title: Wesley So

text: In November 2022 he won the first-ever Chess.com Global Championship for $200,000, defeating Hikaru Nakamura in the semi-finals and Nihal Sarin in the finals with a match score of 4.5-1.5.


title: Wesley So

text: So has competed in five Chess Olympiads, making his debut at 12 years old representing the Philippines at the Turin Olympiad in 2006. Since the 2016 Olympiad, So has represented the United States.


title: Wesley So

text: As a young player, So's aggressive and tactical style of play caught the attention of a former Philippine chess champion, International Master Rodolfo Tan Cardoso. Cardoso said of So: The young lad...would sacrifice a queen or any other pieces in his arsenal to get a winning attack...He cannot afford decent training given by well known GM-coaches and has to rely on his pure talent...before competing.


title: Wesley So

text: So commented during an interview with Alina l'Ami in 2009: So far I play aggressively. I would like to play a solid game with a solid opening. This is what I want. I think my style is close to Vishy Anand. Of course we have different level.His playing style has evolved in recent years to become more precise and risk-free, relying on taking advantage of opponent's mistakes.


title: Wesley So

text: So has said that his favourite game was his win against Ni Hua in the 2008 Chess Olympiad, which was his first win against a 2700-rated opponent.


title: Wesley So

text: During So's tournament victory at Bad Wiessee in 2006, he earned a creativity award in the Russian magazine "e3e5" for the following game:


title: Wesley So

text: So has been estranged from his biological family after they left for Canada and left him alone in Metro Manila. In the United States, So lives in Excelsior, Minnesota with Lotis Key, her husband Bambi Kabigting, and their daughter, whom he considers his adoptive family. So became a citizen of the United States in February 2021.


title: Wesley So

text: He is an Evangelical Christian. In an article for "Christianity Today" in August 2017, he stated that he reads the Bible every night and attends church every weekend.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen, the character first appeared in "Marvel Preview" #7 (Summer 1976). He is an intelligent, anthropomorphic raccoon, who is an expert marksman, weapon specialist and master tactician. His name and aspects of his character are a nod to The Beatles' 1968 song "Rocky Raccoon". Rocket Raccoon appeared as a prominent member in the 2008 relaunch of the superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: The character has appeared in several media adaptations as a member of that team, including animated television series, toys and video games. He appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014), "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017), "" (2018), "" (2019), and "" (2022) and "Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special" (2022 television film). In these appearances, Rocket Raccoon is voiced by Bradley Cooper, with motion capture provided by Sean Gunn. Rocket will return in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" (2023).


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: The character was created by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen, and inspired by the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon". Other references to the song were featured in Rocket's appearance in "The Incredible Hulk" #271 (May 1982), which was titled "Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Named Rocket Raccoon" and saw the Hulk help Rocket stop a villain trying to steal "Gideon's Bible", which in the Marvel Universe was a book that contained the sum of all knowledge on the Loonies colony.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon first appeared in "Marvel Preview" #7 (Summer 1976), in the back-up feature "The Sword in the Star", under the name "Rocky". He would next appear in "The Incredible Hulk" #271 (May 1982), where it is learned that "Rocky" is short for "Rocket". In 1985, he received his own four-issue limited series and in an afterword to the first issue, Mantlo himself asserted that this was the same character seen in "Preview", penciled by Mike Mignola and inked by Al Gordon with Al Milgrom. Rocket appeared in "Quasar" #15 in 1990 and later appeared in three issues of "Sensational She-Hulk" in 1992 (#44–46). The character only appeared in a total of ten comic books in his first thirty years of existence.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Besides a brief appearance in a 2006 issue of "Exiles", Rocket Raccoon was next seen in 2007's "" and "Annihilation: Conquest - Star-Lord" limited series, and their spin-off series, a new volume of "Guardians of the Galaxy". He remained a regular member of the series cast until it was canceled with issue #25 in 2010, also appearing in the follow-up limited series "The Thanos Imperative". Along with fellow Guardian Groot, Rocket starred in backup features in "Annihilators" #1–4 (May 2011 – August 2011) and "Annihilators: Earthfall" #1–4 (November 2011 – February 2012 ).


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon, along with the other members of the Guardians, appeared in issues #4-8 of "Avengers Assemble", a series intended as a jumping-on point for fans of the film "The Avengers". He appears prominently in "Guardians of the Galaxy" vol. 3, a part of the 2012 Marvel NOW! relaunch.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: In February 2014, it was announced that Skottie Young would write and illustrate a "Rocket Raccoon" ongoing series. The series began in July 2014, with the first issue selling over 300,000 copies. Jake Parker replaced Young as the artist beginning with issue #5. The series ended in May 2015 as one of many titles to be cancelled for Marvel's "Secret Wars" event. A new volume, titled "Rocket Raccoon and Groot", began in January 2016 as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon acts as the "Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant", an area of outer space sealed off from the rest of the cosmos by the so-called Galacian Wall. Rocket is captain of the starship "Rack 'n' Ruin", and he and his first mate Wal Rus (a talking walrus) come from the planet Halfworld in the Keystone Quadrant, an abandoned colony for the mentally ill where the animal companions were genetically manipulated to grant them human level intelligence and bipedal body construction for many to become caretakers of the inmates. Rocket was Halfworld's chief law officer ("ranger") who protected the colony against various threats.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: At one point, Judson Jakes tried to steal the Halfworld Bible, but was thwarted by Rocket and various animal associates. Later, Lord Dyvyne abducted Rocket's friend Lylla Otter, and Jakes began the Toy War. As the Toy War continued, Blackjack O'Hare teamed up with Rocket, and Rocket was reunited with Lylla. The "Rack 'n' Ruin" was soon destroyed, as Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne teamed up to kill Rocket Raccoon. Rocket Raccoon and his friends cured the Loonies of their mental illnesses, as Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne were apparently killed. Rocket and the animals as well as the robots left Halfworld and took off into space for their own adventures. Some time later, Rocket was revealed to have been a laboratory subject on the Stranger's planet, and escaped his captivity there.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon resurfaced as a member of the team chosen to accompany Star-Lord on his mission to stop a Phalanx infiltration of the Kree homeworld. Rocket is depicted as a gifted military tactician who is fearless, loyal, and insightful. It is heavily implied that he has a case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Rocket's trademark rocket skates are absent.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket joins the new Guardians of the Galaxy at the behest of his friend Star-Lord. It is he who suggests that the team adopt that moniker after hearing it mentioned by Major Victory. Later, when the team almost disbands and Peter Quill (Star-Lord) disappears (sent into the Negative Zone by Ronan), Rocket keeps the team alive, and brings in Groot as member, as they had become firm friends. Rocket takes over as leader until they rescue Peter and save the Earth from an alien invasion. When the team tries to halt the growing War of Kings, Rocket leads the portion of the team assigned to make contact with the Shi'ar. They are unable to teleport into the Emperor Vulcan's flagship and have to be rescued by the Starjammers and Rocket's old friend Ch'od. They are able to bring back the rightful queen of the Shi'ar, but she is killed after Rocket departs, much to his horror.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: After the Guardians disband, Rocket Raccoon takes up a normal job with Timely Inc. He and Groot were reunited and tricked into returning to Halfworld: there, he found that his memories of the place were mostly half-truths and deliberately crafted fake memories. In reality, Jakes and Blackjack O'Hare had worked with Rocket in providing security at Halfworld Asylum for the Criminally Insane; "Doctor" Dyvyne had been Head of Psychology there; and both the anthropomorphic animals and the automaton clowns were deliberately created to work at the asylum, as their appearance would calm the inmates. The crises that Rocket half-remembered had been caused by the psychic supervillain the Star Thief, who had been admitted as an inmate and used his psychic powers to turn the inhabitants against each other. Rocket had turned the warders into a biological "key" to keep Star-Thief locked up, and deliberately altered his mind and left Halfworld so it could never be opened - but he was tricked into returning by the Thief, whose mind had escaped into the asylum after his host body died.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: When the "Guardians of the Galaxy" title was relaunched in 2013, Rocket was again a member of the team.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: In the first issue of "Secret Wars", the Guardians of the Galaxy take part in the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610, in which Rocket and Groot are killed by the Children of Tomorrow.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: As part of Marvel's 2015–2019 "All-New, All-Different Marvel branding", Rocket Raccoon takes leadership of the Guardians of the Galaxy while Star-Lord was busy handling things on Spartax.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: During the crisis in "Avengers: No Road Home" when light itself was nearly destroyed by the ancient Greek goddess of darkness Nyx, Rocket was one of the heroes who were inadvertently assembled to fight her, including Hawkeye, Hercules, Hulk, the Scarlet Witch, Spectrum, the Vision, Voyager, and Conan the Barbarian. Once Nyx was defeated, Rocket mused that this would allow him to cross "being an Avenger" off his bucket list.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket Raccoon possesses the normal attributes of an Earth raccoon, including speed (which has been additionally amplified by his training), and an acute sense of smell, sight, hearing and touch. Sharp claws allow him to scale walls, buildings, and trees with ease. He is an accomplished starship pilot, a brilliant engineer and technician, and an expert marksman with the two laser pistols he carries as well as having an affinity for heavy weapons. He is a master military tactician and leader, attributes that help him take charge of the Guardians of the Galaxy when Star-Lord is unavailable.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Rocket appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, portrayed by Sean Gunn via motion capture and voiced by Bradley Cooper. This version's real name is 89P13, was created by the High Evolutionary, and is shown to have cybernetic implants within his body.


title: Rocket Raccoon

text: Dominic Lerose of "The Daily Cardinal" wrote that "audiences love not only for his cuteness and humor, but for his saddened soul and desire to fit into the dramatic universe of Marvel." LeRose cited the "underdog" nature and the "emotional pain" stemming from a "sad backstory [that] makes us as an audience root and care for him." In addition he stated that audiences like his relationship with Groot.


