title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: From May 26 1986 to August 15 1994, the attraction was given a slight remodel. This second version of the attraction started off with the lighted tunnel enhanced by twinkling lights, meant to depict stars, with the fog machine removed. News journalist Walter Cronkite was the new narrator, reading from an updated script. Two new scenes were added before the network operations center, on the left side of the track, featuring a woman working in a “paperless office” and a boy at a computer in his bedroom (the right side, featuring a woman observing technical read outs, remained the same). A theme song called "Tomorrow's Child" was composed for the ending of the attraction, which was redesigned with projected images of children on screens to fit the theme of "Tomorrow's Child".


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: From November 23, 1994 to July 9, 2007, the attraction was closed to receive a major remodel. This third version of the attraction kept the lighted tunnel as it was in 1986, and it maintained the majority of the scenes depicted in the beginning and middle of the attraction. Three 1980s scenes toward the end of the attraction were removed: a computer in a boy's bedroom, a woman's office, and a network operations center. These were replaced with a single scene depicting a boy and girl using the Internet to communicate between America and Asia. The ride received an updated script narrated by Jeremy Irons. A new orchestral composition, based upon Bach's Sinfonia No. 2 in C Minor, was composed for the entire attraction. The ending was completely redone, with the updating of the projected Earth and removal of the Space Station scene from the planetarium (the Space Station astronauts subsequently turned up in Space Mountain's post-show, where they were used until 2009) as well as the replacement of the 1982 and 1986 ending scenes with miniature architectural settings that were connected by color-changing fiber-optic cables, and arrays of blinking lights, representing electronic communication pathways.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: In celebration of the year 2000, a 25-story "magic wand" held by a representation of Mickey Mouse's hand was built next to the sphere. Inspiration for it came from the Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence of "Fantasia" (although Mickey did not actually use a magic wand in that sequence). At the top of the structure was a large cut-out of the number 2000. This structure was constructed to have a lifetime of about 10 years, and it was left standing after the Millennium Celebration ended. In 2001, the number 2000 was replaced with the word "Epcot" in a script font that differed from the park's logotype.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: On July 5, 2007, Epcot Vice President Jim MacPhee announced that Spaceship Earth would be restored to its original appearance, and that the "magic wand" structure would be removed in time for the park's 25th anniversary on October 1, 2007. It was rumored that Siemens AG, the new sponsor of Spaceship Earth, requested the wand be removed as it did not fit their corporate image. The attraction was closed on July 9, 2007, and by October 1 the wand structure, the stars and their supports were gone, replaced by palm trees and other plants. Components of the structure were later auctioned on eBay.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The closure also saw the ride's fourth update, which included new scenes and modifications to existing scenes, some new costumes, lighting, and props, a new musical score by Bruce Broughton, new narration by Judi Dench, and a new interactive ending. New scenes showed a Greek classroom, mainframe computers and the creation of the personal computer. The attraction opened for "soft launch" previews starting in December 2007. After some last-minute adjustments in January, the ride had its official re-opening on February 15, 2008.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The "time machine" vehicles now have an interactive screen where riders can choose their vision of the future. This resembles a similar idea to the now-defunct Horizons attraction. At the beginning of the ride, a camera takes riders' pictures (using facial recognition technology) which are used at the end of the ride to conduct an interactive experience about the future of technology, featuring the riders' faces on animated characters, with narration by Cam Clarke. Visitors are now also asked where in our Spaceship Earth they live; this is used in the post-show area where a map of the world is displayed with the riders' faces shown where they live.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: On June 30, 2017, Siemens, a long-time sponsor, announced they would end their sponsorship of the attraction, as well as the firework show, "". The last official day of Siemens sponsorship was on October 10, 2017.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: On August 25, 2019, it was announced that, as part of a multi-year renovation of Epcot, Future World would become three new areas: World Celebration, World Discovery and World Nature. Spaceship Earth (which is under the name of Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story) would become a part of World Celebration, and would be updated with a new narrative about the human experience and the art of storytelling. An ethereal "story light" would guide guests as they travel through the attraction. The attraction's new exit would be Dreamers Point, an elevated area which would present a panoramic view of the park (which was cancelled to make way for a new Festival space, CommuniCore Hall and Plaza) and would feature a lush garden with a "wishing tree" (which has been cancelled to make way for a new Meet and greets characters as Mickey and Friends), an interactive fountain (which has been cancelled to make way for new EPCOT Gardens), and Walt the Dreamers as a statue of Walt Disney.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: On July 15, 2020, when EPCOT officially reopened, both "Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story" as well as the Mary Poppins attraction's sequences were removed from "the EPCOT Experience". When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Disney said, "As with most businesses during this period, we are further evaluating long-term project plans. The decision was made to postpone development of the 'Mary Poppins'-inspired attraction and Spaceship Earth at this time."


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: As the ride was built on an omnimover system, there were no triggered ride events. Rather, a narration plays as the show scenes and music run on loop. The script, originally penned by Ray Bradbury, has since been updated to meet contemporary technological trends. The current narrator is Judi Dench, who is accompanied by an orchestral score by Bruce Broughton.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: This attraction showcased the first use of the "smellitzer" scent distribution system. It was created by Imagineer Robert 'Bob' McCarthy in 1981 to emulate the faux scent of smoke in the city of Rome scene. The smellitzer was named after the Howitzer cannon as it shoots out puffs of smells. It was patented in 1984 as a Scent-Emitting System and is US patent #US4603030A. This technology was also used on Universe of Energy to create the smell of a volcano and a swamp.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The ride begins with the time-machine vehicles ascending into a dark tunnel with twinkling stars all around. An adventurous orchestral theme starts to play. As the score shifts to the theme ostinato, a leitmotif that comes to represent digital interference. On touchscreens in the vehicle, guests select their language and hometown, and then have their picture taken by a passing camera.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: As the vehicle arrives at the first story of the structure, it begins a slow curve. A large film screen is stretched along the inside of the sphere, depicting early humans fighting for survival against a woolly mammoth without a form of communication and language. As the screen dims behind them, guests enter a cavern populated by audio animatronic early humans, who represent the development of early language through cave paintings. The drawings on the walls come to life and begin to dance as the car continues onward.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The score modulates, presenting the theme in a phrygian mode, implying a middle eastern atmosphere. Guests are brought through a heated diorama of the Egyptians, who invented a system of portable communication using hieroglyphs recorded on papyrus, as opposed to cave paintings that were unable to be transported as humans migrated.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: Phoenician merchants are seen carrying goods to faraway lands. The narration explains how each civilization is trying to communicate, but cannot understand each other due to the language barrier. But the Phoenicians, who trade with all of them create a simple common alphabet, so that trade and communication becomes easier. Turning a corner, riders see a lesson in mathematics being taught in a piazza in an ancient Greek city, in a sequence that attempts to show how math helped invent the 'birth of a high tech life we enjoy today.' Shifting to ancient Rome, a night scene including a traveler in a chariot delivering news depicts how language is portrayed as a tool for cultural unification with the vast network of roads that stretched across Europe, ultimately all leading to Rome.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: Suddenly, the scene takes a dark turn as crashes are heard and the smell of burning wood fills the air. The fall of Rome by invading mercenary armies also brought the destruction of the bulk of the world's recorded knowledge, including the loss of scrolls at the Library of Alexandria. But the narration gives hope as the vehicle reaches the next level, where Jewish and Islamic scholars of the Middle Ages are seen preserving recorded information, and continuing to progress in science.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: Winding through exotic fabrics and drapery, guests arrive at a monastery where biblical manuscripts are being copied by hand. The composition shifts to a hallelujah chorus, sung to the melody of the piece's exposition. Gutenberg is seen working the first movable-type printing press, allowing information to travel freely across the globe. The European Renaissance is portrayed, with animatronics of ensembles playing rich, polyphonic secular motets, sculpting a woman, and the painting of a portrait of fruit. The scene ends as the car passes under a scaffold, where Michelangelo is seen painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The time machines transition to a post-Civil War North. Guests witness syndicated news reports illuminating the planet of current events with amazing efficiency. Loud, industrial-sized printing presses show the incredible influence of the machine as an advancement in mass communication. As guests pass the clanging sounds of the press, the score's theme is presented again, this time with an uptempo ragtime piano. Seen next is a romanticized version of the 20th century communications revolution—after passing telegraphs, radio, telephones, and movies, riders see the 1969 television broadcast of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, featuring Walter Cronkite. Riders hear Neil Armstrong say his most famous quote, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." while the vehicles pass by the TV. Language had progressed to such an extent that it no longer was spoken solely by humans, but by machines as well.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: Guests turn a corner and find themselves in a large mainframe computer as they ascend up the final hill. At the top, a slow descent starts, progressing through a garage in California, where a man is seen building one of the first home computers. The score becomes suddenly percussive and dramatic as guests fly through a tunnel with computer code projected onto the walls. At a crescendo, the car makes its final turn into the cupola of Spaceship Earth. The top of the structure is, in fact, a planetarium studded with stars and a large projection of a rotating Earth. Before the omnimover vehicles start to move down the long descent to the unloading area, they rotate 180 degrees clockwise and guests ride the end of the attraction backwards. The final scene has been redone multiple times, most recently to remove the animatronic scenes.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The remainder of the ride moves past a seemingly infinite number of stars and into a realm of glowing triangles. The guests can then use the touchscreens in their Omnimover vehicle to answer questions to create a possible depiction of their future, which uses the pictures taken at the beginning of the ride.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: The original post show for Spaceship Earth was called Earth Station. It lasted from 1982 until 1994. It was a wide open exhibit space that included:


