title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Prior to the launch of the channel in 1988, the Turner Network Television name had been utilized by the Turner Broadcasting System for an ad hoc syndication service which produced and distributed various sporting events for carriage on Turner's Atlanta, Georgia superstation WTBS (channel 17, now WPCH-TV, which was separated from its national cable feed, TBS, in October 2007) as well as broadcast television stations throughout the United States.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The Turner Network Television syndication service launched in 1982 to produce two exhibition games organized by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) during the NFL strike, which were broadcast on WTBS and its national superstation feed. (The agreement with the NFLPA originally called for 18 games to be broadcast by WTBS on Sunday afternoons and Monday nights during the originally proposed strike season, but was reduced to the exhibition games amid lawsuits filed by the National Football League against Turner Broadcasting and the NFLPA union.) The TNT syndication service also produced and distributed the first Goodwill Games—organized by Ted Turner himself, in response to the Olympic boycotts involving the United States and the Soviet Union of the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics—in 1986.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On October 6, 1987, Ted Turner announced the launch of Turner Network Television (TNT)—his fifth basic cable network venture, following SuperStation TBS, CNN, Headline News (now HLN) and the short-lived Cable Music Channel—in a keynote address at the opening day of the Atlantic Cable Show in Atlantic City, New Jersey, stating that the channel would center around major television events. Turner originally estimated that TNT would be offered to cable systems at a monthly rate of 10¢ per subscriber at launch (increasing to 20¢ per subscriber per month by March 1989), with 10 minutes of advertising being carried each hour (three to four minutes of which would be given to prospective cable systems for local advertising). Turner Broadcasting struggled to obtain carriage commitments from various cable providers to commence with the proposed service's launch plans, putting uncertain TNT's fate. Turner also entered into preliminary discussions with NBC to purchase a 25% stake in the company, with the prospect of using NBC's financial and programming expertise to get TNT off the ground; however, such discussions terminated by January 1988 without a resolution.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: By February 1988, Turner had disclosed that TNT's programming would focus around movies from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film library – which Turner acquired as a result of his 1986 sale of the MGM film studio to Kirk Kerkorian – and major television events, including made-for-cable movies, high-profile specials, sports events, documentaries and miniseries. Cable systems were given the option of substituting a superstation (other than SuperStation TBS) or other out-of-market television station for TNT upon launch without incurring any copyright liabilities for carriage of the distant signal for the second half of 1988. However, the proposed launch date, originally slated for July 1 of that year, was delayed because it would have presented several issues, including obtaining channel clearances and assembling a programming schedule in such a contracted timespan, and the unfavorability of promoting a service during the summer (when television networks typically programmed reruns). On March 7, Turner Broadcasting System's board of directors unanimously approved Ted Turner's plan for Turner Network Television, with October 3 as the channel's proposed launch date. Plans called for TNT to offer 250 nights of original and live sports programming per year within five years of its debut.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The channel launched at 7:55 p.m. Eastern Time on October 3, 1988, with TNT founder Ted Turner delivering a message about the channel's launch and programming, followed by a pre-recorded performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner", which traditionally played during the launch of a new Turner-owned network. Its inaugural telecast (which followed at 8:00 p.m. Eastern) was the first half of the 1939 classic film "Gone with the Wind", a film to which Ted Turner had acquired the rights; the second half aired the following night at the same time (both halves were repeated at 11:00 p.m. Eastern on their respective nights), with the film then being shown in its entirety that Sunday. It was said that "Gone with the Wind" was chosen as the channel's inaugural program because it was Turner's favorite movie. ("Gone with the Wind" would also serve as the first program aired on sister channel Turner Classic Movies, when it debuted in April 1994.) Incidentally, the film was set and had its premiere held in Atlanta, Turner's hometown and the headquarters of the channel's corporate parent, Turner Broadcasting System.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: TNT was initially a vehicle for older movies and television shows to which Turner either already held rights or acquired specifically for the channel; these films made up the majority of TNT's programming during its first six years of operation. The initial schedule also consisted of animated and live-action children's programs (airing Sunday through Fridays from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time and Monday through Saturdays from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time), with western series on Saturday mornings and a limited schedule of other classic television series in select other time periods. In its early years, TNT caused controversy among film critics and fans for its airings of colorized versions of many classics that were originally filmed in black-and-white.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The channel launched with an estimated 17 million subscribers, its initial coverage totaling 6.8 times that of the largest previous cable network launch (VH1, which launched on January 1, 1985, with 2.5 million homes estimated to have initially received that channel). The channel's operations were based inside office space at Turner Broadcasting's Techwood Drive complex in midtown Atlanta that formerly served as the facilities for CNN Headline News from its launch as CNN2 in January 1982 until it and parent network CNN moved their operations into the CNN Center downtown in 1987. Turner Entertainment Networks president Gerald Hogan stated around the time of its launch that TNT would eventually become "the first cable network to directly challenge the three broadcast networks," through the production of original programming that would be of "a quality level equal to and [..] significantly better" than programs carried on the major American broadcast television networks; as such, the channel slowly began to add original programming and newer reruns within two years of its launch. The channel debuted its first original made-for-TV film on March 8, 1989, when TNT premiered "Nightbreaker", an Arms Race-era drama starring Martin Sheen (who also co-produced the film) and Emilio Estevez.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In 1995, TNT debuted "WCW Monday Nitro", which assumed the distinction as the flagship program of the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling from "WCW Saturday Night", ran on that channel until 2000. At one point, "Monday Nitro" was regularly the highest-rated weekly program on cable television. The program beat "Monday Night Raw", the flagship show of the World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE or World Wrestling Entertainment), in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks from 1996 to 1998. However, by early 1999, the program began to lose viewers to "Raw", which became the highest-rated wrestling program on television due to its use of more adult-like storylines. On March 23, 2001, the WWF acquired most of the assets of WCW, which had been up for sale since late 2000; "Monday Nitro" aired its last episode three days later.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On September 22, 1995, Time Warner—a New York City-based media company formed in 1989 through the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. corporate parent Warner Communications—reached an agreement to acquire the Turner Broadcasting System and its associated properties (including TNT, TBS, CNN, Headline News and Cartoon Network as well as Turner Entertainment) for $7.5 billion; the deal would also expand Time Warner's pay television holdings, as it had owned HBO and sister premium service Cinemax as well as cable television provider Time Warner Cable since the Time-Warner Communications merger six years prior. (Time Warner and predecessor Warner Communications had owned an 18% interest in Turner Broadcasting since 1987, as part of a cable television industry-backed bailout of the company amid severe financial issues.) Under the terms, Turner would acquire an approximate 10% interest in Time Warner as well as oversee its subscription network group—comprising the Turner and Home Box Office units and its minority interests in Comedy Central and E!—and hold a position on the company's board of directors (which he retained until he stepped down from the company in February 2006) upon the merger's closure. The merger received regulatory approval on September 12, 1996; the Turner–Time Warner deal was finalized one month later on October 10, forming what at the time was the largest media company in the world.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The channel was also known for its late night programming. One such program was "MonsterVision", a Saturday night B movie showcase that aired from 1991 to 2000. Often the series had special themes, such as "Godzilla Bash '94", an all-day marathon of movies from the "Godzilla" franchise. Penn & Teller served as occasional guest hosts during its early years; and in 1996, "MonsterVision" found a permanent host in cult personality and drive-in movie aficionado Joe Bob Briggs, who hosted a pair of more contemporary horror films each week, such as "Friday the 13th Part 2" and "Wes Craven's New Nightmare". During the wraparound segments within each film, Briggs provided a running commentary, trivia, off-color jokes, and a drive-in total, as well as jokes at the expense of TNT's Standards & Practices department regarding the heavy censorship of the featured movies. This running joke culminated in a "Friday the 13th" all-night Halloween marathon in 1998, where it was implied that Ted Turner was out to kill him.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Into the 1990s, TNT continued to air cartoons from the Turner library, such as "The Flintstones", "Scooby-Doo", the DePatie-Freleng "Pink Panther" cartoons, "Dexter's Laboratory", and "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" as part of a daily block called "TNT Toons". "The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show", which ran from 1995 to 1997, was an original children's program on the channel featuring Warner Bros., MGM, and "Popeye" shorts, hosted by a titular pair of a marionette and a nanny goat. In January 1996, the channel began scaling back its children's programming amid competition in that market from Nickelodeon and Turner-owned sister channel Cartoon Network; at that time, TNT discontinued its late-afternoon block of animated series in favor of airing acquired drama series such as "Starsky & Hutch" and "In the Heat of the Night". In 1998, TNT dropped all of its remaining cartoons, relegating those shows to Cartoon Network. Most of the animated series and shorts that were dropped would also serve as the core of Boomerang, a subscription channel devoted to classic cartoons that launched on April 1, 2000.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: During the 1990s, TNT scheduled a weekday afternoon block that included "Due South", "", "" and "Babylon 5". In 1998, TNT made efforts to increase its original programming, bumping its production budget by 146%, with programming production costs running in the range of $175 million to $200 million by 2000. That year, TNT took over production of the fifth and final season of "Babylon 5" from the Prime Time Entertainment Network after the ad hoc syndication block ceased operations. The following year, TNT produced the "Babylon 5" spinoff series "Crusade", which was canceled after 13 episodes, as TNT management decided that science fiction did not fit the channel's brand identity. In 2001, TNT debuted what became its most successful original series at the time, "Witchblade", which ran for two seasons, ending in 2002.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On June 12, 2001, TNT underwent an extensive rebrand, with the introduction of a new logo designed by Trollbäck + Company as well as a new slogan, "We Know Drama," a repositioning of the network that Bradley Siegel, then-president of Turner Entertainment Networks, explained had emerged through extensive focus group research with frequent TNT viewers. The slogan emphasized the channel's new focus on dramatic programming, including sports and off-network syndicated dramas such as "Law & Order", "NYPD Blue", "ER" and "Judging Amy".


