title: Anthony Cumia

text: On December 19, 2015, Cumia was in an argument at his house with his girlfriend Danielle Brand, the daughter of Stress Factory owner Vinnie Brand, which turned violent. He was arrested by Nassau County police on charges of strangulation, assault, criminal mischief, and unlawful imprisonment. Cumia was released without bail on December 21, at which time his attorney stated that Cumia denied the allegations. In June 2016 Cumia pled guilty to third-degree assault and criminal obstruction of breathing in a plea deal. As a condition of the deal, if Cumia completed six months of outpatient alcohol rehab and participated in a program designed for batterers, the original charges to which he pled guilty would be dropped and reduced to harassment, which would not leave Cumia with a record. Cumia later admitted on his show to biting Brand's hand because he "was pissed" and "out of [his] mind". Cumia spent April 2016 in a rehabilitation facility in the Tampa Bay area in Florida. He said that although his decision to enter rehab was related to the December 2015 incident, it was not court-ordered.


title: Anthony Cumia

text: In 2006, Cumia bought a home in Roslyn Heights, New York for $2.9 million. In 2020, he put the home up for sale with the intention to move to a southern state that more closely aligns with his views. Cumia eventually bought a property in South Carolina, which is now his primary residence.


title: Raytheon Company

text: The Raytheon Company was a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007. Raytheon was the world's largest producer of guided missiles. In April 2020, the company merged with United Technologies Corporation to form Raytheon Technologies.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Established in 1922, the company reincorporated in 1928 and adopted its present name in 1959. During 2018, the company had around 67,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of approximately US$25.35 billion. More than 90% of Raytheon's revenues were obtained from military contracts and, as of 2012, it was the fifth-largest military contractor in the world. , it was the third largest defense contractor in the United States by defense revenue.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 2003, Raytheon's headquarters moved from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Waltham, Massachusetts. The company had previously been headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1922 to 1928, Newton, Massachusetts, from 1928 to 1941, Waltham from 1941 to 1961 and Lexington from 1961 to 2003.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1922, two former Tufts University School of Engineering, roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its focus, which was originally on new refrigeration technology, soon shifted to electronics. The company's first product was a gaseous (helium) voltage-regulator tube that was based on Charles Smith's earlier astronomical research of the star Zeta Puppis. The electron tube was christened with the name "Raytheon" ("light of/from the gods") and was used in a battery eliminator, a type of radio-receiver power supply that plugged into the power grid in place of large batteries. This made it possible to convert household alternating current to a regulated, high voltage direct current for radios and thus eliminate the need for expensive, short-lived batteries.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1925, the company changed its name to Raytheon Manufacturing Company and began marketing its rectifier, under the Raytheon brand name, with commercial success. In 1928 Raytheon merged with Q.R.S. Company, an American manufacturer of electron tubes and switches, to form the successor of the same name, Raytheon Manufacturing Company. By the 1930s, it had already grown to become one of the world's largest vacuum tube manufacturing companies. In 1933 it diversified by acquiring Acme-Delta Company, a producer of transformers, power equipment, and electronic auto parts.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Early in World War II, physicists in the United Kingdom invented the magnetron, a specialized microwave-generating electron tube that markedly improved the capability of radar to detect enemy aircraft. American companies were then sought by the US government to perfect and mass-produce the magnetron for ground-based, airborne, and shipborne radar systems, and, with support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Radiation Laboratory (recently formed to investigate microwave radar), Raytheon received a contract to build the devices. Within a few months of being awarded the contract, Raytheon had already begun to mass manufacture magnetron tubes for use in radar sets and then complete radar systems. At war's end in 1945 the company was responsible for about 80 percent of all magnetrons manufactured. During the war Raytheon also pioneered the production of shipboard radar systems, particularly for submarine detection. Raytheon ranked 71st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon's research on the magnetron tube revealed the potential of microwaves to cook food. In 1945, Raytheon's Percy Spencer invented the microwave oven by discovering that the magnetron could rapidly heat food. In 1947, the company demonstrated the Radarange microwave oven for commercial use.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon was also a contractor for the mass-production of the newly-invented miniature shock-resistant vacuum tubes used in proximity fuses. These tubes were difficult to manufacture and required rigorous attention to detail to avoid failure of the fuse.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1946, the company expanded its electronics capability through acquisitions that included the Submarine Signal Company (founded in 1901), a leading manufacturer of maritime safety equipment. With its broadened capabilities, Raytheon developed the first guidance system for a missile that could intercept a flying target. In 1948 Charles Francis Adams IV was appointed to be the new President of the company and served until 1960. In 1948, Raytheon began to manufacture guided missiles. In 1950, its Lark missile became the first such weapon to destroy a target aircraft in flight. Raytheon then received military contracts to develop the air-to-air Sparrow and ground-to-air Hawk missiles, projects that received impetus from the Korean War. In later decades, it remained a major producer of missiles, such as the Patriot antimissile missile and the air-to-air Phoenix missile.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon made a foray into computers, producing the RAYDAC computer for the U.S.Navy which became operational in 1953. "Unfortunately, the machine was technically obsolete by the time it was operational." Also in 1953 the company began work on a follow-on, the RAYCOM, which was never completed. In 1954 it entered into a joint venture with Honeywell to form the Datamatic corporation. However it sold its interest to Honeywell a year later, before introduction of the DATAmatic 1000 system.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1958, Raytheon acquired the marine electronics company Applied Electronics Company, which significantly increased its strength in commercial marine navigation and radio gear, as well as less-expensive Japanese suppliers of products such as marine/weather band radios and direction-finding gear. In the same year, it changed its name to Raytheon Company.


title: Raytheon Company

text: During the post-war years, Raytheon also made generally low- to medium-powered radio and television transmitters and related equipment for the commercial market, but the high-powered market was solidly in the hands of larger, better-financed competitors such as Continental Electronics, General Electric and Radio Corporation of America.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In the 1950s, Raytheon began manufacturing transistors, including the CK722, priced and marketed to hobbyists.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1961, the British electronics company A.C. Cossor merged with Raytheon, following its sale by Philips. The new Company's name was Raytheon Cossor. The Cossor side of the organisation is still current in the Raytheon group .


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1965, it acquired Amana Refrigeration, Inc., a manufacturer of refrigerators and air conditioners. Using the Amana brand name and its distribution channels, Raytheon began selling the first countertop household microwave oven in 1967 and became a dominant manufacturer in the microwave oven business.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1966, the company entered the educational publishing business with the acquisition of D.C. Heath and Company, marketing an influential physics textbook developed by the Physical Science Study Committee. Raytheon also manufactured the Apollo Guidance Computer, which was introduced that year and flew aboard all NASA Project Apollo missions.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In the late 1970s, Raytheon acquired McGraw-Edison's appliances division notable for the Speed Queen line of washers and dryers.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1980, Raytheon acquired Beech Aircraft Corporation, a leading manufacturer of general aviation aircraft founded in 1932 by Walter H. Beech. In 1993 the company expanded its aircraft activities by adding the Hawker line of business jets by acquiring Corporate Jets Inc., the business jet product line of British Aerospace (now BAE Systems). These two entities were merged in 1994 to become the Raytheon Aircraft Company. In the first quarter of 2007 Raytheon sold its aircraft operations, which subsequently operated as Hawker Beechcraft, and since 2014 have been units of Textron Aviation. The product line of Raytheon's aircraft subsidiary included business jets such as the Hawker 800XP and Hawker 4000, the Beechjet 400A, and the Premier I; the popular King Air series of twin turboprops; and piston-engine aircraft such as the Bonanza. Its special-mission aircraft included the single-turboprop T-6A Texan II, which the United States Air Force and United States Navy had chosen as their primary training aircraft.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, Raytheon's Patriot missile received great international exposure, resulting in a substantial increase in sales for the company outside the United States. In an effort to establish leadership in the defense electronics business, Raytheon purchased in quick succession Dallas-based E-Systems (1995); Chrysler Corporation's defense electronics and aircraft-modification businesses, which had previously acquired companies such as Electrospace systems (1996) (portions of these businesses were later sold to L-3 Communications), and the defense unit of Texas Instruments, Defense Systems & Electronics Group (1997). Also in 1997, Raytheon acquired the aerospace and defense business of Hughes Aircraft Company from Hughes Electronics Corporation, a subsidiary of General Motors, which included a number of product lines previously purchased by Hughes Electronics, including the former General Dynamics missile business (Pomona facility), the defense portion of Delco Electronics (Delco Systems Operations), and Magnavox Electronic Systems.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon also divested itself of several nondefense businesses in the 1990s, including Amana Refrigeration, Raytheon Commercial Laundry (purchased by Bain Capital's Alliance Laundry Systems), and Seismograph Service Ltd (sold to Schlumberger-Geco-Prakla). On October 12, 1999, Raytheon exited the personal rapid transit (PRT) business as it terminated its PRT 2000 system due to the high cost of development and the lack of interest.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In November 2007, Raytheon purchased Sarcos for an undisclosed sum, seeking to expand into robotics research and production.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In September 2009, Raytheon entered into an agreement to acquire BBN Technologies. The acquisition was completed on October 29, 2009.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In October 2014, Raytheon beat rivals Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for a contract to build 3DELRR, a next-generation long-range radar system, for the US Air Force worth an estimated $1 billion.