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: When AT&T renewed their sponsorship in 1994, they redesigned the exhibit space for Earth Station into the Global Neighborhood. The original Global Neighborhood lasted from 1994 until 1999. In 1999, the exhibit space was updated to become the New Global Neighborhood for the Millennium Celebration. The exhibit space closed in 2004 after AT&T left as sponsor.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: AT&T's departure as sponsor in 2004 caused the exhibit to close. Siemens AG, the newest sponsor of Spaceship Earth, having signed on in 2005, created a new exhibit space called Project Tomorrow: Inventing the Wonders of the Future. The new exhibit space once again uses the entire exhibit space that only Earth Station had once used. The new exhibit space houses interactive exhibits featuring various Siemens AG technology. These interactive displays and games allow guests to see the future of medicine, transportation and energy management. The space opened with two games, with two new games added in December 2007 and January 2008. After Siemens dropped their sponsorships, all signs mentioning them were removed, however, the name stayed the same.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: A VIP lounge, operated by the pavilion sponsor, exists above the post-show area of Spaceship Earth. Employees of the current sponsoring company and their guests can relax in the lounge while visiting Epcot. The sponsor can also hold receptions in the space as well as conduct workshops and business presentations. When Spaceship Earth was without sponsorship from 2004 to 2005, the room was utilized for private events such as weddings and conventions. The layout is small and curved in shape, with one wall consisting of large windows where visitors can look out onto the park.


title: Spaceship Earth (Epcot)

text: When Siemens AG took over as sponsor, the lounge was given the name "Base21." In 2012, the name was dropped and it is now simply known as the "Siemens VIP Center." In August 2017, Siemens quickly left the lounge, and Disney took it over.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Indian Sikhs number over 20 million people and account for 1.7% of India's population as of 2011, forming the country's fourth-largest religious group. The majority of the nation's Sikhs live in the northern state of Punjab, which is the only Sikh-majority administrative division in the world.


title: Sikhism in India

text: India is home to the majority of the global Sikh population, and also has the second-largest Sikh proportion in the world, behind Canada.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Sikh organizations, including the Chief Khalsa Dewan and Shiromani Akali Dal led by Master Tara Singh, strongly opposed the partition of India, viewing the possibility of the creation of Pakistan as inviting persecution.


title: Sikhism in India

text: India's Sikh population stands at 20.8 million, which is only 1.72% of the country's total population. Out of approximately 25-30 million Sikhs in the world, the majority of them, 20.8-22 million, live in India that is about (83.2%-84.1%) of the world's Sikh population. Sikhs have a fertility rate of 1.6 in India, which is the lowest in the nation as per as according to year 2019-21 estimation. Half a million Sikhs have made Canada their home, and though they constitute 1.4% of the total population, they have had a notable impact on Canadian society and national politics. Out of the total Sikhs in India, 77% are concentrated in state of Punjab. Sikhism is the dominant religion in Punjab, India, where it is followed by 16 million constituting 57.7% of the population, the only Indian state where Sikhism is the majority faith. By 2050, according to Pew research center based on growth rate of current Sikh population between (2001-2011), India will have 30,012,386 Sikhs by half-century which will be more than that of any country including the west.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Although Punjabi Sikhs form the majority of the Sikh population, the Sikh community is varied and includes people who speak the Pashto language, the Brahui language, the Telugu language, Marathi language, Assamese language, Hindi language, Sindhi language, Bengali language and many more. The many communities following Sikhism is detailed below.


title: Sikhism in India

text: The Sikhs of Afghanistan are primarily Punjabi merchants and immigrants. They speak the Punjabi language within themselves but are usually fluent in Dari and occasionally Pashto as well.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Sikhism in Bengal region dates back to 1504 but has declined after the partition. Sikhism first emerged in Bengal when Guru Nanak visited Bengal in 1504 and established a number of Gurdwaras. Gurdwara Nanak Shahi is the principal Sikh Gurdwara (prayer hall) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is located at the campus of the University of Dhaka and considered to be the biggest of the 7 Gurdwaras in the country. After the Partition of India, the Sikh community left for India. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and Bangladesh Liberation War, Indian Sikh soldiers helped renovate the Gurdwaras left in Bangladesh. Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur ji visited Dhaka. There is another Sikh temple known as the Gurudwara Sangat Tola. Many Sikhs also used to visit a well at the ruins of Jafarabad which they believed has waters with curative powers.


title: Sikhism in India

text: There was a presence of Sikhism in Sylhet Division after Guru Nanak's visit in 1508. Kahn Singh Nabha has stated that in memory of Nanak's visit, "Gurdwara Sahib Sylhet" was established. This Gurdwara was visited twice by Tegh Bahadur and many hukamnamas were issued to this temple by Guru Gobind Singh. In 1897, the gurdwara fell down after the earthquake. Nearly all the Sikhs of Sylhet in the early 18th century were found in North Cachar where they used to work for the Assam Bengal Railway. There are around 1 lakh Bengali people who follow Sikhism as their religion in both West Bengal and Bangladesh.


title: Sikhism in India

text: The presence of Sikhism has been existing in Assam for over 200 years. The community traces its origins to the times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh who took his army to Assam and put some influence of the religion towards the locals. According to the 2001 census, there were 22,519 Sikhs in Assam, out of which 4,000 are Assamese Sikhs.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Assamese Sikhs follow the Sikh religion and celebrate Sikh festivals as they also celebrate cultural festivals such as Magh Bihu and wear traditional Assamese dress. Their language is the Assamese language.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Agrahari Sikh is a Sikh community found in Bihar and Jharkhand. Agrahari Sikhs, also known as "Bihari Sikhs", have existed for centuries in Bihar and Jharkhand.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Bihari Sikhs share their culture with the local Bihari community. The men generally wear the local dhoti and women wear the Sari. They also celebrate Hindu festivals such as the Chath festival.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Dakhni Sikhs are from the Deccan Plateau in India located within the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The traditional dress of women is the sari. The native language of Dakhni Sikhs is the Telugu language.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Ethnic Kashmiri Sikhs speak the Kashmiri language and observe Kashmiri culture. They trace their religious heritage to the influence of Sikh soldiers who settled in Kashmir under the Maharaja Ranjit Singh rule in 1819. However, the soldiers permanently settled in Kashmir.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Punjabi Sikhs are the native Sikhs of undivided Punjab region who speaks the Punjabi language. Almost 96% of global's Sikh population are ethnic Punjabis. Their traditional dress includes the Punjabi Salwar Suit, Punjabi Tamba and Kurta, Punjabi juti and Patiala salwar.


title: Sikhism in India

text: In addition to the Sikh festivals using the Nanakshahi calendar, Punjabi Sikhs observe traditional Punjabi festivals using the Punjabi calendar.


title: Sikhism in India

text: In addition to celebrating Sikh festivals, Sindhi Sikhs celebrate cultural festivals such as Cheti Chand, the Sindhi new year. Sindhi Sikhs speak the Sindhi language. Most of the Sindhi Hindus are Nanak Panthis who believe in 10 Sikh Gurus and regularly go to guru dwara and most of the Marriage also takes place in Gurudwara.


title: Sikhism in India

text: There are Sikh communities in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra who converted to Sikhism centuries ago.


title: Sikhism in India

text: The Sikhs comprise Banjara and Satnami. The process of blending the religion into southern India for the Sikligars began at the time of 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who came to the Deccan and died in 1708 at Nanded (Maharashtra).


title: Sikhism in India

text: It all came by the Sikligars as they came to southern India as expert arms-making camp followers of the tenth Guru. Sikligar is a compound of the Persian words `saiqal` and `gar` meaning a polisher of metal. The traditional occupation of the Sikligars is crafting kitchen implements.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Banjaras are a nomadic tribe who traditionally travelled with merchandise and are found across a large swathe of northern India, as well as in the south. Sikh Banjaras too travelled with armies of the past supplying them with provisions.


title: Sikhism in India

text: Though Sikhs are a minority in India, the community occupies a significant place in the country. The former Chief Justice of India, Jagdish Singh Khehar, and the former Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh are Sikh, as is former President of India Gyani Zail Singh. Almost every council of ministers in India has included Sikh representatives. Sikhs are also conspicuous in the Indian army, primarily because of their history as defenders of righteousness, they formed the sword arm of the British empire. The Late Indian officer with a 5 star rank, Arjan Singh, is a Sikh. Sikhs have also led the Indian army through JJ Singh and the Indian Air Force was led by Air Chief Marshal Dilbagh Singh. Sikhs have been prominent in Indian sports, with the Indian individual gold medalist in Olympics, Abhinav Bindra, being a Sikh. Similarly they occupy important official positions, like Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia; governor Surjit Singh Barnala. Sikhs are also known for entrepreneurial business in India. Milkha Singh, also known as The Flying Sikh, is a former Indian track and field sprinter who was introduced to the sport while serving in the Indian Army. One reason for visibility of Sikhs in the Indian spectrum is the disproportionate role played by the Sikh community during the Indian freedom struggle, with Bhagat Singh remaining a youth icon to Indian youth.


