title: Brooks Brothers

text: By 1971, eleven Brooks Brothers stores were in operation and located in Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis as an integral part of the retail conglomerate Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc., that held the company until 1981 when it was acquired by Allied Stores.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Ralph Lauren began his career as a salesman at the Brooks Brothers Madison Avenue store. Brooks Brothers later sued Polo Ralph Lauren to retain its rights to the original polo button-down collar shirt.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers was acquired by the British firm Marks & Spencer in 1988. In the mid 1990s, the company's executives removed the signature Golden Fleece logo from the brand's cotton knit polo shirts, though it was later restored.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 2001, Marks & Spencer sold Brooks Brothers to Retail Brand Alliance ("RBA"), now known as The Brooks Brothers Group, a company privately owned by Italian billionaire Claudio del Vecchio (son of Luxottica founder Leonardo del Vecchio). Along with Brooks Brothers, RBA comprised Carolee, a designer of jewelry for department stores and specialty stores. In 2007, RBA sold its high-end women's brand Adrienne Vittadini.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: As of 2015, there were 210 Brooks Brothers stores in the United States and 70 in other countries, including Australia, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Chile, Canada, Panama, Italy, the Philippines, Poland, Mexico, UAE, Peru, Singapore, Switzerland, Indonesia, Malaysia, Greece, and Vietnam. In 1998, Brooks Brothers launched its official website. Headquartered on New York's Madison Avenue, United States flagship stores are in Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Beverly Hills.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Most of its clothing is now imported, but some suits, sport coats, shirts and accessories are manufactured in the United States. Many of its mid-range "1818" line of suits are manufactured at Brooks Brothers' Southwick plant in Haverhill, Massachusetts. All Brooks Brothers necktie silk is woven in England or Italy, and the ties still are "cut and piled" at the Brooks Brothers' tie factory in Long Island City, New York. Brooks also has a series of books on etiquette and manners for ladies and gentlemen. Its higher-end label is the Golden Fleece line which features suits that are tailored in the United States.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In September 2007, Brooks Brothers's then CEO, Claudio Del Vecchio, announced the unveiling of a high-end collection of men's and women's wear named Black Fleece. Del Vecchio announced that the first star guest designer for the new collection would be New York menswear designer Thom Browne. Black Fleece received so much critical and commercial success that Brooks Brothers opened a stand-alone Black Fleece boutique on Bleecker Street in the Winter of 2008. Brooks Brothers recently released a line of clothing catering to Asian clientele.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 2008, the company began an extensive renovation of its flagship store at 346 Madison Avenue. In January 2009, Brooks Brothers closed a smaller location at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street in Manhattan. In 2020, the 365 Madison Avenue store closed.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In April 2010, Brooks Brothers launched a line of luxury home furnishings which includes bedding, bath towels, as well as living room décor and entertaining accessories.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Between 2017 and 2019, sales stagnated at around $1 billion due to business fashion turning more casual and online competition. This strain is due in part to changing market tastes, although the COVID-19 pandemic is a contributing factor. In May 2020, it was reported that Brooks Brothers was seeking a buyer. Reports also suggest the company was exploring a bankruptcy filing. In June, the company proposed closing its three American factories, “a dramatic move for a brand that has really hung their hat on ‘Made in America.” Del Vecchio, who was responsible for acquiring the factory in Massachusetts, said at the time that the U.S. factories never made any money and that the brand carried a debt of less than $300 million.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: On July 8, 2020, it was reported the company was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to declining sales and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brooks Brothers planned to close 51 of its 250 locations in North America.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: On August 11, 2020, Brooks Brothers announced that it would be sold for $325 million to brand development firm Authentic Brands Group and to SPARC Group LLC, a joint venture between Authentic Brands Group and shopping mall operator Simon Property Group. The new owners committed to continue operating at least 125 Brooks Brothers retail locations in the US, and more worldwide (down from 424 global locations before the COVID-19 pandemic). The transaction was completed in September 2020. Ken Ohashi was also appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer in September 2020.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers introduced many clothing advances to the American market throughout its history as a leader in the American menswear industry:


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers did not make an off-the-rack black suit between 1865 and 2003. For many years, a myth circulated that the reason the company did not make black suits was out of deference to Abraham Lincoln, who wore a bespoke black Brooks frock coat, a gift from the company, when he was assassinated. It is not clear if this policy was the result or cause of the traditional American fashion rule that black suits in daytime for men are proper only for servants and when honoring the deceased.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers is a sponsor and the official suit designers and distributors of Italian football club Inter Milan. From 2010 to 2019, the company was a sponsor and official apparel supplier of the Head of the Charles Regatta.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers has outfitted 41 of the 46 American Presidents, including Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. In recent times, only Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did not own any pieces of clothing from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Five US presidents were not customers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln wore a custom-made Brooks Brothers frock coat to his Second inauguration. Lincoln later wore the same frock coat on the evening of his assassination.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In the late nineteenth century, Brooks Brothers tailored uniforms for elite regiments of the New York National Guard, as well as uniforms for New York state troops and Union officers during the Civil War. Several Generals including Ulysses S. Grant, William Sherman, Joseph Hooker and Philip Sheridan purchased uniforms from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 1881, after becoming vice-president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur went on a Brooks Brothers shopping spree. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt all wore Brooks Brothers to their respective inaugurations as well.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wore Brooks Brothers while on his way to meet Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was wearing a Brooks Brothers’ grey suit when he was assassinated.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 2009, President Barack Obama wore a Brooks Brothers coat, scarf, and gloves during his inauguration in 2009 (this coat was later re-worn by Obama to Trump's inauguration in 2017). In 2013, during his second inauguration, Obama wore a suit designed by Martin Greenfield, paired with a white shirt from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 2017, President Donald Trump was inaugurated in a grey suit, white shirt, and dark blue overcoat. The white shirt and overcoat were believed to have been designed by Brooks Brothers. Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump have also been seen wearing items of clothing from Brooks Brothers at times.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In 2021, President Joe Biden broke tradition by not wearing any items from Brooks Brothers at his inauguration, instead opting for a Ralph Lauren navy suit and winter overcoat.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Andy Warhol was known to buy and wear clothes from Brooks Brothers. According to Carlton Walters: "I got to [know] Andy quite well, and he always looked bedraggled: always had his tie lopsided, as he didn't have time to tie it, and he never tied his shoe laces, and he even wore different colored socks, but he bought all of his clothes at Brooks Brothers."


title: Brooks Brothers

text: The "white" shirts used for Archie Bunker's costumes in "All in the Family" were recut tan oxford shirts from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers supplied clothes for the television show "Mad Men"; in October 2009, Brooks Brothers created a limited edition "Mad Men Edition" suit with the show's costume designer.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Stephen Colbert had all of his suits for "The Colbert Report" and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" supplied by Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers frequently is sought out by costume designers in Hollywood, dressing stars in such films as Ben Affleck in "Pearl Harbor," Gene Hackman in "The Royal Tenenbaums," and Will Smith in "Ali." The company produced made-to-measure period costumes for Denzel Washington's "The Great Debaters".


title: Brooks Brothers

text: George Clooney wears Brooks Brothers throughout the film "Up in the Air," and scenes were shot in a Brooks Brothers airport store. The men of the film "The Adjustment Bureau" wear Brooks Brothers. In November 2011, Brooks Brothers announced that it had designed a custom wardrobe for Kermit the Frog for the movie The Muppets. The stars of "Slumdog Millionaire" were all dressed by Brooks Brothers for the 81st Academy Awards.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Brooks Brothers made all of the men's costumes, more than 500 pieces, for the 2013 adaptation of "The Great Gatsby". They also sponsored the premieres in New York City and Cannes Film Festival. This was followed by a limited edition collection designed with Catherine Martin and sold at Brooks Brothers stores around the world.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In "I Love Lucy", Brooks Brothers is referenced in "Changing the Boys' Wardrobe" (Season 3, Episode 9, 1953). The characters Ricky and Fred place their old clothes in Brooks Brothers boxes so their wives think they got new expensive clothing from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Chuck Bass and Nate Archibald on the "Gossip Girl" TV series frequently wear clothes from Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Aziz Ansari's character Tom Haverford, on the NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation," frequently mentions buying clothes from the Brooks Brothers Boys collection because, as he says, "the cuts are slimmer, and it's cheaper. Win win."


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Alec Baldwin's titular character in the 1994 film "The Shadow" was complimented on his Brooks Brothers tie by his adversary Shiwan Khan. At their next meeting, Khan is dressed in Brooks Brothers clothing.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In Season 5 of "Murder, She Wrote", main character Jessica Fletcher references Brooks Brothers suits.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In the song “I’ll know” from the stage musical "Guys and Dolls," in response to Sgt Sarah Brown's musings about her ideal husband, Sky Masterson scoffs: “You have wished yourself a Scarsdale Galahad, the breakfast-eating, Brooks Brothers type”.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: The lead character Lestat de Lioncourt in Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" often describes himself wearing suits by Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Mary McCarthy's short story "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt," which can be found in her collection "The Company she keeps," 1942, is one of the more famous literary references to the Brooks Brothers.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Bret Easton Ellis refers to clothing from Brooks Brothers worn by Patrick Bateman and his colleagues in his controversial novel, "American Psycho."


title: Brooks Brothers

text: James Thurber refers to Brooks Brothers shirts in some of his short stories. Kurt Vonnegut also refers to a Brooks Brothers suit worn by the main character in his book, "Jailbird."