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On January 1, 2003, TNT launched a substitute feed called "TNT Plus", although it does not appear this was ever reflected in the channel's on-air identity. The apparent sole purpose of its establishment was to force renegotiations with subscription providers to increase carriage fees—with some multiple system operators suggesting that Turner was seeking a 10% increase in subscriber fees for the channel—to help pay for TNT's new NBA and NASCAR contracts well before the channel's distribution agreements with providers were scheduled to come up for renewal. In theory, TNT Plus was to have been the sole carrier of Turner's NBA and NASCAR coverage from that point forward, while any providers still carrying the original TNT would have seen replacement programming instead. Although it appears that Comcast did not immediately sign on to carry TNT Plus, there is no evidence that Turner had actually pulled its sports programming from the "original" TNT.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On December 7, 2008, TNT unveiled an update to its logo, displaying it mainly in a silver or sometimes gold beveling. The "We know drama" tagline remained, but the channel added more of a focus on its original series and announced plans to carry three nights of original programming a week during primetime, starting in 2009. In 2012, TNT rebranded itself with a new slogan: "Drama, Period." (visually displayed as "Drama.," with the TNT logo serving as the period symbol), with the logo being recolored to match the themes of its shows.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On May 14, 2014, TNT altered its on-air branding to "TNT Drama" and introduced a new slogan, "Boom". The branding campaign reflects the channel's refocusing towards action-adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, suspense series alongside its slate of crime dramas. The channel purchased subscription-television rights in September for the next five Marvel Studios movies starting with "". In 2016, TNT changed its logo after 15 years.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion, including debt it would assume from the latter; the merger would bring Time Warner's various media properties, including TBS, under the same corporate umbrella as AT&T's telecommunications holdings, including satellite provider DirecTV. Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017; however, on February 28, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that his agency will not review the deal, leaving the review to the U.S. Department of Justice. On November 20, 2017, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction. The proposed merger—which had already been approved by the European Commission and Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian regulatory authorities—was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018, after District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in favor of AT&T, dismissing the DOJ's antitrust claims in the lawsuit. The merger closed two days later on June 14, with the company becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T under the renamed parent company WarnerMedia. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of AT&T on February 26, 2019.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On March 4, 2019, WarnerMedia underwent a major reorganization of its broadcasting assets, in which Turner Broadcasting would effectively be dissolved, and WarnerMedia's television properties would be divided among three divisions within the WarnerMedia umbrella, with TNT, along with TBS, truTV and HBO being reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment, chaired by Bob Greenblatt. AT&T did not specify any timetable for the changes to take effect, although WarnerMedia had begun to remove all Turner references in corporate communications and press releases, referring to that unit's networks as "divisions of WarnerMedia".


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On May 15, 2019, upstart promotion All Elite Wrestling and WarnerMedia announced a broadcasting agreement to offer a weekly prime-time wrestling program on TNT—later named "AEW Dynamite", which premiered on October 2, 2019, as AEW's flagship program—marking the network's re-entry into the professional wrestling scene following the aforementioned closure of World Championship Wrestling eighteen years prior. On August 13, 2021, AEW premiered a second weekly program on TNT—"Rampage"—which airs on Friday nights. In January 2022, "Dynamite" moved to TBS, with "Rampage" remaining on TNT.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On April 8, 2022, WarnerMedia was divested by AT&T and merged with Discovery Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery. On April 26, it was reported that WBD had suspended original scripted series development at TBS and TNT in order to evaluate the channels' strategies moving forward. At this point, TNT only had two original scripted series still airing first-run episodes, "Animal Kingdom" and "Snowpiercer", both of which are preparing for their final seasons. On May 11, Brett Weitz was removed as general manager for TBS, TNT, and TruTV; the channels are now overseen by Kathleen Finch as head of U.S. Networks.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: TNT HD is a high definition simulcast feed of TNT, which broadcasts at a picture resolution of 1080i; the HD feed launched on May 21, 2004, inaugurated with the network's coverage of Game 1 of the between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves. TNT has been criticized for its practice of airing a significant amount of 4:3 standard-definition content stretched to 16:9 on its HD feed, utilizing a nonlinear process similar to the "panorama" setting on many HDTVs that some viewers have nicknamed Stretch-o-Vision.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Though other cable channels have also fallen into this practice for their HD simulcast feeds, TNT has been the one most commonly cited since it was one of the first channels to offer such a simulcast. The nonlinear stretching process leaves objects in the center of the screen with approximately their original aspect ratio; objects at the left and right edges are distorted.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: TNT currently airs a mix of original drama and reality series, and reruns of dramas that originally aired on the major broadcast networks. Original programs currently seen on TNT as of 2022 include "Animal Kingdom" and "Snowpiercer". The channel's daytime, overnight and Saturday morning schedule is heavily dominated by reruns of current and former network police procedural series such as "Castle," "Bones" and TNT mainstay "Law & Order", while its weekday morning schedule focuses on sci-fi, supernatural and fantasy series.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Feature films have been a mainstay of TNT since its inception. TNT maintains movie licensing agreements with sister company Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (primarily releases from Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema), Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (primarily releases from Walt Disney Pictures (live-action only), Touchstone Pictures, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Studios), Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Since the launch of Turner Classic Movies, TNT's movie lineup has shifted away from classic films outside of special airings of films such as "The Wizard of Oz" (which has been aired recently since 2014) in December a few times in a row on certain days every year either before or close to Christmas time. "The Wizard of Oz" had also used to be aired on TNT in the past for several years in November close to Thanksgiving time a few times in a row on certain days every year too. Now in favor of more recent films released from the 1980s onward, with an emphasis on films released after 1995. Presently, most of the films broadcast on TNT are of the drama and action genres, however some comedy films continue to air on the channel periodically. Movies generally air on the channel during the overnight hours on most nights and for much of the day on weekends.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Beginning in 1997, TNT broadcast a 24-hour marathon of the 1983 comedy film "A Christmas Story" from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day. The marathon also runs on its sister channel TBS beginning in 2004, when the annual event became exclusive to that channel and it still does now along with TNT airing it again at the same time starting in 2014 together on both networks. Beginning one hour early on TBS, one hour later on TNT and ending one hour early on TBS and one hour later on TNT. Each weekend, TNT airs a movie in primetime with limited commercial interruption, branded in on-air promos under the title "More Movies, Less Commercials".


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In July 1989, the Turner Broadcasting System announced that TNT would obtain partial pay television rights to the National Basketball Association (NBA) beginning with the , as part of a transference of TBS SuperStation's existing NBA telecast rights. As a result, TNT's NBA coverage would consist of games involving other teams within the league, with TBS's rights being scaled back to only encompass game telecasts involving the franchise serving its parent television station WTBS's home market, the Atlanta Hawks (which Ted Turner had purchased from Atlanta-based real estate developer Tom Cousins in 1977). Under the initial agreement and a subsequent five-year contract signed in December 1989, TNT carried about 50 regular season and 25 playoff games during the inaugural season of its contractual rights. (TBS SuperStation/WTBS, in acquiring exclusivity for the Hawks, expanded its schedule to include 25 away games through the acquisition of Atlanta rival WGNX [now CBS affiliate WANF]'s partial Hawks telecast rights.)


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In the early 1990s, some Hawks game telecasts shown on TNT and TBS were blacked out within 35 miles of the home team's arena. This restriction was dropped in 2000, allowing TNT the right to be the exclusive broadcaster of any game it chose to carry. TNT had regularly broadcast NBA games on multiple Tuesday nights until the and again since 2021. The weekly telecasts were then moved to Thursday nights in until 2021 in which it moved back to Tuesday nights, when TBS was opted out of rights to NBA coverage as a result of the league's contract renewal with Turner Sports. In addition to carrying NBA regular season games, which typically air as a doubleheader on most weeks, TNT also airs opening night games, the NBA All-Star Game, and the vast majority of games within the conference playoffs and one of the Conference Finals (the Eastern Conference Finals in odd-number years and the Western Conference Finals in even-numbered years). Since 2015, the All-Star Game has been simulcast on TBS to prevent it from counterprogramming TNT, although in 2022 TBS experimented with an alternate broadcast of the game featuring the panel of TNT's studio show "Inside the NBA".