title: W16 engine

text: A W16 engine is a sixteen-cylinder piston engine with four banks of four cylinders in a W configuration.


title: W16 engine

text: W16 engines are rarely produced, with the notable exception of the Volkswagen Group 8.0 WR16 engine, which has been used since 2005 in the Bugatti Veyron, Bugatti Chiron and their related models.


title: W16 engine

text: The W16 engine that Volkswagen Group uses in its Bugatti Veyron and Chiron has a displacement of and four turbochargers. It is effectively two narrow-angle VR8 engines (based on the VR6 design) mated at an included angle of 90 degrees on a common crankshaft.


title: W16 engine

text: At the 1999 Geneva Auto Salon, Bentley presented Hunaudières, a concept two-seated mid-engined car with an 8-litre W16 engine. The engine was the basis for the Bugatti Veyron.


title: W16 engine

text: Another concept car from Volkswagen Group to have the W16 engine is the Audi Rosemeyer, introduced in 2000 and shown at various auto salons. The engine fitted to Rosemeyer is the only W16 variation to have five valves per cylinder.


title: W16 engine

text: The Jimenez Novia, a one-off sports car built in 1995, used a W16 engine with two crankshafts. Built by combining four Yamaha FZR1000 inline-four motorcycle engines, the engine has a displacement of , eight camshafts and five valves per cylinder, and produces .


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other countries is documented.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Fourth Dynasty heralded the height of the pyramid-building age. The relative peace of the Third Dynasty allowed the Dynasty IV rulers the leisure to explore more artistic and cultural pursuits. King Sneferu's building experiments led to the evolution from the mastaba-styled step pyramids to the smooth sided “true” pyramids, such as those on the Giza Plateau. No other period in Egypt's history equaled Dynasty IV's architectural accomplishments. Each of the rulers of this dynasty (except for Shepseskaf, the last) commissioned at least one pyramid to serve as a tomb or cenotaph.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Fourth Dynasty was the second of four dynasties that made up the "Old Kingdom". King Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, held territory from ancient Libya in the west to the Sinai Peninsula in the east, to Nubia in the south. It was a successful period and this era is known for its advancement and concentrated government, as seen in the organized building of pyramids and other monuments.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Knowledge of the Old Kingdom comes mainly from these structures and objects discovered in the desert cemeteries of Giza.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Sneferu, lauded as "Bringer of Beauty", "Master of All Justice", and "Ruler of Lower and Upper Nile", was the first pharaoh of the fourth dynasty. He descended from a family in Middle Egypt that lived near Hermopolis, and most likely ascended to the throne by marrying a royal heiress. There is still debate as to who his father was, with the credit often being given to Huni, but this cannot be confirmed due to the break in dynasties. His mother, Meresankh I was either a lesser wife or concubine of Huni.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Egypt in the Third Millennium BC was, by all accounts, a land of peace and plenty. Elites commonly ate fattened ducks and geese, and they wore fine white linens.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Until his reign, Egyptian kings were thought to be worldly incarnations of Horus, obtaining total deification exclusively in death. Sneferu was the first king to proclaim that he was the embodiment of Ra, another sun deity. Khufu would pursue his father's path, taking the name Son of the Sun God.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: On the whole, Egypt was ruled by two centers of power—legal authority and traditional authority. Legal authority constituted governing by the king, not over the people directly, but via viziers and nomarchs. Traditional authority was derived from the concept that the deities gave a king the divine right to rule as he pleased. At its heart, the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian government became organized so that only the king could direct traditional authority.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Bent Pyramid was Sneferu's first attempt at building a perfect structure, but it slopes and eventually bends to a lower angle, giving the structure a squished look. His Red Pyramid is widely considered the first true pyramid and earned its name from the reddish tint in the limestone used. The Red Pyramid was considered the first pyramid, approximately 150 years after the structures built by King Djoser. The Red Pyramid was the first to be given a solid foundation so that it was stable enough for a taller building. He is also said to be responsible for a series of pyramids built in Seila. He commissioned a total of three pyramids, but there are records that point to a fourth. Although he did not construct any of the pyramids at Giza, he is known as the king who moved the most stone and brick. A lot of Sneferu's political expeditions were to other countries to secure two things: a substantial labor force and access to a large store of materials. He traveled to Nubia and Libya for these things. His incursions in these areas allowed Sneferu to secure a large labor force, so large, in fact, that it caused huge devastation to the raided countries. He also needed cattle and other food sources to provide to the people building his pyramids. By the end of his military efforts, he managed to capture 11,000 prisoners and 13,100 head of cattle.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Khufu, known to the Greek as Cheops, and Sneferu's successor—though it is unclear whether he was the biological son of Sneferu—was a widely known king. He is still known very well in present-day media, being featured in movies, novels, and television shows. His fame stems from his pyramid on the northeastern plateau at Giza, where he was buried. His mortuary temple was built on the northern end of the pyramid, which is no longer accessible due to ravages by grave robbers. Only three-dimensional reliefs have been recovered and have lasted into modern day, including many limestone busts and clay figurines. Khufu's activities in and out of Egypt are not well documented (except his architecture work) and was highly romanticized by the Ancient Greeks. These Greeks felt that Khufu was a wicked man who offended the deities and forced his subjects into slavery. Khufu, as the son of Sneferu, was believed to be illegitimate and therefore unworthy of the throne. Even if he was Sneferu's true son, he did very little to expand the country of Egypt and failed to follow his father's footsteps. There are only a few records that stated he was involved in any political activities. The best guess historians can make is that there is evidence of construction of a harbor on the coast of the Red Sea that was excavated by John Gardner Wilkinson and James Burton in 1823.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Djedefre is credited by historians with a reign of eight years. Not much is known of Djedefre, including his inconclusive lineage. It is possible that he is Khufu's son or that he was Khufu's brother. It is widely suggested that he is the son of a lesser queen who murdered the rightful heir to the throne and Djedefre's half brother, the crown prince Kawab. Djedefre chose to build his pyramid several kilometers north of Giza, creating speculation that there was a family feud that caused Djedefre to want to be far away from Khufu's tomb. A more favorable conclusion was that Djedef chose to be buried closer to Iunu, the center of the cult of Ra. His pyramid also features a statue of his wife, Hetepheres II, in the form of a sphinx. She was a daughter of Khufu and had been the wife of Kawab. It is sometimes suggested that this was the first true sphinx, although there is debate about the sphinx at Giza that was credited to Khafre. She became the longest living royal member of the dynasty, living into the reign of Shepseskaf.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Khafre, son of Khufu, succeeded his supposed brother, Djedefre, after his short reign. He chose to build his pyramid close to his father, matching it in style and being almost as large. At the front of the pyramid causeway lies the Great Sphinx that is said to bear his features. There is still debate on whether his Sphinx was erected before Djedefre's. Khafre's sphinx was well-known and closer to his subjects, making it harder to determine which was built first due to biased record keeping.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Like many kings in this dynasty, the length of Menkaure's reign is uncertain, being projected for more than 63 years but it can certainly be an exaggeration. Menkaure succeeded his father, King Khafre. His pyramid is the third and smallest of those at Giza pyramid complex and is known as Netjer-er-Menkaure, which translates into "Menkaure is Divine". There was a sarcophagus found within the pyramid, that is approximately eight feet in length and three feet in height, made of basalt. Like many of the previous pyramids, Menkaure's was not inscribed, the interior having no record keeping of any kind.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Shepseskaf is generally accepted as the last king of the Fourth Dynasty, succeeding Menkaure. There is no conclusive evidence of who his mother is, though it is believed that he was the son of a minor queen. Who his wife was also is unknown. Shepseskaf broke the chain of pyramid building by the previous five kings. Instead of a triangular pyramid, he chose to construct a rectangular block, commonly known as the Mastabat al-Fir’aun ("Pharaoh's Bench"). In like fashion, however, little script was found inside his tomb and he was buried in very simple terms.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The identification of Baka is unresolved. Several ancient lists of kings have survived. They do not agree, however, and none of them may be considered complete. The Turin King List has a lacuna between Khafre and Menkaure, where the author had listed a king who reigned between these two pharaohs. The name of the king and length of the reign are completely lost in the lacuna.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Some authorities have equated this king with Bikheris, on Manetho's list, who could correspond to the Egyptian name "Baka" or "Bakare".


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Perhaps the most intriguing evidence of the fourth dynasty is the status of Khentkaus I, also known as Khentykawes. She was a daughter of Menkaure and her tomb was built along the Menkaure causeway. She may have ruled as king.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Her tomb is a large mastaba tomb, with another off-center mastaba placed above it. The second mastaba could not be centered over her primary mastaba because of the free, unsupported, space in the rooms below.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: On a granite doorway leading into her tomb, Khentkaus I is given titles that may be read either as "mother of two kings of upper and lower Egypt", as "mother of the king of upper and lower Egypt and king of upper and lower Egypt", or, as one scholar reads it, "king of upper and lower Egypt and mother of two kings of upper and lower Egypt".