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Writers John O'Hara, Somerset Maugham and J. P. Marquand incorporated Brooks Brothers into their stories as a means to draw out character traits.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Richard Yates not only wore Brooks Brothers clothing throughout his life, but he often referred to the brand in his writing, including in "A Good School," in which one of the characters tries to hang himself with a Brooks Brothers belt.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: Novelist W.E.B. Griffin often mentioned Brooks Brothers military uniforms, Dress uniform and Dress Mess uniform in particular, in his best-selling "Brotherhood of War" and "The Corps" book series.


title: Brooks Brothers

text: In the 2015 comic book "Ms. Marvel" #18 by Marvel Comics, the supervillain Kamran is derisively referred to by Kamala Khan's older brother, Aamir, as "that walking Brooks Brothers franchise."


title: Peter Buffett

text: Peter Andrew Buffett (born May 4, 1958) is an American musician, composer, author and philanthropist. With a career that spans more than 30 years, Buffett is an Regional Emmy Award winner, New York Times best-selling author and co-chair of the NoVo Foundation. He is the youngest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.


title: Peter Buffett

text: Buffett began his musical career in the early part of the 1980s in San Francisco, California. There, he recorded and produced albums for local talent. He also was hired by ad agencies to compose commercials and logos - including MTV and CNN, both of which were new to cable television at the time.


title: Peter Buffett

text: Narada Productions, a new-age music recording company, signed Buffett to a recording contract. In 1987, Buffett debuted with Narada, releasing an album entitled "The Waiting". His second album, "One by One", was inspired by Evan S. Connell's book "Son of the Morning Star". In 1989, Buffett moved to Milwaukee, home of Narada Productions and closer to his childhood home in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett would release two more albums with Narada: "Lost Frontier" and "Yonnondio".


title: Peter Buffett

text: While with Narada, Buffett had his first major success scoring the "Fire Dance" scene in the film "Dances with Wolves". The film score, composed by John Barry, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Barry would later invite Buffett to collaborate with him again, this time at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Buffett contributed the American Indian soundscapes to the film as well as composed two songs for the soundtrack of "The Scarlet Letter".


title: Peter Buffett

text: After the release of "Yonnondio", Buffett signed with Epic Records. In 1994, he released his soundtrack for the CBS miniseries "500 Nations", which was produced by Kevin Costner. Buffett also met Chief Hawk Pop while scoring the series.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 1996, Buffett produced "Star of Wonder", a Christmas CD featuring Celtic harpist Kim Robertson and arranger Eric Segnitz. Buffett then signed with Hollywood Records, which released his album "Spirit Dance" in 1997.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 1998, he entered the pop music realm with the release of "Comet9<nowiki>'</nowiki>"s "Like Mercury" on Milwaukee-based independent label "Don't Records", with Buffett producing, writing and playing multi-instrumentalist. Co-writer and guitarist Tom Nelson and vocalist Susan Zielke completed the studio trio, with Citizen King members D. J. Brooks and Malcolm Michiles guesting on drums and turntables, respectively. The live band added bassist Josh Warner to the lineup.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 1999, Buffett's score for the documentary "Wisconsin: An American Portrait" won a Chicago / Midwest Emmy Award for Best Soundtrack.


title: Peter Buffett

text: Also in 1999, Buffett's "Spirit – A Journey in Dance Drums and Song" aired on PBS as a highly successful pledge break special. Combining modern and American Indian dancers with Director and Choreographer Wayne Cilento, "Spirit" went on to tour through the end of 1999. In 2004, Buffett worked with Jody Ripplinger and Frank Anderson to create "Spirit –The Seventh Fir"e; an updated version of his earlier show. It was premiered on the National Mall during the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in its 800-seat theater tent.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 2006, Buffett released his first vocal album, "Gold Star". Over the course of the next two years, he released two more albums, "Staring at the Sun" (2007) and "Imaginary Kingdom" (2008) on his own label BeSide Records.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 2009, Buffett began to release exclusive singles through his social networking community on Ning. He has released over 25 singles since then, including a compilation album of fifteen of the songs. The collection, released initially as a USB album, was titled "Running Blind" (2011) and contained an innovative interactive environment.


title: Peter Buffett

text: During this time he collaborated twice with Grammy-nominated recording artist Akon and once with Grammy-winning artist Angélique Kidjo on human rights inspired songs. One Akon collaboration, titled “Blood Into Gold,” debuted at a special event at the UN General Assembly in March 2009 that focused on human trafficking.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In 2013, Peter released "Already Flown" which was the inspiration behind his "New York Times" op-ed piece, "The Charitable-Industrial Complex". The piece sparked a lively debate on the role of philanthropy.


title: Peter Buffett

text: Peter, along with cellist Michael Kott, is currently touring around the world in support of his "Life Is What You Make It: A Concert & Conversation with Peter Buffett" performance. Buffett continues to visit numerous university campuses, community foundations and other organizations using his own life story and experiences as illustration. He discusses how important it is for each person to define his or her own path, regardless of their wealth or background, and ultimately conveys that it’s one’s values — and what we are able to give back to society — that shape and define us as individuals.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In May 2010, his book, "Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment", was published with Random House/Crown Publishing. The book was praised by Ted Turner, former President Bill Clinton, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Gloria Steinem, among others. It has sold over half a million copies worldwide, peaking at number four on The New York Times Best Sellers List. It has been available in over fifteen languages. Buffett appeared on NPR, as well as The Today Show and CBS Sunday Morning with his father, to discuss the book.


title: Peter Buffett

text: During the 1980s, Buffett was the sound engineer on three albums by Pauline Anna Strom, which included "Plot Zero".


title: Peter Buffett

text: Peter Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the youngest child of investor Warren Buffett and Susan Thompson Buffett. He has two siblings: sister Susie and brother Howard. Buffett graduated from Omaha Central High School and attended Stanford University.


title: Peter Buffett

text: He was married to his first wife, Mary Buffett, for 12 years before they divorced in 1993. Mary's twin daughters from a previous relationship, Erica and Nicole, were four years old at the time of their wedding. Subsequently, Peter Buffett legally adopted the girls. He married Jennifer Buffett in June 1996.


title: Peter Buffett

text: He is the co-chairman of the NoVo Foundation; an organization dedicated to catalyzing a transformation in global society, moving from a culture of domination and exploitation to one of equality and partnership. Alongside his wife Jennifer, the organization supports the development of capacities in people — individually and collectively — to help create a caring and balanced world. They envision a world that operates on the principles of mutual respect, collaboration, and civic participation, thereby reversing the old paradigm predicated on hierarchy, violence, and the subordination of girls and women.


title: Peter Buffett

text: In a 2013 New York Times op-ed and radio podcast, "The Charitable-Industrial Complex", Peter Buffett uses the terms "philanthropic colonialism" and "conscience laundering," and describes his insights into "searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left" rather than systemic change.


title: All the world's a stage

text: "All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy "As You Like It", spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 139. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as the seven ages of man.


title: All the world's a stage

text: The comparison of the world to a stage and people to actors long predated Shakespeare. Richard Edwards' play "Damon and Pythias", written in the year Shakespeare was born, contains the lines, "Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage / Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on, the sage". When it was founded in 1599 Shakespeare's own theatre, The Globe, may have used the motto ' (All the world plays the actor), the Latin text of which is derived from a 12th-century treatise. Ultimately the words derive from ' (because almost the whole world are actors) attributed to Petronius, a phrase which had wide circulation in England at the time.


title: All the world's a stage

text: In his own earlier work, "The Merchant of Venice", Shakespeare also had one of his main characters, Antonio, comparing the world to a stage:


title: All the world's a stage

text: In his work "The Praise of Folly", first printed in 1511, Renaissance humanist Erasmus asks, "For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them off the stage."


title: All the world's a stage

text: Likewise the division of human life into a series of ages was a commonplace of art and literature, which Shakespeare would have expected his audiences to recognize. The number of ages varied: three and four being the most common among ancient writers such as Aristotle. The concept of seven ages derives from medieval philosophy, which constructed groups of seven, as in the seven deadly sins, for theological reasons. The seven ages model dates from the 12th century. King Henry V had a tapestry illustrating the seven ages of man.


title: All the world's a stage

text: According to T. W. Baldwin, Shakespeare's version of the concept of the ages of man is based primarily upon Pier Angelo Manzolli's book "Zodiacus Vitae", a school text he might have studied at the Stratford Grammar School, which also enumerates stages of human life. He also takes elements from Ovid and other sources known to him.


title: Theda Bara

text: Theda Bara ( ; born Theodosia Burr Goodman; July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara was one of the more popular actresses of the silent era and one of cinema's early sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for "vampire", here meaning a seductive woman), later fueling the rising popularity in "vamp" roles based in exoticism and sexual domination. The studios promoted a fictitious persona for Bara as an Egyptian-born woman interested in the occult. Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but most are now lost, having perished in the 1937 Fox vault fire. After her marriage to Charles Brabin in 1921, she made two more feature films and then retired from acting in 1926; she never appeared in a sound film.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara was born Theodosia Burr Goodman on July 29, 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. She was named after the daughter of US Vice President Aaron Burr. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936), a prosperous Jewish tailor from Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise Françoise ( de Coppett; 1861–1957), was born in Switzerland. Bernard and Pauline married in 1882. Theda had two younger siblings: Marque (1888–1954) and Esther (1897–1965), who also became a film actress, under the screen name, Lori Bara.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara attended Walnut Hills High School, graduating in 1903. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked mainly in local theater productions, but did explore other projects. After moving to New York City in 1908, she made her Broadway debut the same year in "The Devil".


title: Theda Bara

text: Most of Bara's early films were shot along the East Coast, where the film industry was centered at that time, primarily at Fox Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara lived with her family in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles to film the epic "Cleopatra" (1917), which became one of her biggest hits. No prints of "Cleopatra" are known to exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara was the Fox studio's biggest star between 1915 and 1919, but tired of being typecast as a vamp, she allowed her five-year contract with the company to expire. Her final Fox film was "The Lure of Ambition" (1919). In 1920, she turned briefly to the stage, appearing on Broadway in "The Blue Flame". Bara's fame drew large crowds to the theater, but her acting was savaged by critics.