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Beginning in the 2021–22 NHL season, Turner Sports holds rights to the National Hockey League (NHL); the contract includes rights to up to 72 exclusive regular season games per-season on TNT, predominantly consisting of Wednesday night doubleheaders. TNT also splits coverage of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with fellow rightsholder ESPN, and will hold exclusive rights to the Stanley Cup Finals in odd-numbered years.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In 2011, TNT obtained a share in the television rights to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship as part of a comprehensive broadcast rights deal known as "NCAA March Madness". The deal also involves CBS and fellow Turner properties TBS and TruTV. During even-numbered years, Turner holds exclusive rights to the Final Four-onward; until 2022, TNT and TruTV aired alternate broadcasts of the games tailored towards the participating teams, but this was quietly discontinued in 2022, with all three channels simulcasting the TBS broadcast.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: TNT televised the PGA Championship, carrying full coverage of the first two rounds and early coverage of the weekend rounds. The rights were held from 1999 to 2019, when the contract with the PGA of America ended—after which ESPN assumed the rights. TNT's golf coverage has since been limited to "The Match"—a series of charity match play events organized by Turner Sports that are simulcast across the Turner channels.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In 2003, TNT took over the rights to broadcast the Thursday and Friday rounds of The Open Championship, as well as the rights to weekday rounds of the Women's British Open and Senior British Open. ESPN assumed the Open Championship rights in 2009. From 2000 to 2007, TNT also carried the biennial PGA Tour-managed Presidents Cup. The television rights were assumed by Golf Channel beginning with the 2009 event as part of its overall cable television deal with the PGA Tour.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Beginning in the 2018–19 season, Turner Sports held the rights to the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, the two highest levels of European club competition, under a three-year deal. 46 Champions League matches and the finals of both competitions (as well as the UEFA Super Cup) are aired per-season on TNT, with the remainder streaming on B/R Live—a newly created streaming service run by its sister sports news website "Bleacher Report". In June 2020, Turner Sports, announced they will be ending their deal to broadcast the UEFA Champions League a year early.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: TNT carries limited playoff coverage from MLB on TBS, but only in rare exceptions where a long-running or extra innings game forces a bump over in coverage of the newer game temporarily from TBS to TNT until the earlier game's conclusion, when the coverage on TNT ends at the conclusion of the current half-inning and the game moves fully to TBS (due to this, TNT's schedule in early-to-mid October is usually made up of little original content). In the 2011 and 2012 playoffs, it carried seven pre-scheduled Division Series games in full before Major League Baseball decided to use MLB Network in future years in a shift of scheduling to allow more night game carriage.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In 2001, TNT began presenting NASCAR coverage, as part of NASCAR's first unified television rights deal (where television rights were centralized with the association itself, rather than brokered directly by each track owner). The broadcasts were a successor to TBS's past NASCAR broadcasts and originally intended to be carried by TBS, but ultimately assigned to TNT in support of its new brand positioning. TNT's coverage was initially a co-production with NBC Sports, serving as the cable partner for NBC's broadcast television coverage of NASCAR. Under the contract, TNT held the cable rights for the second half of the Winston Cup Series and Busch Series seasons, carrying races not aired by NBC; the broadcasts shared their on-air production and talent with NBC's broadcasts.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: When the contract expired in 2006, NBC declined to bid on the next package. TNT would join Fox and new rightsholder ESPN as part of the next round of broadcast rights, retaining a smaller package of six mid-season Nextel Cup Series races per-season, beginning with Daytona's July race (by then known as the Coke Zero 400)—which became exclusive to TNT under the new contract; previously, NBC and TNT held rights to the race in odd-numbered years, alternating with Fox (which carried the race in even numbered years; contrarily, the network not carrying the 400 would carry the Daytona 500). The contract lasted through the 2014 season, after which NASCAR returned to splitting its media rights between Fox and NBC.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In 1990, TNT obtained partial television rights to the NFL's "Sunday Night Football" package in a comprehensive agreement in which games were split with ESPN. The "NFL on TNT" consisted of three or four preseason game broadcasts and telecasts of regular season games during the first half of each season until 1997. Abiding by NFL broadcasting rules, TNT distributed its game telecasts to broadcast television stations in the local markets of the teams playing in that week's game.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: European, Middle Eastern, African, Australian, Latin American and Asian versions of TNT were launched in the middle of 1990s, which were exclusively dedicated to movies, mainly from the MGM and Warner Bros. archives (however, the UK, Scandinavian, and Australian versions of TNT all broadcast "WCW Monday Nitro" (the UK and Scandinavian versions broadcast the show on Friday nights on a four-day delay from its U.S. broadcast), and the Latin American version aired a children's block called "Magic Box"). The European, Australian and Asian versions of TNT shared channel space with Cartoon Network, while the Latin American version shared space with CNN International. The Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific TNT channels were eventually relaunched as Turner Classic Movies, while the Latin American version retained the TNT branding. The most well-known TNT channel in Canada, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific was (and still is) the French version, which used similar graphics to what the flagship U.S. channel was using at the time.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: No version or feed for TNT exists in Canada though some of its programming is aired on Bell Media channels such as CTV Drama Channel and TSN.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Regional versions of TNT were launched in Latin America in 1991; the channel mostly shows films, along with a few series. All programs used to be presented subbed in Spanish and Portuguese, until 2015, when the channel reverted it and made available the dubs; however, the channel also offers closed captions (which can be removed or placed by the user) on digital operators. TNT Latin America and TNT Brazil began operating high definition simulcast feeds in 2009. In Latin America, TNT broadcasts all of the high-profile award shows including the Oscars and Grammys.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: In January 2009, a version of TNT launched in Germany as TNT Serie. The channel shows a wide variety of older and recent American drama and comedy programs (such as "30 Rock", "Murder, She Wrote", "Monk", "Six Feet Under", "Seinfeld", "ER", "The King of Queens", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Boardwalk Empire", "Game of Thrones" and "Falling Skies"). TNT Serie maintains two audio channels: one with the original English language audio track and one with a German-dubbed soundtrack. In June 2009, the German version of TCM was relaunched as TNT Film. TNT also has a comedy channel which shows "2 Broke Girls", "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory". TNT Comedy also maintains two audio channels: TNT Serie, TNT Comedy and TNT Film both launched high definition simulcast feeds in the fall of 2010. On June 14, 2021, it was announced that TNT would be rebranding their channels into Warner TV from September 25, 2021.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The TNT brand returned to the Spanish market in the summer of 2007, when it launched exclusively on pay television platform Digital+. , TNT is available on several subscription providers in Spain. TNT España is divided in two blocks: one exclusively carrying movies and another exclusively carrying television series (such as "The Vampire Diaries", "The Big Bang Theory", "Two and a Half Men", "Falling Skies" and "Sherlock"). In 2019, TNT España aired the first series they commissioned locally in Spain, "Vota Juan".


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: As of 2022 this is the only TNT channel still active in Europe, that has yet to be rebranded as Warner TV.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: A local version of TNT in Turkey launched on March 3, 2008, by Doğan Media Group as a channel focusing on feature films. Foreign television series and movies were eventually added to the channel's schedule. On January 24, 2011, it was relaunched as a general entertainment channel with the addition of new television series to its lineup. In 2012, TNT was rebranded as tv2.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The Scandinavian TNT channel was originally launched by tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet as "Aftonbladet TV7" on October 9, 2006. Aftonbladet sold the channel in late 2007. In August 2008, it was sold once again to NonStop Television. On March 2, 2011, the channel was relaunched as TNT7, following the Turner Broadcasting System's purchase of NonStop Television owner Millennium Media Group. On March 21, 2012, the channel was renamed TNT, dropping the "7" from the name.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: On April 10, 2012, TNT HD Benelux launched in Belgium, carried exclusively on Telenet. The first month of the service was offered to consumers for free, with a subscription required thereafter to view the channel. TNT HD Benelux offers a mix of comedies, movies and current television series (such as "Falling Skies", "Shameless" and "Memphis Beat"), as well as reruns of older series (such as "ER", "The West Wing" and "Smallville"). The channel launched in the Netherlands on January 24, 2013. It was later launched on SNOW and Belgacom TV in Belgium; however it stopped broadcasting in both countries on January 1, 2014.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The Polish version of TNT was launched as Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on June 1, 1998, replacing the European version of TNT, Classic Movies. It relaunched in both SD and HD on October 6, 2015. On July 8, 2021 it was announced that the channel would rebrand into Warner TV from October 23.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The European version of TNT was launched for first time in Romania on September 17, 1993, with Cartoon Network, until October 15, 1999, when it was replaced with Turner Classic Movies. In 2007, TCM was localized in Romania, the Romanian version was launched and it was made a 24/7 channel. On some carriers, Cartoon Network and TCM were shared (the last carrier who maintained them shared was RDS-RCS, from launch of European version to October 20, 2017). On October 6, 2015, TCM was replaced by TNT, 22 years after the first launch. On July 8, 2021 it was announced that the channel would rebrand into Warner TV from October 23.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: The African version of TNT launched on October 15, 1995. On October 15, 1999, TNT was replaced with Turner Classic Movies. On September 21, 2018, 23 years after the first relaunch, TNT replaced the African version of TCM.