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: John David Ashton (born February 22, 1948) is an American actor, known for his roles in "Beverly Hills Cop", "Beverly Hills Cop II", "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Midnight Run".


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Ashton attended Defiance College in Ohio and is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Theatre. He attended Enfield High School in Enfield, Connecticut.


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: Ashton has made numerous appearances in both television and feature films. He played Willie Joe Garr on several episodes of "Dallas". He appeared in an episode of "Columbo", "Negative Reaction", and in episode 5 of "Police Squad!", "Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)".


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: His early film credits included roles in "An Eye for an Eye" (1973), "Breaking Away" (1979), "Borderline" (1980), "Honky Tonk Freeway" (1981), in (1985)episode of the twilight zone (the chameleon ) "Last Resort" (1986) and "King Kong Lives" (1986).


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: Ashton also starred as Detective Sergeant John Taggart in the first two installments of the "Beverly Hills Cop" trilogy, alongside Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold. He appeared as Eric Stoltz's character's father in the 1987 John Hughes-penned comedy-drama "Some Kind of Wonderful", and worked with Hughes again in "She's Having a Baby" the following year. In 1988, he co-starred in the action-comedy "Midnight Run" as a rival bounty hunter to Robert De Niro's character. He also starred in "Little Big League" (1994) with Luke Edwards, "Trapped in Paradise" (1994), "The Shooter" (1995), "Meet the Deedles" (1998), "Instinct" (1999), and appeared in a supporting role in the 2007 drama "Gone Baby Gone" directed by Ben Affleck. He also played the role of Cactus Jack Slater in an episode of the 80s TV show "The A-Team" titled "Cup A Joe".


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: Ashton has stated that, given the proper arrangements, he would like to reprise his roles in the rumored "Beverly Hills Cop IV" and "Midnight Run II" productions. He guest-starred opposite "Beverly Hills Cop" co-star Ronny Cox in an episode of Matthew Perry's 2011 series, "Mr Sunshine".


title: John Ashton (actor)

text: Ashton married his first wife Victoria Marie Runn in 1968: they divorced in 1970. He married his second wife Bridget Baker-Ashton in 1976: they divorced in 2001. Ashton has two children, one by each of his ex-wives. He has a daughter from his first marriage. He currently resides in Fort Collins, Colorado.


title: Daytona 500

text: The Daytona 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series motor race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is the first of two Cup races held every year at Daytona, the second being the Coke Zero Sugar 400, and one of three held in Florida, with the annual fall showdown Dixie Vodka 400 being held at Homestead south of Miami. From 1988 to 2019, it was one of the four restrictor plate races on the Cup schedule. The inaugural Daytona 500 was held in 1959 coinciding with the opening of the speedway and since 1982, it has been the season-opening race of the Cup series.


title: Daytona 500

text: The Daytona 500 is regarded as the most important and prestigious race on the NASCAR calendar, carrying by far the largest purse. Championship points awarded are equal to that of any other NASCAR Cup Series race. It is also the series' first race of the year; this phenomenon is unique in sports, which tend to have championships or other major events at the end of the season rather than the start. From 1995-2020, U.S. television ratings for the Daytona 500 have been the highest for any auto race of the year, surpassing the traditional leader, the Indianapolis 500 which in turn greatly surpasses the Daytona 500 in in-track attendance and international viewing; however, in 2021 the Indianapolis 500 surpassed the Daytona 500 in TV ratings and viewership. The 2006 Daytona 500 attracted the sixth largest average live global TV audience of any sporting event that year with 20 million viewers.


title: Daytona 500

text: The race serves as the final event of Speedweeks and is also known as "The Great American Race" or the "Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing". Since its inception, the race has been held in mid-to-late February. From 1971 to 2011, and again since 2018, the event has been as associated with Presidents Day weekend, taking place on the Sunday before the third Monday in February. On eight occasions, the race has been run on Valentine's Day.


title: Daytona 500

text: Since 1997, the winner of the Daytona 500 has been presented with the Harley J. Earl Trophy in Victory Lane, and the winning car is displayed in race-winning condition for one year at Daytona 500 Experience, a museum and gallery adjacent to Daytona International Speedway.


title: Daytona 500

text: The race is the direct successor of shorter races held on the Daytona Beach Road Course. This long square was partially on the sand and also on the highway near the beach. Earlier events featured races with stock cars. A stock car race was held at Daytona International Speedway in 1959. It was the second 500-mile NASCAR race, following the annual Southern 500, and has been held every year since. By 1961, it began to be referred to as the Daytona 500, by which it is still commonly known.


title: Daytona 500

text: Daytona International Speedway is long and a 500-mile race requires 200 laps to complete. However, the race was considered official after halfway (100 laps/250 miles) had been completed from 1959 to 2016. From 2017 to 2019, the race was considered official after the conclusion of Stage 2 (120 laps/300 miles) when stage-racing was introduced. In 2020, they revised the rule in which a race is considered official at either halfway or the conclusion of Stage 2 (whichever comes first, in this case halfway). The race has been shortened four times due to rain (in 1965, 1966, 2003, and 2009) and once in response to the energy crisis of 1974. Since the adaptation of the green–white–checkered finish rule in 2004, the race has gone past 500 miles on ten occasions (2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2020). It took two attempts to finish the race in 2010, 2011, and 2020. The 2020 running is the longest Daytona 500 contested, lasting 209 laps/522.5 miles.


title: Daytona 500

text: The qualifying procedure is unique for the Daytona 500. Some teams must race their way into the Daytona 500 field. The first row is set by a timed round of qualifying, held one week before the race (prior to 2003, this was two rounds; prior to 2001, it was three). The remainder of the field is set by two separate qualifying races (these were from 1959 to 1967; from 1969 to 2004; and with a two-lap overtime, if necessary, beginning in 2005 (these races were not held in 1968 due to rain). The top two drivers from the qualifying races who were not in the top 35 in owner points were given spots on the field, and the rest of the field was set by the finishing order of the duels, with guaranteed spots to those in the top 35. The remaining spots, 40 to 43, were filled by top qualifying times of those not already in the field from the qualifying race. If there was a previous NASCAR champion without a spot, he would get one of those four spots, otherwise, the fourth-fastest car was added to the field.


title: Daytona 500

text: Prior to 2005 – and beginning again in 2013 – after the top two cars were set, the top fourteen cars in the qualifying races advance to the field, and then between six (1998–2003), eight (1995–97, 2004) or 10 (until 1994) fastest cars which do not advance from the qualifying race are added, then cars in the top 35 in owner points not locked into the race, and then the driver with the championship provisional, except for 1985 when no such car was eligible for a provisional starting spot, the only time that happened in the Daytona 500 from when the provisional was added in 1976 through 2004.


title: Daytona 500

text: The Daytona 500 was the first auto race to be televised live flag-to-flag on network television when CBS aired it in 1979, continuing to air until 2000.


title: Daytona 500

text: From 2001 to 2006, the race alternated between FOX and NBC under the terms of a six–year, $2.48 billion NASCAR television contract, with FOX broadcasting the Daytona 500 in odd-numbered years (2001, 2003, 2005) and the Pepsi 400 in even-numbered years (2002, 2004, 2006) and NBC broadcasting the opposite race in that year.


title: Daytona 500

text: In 2005, a new television contract was signed, which made FOX the sole broadcaster of the Daytona 500 for eight years, from 2007 to 2014. In 2013, 10 more years were added to the contract, giving FOX every Daytona 500 from 2015 to 2024 as well, for a total of at least 20 Daytona 500s in a row.


title: Daytona 500

text: The installation of the lighting system at Daytona International Speedway in 1998, as well as the implementations of the television packages in 2001 and 2007 respectively, have resulted in the race starting and ending much later than it did in the race's early years. The race started at 12:15 p.m. EST from 1979 until 2000. The start time was moved to 1:00 p.m EST from 2001 to 2004, 2:30 p.m. in 2005 and 2006, and 3:30 p.m. from 2007 to 2009, all for the convenience of west coast viewers. The 2005 race ended at sunset for the first time in its history, and the 2006 race ended well after sunset.


title: Daytona 500

text: Every Daytona 500 between 2006 and 2010, as well as the 2012 and 2014 races, ended under the lights. The changing track conditions caused by the onset of darkness in the closing laps in these years forced the crew chiefs to predict the critical car setup adjustments needed for their final two pit stops. The 2007 race was the first Daytona 500 to go into prime-time, ending at 7:07 p.m. Eastern time. In 2010, the race moved back to a 1:00 p.m. start time, which should have resulted in it ending in daylight; however, two red flags caused by track surface issues led to long delays that pushed the race to 7:34 p.m. EST, pushing the race into prime-time for the second time. The 2012 race was also scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 26, but heavy rain in the area caused the race to be postponed to 7:00 p.m. EST on Monday, February 27, making it the first Daytona 500 to be postponed to a Monday, as well as the first (and only) Daytona 500 to be run as a night race. Due to a two–hour red flag period after a jet dryer fire on the track with 40 laps remaining, the race did not end until about 12:40 a.m. on Tuesday, February 28. The 2013 race marked a return to the race's past tradition of ending in the late afternoon, as it ended at about 4:40 p.m., the race's earliest ending time since 2004. Although the 2014 race started around 1:30 p.m. EST, heavy rain and a tornado warning red–flagged the race after 38 laps and it was delayed for a record six hours and 22 minutes; the race finished the entire 500–mile distance around after 11:00 p.m. the same day, which effectively competed with the time-delayed East Coast broadcast of NBC's coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, scheduled between 7:00 and 10:30 p.m. The 2015 race started on time around 1:00  p.m., and ended after 203 laps due to a Green–white–checkered finish.