title: Raytheon Company

text: The contract award was immediately protested by Raytheon's competitors, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. After re-evaluating the bids following the protests, the US Air Force decided to delay awarding the 3DELRR EMD contract until 2017 and was to issue an amended solicitation at the end of July 2016. In 2017 the Air Force again awarded the contract to Raytheon.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In May 2015, Raytheon acquired cybersecurity firm Websense, Inc. from Vista Equity Partners for $1.9 billion and combined it with RCP, formerly part of its IIS segment to form Raytheon|Websense. In October 2015, Raytheon|Websense acquired Foreground Security, a provider of security operations centers, managed security service solutions and cybersecurity professional services, for $62 million. In January 2016, Raytheon|Websense acquired the firewall provider Stonesoft from Intel Security for an undisclosed amount and renamed itself to Forcepoint.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In July 2016, Poland's Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz planned to sign a letter of intent with Raytheon for a $5.6 billion deal to upgrade its Patriot missile-defence shield.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 2017, Saudi Arabia signed business deals worth billions of dollars with multiple American companies, including Raytheon.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In July 2019, Qatar's Ministry of Defense committed to acquire Raytheon’s NASAM and Patriot missile defense systems.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In February 2020, Raytheon completed the first radar antenna array for the US Army's new missile defense radar, known as the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), to replace the service's Patriot air and missile defense system sensor.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In April 2020, the company merged with United Technologies Corporation to form Raytheon Technologies. The merged company is headquartered in Waltham rather than UTC's base in Farmington, Connecticut.


title: Raytheon Company

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Raytheon reported earnings of US$2.024 billion, with an annual revenue of US$25.348 billion, an increase of 5.1% over the previous fiscal cycle. Raytheon's shares traded at over $164 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$51.7 billion in November 2018.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon’s businesses are supported by several dedicated international operations including: Raytheon Australia; Raytheon Canada Limited; operations in Japan; Raytheon Microelectronics in Spain; Raytheon UK (formerly Raytheon Systems Limited); and ThalesRaytheonSystems, France.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In recent years, Raytheon has expanded into other fields while redefining some of its core business activities. Raytheon has identified five key 'Strategic Business Areas' where it is focusing its expertise and resources:


title: Raytheon Company

text: In March 2014, Thomas Kennedy was named CEO of Raytheon Company. Kennedy succeeded William H. Swanson, who was CEO since 2003. Swanson remained as Chairman through September 2014 when Kennedy became Chairman as well as CEO. Other current and former members of the board of directors of Raytheon were: Vernon Clark, James E. Cartwright, John Deutch, Stephen J. Hadley, George R. Oliver, Frederic Poses, Michael Ruettgers, Ronald Skates, William Spivey, and Linda Stuntz.


title: Raytheon Company

text: As of December 2014, according to filed reports, the top ten institutional shareholders of Raytheon are Wellington Management Company, Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, BlackRock Advisors, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Group.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon provides electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems; as well as a broad range of mission support services.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon's electronics and defense-systems units produce air-, sea-, and land-launched missiles, aircraft radar systems, weapons sights and targeting systems, communication and battle-management systems, and satellite components.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon is a developer and manufacturer of radars (including AESAs), electro-optical sensors, and other advanced electronics systems for airborne, naval and ground based military applications. Examples include:


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon, often in conjunction with Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman, is also heavily involved in the satellite sensor business. Much of its Space and Airborne Systems division in El Segundo, CA is devoted to this, a business it inherited from Hughes. Examples of programs include:


title: Raytheon Company

text: As part of the company's growing homeland security business and strategic focus, Raytheon has teamed with other contractors to develop an Advance Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) to allow border officials to view and identify radioactive materials in vehicles and shipping containers more effectively.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon also manufactures semiconductors for the electronics industry in sites in the US and UK. In the late 20th century it produced a wide range of integrated circuits and other components, but as of 2003 its US semiconductor business specializes in gallium arsenide (GaAs) components for radio communications as well as infrared detectors. It is also making efforts to develop gallium nitride (GaN) components for next-generation radars and radios. The UK arm specialized in CMOS on silicon carbide (SiC) development and foundry work but is no longer taking on new orders, having been on the premises for 57 years.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In the framework of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, Raytheon is developing a Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) that includes a booster missile and a kinetic Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), along with several key radar components, such as the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) and the Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR).


title: Raytheon Company

text: In a jointly managed project with Hughes Aircraft Co., Raytheon developed the Air Warfare Simulation (AWSIM2), currently used by the USAF for battle staff training at simulation centers worldwide.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon also produces and runs the ABACUS (Advanced BAttlespace CompUter Simulation) or Higher Formation Trainer (HFT) for training HQs from small specialist units up to corps level.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon Professional Services (RPS) is a global leader in training services and learning outsourcing for over 75 years. Clients are offered training tailored to their needs. The scope of each contract can vary from short-term training initiatives and projects to multi-year outsourcing engagements for some or all of a client’s training function. Services include: (1) Performance Consulting & Learning Strategy Development, (2) Training Design, Development & Delivery, (3) Learning Technologies and (4)Training Administration


title: Raytheon Company

text: Raytheon Six Sigma is the company's disciplined, knowledge-based approach designed to increase productivity, grow the business, enhance customer satisfaction and build a customer culture that embraces all of these goals. Daniel Burnham brought Six Sigma to Raytheon from AlliedSignal in 1998. This internal service provides six steps that guide projects to completion, the six steps being: visualize, commit, prioritize, characterize, improve, and achieve. Raytheon mentions in its annual reports the benefits it has enjoyed through Six Sigma. It has gained USD $3.8 billion in financial benefit and has set a common language and culture across the company.


title: Raytheon Company

text: Two lawsuits were filed against a Raytheon Company plant in St. Petersburg, Florida, due to concern with health risks, property values, and contamination in April 2008. Raytheon was given until the end of the month to independently test whether or not the groundwater that originated from its area was contaminated. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the groundwater contained carcinogenic contaminants, including trichloroethylene, 1,4-dioxane, and vinyl chloride. The DEP also reported that the clouds contained other toxins, such as lead and toluene.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In 1995, Raytheon acquired Dallas-based E-Systems, including a site in St. Petersburg, Florida. In November 1991, prior to Raytheon's acquisition, contamination had been discovered at the E-Systems site. Soil and groundwater had been contaminated with the volatile organic compounds trichloroethylene and 1,4-Dioxane. In 2005, groundwater monitoring indicated polluted groundwater was moving into areas outside the site. According to DEP documentation, Raytheon has tested wells on its site since 1996 but had not delivered a final report; therefore, it was given a deadline on May 31, 2008 to investigate its groundwater. Contamination in the area has not affected anyone's drinking water supply or health, yet due to negative local media coverage lawsuits are being filed with claims against Raytheon citing decreases in property values.


title: Raytheon Company

text: In another case, Raytheon was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to treat groundwater at the Tucson Plant (acquired during the merger with Hughes) in Arizona since Raytheon used and disposed metals, chlorinated solvents, and other substances at the plant since 1951. The EPA further required the installation and operation of an oxidation process system to treat the solvents and make the water safe to drink.


title: Raytheon Company

text: On 9 August 2006, The Stream Contact Centre in Derry, Northern Ireland, which had a contract with Raytheon at the time, was attacked by protesters. They destroyed the computers, documents, and mainframe of the office, and proceeded to occupy it for eight hours prior to their arrest.


title: Raytheon Company

text: The activists were charged with criminal damage and affray. The trial of six of the accused began May 19, 2008, in the Laganside Courts in Belfast. Colm Bryce, Gary Donnelly, Kieran Gallagher, Michael Gallagher, Sean Heaton, Jimmy Kelly, Paddy McDaid and Eamonn O'Donnell were acquitted of all charges on 11 June, with Eamonn McCann found guilty of the theft of two computer discs.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals.


title: Common cuckoo

text: This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It is a brood parasite, which means it lays eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of dunnocks, meadow pipits, and reed warblers. Although its eggs are larger than those of its hosts, the eggs in each type of host nest resemble the host's eggs. The adult too is a mimic, in its case of the sparrowhawk; since that species is a predator, the mimicry gives the female time to lay her eggs without being attacked.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The species' binomial name is derived from the Latin "cuculus" (the cuckoo) and "canorus" (melodious; from "canere", meaning to sing). The cuckoo family gets its common name and genus name by onomatopoeia for the call of the male common cuckoo. The English word "cuckoo" comes from the Old French "cucu", and its earliest recorded usage in English is from around 1240, in the song "Sumer Is Icumen In". The song is written in Middle English, and the first two lines are: "Svmer is icumen in / Lhude sing cuccu." In modern English, this translates to "Summer has come in / Loudly sing, Cuckoo!".


title: Common cuckoo

text: Although the common cuckoo's global population appears to be declining, it is classified of being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is estimated that the species numbers between 25 million and 100 million individuals worldwide, with around 12.6 million to 25.8 million of those birds breeding in Europe. The longest recorded lifespan of a common cuckoo in the United Kingdom is 6 years, 11 months and 2 days.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The common cuckoo is long from bill to tail (with a tail of and a wingspan of . The legs are short. It has a greyish, slender body and long tail, similar to a sparrowhawk in flight, where the wingbeats are regular. During the breeding season, common cuckoos often settle on an open perch with drooped wings and raised tail. There is a rufous colour morph, which occurs occasionally in adult females but more often in juveniles.