title: TNT (American TV network)

text: Launched in 2016, it replaced Toonami Thailand. Owned by M Turner Company (a joint-venture with Major Kantana Co., Ltd.), the channel was closed on January 1, 2018.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater Associates is an American investment management firm founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. The firm serves institutional clients including pension funds, endowments, foundations, foreign governments, and central banks.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: It utilizes a global macro investing style based on economic trends such as inflation, currency exchange rates, and U.S. gross domestic product. Bridgewater Associates began as an institutional investment advisory service, graduated to institutional investing, and pioneered the risk parity investment approach in 1996.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 1981, the company moved its headquarters from New York City to Westport, Connecticut, and currently engages 1,500 employees. As of March 2021, it had approximately US$140 billion in assets under management.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The firm's history includes the pioneering of industry strategies such as: currency overlay, the separation of alpha and beta strategies, the creation of absolute return products, and risk parity. According to Financial News, the company was the fastest growing asset manager from 2000 until 2005 when it stopped accepting new accounts. Its assets under management have increased by 25% each year during the 2001-2010 decade with employees at eleven times their year 2000 levels. The company's "Daily Observations" research is reportedly read by leaders of central banks and managers of pension funds around the world.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater Associates was founded by Ray Dalio in 1975 from an office in his Manhattan apartment. At that time, the business consisted exclusively of advising corporate clients and the management of domestic and international currency and interest rate risks. The firm later changed its emphasis and began selling economic advice to governments and corporations such as Nabisco and McDonald's.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The company began publishing a paid subscription research report called the "Daily Observations" which inspired McDonald's Corp. and its main supplier to become clients in the early 1980s. Another client was Banks of Mid-America and its treasury department director, Bob Prince, later joined Bridgewater Associates as co-CIO. In 1981, the company moved its offices from New York City to Connecticut.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The company's first account was funded by a US$5 million fixed-income investment through Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg of World Bank in 1987. In the mid-1980s, the firm changed its business focus from currency and interest rate management to global bonds and currencies for institutional investors. As a fixed income and currency adviser to institutional clients, the company gained a reputation as a currency trader and a developer of techniques for overlaying currencies. In 1990, it launched a hedge fund portfolio using monies from Kodak and Loews Corporation and began formally offering its currency overlay products to its clients.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater Associates developed several "innovative investment strategies" during the 1990s such as inflation-indexed bonds, currency overlay, emerging market debt, global bonds and "super-long duration bonds". The firm also "pioneered the separation of alpha and beta" investments and developed a strategy called "alpha overlay" which involved a portfolio of "20 uncorrelated" investments, leveraged for risk or return and combined with cash or an investment market benchmark.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The firm launched its "Pure Alpha" fund and began to market portable alpha investment strategies in 1991. The "Pure Alpha" fund did well during the market's downturn of 2000 to 2003 and, as hedge funds became more popular, the company expanded its assets through its connections with various underfunded pension funds, some of which were already clients. In 1992 the firm introduced its global bond overlay program. In 1995, company executives participated in the discussions at the U.S. Treasury and advised federal government on the development of inflation-indexed bonds.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater launched its "All Weather" hedge fund and pioneered the risk parity approach to portfolio management in 1996. The firm's assets under management grew from US$5 billion in the mid-1990s to US$38 billion by the year 2003. In June 2000, the firm was ranked as the best performing global bond manager for that year and the prior five years by "Pensions & Investments" magazine. In 2002, the company was ranked by Nelson Information as the World's Best Money Manager in recognition of the 16.3% return on its "International Fixed Income" program. The firm received the Global Investor Awards for Excellence-Global Bonds award in 2003. The following year the company received the "Global Pensions (magazine)" Currency Overlay Manager of the Year award, and 2 "best in class" awards from the PlanSponsor Operations Survey.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 2006, the company's flagship "Pure Alpha" fund began "returning money" to its clients in order to maintain its investment strategy and enforce its "capacity limit." The firm began moving all of its clients into alternative strategies (either its "All Weather" or "Pure Alpha Major Markets" funds), thereby eliminating the traditional investment approach from its portfolios. That year it was honored by "PlanSponsor Magazine" with the Lifetime Achievement Award and the "Global Pensions magazine" Currency Manager of the Year award and the "Money Management Letter"s, Public Pension Fund Award for Excellence and the Alternatives Manager of the Year award.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: By 2007, the firm's total assets under management grew to US$50 billion (from US$33 billion in the year 2000). According to a 2007 article in "Barron's" magazine, "nobody was better prepared for the global market crash" than its clients and subscribers to its Daily Observations. The company "began sounding alarms..in the spring of 2007 about the dangers of excessive financial leverage." The company's researchers reviewed the public accounts of most of the major financial institutions around the globe and found that estimated future losses due to bad debts totaled US$839 billion. In December, these conclusions were reported to the U.S. Treasury Department when company founder Ray Dalio met with U.S. Treasury Secretary staff and other White House economic advisers. Bridgewater's "Pure Alpha" fund "spared its investors" from most of the stock market's "meltdown" in 2008. However, this strategy was not successful in 2009 when economic growth responded faster than anticipated and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 19% while the company's "Pure Alpha" fund reportedly gained a mere 2% to 4%. Bridgewater's Pure Alpha II has posted a historic average return of 10.4 percent with only 3 losing years. Senator John McCain visited the firm and addressed company employees during his 2008 presidential campaign. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) invested in $250 million in a stake in Bridgewater Associates Intermediate Holdings, LP.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Ray Dalio, the company's founder, began using the term "d-process" in February 2009 to describe the deleveraging and deflationary process of the subprime mortgage industry as distinct from a recession. That year, the company was termed the largest hedge fund in the U.S. and it received the "Alternative Investment News" 7th Annual Hedge Fund Industry's Lifetime Achievement award and PlanSponsor's Hedge Fund Manager of the year award. When the U.S. gross domestic product faltered in 2010, the firm had significant gains on their investments in Treasury bonds and other securities, and in November founded the US$10 billion, "Pure Alpha Major Markets" fund which brought the company's total assets under management to more than US$100 billion. In 2011 the firm received several honors. It was ranked number one on Institutional Investor's "world's top 100 hedge funds" list. It received the Macro-Focused Hedge Fund Firm of the Year award and the aiCIO Hedge Fund Industry Innovation Award. Absolute Return + Alpha (AR) ranked the company number one in its Hedge Fund Report Card and Billion Dollar Club categories.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: At the end of May 2016, Connecticut is expected to approve a plan which will give Bridgewater Associates $22 million in grants and loans in exchange for job training, job creation, and building renovations. The company also must agree to retain 1,402 jobs they already support in Connecticut. The company could also become eligible for as much as $30 million in urban tax credits.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Between 2014 and 2016, the Regents of the University of California withdrew $550 million from Bridgewater Associates also due to concerns about Bridgewater's future leadership. In June 2018, it was announced to clients and employees that Bridgewater would change its corporate structure and become a partnership. By June 2018, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, the Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and the International Monetary Fund had invested in Bridgewater Associates.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In September 2017, Bridgewater announced plans to launch an investment fund in China with Chinese government's approval.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 2020, Bridgewater reported hefty losses due to COVID-19 related market volatility, with the flagship pure Alpha II fund losing 18.6% as of August 2020.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: According to Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates is a "global macro firm". It uses "quantitative" investment methods to identify new investments while avoiding unrealistic historical models. Its goal is to structure portfolios with uncorrelated investment returns based on risk allocations rather than asset allocations. Additionally, the company is reported to accept funds from only institutional clients such as pension funds, foundations, endowments, and central banks rather than private investors.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The company divides its investments into two basic categories: (1) Beta investments, whose returns are generated through passive management and standard market risk, and (2) Alpha investments, whose goal is to generate higher returns that are uncorrelated to the general market and are actively managed. The principle of separating alpha and beta investments was introduced by Dalio in 1990 and gained the recognition of other equity managers beginning in the year 2000. The firm is reported to be the first hedge fund manager to separate alpha and beta investment strategies and offer dedicated investment funds for each.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: According to "Bloomberg," Bridgewater uses an investing system that combines traditional diversification with "wager[s] on or against markets around the world" and attempts to invest in instruments and markets that do not "move in lock step" with each other. To guide its investment strategies, the company's top executives have compiled hundreds of "decision rules" which are the financial corollary to the firm's employee handbook, "Principles," and these investment guidelines have been incorporated into the firm's computers' analysis.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The firm offers three hedge funds to its clients: the "Pure Alpha" fund, the "All Weather" fund, and the "Pure Alpha Major Markets" fund. It also publishes a white paper, called the "Daily Observations", which is read by investors worldwide on a subscription basis.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater Associates launched its flagship fund, "Pure Alpha", in 1989. The fund is described as a "diversified alpha source" that invests across a group of asset classes. It was designed to balance risk amongst a variety of non-correlated assets through active management. It includes 30 or 40 simultaneous trading positions in bonds, currencies, stock indexes and commodities to avoid affecting prices by concentrating funds in a single area. After placing some of the company's excess cash into the "Pure Alpha" hedge fund to increase its "investing discretion". The fund was closed to new investors in 2006 when it reached its pre-determined, maximum funds level. As of 2019, the fund is reported to have lost money in only three of its 20 years of existence and had an average annualized return of 12 percent. An investment in Pure Alpha has returned 4.5% annualized since 2005 and underperformed major indices.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: A second fund, called "All Weather", was launched in 1996 and highlighted low fees, global inflation-linked bonds and global fixed-income investments. The fund began as the founder's personal trust fund and was subsequently opened to clients. The goal of the fund was to create "high, risk adjusted returns" that exceeded the return of the general market. The "All Weather" fund contains more than $46 billion and is one of the largest funds in the U.S. as of 2011. In April 2009, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fund moved into "safe portfolio" mode which included nominal and inflation-linked bonds and gold instead of equities, emerging market debt, and commodities. The fund is reported to contain 40% inflation-linked bonds, 30% Treasury bills, 20% Treasury bonds and 10% gold.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In June 2018, Bridgewater was granted permission to develop and market domestic investment products to qualified investors in mainland China. In October 2018, Bridgewater launched its first Chinese investment product, ‘Bridgewater All Weather China Private Fund Number 1.'