title: Daytona 500

text: The television ratings for the Daytona 500 have surpassed those of the larger Indianapolis 500 (which has much larger physical attendance and international attendance) since 1995, even though the 1995 race was available in far fewer homes than the year before. Then-broadcaster CBS had lost well-established VHF (channels 2–13) affiliates in major markets as a result of the Fox affiliate switches of 1994. As an example, new affiliates WDJT in Milwaukee and WGNX in Atlanta — both cities that are home to NASCAR races — and WWJ in Detroit, close to Michigan International Speedway, were on the UHF band (channels 14–69), meaning that they had a significantly reduced broadcast area compared to former affiliates WITI, WAGA-TV, and WJBK, respectively. WDJT was not available in many Wisconsin markets by the time the Daytona 500 took place.


title: Governor of Texas

text: The governor of Texas heads the state government of Texas. The governor is the leader of the executive and legislative branch of the state government and is the commander in chief of the Texas Military. The current governor is Greg Abbott, who took office in 2015.


title: Governor of Texas

text: Governors of Texas are directly elected by registered voters in Texas and serve for a term of four years. They take office on the twentieth day of January following an election, which is also the date of expiry of the previous gubernatorial term.


title: Governor of Texas

text: The state's first constitution in 1845 established the office of governor, to serve for two years, but no more than four years out of every six (essentially a limit of no more than two "consecutive" terms). The 1861 secessionist constitution set the term start date at the first Monday in the November following the election. The 1866 constitution, adopted just after the American Civil War, increased terms to 4 years, but no more than 8 years out of every 12, and moved the start date to the first Thursday after the organization of the legislature, or "as soon thereafter as practicable". The Reconstruction-era constitution of 1869 removed the limit on terms, Texas remains one of 14 states with no gubernatorial term limits. The present constitution of 1876 shortened terms back to two years, but a 1972 amendment increased it again to four years.


title: Governor of Texas

text: The gubernatorial election is held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and does not coincide with the presidential elections. The governor is sworn in on the third Tuesday of January every four years along with the lieutenant governor, so Abbott and current lieutenant governor Dan Patrick both took office on January 20, 2015.


title: Governor of Texas

text: Despite the lack of term limits, no Texas governor in the 19th or 20th century ever served more than seven and a half consecutive years in office (Allan Shivers) or eight years total service (Bill Clements, in two non-consecutive four-year terms). Former governor Rick Perry, who served from 2000 to 2015, surpassed both these records, becoming the first Texas governor to serve three consecutive four-year terms. When Perry won the general election on November 2, 2010, he joined Shivers, Price Daniel, and John Connally as the only Texas governors elected to three terms (the terms served by governors Shivers, Daniel, and Connally were two-year terms). On November 8, 2018, current governor Greg Abbott was re-elected and became the fifth Texas governor to serve three terms following Shivers, Daniel, Connally and Perry. In case of a vacancy in the office of governor, the lieutenant governor becomes governor. This rule was added only in a 1999 amendment, prior to which the lieutenant governor only acted as governor, except during the time of the 1861 constitution, which said that the lieutenant governor would be styled "Governor of the State of Texas" in case of vacancy.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano who was the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, where she was the first African American to be a leading performer. She regularly appeared at the world's major opera houses, the Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and La Scala, the last at which she was also the first African American to sing a leading role. She was particularly renowned for her performances of the title role in Verdi's "Aida".


title: Leontyne Price

text: Born in Laurel, Mississippi, Price attended Central State University and then Juilliard, where she had her operatic debut as Mistress Ford in Verdi's "Falstaff". Having heard the performance, Virgil Thomson engaged her in "Four Saints in Three Acts" and she then toured—starring alongside her husband William Warfield—in a successful revival of Gerswhin's "Porgy and Bess". Numerous concert performances followed, such as a recital at the Library of Congress with composer Samuel Barber on piano. Her 1955 performance in a televised performance of Puccini's "Tosca" and appearances at the San Francisco Opera as Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites" and "Aida" brought her to international attention. She then performed at the world's major opera houses with "Aida", before a successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera (Met) in 1961 as Leonora in Verdi's "Il trovatore". Continuing her career there, she starred in a multitude of operas for 20 years, securing her place among the leading performers of her time. One of these works was Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra", which she starred in for its world premiere. She made her farewell opera performance at the Met in 1985 in Aida.


title: Leontyne Price

text: A lirico spinto (Italian for "pushed lyric") soprano, her musical interpretations were subtle but often overshadowed her acting. She was noted for her roles in operas by Mozart and Puccini as well as Cleopatra in Handel's "Giulio Cesare" and Poppea in Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea". However, the "middle period" operas of Verdi remain her greatest triumph: Aida, the Leonoras of "Il trovatore" and "La forza del destino", and Amelia in "Un ballo in maschera". Her performances in these works, as well as Mozart and Puccini's operas survive in her many recordings.


title: Leontyne Price

text: After her retirement from opera, she continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts until 1997. After that, she came out of retirement to sing at special events, including a memorial concert for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in Carnegie Hall in 2001. Among her many honors and awards are the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and 19 Grammy Awards.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Mary Violet Leontyne Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi on February 10, 1927. Her father James Anthony worked as a carpenter and her mother Katherine Baker Price was a midwife. A deeply religious family, both of her parents were children of Methodist ministers; her mother sang as a soloist in the church choir and her father played a tuba in the church band. Her brother and only sibling, George, was born two years later. She showed a natural affinity for music at an early age and began piano lessons at the age of three and a half with the local pianist Hattie McInnis. Initially, she played on a toy piano, but by the time she was five, her parents traded in the family phonograph as the down payment on an upright piano. Meanwhile, at age eight, she had begun visiting the home of Alexander and Elizabeth Chisholm, a wealthy white family for whom Leontyne's aunt worked as a laundress. Leontyne and George became good friends with the Chisholms' older daughters, Jean and Peggy, and Mrs. Chisholm encouraged Leontyne's piano-playing and singing, often inviting her to sing at house parties. Aged 9, she was taken on a school trip to hear Marian Anderson sing a recital in Jackson. The experience was her first significant exposure to classical music, and she later recalled that "The whole aura of the occasion had a tremendous effect on me, particularly the singer's dignity and, of course, her voice". Multiple commentators asserted that this event galvanized Price's interest in a musical career. In her teen years, Price attended Oak Park Vocational High School, where she was a cheerleader and salutatorian. She earned extra money by singing for funerals and civic functions.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Mississippi was highly segregated at the time, and subject to Jim Crow laws. As such, as a black woman, the only evident musical career path was as a teacher. She began her study in music education at Central State University, a historically black school in Wilberforce, Ohio. However, on the advice of the university president and after frequent singing in a glee club she changed her major to voice in her third year. She also participated in master classes, including one in 1948 with the renowned bass Paul Robeson at Antioch College. Robeson was impressed by Price's voice, and—knowing she was aiming to enroll at Juilliard—worked with the Central State administrators to host a benefit concert to help raise money for her tuition. The Chisholms also remained supportive of Price, and gifted the bulk of the money needed for Juilliard.


title: Leontyne Price

text: She entered the studio of Florence Page Kimball in the fall of 1948. She lived in the Harlem YWCA while studying at the Juilliard that year, which was safe and affordable accommodation open to black women. In her second year, she heard Ljuba Welitsch sing "Salome" from the standing-room section at the Met and became fascinated by opera. In fall 1950, Price joined Juilliard's Opera Workshop and sang small roles in workshop performances of Mozart's "Magic Flute" (First Lady) and Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi" (Aunt Nella). In the summer of 1951, she enrolled in the opera program at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and sang Ariadne in Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" (second cast).


title: Leontyne Price

text: In early 1952, Price performed as Mistress Ford in a Juilliard production of Verdi's "Falstaff". Virgil Thomson heard a performance and cast her in a revival of his all-black opera, "Four Saints in Three Acts". After two weeks on Broadway, the production of "Saints" went to Paris. Meanwhile, Price had been signed to sing Bess in a new production of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" at the Ziegfeld Theatre, directed by Robert Breen.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Fresh off the plane from Paris, she sang the opening performance of "Porgy and Bess" at the State Fair of Texas on June 9, 1952, receiving rave reviews. The production played in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and then toured Vienna, Berlin, London, and Paris, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.


title: Leontyne Price

text: On the eve of the European tour, Price married William Warfield, her Porgy and a noted bass-baritone concert singer. The ceremony took place at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, with many in the cast in attendance.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Although many black newspapers criticized the export of "Porgy and Bess" as presenting a false and demeaning picture of black life, the Breen production showed off a new generation of highly trained black singers, and affirmed that Americans could revive a musical masterpiece while recognizing its outdated stereotypes. Many East Berliners crossed to West Berlin to see the show.


title: Leontyne Price

text: When "Porgy and Bess" returned to the States in 1953, Warfield was unable to adjust a busy recital and concert schedule and was dropped from the cast, while Price sang Bess for another year, on Broadway and a second US tour. Warfield said the episode put a strain on their young marriage. The couple was legally separated in 1967, and divorced in 1973. They had no children.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Price and Warfield both dreamt of careers in opera, but racial barriers limited opportunities for black singers. The New York City Center Opera under Laszlo Halasz had hired the first black singers in leading roles in the mid-1940s, starting with Camilla Williams and Todd Duncan. In 1949, the new general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, Rudolf Bing, had said publicly he would cast Negro singers "for the right part".


title: Leontyne Price

text: The Metropolitan Opera recognized Price's potential by inviting her to sing "Summertime" at a "Met Jamboree" fund-raiser on April 6, 1953, at the Ritz Theater on Broadway. Price was thus the first African American to sing "with" and "for" the Met, if not "at" the Met as a member of the company. That distinction went to Marian Anderson, who sang Ulrica in Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" on January 7, 1955. Price and Warfield were in the audience.