title: Common cuckoo

text: All adult males are slate-grey; the grey throat extends well down the bird's breast with a sharp demarcation to the barred underparts. The iris, orbital ring, the base of the bill and feet are yellow. Grey adult females have a pinkish-buff or buff background to the barring and neck sides, and sometimes small rufous spots on the median and greater coverts and the outer webs of the secondary feathers.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Rufous morph adult females have reddish-brown upperparts with dark grey or black bars. The black upperpart bars are narrower than the rufous bars, as opposed to rufous juvenile birds, where the black bars are broader.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Common cuckoos in their first autumn have variable plumage. Some have strongly-barred chestnut-brown upperparts, while others are plain grey. Rufous-brown birds have heavily barred upperparts with some feathers edged with creamy-white. All have whitish edges to the upper wing-coverts and primaries. The secondaries and greater coverts have chestnut bars or spots. In spring, birds hatched in the previous year may retain some barred secondaries and wing-coverts. The most obvious identification features of juvenile common cuckoos are the white nape patch and white feather fringes.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Common cuckoos moult twice a year: a partial moult in summer and a complete moult in winter. Males weigh around and females . The common cuckoo looks very similar to the Oriental cuckoo, which is slightly shorter-winged on average.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The barred underparts of the common cuckoo resemble those of the Eurasian sparrowhawk, a predator of adult birds. A study comparing the responses of Eurasian reed warblers, a host of cuckoo chicks, to manipulated taxidermy model cuckoos and sparrowhawks found that reed warblers were more aggressive to cuckoos with obscured underparts, suggesting that the resemblance to sparrowhawks is likely to help the cuckoo access the nests of potential hosts. Other small birds, great tits and blue tits, showed alarm and avoided attending feeders on seeing either (mounted) sparrowhawks or cuckoos; this implies that the cuckoo's hawklike appearance functions as protective mimicry, whether to reduce attacks by hawks or to make brood parasitism easier.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Hosts attack cuckoos more when they see neighbors mobbing cuckoos. The existence of the two plumage morphs in females may be due to frequency-dependent selection if this learning applies only to the morph that hosts see neighbors mob. In an experiment with dummy cuckoos of each morph and a sparrowhawk, reed warblers were more likely to attack both cuckoo morphs than the sparrowhawk, and even more likely to mob a certain cuckoo morph when they saw neighbors mobbing that morph, decreasing the reproductive success of that morph and selecting for the less common morph.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The male's song, "goo-ko", is usually given from an open perch. During the breeding season the male typically gives this vocalisation with intervals of 1–1.5 seconds, in groups of 10–20 with a rest of a few seconds between groups. The female has a loud bubbling call. The song starts as a descending minor third early in the year in April, and the interval gets wider, through a major third to a fourth as the season progresses, and in June the cuckoo "forgets its tune" and may make other calls such as ascending intervals. The wings are drooped when calling intensely and when in the vicinity of a potential female, the male often wags its tail from side to side or the body may pivot from side to side.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Essentially a bird of open land, the common cuckoo is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. Birds arrive in Europe in April and leave in September. The common cuckoo has also occurred as a vagrant in countries including Barbados, the United States, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Indonesia, Palau, Seychelles, Taiwan and China. Between 1995 and 2015, the distribution of cuckoos within the UK has shifted towards the north, with a decline by 69% in England but an increase by 33% in Scotland.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The common cuckoo's diet consists of insects, with hairy caterpillars, which are distasteful to many birds, being a specialty of preference. It also occasionally eats eggs and chicks.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. Hatched cuckoo chicks may push out host eggs out of the nest or be raised alongside the host's chicks. A female may visit up to 50 nests during a breeding season. Common cuckoos first breed at the age of two years.


title: Common cuckoo

text: More than 100 host species have been recorded: meadow pipit, dunnock and Eurasian reed warbler are the most common hosts in northern Europe; garden warbler, meadow pipit, pied wagtail and European robin in central Europe; brambling and common redstart in Finland; and great reed warbler in Hungary.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Female common cuckoos are divided into gentes – groups of females favouring a particular host species' nest and laying eggs that match those of that species in color and pattern. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that each gente may have multiple independent origins due to parasitism of specific hosts by different ancestors. One hypothesis for the inheritance of egg appearance mimicry is that this trait is inherited from the female only, suggesting that it is carried on the sex-determining W chromosome (females are WZ, males ZZ). A genetic analysis of gentes supports this proposal by finding significant differentiation in mitochondrial DNA, but not in microsatellite DNA. A second proposal for the inheritance of this trait is that the genes controlling egg characteristics are carried on autosomes rather than just the W chromosome. Another genetic analysis of sympatric gentes supports this second proposal by finding significant genetic differentiation in both microsatellite DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Considering the tendency for common cuckoo males to mate with multiple females and produce offspring raised by more than one host species, it appears as though males do not contribute to the maintenance of common cuckoo gentes. However, it was found that only nine percent of offspring were raised outside of their father's presumed host species. Therefore, both males and females may contribute to the maintenance of common cuckoo egg mimicry polymorphism. It is notable that most non-parasitic cuckoo species lay white eggs, like most non-passerines other than ground-nesters.


title: Common cuckoo

text: As the common cuckoo evolves to lay eggs that better imitate the host's eggs, the host species adapts and is more able to distinguish the cuckoo egg. A study of 248 common cuckoo and host eggs demonstrated that female cuckoos that parasitised common redstart nests laid eggs that matched better than those that targeted dunnocks. Spectroscopy was used to model how the host species saw the cuckoo eggs. Cuckoos that target dunnock nests lay white, brown-speckled eggs, in contrast to the dunnock's own blue eggs. The theory suggests that common redstarts have been parasitised by common cuckoos for longer, and so have evolved to be better than the dunnocks at noticing the cuckoo eggs. The cuckoo, over time, has needed to evolve more accurate mimicking eggs to successfully parasitise the redstart. In contrast, cuckoos do not seem to have experienced evolutionary pressure to develop eggs which closely mimic the dunnock's, as dunnocks do not seem to be able to distinguish between the two species' eggs, despite the significant colour differences. The dunnock's inability to distinguish the eggs suggests that they have not been parasitised for very long, and have not yet evolved defences against it, unlike the redstart.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Studies performed on great reed warbler nests in central Hungary, showed an ""unusually high"" frequency of common cuckoo parasitism, with 64% of the nests parasitised. Of the nests targeted by cuckoos, 64% contained one cuckoo egg, 23% had two, 10% had three and 3% had four common cuckoo eggs. In total, 58% of the common cuckoo eggs were laid in nests that were multiply parasitised. When laying eggs in nests already parasitised, the female cuckoos removed one egg at random, showing no discrimination between the great reed warbler eggs and those of other cuckoos.


title: Common cuckoo

text: It was found that nests close to cuckoo perches were most vulnerable: multiple parasitised nests were closest to the vantage points, and unparasitised nests were farthest away. Nearly all the nests ""in close vicinity"" to the vantage points were parasitised. More visible nests were more likely to be selected by the common cuckoos. Female cuckoos use their vantage points to watch for potential hosts and find it easier to locate the more visible nests while they are egg-laying, however, novel studies highlight that host alarm calls might also play an important role during nest searching. In addition, cuckoos tend to lay the eggs on the host clutch initiation day or one day before.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The great reed warblers' responses to the common cuckoo eggs varied: 66% accepted the egg(s); 12% ejected them; 20% abandoned the nests entirely; 2% buried the eggs. 28% of the cuckoo eggs were described as ""almost perfect"" in their mimesis of the host eggs, and the warblers rejected ""poorly mimetic"" cuckoo eggs more often. The degree of mimicry made it difficult for both the great reed warblers and the observers to tell the eggs apart.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The egg measures and weighs , of which 7% is shell. Research has shown that the female common cuckoo is able to keep its egg inside its body for an extra 24 hours before laying it in a host's nest. This means the cuckoo chick can hatch before the host's chicks do, and it can eject the unhatched eggs from the nest. Scientists incubated common cuckoo eggs for 24 hours at the bird's body temperature of , and examined the embryos, which were found "much more advanced" than those of other species studied. The idea of 'internal incubation' was first put forward in 1802 and 18th- and 19th-century egg collectors had reported finding that cuckoo embryos were more advanced than those of the host species.