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Under the guidance of then co-CEO Jensen, the firm created the "Pure Alpha Major Markets" in 2011 with $2.4 billion from existing clients. In the summer of 2011 the fund was opened to a group of outside investors who had made a total advance commitment of $7.5 billion. At that time, it was reported to be the largest hedge fund launch. The fund was established to provide an investment vehicle similar to the company's "Pure Alpha" fund but with enhanced liquidity by focusing on the major markets such as European bonds. The launch of this fund in 2011 brought the company’s total assets under management to more than $100 billion.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The company's "Daily Observations" is a private communication and is the flagship product and service offered by the company. The daily notes synthesize Bridgewater's decades of following the markets and offer an alternative perspective on trends that are top of mind for all investors around the world. It has been characterized as comprehensive, with some editions being up to 43 pages in length. It is reportedly read, on a subscription basis, by clients, leaders of central banks and managers of pension funds around the world and said to be "one of the most widely forwarded pieces of market analysis" in the industry. It is the centerpiece of the company's outreach program and as of 2009 it was read by members of the U.S. Treasury, and the Executive Office of the Obama Administration.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 1981, the company moved its headquarters 50 miles north of New York City to Wilton, Connecticut, and in the late 1990s it moved to a larger office space on a corporate campus in Westport, Connecticut. As the company continued to expand, it became the sole tenant at the 22-acre campus. The firm's headquarters is described as retreat-like and is surrounded by the trees of a former nature reserve. The campus contains three buildings made of "midcentury modern fieldstone and glass". Since 2000 its staff has grown from 100 to 1500 employees, and the firm has taken office space in three additional buildings in the area. In an effort to consolidate its offices, the company made plans to build a 750,000- square-foot headquarters in Stamford, CT, about 15 miles from its present location in Westport, but cancelled the project in 2014.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Bridgewater Associates grew from 100 employees in 2003 to 1,500 employees in 2017. The company is reported to be one of the few hedge fund managers that hire its analysts and employees right out of college and from the annual pool of graduates from elite universities. Employees are transported daily in a "fancy" bus that ferries them from Manhattan to the company's Westport offices. According to an article in Bloomberg, "about a quarter of all new hires" leave within the first two years. Those that remain are reported to receive "generous" compensation and form bonds with fellow employees that are "like family" and the company's founder helps to pay for any employees that wish to learn the Transcendental Meditation technique.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: Dalio, the founder, relinquished his chief executive officer (CEO) title in July 2011 to take on the role of "mentor." The company's administration consists of three co-CEOs; Greg Jensen, Eileen Murray, former Controller at Morgan Stanley, and David McCormick; the former undersecretary of the Treasury Department. The company also has three co-CIOs (chief investment officers); Dalio, Bob Prince and Greg Jensen (who is also co-CEO). Greg Jensen, the 45-year-old co-CEO, oversees the research programs at the firm and came to the company as a Dartmouth College intern about 15 years earlier. Britt Harris, formerly of Verizon Investment Management, joined Bridgewater as co-CEO in November 2004 but left six months later. According to Dalio, the cultural fit was a problem, but Harris "is a superstar, with an absolutely fabulous character". From 2010 until early 2013, Bridgewater's general counsel was James Comey, former United States Deputy Attorney General and Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, Bridgewater had removed Greg Jensen as co-CEO and hired Jon Rubinstein instead. Rubinstein, a former Apple executive, left Bridgewater after 10 months in early 2017. Within a few years, Rubinstein was the third top-level executive to leave Bridgewater Associates after spending less than 12 months on the job. In December 2019, Bridgewater Associates announced that Eileen Murray plans to step down as co-chief executive in March 2020, making David McCormick the sole CEO.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 2005, Dalio created a handbook called "Principles" in response to the fast growth of the company. In 2017 Dalio published a new version of the handbook, "Principles: Life & Work", which became a New York Times best seller. The publication is said to be part self-help book, part management manual, and part treatise on the mechanics of natural selection as they function in a business setting. According to one trade journal, six years after the publication of "Principles", the firm's rapid expansion led to the institution of a "bizarre culture of criticism." The company acknowledges that employees "often encounter culture shock" when they begin working there, and Dalio admits: "it's not for everyone". According to the company's web site, employees are encouraged to be assertive, and discussions about disagreements and mistakes are considered an intentional part of the company's culture because they are felt to stimulate both learning and progress. In addition to Principles, Bridgewater employees use the "dot collector," a tool that enables employees to give real-time assessments of each other's views, contributing to the open environment.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: A 2011 article in "New York Magazine" described the company as the "largest and indisputably weirdest hedge fund" because of its unwavering commitment to "total honesty and accountability" and minute detail in its corporate culture. For example, Dalio encourages employees to do "whatever it takes to make the company great" and emphasizes transparency and openness in its decision making processes. All meetings are recorded and can be viewed by any employee as long as the meeting topic is not proprietary. In addition, Dalio says that he fosters "an extreme meritocracy of ideas" and asserts that decisions are made about investments without considerations of hierarchy. He says that any employee can respectfully say anything to anyone in the firm, but they must be prepared to be challenged in return. The company's flat corporate structure aims to remove the barriers associated with traditional asset management firms, and qualities like stodginess and risk-aversion are discouraged. In April 2017, Dalio presented a TED talk highlighting the culture and attributing a majority of Bridgewater's success to identifying the best ideas.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The company has been likened to a cult, but Dalio denies that and insists that the firm is a dedicated "community". An article in the "New Yorker" by John Cassidy says that "the word cult clearly has connotations that don't apply to an enterprise staffed by highly paid employees who can quit at any moment." Cassidy says the company is located away from other financial institutions and headed by a "strong-willed leader" and that employees use a "unique vocabulary". One client, Bob Jacksha, chief executive officer of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, said of the firm: "Every investment manager has its own culture [and] some are more unique than others." While Bridgewater's practice of radical transparency has at times been criticized, executives at the company maintain that open communication helps the firm better evaluate risk and is the key to the firm's success.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 2016, an employee filed a complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, saying that the hedge fund was like a “cauldron of fear and intimidation.”. The New York Times reported that "several former employees recalled one video that Bridgewater showed to new employees that was of a confrontation several years ago between top executives including Mr. Dalio and a woman who was a manager at the time, who breaks down crying".


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: In 2018, Wharton Professor Adam Grant published a podcast featuring a manager at Bridgewater who was ranked last in terms of performance following a meeting to illustrate how radical transparency works at the firm.


title: Bridgewater Associates

text: The organization's culture was explored in Robert Kegan's book "An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization".


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36 () is a family of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and space launch vehicles (Tsyklon) designed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The original R-36 was deployed under the GRAU index 8K67 and was given the NATO reporting name SS-9 Scarp. It was able to carry three warheads and was the first Soviet MRV (multiple re-entry vehicle) missile. The later version, the R-36M was produced under the GRAU designations 15A14 and 15A18 and was given the NATO reporting name SS-18 Satan. This missile was viewed by certain United States analysts as giving the Soviet Union first strike advantage over the U.S., particularly because of its rapid silo-reload ability, very heavy throw weight and extremely large number of re-entry vehicles. Some versions of the R-36M were deployed with 10 warheads and up to 40 penetration aids and the missile's high throw-weight made it theoretically capable of carrying more warheads or penetration aids. Contemporary U.S. missiles, such as the Minuteman III, carried up to three warheads at most.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36 became the base for the Tsyklon launch vehicles family. As of early 2021, Cyclone-4M, the last Tsyklon variant in development, is planned for launch in 2023 from Canso, Nova Scotia.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Some R-36 missiles have been converted into Dnepr medium-lift launch vehicles, capable of putting up to 4,500 kg into orbit.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Development of the R-36 was begun by OKB-586 (Yuzhnoye) in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine (at the time part of the Soviet Union) in 1962, and built upon the work of the R-16 program. The Chief Designer was Mikhail Yangel. Initial development was of light, heavy, and orbital versions, with flight testing from 1962 through 1966, at which time initial operational capability was achieved. News of the development of the orbital version caused alarm in the West with the possibility that the Soviets would be able to launch a large number of nuclear weapons into orbit where there was no capability to intercept them. Weapons could potentially be left orbiting for an indefinite period. The prospect of orbital nuclear weapons led both sides to agree to a treaty banning the basing of weapons of mass destruction in space.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: In 1970, development of a fourth version, capable of delivering multiple warheads, was begun, which was test flown the next year.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Further improvement of the R-36 led to the design of the R-36M, which provided a theoretical first-strike capability—the ability to destroy the United States' LGM-30 Minuteman ICBM silos and launch control centers before they could retaliate. However, neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Federation have ever publicly delineated the missile's particular role in their arsenal. The initial design of the R-36M called for a single massive 12 Mt warhead to be delivered over a range of 10,600 km. The missile was first tested in 1973 but this test ended in failure. After several delays the R-36M was deployed in December 1975. This design was delivered with a single 18–20 Mt warhead and a range of just over 11,000 km. This new version was given a new codename by NATO: SS-18 Satan.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36M has gone through six separate variants, with the first being phased out by 1984. The final variant designated R-36M-2 "Voevoda" (NATO codename SS-18 mod 6) was deployed in August 1988. This missile could deliver the same 18–20 Mt warhead 16,000 km. Prior variants mainly introduced MIRV (Multiple independent reentry vehicles) warheads. These missiles surpassed their western counterpart, the US LGM-118 Peacekeeper in terms of megatons delivered, range, and survivability, but were inferior in terms of accuracy (CEP).