title: Theda Bara

text: Her career suffered without Fox Studios' support, and she did not make another film until "The Unchastened Woman" (1925) for Chadwick Pictures. She retired after making only one more film, the short comedy "Madame Mystery" (1926), directed by Stan Laurel for Hal Roach; in this, Bara parodied her vamp image.


title: Theda Bara

text: At the height of her fame, Bara earned $4,000 per week (the equivalent of over $56,000 per week in 2017 adjusted dollars). Her better-known roles were as the "vamp", although she attempted to avoid typecasting by playing wholesome heroines in films such as "Under Two Flags" and "Her Double Life". She appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Although Bara took her craft seriously, she was too successful playing exotic wanton women to develop a more versatile career.


title: Theda Bara

text: The origin of Bara's stage name is disputed. "The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats" says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Baranger, and that Theda was a childhood nickname. In promoting the 1917 film "Cleopatra", Fox Studio publicists noted that the name was an anagram of "Arab death", and her press agents, to enhance her exotic appeal to moviegoers, falsely promoted the young Ohio native as "the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara". In 1917, the Goodman family legally changed its surname to Bara.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara was known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code (a.k.a. the Hays Code) started in 1930 under Will H. Hays and then rigorously enforced beginning in mid-1934 by Joseph Breen. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the Sahara desert under the shadow of the Sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (In fact, Bara never had been to Egypt, and her time in France amounted to just a few months.)


title: Theda Bara

text: A 2016 book by Joan Craig and Beverly F. Stout chronicles many personal, first-hand accounts of the lives of Bara and her husband Charles Brabin.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin in 1921. They honeymooned at The Pines Hotel in Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada, and later purchased a property down the coast from Digby at Harbourville, Nova Scotia, overlooking the Bay of Fundy, eventually building a summer home they called Baranook. They had no children. Bara resided in a villa-style home in Cincinnati, which served as the "honors villa" at Xavier University. Demolition of the home began in July 2011.


title: Theda Bara

text: In 1936, she appeared on "Lux Radio Theatre" during a broadcast version of "The Thin Man" with William Powell and Myrna Loy. She did not appear in the play but instead announced her plans to make a movie comeback, which never materialized. She appeared on radio again in 1939 as a guest on "Texaco Star Theatre".


title: Theda Bara

text: In 1949, producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in making a movie of Bara's life, to star Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.


title: Theda Bara

text: On April 7, 1955, after a lengthy stay at California Lutheran Hospital in Los Angeles, Bara died of stomach cancer. She was survived by her husband, her mother, and her younger sister, Lori. She was interred as Theda Bara Brabin at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.


title: Theda Bara

text: For her contributions to the film industry, Bara received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Her star is located at 6307 Hollywood Boulevard.


title: Theda Bara

text: Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist: "The Stain" (1914), "A Fool There Was" (1915), "East Lynne" (1916), "The Unchastened Woman" (1925), and two short comedies for Hal Roach.


title: Theda Bara

text: In addition to these, a few of her films remain in fragments, including "Cleopatra" (just a few seconds of footage), a clip thought to be from "The Soul of Buddha", and a few other unidentified clips featured in the documentary "Theda Bara et William Fox" (2001). Most of the clips can be seen in the documentary "The Woman with the Hungry Eyes" (2006). As to vamping, critics stated that her portrayal of calculating, cold-hearted women was morally instructive to men. Bara responded by saying "I will continue doing vampires as long as people sin." Additional footage has been found which shows her behind the scenes on a picture. While the hairstyle has led some to theorize that this may be from "The Lure of Ambition", this has not been confirmed. Small fragments from "Salome" were discovered in 2021 by an intern at Filmoteca Española.


title: Theda Bara

text: In 1994, she was honored with her image on a U.S. postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as "Theda Bara Way" in May 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.


title: Theda Bara

text: Over a period of several years, filmmaker and film historian Phillip Dye reconstructed "Cleopatra" on video. Titled "Lost Cleopatra", the full-length feature was created by editing together production-still picture montages combined with the surviving film clip. The script was based on the original scenario, with modifications derived from research into censorship reports, reviews of the film, and synopses from period magazines. Dye screened the film at the Hollywood Heritage Museum on February 8, 2017.


title: Theda Bara

text: The short piano suite "Silhouettes from the Screen", Op. 55 (1919) by Mortimer Wilson includes a miniature musical portrait of Theda Bara, who is portrayed in an atonal, expressionistic style.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara is referenced in the 1921 Bert Kalmar/Harry Ruby song "Rebecca Came Back from Mecca" as well as their 1922 "Sheik From Avenue B," sung by Fanny Brice.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara was one of three actresses (Pola Negri and Mae Murray were the others) whose eyes were combined to form the Chicago International Film Festival's logo, a stark, black and white close up of the composite eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film.


title: Theda Bara

text: The "International Times" logo is a black-and-white image of Theda Bara. The founders' intention had been to use an image of actress Clara Bow, 1920s "It girl", but a picture of Theda Bara was used by accident, and once deployed, not changed.


title: Theda Bara

text: In June 1996, two biographies of Bara were released: Ron Genini's "Theda Bara: A Biography" (McFarland) and Eve Golden's "Vamp" (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of Culver City premiered the film biography "Theda Bara: The Woman with the Hungry Eyes".


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara has been the subject of several works of fiction, including "In Theda Bara's Tent" by Diana Altman, "The Director's Cut: A Theda Bara Mystery" by Christopher DiGrazia, and the play "Theda Bara and the Frontier Rabbi" by Bob Johnston.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara appears as a character in the books "Vampyres of Hollywood" and "Love Bites" by Adrienne Barbeau, and in "Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story" by Clive Barker.


title: Theda Bara

text: In season 2, episode 1 of "The Lucy Show", Vivian Bagley and Lucy argue over who should play Cleopatra in an upcoming play; Lucy states "I've seen the movie twelve times!" and Vivian quips "She means the one with Theda Bara".


title: Theda Bara

text: A photo of Bara as Cleopatra is the album artwork for The Lumineers record "Cleopatra" released in 2016.


title: Theda Bara

text: In May 2016, a memoir titled "Theda Bara, My Mentor, Under the Wings of Hollywood's First Femme Fatale", by Joan Craig with Beverly Stout, was released. Young Joan, in the companionship of Bara during the 1940s and 1950s, includes tales of Bara's husband, Charles Brabin, friends Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Victor Fleming, and other stars of the past.


title: Theda Bara

text: In season 2, episode 7 of the television series "Downton Abbey", butler Carson describes the newly designed bathrooms at a nearby estate as "like something out of a film with Theda Bara".


title: Theda Bara

text: In the book "Queen of the Flowers", a Phryne Fisher mystery by Kerry Greenwood, a reference is made to "a reply straight from the last Theda Bara movie" (Constable Publishers, London, p. 236).


title: Theda Bara

text: Theda Withel, a main character in "Moving Pictures" by Terry Pratchett, is reference to and is loosely based on Theda Bara.


title: Theda Bara

text: Bara, as well as her lost silent film about Cleopatra, are referred to as the muses of theatrical costume designer Rainier in the 2021 independent novel "Nevaeh Smiled" by S.P.W. Mitchell.


title: New Swabia

text: New Swabia (Norwegian and ) was a disputed Antarctic claim by Nazi Germany within the Norwegian territorial claim of Queen Maud Land and is now a cartographic name sometimes given to an area of Antarctica between 20°E and 10°W in Queen Maud Land. New Swabia was explored by Germany in early 1939 and named after that expedition's ship, , itself named after the German region of Swabia.


title: New Swabia

text: Like many other countries, Germany sent expeditions to the Antarctic region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of which were scientific. The late 19th century expeditions to the Southern Ocean, South Georgia, the Kerguelen Islands, and the Crozet Islands were astronomical, meteorological, and hydrological, mostly in close collaboration with scientific teams from other countries. As the 19th century ended, Germany began to focus on Antarctica.


title: New Swabia

text: The first German expedition to Antarctica was the Gauss expedition from 1901 to 1903. Led by Arctic veteran and geology professor Erich von Drygalski, this was the first expedition to use a hot-air balloon in Antarctica. It also found and named Kaiser Wilhelm II Land. The second German Antarctic expedition (1911–1912) was led by Wilhelm Filchner with a goal of crossing Antarctica to learn if it was one piece of land. As happened with other such early attempts, the crossing failed before it even began. The expedition discovered and named the Luitpold Coast and the Filchner Ice Shelf. A German whaling fleet was put to sea in 1937 and, upon its successful return in early 1938, plans for a third German Antarctic expedition were drawn up.


title: New Swabia

text: The third German Antarctic Expedition (1938–1939) was led by Alfred Ritscher (1879–1963), a captain in the German Navy. The main purpose was to find an area in Antarctica for a German whaling station, as a way to increase Germany's production of fat. Whale oil was then the most important raw material for the production of margarine and soap in Germany and the country was the second largest purchaser of Norwegian whale oil, importing some 200,000 metric tonnes annually. Besides the disadvantage of being dependent on imports, it was thought that Germany would soon be at war, which was considered to put too much strain on Germany's foreign currency reserves. Another goal was to scout possible locations for a German naval base.