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Furthermore, her depiction on this doorway also gives her the full trappings of kingship, including the false beard of the king. This depiction and the title given have led some Egyptologists to suggest that she reigned as king near the end of the fourth dynasty.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Her tomb was finished in a characteristic niche style of architecture, however, the niches were later filled in with a smooth casing of limestone.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The "Age of the Pyramids" refers to the fact that the Fourth Dynasty was the time when most of the well-known pyramids were built, which include those at Giza. King Sneferu was the first king to express an interest in funerary rites and tombs, which led him to the planning of the largest pyramid at Egypt. His first pyramids were called the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid. The "Age of the Pyramids" was not just about the building of large and easily recognizable structures, but also a change in funerary practices and rituals. This includes the burying of elites in large structures and the use of extensive mummification.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Fourth Dynasty is where we truly see a shift in religious practices where worship of the Sun was commonplace. The Cult of Ra grew in size, going back to the fact that Djedef's tomb was built closer to the center of worship in what the Ancient Greeks called Heliopolis. It was a delta city near contemporary Cairo that had been occupied since the predynastic times, whose ancient Egyptian name was I͗wnw or Iunu and meant "the pillars".


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: During the era when centralization of the nation's material, organic, and human resources began to develop, a relationship of the king to the deities became unchallenged and kings began carving their names into statues and monuments that previously had been reserved for deities. This speaks to a type of god complex on part of the kings. Khafre's famous statue, where a falcon was incorporated into his headgear, equated the king to the god Horus.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: This fact, however, caused controversy. It was pitting Khafre's allegiance to Horus against the growing Cult of Ra, not far away in Helipolis. Kings no longer associated pyramids with the afterlife. The afterlife was once believed to be a divine kingdom that was represented as a type of idealistic heaven where only kings and pure hearts could go. Instead, the Fourth Dynasty represented a change in this idea, formulated the notion that the afterlife was a familiar place, taking the semblance of Earth. Religious rituals were notoriously conservative, from what historians know, and there is much to be desired from current known records.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: The Old Kingdom saw a rise in the preservation of the deceased, making the preparation of bodies much more complex. The position of embalmer was created, and their jobs were solely to prepare a corpse in private. There were three ways to mummify a body: 1) Stucco: the body would be wrapped in fine linen and then covered in stucco plaster, the features of the body (including the face) were remodeled in the plaster; 2) Linen: the body would be wrapped in linen, which was sometimes treated with natron (a mixture of multiple sodium carbonates) and the linens would be treated with resin so that the features of the body could be modeled; and 3) Defleshing: removing all flesh and wrapping the bones in linens. Generally, organs were removed which were then put into jars that would accompany the body in the tomb, and the inside of the body flushed out.


title: Fourth Dynasty of Egypt

text: Tombs in the Fourth Dynasty changed drastically. "Unimpressive" graves did not satisfy the elites, meaning they would settle for smaller structures if the interior was decorated. Hieroglyphic writings were important to elites because, one, it was a lavish display of wealth and, two, it guided their souls to the afterlife. The Fourth Dynasty, however, did not have these writings. Instead, the tomb was deeper and super-structures were larger. After the Giza pyramid complex, later generations of tombs were more reasonably sized. After the Middle Kingdom, royals abandoned pyramids; they preferred graves that were carved into living rock of the Upper Egyptian mountains.


title: Military Medal

text: The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award was established in 1916, with retrospective application to 1914, and was awarded to other ranks for "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire". The award was discontinued in 1993, when it was replaced by the Military Cross, which was extended to all ranks, while other Commonwealth nations instituted their own award systems in the post war period.


title: Military Medal

text: The Military Medal was established on 25 March 1916. It was awarded to other ranks including non-commissioned officers and warrant officers, and ranked below the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM). Awards to British and Commonwealth forces were announced in the "London Gazette", but not honorary awards to allied forces. (Lists of awards to allied forces were published by The National Archives in 2018 and are kept in country specific files within WO 388/6.)


title: Military Medal

text: When the medal was first introduced, it was unpopular among regular soldiers. MM and DCM recipient Frank Richards wrote that "the Military Medal without a shadow of a doubt had been introduced to save awarding too many DCMs. The old regular soldiers thought very little of the new decoration". Both the DCM and the MM attracted a gratuity and the decoration allowance of an extra sixpence a day to veterans with a disability pension. However, the allowance was only awarded once even if the recipient was awarded more than one gallantry award. The ratio in the First World War was approximately five MMs awarded for every DCM.


title: Military Medal

text: From September 1916 members of the Royal Naval Division, serving on Western Front alongside the Army, were made eligible for military decorations, including the Military Medal, for the war's duration. It could also be awarded to members of the Royal Air Force for gallant service on the ground.


title: Military Medal

text: Eligibility for the MM was extended, by a Royal Warrant dated 21 June 1916, to women whether British subjects or foreign, with the first awards gazetted on 1 September 1916. Although nurses of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) and the Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS) and other women serving with the British Army often had the social status of officers, they did not hold an officer's commission and were therefore ineligible for the Military Cross, but could be and were awarded the MM. Louisa Nolan, a civilian during the Easter Rising in Dublin, was awarded the Military Medal for her courage under fire in providing humanitarian aid to the wounded.


title: Military Medal

text: The Military Medal was discontinued in 1993, as part of the review of the British honours system, which recommended removing distinctions of rank in respect of awards for bravery. Since then the Military Cross, previously only open to Commissioned and Warrant Officers, has been awarded to all ranks. The MM had also been awarded by Commonwealth countries but by the 1990s most, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, were establishing their own honours systems and no longer recommended British honours.


title: Military Medal

text: Between 1916 and 1993 approximately 138,517 medals and 6,167 bars were awarded. The dates below reflect the relevant London Gazette entries:


title: Military Medal

text: In all, 13,654 Military Medals were awarded to those serving with Canadian forces, including 848 first bars and 38 second bars.


title: Military Medal

text: Australian Army members received 11,038 and 14 were to awarded Air Force personnel; 478 first bars were awarded, 15 second bars and one third bar.


title: Military Medal

text: The honorary MM awards were made to servicemen and women from eleven allied countries in the First World War, and nine in the Second World War.


title: Military Medal

text: During the First World War, 127 Military Medals were awarded to women, plus about a dozen honorary awards to foreign women.


title: Military Medal

text: There was one instance of a third bar being awarded, to Private Ernest Albert Corey, who served on the Western Front as a stretcher bearer in the 55th Australian Infantry Battalion.


title: Military Medal

text: The only recipient to receive two bars during the Second World War was Sergeant Fred Kite, Royal Tank Regiment.


title: Military Medal

text: Jack Ford, a leading character in the BBC TV series "When The Boat Comes In", is a World War I recipient of the Military Medal.


title: Military Medal

text: In the BBC series "Peaky Blinders", the principal protagonist/antihero Thomas Michael Shelby is a recipient of the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal for his service in World War I, then post-war he was awarded the OBE by Winston Churchill.


title: Military Medal

text: In the "Dad's Army" episode "Branded", the platoon discover that the character Private Godfrey was a Conscientious Objector. He is then ostracized by the platoon, until they find that he was awarded the Military Medal in the First World War whilst serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, for rescuing wounded men under enemy fire. The medal itself is central to the storyline in that it is higher than all the medals held by the rest of the platoon and is seen as a mark of true heroism which earns him great respect from them all.


title: Military Medal

text: In "ANZAC Girls" episode 6, "Courage", Sister Ross-King and three other nurses are awarded the Military Medal for bravery under fire.


title: Military Medal

text: In the video game "", the SAS character named Mike "Thatcher" Baker is seen wearing the Military Medal. The reason why it has been awarded to him is not mentioned.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation, aged 17. Best known as the writer of "Psycho" (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of "cosmic horror", he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as "Weird Tales" in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter and a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general.


title: Robert Bloch

text: He won the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America (1970) and was a member of that organization and of Science Fiction Writers of America, the Writers Guild of America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Count Dracula Society. In 2008, The Library of America selected Bloch's essay "The Shambles of Ed Gein" (1962) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime.