title: Common cuckoo

text: A study using digital photography and spectrometry along with an automatic analytical approach to analyse cuckoo eggs and predict the identity of bird females based on their egg appearance showed that individual cuckoo females lay eggs with a relatively constant appearance, and that eggs laid by more genetically distant females differ more in colour.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Complete list of common cuckoo's nest-host by Aleksander D. Numerov (2003); names of birds in whose nests cuckoo's eggs and chicks were found more than 10 times (in bold):


title: Common cuckoo

text: The naked, altricial chick hatches after 11–13 days. It methodically evicts all host progeny from host nests. It is a much larger bird than its hosts, and needs to monopolize the food supplied by the parents. The chick will roll the other eggs out of the nest by pushing them with its back over the edge. If the host's eggs hatch before the cuckoo's, the cuckoo chick will push the other chicks out of the nest in a similar way. At 14 days old, the common cuckoo chick is about three times the size of an adult Eurasian reed warbler.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The necessity of eviction behavior is unclear. One hypothesis is that competing with host chicks leads to decreased cuckoo chick weight, which is selective pressure for eviction behavior. An analysis of the amount of food provided to common cuckoo chicks by host parents in the presence and absence of host siblings showed that when competing against host siblings, cuckoo chicks did not receive enough food, showing an inability to compete. Selection pressure for eviction behavior may come from cuckoo chicks lacking the correct visual begging signals, hosts distributing food to all nestlings equally, or host recognition of the parasite. Another hypothesis is that decreased cuckoo chick weight is not selective pressure for eviction behavior. An analysis of resources provided to cuckoo chicks in the presence and absence of host siblings also showed that the weights of cuckoos raised with host chicks were much smaller upon fledging than cuckoos raised alone, but within 12 days cuckoos raised with siblings grew faster than cuckoos raised alone and made up for developmental differences, showing a flexibility that would not necessarily select for eviction behavior.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Species whose broods are parasitised by the common cuckoo have evolved to discriminate against cuckoo eggs but not chicks. Experiments have shown that common cuckoo chicks persuade their host parents to feed them by making a rapid begging call that sounds "remarkably like a whole brood of host chicks." The researchers suggested that "the cuckoo needs vocal trickery to stimulate adequate care to compensate for the fact that it presents a visual stimulus of just one gape." However, a cuckoo chick needs the amount of food of a whole brood of host nestlings, and it struggles to elicit that much from the host parents with only the vocal stimulus. This may reflect a tradeoff—the cuckoo chick benefits from eviction by receiving all the food provided, but faces a cost in being the only one influencing feeding rate. For this reason, cuckoo chicks exploit host parental care by remaining with the host parent longer than host chicks do, both before and after fledging.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Common cuckoo chicks fledge about 17–21 days after hatching, compared to 12–13 days for Eurasian reed warblers. If the hen cuckoo is out-of-phase with a clutch of Eurasian reed warbler eggs, she will eat them all so that the hosts are forced to start another brood.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The common cuckoo's behaviour was firstly observed and described by Aristotle and the combination of behaviour and anatomical adaptation by Edward Jenner, who was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1788 for this work rather than for his development of the smallpox vaccine. It was first documented on film in 1922 by Edgar Chance and Oliver G Pike, in their film "The Cuckoo's Secret".


title: Common cuckoo

text: A study in Japan found that young common cuckoos probably acquire species-specific feather lice from body-to-body contact with other cuckoos between the time of leaving the nest and returning to the breeding area in spring. A total of 21 nestlings were examined shortly before they left their hosts' nests and none carried feather lice. However, young birds returning to Japan for the first time were found just as likely as older individuals to be lousy.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The occurrence of common cuckoo in Europe is a good surrogate for biodiversity facets including taxonomic diversity and functional diversity in bird communities, and better than the traditional use of top predators as bioindicators. The reason for this is the strong correlation between the cuckoo's host species richness and overall bird species richness, due to co-evolutionary relationships. This may be useful for citizen science.


title: Common cuckoo

text: Aristotle was aware of the old tale that cuckoos turned into hawks in winter. The tale was an explanation for their absence outside the summer season, later accepted by Pliny the Elder in his "Natural History". Aristotle rejected the claim, observing in his "History of Animals" that cuckoos do not have the predators' talons or hooked bills. These Classical era accounts were known to the Early Modern English naturalist, William Turner.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The 13th-century medieval English round, "Sumer Is Icumen In", celebrates the cuckoo as a sign of spring, the beginning of summer, in the first stanza, and in the chorus:


title: Common cuckoo

text: In England, William Shakespeare alludes to the common cuckoo's association with spring, and with cuckoldry, in the courtly springtime song in his play "Love's Labours Lost":


title: Common cuckoo

text: In Europe, hearing the call of the common cuckoo is regarded as the first harbinger of spring. Many local legends and traditions are based on this. In Scotland, gowk stanes (cuckoo stones) sometimes associated with the arrival of the first cuckoo of spring. "Gowk" is an old name for the common cuckoo in northern England, derived from the harsh repeated ""gowk"" call the bird makes when excited. The well-known cuckoo clock features a mechanical bird and is fitted with bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the common cuckoo. Cuckoos feature in traditional rhymes, such as '"In April the cuckoo comes, In May she'll stay, In June she changes her tune, In July she prepares to fly, Come August, go she must,"' quoted Peggy. 'But you haven't said it all,' put in Bobby. '"And if the cuckoo stays till September, It's as much as the oldest man can remember."'


title: Common cuckoo

text: "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" is a symphonic poem from Norway composed for orchestra by Frederick Delius.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The second, "The Cuckoo's Nest" is a song about a courtship, with the eponymous (and of course, non-existent) nest serving as a metaphor for the vulva and its tangled "nest" of pubic hair.


title: Common cuckoo

text: One of the tales of the Wise Men of Gotham tells how they built a hedge round a tree in order to trap a cuckoo so that it would always be summer.


title: Common cuckoo

text: The theme music for film comedians Laurel and Hardy, titled "Dance of The Cuckoos" and composed by Marvin Hatley, was based on the call of the common cuckoo.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: "I Vow to Thee, My Country" is a British patriotic hymn, created in 1921, when music by Gustav Holst had a poem by Sir Cecil Spring Rice set to it. The music originated as a wordless melody, which Holst later named "Thaxted", taken from the "Jupiter" movement of Holst's 1917 suite "The Planets".


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: The origin of the hymn's text is a poem by diplomat Sir Cecil Spring Rice, written in 1908 or 1912, entitled "" ("The City of God") or "The Two Fatherlands". The poem described how a Christian owes his loyalties to both his homeland and the heavenly kingdom.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: In 1908, Spring Rice was posted to the British Embassy in Stockholm. In 1912, he was appointed as Ambassador to the United States of America, where he influenced the administration of Woodrow Wilson to abandon neutrality and join Britain in the war against Germany. After the United States entered the war, he was recalled to Britain. Shortly before his departure from the US in January 1918, he re-wrote and renamed "", significantly altering the first verse to concentrate on the themes of love and sacrifice rather than "the noise of battle" and "the thunder of her guns", creating a more sombre tone in view of the dreadful loss of life suffered in the Great War. The first verse in both versions invoke Britain (in the 1912 version, anthropomorphised as Britannia with sword and shield; in the second version, simply called "my country"); the second verse, the Kingdom of Heaven.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: According to Sir Cecil's granddaughter, the rewritten verse of 1918 was never intended to appear alongside the first verse of the original poem but was replacing it; the original first verse is nevertheless sometimes known as the "rarely sung middle verse". The text of the original poem was sent by Spring Rice to William Jennings Bryan in a letter shortly before his death in February 1918.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: The poem circulated privately for a few years until it was set to music by Holst, to a tune he adapted from his "Jupiter" to fit the words of the poem.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: It was performed as a unison song with orchestra in the early 1920s, and it was finally published as a hymn in 1925/6 in the "Songs of Praise" hymnal (no. 188).


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: In 1921, Gustav Holst adapted the music from a section of "Jupiter" from his suite "The Planets" to create a setting for the poem. The music was extended slightly to fit the final two lines of the first verse. At the request of the publisher Curwen, Holst made a version as a unison song with orchestra (Curwen also published Sir Hubert Parry's unison song with orchestra, "Jerusalem"). This was probably first performed in 1921 and became a common element at Armistice memorial ceremonies, especially after it was published as a hymn in 1926.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: In 1926, Holst harmonised the tune to make it usable as a hymn, which was included in the hymnal "Songs of Praise". In that version, the lyrics were unchanged, but the tune was then called "Thaxted" (named after the village where Holst lived for many years). The editor of the new (1926) edition of "Songs of Praise" was Holst's close friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, which may have provided the stimulus for Holst's co-operation in producing the hymn.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: Holst's daughter Imogen recorded that, at "the time when he was asked to set these words to music, Holst was so over-worked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover they 'fitted' the tune from "Jupiter"".


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: <score>\relative f' { \time 3/4 \key c \major \partial 4 e8( g) a4. c8 b8. g16 c8( d) c4 b a8 b a4 g e2 } \addlyrics { I __ vow to thee, my coun -- try, all earth -- ly things a -- bove }</score>


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: The hymn as printed in "Songs of Praise" (1925) consisted only of the two stanzas of the 1918 version, credited "Words: Cecil Spring-Rice, 1918; Music: Thaxted", as follows:


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: The final line of the second stanza is based on Proverbs , "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace" (KJV), in the context of which the feminine pronoun refers to Wisdom.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: The original first stanza of Spring-Rice's poem ""Urbs Dei"/"The Two Father Lands" (1908–1912), never set to music, was as follows:


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: First performed in 1921, it is still associated with Remembrance Day services all over the Commonwealth of Nations.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: In August 2004, Stephen Lowe, Bishop of Hulme criticised the hymn in a diocese newsletter, calling it "heretical" because of its nationalist overtones.


title: I Vow to Thee, My Country

text: "I Vow to Thee, My Country" was voted as the UK's sixth favourite hymn in a 2019 poll by the BBC's "Songs of Praise".


title: Church Committee

text: The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church (D-ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its House counterpart, the Pike Committee, and the presidential Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.


title: Church Committee

text: The most shocking revelations of the committee include Operation MKULTRA involving the drugging and torture of unwitting US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control; COINTELPRO involving the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations; Family Jewels, a CIA program to covertly assassinate foreign leaders; Operation Mockingbird as a systematic propaganda campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity.