title: Leontyne Price

text: While awaiting a chance to sing in opera, Price sang duo concerts with Warfield, and, after leaving "Porgy and Bess", began a concert career for Columbia Artists. In 1953, she sang a recital at the Library of Congress, with composer Samuel Barber at the piano. The program included the world premiere of Barber's "Hermit Songs". In November 1954, Price made her formal recital debut at New York's Town Hall.


title: Leontyne Price

text: The door to opera opened through the young medium of television and the NBC Opera Theatre, with music director Peter Herman Adler. In January 1955, Price sang the title role in Puccini's "Tosca", the first appearance by an African American in a leading role in televised opera. (Another black soprano, Veronica Tyler, had sung in the NBC Opera chorus for several seasons.) Price went on to star in three other NBC Opera broadcasts, as Pamina in Mozart's "The Magic Flute" in 1956, as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" the following years, and as Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in 1960. "Tosca" was not controversial. Price's appearance had not been widely advertised by NBC, which had a policy of "integration without identification," and the Jackson, Mississippi, NBC affiliate carried the broadcast signal to her home town of Laurel. However, Jet magazine noted that her appearance with tenor David Poleri, the Cavaradossi, marked a first TV broadcast with a mixed-racial couple, and her later NBC Opera broadcasts were boycotted by several NBC affiliates, most of them in the South, because of her race.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In March 1955, Price was taken by her agent to audition at Carnegie Hall for the young Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, who was touring with the Berlin Philharmonic. Impressed with her singing of "Pace, pace, mio Dio" from Verdi's "La forza del destino", Karajan reportedly leapt to the stage to accompany Price himself. Declaring her "an artist of the future", he asked to direct her future European operatic career.


title: Leontyne Price

text: After a successful Town Hall recital debut in November 1954, Price began touring the U.S. and Canada in recitals on the Columbia Artists roster, at first with the composer John La Montaine as her accompanist and then with David Garvey, who remained her pianistic partner until his death. In 1956, she and Garvey toured India and then, the next year, Australia, giving concerts and recitals for the U.S. State Department. On May 3, 1957, she performed Verdi's Aida in a concert performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the May Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, her first public performance of what became her signature role.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Her first performance at a major opera house was at the San Francisco Opera on September 20, 1957, as Madame Lidoine in the U.S. premiere of "Dialogues of the Carmelites". A few weeks later, she appeared as Aida on stage, substituting at the last minute for Antonietta Stella, who had suffered an appendicitis. Price's European opera debut came in May 1958, again as Aida, at the Vienna State Opera with Karajan conducting. This was followed by performances of the role at the Royal Opera House in London (replacing Anita Cerquetti), and at the Arena di Verona.


title: Leontyne Price

text: The next fall, she appeared as Leonora in Verdi's "Il Trovatore" in San Francisco, with the Swedish tenor Jussi Björling. Then, returning to Vienna, she sang Aida and her first onstage Pamina. She gave a BBC television recital of American songs with Gerald Moore, and a concert of operatic scenes by Richard Strauss for BBC Radio, conducted by Adler. In Vienna, she made her first full opera recording for RCA, singing Donna Elvira in Mozart's "Don Giovanni", conductd by Erich Leinsdorf.


title: Leontyne Price

text: That summer, she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in Beethoven's Missa solemnis, conducted by Karajan; recorded a second full opera, "Il Trovatore", for RCA in Rome; then returned to Verona to sing "Il Trovatore" with tenor Franco Corelli. Rudolf Bing was at one of the performances, and went backstage to invite Price and Corelli to make their Met debuts in the 1960–61 season.


title: Leontyne Price

text: That fall, Price made her Chicago Lyric Opera debut as Liu in Puccini's "Turandot" with Birgit Nilsson in the title role, and sang Massenet's Thaïs. Her Liu was well received while her Thaïs was considered stiff and mannered. On May 21, 1960, she sang for the first time at La Scala in Milan, again as Aida. The reception was tumultuous, and a Milanese critic wrote that "our great Verdi would have found her the ideal Aida". She was the first African American to sing a "prima donna" role in Italy's greatest opera house. (The African American soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs had sung there two years earlier, in the "seconda" role of Elvira in Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri".) In Salzburg that summer, Price sang her first Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni", again with Karajan. She then returned to Vienna to appear first as Cio-Cio-San, Puccini's Madama Butterfly.


title: Leontyne Price

text: When Bing had invited Price in 1958 to sing Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, she turned him down on the advice of Adler and others, who argued that she should wait until she had more repertoire under her belt. Adler warned against arriving in the racially stereotypical role of Aida, an Ethiopian slave. In his autobiography, Warfield quotes Adler as saying, "Leontyne is to be a great artist. When she makes her debut at the Met, she must do it as a lady, not a slave." Eventually, the Metropolitan booked her for five roles in early 1961, Leonora in "Il Trovatore" for her debut, Aida, Donna Anna, Liu, and Butterfly.


title: Leontyne Price

text: On January 27, 1961, Price and Corelli made a triumphant joint debut in "Il Trovatore". The performance ended with an ovation that lasted at least 35 minutes, one of the longest in Met history. (Price said friends had timed it at 42 minutes, and that was the figure she used in her publicity.) In his review, "New York Times" critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote that Price's "voice, warm and luscious, has enough volume to fill the house with ease, and she has a good technique to back up the voice itself. She even took the trills as written, and nothing in the part as Verdi wrote it gave her the least bit of trouble. She moves well and is a competent actress. But no soprano makes a career of acting. Voice is what counts, and voice is what Miss Price has."


title: Leontyne Price

text: Reviewers were less enthusiastic about Corelli, who was disappointed and told Bing the next day he would never sing with Price again. The outburst was soon forgotten, and Price and Corelli sang together often, at the Met, the Vienna State Opera, in Salzburg, and (once, for Karajan's version of Bizet's "Carmen") in the recording studio. In recognition of her extraordinary first season at the Metropolitan Opera, "Time" magazine put her on its cover, and ran a profile under the headline, "A voice like a banner flying".


title: Leontyne Price

text: Price had achieved an eminence no other African American had reached in opera. After Anderson, three black artists had preceded Price in leading roles at the Met: baritone Robert McFerrin (1955), soprano Gloria Davy (1956), and soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs (1958). However, Price was the first prima donna and box office star, and the first to open a season. The opening almost didn't happen. In September 1961, a musicians' strike threatened to abort the season, and Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg was asked to mediate a settlement. Price received enthusiastic reviews for the opening performance, but during the second performance, she confronted her first vocal crisis. In the middle of the second act, her voice slowly vanished until she was shouting the words at end of the scene. The standby, soprano Dorothy Kirsten, finished the performance. The newspapers said that Price was suffering a viral infection, but stress and the unsuitable weight of the role played their parts.


title: Leontyne Price

text: After several weeks off, Price repeated Puccini's "La fanciulla del West" and then, after a "Butterfly" in December, which she ended in tears, took a respite in Rome. The official word was that she had never fully recovered from the earlier virus. However, Price later said she was suffering from nervous exhaustion. In April, she returned to New York for her first Tosca and then joined the spring tour for the first time in "Tosca", "Butterfly", and "Fanciulla". Recognizing that Price's talent was so extraordinary she would have to be included on the tour, creating problems in the segregated South, Bing had declared that the Met would no longer perform to segregated houses, starting in 1962. Price gave the first performance by an African American in a leading role with the company in the South, singing "Fanciulla" in Dallas. Two years later, she sang Donna Anna in Atlanta, a first leading role for an African American on tour in the Deep South. Both performances occurred without incident.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Consistently a box office sell-out in the early years, Price was soon earning a top fee. By 1964, she was paid was $2,750 per performance, on a par with Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, and Renata Tebaldi, according to the Met archives. Birgit Nilsson, who was unique in singing both Italian and Wagnerian roles, earned a little more, at $3,000 a performance.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Price remained active in Vienna, Milan, and Salzburg. She sang a famous "Il Trovatore" in Salzburg, and Tosca and Donna Anna in Vienna, all with Karajan. She was also the soprano soloist in many of Karajan's performances of Verdi's Requiem.


title: Leontyne Price

text: After the first season, Price added seven roles to her repertoire there over the next five years: Elvira in Verdi's "Ernani", Pamina, Fiordiligi in Mozart's "Così fan tutte", Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", Amelia in "Un ballo in maschera", Cleopatra in Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra", and Leonora in "La forza del destino".


title: Leontyne Price

text: The probably biggest and certainly most troubled milestone in her career was the opening night of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center on September 16, 1966, when she sang Cleopatra in Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra", a new opera commissioned for the occasion. The composer had written the role especially for Price, often visiting her at home with new pages of the score.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In reviews of the premiere, Price's singing was highly praised. However, the opera was considered a failure by many critics, who found the sequence confusing, the Shakespearean text unintelligible, and director Franco Zeffirelli's production suffocatingly elaborate. Zeffirelli buried Barber's essentially intimate score under giant scenery, innumerable supernumeraries, and two camels. Bing had overreached, too, by scheduling three new productions in the first week in the new house, placing a burden on tech crews who had not yet mastered the equipment and lighting. The chaos of the final rehearsals, along with excerpts of Price's beautiful singing, were captured by "cinema verite" director Robert Drew in a "Bell Telephone Hour" documentary, titled "The New Met: Countdown to Curtain". Price later said the experience soured her feelings toward the Met. She began to appear there less often.


title: Leontyne Price

text: "Antony and Cleopatra" was never revived at the house. Barber prepared a concert suite of Cleopatra's arias, which was premiered by Price in Washington, DC, in 1968, and recorded for RCA.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In the late 1960s, Price cut back her operatic performances and devoted more of her career to recitals and concerts. She said she was tired, stressed by the racial tensions in the country and her role as a token of racial progress, and frustrated with the number and quality of new productions at the Met. Her recitals and concerts (generally programs of arias with orchestra) were highly successful, and, for the next two decades, she was a mainstay in the major orchestral and concert series in the big American cities and universities.