title: Robert Bloch

text: His favorites among his own novels were "The Kidnapper", "The Star Stalker", "Psycho", "Night-World," and "Strange Eons". His work has been extensively adapted into films, television productions, comics, and audiobooks.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch was born in Chicago, the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884–1952), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880–1944), a social worker, both of German Jewish descent. Bloch's family moved to Maywood, a Chicago suburb, when he was five; he lived there until he was ten. He attended the Methodist Church there, despite his parents' Jewish heritage, and studied at Emerson Grammar School. In 1925, at eight years of age, living in Maywood, he attended (alone at night) a screening of Lon Chaney, Sr.'s film "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925). The scene of Chaney removing his mask terrified the young Bloch ("it scared the living hell out of me and I ran all the way home to enjoy the first of about two years of recurrent nightmares"). It also sparked his interest in horror. Bloch was a precocious child and found himself in fourth grade when he was eight. He also obtained a pass into the adult section of the public library, where he read omnivorously. Bloch considered himself a budding artist and worked in pencil sketching and watercolours, but myopia in adolescence seemed to effectively bar art as a career. He had passions for German-made lead toy soldiers and for silent cinema.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1929, Bloch's father Ray Bloch lost his bank job, and the family moved to Milwaukee, where Stella worked at the Milwaukee Jewish Settlement settlement house. Robert attended Washington, then Lincoln High School, where he met lifelong friend Harold Gauer. Gauer was editor of "The Quill", Lincoln's literary magazine, and accepted Bloch's first published short story, a horror story titled "The Thing" (the "thing" of the title was Death). Both Bloch and Gauer graduated from Lincoln in 1934 during the height of the Great Depression. Bloch was involved in the drama department at Lincoln and wrote and performed in school vaudeville skits.


title: Robert Bloch

text: During the 1930s, Bloch was an avid reader of the pulp magazine "Weird Tales", which he had discovered at the age of ten in 1927. In the Chicago Northwestern Railroad depot with his parents and aunt Lil, his aunt offered to buy him any magazine he wanted and he picked "Weird Tales" (Aug 1927 issue) off the newsstand over her shocked protest. He began his readings of the magazine with the first instalment of Otis Adelbert Kline's "The Bride of Osiris" which dealt with a secret Egyptian city called Karneter located beneath Bloch's birth city of Chicago. The Depression came in the early 1930s. He later recalled, in accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the First World Fantasy Convention (1975), how "times were very hard. "Weird Tales" cost twenty-five cents in a day when most pulp magazines cost a dime. I remember that meant a lot to me." He went on to relate how he would get up very early on the last day of the month, with twenty-five cents saved from his monthly allowance of one dollar, and would run all the way to a combination tobacco/magazine store and buy the new "Weird Tales" issue, sometimes smuggling it home under his coat if the cover was particularly risqué. His parents were not impressed with Hugh Doak Rankin's sexy covers for the magazine, and when the Bloch family moved to Milwaukee in 1928 young Bloch gradually abandoned his interest. But by the time he had entered high school, he returned to reading "Weird Tales" during convalescence from flu.


title: Robert Bloch

text: H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to "Weird Tales", became one of his favorite writers. The first of Lovecraft's stories he had read was "Pickman's Model," in "Weird Tales" for October 1927. Bloch wrote: "In school I was forced to squirm my way through the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Lowell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 'Pickman's Model', the ghouls ate all three. Now that, I decided, was poetic justice." As a teenager, Bloch wrote a fan letter to Lovecraft (1933), asking where he could find copies of earlier stories of Lovecraft's that Bloch had missed. Lovecraft lent them to him. Lovecraft also gave Bloch advice on his early fiction-writing efforts, asking whether Bloch had written any weird work and, if so, whether he might see samples of it. Bloch took up Lovecraft's offer in late April 1933, sending him two short items, "The Gallows" and another work whose title is unknown.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Lovecraft also suggested Bloch write to other members of the Lovecraft Circle, including August Derleth, R. H. Barlow, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, Frank Belknap Long, Henry S. Whitehead, E. Hoffmann Price, Bernard Austin Dwyer and J. Vernon Shea. Bloch's first completed tales were "Lilies," "The Laughter of a Young Ghoul" and "The Black Lotus". Bloch submitted these to "Weird Tales"; editor Farnsworth Wright summarily rejected them all. However Bloch successfully placed "Lilies" in the semi-professional magazine "Marvel Tales" (Winter 1934) and "Black Lotus" in "Unusual Stories" (1935). Bloch later commented, "I figured I'd better do something different or I'd end up as a florist."


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch graduated from high school in June 1934. He then wrote a story which promptly (six weeks later) sold to "Weird Tales." Bloch's first publication in "Weird Tales" was a letter criticising the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard. His first professional sales, at the age of 17 (July 1934), to "Weird Tales," were the short stories "The Feast in the Abbey" and "The Secret in the Tomb". "Feast ..." appeared first, in the January 1935 issue, which actually went on sale November 1, 1934; "The Secret in the Tomb" appeared in the May 1935 "Weird Tales".


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's correspondence with Derleth led to a visit to Derleth's home in Sauk City, Wisconsin (the headquarters of Arkham House). Bloch was impressed by Derleth who "fulfilled my expectations as a writer by wearing this purple velvet smoking jacket. That impressed me even more because Derleth didn't even smoke." Following this, and continued correspondence with Lovecraft, Bloch went to Chicago and met Farnsworth Wright, the then editor of "Weird Tales". He also met the first "Weird Tales" writer outside of Derleth he had encountered - Otto Binder.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's early stories were strongly influenced by Lovecraft. Indeed, a number of his stories were set in, and extended, the world of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. These include "The Dark Demon", in which the character Gordon is a figuration of Lovecraft, and which features Nyarlathotep; "The Faceless God" (features Nyarlathotep); "The Grinning Ghoul" (written after the manner of Lovecraft) and "The Unspeakable Betrothal" (vaguely attached to the Cthulhu Mythos). It was Bloch who invented, for example, the oft-cited Mythos texts "De Vermis Mysteriis" and "Cultes des Goules". Many other stories influenced by Lovecraft were later collected in Bloch's volume "Mysteries of the Worm" (now in its third, expanded edition). In 1935, Bloch wrote the tale "Satan's Servants", on which Lovecraft lent much advice, but none of the prose was by Lovecraft; this tale did not appear in print until 1949, in "Something About Cats and Other Pieces".


title: Robert Bloch

text: The young Bloch appears, thinly disguised, as the character Robert Blake in Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936), which is dedicated to Bloch. Bloch was the only individual to whom Lovecraft ever dedicated a story. In this story, Lovecraft kills off Robert Blake, the Bloch-based character, repaying a "courtesy" Bloch earlier paid Lovecraft with his 1935 tale "The Shambler from the Stars", in which the Lovecraft-inspired figure dies; the story goes so far as to use Bloch's then-current address (620 East Knapp Street) in Milwaukee. (Bloch even had a signed certificate from Lovecraft [and some of his creations] giving Bloch permission to kill Lovecraft off in a story.) Bloch later recalled "believe me, beyond all doubt, I don't know anyone else I'd rather be killed by." Bloch later wrote a third tale, "The Shadow From the Steeple", picking up where "The Haunter of the Dark" finished ("Weird Tales" Sept 1950).


title: Robert Bloch

text: Lovecraft's death in 1937 deeply affected Bloch, who was then aged only 20. He recalled "Part of me died with him, I guess, not only because he was not a god, he was mortal, that is true, but because he had so little recognition in his own lifetime. There were no novels or collections published, no great realization, even here in Providence, of what was lost." Elsewhere he wrote, "the news of his fate came to me as a shattering blow; all the more so because the world at large ignored his passing. Only my parents and a few correspondents seemed to sense my shock, and my feeling that a part of me had died with him."


title: Robert Bloch

text: After Lovecraft's death in 1937, Bloch continued writing for "Weird Tales", where he became one of its most popular authors. He also began contributing to other pulps, such as the science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories". Bloch broadened the scope of his fiction. His horror themes included voodoo ("Mother of Serpents"), the conte cruel ("The Mandarin's Canaries"), demonic possession ("Fiddler's Fee"), and black magic ("Return to the Sabbat"). Bloch visited Henry Kuttner in California in 1937. Bloch's first science fiction story, "The Secret of the Observatory", was published in "Amazing Stories" (August 1938).


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1935 Bloch joined a writers' group, The Milwaukee Fictioneers, members of which included Stanley Weinbaum, Ralph Milne Farley and Raymond A. Palmer. Another member of the group was Gustav Marx, who offered Bloch a job writing copy in his advertising firm, also allowing Bloch to write stories in his spare time in the office. Bloch was close friends with C. L. Moore and her husband Henry Kuttner, who visited him in Milwaukee.


title: Robert Bloch

text: During the years of the Depression, Bloch appeared regularly in dramatic productions, writing and performing in his own sketches. Around 1936 he sold some gags to radio comedians Stoopnagle and Budd, and to Roy Atwell. Also in 1936, his tale "The Grinning Ghoul" was published in "Weird Tales" (June); "The Opener of the Way" appeared in "Weird Tales" (Oct); "Mother of Serpents" appeared in the December issue. The December issue also contained Lovecraft's tale "The Haunter of the Dark" in which he killed off young author "Robert Blake".


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1937, following Lovecraft's death, "The Mannikin" appeared in "Weird Tales" for April. "Weird Tales" published "Return to the Sabbath" in July 1938. Bloch's first science fiction story, "The Secret of the Observatory" appeared in "Amazing Stories" (Aug 1938). In a profile accompanying this tale, Bloch described himself as "tall, dark, unhandsome" with "all the charm and personality of a swamp adder". He noted that "I hate everything", but reserved particular dislike for "bean soup, red nail polish, house-cleaning, and optimists".