title: New Swabia

text: On 17 December 1938, the New Swabia Expedition left Hamburg for Antarctica aboard MS "Schwabenland" (a freighter built in 1925 and renamed in 1934 after the Swabia region in southern Germany) which could also carry and catapult aircraft. The secret expedition had 33 members plus "Schwabenland"s crew of 24. On 19 January 1939, the ship arrived at the Princess Martha Coast, in an area which had lately been claimed by Norway as Queen Maud Land, and began charting the region. Nazi German flags were placed on the sea ice along the coast. Naming the area "Neu-Schwabenland" after the ship, the expedition established a temporary base and in the following weeks teams walked along the coast recording claim reservations on hills and other significant landmarks. Seven photographic survey flights were made by the ship's two Dornier Wal seaplanes named "Passat" and "Boreas". About a dozen -long aluminum arrows, with steel cones and three upper stabilizer wings embossed with swastikas, were airdropped onto the ice at turning points of the flight polygons (these arrows had been tested on the Pasterze glacier in Austria before the expedition). None of these have ever been recovered. Eight more flights were made to areas of keen interest and on these trips, some of the photos were taken with colour film. Altogether they flew over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers and took more than 16,000 aerial photographs, some of which were published after the war by Ritscher. The ice-free Schirmacher Oasis, which now hosts the Maitri and Novolazarevskaya research stations, was spotted from the air by Richard Heinrich Schirmacher (who named it after himself) shortly before the "Schwabenland" left the Antarctic coast on 6 February 1939.


title: New Swabia

text: On its return trip to Germany, the expedition made oceanographic studies near Bouvet Island and Fernando de Noronha, arriving back in Hamburg on 11 April 1939. Meanwhile, the Norwegian government had learned about the expedition through reports from whalers along the coast of Queen Maud Land. Although some, notably Norwegian writer Bjarne Aagaard and German geographer Ernst Herrmann, have claimed that Germany never actually occupied the territory, it is well documented that Germany issued a decree about the establishment of a German Antarctic Sector called New Swabia after the expedition's return in August 1939.


title: New Swabia

text: Because the area was first explored by a German expedition, the name "Neuschwabenland" ("New Swabia") is still used for the region on some maps, as are many of the German names given to its geographic features. Some geographic features mapped by the expedition were not named until the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition (NBSAE) (1949–1952), led by John Schjelderup Giæver. Others were not named until they were remapped from aerial photographs taken by the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition (1958–1959).


title: New Swabia

text: Germany made no formal territorial claims to New Swabia. No whaling station or other lasting bases were built there by Germany until the Georg-von-Neumayer-Station, a research facility, was established in 1981. Germany's current Neumayer-Station III is also in the region. New Swabia is a cartographic area of Queen Maud Land which within Norway is administered as a Norwegian dependent territory under the Antarctic Treaty System by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice and the Police.


title: New Swabia

text: Neuschwabenland has been the subject of conspiracy theories for decades, some of them related to Nazi UFO claims. Most assert that, in the wake of the German expedition of 1938–39, a huge military base was built there. After the war, high-ranking Nazis, scientists, and elite military units are claimed to have survived there. The US and UK have supposedly been trying to conquer the area for decades, and to have used nuclear weapons in this effort. Proponents claim the base is sustained by hot springs providing energy and warmth.


title: Roundhead

text: Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule by absolute monarchy and the principle of the divine right of kings. The goal of the Roundheads was to give to Parliament the supreme control over executive administration of the country/kingdom.


title: Roundhead

text: Most Roundheads sought constitutional monarchy in place of the absolute monarchy sought by Charles; however, at the end of the English Civil War in 1649, public antipathy towards the king was high enough to allow republican leaders such as Oliver Cromwell to abolish the monarchy completely and establish the Commonwealth of England.


title: Roundhead

text: The Roundhead commander-in-chief of the first Civil War, Thomas Fairfax, remained a supporter of constitutional monarchy, as did many other Roundhead leaders such as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, and Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex; however, this party was outmanoeuvred by the more politically adept Cromwell and his radicals, who had the backing of the New Model Army and took advantage of Charles' perceived betrayal of England in his alliance with the Scottish against Parliament.


title: Roundhead

text: England's many Puritans and Presbyterians were almost invariably Roundhead supporters, as were many smaller religious groups such as the Independents. However, many Roundheads were members of the Church of England, as were many Cavaliers. Roundhead political factions included the proto-anarchist/socialist Diggers, the diverse group known as the Levellers and the apocalyptic Christian movement of the Fifth Monarchists.


title: Roundhead

text: Some Puritans (but by no means all of them) wore their hair closely cropped round the head or flat. There was thus an obvious contrast between them and the men of courtly fashion, who wore long ringlets. During the war and for a time afterwards, "Roundhead" was a term of derision, and in the New Model Army it was a punishable offence to call a fellow soldier a Roundhead. This contrasted with "Cavalier", a word used to describe supporters of the Royalist cause, but which also started out as a pejorative term. The first proponents used it to compare members of the Royalist party with Spanish "Caballeros" who had abused Dutch Protestants during the reign of Elizabeth I. However, unlike Roundhead, Cavalier was later embraced by those who were the target of the epithet and used by them to describe themselves.


title: Roundhead

text: "Roundheads" appears to have been first used as a term of derision toward the end of 1641, when the debates in Parliament in the Clergy Act 1640 were causing riots at Westminster. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" Eleventh Edition quotes a contemporary authority's description of the crowd that gathered there: "They had the hair of their heads very few of them longer than their ears, whereupon it came to pass that those who usually with their cries attended at Westminster were by a nickname called "Roundheads"". The demonstrators included London apprentices, for whom Roundhead was a term of derision, because the regulations which they had agreed to included a provision for closely cropped hair.


title: Roundhead

text: According to John Rushworth, the word was first used on 27 December 1641 by a disbanded officer named David Hide. During a riot, Hide is reported to have drawn his sword and said he would "cut the throat of those round-headed dogs that bawled against bishops"; however, Richard Baxter ascribes the origin of the term to a remark made by Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, at the trial of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, earlier that year. Referring to John Pym, she asked who the roundheaded man was. The principal advisor to Charles II, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, remarked on the matter, "and from those contestations the two terms of "Roundhead" and "Cavalier" grew to be received in discourse, ... they who were looked upon as servants to the king being then called "Cavaliers", and the other of the rabble contemned and despised under the name of "Roundheads"."


title: Roundhead

text: After the Anglican Archbishop William Laud made a statute in 1636 instructing all clergy to wear short hair, many Puritans rebelled to show their contempt for his authority and began to grow their hair even longer (as can be seen on ) though they continued to be known as Roundheads. The longer hair was more common among the "Independent" and "high-ranking" Puritans, which included Cromwell, especially toward the end of the Protectorate, while the "Presbyterian" (non-Independent) faction, and the military rank and file, continued to abhor long hair. By the end of that period, some Independent Puritans were again derisively using the term Roundhead to refer to the Presbyterian Puritans.


title: Roundhead

text: "Roundhead" remained in use to describe those with republican tendencies until the Exclusion Crisis of 1678–1681, when the term was superseded by "Whig", initially another term with pejorative connotations. Likewise, during the Exclusion Bill crisis, the term "Cavalier" was replaced with "Tory", an Irish term introduced by their opponents that was also initially a pejorative term.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are the center of the Quad Cities metropolitan area, which as of 2013 had a population estimate of 383,781 and a Combined Statistical Area (CSA) population of 474,937, making it the 90th-largest CSA in the nation.


title: Quad Cities

text: Before European settlers came to inhabit the Quad Cities, the confluence of rivers had attracted many varying cultures of indigenous peoples, who used the waterways and riverbanks for their settlements for thousands of years. At the time of European encounter, it was a home and principal trading place of the Sauk and Fox tribes of Native Americans. Saukenuk was the principal village of the Sauk tribe and birthplace of its 19th-century war chief, Black Hawk. In 1832, Sauk chief Keokuk and General Winfield Scott signed a treaty in Davenport after the US defeated the Sauk and their allies in the Black Hawk War. The treaty resulted in the Native Americans ceding of land to the United States in exchange for a much smaller reservation elsewhere. Black Hawk State Historic Site in Rock Island preserves part of historic Saukenuk and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Quad Cities

text: The history of urban settlements in the Quad Cities was stimulated by riverboat traffic. For between LeClaire, Iowa, and Rock Island, the Mississippi River flowed across a series of finger-like rock projections protruding from either bank. These rapids were difficult for steamboats to traverse. As demand for river-based transportation increased along the upper Mississippi, the navigability of the river throughout the "Rock Island Rapids" became a greater concern. Over time, a minor industry grew up in the area to meet the steamboats' needs. Boat crews needed rest areas to stop before encountering the rapids, places to hire expert pilots such as Phillip Suiter, who was the first licensed pilot on the upper Mississippi River, to guide the boat through the rocky waters, or, when the water was low, places where goods could be removed and transported by wagon on land past the rapids. Today, the rocks are submerged six feet underwater by a lake formed by two locks and dams.


title: Quad Cities

text: As the Industrial Revolution developed in the United States, many enterprising industrialists looked to the Mississippi River as a promising source of water power. The combination of energy and easy access to river transportation attracted entrepreneurs and industrialists to the Quad Cities for development. In 1848, John Deere moved his plough business to Moline. His business was incorporated as Deere & Company in 1868. Deere & Company is the largest employer today in the Quad Cities.


title: Quad Cities

text: The first railroad bridge built across the Mississippi River connected Davenport and Rock Island in 1856. It was built by the Rock Island Railroad Company, and replaced the slow seasonal ferry service and winter ice bridges as the primary modes of transportation across the river. Steamboaters saw the nationwide railroads as a threat to their business. On May 6, 1856, just weeks after completion of the bridge, an angry steamboater crashed the "Effie Afton" into it. John Hurd, the owner of the "Effie Afton", filed a lawsuit against the Rock Island Railroad Company. The Rock Island Railroad Company selected Abraham Lincoln as their trial lawyer and won after he took the case to the US Supreme Court. Phillip Suiter was one of his expert witnesses. It was a pivotal trial in Lincoln's career.