title: Church Committee

text: It also unearthed Project SHAMROCK in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA (while officially confirming the existence of this signals intelligence agency to the public for the first time).


title: Church Committee

text: By the early years of the 1970s, a series of troubling revelations had appeared in the press concerning intelligence activities. First came the revelations by Army intelligence officer Christopher Pyle in January 1970 of the US Army's spying on the civilian population and Senator Sam Ervin's Senate investigations produced more revelations. Then on December 22, 1974, "The New York Times" published a lengthy article by Seymour Hersh detailing operations engaged in by the CIA over the years that had been dubbed the "family jewels". Covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.


title: Church Committee

text: The creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.


title: Church Committee

text: The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976 in six books. Also published were seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.


title: Church Committee

text: Before the release of the final report, the committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Fidel Castro of Cuba. President Gerald Ford urged the Senate to withhold the report from the public, but failed, and under recommendations and pressure by the committee, Ford issued Executive Order 11905 (ultimately replaced in 1981 by President Reagan's Executive Order 12333) to ban US sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders.


title: Church Committee

text: In addition, the committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled "Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973". The rest were kept secret at CIA's request.


title: Church Committee

text: According to a declassified National Security Agency history, the Church Committee also helped to uncover the NSA's Watch List. The information for the list was compiled into the so-called "Rhyming Dictionary" of biographical information, which at its peak held millions of names—thousands of which were US citizens. Some prominent members of this list were Joanne Woodward, Thomas Watson, Walter Mondale, Art Buchwald, Arthur F. Burns, Gregory Peck, Otis G. Pike, Tom Wicker, Whitney Young, Howard Baker, Frank Church, David Dellinger, Ralph Abernathy, and others.


title: Church Committee

text: But among the most shocking revelations of the committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK, in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the Watch List. In 1975, the committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of President Ford's administration.


title: Church Committee

text: Together, the Church Committee's reports have been said to constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.


title: Church Committee

text: The Church Committee learned that, beginning in the 1950s, the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation had intercepted, opened and photographed more than 215,000 pieces of mail by the time the program (called "HTLINGUAL") was shut down in 1973. This program was all done under the "mail covers" program (a mail cover is a process by which the government records—without any requirement for a warrant or for notification—all information on the outside of an envelope or package, including the name of the sender and the recipient). The Church report found that the CIA was careful about keeping the United States Postal Service from learning that government agents were opening mail. CIA agents moved mail to a private room to open the mail or in some cases opened envelopes at night after stuffing them in briefcases or in coat pockets to deceive postal officials.


title: Church Committee

text: On May 9, 1975, the Church Committee decided to call acting CIA director William Colby. That same day Ford's top advisers (Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Philip W. Buchen, and John Marsh) drafted a recommendation that Colby be authorized to brief only rather than testify, and that he would be told to discuss only the general subject, with details of specific covert actions to be avoided except for realistic hypotheticals. But the Church Committee had full authority to call a hearing and require Colby's testimony. Ford and his top advisers met with Colby to prepare him for the hearing. Colby testified, "These last two months have placed American intelligence in danger. The almost hysterical excitement surrounding any news story mentioning CIA or referring even to a perfectly legitimate activity of CIA has raised a question whether secret intelligence operations can be conducted by the United States."


title: Church Committee

text: On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press", and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:


title: Church Committee

text: As a result of the political pressure created by the revelations of the Church Committee and the Pike Committee investigations, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905. This executive order banned political assassinations: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." Senator Church criticized this move on the ground that any future president could easily set aside or change this executive order by a further executive order. Further, President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12036, which in some ways expanded Executive Order 11905.


title: Church Committee

text: In 1977, the reporter Carl Bernstein wrote an article in the "Rolling Stone" magazine, stating that the relationship between the CIA and the media was far more extensive than what the Church Committee revealed. Bernstein said that the committee had covered it up, because it would have shown "embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism."


title: Church Committee

text: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor of the conservative magazine "The American Spectator", wrote that the committee "betrayed CIA agents and operations." The committee had not received names, so had none to release, as confirmed by later CIA director George H. W. Bush. However, Senator Jim McClure used the allegation in the 1980 election, when Church was defeated.


title: Church Committee

text: The Committee's work has more recently been criticized after the September 11 attacks, for leading to legislation reducing the ability of the CIA to gather human intelligence. In response to such criticism, the chief counsel of the committee, Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., retorted with a book co-authored by Aziz Z. Huq, denouncing the Bush administration's use of 9/11 to make "monarchist claims" that are "unprecedented on this side of the North Atlantic".


title: Church Committee

text: In September 2006, the University of Kentucky hosted a forum called "Who's Watching the Spies? Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans", bringing together two Democratic committee members, former Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale and former US Senator Walter "Dee" Huddleston of Kentucky, and Schwarz to discuss the committee's work, its historical impact, and how it pertains to today's society.


title: 1991 in film

text: The year 1991 in film involved some significant events. Important films released this year included "The Silence of the Lambs", "Beauty and the Beast", "Thelma & Louise", "JFK" and "".


title: The Knack

text: The Knack was an American rock band based in Los Angeles that rose to fame with its first single, "My Sharona", an international number-one hit in 1979.


title: The Knack

text: Singer Doug Fieger was a native of Oak Park, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in the 9 Mile/Greenfield area. The brother of attorney Geoffrey Fieger (later known for representing Jack Kevorkian in a series of assisted suicide cases) Fieger had previously played in an eclectic rock band called Sky as well as the Sunset Bombers. Although Sky had received a modest amount of acclaim, including being produced by Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller, the band broke up without having any chart success. As a result, Fieger made the decision to move to Los Angeles and start another band.


title: The Knack

text: Shortly after arriving in L.A., Fieger met Berton Averre (lead guitar, backing vocals and keyboards), and the two started a songwriting partnership. Fieger had also known Bruce Gary (drums) for years before forming the Knack in 1978 with Prescott Niles (bass). Niles was the last to join, a week before the band's first show in June 1978. In the meantime, Fieger had been doubling on bass on a series of demos that the group had shopped to several record labels, all of which were rejected. Some of these songs later made up the band's debut album "Get the Knack", and included "Good Girls Don't".


title: The Knack

text: Within months of their live debut, popular club gigs on the Sunset Strip, as well as guest jams with musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Ray Manzarek, led to the band being the subject of a record label bidding war. The band was pursued by ten record labels, but decided on Capitol Records; at the time, the Knack was given the largest signing sum in the label's history. A&R executives Bruce Garfield and Bruce Ravid are credited with signing the band.


title: The Knack

text: The band's debut album, "Get the Knack", was one of the year's best-selling albums, holding the number one spot on "Billboard" magazine's album chart for five consecutive weeks and selling two million copies in the United States. The lead single, "My Sharona", was a No. 1 hit in the US, and became the number-one song of 1979. The follow-up single "Good Girls Don't" peaked at No. 11 in the US, and reached No. 1 in Canada.


title: The Knack

text: However, the band's rise to the top of the charts also precipitated a backlash. Capitol's packaging of "Get the Knack" included a perceived cover likeness to "Meet the Beatles!" with the record's center label being the same design and style as the Beatles' early 1960s LPs. Coupled with the band's "retro" 1960s look and pop/rock sound, the company's stylings led detractors to accuse them of being Beatles rip-offs, which the band and their record company denied. Fieger acknowledged the band's likeness to the Beatles, claiming that it was their intention to present the Knack as a replica of the British Invasion. He went on to mention how fans of the Knack had not been able to experience the times of the 1960s, and that it was wrong to deny them the privilege of experiencing something similar. Critics fought back, claiming the band was imposing inadequate memories of the 1960s on those who didn't know better. Soon, as "Get the Knack" became more popular, the band was met with hostility from other artists who felt the intense marketing of the band was invalidating their own efforts of invoking the 1960 sound. This perception, and the perception that the object of some of the Knack's songs were teenaged girls (subsequently acknowledged when the band was years older), quickly led to a "Knuke the Knack" campaign led by San Francisco artist Hugh Brown.


title: The Knack

text: The Knack quickly recorded a follow-up album "...But the Little Girls Understand", which was released in early 1980. Though the album went gold in the US and Japan, and platinum in Canada, it didn't meet with the same level of commercial success as their debut. Fieger claimed in later interviews that all of the tracks for "Get the Knack" and "...But the Little Girls Understand" were written before the first LP was recorded and were intended to be put out as a double album. Additionally, the lead single "Baby Talks Dirty" only briefly made the US Top 40, stalling at No. 38 (but reaching No. 13 in Canada); follow-up single "Can't Put a Price on Love" missed the top 40 altogether, peaking at No. 62.


title: The Knack

text: After nearly a year of touring in the US, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan, starting in April 1980 the band took a year off because of exhaustion and "internal dissent". They reconvened in the summer of 1981 to record their third album, "Round Trip". However, the record (released in October 1981) was a commercial disappointment, only reaching No. 93 on the "Billboard" chart, selling 150,000 copies. As well, the lead single "Pay the Devil (Ooo, Baby, Ooo)" peaked at No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100. The group made several concert appearances during 1981 to promote "Round Trip". Keyboardist Phil Jost was brought into the lineup at this time to enable the band to duplicate the more heavily layered sound of their new release.