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1939, Bloch was contacted by James Doolittle, who was managing the campaign for Mayor of Milwaukee of a little-known assistant city attorney named Carl Zeidler. He was asked to work on Zeidler's speechwriting, advertising, and photo ops, in collaboration with his long-time friend Harold Gauer. They created elaborate campaign shows; in Bloch's 1993 autobiography, "Once Around the Bloch", he gives an inside account of the campaign, and the innovations he and Gauer came up with – for instance, the original releasing-balloons-from-the-ceiling schtick. He comments bitterly on how, after Zeidler's victory, they were ignored and not even paid their promised salaries. He ends the story with a wryly philosophical point:


title: Robert Bloch

text: Also in 1939, two of Bloch's tales were published: "The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" ("Amazing Stories," August) and "The Cloak" ("Unknown," March). Many of the stories Bloch published in "Strange Stories" in 1939 as by 'Tarleton Fiske' were fantasy/horror hybrids of the "contes cruels" type.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In October 1941, the tale "A Good Knight's Work" in "Unknown Worlds" first appeared. Shortly thereafter, Bloch created the Damon Runyon-esque humorous series character Lefty Feep in the story "Time Wounds All Heels" "Fantastic Adventures" (April 1942). This magazine, along with "Weird Tales," published most of the over 100 stories Bloch wrote in the first decade of his career. Around the same time, he began work as an advertising copywriter at the Gustav Marx Advertising Agency, a position he held until 1953. Marx allowed Bloch to write stories in the office in quiet times. Bloch published a total of 23 Lefty Feep stories in "Fantastic Adventures", the last one published in 1950, but the bulk appeared during World War II. Feep's character name had actually been coined by Bloch's friend/collaborator Harold Gauer for their unpublished novel "In the Land of Sky-Blue Ointments", Bloch also worked for a time in local vaudeville and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch gradually evolved away from Lovecraftian imitations towards a unique style of his own. One of the first distinctly "Blochian" stories was "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" ("Weird Tales", July 1943). The story was Bloch's take on the Jack the Ripper legend, and was filled out with more genuine factual details of the case than many other fictional treatments. It cast the Ripper as an eternal being who must make human sacrifices to extend his immortality. It was adapted for both radio (in "Stay Tuned for Terror") and television (as an episode of "Thriller" in 1961 adapted by Barré Lyndon). Bloch followed up this story with a number of others in a similar vein dealing with half-historic, half-legendary figures such as the Man in the Iron Mask ("Iron Mask", 1944), the Marquis de Sade ("The Skull of the Marquis de Sade", 1945) and Lizzie Borden ("Lizzie Borden Took an Axe ...", 1946).


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1944, Laird Cregar performed Bloch's tale "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" over a coast-to-coast radio network.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Towards the end of World War Two, in 1945, Bloch was asked to write 39 15-minute episodes of his own radio horror show called "Stay Tuned for Terror". Many of the programs were adaptations of his own pulp stories. (All episodes were broadcast, but recordings were thought to be lost. However, in 2020, two episodes, "The Bogeyman Will Get You" and "Lizzie Borden Took an Axe" were re-discovered amongst the archives of an old-time radio enthusiast. These episodes have now been posted on YouTube and Internet Archive).. The same year he published "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" ("Weird Tales," Sempteber issue). August Derleth's Arkham House, Lovecraft's publisher, published Bloch's first collection of short stories, "The Opener of the Way", in an edition of 2,000 copies, with jacket art by Ronald Clyne. At the same time, his best-known early tale, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", received considerable attention through dramatization on radio and reprinting in anthologies. This story, as noted below, involving a Ripper who has found literal immortality through his crimes, has been widely imitated (or plagiarized); Bloch himself would return to the theme (see below). Stories published in 1946 include "Enoch" (September issue of "Weird Tales") and "Lizzie Borden Took an Axe" ("Weird Tales", November).


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's first novel was published in hardcover – the thriller "The Scarf" (The Dial Press 1947; the Fawcett Gold medal paperback of 1966 features a revised text). It tells the story of a writer, Daniel Morley, who uses real women as models for his characters. But as soon as he is done writing the story, he is compelled to murder them, and always the same way: with the maroon scarf he has had since childhood. The story begins in Minneapolis and follows him and his trail of dead bodies to Chicago, New York City, and finally Hollywood, where his hit novel is going to be turned into a movie, and where his self-control may have reached its limit.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1948, Bloch was the Guest of Honor at Torcon I, World Science Fiction Convention, Toronto, Canada. In 1952 he published "Lucy Comes to Stay" ("Weird Tales", January issue). Bloch popularised the "Auction Bloch" at science fiction conventions during the 1950s, a practice in which fans bid on professionals, buying an hour of their time. Bloch would auction off an hour of some well-known writer's time at a convention to raise money for a worthy cause. (The time gave the winner an hour of personal interaction with the writer at the convention.)


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch published three novels in 1954 – "Spiderweb", "The Kidnapper" and "The Will to Kill" as he endeavored to support his family. That same year he was a weekly guest panelist on the TV quiz show "It's a Draw". "Shooting Star" (1958), a mainstream novel, was published in a double volume with a collection of Bloch's stories titled "Terror in the Night". "This Crowded Earth" (1958) was science fiction.


title: Robert Bloch

text: With the demise of "Weird Tales", Bloch continued to have his fiction published in "Amazing", "Fantastic", "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", and "Fantastic Universe"; he was a particularly frequent contributor to "Imagination" and "Imaginative Tales". His output of thrillers increased and he began to appear regularly in "The Saint", "Ellery Queen" and similar mystery magazines, and to such suspense and horror-fiction magazine projects as "Shock".


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch continued to revisit the Jack the Ripper theme. His contribution to Harlan Ellison's 1967 science fiction anthology "Dangerous Visions" was a story, "A Toy for Juliette", which evoked both Jack the Ripper and the Marquis de Sade in a time-travel story. The same anthology had Ellison's sequel to it titled "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World". His earlier idea of the Ripper as an immortal being resurfaced in Bloch's contribution to the original "Star Trek" series episode "Wolf in the Fold". His 1984 novel "Night of the Ripper" is set during the reign of Queen Victoria and follows the investigation of Inspector Frederick Abberline in attempting to apprehend the Ripper, and includes some famous Victorians such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle within the storyline.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "That Hellbound Train" in 1959, the same year that his sixth novel, "Psycho," was published. Bloch had written an earlier short story involving dissociative identity disorder, "The Real Bad Friend", which appeared in the February 1957 "Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine", that foreshadowed the 1959 novel "Psycho". However, "Psycho" also has thematic links to the story "Lucy Comes to Stay." Also in 1959, Bloch delivered a lecture titled "Imagination and Modern Social Criticism" at the University of Chicago; this was reprinted in the critical volume "The Science Fiction Novel" (Advent Publishers). His story "The Hungry Eye" appeared in "Fantastic" (May). This was also the year in which, despite having graduated from painting watercolours to oils, he gave up painting completely.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Norman Bates, the main character in "Psycho", was very loosely based on two people. First was the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, about whom Bloch later wrote a fictionalized account, "The Shambles of Ed Gein". (The story can be found in "Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3"). Second, it has been indicated by several people, including Noel Carter (wife of Lin Carter) and Chris Steinbrunner, as well as allegedly by Bloch himself, that Norman Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher of "Castle of Frankenstein". Bloch's basing of the character of Norman Bates on Ed Gein is discussed in the documentary "Ed Gein: The Ghoul of Plainfield", which can be found on Disc 2 of the DVD release of the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003). However, Bloch also commented that it was the situation itself – a mass murderer living undetected and unsuspected in a typical small town in middle America – rather than Gein himself who sparked Bloch's storyline. He writes: "Thus the real-life murderer was not the role model for my character Norman Bates. Ed Gein didn't own or operate a motel. Ed Gein didn't kill anyone in the shower. Ed Gein wasn't into taxidermy. Ed Gein didn't stuff his mother, keep her body in the house, dress in a drag outfit, or adopt an alternative personality. These were the functions and characteristics of Norman Bates, and Norman Bates didn't exist until I made him up. Out of my own imagination, I add, which is probably the reason so few offer to take showers with me."


title: Robert Bloch

text: Though Bloch had little involvement with the film version of his novel, which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock from an adapted screenplay by Joseph Stefano, he was to become most famous as its author. Bloch was awarded a special Mystery Writers of America scroll for the novel in 1961.