title: Quad Cities

text: After the Civil War, the region began to gain a common identity. The river towns that were thoughtfully planned and competently led flourished, while other settlements, usually get-rich-quick schemes for speculators, failed to pan out. By World War I, the towns of Davenport, Rock Island, and Moline had begun to style themselves as the "Tri-Cities," a cluster of three more-or-less equally-sized river communities growing around the small bend of the Mississippi River where it flows west. But with the growth of Rock Island County, during the 1930s the term "Quad Cities" came into vogue, as East Moline was given "equal status." Despite the fact that the region had earned the name "Quad Cities," the National Basketball Association had a franchise in Moline, Illinois, from 1946 to 1951 called the "Tri-Cities Blackhawks." Then, with the opening of an Alcoa (now Arconic) plant east of Davenport in 1948, the town of Bettendorf underwent so much growth that many people in the community discussed the adoption of the name "Quint Cities", But by this time, the name "Quad Cities" had become known well beyond the area, and "Quint Cities" never caught on, despite the efforts of WOC-TV (now KWQC-TV) and others. Consequently, when Bettendorf passed East Moline in size, there was some debate about whether Bettendorf had "displaced" East Moline. Instead, local officials, such as the Chamber of Commerce, have chosen an inclusive approach, maintaining the name "Quad Cities" yet including all five cities.


title: Quad Cities

text: Beginning in the late 1970s, economic conditions caused major industrial restructuring, which disrupted the basis of the region's economy. The major companies, agricultural manufacturers, ceased or scaled back operations in the Quad Cities. Factories which closed included International Harvester in Rock Island and Case IH in Bettendorf. Moline-based John Deere cut its labor headcount by one half. Later in the 1980s, Caterpillar Inc. closed its factories at Mount Joy and Bettendorf.


title: Quad Cities

text: Since the 1990s, the Quad Cities governments, businesses, non-profits and residents have worked hard to redevelop the region. They have achieved national attention for their accomplishments.


title: Quad Cities

text: Over the years, several communities in the Quad Cities region have proposed or performed mergers. As it grew, Davenport annexed the communities of Rockingham, Nahant, Probstei, East Davenport, Oakdale, Cawiezeel, Blackhawk, Mt. Joy, Green Tree, and others. Bettendorf annexed portions of Pleasant Valley in the 1970s. In 1987, Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, Milan, Carbon Cliff, Hampton, Coal Valley and Silvis considered a super-city merger which would have seen the Illinois cities become the second-largest city in the state, but the proposal ultimately failed. Moline and East Moline considered a merger in 1997. That same year, Green Rock and Colona did merge.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities is located at the confluence of the Rock and Mississippi rivers, approximately west of Chicago, and forms the largest metropolitan area along the Mississippi River between Minneapolis–Saint Paul and the St. Louis metropolitan area. Interstate 80 crosses the Mississippi River here. The Quad Cities area is distinctive because the Mississippi River flows from east to west as it passes through the heart of the area; the Iowa cities of Davenport and Bettendorf are located due north of Rock Island and Moline, respectively.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities area is one where the telephone companies cooperate with regional phone calls. Iowa and Illinois have different area codes (563 and 309 respectively), yet most calls originating and terminating within the core urban area are placed without long-distance charges by dialing just a 7-digit number. This helps the bi-state area promote itself as a single community, "joined by a river."


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities Metropolitan Area consists of three counties: Scott County in Iowa, and Rock Island County and Henry County in Illinois. The Quad City metro population is 382,268. The Quad Cities Metropolitan Area is also considered part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis.


title: Quad Cities

text: According to the 2010 United States Census Count, the metropolitan area grew to 471,551. As of the 2000 census, a total of 96,495 households and 60,535 families resided in the area.


title: Quad Cities

text: The racial makeup of the area is 90.6% White (410,861), 3.7% Black or African American (27,757), 0.6% American Indian and Alaskan Native (1,255), 1.0% Asian (6,624), 0.03% Pacific Islander (156), and 2.0% from two or more races (11,929). 7.1% of the population is Hispanic or Latino of any race (37,070). The predominant ethnicities in the Quad Cities are of northern European descent, including German, Irish, and English, as well Scandinavian (Mostly Swedish and Norwegian) and Dutch. The primary minority groups in the area are African-Americans, which in Davenport make up the third largest black population in the state of Iowa, a community dating back to the 1830s when Iowa was a free territory. Many of the city's African-American residents have roots in the Southern/Border states of the U.S., including Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Missouri. The most significant Asian-American populations are South Asian and Vietnamese American.


title: Quad Cities

text: According to resources, Christianity is the largest religion to be practiced in the area. However, the two states have a different population of Christian groups. In Davenport and Bettendorf, Catholics make up an 18.5% plurality, but Protestants with 15.1% Mainline and 11.6% Evangelical make up large minorities as well. The Black Protestants on the Iowa side comes in at 1.2%. On the Illinois side, between Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline, Catholicism is less prevalent at 12.4%, and at 12.5% Evangelical and 11.0% Mainline have smaller declines.


title: Quad Cities

text: Since 1916, the region has supported the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, which presents a year-round schedule of concerts at the Adler Theatre in Davenport and Centennial Hall in Rock Island. The Handel Oratorio Society, dating to 1880, is the second-oldest organization of its kind in the nation and presents annual performances of "Messiah" along with another major work for choir and orchestra. The Augustana Choir, founded at Rock Island's Augustana College in 1934, is one of the nation's leading collegiate choruses. Major outdoor summer music festivals include the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, and River Roots Live.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities' three traditional community theaters – Playcrafters Barn Theatre (founded in 1920, comedies and dramas) and Quad City Music Guild (1948, musicals) in Moline, and Genesius guild (1957, outdoor Shakespeare and Greek comedies and tragedies) in Rock Island – were joined in 1976 by Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, a professional dinner theater in downtown Rock Island's historic Fort Theatre. Ballet is performed at Ballet Quad Cities. ComedySportz provides improv comedy. Bluebox Limited is a Bettendorf-based film production company, and many outside productions companies have filmed movies in the Quad Cities in recent years. Historic buildings and sites listed on state and the National Register of Historic Places interpret the history of people's settlement and lives in the area.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities is the 151st largest radio market in the United States. It is ranked 97th by Nielsen Media Research for the 2008–09 television season with 309,600 television households.


title: Quad Cities

text: The area is served by over 13 commercial radio stations, 8 non-commercial radio stations, 3 low power FM radio stations, 8 TV stations and 3 daily newspapers.


title: Quad Cities

text: In 2012, the Mississippi Valley Fair that is held in Davenport served as the film location for Rodney Atkins' music video "Just Wanna Rock N' Roll."


title: Quad Cities

text: Also in 2012, the PBS "Frontline" documentary "Poor Kids" was filmed in and around the Quad Cities showing poverty from a child's perspective.


title: Quad Cities

text: Four interstate highways serve the Quad Cities: Interstate 80, Interstate 280, Interstate 74 serve both states while Interstate 88 serves just Illinois. United States highways include U.S. Route 6 and U.S. Route 67 which run through both Iowa and Illinois, while U.S. Route 61 serves just Iowa and U.S. Route 150 serves just Illinois.


title: Quad Cities

text: A total of five bridges accessible by automobiles connect Iowa with Illinois in the Quad Cities across the Mississippi River. The Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge carries Interstate 80 and connects Le Claire, Iowa, with Rapids City, Illinois. Continuing downstream, the I-74 Bridge connects Bettendorf, Iowa, with Moline, Illinois, and is the busiest bridge with an average of 70,400 cars a day. The Government Bridge connects Downtown Davenport with the Rock Island Arsenal. Three bridges connect Davenport with Rock Island, Illinois; The Rock Island Centennial Bridge, The Crescent Rail Bridge, and the furthest downstream bridge, the Sergeant John F. Baker, Jr. Bridge which carries I-280.


title: Quad Cities

text: Several state highways also serve the area. Iowa Highway 22 is on Davenport's southwest side and runs west through the county, while Iowa Highway 130 runs along Northwest Boulevard on Davenport's north edge. Illinois Route 5 (John Deere Road) runs from Rock Island east till it runs into Interstate 88. Illinois Route 92 runs along the Mississippi River, while Illinois Route 84 runs along the east side of Rock Island County. Illinois Route 192 connects Highway 92 with Illinois Route 94 near Taylor Ridge. The Chicago – Kansas City Expressway also serves the area along Interstates 74, 80, and 88.


title: Quad Cities

text: There are three transit operators in the Quad Cities with limited interconnection between them. Rock Island County Metropolitan Mass Transit District (Quad Cities MetroLINK) serves the Illinois cities of Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, Milan, Silvis, Carbon Cliff, Hampton and Colona. It has 12 routes and a fleet of about 52 buses. It operates a river craft during summer months. In Iowa, Davenport Citibus has 10 fixed routes and operates 20 buses, seven days a week and Bettendorf Transit operates three routes, Monday–Saturday, and has eight buses.


title: Quad Cities

text: Amtrak currently does not serve the Quad Cities. The closest station is about away in Galesburg, Illinois. In 2008, United States Senators Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, Dick Durbin, and Barack Obama sent a letter to Amtrak asking them to begin plans to bring rail service to the Quad Cities. In October 2010, a $230 million federal fund was announced that will bring Amtrak service to the Quad Cities, with a new line running from Moline to Chicago. They hoped to have the line completed in 2015, and offer two round trips daily to Chicago.