title: The Knack

text: With the Knack experiencing rapidly diminishing chart success, and mounting critical backlash against them Fieger left amidst internal squabbles on December 31, 1981, just months after the release of "Round Trip". By mid-1982, the Knack had split up while Fieger formed a new band, "Doug Fieger's Taking Chances".


title: The Knack

text: The Knack reunited in November 1986, to play a benefit for Michele Myers, who had been the first person to book the band for a show in 1978. They continued to play club gigs for the next several years. In July 1989, Billy Ward replaced Bruce Gary as the band's drummer (after a brief interim by Pat Torpey of Mr. Big). In 1990, the Knack signed with Charisma Records and recorded the album "Serious Fun" which was released in February 1991. Lead single "Rocket O' Love" was a top 10 hit on US AOR stations (and a top 30 hit in Canada). To promote the song, they released a music video loaded with visual innuendo thematic to the song. Charisma collapsed after the death of the label's founder, Tony Stratton-Smith, and the group broke up again in 1992.


title: The Knack

text: In 1994, with Ward back on drums, the band reunited to make some concert appearances to capitalize on the new popularity of "My Sharona" after its appearance in the movie "Reality Bites". During that time, they appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and performed "My Sharona" for the first time ever on network television.


title: The Knack

text: In 1996, all four original band members, including Bruce Gary, reunited in the studio one last time to record a track for a multi-artist compilation album, saluting the British band Badfinger (where the band covered Badfinger's hit "No Matter What").


title: The Knack

text: The Knack continued as a touring and recording act through the late 1990s and into the 2000s. Duane Leinan joined The Knack in the studio and on the road, playing bass guitar from 2008 to 2010. Terry Bozzio replaced Ward as drummer for 1998's "Zoom", and David Henderson (as "Holmes Jones") took over on drums for 2001's "Normal as the Next Guy" and "Live at the Rock N Roll Funhouse" albums. Pat Torpey then returned to take over for Henderson and played with the group until Fieger's death in 2010.


title: The Knack

text: In 2005, the Knack made an appearance on the TV program "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time", performing "My Sharona" and Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl".


title: The Knack

text: In 2006, Doug Fieger and Berton Averre filed a lawsuit against the hip hop music group Run–D.M.C. for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that the defining guitar riff from "My Sharona" was used without permission in the Run-D.M.C. track "It's Tricky" from their 1986 album "Raising Hell".


title: The Knack

text: In 2006, during a performance in Las Vegas, Fieger became disoriented, developing a dull headache, and grasping for the words to the songs that he had written and performed for years. Diagnosed with two brain tumors, Fieger underwent surgery and radiosurgery and returned to performing. However, he still continued to battle brain and lung cancer until his death on February 14, 2010, in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 57, effectively bringing the band to an end.


title: The Knack

text: In the interim between the Knack's break-up and 1986 reunion, Doug Fieger worked as a guest vocalist on a few tracks by Was (Not Was). (Fieger had grown up with band member Don Was; Was later produced the Knack's album "Serious Fun".) Fieger also recorded a solo album in 2000, and appeared as a solo artist in the Countdown Spectacular 2 concert series in Australia between late-August and early-September 2007. He sang the Knack favorite "My Sharona" only. Averre, Niles and Gary briefly continued with former Roadmaster vocalist Stephen 'Mac' McNally as "The Game" after the Knack's initial break up. In 1985, Averre, Niles and Gary formed The Front with actor Steven Bauer as lead vocalist.


title: The Knack

text: Bruce Gary became a producer (archive recordings of Jimi Hendrix and new recordings of The Ventures) and a sideman performing live and on studio sessions with a wide range of artists. Gary died from lymphoma on August 22, 2006, at the age of 55.


title: Zulay Henao

text: Zulay Henao (born March 22, 1979) is a Colombian-American film and television actress. She has co-starred in a number of films such as "Illegal Tender" (2007), "Fighting" (2009), "Takers" (2010), "Boy Wonder" (2011), "", "The Single Moms Club" (2014), "True Memoirs of an International Assassin" (2016). In 2014 she began starring as one of the lead characters in the Oprah Winfrey Network series, "If Loving You Is Wrong".


title: Zulay Henao

text: Henao was born in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. She and her family emigrated to New Jersey. After high school she served three years with the U.S. Army. Henao enrolled at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts to study acting.


title: Zulay Henao

text: Henao appeared in two small films, and in 2007 made her television debut in an episode of Lifetime drama series, "Army Wives". In the same year she also guest-starred on "". Also in 2007, Henao had supporting roles in films "Illegal Tender" and "Feel the Noise". In 2008 she starred in the horror film "Grizzly Park" where she met her best friend and co star Julie Skon, who was pregnant with her first child Layla White during the filming, and appeared opposite Charles S. Dutton in a Lifetime Original Movie "Racing for Time".


title: Zulay Henao

text: In 2009, Henao had the female lead role in the sports film "Fighting" alongside Channing Tatum, and also appeared in the science fiction film "S. Darko". In 2011 she starred in the independent psychological-thriller film, "Boy Wonder". Henao also has appeared in "Takers" (2010) and "" (2011).


title: Zulay Henao

text: In 2013, Henao began starring as regular on the Oprah Winfrey Network sitcom, "Love Thy Neighbor". She left the show after a single season. Henao starred opposite Nia Long, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Amy Smart in the 2014 film "The Single Moms Club", directed by Tyler Perry. She later was cast in same role of television adaptation of film, called "If Loving You Is Wrong". Also in 2014, Henao was cast as adult film legend Vanessa del Rio, in an untitled biopic directed by Thomas Mignone. She later left the project and was replaced by Vivian Lamolli. In 2019, she had a recurring roles in "The Oath" and "Stumptown".


title: Zulay Henao

text: Henao is in a relationship with Kevin Connolly. Together they had a baby girl, Kennedy Cruz, in early June 2021.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Jason Nicholas Miller (born December 24, 1980) best known as Mayhem Miller is an American mixed martial arts fighter and TV host. Miller coaches fighters in Irvine, California at Mayhem Martial Arts and has trained extensively with Kings MMA in Huntington Beach, California. He has fought in the UFC, Strikeforce, WFA, WEC and DREAM. Miller was the host of MTV's reality series "Bully Beatdown".


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and he grew up in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Miller's father was a paratrooper in the United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division. After Miller was expelled from high school for fighting, he and his family had to move 40 miles so that he could go to school in a new district. Miller knew he wanted to compete professionally. He earned his yellow belt in Taekwondo at age 11 and joined his high school's wrestling team and would challenge the instructors of karate schools to spar. He was guided by a judo instructor to attend one of the first mixed martial arts schools. Miller had his first fight in Virginia Beach when he was 17 years old, against 27-year-old Al "Superman" Dill. Miller won the fight and officially began his MMA career.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: After his submission win over Ronald Jhun, earning Miller his first Superbrawl Championship, a riot broke out and Miller was punched in the back of the head by a fellow fighter, Mark Moreno. This set the stage for a grudge match, and Miller dominated Moreno, finishing him with an armbar at the end of round one making the shaka sign before finishing him.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On September 2, 2006, Mayhem won the Icon Sport Middleweight title from Robbie Lawler in a back and forth battle. After being staggered and nearly finished by Lawler, Mayhem secured an arm triangle choke and won in the third round. In December of the same year, Mayhem lost his first title defense to Frank Trigg via TKO in the second round, a fight many thought he was the favorite to win.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Mayhem stepped into the Dream 4 tournament on short notice and scored an impressive win in the semifinals, he was eliminated by Ronaldo Souza in the quarterfinals. Miller lost a unanimous decision to "Jacare" in a fast-paced grappling style bout that saw him escape submission after submission.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: After back and forth battles of words on Japanese, Brazilian and American media, Miller and Souza fought again, but this time for the Dream Middleweight belt. (The title was vacant as Gegard Mousasi moved to the Light Heavyweight division.) The fight ended in a no-contest when Miller landed a soccer kick to Souza's forehead (formerly a legal strike, but had been outlawed), which opened a large gash and prompted a doctor stoppage. Both fighters agreed to face each other in an event in September 2009. The match was canceled after Souza signed with the Strikeforce promotion.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller fought Jake Shields on November 7, 2009 on CBS as a part of . The fight was for the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship as Cung Le stepped down as champion. After a brief punching exchange that staggered Shields, the fight was mostly grappling, Miller lost via unanimous decision (48–47, 49–46, and 49–46). The closest the match came to ending was in the third round when Miller secured a rear naked choke on Shields, but time ended before Shields tapped out.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Mayhem fought Tim Stout at on April 17, 2010 and won the fight by with a ground and pound TKO at 1:47 of the first round.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was expected to face Robbie Lawler on June 16, 2010 at , but was removed from the card after the Tennessee Athletic Commission suspended him for his part in the Nashville Brawl. After Shields' win over UFC veteran and former Pride FC Welterweight and Middlweight Champion Dan Henderson, Mayhem confronted Jake Shields for a title rematch. Although Jake was not surprised, Nick Diaz, Nate Diaz, and the rest of Team Gracie fought with Miller in the cage, prompting CBS announcer Gus Johnson to say "Gentlemen, we are on national television."