title: Leontyne Price

text: She knew to keep a presence in opera and returned to the Met and the San Francisco Opera, her favorite house, for short runs of three to five performances, sometimes a year or more apart. However, she undertook only three new roles after 1970: Giorgetta in Puccini's "Il tabarro" in San Francisco; Puccini's Manon Lescaut, in San Francisco and New York; and the title role in "Ariadne auf Naxos," also in San Francisco and New York. Of these, only "Ariadne" was considered as superlative as her established repertoire.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In October 1973, she returned to the Met to sing "Madama Butterfly" for the first time in a decade. In 1976, she was given a long-promised new production of "Aida", with James McCracken as Radames and Marilyn Horne as Amneris, directed by John Dexter. The following season, she renewed her partnership with Karajan in a performance of Brahms' "Ein deutsches Requiem" with the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. She appeared more rarely in Europe. In the early 1970s, she sang Aida and a single "Forza" in Hamburg and returned to London's Covent Garden in "Trovatore" and "Aida". She sang more often in recitals, in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, and at the Salzburg Festival. At the latter she became a special favorite, appearing there in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1984.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In the U.S., she had become an iconic figure and was regularly asked to sing on important national occasions. In January 1973, she sang "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers" at the state funeral of President Lyndon B. Johnson. (She had sung at his inauguration in 1965.) President Jimmy Carter invited her to sing at the White House for the visit of Pope John Paul II and at the state dinner after the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords. In 1978, Carter invited her to sing a nationally televised recital from the East Room of the White House. In 1982, she sang "Battle Hymn of the Republic" before a Joint Meeting of Congress on the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Franklin Roosevelt. In fall 1986, Price sang the national anthem backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Orange County Performing Arts Center's opening. Price also sang for Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 1977, she made nostalgic returns to Vienna and Salzburg in "Il trovatore," in the famous production from 1962, once again under Karajan. The Vienna performances were the first for both at the State Opera since 1964, when Karajan had resigned as its director.


title: Leontyne Price

text: That fall, Price sang her last new role, and her first Strauss heroine: Ariadne in "Ariadne auf Naxos" The premiere in San Francisco was considered a great success. When she sang the role at the Met in 1979, she was suffering from a viral infection and had to cancel all but the first and last of eight scheduled performances. Reviewing the first performance, the "New York Times" critic John Rockwell was not complimentary.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In the fall of 1981, she had a late triumph in San Francisco when she stepped in for an ailing Margaret Price as Aida, a role she had not sung since 1976. The Radames was Luciano Pavarotti, in his first assumption of the role. Herbert Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Price had insisted on being paid $1 more than the tenor. That would have made her, for the moment, the highest-paid opera singer in the world. The opera house denied the arrangement.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 1982, Price returned to the Met as Leonora in "Il Trovatore", a role she hadn't sung in the house since 1969. She also sang a televised concert of duets and arias with Marilyn Horne and conductor James Levine, later released on record by RCA. In 1983, she hosted two televised performances of "In Performance from the White House," with President Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and sang the "Ballo" duet with Pavarotti in the 100th anniversary concert of the Metropolitan Opera.


title: Leontyne Price

text: She had considered her 1982 Met appearances her unannounced final opera performances, but the Met persuaded her to return for several "Forza" in 1984 and a series of "Aida" in 1984–1985. Performances of both operas were broadcast in the "Live from the Met" TV series on PBS, her first and only appearances in the series and important documents of two of her greatest roles. Shortly before the last "Aida", on January 3, 1985, word leaked to the press that it was to be her operatic farewell. The performance ended with 25 minutes of applause and the singer's photograph on the front page of the New York Times. The paper's critic Donal Henahan wrote that the "57-year-old soprano took an act or two to warm to her work, but what she delivered in the Nile Scene turned out to be well worth the wait." In 2007, PBS viewers voted her singing of the Act III aria, ""O patria mia"", as the No. 1 "Great Moment" in 30 years of "Live from the Met" telecasts. One critic described Price's voice as "vibrant," "soaring" and "a Price beyond pearls". "Time" magazine called her voice "Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortless soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C."


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 21 seasons with the Met, Price sang 201 performances, in 16 roles, in the house and on tour. After her debut in 1961, she was absent for three seasons—1970–71, 1977–78, and 1980–81; and sang only in galas in 1972–73, 1979–80, and 1982–83.


title: Leontyne Price

text: For the next dozen years, Price continued to perform concerts and recitals in the U.S. Her recital programs, arranged by her longtime accompanist David Garvey, usually combined Handel arias or "arie antiche," "Lieder" by Schumann and Joseph Marx, an operatic aria or two, followed by French "melodies," a group of American art songs by Barber, Ned Rorem, and Lee Hoiby, and spirituals. She liked to end her encores with "This Little Light of Mine", which she said was her mother's favorite spiritual.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Over time, Price's voice became darker and heavier, but the upper register held up extraordinarily well and her conviction and sheer delight in singing always spilled over the footlights. On November 19, 1997, she sang a recital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that was her unannounced last.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In her later years, Price gave master classes at Juilliard and other schools. In 1997, at the suggestion of RCA Victor, she wrote a children's book version of "Aida", which became the basis for the hit Broadway musical by Elton John and Tim Rice in 2000.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Price avoided the term African American, preferring to call herself an American, even a "chauvinistic American". She summed up her philosophy thus: "If you are going to think black, think positive about it. Don't think down on it, or think it is something in your way. And this way, when you really do want to stretch out, and express how beautiful black is, everybody will hear you."


title: Leontyne Price

text: On September 30, 2001, at the age of 74, Price was asked to come out of retirement to sing in a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall for the victims of the September 11 attacks. With Levine at the piano, she sang a favorite spiritual, "This Little Light of Mine", followed by an unaccompanied "God Bless America", ending it with a bright, easy high B-flat.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 2017, the age of 90, Price appeared in Susan Froemke's "The Opera House", a documentary about the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Among her many honors and awards are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), the Spingarn Medal (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of Arts (1985), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1986), numerous honorary degrees, and 13 Grammy Awards for operatic and song recitals and full operas, and a Lifetime Achievement Award, more than any other classical singer. In October 2008, she was among the first recipients of the Opera Honors by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2019, Leontyne Price was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Most of Price's many commercial recordings were made by RCA Victor Red Seal and include three complete recordings of Verdi's "Il trovatore" (the last on EMI-Angel), two of "La forza del destino", two of "Aida", two of Verdi's Requiem, two of Puccini's "Tosca", and one each of Verdi's "Ernani" and "Un ballo in maschera", Bizet's "Carmen", Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and "Il tabarro," Mozart's "Cosí fan tutte" and "Don Giovanni" (as Donna Elvira), and R. Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos," her final complete opera recording. She also recorded a disc of highlights from "Porgy and Bess," with William Warfield as Porgy, conducted by Skitch Henderson, with Price singing the music all three female leads.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Her most popular aria collection is her first, titled "Leontyne Price," a selection of Verdi and Puccini arias released in 1961 and often referred to as the "Blue Album" for its light blue cover. It has been continuously in print, and is available on CD and SACD. Equally enduring is an album of Christmas music she recorded in 1961 with Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Her five "Prima Donna" albums, recorded from 1965 and 1979, are an exceptional survey of operatic arias for soprano, mostly from roles Price never performed on stage. They are available in a boxed set from RCA-BMG. She also recorded two albums of Richard Strauss arias, an album of French and German art songs, a Schumann song album, two albums of Spirituals, a single crossover disc, "Right as the Rain," with André Previn, and an album of patriotic songs, "God Bless America." Her recordings of Barber's "Hermit Songs", scenes from "Antony and Cleopatra", and "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," were brought together on a CD, "Leontyne Price Sings Barber".


title: Leontyne Price

text: Late in her career, she recorded an album of Schubert and Strauss lieder for EMI, and, for London-Decca, an album of Verdi arias with the Israel Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 1996, RCA-BMG released a limited-edition 11-CD boxed collection of Price's recordings, with an accompanying book, titled "The Essential Leontyne Price".


title: Leontyne Price

text: Meanwhile, archival recordings of several important live performances have been released on CD. Deutsche Grammophon has issued Salzburg performances of "Missa Solemnis" (1959) and "Il trovatore" (1962), both conducted by Karajan. In 2002, RCA released a long-shelved tape of her 1965 Carnegie Hall recital debut in its "Rediscoveries" series. It includes a rare performance of Brahms' "Zigeunerlieder". In 2005, the complete Library of Congress recital with Samuel Barber was released, on Bridge, and includes her only recorded performance of Henri Sauguet's "La Voyante," as well as songs by Poulenc and the world premiere of Barber's"Hermit Songs" A 1952 broadcast of a Berlin performance of "Porgy and Bess" with Price and Warfield was discovered in the German radio archives and released on CD.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In 2011, Sony launched its series of historic live broadcasts from the Met with "Il trovatore" (1961) and "Tosca" (1962), both with Price and Corelli, and, the next year, added an "Ernani" (1962) with Price and Carlo Bergonzi. In 2017, a broadcast "Aida" (1967), with Bergonzi and Bumbry, was released separately and in a boxed set of live performances from the company's first season at Lincoln Center. The set includes the opening night performance of "Antony and Cleopatra".