title: R-36 (missile)

text: At full deployment, before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, 308 R-36M launch silos were operational. After the breakup of the USSR, 204 of these were located on the territory of the Russian Federation and 104 on the territory of newly independent Kazakhstan. In the next few years Russia reduced the number of R-36M launch silos to 154 to conform with the START I treaty. Part of the missiles in Kazakhstan (54 of them) were under the 57th Rocket Division at Zhangiz-Tobe (Solnechnyy), Semipalatinsk Oblast. The other R-36 establishment in Kazakhstan was the 38th Rocket Division at Derzhavinsk, Turgay Oblast. The dismantling of 104 launchers located in Kazakhstan was completed in September 1996. The START II treaty was to eliminate all R-36M missiles but it did not enter into force and the missiles remained on duty. Russia has steadily decreased the number of operational R-36Ms and as of March 2013, only 55 (all of the 10 MIRV R-36M2 version) remain.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: About 40 missiles will have their service lives extended so that they remain in service until about 2020. With the retirement of the 20 megaton R-36M2 warheads, the highest yield weapon in service with any nation is the estimated 5 Mt Chinese Dong Feng 5 (DF-5) ICBM (CSS-4) warhead and the Russian UR-100N 5 Mt rocket.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: US Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center estimates that as of June 2017 about 50 R-36M2 launchers were operationally deployed.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: In the last decade Russian armed forces have been steadily reducing the number of R-36M missiles in service, withdrawing those that age past their designed operational lifetime. About 40 missiles of the most modern variant R-36M2 (or RS-20V) will remain in service until 2019. As of January 2020, the Strategic Missile Troops had 46 R-36M2s in active service.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: In March 2006 Russia made an agreement with Ukraine that will regulate cooperation between the two countries on maintaining the R-36M2 missiles. It was reported that the cooperation with Ukraine will allow Russia to extend the service life of the R-36M2 missiles by at least ten to 28 years.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The commander of the Strategic Missile Troops Lt. Gen. Andrei Shvaichenko announced on December 16, 2009, that Russia planned to "develop a new liquid-propellant ICBM (RS-28 Sarmat) to replace the Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan), capable of carrying 10 warheads, by 2016."


title: R-36 (missile)

text: According to Interfax report, two R-36M2 missiles are planned to be dismantled by November 30, 2020. The process is to be carried out in accordance with the New START procedures.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Missiles of the R-36M family have never been deployed with more than ten warheads, but given their large throw-weight (8.8 tonnes as specified in START), they have the capacity to carry considerably more detonation power. Among the projects that the Soviet Union considered in the mid-1970s was that of a 15A17 missile—a follow-on to the R-36MUTTKh (15A18). The missile would have had an even greater throw-weight—9.5 tonnes—and would be able to carry a very large number of warheads. Five different versions of the missile were considered. Three of these versions would carry regular warheads — yield, yield, or yield. Two modifications were supposed to carry guided warheads ("upravlyaemaya golovnaya chast") — or . However, none of these upgraded models were ever developed. The SALT II Treaty, signed in 1979, prohibited increasing the number of warheads ICBMs could carry. Equally, from a strategic point of view, concentrating so many warheads on silo-based missiles was not seen as desirable, since it would have made a large proportion of the USSR's warheads vulnerable to a counterforce strike.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The operational deployment of the R-36M consisted of the R-36MUTTKh, which carried ten 500 kt warheads, and its follow-on, the R-36M2 (15A18M), which carried ten 800 kt warheads (single-warhead versions with either 8.3 Mt or 20 Mt warhead also existed at some point). To partially circumvent the treaty, the missile was equipped with 40 decoys to utilize the capacity left unused due to the 10-warhead limitation. These decoys would appear as warheads to any defensive system, making each missile as hard to intercept as 50 single warheads, rendering potential anti-ballistic defense ineffective.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: A US military estimate circa 1994 said "... those SS-18 silos have since been assessed to be much harder than ..."


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36 is a two-stage rocket powered by a liquid bipropellant, with UDMH as fuel and nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidizer. It carries one of two types of re-entry vehicles (RVs) developed especially for this missile:


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The development of the R-36 missile complex for use with the 8К69 (termed Fractional Orbital Bombardment System in the West, NATO reporting name SS-9 Mod 3) began on April 16, 1962. Such a missile provided some advantages over a conventional ICBM. The range is limited only by the parameters of the orbit that the re-entry vehicle has been placed into, and the re-entry vehicle may come from either direction, compelling the enemy to build considerably more expensive anti-missile systems. Due to the possibility of placing the warhead in orbit and keeping it there for some time, it is possible to reduce the time required to strike to just a few minutes. It is also much more difficult to predict where the warhead will land, since while the re-entry vehicle is on orbit, it is a very small object with few distinguishing marks and is hard to detect. Moreover, since the warhead can be commanded to land anywhere along the orbit's ground track, even detecting the warhead while it is in orbit does not allow accurate prediction of its intended target.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Early R-36s used radio ground guidance on the reasoning that it would be more accurate than inertial guidance, however, the engineers eventually scrapped this when they decided that inertial guidance was good enough.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The structure and design of the fractional orbit bombardment system were similar to a conventional R-36 ICBM system. The main difference from a conventional ICBM was in the design of the re-entry vehicle, which is fitted with a single 2.4 Mt warhead, a de-orbit engine, and control block. The control system independently uses inertial guidance and a radar altimeter which measure orbit parameters twice, once at the beginning of the orbital trajectory and again just before the firing of engines for de-orbiting. The silo launcher and command point were hardened against a nuclear blast.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The Soviet Union constructed two surface pads at Baikonur for R-36 tests at LC-67/1 and LC-67/2, and six silos (two at LC-80 and one each at LC-140, LC-141, and LC-142).