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Although Mayhem aggressively called out Nick Diaz, the bout never materialized. Mayhem instead fought Kazushi Sakuraba on September 25, at Dream 16. In pre-fight interviews, Mayhem stated that he wished to be one of the only people to submit Sakuraba, "the Gracies couldn't do it, I want to". He would go on to do just that, and win the fight via arm triangle choke.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On April 22, 2011, Miller announced via Twitter that he had signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC due to his Strikeforce contract expiring.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On April 17, 2010, following Jake Shields' victory over Dan Henderson, Miller entered the cage, without proper approval, during Shields' post-fight interview. During that interview, Mayhem interrupted Shields and asked "Where's my rematch, buddy?" Gilbert Melendez and Shields responded by pushing Miller away, and Nick Diaz then threw a punch at Miller which started a brawl. Members of the Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu camp, including Melendez, Nick and Nate Diaz, attacked Miller while he was held down on the canvas by other members of the Gracie camp. The fight was eventually broken up by referees, members of Dan Henderson's corner and the promoter's security personnel.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller and five other participants in the brawl were each given three-month suspensions, and fines ranging between $5,000 and $7,500.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Following the events of the Nashville Brawl, Miller expressed an interest in fighting Nick Diaz. The 170-pound Diaz refused, stating he was the Strikeforce Welterweight Champion and needed to continue to fight at that weight. He requested Miller move down to 170 lb to fight him. Miller continued to attempt to set up a fight, offering 183 lb as a catchweight. Diaz counter-offered a catchweight of 181 lb. Scott Coker, CEO of Strikeforce was interested in setting up the fight, but failed to do so as Zuffa took over Strikeforce.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was expected to face Aaron Simpson on July 2, 2011 at UFC 132. However, on May 27, 2011, it was revealed that Miller would be one of the coaches of The Ultimate Fighter Season 14, opposite to Michael Bisping. Miller was replaced by Brad Tavares on the UFC 132 card.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was defeated by Bisping on December 3, 2011 at The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale. Round 1 was controlled by Miller with grappling, but Miller tired after that round, and was defeated via TKO at 3:34 of the third round.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was then defeated by C. B. Dollaway on May 26, 2012 at UFC 146. After dropping Dollaway with a right hand, Miller appeared to injure his left knee. He was taken down for the rest of the fight and lost via unanimous decision (29–28, 30–26, and 29–28). Miller had very publicly stated on his Twitter page that if he lost the fight, he would retire.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: One day following the loss, Dana White ignored Miller's statement of retirement, instead opting to publicly fire Miller. White cited unspecified "backstage antics" on the part of Miller as a partial reason for the cut as well as Miller being a "clown" in his wardrobe choices before the fight. Miller later stated his side of the story, describing it as a brief confrontation with backstage official Burt Watson over Miller's attempt to wear a gasmask and colorful paper bag over his face for his walk-out.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On October 8, 2012, Miller appeared on internet talk show, the MMA Hour. He was promoting an upcoming movie, "Here Comes the Boom", and decided to give the interview "in character" as his character from the movie (Lucky Patrick). "Patrick" became upset when Ariel Helwani pressured him to give the interview as Jason Miller. The fictional Patrick, stormed off of the set in a rage.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On October 26, 2013 Miller announced on his official Twitter page that he would return to fighting. Venator FC announced on February 9, 2016 that Miller would face Luke Barnatt at Venator FC III for the promotion's Middleweight championship on May 21. After missing weight by 24 lb Miller was pulled from the fight and instead fought Mattia Schiavolin in a Light Heavyweight fight. Miller won the first round but gassed out in the second before being submitted by a rear naked choke.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller went on to say in an interview with Chael Sonnen that the loss to Schiavolin helped him to begin to turn his life around from the legal troubles and drug addiction that have plagued him since his retirement in 2012. He also went on to say that he felt a positive energy being back in the cage and would fight on, as a Light Heavyweight.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In August 2011, Miller was arrested in Chatham County, North Carolina and was charged with simple assault and false imprisonment after his sister accused Miller of assaulting her at a house party.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In August 2012, Miller was arrested in Mission Viejo, California and charged with trespassing and burglary after allegedly breaking into and destroying property in a church. According to a report, a pastor at the church called 911 after discovering items on the first floor had been destroyed. Miller was alleged to have broken several pictures and CDs, and to have torn up several of the churches books. Miller also allegedly discharged a fire extinguisher, leaving a residue trail up to the second floor where police say they found a naked Miller sleeping on a couch. He was taken into custody and later released on $20,000 bond. The charge was later dismissed when the pastor believed it would be best to give Miller spiritual guidance as opposed to jail time.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was arrested on charges of domestic battery on August 11, 2013, and was released on bail the following day. On August 22, 2013, Miller was once again arrested for domestic battery. In court on August 26, the two charges were combined into one case with two felony counts of "corporal injury of a spouse." Miller pleaded not guilty and his bail was set at $100,000. On October 9, 2013, Miller was taken into custody for a misdemeanor contempt of court charge for violating a no-contact restraining order by sending a Snapchat message to the alleged victim. He was booked in the early hours of October 10.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller was arrested on a felony domestic violence warrant on October 9, 2014, after a five-hour-long standoff with a SWAT team outside his Orange County, California home. Over the course of the stand-off, Miller gave live updates through his Twitter account.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On March 7, 2015, Miller was arrested outside of a bar in Laguna Beach, California and charged with battery on a peace officer, unlawful fighting, and resisting arrest. Police were called after restaurant employees reported a disturbance, alleging that Miller was volatile and breaking glass inside the restaurant. Video footage from a bystander showed a handcuffed Miller outside the bar, shouting expletives and fighting with police officers.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On October 16, 2015, law enforcement responded to a domestic disturbance call at Miller's residence involving Miller and two women. After deputies arrived, Miller threw a ceramic tile at them and threatened them with a fire extinguisher and a metal pole. He was tased by police and arrested for assault.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On February 7, 2016, Miller was arrested in Irvine, California and charged with driving under the influence.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In March 2016, Miller was arrested in Mission Viejo, California after a warrant was served. He was charged with burglary and vandalism for breaking into and vandalizing a Lake Forest, California tattoo shop two months prior.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On July 11, 2016, Miller was arrested in Costa Mesa, California and charged with two counts of assault and battery after allegedly injuring a security guard and spitting on a police officer at the Saddle Ranch Chop House restaurant. The charges were later dismissed.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In November 2017, Miller was convicted of felony domestic battery after accepting a plea deal. He was sentenced to serve three years' probation with a suspended four-year prison sentence, with a probation violation punishable by up to four years in a California state prison.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On October 23, 2018, Miller was arrested on charges of felony vandalism in Orange County after destroying property at his girlfriend's La Habra, California home. Miller's girlfriend claimed that during an argument, Miller smashed a large marble table, punched holes in the walls, tore down doors, and derailed the home's garage door. He was arrested and held without bail in the Orange County detention center. The felony vandalism charge carried a maximum penalty of eight months in jail, but due to the nature of the incident, prior convictions, and a probation violation, Miller faced up to 23 years in a California state prison. While he initially pleaded not guilty, on July 19, 2019, it was reported that Miller had accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to one year in jail with time served being credited. He was released from jail in September 2019.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On August 21, 2020, Miller was arrested and charged with two felonies: first-degree burglary and grand theft auto. He was booked into the Orange County jail and held without bail. On May 11, 2021, Miller accepted a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to the vandalism charge, while the grand theft auto charge was dismissed. Miller was sentenced to serve 364 days in jail and two years of probation upon release.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On September 10, 2021, Miller was arrested on felony domestic violence charges in Los Angeles, California. According to the arrest report, police were called to Miller's girlfriend's residence in Sherman Oaks in the early hours of September 10 after she claimed Miller physically assaulted her following a verbal argument. After law enforcement arrived on the scene, Miller locked himself in the bathroom. Officers noticed visible marks on the victim's face and neck consistent with an assault. Miller was eventually tased after resisting arrest and taken into custody. He was transported to the Los Angeles County Men's Jail where he was booked on charges of felony domestic battery and resisting arrest. Bail was initially set at $1.385 million, but was later reduced to $150,000.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In October 2021, Miller was formally charged with felony assault and battery for an incident that took place at a California bar prior to his September 2021 domestic battery arrest. Miller was involved in an altercation with a man at a bar; by the time police arrived, the situation had de-escalated, and the victim initially opted not to press charges. Following the incident, the man was hospitalized and discovered his ribs had been broken, after which he decided to press charges against Miller.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: In the past, Miller appeared regularly on "The Jason Ellis Show" on Sirius XM Radio Faction (Sirius XM) XM 52 Sirius 41 on "Mayhem Mondays!!" as both a mixed martial arts expert and comedian, sharing amusing anecdotes and opinions. He returned to the "Ellis Show" for the first time since his incarceration on October 29, 2019.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller also authors a monthly article for "Fight!" magazine with humorous articles on serious subjects.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: He was the host of the MTV reality series "Bully Beatdown" in which he challenged bullies to a fight with other professional fighters, and if they accepted, they had the opportunity to win $10,000. If the bully lost, the person he picked on won the $10,000. In the first episode of the show's third season, Miller went on to take on the bully himself, making him lose all $10,000. Miller affectionately called his fans "Mayhem Monkeys" and himself the leader of the "monkey cult" and had a fan club of numbered monkeys.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Jason Miller appeared on G4's "American Ninja Warrior", making it through the qualifying round with a time of 2:55.0. He was later eliminated in the second qualifying round.