title: Leontyne Price

text: The major roles in Price's repertoire that were never recorded in complete sets are Liu in Puccini's"Turandot" and Donna Anna in "Don Giovanni". For these, live performances are available. Price's Salzburg performances of "Don Giovanni" in 1960 and 1961, and a 1963 Vienna performance (with Fritz Wunderlich), all three under Karajan, are available on CD. Her Liu can be heard in a live "Turandot" from Vienna from 1961, on CD.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In the 1970s, RCA cut back on recording operas and recitals and much of Price's recital repertoire went unrecorded, including songs by Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, Respighi, Barber, Lee Hoiby, and Ned Rorem. A broadcast tape of the 1956 premiere of John La Montaine's cycle of songs, "Songs of the Rose of Sharon," written for soprano and orchestra, has been found and posted on YouTube.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Among recent discoveries are a 1952 Juilliard performance of "Falstaff", a Juilliard recital from 1951, and another recital given at Juilliard in 1955, Price's first year on the concert circuit. (The 1951 recital includes her only recording of Ravel's "Scheherezade", with piano accompaniment.) All three were available on YouTube. Kinescopes of NBC Opera Theatre performances are locked in NBC vaults and have never been released on disc or videotape.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In "The Grand Tradition", a 1974 history of operatic recording, the British critic J.B. Steane writes that "one might conclude from recordings that [Price] is the best interpreter of Verdi of the century." The Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya remembered a 1963 Price performance of Tosca at the Vienna State Opera "left me with the strongest impression I have ever gotten from opera." In his 1983 autobiography, Plácido Domingo writes, "The power and sensuousness of Leontyne's voice were phenomenal—the most beautiful Verdi soprano I have ever heard."


title: Leontyne Price

text: The sopranos Renée Fleming, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Leona Mitchell, Barbara Bonney, Sondra Radvanovsky, the mezzo-sopranos Janet Baker and Denyce Graves, bass-baritone José van Dam, and the countertenor David Daniels, spoke of Price as an inspiration.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Jazz musicians were impressed too. Miles Davis, in "Miles: The Autobiography", writes: "Man, I love her as an artist. I love the way she sings "Tosca". I wore out her recording of that, wore out two sets. Now, I might not do "Tosca", but I loved the way Leontyne did it. I used to wonder how she would have sounded if she had sung jazz. She should be an inspiration for every musician, black or white. I know she is to me."


title: Leontyne Price

text: She has also had her critics. In his book "The American Opera Singer", Peter G. Davis writes that Price had "a fabulous vocal gift that went largely unfulfilled," criticizing her reluctance to try new roles, her Tosca for its lack of a "working chest register", and her late Aidas for a "swooping" vocal line. Others criticized her lack of flexibility in coloratura, and her occasional mannerisms, including scooping or swooping up to high notes, gospel-style. Karajan took her to task for these during rehearsals for the 1977 "Il trovatore", as Price herself related in an interview in "Diva", by Helena Matheopoulos. In later recordings and appearances, she sang with a cleaner line.


title: Leontyne Price

text: Her acting, too, drew different responses over a long career. As Bess, she was praised for her dramatic fire and sensuality, and tapes of the early NBC Opera appearances demonstrate an appealing presence on camera. In her early years at the Met, she was often praised for her stage presence as well as her vocal skill.


title: Leontyne Price

text: In March 2007, on "BBC Music Magazine"s list of the "20 All-time Best Sopranos" based on a poll of 21 British music critics and BBC presenters, Leontyne Price was ranked fourth, after Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, and Victoria de los Ángeles.


title: Grana Padano

text: Grana Padano is a cheese originating in the Po river Valley in northern Italy that is similar to Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. There are less strict regulations governing its production compared to Parmigiano Reggiano. This hard, crumbly-textured cheese is made with unpasteurized cows' milk that is semi-skimmed through a natural creaming process. To preserve the authenticity of the manufacturing processes and raw materials used to make this cheese, Grana Padano is registered as Geographical Indication in Italy since 1954 and as a European Union "protected designation of origin" (PDO) since 1996, and is protected in several other countries based on the Lisbon Agreement and bilateral agreements.


title: Grana Padano

text: The name comes from the Italian word "grana", a reference to the characteristically grainy texture, and the demonym "padano", meaning "from Val Padana" (the Po valley).


title: Grana Padano

text: Grana Padano was developed by monks of Chiaravalle Abbey in the 12th century. It can last a long time without spoiling, and is sometimes aged for up to two years. It is made in a similar way to the Parmigiano Reggiano of Emilia-Romagna, but over a much wider area and with different regulations and controls.


title: Grana Padano

text: Like Parmigiano Reggiano, Grana Padano is a semi-fat hard cheese which is cooked and ripened slowly for at least nine months. If it passes quality tests, it is fire-branded with the Grana Padano trademark. The cows are milked twice a day. Milk produced in the evening is skimmed to remove the surface layer of cream and mixed with fresh milk produced in the morning. The partly skimmed milk is transferred into copper kettles and coagulated; the resulting curd is cut to produce granules with the size of rice grains, which gives the cheese its characteristic texture, and then warmed to . It is produced year-round, and varies seasonally as well as by year. Though similar to Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, the younger Grana Padano cheeses are less crumbly, milder and less complex in flavor than the better-known, longer-aged Parmigiano.


title: Grana Padano

text: About 150 factories make Grana Padano in the Po Valley area, and an estimated 76,724 tons of this cheese are manufactured annually.


title: Grana Padano

text: A wheel of Grana Padano is cylindrical, with slightly convex or almost straight sides and flat faces. It is in diameter, and high. It weighs 24 to 40 kg (53 to 88 lbs) per wheel. The rind, which is thin, is pale yellow.


title: Grana Padano

text: Grana padano cheese typically contains cheese crystals, semi-solid to gritty crystalline spots that at least partially consist of the amino acid tyrosine.


title: Grana Padano

text: 1.5 litres of fresh, naturally partially-skimmed cows' milk from the production area, are needed to make 100 g of Grana Padano PDO cheese. The Grana Padano processing and ageing procedures determine an important bioavailability of vitamins and minerals, the supply of proteins with nine essential amino acids and make it a highly digestible product. In addition, Grana Padano is lactose-free due to the characteristics of its production and ageing process, which also leads to a reduction of lipids. It contains a galactose content of less than 10 mg per 100 g.


title: Grana Padano

text: The Grana Padano PDO Production Specifications regulates the entire production chain, from the cows' fodder to the branding of the wheels, therefore the average nutritional value and calories of Grana Padano PDO cheese remain stable and any variation in them is irrelevant for the purpose of defining a balanced diet.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: In Christian iconography, Christ Pantocrator () is a specific depiction of Christ. "Pantocrator" or "Pantokrator", literally "ruler of all", but usually translated as "Almighty" or "all-powerful", is derived from one of many names of God in Judaism.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The Pantokrator, largely an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic theological conception, is less common under that name in Western (Roman) Catholicism and largely unknown to most Protestants. In the West, the equivalent image in art is known as Christ in Majesty, which developed a rather different iconography. "Christ Pantocrator" has come to suggest Christ as a mild but stern, all-powerful judge of humanity.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek as the Septuagint, "Pantokrator" was used both for "YHWH Sabaoth" "Lord of Hosts" and for "El Shaddai" "God Almighty". In the New Testament, "Pantokrator" is used once by Paul () and nine times in the Book of Revelation: , , , , , , , , and . The references to God the Father and God the Son in Revelation are at times interchangeable, but "Pantokrator" appears to be reserved for the Father except, perhaps, in 1:8.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The most common translation of "Pantocrator" is "Almighty" or "All-powerful". In this understanding, "Pantokrator" is a compound word formed from the Greek words , ' ( '), i.e. "all" and , "," i.e. "strength", "might", "power". This is often understood in terms of potential power; i.e., ability to do anything, omnipotence. Christ pantocrator signifies Jesus in his glory during his second coming seated on his throne.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: Another, more literal translation is "Ruler of All" or, less literally, "Sustainer of the World". In this understanding, Pantokrator is a compound word formed from the Greek for "all" and the verb meaning "To accomplish something" or "to sustain something" (, ""). This translation speaks more to God's actual power; i.e., God does everything (as opposed to God can do everything).


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The icon of Christ Pantokrator is one of the most common religious images of Orthodox Christianity. Generally speaking, in Byzantine art church art and architecture, an iconic mosaic or fresco of Christ Pantokrator occupies the space in the central dome of the church, in the half-dome of the apse, or on the nave vault. Some scholars (Latourette 1975: 572) consider the Pantocrator a Christian adaptation of images of Zeus, such as the great statue of Zeus enthroned at Olympia. The development of the earliest stages of the icon from Roman Imperial imagery is easier to trace.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The image of Christ Pantocrator was one of the first images of Christ developed in the Early Christian Church and remains a central icon of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the half-length image, Christ holds the New Testament in his left hand and makes the gesture of teaching or of blessing with his right.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The typical Western Christ in Majesty is a full-length icon. In the early Middle Ages, it usually presented Christ in a mandorla or other geometric frame, surrounded by the Four Evangelists or their symbols.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The oldest known surviving example of the icon of Christ Pantocrator was painted in encaustic on panel in the sixth or seventh century, and survived the period of destruction of images during the Iconoclastic disputes that twice racked the Eastern church, 726 to 787 and 814 to 842. It was preserved in Saint Catherine's Monastery, in the remote desert of the Sinai. The gessoed panel, finely painted using a wax medium on a wooden panel, had been coarsely overpainted around the face and hands at some time around the thirteenth century. When the overpainting was cleaned in 1962, the ancient image was revealed to be a very high-quality icon, probably produced in Constantinople.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: The icon, traditionally half-length when in a semi-dome, which became adopted for panel icons also, depicts Christ fully frontal with a somewhat melancholy and stern aspect, with the right hand raised in blessing or, in the early encaustic panel at Saint Catherine's Monastery, the conventional rhetorical gesture that represents teaching. The left hand holds a closed book with a richly decorated cover featuring the Cross, representing the Gospels. An icon where Christ has an open book is called "Christ the Teacher", a variant of the Pantocrator. Christ is bearded, his brown hair centrally parted, and his head is surrounded by a halo. The icon usually has a gold ground comparable to the gilded grounds of Byzantine mosaics.


title: Christ Pantocrator

text: Often, the name of Christ is written on each side of the halo, as IC and XC. Christ's fingers are depicted in a pose that represents the letters IC, X and C, thereby making the Christogram "ICXC" (for "Jesus Christ"). The IC is composed of the Greek characters iota (Ι) and lunate sigma (C; instead of Σ, ς)—the first and last letters of 'Jesus' in Greek (); in XC the letters are chi (Χ) and again the lunate sigma—the first and last letters of 'Christ' in Greek ().


