" was, among other accusations, "Muslim-smearing". The paper responded by claiming that he had applied to write a column for them in 2010, praising their editorial standards and some of their positions.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In December 2019, Seth Meyers called Hasan's interrogation of Trump supporter Steve Rogers "the template for talking to people within the Trump-sphere."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In November 2020, the Daily Beast said "The Mehdi Hasan Show has fast become one of the most satisfying nightly news programs in America."


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In a March 2021 interview with Esquire, Hasan said "journalists should have a bias in favor of democracy" and if journalists are "not pro-democracy, then what is the point of being a journalist?"


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has defended his anti-abortion views in print, writing "What I would like is for my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life" in an October 2012 online column for the "New Statesman". Hasan argued that the issue of abortion "is one of those rare political issues on which left and right seem to have swapped ideologies: right-wingers talk of equality, human rights and 'defending the innocent', while left-wingers fetishise 'choice', selfishness and unbridled individualism." He later regretted expressing himself in this way. However, the article gained much attention on Twitter and Hasan debated the issue with Suzanne Moore on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: "Telegraph" blogger Brendan O'Neill thought both Hasan and his pro-choice opponents shared the modern left's "instinct for paternalism" which contrasted, he asserted, with the pre-occupations of radicals a century ago, an era in which such figures, Hasan asserted, often opposed abortion. Meanwhile, Labour MP Diane Abbott thought that "any feminist, worth the name, knows that control over [our] own bodies is ground zero for every educational, social and economic advance that women have made in the last century". Cristina Odone wrote: "...there is no greater intolerance than that of the so-called tolerant liberals: pro-choice advocates will not allow any discussion of abortion that questions the status quo. Poor Hasan ventured into terrain marked "taboo".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In a 2020 series of tweets, Hasan expressed regrets for "having expressed offensive & illiberal views in the past on everything from homosexuality to abortion" and stated that they were views he no longer holds.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has been critical of the human rights situation in Pakistan, expressing disapproval of the country's treatment of minorities including its blasphemy law, as well as enforced disappearances in Balochistan. He has also criticised the human rights situation in both Indian and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and has called out alleged backing from Pakistan for terror groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba to carry out attacks in the Indian-administered region.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In a May 2021 interview with CNN regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Israelis "are very influential people”, adding, “I mean, they control media.” Hasan tweeted during the ensuing controversy: “I see some people trying to defend the Pakistani foreign minister’s remarks as anti-Israeli & not anti-Semitic but let’s be clear: if you are accusing Israelis of having ‘deep pockets’ and ‘controlling’ the media, then yeah, you're invoking some pretty anti-Semitic slurs. Sorry.”


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has made several statements in opposition to the Saudi government, including challenging a statement made by Donald Trump, in which he claimed that he himself had no financial interests in Saudi Arabia, an allegation which Trump called "fake news". Hasan challenged Trump's statements in a video essay published by "The Intercept" in October 2018.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In February 2019, during a debate organised by Intelligence Squared in London, Hasan stated that the West should cut ties with Saudi Arabia, saying "It's time we make clear that the West needs to cut its ties with Saudi Arabia, especially military ties, arms exports, weapons, bombs". The comments were made in response to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman, as well as several human rights violations which Hasan cited as also being carried out by Saudi Arabia. Hasan had previously interviewed Khashoggi about freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: Hasan has argued that George W. Bush committed war crimes during his presidency in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: During a sermon delivered in 2009, quoting a verse of the Quran, Hasan used the terms "cattle" and "people of no intelligence" to describe non-believers. In another sermon, he used the term "animals" to describe non-Muslims.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In response to criticism for his remarks, Hasan wrote in his "New Statesman" blog: "The Quranic phrase 'people of no intelligence' simply and narrowly refers to the fact that Muslims regard their views on God as the only intellectually tenable position, just as atheists (like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris) regard believers as fundamentally irrational and, even, mentally deficient." Hasan returned to this issue in August 2012 following criticism from the columnist Peter Hitchens, stating that "the entire 45-minute speech is primarily an attack on Muslim extremists who try and justify violence against non-Muslims on an 'ends justify the means' basis", but noted of his 2009 comments that his "phraseology was ill-judged, ill-advised and, even, inappropriate".


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In January 2014, Hasan was awarded the Services to Media award at the British Muslim Awards. In 2017, he was named European Young Leader by the Brussels-based Friends of Europe think tank.


title: Mehdi Hasan

text: In 2019, Hasan won the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Online Column Writing.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several hours. After an initial flash of gamma rays, a longer-lived "afterglow" is usually emitted at longer wavelengths (X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, microwave and radio).