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The first launch of an R-36 took place on September 28, 1963, and ended ignominiously when the missile lost thrust one second after liftoff and fell back onto the pad, causing a fire.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: This debacle led to program director V.P. Petrov being fired and replaced by V.N. Soloviev. LC-67/1 was repaired and the next test took place successfully on December 3. Subsequent testing went better, however, LC-80/1 had to be rebuilt following another launch accident on January 13, 1965. Two months later, an R-36 caught fire during propellant loading on LC-67/1 and exploded, putting the pad out of commission for nine months. During test launch #17 (October 10, 1964), the warhead was retrieved with a parachute. Flight tests of the rocket were completed by May 20, 1968, and on November 19 of the same year it entered service. The first (and only) regiment with 18 launchers was deployed on August 25, 1969. A total of 139 8K67s flew between 1963 and 1975 with 16 failures.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36P missile (NATO codename SS-9 Mod 4) carried three re-entry vehicles. As with the original R-36, it was hot launched from the silo.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36M, known as SS-18 Satan by NATO, is similar to the R-36 in design, but has the capacity to mount a MIRV payload of 10 warheads, each with a 550–750 kt yield, or a single warhead of up to 20 Mt. Throw-weight of the missile is 8,800 kg. This makes the Soviet R-36 the world's heaviest ICBM; for comparison, the heaviest US ICBM (the retired LGM-118 Peacekeeper, that carried 10 warheads of 300 kt each) had less than a half of this, at 4,000 kg. The R-36M has two stages. The first is a 460,000 kgf (4.5 MN) thrust motor with four combustion chambers and nozzles. The second stage is a single-chamber 77,000 kgf (755 kN) thrust motor.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The R-36M was placed into a 39 m deep silo in a tubular storage/launch container. Upon launch, the missile uses a soft launch (also called a cold launch) system where the missile was launched out of the silo by a gas generator. The missile's engines would then ignite tens of metres above the ground. A soft launch system reduced the exposure to shock-waves and over-pressure found in igniting a missile inside a confined space like a silo.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Variant of the R-36M carrying a single large reentry vehicle, with a warhead yield of 18-25 Mt, a distance of about . In January 1971, cold-launch tests began during which the mortar launch was perfected. The actual flight tests for the missile began on 21 February 1973, though some sources suggest that testing began in October 1972. The testing phase of the R-36M with various different types of warheads was finished in October 1975 and on 30 December 1975 deployment began (though some Western sources suggest that an initial operational capability was reached in early 1975). A total of 56 were deployed by 1977, though all were replaced by R-36MUTTKh missiles by 1984. These high-yield weapons were assessed in the West as possibly developed to attack American Minuteman ICBM launch control centers.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Variant of the R-36M with a post-boost vehicle and up to eight reentry vehicles, each with a warhead yield estimated at between 0.5 and 1.5 Mt, with a range capability of about . The MIRVs were placed in pairs, and a post boost vehicle with a command structure and a propulsion system were contained in the nose cone of the R-36M. The flight tests of this variant began in September 1973 (though some Western sources suggest that the initial flight test occurred in August 1973), with IOC in 1975. Approximately 132 were deployed by 1978, but the post-boost vehicle design was seriously flawed, and all missiles were replaced by R-36MUTTKh by 1983.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Variant of the R-36MUTTKh with a single large reentry vehicle that was an improved version of the R-36M. On 16 August 1976, a few months after the R-36M entered service, the development of an improved modification of the R-36M (15A14) was approved. This missile subsequently received the designation R-36MUTTKh (15A18) and was developed by KB Yuzhnoye (OKB-586) through December 1976. The R-36MUTTKh was capable of carrying two different nose cones. On 29 November 1979, deployment of the improved R-36M with a single reentry vehicle carrying an 18–25 Mt warhead began. This variant is no longer in service.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: Variant of the R-36MUTTKh with multiple warheads. It was probably designed to attack and destroy ICBMs and other hardened targets in the US. Its increasing accuracy made it possible to reduce the yield of the warheads and allowed an increase in the number of warheads from 8 to 10. According to some Western estimates, evidence suggested that it may be capable of carrying as many as 14 RVs (this may reflect observation of the deployment of countermeasures intended to overcome a ballistic missile defense, or to confuse American attack characterization systems). The flight-design tests of the R-36MUTTKh began on 31 October 1977 and in November 1979 the flight tests of the MIRVed missile were completed. The first three regiments were put on alert on 18 September 1979. During 1980 a total of 120 missiles were deployed, replacing the last remaining R-36 missiles. In 1982–1983 the remaining R-36M missiles were also replaced with the new R-36MUTTKh and the total number of deployed missiles reached the maximum 308 ceiling established in the SALT-1 treaty. The R-36MUTTKh force had the estimated capability to destroy 65 to 80 percent of US ICBM silos using two nuclear warheads against each. Even after this type of attack, it was estimated that more than 1000 R-36MUTTKh warheads would be available for further strikes against targets in the US. After 2009, the R-36MUTTKh were all eliminated in favor of the newer R-36M2.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: This newer, more accurate version placed in converted silos allowed the R-36M family to remain the bulwark of the SRF’s hard-target-kill capability. The R-36M2 carries 10 MIRVs, each having a nearly twice the yield of the R-36MUTTKh warheads according to Western estimates (approximately 750 kt to 1 Mt), though Russian sources suggest a yield of 550–750 kt each. The increase in the R-36M2's warhead yield, along with improved accuracy, would, under the START treaty, help allow the Russians to maintain their hard-target-kill wartime requirements even with the 50 percent cut in heavy ICBMs the START agreement required. The technical proposals to build a modernized heavy ICBM were made in June 1979. The missile subsequently received the designation R-36M2 Voevoda and the industrial index number 15A18M. The design of the R-36M2 was completed in June 1982. The R-36M2 had a series of new engineering features. The engine of the second stage is completely built into the fuel tank (earlier this was only used on SLBMs) and the design of the transport-launching canister was altered. Unlike the R-36M, the 10 warheads on the post-boost vehicle are located on a special frame in two circles. The flight tests of the R-36M2 equipped with 10 MIRVs began in March 1986 and were completed in March 1988. The first regiment with these missiles was put on alert on 30 July 1988 and was deployed on 11 August 1988. This is the only variant still operational.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: One of the missile's most important features is its storage/basing in a container, inserted in the silo. The container doubles as a mortar barrel – it has a "piston" at its bottom, beneath the missile. The drum-like "piston" is filled with a slow-burning, gas pressure-generating charge that pushes, mortar-like, the missile from the container. Only when several meters above the silo with the now empty container the "piston" is pushed sideways by a small rocket motor to avoid being accelerated towards the silo by the ignition of the missile's main engine. Thus the silo is a) spared the burning-out by the main engine flames, and so b) the empty container could be quickly removed and a new container with missile could be inserted by a ready transporter/erector into the intact silo, allowing for a second salvo before the adversary's warheads arrive. This feature was a deep concern for the US side during the SALT/START negotiations, as it gave Soviet Union the possibility to strike US targets again after the first missile exchange was concluded.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The flight tests of the R-36M2 missile carrying a single warhead with a yield of 20 Mt were completed in September 1989 and deployment began in August 1991. Ten missiles were deployed. One intended use of these large warheads was high altitude detonation to incapacitate electronics and communications through a very large electromagnetic pulse, however, the most likely use would be against missile launch control centers as the stated purpose for which the R-36MUTTKh warheads were designed. These missiles were all decommissioned by late 2009.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: A proposal has been advanced to modify Voyevoda R-36M2 Satan heavy ICBMs to destroy incoming asteroids of up to 100 m, similar to the Chelyabinsk asteroid.


title: R-36 (missile)

text: The Strategic Missile Troops are the only operator of the R-36. As of January 2020, 46 silo-based missiles are deployed at:


title: Bessie Smith

text: Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 43.


title: Bessie Smith

text: The 1900 census indicates that her family reported that Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 1892. The 1910 census gives her age as 16, and a birth date of April 15, 1894, which appears on subsequent documents and was observed as her birthday by the Smith family. The 1870 and 1880 censuses report several older siblings or half-siblings.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith was the daughter of Laura and William Smith, a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a "minister of the gospel", in Moulton, Lawrence County, Alabama). He died while his daughter was too young to remember him. By the time Bessie was nine, her mother and a brother had also died. Her older sister Viola took charge of caring for her siblings. Consequently, Bessie was unable to gain an education because her parents had died and her elder sister was taking care of her.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Due to her parents' death and her poverty, Bessie experienced a "wretched childhood". To earn money for their impoverished household, Bessie and her brother Andrew busked on the streets of Chattanooga. She sang and danced as he played the guitar. They often performed on "street corners for pennies", and their habitual location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at Thirteenth and Elm streets, in the heart of the city's African-American community.


title: Bessie Smith

text: In 1904, her oldest brother Clarence left home and joined a small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. "If Bessie had been old enough, she would have gone with him", said Clarence's widow, Maud. "That's why he left without telling her, but Clarence told me she was ready, even then. Of course, she was only a child."


title: Bessie Smith

text: In 1912, Clarence returned to Chattanooga with the Stokes troupe and arranged an audition for his sister with the troupe managers, Lonnie and Cora Fisher. Bessie was hired as a dancer rather than a vocalist since the company already included popular singer Ma Rainey. Contemporary accounts indicate that, while Ma Rainey did not teach Smith to sing, she likely helped her develop a stage presence. Smith eventually moved on to performing in chorus lines, making the "81" Theatre in Atlanta her home base. She also performed in shows on the black-owned Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit and would become one of its major attractions.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith began forming her own act around 1913, at Atlanta's "81" Theater. By 1920, she had established a reputation in the South and along the East Coast. At the time, sales of over 100,000 copies of "Crazy Blues", recorded for Okeh Records by the singer Mamie Smith (no relation), pointed to a new market. The recording industry had not directed its product to black people, but the success of the record led to a search for female blues singers.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Hoping to capitalize on this new market, Smith began her recording career in 1923. Bessie Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923 by Frank Walker, a talent agent who had seen her perform years earlier. Her first recording session for Columbia was on February 15, 1923; it was engineered by Dan Hornsby who was recording and discovering many southern music talents of that era. For most of 1923, her records were issued on Columbia's regular A-series. When the company established a "race records" series, Smith's "Cemetery Blues" (September 26, 1923) was the first issued. Both sides of her first record, "Downhearted Blues" backed with "Gulf Coast Blues", were hits (an earlier recording of "Downhearted Blues" by its co-writer Alberta Hunter had previously been released by Paramount Records).


title: Bessie Smith

text: As her popularity increased, Smith became a headliner on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter and performing in tent shows the rest of the year, Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day and began traveling in her own 72-foot-long railroad car. Columbia's publicity department nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues", but the national press soon upgraded her title to "Empress of the Blues". Smith's music stressed independence, fearlessness, and sexual freedom, implicitly arguing that working-class women did not have to alter their behavior to be worthy of respect.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Despite her success, neither she nor her music was accepted in all circles. She once auditioned for Black Swan Records (W. E. B. Du Bois was on its board of directors) and was dismissed because she was considered too rough as she supposedly stopped singing to spit. The businessmen involved with Black Swan Records were surprised when she became the most successful diva because her style was rougher and coarser than Mamie Smith. Even her admirers—white and black—considered her a "rough" woman (i.e., working class or even "low class").