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: "The Ugly Duckling" () is a Danish literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). It was first published on 11 November 1843 in "New Fairy Tales. First Volume. First Collection", with three other tales by Andersen in Copenhagen, Denmark to great critical acclaim. The tale has been adapted to various media including opera, musical, and animated film. The tale is an original story by Andersen.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: After a mother duck's eggs hatch, one of the ducklings is perceived by the other animals as an ugly little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse. He wanders from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. He finds a home with an old woman, but her cat and hen tease and taunt him mercilessly, and once again he sets off alone.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: The duckling sees a flock of migrating wild swans. He is delighted and excited but cannot join them, for he is too young, ugly, and unable to fly. When winter arrives, a farmer finds and carries the freezing duckling home, but he is frightened by the farmer's noisy children and flees the house. The duckling spends a miserable winter alone outdoors, mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: The duckling, now having fully grown and matured, cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship anymore. He decides to throw himself at a flock of swans, feeling that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness. He is shocked when the swans welcome and accept him, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he had been not a duckling but a swan all this time. The flock takes to the air, and he spreads his wings to take flight with the rest of his new family.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: Andersen first conceived the story in 1842 while enjoying the beauty of nature during his stay at the country estate of Bregentved, and lavished a year's worth of attention upon it. He initially considered "The Young Swans" as the tale's title but, not wanting to spoil the element of surprise in the protagonist's transformation, discarded it for "The Ugly Duckling". He later confessed that the story was "a reflection of my own life", and, when the critic Georg Brandes questioned Andersen about whether he would write his autobiography, the poet claimed that it had already been written — "The Ugly Duckling".


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: "The Ugly Duckling" was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark 11 November 1843 in "New Fairy Tales. First Volume. First Collection" ("Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Første Samling"). For the first time the phrase "told for children" was not part of the title—an omission Andersen scholar Jackie Wullschlager believes exhibited a new confidence on Andersen's part: "These [tales] were the most mature and perfectly constructed tales he had written, and though some of them at once became, and have remained, favorites of children, Andersen here melds together the childlike and the profound with exceptional artistry." The first edition of 850 was sold out by December 18, and Reitzel planned another 850.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: The tale was fourth and last in the volume that included (in contents order), "The Angel" ("Englen"), "The Nightingale" ("Nattergalen"), and "The Sweethearts; or, The Top and the Ball" ("Kjærestefolkene [Toppen og bolden]"). The volume sold out almost immediately and Andersen wrote on December 18, 1843: "The book is selling like hot cakes. All the papers are praising it, everyone is reading it! No books of mine are appreciated in the way these fairy tales are!" Andersen promoted the tale by reading it aloud at social gatherings. The tale was republished 18 December 1849 in "Fairy Tales. 1850. (Eventyr. 1850.)" and again 15 December 1862 in "Fairy Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862. (Eventyr og Historier. Første Bind. 1862.)" The tale has since been translated into various languages and published around the world and has become the most famous story by Andersen.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: In reviewing "Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life" by biographer Jens Andersen, British journalist Anne Chisholm writes "Andersen himself was a tall, ugly boy with a big nose and big feet, and when he grew up with a beautiful singing voice and a passion for the theater he was cruelly teased and mocked by other children".


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: Speculation suggests that Andersen was the illegitimate son of Prince Christian Frederik (later King Christian VIII of Denmark), and found this out some time before he wrote the book, and then that being a swan in the story was a metaphor not just for inner beauty and talent but also for secret royal lineage.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: Bruno Bettelheim observes in "The Uses of Enchantment" that the Ugly Duckling is not confronted with the tasks, tests, or trials of the typical fairy tale hero. "No need to accomplish anything is expressed in 'The Ugly Duckling'. Things are simply fated and unfold accordingly, whether or not the hero takes some action." In conjunction with Bettelheim's assessment, Maria Tatar notes in <nowiki>"The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen" that Andersen suggests that the Ugly Duckling'</nowiki>s superiority resides in the fact that he is of a breed different from the barnyard rabble, and that dignity and worth, moral and aesthetic superiority are determined by nature rather than accomplishment.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: "The Ugly Duckling" became one of Andersen's best loved tales and was reprinted around the world. The tale was adapted to a variety of media. Films based on the tale include two "Silly Symphonies" animated shorts produced by Walt Disney called "The Ugly Duckling". The first was produced in 1931 in black and white, and a remake in 1939 in Technicolor. The latter film won the 1939 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), and was the last Silly Symphony to be made. The main difference between the Andersen story and the Disney version is that, in the latter, the little bird's ordeal lasts for only a few minutes, not for months. In 1936, the Fleischer brothers adapted the story for their animated short "The Little Stranger", reversing the story by having an odd chick born into a family of ducks.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: In 1932, Yasuji Murata directed "Ahiru no ko" ("The Ugly Duckling"), a 15-minute Japanese short animated film based on the tale.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: In 1956, the Soviet animation studio Soyuzmultfilm produced its own 19 minutes version of The Ugly Duckling. The anime "Princess Tutu" is about a duck that turns into a swan-like ballerina. In 2006, the Danish animation studio A. Film produced a spin-off CG feature called "The Ugly Duckling and Me!", and later produced a children's CG television series "Ugly Duckling Junior" which featured the same characters as the movie. The 1954 Tom and Jerry cartoon "Downhearted Duckling" is also based on the famous story.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: The tale has seen various musical adaptations. In 1914, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev composed a work for voice and piano based on Nina Meshcherskaya's adaptation of the tale and, in 1932, arranged the work for voice and orchestra. This was transcribed by Lev Konov in 1996, and his opera was a great success in Russia. Other musical versions include the song "The Ugly Duckling" composed by Frank Loesser and sung by Danny Kaye for the 1952 Charles Vidor musical film "Hans Christian Andersen", and "Honk!", a musical based on the tale which was produced in Britain and won an Olivier Award. The tale was adapted to a musical by Gail Deschamps and Paul Hamilton. In 1998, the musical played the Piccolo Spoleto for seventeen days.


title: The Ugly Duckling

text: In November 2017, a Youtube Channel by the name of The Uncle Louie Variety Show made their own version of the story called "The Ugly Baby".


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings is an American daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company. The company allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sports–related contests and win money based on individual player performances in five major American sports (the MLB, the NHL, the NFL, the NBA and the PGA), Premier League and UEFA Champions League football, NASCAR auto racing, Canadian Football League, the XFL, mixed martial arts (MMA), Tennis, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), and WWE.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings launched DraftKings Sportsbook in New Jersey. Since launching in New Jersey, DraftKings has opened mobile sports betting operations in Connecticut, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Hampshire on December 30, 2019 after reaching contract with the New Hampshire Lottery.


title: DraftKings

text: As of April 2016, the majority of U.S. states consider fantasy sports (including daily fantasy sports) a game of skill, rather than gambling. In November 2016, FanDuel and DraftKings, the two largest companies in the daily fantasy sports industry, reached an agreement to merge. However, the merger was terminated in July 2017-- blocked by the Federal Trade Commission to prevent potential monopoly, as the combined company would have controlled 90 percent of the market for daily fantasy sports. As of July 2017, DraftKings had eight million users.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings became a publicly traded company through a reverse merger with SBTech, a Bulgarian technology company, and special-purpose acquisition company Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp in April 2020.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings was established in 2012 by Jason Robins, Matthew Kalish, and Paul Liberman, former Vistaprint employees. The company initially operated out of Liberman's house. The company's first product was a one-on-one baseball competition, launched to coincide with Major League Baseball's opening day in 2012.


title: DraftKings

text: In April 2013, Major League Baseball invested in DraftKings, becoming the first US professional sports organization to invest in daily fantasy sports. The investment was not disclosed at the time.


title: DraftKings

text: In February 2014, it was reported that the company awarded $50 million in prizes in 2013 to players in weekly fantasy football, daily fantasy baseball, daily fantasy basketball and daily fantasy hockey. The company also reported 50,000 active daily users and as many as one million registered players.


title: DraftKings

text: In July 2014, it announced the acquisition of the third largest company, rival DraftStreet, owned at the time by New York media company IAC. The acquisition reportedly increased DraftKings' user base by 50%. The company announced it would keep the DraftStreet NY office open and retain some employees.


title: DraftKings

text: In August 2014, the company announced $41 million in funding from a variety of investors, including The Raine Group, as well as existing investors Redpoint Ventures, GGV Capital, and Accomplice. The company also announced that it was acquiring the assets of Somerville, MA, competitor StarStreet.


title: DraftKings

text: In November 2014, DraftKings reached a two-year deal to become the official daily fantasy sports service of the National Hockey League. The deal included sponsorships of video features and other content across the NHL's digital outlets, co-branded free games with fan-oriented prizes, and in-venue ad placements during marquee NHL events. Yahoo! Sports remained the league's official season-length fantasy sports provider.


title: DraftKings

text: In April 2015, DraftKings reached a similar deal with Major League Baseball. The agreement allowed DraftKings to offer co-branded MLB daily fantasy games and extend its relationships with individual MLB clubs to offer in-stadium fantasy-related experiences. The company also announced it had received $304 million in users' entry fees in 2014.


title: DraftKings

text: In July 2015, DraftKings entered into a three-year advertising deal with ESPN Inc. valued at $250 million. This deal included "integration" of the service within ESPN's television and digital content, and having exclusivity in advertising DFS services on its networks beginning in January 2016.