title: Robert Bloch

text: The novel is one of the first examples at full length of Bloch's use of modern urban horror relying on the horrors of interior psychology rather than the supernatural. "By the mid-1940s, I had pretty well mined the vein of ordinary supernatural themes until it had become varicose," Bloch explained to Douglas E. Winter in an interview. "I realized, as a result of what went on during World War II and of reading the more widely disseminated work in psychology, that the real horror is not in the shadows, but in that twisted little world inside our own skulls." While Bloch was not the first horror writer to utilise a psychological approach (it originates in the work of Edgar Allan Poe), Bloch's psychological approach in modern times was comparatively unique.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's agent, Harry Altshuler, received a "blind bid" for the novel – the buyer's name was not mentioned – of $7,500 for screen rights to the book. The bid eventually went to $9,500, which Bloch accepted. Bloch had never sold a book to Hollywood before. His contract with Simon & Schuster included no bonus for a film sale. The publisher took 15 percent according to contract, while the agent took his 10%; Bloch wound up with about $6,750 before taxes. Despite the enormous profits generated by Hitchcock's film, Bloch received no further direct compensation.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Only Hitchcock's film was based on Bloch's novel. The later films in the "Psycho" series bear no relation to either of Bloch's sequel novels. Indeed, Bloch's proposed script for the film "Psycho II" was rejected by the studio (as were many other submissions), and it was this that he subsequently adapted for his own sequel novel.


title: Robert Bloch

text: The film "Hitchcock" (2012) tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock's making of the film version of "Psycho". Although it mentions Bloch and his novel, Bloch himself is not a character in the movie.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Following his move to Hollywood, around 1960, Bloch had multiple assignments from various television companies. However, he was not allowed to write for five months when the Writers Guild had a strike. After the strike was over, he became a frequent scriptwriter for television and film projects in the mystery, suspense, and horror genre. His first assignments were for the Macdonald Carey vehicle, "Lock-Up", (penning five episodes) as well as one for "Whispering Smith". Further TV work included an episode of "Bus Stop" ("I Kiss Your Shadow"), 10 episodes of "Thriller" (1960–62, several based on his own stories), and 10 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1960–62). His short story collection "Pleasant Dreams - Nightmares" was published by Arkham House in 1960.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch wrote the screenplay for "The Cabinet of Caligari" (1962), which is only very loosely related to the 1920 German silent film, and proved to be an unhappy experience. The same year, Bloch penned the story and teleplay "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". The episode was shelved when the NBC Television Network and sponsor Revlon called its ending "too gruesome" (by 1960s standards) for airing. Bloch was pleased later when the episode was included in the program's syndication package to affiliate stations, where not one complaint was registered. Today, due to public domain status, the episode is readily available in home media formats from numerous distributors and is even available on free video on demand.


title: Robert Bloch

text: His TV work did not slow Bloch's fictional output. In the early 1960s he published several novels, including "The Dead Beat" (1960), and "Firebug" (1961), for which Harlan Ellison, then an editor at Regency Books, contributed the first 1,200 words. In 1962 numerous works appeared in book form. Bloch's novel "The Couch" (1962) (the basis for the screenplay of his first movie, filmed the same year) was published. That year several Bloch short story collections – "Atoms and Evil", "More Nightmares" and "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" – were published, as well as another novel, "Terror" (whose working titles included "Amok" and "Kill for Kali"). Editor Earl Kemp assembled a selection of Bloch's prolific output for fan magazines as "The Eight Stage of Fandom: Selections from 25 years of Fan Writing" (Advent Publishers). In this era, Stephen King later wrote, "What Bloch did with such novels as "The Deadbeat", "The Scarf", "Firebug", "Psycho", and "The Couch" was to re-discover the suspense novel and reinvent the antihero as first discovered by James Cain."


title: Robert Bloch

text: During 1963, Bloch saw into print two further collections of short stories, "Bogey men" and "Horror-7". In 1964 Bloch married Eleanor Alexander and wrote original screenplays for two films produced and directed by William Castle, "Strait-Jacket" (1964) and "The Night Walker" (also 1964), along with "The Skull" (1965). The latter film was based on his short story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade".


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's further TV writing in this period included "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (7 episodes, 1962–1965), "I Spy" (1 episode, 1966), "Run for Your Life" (1 episode, 1966), and "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." (1 episode, 1967). He penned three scripts for the original "" series which were screened in 1966 and 1967: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Wolf in the Fold" (another Jack the Ripper variant), and "".


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1968, Bloch returned to London to do two episodes for the English Hammer Films series "Journey to the Unknown" for Twentieth Century Fox. One of the episodes, "The Indian Spirit Guide", was included in the American TV movie "Journey to Midnight" (1968). The other episode was "Girl of My Dreams," co-scripted with Michael J. Bird and based on the eponymous story by Richard Matheson.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Following the movie "The Skull" (1965), which was based on a Bloch story but scripted by Milton Subotsky, he wrote the screenplays for five feature films produced by Amicus Productions – "The Psychopath" (1966), "The Deadly Bees" (co-written with Anthony Marriott, 1967), "Torture Garden" (also 1967), "The House That Dripped Blood" (1971) and "Asylum" (1972). The last two films featured stories written by Bloch that were printed first in anthologies he wrote in the 1940s and early 1950s.


title: Robert Bloch

text: During the 1970s, Bloch wrote two TV movies for director Curtis Harrington – "The Cat Creature" (1973) (an "ABC Movie of the Week") and "The Dead Don't Die". "The Cat Creature" was an unhappy production experience for Bloch. Producer Doug Cramer wanted to do an update of "Cat People" (1942), the Val Lewton-produced film. Bloch commented: "Instead, I suggested a blending of the elements of several well-remembered films, and came up with a story line which dealt with the Egyptian cat-goddess (Bast), reincarnation and the first bypass operation ever performed on an artichoke heart." A detailed account of the troubled production of the film is described in Bloch's autobiography.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch meanwhile (interspersed between his screenplays for Amicus Productions and other projects), penned single episodes for "Night Gallery" (1971), "Ghost Story" (1972), "The Manhunter" (1974), and "Gemini Man" (1976).


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1965, two further collections of short stories appeared - "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" and "Tales in a Jugular Vein". 1966 saw Bloch win the Ann Radcliffe Award for Television and publisher yet another collection of shorts - "Chamber of Horrors". Bloch returned to the site of his childhood home at 620 East Knapp St, Milwaukee (the address used by Lovecraft for the character Robert Blake in "The Haunter of the Dark") only to find the neighborhood razed and the entire neighborhood leveled and replaced by expressway approaches.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1967, another Bloch collection, "The Living Demons" was issued. He also published another classic story of Jack the Ripper, "A Toy for Juliette" in Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" anthology. In 1968 he published a duo of long sf novellas as "Ladies' Day" and "This Crowded Earth". His novel "The Star Stalker" was published, and "Dragons and Nightmares" (the first collection of Lefty Feep stories) appeared in hardcover (Mirage Press).


title: Robert Bloch

text: The collection "Bloch and Bradbury" (a collaboration with Ray Bradbury) and the hardcover novel "The Todd Dossier", originally as by Collier Young, were published in 1969.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch won a second Ann Radcliffe Award, this time for Literature, in 1969. That same year, Bloch was invited to the Second International Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, March 23–31, along with other science fiction writers from the United States, Britain and Europe.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1971, Bloch served as president of the Mystery Writers of America, meanwhile publishing the novel "Sneak Preview", the collection "Fear Today, Gone Tomorrow," and the short novel "It's All in Your Mind". In 1972 he published another novel, "Night-World". In 1973 Bloch was the Guest of Honor at Torcon II, World Science Fiction Convention, Toronto. 1974 saw the publication of his novel "American Gothic", inspired by the true life story of serial killer H.H. Holmes.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1975, Bloch won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the First World Fantasy Convention held in Providence, Rhode Island. The award was a bust of H. P. Lovecraft. The occasion of this convention was the first time Bloch actually visited the city of Providence. An audio recording was made of Robert Bloch during that 1975 convention, accessible online.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1976, two records of Bloch recordings of his stories were released by Alternate World recordings – """Gravely, Robert Bloch!" and "Blood! The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper! (with Harlan Ellison). In 1977, Lester del Rey edited "The Best of Robert Bloch" for Del Rey books. Two further short story collections appeared – "Cold Chills" and "The King of Terrors."


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch continued to published short story collections throughout this period. His "Selected Stories" (reprinted in paperback with the incorrect title "The Complete Stories") appeared in three volumes just prior to his death, although many previously uncollected tales have appeared in volumes published since 1997 (see below). Bloch also contributed the story "Heir Apparent," set in Andre Norton's Witch World, to "Tales of the Witch World" (Vol. 1), NY: Tor, 1987.


title: Robert Bloch

text: 1979 saw the publication of Bloch's novel "There is a Serpent in Eden" (also reissued as "The Cunning"), and two more short story collections, "Out of the Mouths of graves" and "Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of."


title: Robert Bloch

text: His numerous novels of the 1970s demonstrate Bloch's thematic range, from science fiction – "Sneak Preview" (1971) – through horror novels such as the loving Lovecraftian tribute "Strange Eons" (Whispers Press, 1978) and the non-supernatural mystery "There is a Serpent in Eden" (1979).