title: Quad Cities

text: In December 2011, the federal government awarded $177 million in funding for the Amtrak connection. Budgetary and logistical issues have delayed the completion of all necessary track improvements, but the project is still in development. The multi-modal Moline Q Station building was completed in early 2018, with the attached Westin Element hotel opening in February. When the full project is completed, it will establish passenger rail through the Quad Cities, for the first time since the 1970s.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities is served by the Quad Cities International Airport, Illinois' third-busiest airport, located in Moline. The airport is marketed as a regional alternative to the larger airports in Chicago, nearly away. The smaller Davenport Municipal Airport is the home of the Quad City Air Show.


title: Quad Cities

text: From 1907 to 1926, Rock Island was home to the NFL's Rock Island Independents. The franchise was a charter member on the National Football League (NFL) in 1920. The first NFL Game ever was played by the Independents at Douglas Park in September 1920. Football legend Jim Thorpe was a member of the team in 1924.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Tri-Cities Blackhawks, named in honor of the Sauk war chief Black Hawk, was the next top-level professional sports franchise. The club played in the National Basketball League (NBL) from 1946 until its merger in 1949 with the Basketball Association of America to become the National Basketball Association (NBA). Hall of famer Red Auerbach coached the Blackhawks during their first NBA season.


title: Quad Cities

text: After the 1950–51 basketball season, the team moved to Milwaukee, where they were named the Hawks. After a second move to St. Louis, the team is now the Atlanta Hawks.


title: Quad Cities

text: Professional basketball returned to the Quad Cities during the 1980s and 1990s with the Quad City Thunder of the Continental Basketball Association. The CBA served as the NBA's premier developmental league and produced many highly regarded NBA stars. From 1987 through the 1992–93 season, the Thunder played at Wharton Field House in Moline. Starting with the 1993–94 season, the team played at The MARK of the Quad Cities (now the TaxSlayer Center.) After the CBA folded in 2001, the Thunder franchise ceased operations permanently. The TaxSlayer Center occasionally hosts NCAA Division I college basketball conference tournaments as well as NBA and NHL exhibitions.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities has hosted minor league baseball teams since the Davenport Brown Stockings first played in 1878. The Rock Island Islanders and Moline Plowboys each fielded teams for many seasons. The Islanders began play in 1901 and played primarily at Douglas Park. The Plowboys were founded in 1914. Their home was Browning Field.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Davenport franchise has been a member of the Midwest League since 1960. They have played at Modern Woodmen Park since 1931. Today, the Quad Cities River Bandits are High Class A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals


title: Quad Cities

text: The PGA Tour makes an annual stop in the Quad Cities. The golf tournament is currently known as the John Deere Classic. It has drawn dozens of top PGA players over the years, including Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, and Payne Stewart.


title: Quad Cities

text: The Quad Cities Marathon has run annually in late September since 1998. Roughly 400-500 participants race through the four cities, beginning and ending in Moline. The race weekend also offers a half marathon and a 5K as well as races for children. Kenyan Kiplangat Terer holds the men's record with a 2:14:04, run in 2013. Ethiopian Hirut Guangul holds the woman's record at 2:35:07, from her 2012 win.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called "Gustavus III", was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav was a vocal opponent of what he saw as the abuse of political privileges seized by the nobility since the death of King Charles XII. Seizing power from the government in a coup d'état, called the Swedish Revolution, in 1772 that ended the Age of Liberty, he initiated a campaign to restore a measure of Royal autocracy, which was completed by the Union and Security Act of 1789, which swept away most of the powers exercised by the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) during the Age of Liberty, but at the same time it opened up the government for all citizens, thereby breaking the privileges of the nobility.


title: Gustav III

text: A bulwark of enlightened absolutism, Gustav spent considerable public funds on cultural ventures, which were controversial among his critics, as well as military attempts to seize Norway with Russian aid, then a series of attempts to re-capture the Swedish Baltic dominions lost during the Great Northern War through the failed war with Russia. Nonetheless, his successful leadership in the Battle of Svensksund averted a complete military defeat and signified that Swedish military might was to be countenanced.


title: Gustav III

text: An admirer of Voltaire, Gustav legalized Catholic and Jewish presence in Sweden, and enacted wide-ranging reforms aimed at economic liberalism, social reform and the restriction, in many cases, of torture and capital punishment. The much-praised Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 was severely curtailed, however, by amendments in 1774 and 1792, effectively extinguishing independent media.


title: Gustav III

text: Following the uprising against the French monarchy in 1789, Gustav pursued an alliance of princes aimed at crushing the insurrection and re-instating his French counterpart, King Louis XVI, offering Swedish military assistance as well as his leadership. In 1792 he was mortally wounded by a gunshot in the lower back during a masquerade ball as part of an aristocratic-parliamentary coup attempt, but managed to assume command and quell the uprising before succumbing to sepsis 13 days later, a period during which he received apologies from many of his political enemies. Gustav's immense powers were placed in the hands of a regency under his brother Prince Carl and Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm until his son and successor Gustav IV Adolf reached adulthood in 1796. The Gustavian autocracy thus survived until 1809, when his son was ousted in another coup d'état, which definitively established parliament as the dominant political power.


title: Gustav III

text: A patron of the arts and benefactor of arts and literature, Gustav founded the Swedish Academy, created a national costume and had the Royal Swedish Opera built. In 1772 he founded the Royal Order of Vasa to acknowledge and reward those Swedes who had contributed to advances in the fields of agriculture, mining and commerce.


title: Gustav III

text: In 1777, Gustav III was the first formally neutral head of state in the world to recognize the United States during its war for independence from Great Britain. Swedish military forces were engaged by the thousands on the side of the colonists, largely through the French expedition force. Through the acquisition of Saint Barthélemy in 1784, Gustav enabled the restoration, if symbolic, of Swedish overseas colonies in America, as well as great personal profits from the transatlantic slave trade.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav was born in Stockholm. He was placed under the tutelage of Hedvig Elisabet Strömfelt until the age of five, then educated under the care of two governors who were among the most eminent Swedish statesmen of the day: Carl Gustaf Tessin and Carl Fredrik Scheffer. Nonetheless, he perhaps owed most of what shaped him during his early education to the poet and historian Olof von Dalin.


title: Gustav III

text: State interference with his education as a young child caused significant political disruptions within the royal family. Gustav's parents taught him to despise the governors imposed upon him by the Riksdag, and the atmosphere of intrigue and duplicity in which he grew up made him precociously experienced in the art of dissimulation.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav married Princess Sophia Magdalena, daughter of King Frederick V of Denmark, by proxy in Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen, on 1 October 1766 and in person in Stockholm on 4 November 1766. Gustav was first impressed by Sophia Magdalena's beauty, but her silent nature made her a disappointment in court life. The match was not a happy one, owing partly to an incompatibility of temperament, but still more to the interference of Gustav's jealous mother, Queen Louisa Ulrika.


title: Gustav III

text: The marriage produced two children: Crown Prince Gustav Adolf (1778–1837), and Prince Carl Gustav, Duke of Småland (1782–1783). For the consummation of the marriage, the king and queen requested actual physical instruction by Count Adolf Munck, reportedly because of anatomical problems of both spouses. There were also rumors that the queen was made pregnant by Munck, who would then be the true father of the heir Prince Gustav Adolf. Gustav's mother supported rumors that he was not the father of his first son and heir. It was rumored at the time that Gustav was homosexual, a possibility asserted by some writers. The close personal relationships that he formed with two of his courtiers, Count Axel von Fersen and Baron Gustav Armfelt, were alluded to in that regard. His sister-in-law Charlotte implied as much in her famous diary.


title: Gustav III

text: Professor Erik Lönnroth of the Swedish Academy, who described the assistance provided by Munck, asserted that there is no factual basis for the assumption that Gustav III was homosexual. When his second son was born, there was no doubt as to his legitimacy, and the boy was strong and healthy. King Gustav was especially fond of him and suffered obvious and severe mental and physical reactions to the baby's illness and death. The spring of 1783 has been considered a turning point in the king's personality. After his controversial mother's death in 1782, he found consolation in the birth of the Duke of Småland, but this was followed by severe grief when the child died the following year.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav first intervened actively in politics during the December Crisis (1768), when he compelled the dominant Cap faction, which mainly represented the interests of the peasantry and clergy, to summon an extraordinary diet from which he hoped for the reform of the constitution in a way that would increase the power of the crown. But the victorious Hat party, which mainly represented the interests of the aristocracy and military establishment, refused to redeem the pledges that they had given before the previous elections. "That we should have lost the constitutional battle does not distress us so much", wrote Gustav, in the bitterness of his heart; "but what does dismay me is to see my poor nation so sunk in corruption as to place its own felicity in absolute anarchy."