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: On July 20, 2010 (episode # 31), November 30, 2010 (episode #58), and September 28, 2011 (episode #143), Jason Miller appeared on the podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience".


title: Jason Miller (fighter)

text: Miller also appears in "Here Comes the Boom", in which he plays the role of "Lucky" Patrick Murray, an MMA fighter who goes in the ring against Kevin James's character, Scott Voss, in the film.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German-British Baring family of merchants and bankers.


title: Barings Bank

text: The bank collapsed in 1995 after suffering losses of £827 million (£ billion in ) resulting from fraudulent investments, primarily in futures contracts, conducted by its employee Nick Leeson, working at its office in Singapore.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings Bank was founded in 1762 as the John and Francis Baring Company by Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet, with his older brother John Baring as a mostly silent partner. They were sons of John (né Johann) Baring, wool trader of Exeter, born in Bremen, Germany. The company started business in offices off Cheapside in London, and within a few years moved to larger quarters in Mincing Lane. Barings gradually diversified from wool into many other commodities, providing financial services for the rapid growth of international trade, including the lucrative slave trade which enriched the family and the business considerably and allowed significant expansion of the bank's activities and prestige.


title: Barings Bank

text: The success of Baring's was greatly influenced by establishment of a network of corresponding houses. One of the most valuable connections was Hope & Co., the most powerful merchant bank of Amsterdam, at that time Europe's leading financial centre. Hope & Co played a major part in the finances of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) Thomas Hope and his brother Adria profited from the Netherlands' neutral position.


title: Barings Bank

text: In 1774, Barings started business in North America. By 1790, Barings had greatly expanded its resources, both through Francis's efforts in London and by association with Hope & Co. In 1793, the increased business necessitated a move to larger quarters in Devonshire Square. In 1796, the bank helped to finance the purchase of about 1 million acres (4000 km) of remote land that became part of the US state of Maine.


title: Barings Bank

text: In 1800, John retired and the company was reorganized as Francis Baring and Co.. Francis's new partners were his eldest son Thomas (later to be Sir Thomas Baring, 2nd Baronet) and son-in-law, Charles Wall. Then, in 1802, Barings and Hope & Co. were called on to facilitate the largest land purchase in history: the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States. It is regarded as "one of the most historically significant trades of all time". This was accomplished even though Britain was at war with France and the sale helped to finance Napoleon's war effort. Technically, the United States purchased Louisiana from Barings and Hope, not from Napoleon. Baring was willing to help Napoleon in the short term because he, and British politicians who backed him, predicted that American expansion into Louisiana would ensure Barings' profits in Britain. After a $3 million down payment in gold, the remainder of the purchase was made in United States bonds, which Napoleon sold to Barings through Hope & Co. of Amsterdam at a price of $87.50 per $100 face value (a discount of one-eighth). Francis's second son Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton, working for Hope & Co., made the arrangements in Paris with François Barbé-Marbois, director of the Public Treasury. Alexander then sailed to the United States and back to pick up the bonds and deliver them to France.


title: Barings Bank

text: In 1803, Francis began to withdraw from active management, bringing in Thomas's younger brothers Alexander and Henry to become partners in 1804. The new partnership was called Baring Brothers & Co., which it remained until 1890. The offspring of these three brothers became the future generations of Barings leadership. In 1806, the company relocated to 8 Bishopsgate, where it stayed for the remaining life of the company. The building underwent several expansions and refurbishments, and was ultimately replaced with a new high-rise building in 1981.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings helped to finance the United States government during the War of 1812. By 1818, Barings was called "the sixth great European power", after England, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia. A fall-off in business and some poor leadership in 1820s caused Barings to cede its dominance in the City of London to the rival firm of N M Rothschild & Sons. Barings remained a powerful firm, however, and in the 1830s the leadership of new American partner Joshua Bates, together with Thomas Baring (1799–1873), son of Sir Thomas Baring, 2nd Baronet, began a turnaround. Bates advocated a shift in Barings' efforts from Europe to the Americas, believing that greater opportunity lay in the West. In 1832, a Barings office was established in Liverpool specifically to capitalise on new North American opportunities. In 1843, Barings became an exclusive agent to the US government.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to supply "Indian corn" (maize) to Ireland for famine relief between November 1845 and July 1846, after the staple potato crop failed. The company declined to act beyond 1846, when the government instructed it to restrict its purchases to within Britain. Baring Brothers stated it would refuse future commissions in famine relief, with the blame this could so easily entail. Its position as the prime purchaser of Indian corn was assumed by Erichson, a corn factor of Fenchurch St, London.


title: Barings Bank

text: In 1851, Baring and Bates brought in another American, Russell Sturgis (1805-1887), as a partner. Despite the embarrassment to his partners caused by his sympathies for the South in the American Civil War, Sturgis proved a capable banker. Baring did not deal in U.S. bonds, but it did help fund the American purchases of armaments. After the death of Bates in 1864, Sturgis gradually assumed a leadership role. In the 1850s and 1860s, the commercial credit business provided the firm with its basic income. Thomas Baring's nephew Edward, son of Henry Baring, became a partner in 1856. By the 1870s, under the emerging leadership of "Ned" Baring, later Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, Barings were increasingly involved in international securities, especially from the United States, Canada, and Argentina. Barings cautiously and successfully ventured into the North American railroad boom following the Civil War. A new railroad town was renamed Revelstoke, British Columbia, in honour of the leading partner of the bank that enabled the completion of the Canadian-Pacific Railway. Barings also helped to finance major railways including the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.


title: Barings Bank

text: "Ned Baring" had a daughter, Margaret Baring, who was a great-grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Barings Bank

text: In the late 1880s, daring efforts in underwriting got the firm into serious trouble through overexposure to Argentine and Uruguayan debt. In 1890, Argentine president Miguel Juárez Celman was forced to resign following the Revolución del Parque, and the country was close to defaulting on its debt payments. This crisis finally exposed the vulnerability of Barings, which lacked sufficient reserves to support the Argentine bonds. Through the organisational skills of the governor of the Bank of England, William Lidderdale, a consortium of banks was arranged, headed by former governor Henry Hucks Gibbs and his family firm of Antony Gibbs & Sons, to bail Barings out and support a bank restructuring. The resulting turmoil in financial markets became known as the Panic of 1890.


title: Barings Bank

text: The rescue avoided what could have been a worldwide financial collapse, but Barings never regained its dominant position. A limited liability company—Baring Brothers & Co., Ltd.— was formed, to which the viable business of the old partnership was transferred. The assets of the old house and several partners were taken over and liquidated to repay the rescue consortium, with guarantees provided by the Bank of England. Lord Revelstoke and others lost their partnerships along with their personal fortunes, which were pledged to support the bank. Nearly 10 years elapsed before the debts were paid. Revelstoke did not live to see this accomplished, dying in 1897.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings did not return to issuance on a substantial scale until 1900, concentrating on securities in the United States and Argentina. It operated under the leadership of Edward's son John Baring, 2nd Baron Revelstoke in the early years of the 20th century The company's restraint during this period cost it its pre-eminence in the world of finance, but later paid dividends when its refusal to take a chance on financing Germany's recovery from World War I saved it some of the most painful losses incurred by other British banks at the onset of the Great Depression.


title: Barings Bank

text: During the Second World War, the British government used Barings to liquidate assets in the United States and elsewhere to help finance the war effort. After the war, Barings was overtaken in size and influence by other banking houses, but remained an important player in the market until 1995.


title: Barings Bank

text: The bank decided to enter the UK securities market buying Henderson Crosthwaite, a stockbroker, in May 1984 and Wilson & Watford, a stock jobber, in November 1985.


title: Barings Bank

text: Barings was brought down in 1995 by a massive trading loss caused by fraudulent trading by its head derivatives trader in Singapore since 1992, Nick Leeson. Leeson was supposed to be arbitraging, seeking to profit from differences in the prices of Nikkei 225 futures contracts listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange in Japan and on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). However, instead of buying on behalf of clients on one market and immediately selling on another market for a small profit, using the strategy approved by his superiors, Leeson stated undertaking such trades using the bank's own money, gambling on the future direction of the Japanese markets.


title: Barings Bank

text: According to Eddie George, Governor of the Bank of England, Leeson began doing this at the end of January 1992. Due to a series of internal and external events, his unhedged losses escalated rapidly.


title: Barings Bank

text: Leeson was general manager for Barings' trading on SIMEX. Barings circumvented normal accounting, internal control and audit safeguards by making Leeson head of settlement operations for SIMEX, charged with ensuring accurate accounting for the unit. These positions would normally have been held by different employees. With authority to settle his own trades, Leeson was able to operate with no supervision from London—an arrangement that made it easier for him to hide his losses. After the collapse, several observers placed much of the blame on the bank's own deficient internal control and risk management practices. A number of people had raised concerns over Leeson's activities but were ignored.


title: Barings Bank

text: Because of the absence of oversight, Leeson was able to make seemingly small gambles in the futures arbitrage market at Barings Futures Singapore and cover up his shortfalls by reporting losses as gains to Barings in London. Specifically, Leeson altered the branch's error account, subsequently known by its account number 88888 as the "five-eights account", to prevent the London office from receiving the standard daily reports on trading, price and status. Leeson claimed the losses started when one of his colleagues bought 20 contracts when she should have sold them, costing Barings £20,000.