title: DraftKings

text: Also in July 2015, DraftKings announced a round of funding totaling $300 million, led by Fox Sports, along with the Kraft Group, owners of the New England Patriots, and Boston financial giant Wellington Management. The agreement included a condition stating that DraftKings would spend $250 million on advertising with Fox Sports over the next three years. Due to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in March 2019, Fox's stake is now owned by The Walt Disney Company.


title: DraftKings

text: In August 2015, DraftKings announced that it had been granted a license by the Gambling Commission to operate pool wagering services in the United Kingdom and that it planned to open an office in London. The company also hired Jeffrey Haas, a veteran of the online poker industry, to serve as Chief International Officer to lead the company's international expansion. DraftKings officially launched in the UK on February 5, 2016, with daily fantasy soccer. As part of the launch, DraftKings enhanced its handling of soccer on the platform to appeal to the local audience. The following year, DraftKings was subsequently awarded a controlled skill games license in Malta, which would allow the service to expand into any European Union country that allows gambling services to operate under licensing from another EU country, such as Germany.


title: DraftKings

text: In February 2016, ESPN backed out of its advertising deal with DraftKings due to the legal uncertainties surrounding the service.


title: DraftKings

text: On November 18, 2016, DraftKings and FanDuel announced their intent to merge. The combined company would serve over 5 million users. On June 19, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it would seek a preliminary injunction to block the proposed merger. The FTC felt that the proposed transaction would give the combined company 90% of the U.S. DFS market, which is considered to be a monopoly position. On July 13, 2017, the merger was officially called off due to the threat of litigation from the FTC.


title: DraftKings

text: In September 2017, DraftKings and FanDuel each paid $1.3 million to settle with the Massachusetts Attorney General's office over allegations of unfair and deceptive practices by the companies prior to 2016.


title: DraftKings

text: In 2021, Draftkings agreed to pay at least $50 million over a three-year period to distribute a sports and pop-culture podcast hosted by Dan Le Batard. The agreement marks the first major licensing deal struck by Meadowlark Media, founded by Le Batard. The podcast averages around 10 to 12 million downloads monthly. As of July 2021, DraftKings reached a market capitalization of $20.64 billion.


title: DraftKings

text: In December 2021, DraftKings was sued by Colossus Bets over patent infringement. Colossus claimed DraftKings infringed seven patents covering sports betting and gaming products with a cash-out feature.


title: DraftKings

text: In May 2022, it was announced that DraftKings had acquired the online casino and sports betting operator, Golden Nugget Online Gaming.


title: DraftKings

text: In May 2018, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, allowing states outside of Nevada to legalize sports betting. In August 2018, DraftKings launched its first legal online sportsbook in New Jersey. Since launching in New Jersey, DraftKings has opened sports betting operations in New York, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Mississippi.


title: DraftKings

text: In April 2020, DraftKings completed a reverse merger valued at $3.3 billion that made it a publicly traded company. The merger involved Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company that went public in May 2019, as well as SBTech Global Ltd., a Europe-based company providing technology solutions for sports betting businesses. The combined company keeps both DraftKings' name and its executive management. On April 24, 2020, the company's shares started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol "DKNG". In September 2020, retired NBA player Michael Jordan became an investor and board advisor at DraftKings.


title: DraftKings

text: On March 30, 2021, DraftKings announced its acquisition of the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN), a Las Vegas-based broadcaster focusing on sports betting-oriented programming.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings Sportsbook launched in New Jersey on August 1, 2018, making it the first company to offer legal, mobile and online sports betting after the overturn of Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). DraftKings has since launched mobile operations in West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings offers retail sports betting in partnership with multiple casinos throughout the country. Locations include the DraftKings Sportsbook at Resorts in New Jersey, DraftKings at Scarlet Pearl Sportsbook in Mississippi, DraftKings Sportsbook at Wild Rose in multiple locations throughout Iowa, DraftKings Sportsbook at del Lago in New York, DraftKings Sportsbook at Casino Queen in Illinois, DraftKings Sportsbook at Foxwoods in Connecticut and DraftKings Sportsbook at The Meadows in Pennsylvania.


title: DraftKings

text: Customers are able to place a variety of bets, including live in-game betting, odds boosts, prop bets, pools, futures bets, and market specials


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings' Marketplace sells NFTs of sports icons during scheduled releases as well as on the secondary market. The inaugural set of icons included Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, Derek Jeter, Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and Rob Gronkowski.


title: DraftKings

text: DraftKings offers a variety of fantasy sports contests for players at a range of different skill levels. Contests include beginner contests for novice players, "Step" contests where players win tickets at different levels to advance to the next level, "Multipliers" (also known as "Boosters"), which allow players to quickly boost their entry fee by earning higher scores, three-man leagues, "50/50" contests, where players win by finishing in the top half of their league, "Head to Head" contests, where two players face each other, and "Guaranteed Prize Pools" (GPPs), tournaments where a smaller number of players can win larger amounts.


title: DraftKings

text: Players can use the DraftKings website or manage their fantasy games using a mobile app that supports iOS or Android. DraftKings offers weekly or daily fantasy sports contests for 13 sports, including: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, Golf, Men and Women's Soccer, Tennis, CFL, NASCAR, MMA, eSports and, XFL.


title: DraftKings

text: Major League Baseball (MLB) has an investment stake in the company and is a partner. The company had an exclusive $250M advertising contract with the American sports network ESPN, and a $250M non-exclusive advertising deal with 21st Century Fox's Fox Sports unit.


title: DraftKings

text: In addition to MLB, ESPN and Fox, as of July 2015, DraftKings also had partnership agreements with the National Football League, media property Bleacher Report, two sport promotional bodies (NASCAR and UFC), two venues (Madison Square Garden and Staples Center), five NFL teams, eight NBA teams, twenty-five MLB teams, seven NHL teams, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA.


title: DraftKings

text: In November 2017, DraftKings announced that it had acquired digital rights to EuroLeague basketball games in Canada and the United States. The company planned to, beginning in 2018, stream games to those who participate in associated DFS contests with an entry fee of $3 or more, and offer one free streaming game per-week. DraftKings CEO Jason Robins stated that he was aiming for the service to become a "one-stop shop" for fantasy players, so they would not have to "hop around to necessarily five or six different places to consume the game content". He envisioned that major sports leagues could reach similar partnerships in the future.


title: DraftKings

text: Vince McMahon owns an unspecified minority stake in DraftKings. As such, it is the official fantasy sports platform for the XFL and will also host the league's exclusive sports betting platform if legal circumstances allow it.


title: DraftKings

text: In September 2019, the National Football League (NFL) announced an official partnership with DraftKings, becoming the first daily fantasy sports platform to enter a formal relationship with the league.


title: DraftKings

text: On October 5, 2015, an article in "The New York Times" indicated that an employee at DraftKings admitted to inadvertently releasing data before the start of week three's NFL football games. That same employee had won $350,000 on rival fantasy site FanDuel the same week. An internal review concluded the employee obtained the data after lineups were locked and couldn't have used that data for an unfair advantage. Both DraftKings and FanDuel released statements saying that "Nothing is more important... than the integrity of the games we offer to our customers," and they would work with the entire fantasy sports industry "so that fans everywhere can continue to enjoy and trust the games they love." The following day, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened an inquiry into DraftKings and FanDuel, asking each site for a range of internal data and details on how they prevent fraud. ESPN announced on October 6 that they would no longer be running segments sponsored by DraftKings, though paid DraftKings advertisements would continue.


title: DraftKings

text: On May 2, 2016 attorney general Lawrence Wasden banned DraftKings and FanDuel from operating in Idaho, calling them illegal gambling.


title: DraftKings

text: Hindenburg Research published a report alleging that SBTech, which accounted for around 25% of DraftKing's revenue at the SPAC consummation, has ties to organized crime in Bulgaria and illegal gambling around the world.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: The Apalachin meeting ( ) was a historic summit of the American Mafia held at the home of mobster Joseph "Joe the Barber" Barbara, at 625 McFall Road in Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957. Allegedly, the meeting was held to discuss various topics including loansharking, narcotics trafficking, and gambling, along with dividing the illegal operations controlled by the recently murdered Albert Anastasia. An estimated 100 Mafiosi from the United States, Italy, and Cuba are thought to have attended this meeting. Immediately after the Anastasia murder that October, and after taking control of the Luciano crime family (renamed the Genovese crime family) from Frank Costello, Vito Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Local and state law enforcement became suspicious when numerous expensive cars bearing license plates from around the country arrived in what was described as "the sleepy hamlet of Apalachin." After setting up roadblocks, the police raided the meeting, causing many of the participants to flee into the woods and area surrounding the Barbara estate.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: More than 60 underworld bosses were detained and indicted following the raid. Twenty of those who attended the meeting were charged with "conspiring to obstruct justice by lying about the nature of the underworld meeting" and found guilty in January 1959. All were fined, up to $10,000 each, and given prison sentences ranging from three to five years. All the convictions were overturned on appeal the following year. One of the most direct and significant outcomes of the Apalachin meeting was that it helped to confirm the existence of a nationwide criminal conspiracy, a fact that some, including Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, had long refused to acknowledge.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: On June 18, 1936, Luciano crime family boss Lucky Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison, along with others. On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward for his alleged wartime cooperation, Thomas E. Dewey reluctantly commuted Luciano's pandering sentence on condition that he did not resist deportation to Italy. Luciano accepted the deal, although he still maintained that he was a US citizen and not subject to deportation. On February 10, Luciano's ship sailed from Brooklyn harbor for Italy. This was the last time he saw the U.S. On February 28, after a 17-day voyage, Luciano's ship arrived in Naples. On arrival, Luciano told reporters he would probably reside in Sicily.