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav found greater success abroad. From 4 February to 25 March 1771, Gustav was in Paris, where he carried both the court and the city by storm. The poets and the philosophers paid him enthusiastic homage, and distinguished women testified to his superlative merits. With many of them he maintained a lifelong correspondence. His visit to the French capital was, however, no mere pleasure trip; it was also a political mission. Confidential agents from the Swedish court had already prepared the way for him, and the Duke of Choiseul, the retired Chief Minister, resolved to discuss with him the best method of bringing about a revolution in France's ally, Sweden. Before he departed, the French government undertook to pay the outstanding subsidies to Sweden unconditionally, at the rate of one and a half million livres annually. Count de Vergennes, one of the most prominent French diplomats, was transferred from Constantinople to Stockholm.


title: Gustav III

text: On his way home, Gustav paid a short visit to his uncle, Frederick the Great, at Potsdam. Frederick bluntly informed his nephew that, in concert with Russia and Denmark, he had guaranteed the integrity of the existing Swedish constitution; he advised the young monarch to play the part of mediator and abstain from violence.


title: Gustav III

text: At the time of his accession, the Swedish Riksdag held more power than the monarchy, but the Riksdag was bitterly divided between rival parties, the Hats and Caps. On his return to Sweden, Gustav III tried unsuccessfully to mediate between the bitterly divided parties. On 21 June 1771, he opened his first Riksdag with a speech that aroused powerful emotions. It was the first time in more than a century that a Swedish king had addressed a Swedish Riksdag in its native tongue. He stressed the need for all parties to sacrifice their animosities for the common good, and volunteered, as "the first citizen of a free people," to be the mediator between the contending factions. A composition committee was actually formed, but it proved illusory from the first: the patriotism of neither faction was sufficient for the smallest act of self-denial. The subsequent attempts of the dominant Caps to reduce him to a "roi fainéant" (a powerless king), encouraged him to consider a coup d'état.


title: Gustav III

text: Under the sway of the Cap faction, Sweden seemed in danger of falling prey to the political ambitions of Russia. It appeared on the point of being absorbed into the Northern Accord sought by the Russian vice-chancellor, Count Nikita Panin. It seemed to many that only a swift and sudden coup d'état could preserve Sweden's independence.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav III was approached by Jacob Magnus Sprengtporten, a Finnish nobleman, who had incurred the enmity of the Caps, with the prospect of a revolution. He undertook to seize the fortress of Sveaborg in Finland by a "coup de main". Once Finland was secured, he intended to embark for Sweden, join up with the king and his friends near Stockholm, and force the estates to accept a new constitution dictated by the king.


title: Gustav III

text: At this juncture, the plotters were reinforced by Johan Christopher Toll, another victim of Cap oppression. Toll proposed to raise a second revolt in the province of Scania, and to secure the southern fortress of Kristianstad. After some debate, it was agreed that Kristianstad should openly declare against the government a few days after the Finnish revolt had begun. Duke Charles (Karl), the eldest of the king's brothers, would thereupon be forced to mobilize the garrisons of all the southern fortresses hastily, ostensibly to crush the revolt at Kristianstad, but on arriving in front of the fortress, he was to make common cause with the rebels and march upon the capital from the south while Sprengtporten attacked it simultaneously from the east.


title: Gustav III

text: The entire revolutionary enterprise was underwritten with loans procured from the French financier Nicolas Beaujon, arranged by the Swedish ambassador to France, Count Creutz.


title: Gustav III

text: On 6 August 1772, Toll succeeded in winning the fortress of Kristianstad by sheer bluff, and on 16 August, Sprengtporten succeeded in surprising Sveaborg, but contrary winds prevented him from crossing to Stockholm. Events soon occurred there that made his presence unnecessary in any case.


title: Gustav III

text: On 16 August, the Cap leader, Ture Rudbeck, arrived at Stockholm with news of the insurrection in the south, and Gustav found himself isolated in the midst of enemies. Sprengtporten lay weather-bound in Finland, Toll was away, the Hat leaders were in hiding. Gustav thereupon resolved to strike the decisive blow without waiting for Sprengtporten's arrival.


title: Gustav III

text: He acted promptly. On the evening of 18 August, all the officers whom he thought he could trust received secret instructions to assemble in the great square facing the arsenal on the following morning. At ten o'clock on 19 August, Gustav mounted his horse and rode to the arsenal. On the way, his adherents joined him in little groups, as if by accident, so that by the time he reached his destination he had about 200 officers in his suite.


title: Gustav III

text: After parade he reconducted them to the guard-room in the north western wing of the palace where the Guard of Honour had its headquarters and unfolded his plans to them. He told the assembled officers,


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav then dictated a new oath of allegiance, and everyone signed it without hesitation. It absolved them from their allegiance to the estates, and bound them solely to obey "their lawful king, Gustav III".


title: Gustav III

text: Meanwhile, the Privy Council and its president, Rudbeck, had been arrested and the fleet secured. Then Gustav made a tour of the city and was everywhere received by enthusiastic crowds, who hailed him as a deliverer. A song was composed by Carl Michael Bellman called the "Toast to King Gustav!""


title: Gustav III

text: On the evening of 20 August, heralds roamed the streets proclaiming that the estates were to meet at the palace on the following day; every deputy absenting himself would be regarded as the enemy of his country and his king. On 21 August, the king appeared in full regalia. Taking his seat on the throne, he delivered his famous philippic, viewed as one of the masterpieces of Swedish oratory, in which he reproached the estates for their unpatriotic venality and license in the past.


title: Gustav III

text: A new constitution, the Instrument of Government, was read to the estates and unanimously accepted by them. The diet was then dissolved.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav worked towards reform in the same direction as other contemporary sovereigns of the Age of Enlightenment. Criminal justice became more lenient, the death penalty was restricted to a relatively short list of crimes (including murder), and torture was abolished in order to gain confessions, although the "strict death penalty", with torture-like corporal punishment preceding the execution, was maintained.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav took an active part in every department of business, but relied heavily on extra-official counsellors of his own choosing rather than upon the Privy Council of Sweden. The effort to remedy the widespread corruption that had flourished under the Hats and Caps engaged a considerable share of his time and he even found it necessary to put on trial the entire Göta Hovrätt, the superior court of justice, in Jönköping.


title: Gustav III

text: Measures were also taken to reform the administration and judicial procedures. In 1774, an ordinance was proclaimed providing for the liberty of the press, though "within certain limits". The national defences were raised to a "Great Power" scale, and the navy was so enlarged as to become one of the most formidable in Europe. The dilapidated finances were set in good order by the "currency realization ordinance" of 1776.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav also introduced new national economic policies. In 1775, free trade in grain was promoted and several oppressive export tolls were abolished. The poor law was amended and limited religious liberty was proclaimed for both Roman Catholics and Jews. Gustav even designed and popularized a Swedish national costume, which was in general use among the upper classes from 1778 until his death (and it is still worn by the ladies of the court on state occasions). The king's one great economic blunder was his attempt in 1775 to make the sale of alcoholic spirits a government monopoly, through the establishment of a network of crown distilleries. These proved to be unprofitable, and moreover the monopoly was hugely unpopular among the common people, and so Gustav was forced to abolish it in 1786.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav's foreign policy, in contrast, was at first both restrained and cautious. Thus, when the king summoned the estates to assemble at Stockholm on 3 September 1778, he could give a highly positive account of his six years' stewardship. The Riksdag was quite towards the king. "There was no room for a single question during the whole session."


title: Gustav III

text: Short as the session was, it was long enough for the deputies to realize that their political supremacy was over. They had changed places with the king. He was now indeed their sovereign lord. For all his gentleness, he guarded the royal prerogative fiercely and plainly showed that he would continue to do so.


title: Gustav III

text: Even those who were prepared to acquiesce in the change by no means liked it. If the Riksdag of 1778 had been docile, the Riksdag of 1786 was mutinous. The consequence was that nearly all the royal propositions were either rejected outright or so modified that Gustav himself withdrew them.


title: Gustav III

text: Earlier in foreign affairs, however, and privately, Gustav had shown considerable interest in the American Revolution and had this to say about it in October 1776:


title: Gustav III

text: The Riksdag of 1786 marks a turning-point in Gustav's history. Henceforth he showed a growing determination to rule without a parliament, a cautious and gradual passage from semi-constitutionalism to semi-absolutism.


title: Gustav III

text: At the same time, his foreign policy became more adventurous. At first he sought to gain Russian support to acquire Norway from Denmark. When Catherine the Great refused to abandon her ally Denmark, Gustav declared war on Russia in June 1788, while it was deeply engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire to the south. In embarking on a war of aggression without the consent of the estates, Gustav violated his own constitution of 1772, which led to a serious mutiny, the Anjala Conspiracy, among his aristocratic officers in Finland. Denmark declared war in support of its Russian ally, but was soon persuaded to sign a ceasefire through British and Prussian diplomacy.


title: Gustav III

text: Returning to Sweden, Gustav aroused popular indignation against the mutinous aristocratic officers. Ultimately, he quelled their rebellion and arrested its leaders. Capitalizing on the powerful anti-aristocratic passions thus aroused, Gustav summoned a Riksdag early in 1789, at which he put through an Act of Union and Security on 17 February 1789 with the backing of the three lower estates. This reinforced monarchical authority significantly, although the estates retained the power of the purse. In return, Gustav abolished most of the old privileges of the nobility.


title: Gustav III

text: Throughout 1789 and 1790, Gustav conducted a war with Russia known as the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90. At first, the venture seemed headed for disaster before the Swedes successfully broke a blockade by the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund on 9 July 1790. This is regarded as the greatest naval victory ever achieved by the Swedish Navy. The Russians lost one-third of their fleet and 7,000 men. A month later, on 14 August 1790, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Sweden: the Treaty of Värälä. Only eight months before, Catherine had declared that "the odious and revolting aggression" of the king of Sweden would be "forgiven" only if he "testified his repentance" by agreeing to a peace granting a general and unlimited amnesty to all his rebels and consenting to a guarantee by the Swedish Riksdag for the observance of peace in the future ("as it would be imprudent to confide in his good faith alone"). The Treaty of Värälä spared Sweden from any such humiliating concession, and in October 1791, Gustav concluded an eight years' defensive alliance with the empress, who thereby bound herself to pay her new ally an annual subsidy of 300,000 rubles.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav next aimed at forming a league of princes against the revolutionary government in France, and subordinated every other consideration to this goal. His profound knowledge of popular assemblies enabled him, alone among contemporary sovereigns, to gauge the scope of the French Revolution accurately from the first. He was hampered, however, by financial restrictions and lack of support from the other European Powers. Then, after the brief Diet of Gävle on 22 January – 24 February 1792, he fell victim to a widespread political conspiracy among his aristocratic enemies.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav III's war against Russia and his implementation of the Union and Security Act of 1789 helped increase hatred against the king which had been growing among the nobility ever since the coup d'état of 1772. A conspiracy to have the king assassinated and reform the constitution was created within the nobility in the winter of 1791–92. Among those involved were Jacob Johan Anckarström, Adolph Ribbing, Claes Fredrik Horn, Carl Pontus Lilliehorn and Carl Fredrik Pechlin. Anckarström was chosen to carry out the murder with pistols and knives, but there has also been evidence suggesting that Ribbing was the one who actually shot Gustav.