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith had a strong contralto voice, which recorded well from her first session, which was conducted when recordings were made acoustically. The advent of electrical recording made the power of her voice even more evident. Her first electrical recording was "Cake Walking Babies [From Home]", recorded on May 5, 1925. Smith also benefited from the new technology of radio broadcasting, even on stations in the segregated South. For example, after giving a concert to a white-only audience at a theater in Memphis, Tennessee, in October 1923, she performed a late-night concert on station WMC, which was well received by the radio audience. Musicians and composers like Danny Barker and Tommy Dorsey compared her presence and delivery to a preacher because of her ability to enrapture and move her audience.


title: Bessie Smith

text: She made 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green. A number of Smith's recordings—such as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1927—quickly became among the best-selling records of their respective release years.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith's career was cut short by the Great Depression, which nearly put the recording industry out of business, and the advent of sound in film, which spelled the end of vaudeville. She never stopped performing, however. The days of elaborate vaudeville shows were over, but Smith continued touring and occasionally sang in clubs. In 1929, she appeared in a Broadway musical, "Pansy". The play was a flop; top critics said she was its only asset.


title: Bessie Smith

text: In November 1929, Smith made her only film appearance, starring in a two-reeler, "St. Louis Blues", based on composer W. C. Handy's song of the same name. In the film, directed by Dudley Murphy and shot in Astoria, Queens, she sings the title song accompanied by members of Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, the pianist James P. Johnson and a string section—a musical environment radically different from that of any of her recordings.


title: Bessie Smith

text: In 1933, John Henry Hammond, who also mentored Billie Holiday, asked Smith to record four sides for Okeh (which had been acquired by Columbia Records in 1925). He claimed to have found her in semi-obscurity, "working as a hostess in a speakeasy on Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia." Smith worked at Art's Cafe on Ridge Avenue, but not as a hostess and not until the summer of 1936. In 1933, when she made the Okeh sides, she was still touring. Hammond was known for his selective memory and gratuitous embellishments.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith was paid a non-royalty fee of $37.50 for each selection on these Okeh sides, which were her last recordings. Made on November 24, 1933, they serve as a hint of the transformation she made in her performances as she shifted her blues artistry into something that fit the swing era. The relatively modern accompaniment is notable. The band included such swing era musicians as the trombonist Jack Teagarden, the trumpeter Frankie Newton, the tenor saxophonist Chu Berry, the pianist Buck Washington, the guitarist Bobby Johnson, and the bassist Billy Taylor. Benny Goodman, who happened to be recording with Ethel Waters in the adjoining studio, dropped by and is barely audible on one selection. Hammond was not entirely pleased with the results, preferring to have Smith revisit her old blues sound. "Take Me for a Buggy Ride" and "Gimme a Pigfoot", both written by Wesley Wilson, were among her most popular recordings.


title: Bessie Smith

text: On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car crash on U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving, and misjudged the speed of a slow-moving truck ahead of him. Skid marks at the scene suggested that Morgan tried to avoid the truck by driving around its left side, but he hit the rear of the truck side-on at high speed. The tailgate of the truck sheared off the wooden roof of Smith's old Packard vehicle. Smith, who was in the passenger seat, probably with her right arm or elbow out the window, took the full brunt of the impact. Morgan escaped without injuries.


title: Bessie Smith

text: The first person on the scene was a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation). In the early 1970s, Hugh Smith gave a detailed account of his experience to Bessie's biographer Chris Albertson. This is the most reliable eyewitness testimony about the events surrounding her death.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Arriving at the scene, Hugh Smith examined Smith, who was lying in the middle of the road with obviously severe injuries. He estimated she had lost about a half pint of blood, and immediately noted a major traumatic injury: her right arm was almost completely severed at the elbow. He stated that this injury alone did not cause her death. Though the light was poor, he observed only minor head injuries. He attributed her death to extensive and severe crush injuries to the entire right side of her body, consistent with a sideswipe collision.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Henry Broughton, a fishing partner of Dr. Smith's, helped him move Bessie Smith to the shoulder of the road. Dr. Smith dressed her arm injury with a clean handkerchief and asked Broughton to go to a house about 500 feet off the road to call an ambulance. By the time Broughton returned, about 25 minutes later, Bessie Smith was in shock.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Time passed with no sign of the ambulance, so Hugh Smith suggested that they take her into Clarksdale in his car. He and Broughton had almost finished clearing the back seat when they heard the sound of a car approaching at high speed. Smith flashed his lights in warning, but the oncoming car failed to slow and plowed into his car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Bessie Smith's overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car ricocheted off Hugh Smith's car into the ditch on the right, barely missing Broughton and Bessie Smith.


title: Bessie Smith

text: The young couple in the speeding car did not sustain life-threatening injuries. Two ambulances then arrived from Clarksdale—one from the black hospital, summoned by Broughton, the second from the white hospital, acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the crash victims.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Bessie Smith was taken to the G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital in Clarksdale, where her right arm was amputated. She died that morning without regaining consciousness. After her death, an often repeated, but now discredited story emerged that she died because a whites-only hospital in Clarksdale refused to admit her. The jazz writer and producer John Hammond gave this account in an article in the November 1937 issue of "DownBeat" magazine. The circumstances of Smith's death and the rumor reported by Hammond formed the basis for Edward Albee's 1959 one-act play "The Death of Bessie Smith".


title: Bessie Smith

text: "The Bessie Smith ambulance would not have gone to a white hospital; you can forget that", Hugh Smith told Albertson. "Down in the Deep South Cotton Belt, no ambulance driver, or white driver, would even have thought of putting a colored person off in a hospital for white folks."


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia a little over a week later, on October 4, 1937. Initially, her body was laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia's black community, her body had to be moved to the O. V. Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed past her coffin on Sunday, October 3. Contemporary newspapers reported that her funeral was attended by about seven thousand people. Far fewer mourners attended the burial at Mount Lawn Cemetery, in nearby Sharon Hill. Jack Gee thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith's grave remained unmarked until a tombstone was erected on August 7, 1970, paid for by the singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Smith. Dory Previn wrote a song about Joplin and the tombstone, "Stone for Bessie Smith", for her album "Mythical Kings and Iguanas". The Afro-American Hospital (now the Riverside Hotel) was the site of the dedication of the fourth historical marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.


title: Bessie Smith

text: In 1923, Smith was living in Philadelphia when she met Jack Gee, a security guard, whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first record was being released. During the marriage, Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of the day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers, and touring in her own custom-built railroad car. Their marriage was stormy with infidelity on both sides, including numerous female sex partners for Bessie. Gee was impressed by the money, but never adjusted to show business life or to Smith's bisexuality. In 1929, when she learned of his affair with another singer, Gertrude Saunders, Smith ended the relationship, although neither of them sought a divorce.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith later entered a common-law marriage with an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton's uncle. She stayed with him until her death.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Songs like "Jail House Blues", "Work House Blues", "Prison Blues", "Sing Sing Prison Blues" and "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" dealt critically with social issues of the day such as chain gangs, the convict lease system and capital punishment. "Poor Man's Blues" and "Washwoman's Blues" are considered by scholars to be an early form of African-American protest music.


title: Bessie Smith

text: What becomes evident after listening to her music and studying her lyrics is that Smith emphasized and channeled a subculture within the African-American working class. Additionally, she incorporated commentary on social issues like poverty, intra-racial conflict, and female sexuality into her lyrics. Her lyrical sincerity and public behavior were not widely accepted as appropriate expressions for African-American women; therefore, her work was often written off as distasteful or unseemly, rather than as an accurate representation of the African-American experience.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith's work challenged elitist norms by encouraging working-class women to embrace their right to drink, party, and satisfy their sexual needs as a means of coping with stress and dissatisfaction in their daily lives. Smith advocated for a wider vision of African-American womanhood beyond domesticity, piety, and conformity; she sought empowerment and happiness through independence, sassiness, and sexual freedom. Although Smith was a voice for many minority groups and one of the most gifted blues performers of her time, the themes in her music were precocious, which led to many believing that her work was undeserving of serious recognition.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Smith's lyrics are often speculated to have portrayed her sexuality. In "Prove it On Me", performed by Ma Rainey, Rainey famously sang, ""Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must've been women, 'cause I don't like no mens.. they say I do it, ain't nobody caught me. Sure got to prove it on me."" African American queer theorists and activists have often looked to Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith as "gender-bending" role models of the early 20th-century blues era.


title: Bessie Smith

text: There was no official national record chart in the US until 1936. The notional positions below have been formulated "post facto" by Joel Whitburn.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Three recordings by Smith were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, an award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance".


title: Bessie Smith

text: In 2002, Smith's recording of "Downhearted Blues" was included in the National Recording Registry by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. The board annually selects recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Bessie Smith

text: "Downhearted Blues" was also included in the list of "Songs of the Century" by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001, and in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 songs that shaped rock 'n' roll.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Technical faults in the majority of her original gramophone recordings (especially variations in recording speed, which raised or lowered the apparent pitch of her voice) misrepresented the "light and shade" of her phrasing, interpretation and delivery. They altered the apparent key of her performances (sometimes raised or lowered by as much as a semitone). The "center hole" in some of the master recordings had not been in the true middle of the master disc, so that there were wide variations in tone, pitch, key and phrasing, as commercially released records revolved around the spindle.


title: Bessie Smith

text: Given those historic limitations, the current digitally remastered versions of her work deliver noticeable improvements in the sound quality of Smith's performances, though some critics believe that the American Columbia Records compact disc releases are somewhat inferior to subsequent transfers made by the late John R. T. Davies for Frog Records.