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The intense radiation of most observed GRBs is thought to be released during a supernova or superluminous supernova as a high-mass star implodes to form a neutron star or a black hole. A subclass of GRBs appear to originate from the merger of binary neutron stars.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The sources of most GRBs are billions of light years away from Earth, implying that the explosions are both extremely energetic (a typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime) and extremely rare (a few per galaxy per million years). All observed GRBs have originated from outside the Milky Way galaxy, although a related class of phenomena, soft gamma repeaters, are associated with magnetars within the Milky Way. It has been hypothesized that a gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way, pointing directly towards the Earth, could cause a mass extinction event.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: GRBs were first detected in 1967 by the Vela satellites, which had been designed to detect covert nuclear weapons tests; after thorough analysis, this was published in 1973. Following their discovery, hundreds of theoretical models were proposed to explain these bursts, such as collisions between comets and neutron stars. Little information was available to verify these models until the 1997 detection of the first X-ray and optical afterglows and direct measurement of their redshifts using optical spectroscopy, and thus their distances and energy outputs. These discoveries, and subsequent studies of the galaxies and supernovae associated with the bursts, clarified the distance and luminosity of GRBs, definitively placing them in distant galaxies.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Gamma-ray bursts were first observed in the late 1960s by the U.S. Vela satellites, which were built to detect gamma radiation pulses emitted by nuclear weapons tested in space. The United States suspected that the Soviet Union might attempt to conduct secret nuclear tests after signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. On July 2, 1967, at 14:19 UTC, the Vela 4 and Vela 3 satellites detected a flash of gamma radiation unlike any known nuclear weapons signature. Uncertain what had happened but not considering the matter particularly urgent, the team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, led by Ray Klebesadel, filed the data away for investigation. As additional Vela satellites were launched with better instruments, the Los Alamos team continued to find inexplicable gamma-ray bursts in their data. By analyzing the different arrival times of the bursts as detected by different satellites, the team was able to determine rough estimates for the sky positions of 16 bursts and definitively rule out a terrestrial or solar origin. Contrary to popular belief, the data was never classified. After thorough analysis, the findings were published in 1973 as an "Astrophysical Journal" article entitled "Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin".


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Most early theories of gamma-ray bursts posited nearby sources within the Milky Way Galaxy. From 1991, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) and its Burst and Transient Source Explorer (BATSE) instrument, an extremely sensitive gamma-ray detector, provided data that showed the distribution of GRBs is isotropicnot biased towards any particular direction in space. If the sources were from within our own galaxy, they would be strongly concentrated in or near the galactic plane. The absence of any such pattern in the case of GRBs provided strong evidence that gamma-ray bursts must come from beyond the Milky Way. However, some Milky Way models are still consistent with an isotropic distribution.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: For decades after the discovery of GRBs, astronomers searched for a counterpart at other wavelengths: i.e., any astronomical object in positional coincidence with a recently observed burst. Astronomers considered many distinct classes of objects, including white dwarfs, pulsars, supernovae, globular clusters, quasars, Seyfert galaxies, and BL Lac objects. All such searches were unsuccessful, and in a few cases particularly well-localized bursts (those whose positions were determined with what was then a high degree of accuracy) could be clearly shown to have no bright objects of any nature consistent with the position derived from the detecting satellites. This suggested an origin of either very faint stars or extremely distant galaxies. Even the most accurate positions contained numerous faint stars and galaxies, and it was widely agreed that final resolution of the origins of cosmic gamma-ray bursts would require both new satellites and faster communication.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Several models for the origin of gamma-ray bursts postulated that the initial burst of gamma rays should be followed by "afterglow": slowly fading emission at longer wavelengths created by collisions between the burst ejecta and interstellar gas. Early searches for this afterglow were unsuccessful, largely because it is difficult to observe a burst's position at longer wavelengths immediately after the initial burst. The breakthrough came in February 1997 when the satellite BeppoSAX detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 970228) and when the X-ray camera was pointed towards the direction from which the burst had originated, it detected fading X-ray emission. The William Herschel Telescope identified a fading optical counterpart 20 hours after the burst. Once the GRB faded, deep imaging was able to identify a faint, distant host galaxy at the location of the GRB as pinpointed by the optical afterglow.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Because of the very faint luminosity of this galaxy, its exact distance was not measured for several years. Well after then, another major breakthrough occurred with the next event registered by BeppoSAX, GRB 970508. This event was localized within four hours of its discovery, allowing research teams to begin making observations much sooner than any previous burst. The spectrum of the object revealed a redshift of "z" = 0.835, placing the burst at a distance of roughly 6 billion light years from Earth. This was the first accurate determination of the distance to a GRB, and together with the discovery of the host galaxy of 970228 proved that GRBs occur in extremely distant galaxies. Within a few months, the controversy about the distance scale ended: GRBs were extragalactic events originating within faint galaxies at enormous distances. The following year, GRB 980425 was followed within a day by a bright supernova (SN 1998bw), coincident in location, indicating a clear connection between GRBs and the deaths of very massive stars. This burst provided the first strong clue about the nature of the systems that produce GRBs.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: BeppoSAX functioned until 2002 and CGRO (with BATSE) was deorbited in 2000. However, the revolution in the study of gamma-ray bursts motivated the development of a number of additional instruments designed specifically to explore the nature of GRBs, especially in the earliest moments following the explosion. The first such mission, HETE-2, was launched in 2000 and functioned until 2006, providing most of the major discoveries during this period. One of the most successful space missions to date, Swift, was launched in 2004 and as of 2018 is still operational. Swift is equipped with a very sensitive gamma-ray detector as well as on-board X-ray and optical telescopes, which can be rapidly and automatically slewed to observe afterglow emission following a burst. More recently, the Fermi mission was launched carrying the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, which detects bursts at a rate of several hundred per year, some of which are bright enough to be observed at extremely high energies with Fermi's Large Area Telescope. Meanwhile, on the ground, numerous optical telescopes have been built or modified to incorporate robotic control software that responds immediately to signals sent through the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network. This allows the telescopes to rapidly repoint towards a GRB, often within seconds of receiving the signal and while the gamma-ray emission itself is still ongoing.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: New developments since the 2000s include the recognition of short gamma-ray bursts as a separate class (likely from merging neutron stars and not associated with supernovae), the discovery of extended, erratic flaring activity at X-ray wavelengths lasting for many minutes after most GRBs, and the discovery of the most luminous (GRB 080319B) and the former most distant (GRB 090423) objects in the universe. The most distant known GRB, GRB 090429B, is now the most distant known object in the universe.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: In October 2018, astronomers reported that GRB 150101B (detected in 2015) and GW170817, a gravitational wave event detected in 2017 (which has been associated with GRB170817A, a burst detected 1.7 seconds later), may have been produced by the same mechanism – the merger of two neutron stars. The similarities between the two events, in terms of gamma ray, optical, and x-ray emissions, as well as to the nature of the associated host galaxies, are "striking", suggesting the two separate events may both be the result of the merger of neutron stars, and both may be a kilonova, which may be more common in the universe than previously understood, according to the researchers.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The highest energy light observed from a gamma-ray burst was one teraelectronvolt, from GRB 190114C in 2019. (Note, this is about a thousand times lower energy than the highest energy light observed from any source, which is 1.4 petaelectronvolts as of the year 2021.)