title: Gustav III

text: The assassination of the king was enacted at a masked ball at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm at midnight on 16 March 1792. Gustav had arrived earlier that evening to enjoy a dinner in the company of friends. During dinner, he received an anonymous letter that described a threat to his life (written by the colonel of the Life guards Carl Pontus Lilliehorn), but, as the king had received numerous threatening letters in the past, he chose to ignore it. The letter was written in French, and in translation it stated:


title: Gustav III

text: To dare any possible assassins, the King went out into an open box facing the opera stage. And after roughly ten minutes he said “this would have been an opportunity to shoot. Come, let us go down. The ball seems to be merry and bright.” The King with Baron Hans Henrik von Essen by his right arm went around the theatre once and then into the foyer where they met Captain Carl Fredrik Pollet.


title: Gustav III

text: The King, von Essen and Pollet continued through a corridor leading from the foyer towards the opera stage where the dancing took place. On the stage several masked men – some witnesses talked of 20 or 30 men – made it impossible for the king to proceed. Due to the crowd, Pollet receded behind the King, who bent backwards to talk to Pollet.


title: Gustav III

text: Anckarström stood with Ribbing next to him at the entrance to the corridor holding a knife in his left hand and carrying one pistol in his left inner pocket and another pistol in his right back pocket. They edged themselves behind the King, Anckarström took out the pistol from his left inner pocket and Ribbing or he pulled the trigger with the gun in Anckarström's hand. Because of the King turning backwards the shot went in at an angle from the third lumbar vertebra towards the hip region.


title: Gustav III

text: The King twitched and said “aee” without falling. Anckarström then lost courage, dropped the pistol and knife and shouted fire. People from the King's lifeguard stood some meters away. When they reached the King, they heard him say in French “Aï, je suis blessé” (Ouch, I am wounded).


title: Gustav III

text: The king was carried back to his quarters, and the exits of the Opera were sealed. Anckarström was arrested the following morning and immediately confessed to the murder, although he denied a conspiracy until informed that Horn and Ribbing had also been arrested and had confessed in full.


title: Gustav III

text: The king had not been shot dead; he was alive and continued to function as head of state. The coup was a failure in the short run. However, the wound became infected, and on 29 March, the king finally died with these last words:


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav's gunshot wound was not initially considered life-threatening; reexamined evidence allows that the sudden serious infection that killed him almost immediately, 13 days into his convalescence, may have been caused chemically by attending surgeon who was his known adversary.


title: Gustav III

text: Ulrica Arfvidsson, the famous medium of the Gustavian era, had told him something that could be interpreted as a prediction of his assassination in 1786, when he visited her anonymously – a coincidence – but she was known to have a large network of informers all over town to help her with her predictions, and she was in fact interrogated about the murder.


title: Gustav III

text: Although he may be charged with many foibles and extravagances, Gustav III is regarded one of the leading sovereigns of the 18th century for patronage of the arts. He was very fond of the performing and visual arts, as well as literature.


title: Gustav III

text: Gustav was also active as a playwright. He is largely credited with creating the "Royal Theatre" "(Kungliga Teatern)", where his own historical dramas were performed, and he promoted the careers of many native singers and actors, among them the dramatic stars Fredrique Löwen and Lars Hjortsberg and the operatic stars Elisabeth Olin and Christoffer Christian Karsten, by letting them perform in his plays or in his commissioned operas, respectively. In 1773 he founded the Royal Swedish Opera and the Royal Swedish Ballet under the umbrella of his "Royal Theatre". A new opera house was built in 1775 and inaugurated in 1782, connected to the Stockholm Palace by the "Norrbro" bridge. Until 1788, spoken drama was also performed in the opera house. Gustav then founded a separate entity for spoken drama, the Royal Dramatic Theatre, with a new building behind the Royal Swedish Opera house.


title: Gustav III

text: He became a Freemason in 1780, and introduced the Rite of Strict Observance into Sweden. That year, he named his brother, the Duke of Södermanland (later Charles XIII), to the office of Grand Master for the Grand Lodge of Sweden. The Grand Lodge conferred upon him the title "Vicarius Salomonis" (Vicar of Solomon).


title: Gustav III

text: Notable opera composers under Gustav's reign were three artists originally from Germany: Johann Gottlieb Naumann, Georg Joseph Vogler and Joseph Martin Kraus. All of them succeeded in adapting their musical origins to Swedish national dramatic style, a process sometimes overseen by the king (notably in the layout of the libretto for the opera "Gustav Wasa" from 1786).


title: Gustav III

text: It was in the foyer of the opera house that King Gustav III was assassinated. This incident became the basis of an opera libretto by Eugène Scribe set by Daniel Auber in 1833 under the title "Gustave III," by Saverio Mercadante in 1843 as "Il Reggente", and by Giuseppe Verdi in 1859 as "Un ballo in maschera" (A Masked Ball), with the specifics changed under the pressure of censorship.


title: Gustav III

text: It is widely agreed that the contribution and dedication of Gustav III to the performing arts in Sweden, notably the building of the theatre houses and the founding of a national theatre company, has been crucial to the Swedish culture. The era of opera during his time is referred to today as the "Gustavian Opera".


title: Gustav III

text: Following Gustav III's visit to Lyon, the aeronautics pioneers Montgolfier brothers in June 1784 launched a new hot air balloon called the "Gustave" in honor of the Swedish King, in which the first ever female aeronaut, singer Élisabeth Thible, took to the air.


title: Gustav III

text: It was under King Gustav III that Sweden gained the small Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy from France in 1785 (in exchange for French trading rights in Gothenburg).


title: Gustav III

text: The island's capital still bears the name Gustavia in honour of Gustav III. Though it was sold back to France in 1878, many streets and locations there still carry Swedish names. Also, the Swedish national arms, the three crowns, appear in the island's coat of arms along with insignia of the island's two other previous owners: three fleurs-de-lis representing France and a Maltese cross representing the Knights of Saint John.


title: Gustav III

text: When the British were preparing to establish a colony in Botany Bay, the Government of Gustav III agreed to sponsor William Bolts' proposal for an equivalent venture in Nuyts Land (the south-western coast of Australia). The war with Russia caused this venture to be abandoned.


title: MICA (missile)

text: The Missile d’Interception, de Combat et d’Auto-défense (English: "Interception, Combat and Self-protection Missile") or MICA is a French anti-air multi-target, all weather, fire-and-forget short and medium-range missile system manufactured by MBDA France. It is intended for use both by air platforms as individual missiles as well as ground units and ships, which can be equipped with the rapid fire MICA Vertical Launch System. It is fitted with a thrust vector control (TVC) system. It was developed from 1982 onward by Matra. The first trials occurred in 1991, and the missile was commissioned in 1996 to equip the Rafale and Mirage 2000. It is a replacement for both the Super 530 in the interception role and the Magic II in the dogfighting role.


title: MICA (missile)

text: On 11 June 2007, a MICA launched from a Rafale successfully demonstrated its over-the-shoulder capability by destroying a target behind the launch aircraft. The target was designated by another aircraft and coordinates were transmitted by Link 16.


title: MICA (missile)

text: There are two MICA variants; MICA RF has an active radar homing seeker and MICA IR has an imaging infra-red homing seeker. Both seekers are designed to filter out counter-measures such as chaff and decoy flares. A thrust vector control unit fitted to the rocket motor increases the missile's agility. The missile is capable of lock-on after launch (LOAL) which means it is capable of engaging targets outside its seeker's at-launch acquisition range. Mounted on the Rafale, the MICA IR can provide IR imagery to the central data processing system, thus acting as an extra sensor.


title: MICA (missile)

text: MICA can also be employed as a short-range surface-to-air missile. It is available in a ground-based version, VL MICA, fired from a truck-mounted box launcher, and a naval version, VL MICA-M, fired from a ship-fitted vertical launch system. On October 23, 2008, 15:30, at CELM, Biscarosse (Landes), a VL MICA missile successfully performed the last of its 14 test firings meaning it is now ready for mass production. The target drone was flying at low level, over the sea, 12 km away; despite this distance, MICA, equipped with an active radar seeker, locked on the target and shot it down.


title: MICA (missile)

text: Corvettes too small to have the big and costly Aster missile system are the most likely customers for the VL MICA-M, which offers similar capability as the Aster 15 but without its booster and PIF-PAF vectorial control.


title: MICA (missile)

text: While the VL MICA has an advertised range of 20 km, aerodynamic performance is significantly degraded at those ranges. From 0 to 7 km MICA has maneuverability of 50g, however by 12 km this is reduced to 30g as energy is lost.


title: Tejashwi Yadav

text: Tejashwi Prasad Yadav (born 9 November 1989) is an Indian politician, former cricketer, and the current Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, in office since August 2022. He also serves as the Minister of Health, Minister of Road Construction and Public Works Department, Minister of Urban Development and Housing as well as the Minister of Rural Works and Development and in the Bihar Government. Yadav leads the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the single largest political party in the state, and is the chairperson of the Mahagathbandhan alliance.


title: Tejashwi Yadav

text: As a professional cricketer, he was in the Delhi Daredevils and the Jharkhand cricket team. In 2015, he was elected as the representative of the Raghopur constituency and served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar between 2015 and 2017. Following which he served as the leader of opposition in the Bihar Legislative Assembly from 2017 to 2022. He is noted to have been both the youngest Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and the youngest leader of opposition in India during the respective periods. Yadav was featured in the Indian Express ‘100 Most Powerful Indians’ in 2020 and 2021.