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The light curves of gamma-ray bursts are extremely diverse and complex. No two gamma-ray burst light curves are identical, with large variation observed in almost every property: the duration of observable emission can vary from milliseconds to tens of minutes, there can be a single peak or several individual subpulses, and individual peaks can be symmetric or with fast brightening and very slow fading. Some bursts are preceded by a "precursor" event, a weak burst that is then followed (after seconds to minutes of no emission at all) by the much more intense "true" bursting episode. The light curves of some events have extremely chaotic and complicated profiles with almost no discernible patterns.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Although some light curves can be roughly reproduced using certain simplified models, little progress has been made in understanding the full diversity observed. Many classification schemes have been proposed, but these are often based solely on differences in the appearance of light curves and may not always reflect a true physical difference in the progenitors of the explosions. However, plots of the distribution of the observed duration for a large number of gamma-ray bursts show a clear bimodality, suggesting the existence of two separate populations: a "short" population with an average duration of about 0.3 seconds and a "long" population with an average duration of about 30 seconds. Both distributions are very broad with a significant overlap region in which the identity of a given event is not clear from duration alone. Additional classes beyond this two-tiered system have been proposed on both observational and theoretical grounds.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Events with a duration of less than about two seconds are classified as short gamma-ray bursts. These account for about 30% of gamma-ray bursts, but until 2005, no afterglow had been successfully detected from any short event and little was known about their origins. Since then, several dozen short gamma-ray burst afterglows have been detected and localized, several of which are associated with regions of little or no star formation, such as large elliptical galaxies. This rules out a link to massive stars, confirming that short events are physically distinct from long events. In addition, there has been no association with supernovae.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The true nature of these objects was initially unknown, and the leading hypothesis was that they originated from the mergers of binary neutron stars or a neutron star with a black hole. Such mergers were theorized to produce kilonovae, and evidence for a kilonova associated with GRB 130603B was seen. The mean duration of these events of 0.2 seconds suggests (because of causality) a source of very small physical diameter in stellar terms; less than 0.2 light-seconds (about 60,000 km or 37,000 milesfour times the Earth's diameter). The observation of minutes to hours of X-ray flashes after a short gamma-ray burst is consistent with small particles of a primary object like a neutron star initially swallowed by a black hole in less than two seconds, followed by some hours of lesser energy events, as remaining fragments of tidally disrupted neutron star material (no longer neutronium) remain in orbit to spiral into the black hole, over a longer period of time. A small fraction of short gamma-ray bursts are probably produced by giant flares from soft gamma repeaters in nearby galaxies.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The origin of short GRBs in kilonovae was confirmed when short GRB 170817A was detected only 1.7 s after the detection of gravitational wave GW170817, which was a signal from the merger of two neutron stars.