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's screenplay-writing career continued active through the 1980s, with teleplays for "Tales of the Unexpected" (one episode, 1980), "Darkroom" (two episodes,1981), "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1 episode, 1986), "Tales from the Darkside" (three episodes, 1984–87: "Beetles", "A Case of the Stubborns" and "Everybody Needs a Little Love") and "Monsters" (three episodes, 1988–1989: "The Legacy", "Mannikins of Horror", and "Reaper"). No further screen work appeared in the last five years before his death, although an adaptation of his "collaboration" with Edgar Allan Poe, "The Lighthouse", was filmed as an episode of "The Hunger" in 1998.


title: Robert Bloch

text: "The First World Fantasy Convention: Three Authors Remember" (Necronomicon Press, 1980) features reminiscences of that important event by Bloch, T.E.D. Klein and Fritz Leiber. In 1981, Zebra Books issued the first edition of the Cthulhu Mythos-themed collection "Mysteries of the Worm". This item was reprinted some years later in an expanded edition by Chaosium.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's sequel to the original "Psycho", "Psycho II", was published in 1982 and in 1983 he novelized "". His novel "Night of the Ripper" (1984), was another return to one of Bloch's favourite themes, the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1986, Scream Press published the hardcover omnibus "Unholy Trinity", collecting three by now scarce Bloch novels, "The Scarf", "The Dead Beat", and "The Couch." A second retrospective selection of Bloch's nonfiction was published by NESFA Press as "Out of My Head."


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1987, Bloch celebrated his 70th birthday. Underwood-Miller issued the three-volume hardcover set "The Selected Stories of Robert Bloch" (individual volumes titled "Final Reckonings", "Bitter Ends" and "Last Rites"). When Citadel Press reissued this in paperback they incorrectly named it "The Collected Stories of Robert Bloch." The same year a collection, "Midnight Pleasures" appeared from Doubleday, and "Lost in Time and Space with Lefty Feep" (Creatures at Large Press) collected a number of the stories on the Lefty Feep series. The latter was the first of a projected series of three volumes, but the further volumes were never published. In 1988, Tor Books reissued Bloch's scarce second novel, "The Kidnapper."


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1989, several works were published: the collection "Fear and Trembling", the thriller novel "Lori" (later adapted as a standalone graphic novel) and another omnibus of long out-of-print early novels, "Screams" (containing "The Will to Kill", "Firebug", and "The Star Stalker"). Randall D. Larson issued "The Robert Bloch Companion: Collected Interviews 1969-1986" (Starmont House), together with "Robert Bloch" (Starmont Reader's Guide No 37), an exhaustive study of Bloch's work, and "The Complete Robert Bloch: An Illustrated, Comprehensive Bibliography" (Fandom Unlimited Enterprises). Larson's three books were bound in hardcover and distributed by Borgo Press.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch's novel, "The Jekyll Legacy" (1990), was a collaboration with Andre Norton and a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". The same year he returned to the Norman Bates "mythos" with "Psycho House" (Tor), the third Psycho novel. As with the second novel in the sequence, it bears no relation to the film titled "Psycho III". It would prove to be his last published novel.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In February 1991, he was given the Honor of Master of Ceremonies at the first World Horror Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee. Weird Tales issued a special Robert Bloch issue in Spring, including his screenplay for the televised version of his tale "Beetles"". A standalone chapbook of the story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" was issued in both hardcover and paperback by Pulphouse, and Bloch co-edited with Martin H. Greenberg the original anthology "Psycho-Paths" (Tor). In 1991 Bloch contributed an Introduction to "In Search of Lovecraft" by J. Vernon Shea.


title: Robert Bloch

text: In 1992, Bloch celebrated his 75th birthday with a bash at a Los Angeles mystery/horror bookstore which was attended by many sf/horror notables. In 1993, he published his "unauthorized autobiography", "Once Around the Bloch" (Tor) and edited the original anthology "Monsters in Our Midst".


title: Robert Bloch

text: In early 1994, Fedogan and Bremer published a collection of 39 of his stories, "The Early Fears". Bloch began editing a new original anthology, "Robert Bloch's Psychos" but was unable to complete work on it prior to his death; Martin H. Greenberg finished the work posthumously and the book appeared several years later (1997).


title: Robert Bloch

text: On October 2, 1940, Bloch married Marion Ruth Holcombe; it was reportedly a marriage of convenience designed to keep Bloch out of the army. During their marriage, she suffered (initially undiagnosed) from tuberculosis of the bone, which affected her ability to walk.


title: Robert Bloch

text: After working for 11 years for the Gustav Marx Advertising Agency in Milwaukee, Bloch left in 1953 and moved to Weyauwega, Marion's home town, so she could be close to friends and family. Although she was eventually cured of tuberculosis, she and Bloch divorced in 1963. Bloch's daughter Sally (born 1943) elected to stay with him.


title: Robert Bloch

text: On January 18, 1964, Bloch met recently widowed Eleanor ("Elly") Alexander (née Zalisko), who had lost her first husband, writer/producer John Alexander, to a heart attack three months earlier, and married her in a civil ceremony on the following October 16. Elly was a fashion model and cosmetician. They honeymooned in Tahiti, and in 1965 visited London, then British Columbia. They remained happily married until Bloch's death. Elly remained in the Los Angeles area for several years after selling their Laurel Canyon Home to fans of Bloch, eventually choosing to go home to Canada to be closer to her own family. She died March 7, 2007, at the Betel Home in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. Her ashes have been placed next to Bloch's in a similar book-shaped urn at Pierce Brothers in Westwood, California.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch died on September 23, 1994, after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 77. He survived by seven months the death of another member of the original "Lovecraft Circle", Frank Belknap Long, who had died in January 1994.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch was cremated and his ashes interred in the Room of Prayer columbarium at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. His wife Elly is also interred there.


title: Robert Bloch

text: The Robert Bloch Award is presented at the annual Necronomicon convention. Its recipient in 2013 was editor and scholar S.T. Joshi. The award is in the shape of the Shining Trapezohedron as described in H. P. Lovecraft's tale dedicated to Bloch, "The Haunter of the Dark".


title: Robert Bloch

text: The comic "Aardwolf" (No 2, Feb 1995) is a special tribute issue to Bloch. It contains brief tributes to Bloch from Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Julius Schwartz and Peter Straub incorporated within a piece called "Robert Bloch: A Retrospective" compiled by Clifford Lawrence. The first part of the text of Bloch's story "The Past Master" is also reprinted in this issue.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Various recordings of Bloch speaking at fantasy and sf conventions are also extant. Many of these are available for download from Will Hart's CthulhuWho site:


title: Robert Bloch

text: Note: The following three entries represent paperback reprints of the Underwood Miller "Selected Stories" set. "Complete Stories" is a misnomer as these three volumes do not contain anywhere near the complete oeuvre of Bloch's short fiction.


title: Robert Bloch

text: The following is a list of films based on Bloch's work. For some of these he wrote the original screenplay; for others, he supplied the story or a novel (as in the case of "Psycho") on which the screenplay was based.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch wrote a number of screenplays that remain unproduced. These include "Merry-Go-Round" for MGM (loosely based on Ray Bradbury's story "Black Ferris"); "Night-World" (from Bloch's novel, for MGM; this was aborted when its producer lost confidence, and his job when MGM went under new management); "The Twenty-First Witch"; "Day of the Comet" (from the H.G. Wells story) and "Berg!" (both for George Pal); and a television adaptation of "Out of the Aeons". See also "The Todd Dossier". Other unproduced scripts include a science fiction movie commissioned by AIP for 1972 release, "Barracuda 2000 A.D." (about a cycle gang surviving atomic holocaust in 2000); James Whiton (co-writer of The Abominable Dr Phibes) also worked on Bloch's script but AIP abandoned the film when the bottom fell out of the cycle-picture vogue. There was also "Linda," based on a John D. MacDonald novella; Bloch's script was not used but the movie was eventually done in another form on TV as a 1973 ABC Saturday Suspense Movie of the Week starring Stella Stevens, Ed Nelson playing Paul and John McIntire.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Some scenes from Bloch's incomplete screenplay for the unproduced movie "Earthman's Burden", to have been based on the Hoka stories of Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson appear in Richard Matheson and Ricia Mainhardt, eds, "Robert Bloch: Appreciations of the Master". NY: Tor, 1995, pp. 157–63.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Bloch appeared in the documentary "The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal" (1985) produced and directed by Arnold Leibovit.


title: Robert Bloch

text: Many of Bloch's published works, manuscripts (including those of the novels "The Star Stalker," "This Crowded Earth", and "Night World"), correspondence, books, recordings, tapes and other memorabilia are housed in the Special Collections division of the library at the University of Wyoming. The collection includes several unpublished short stories, such as "Dream Date", "The Last Clown", "A Pretty Girl is Like a Malady", "Twilight of a God", "It Only Hurts When I Laugh", "How to Pull the Wings Off a Barfly", "The Craven Image", "Afternoon in the Park", "Title Bout", and 'What Freud Can't Tell You". In addition, there is an unpublished one-act play entitled "The Birth of a Notion – A Tragedy of Hollywood." Thousands of other items from fanzines and professional periodicals to film stills, lobby cards, one-sheets and posters and press-books connected with Bloch's films, together with transcripts of several of his speeches, are also housed in the collection.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, United States, on December 1, 1997. Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of students, killing three and injuring five more.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: On December 1, 1997, Carneal wrapped a shotgun and a rifle in a blanket and took them to school, passing them off as an art project he was working on. He carried a loaded Ruger MK II .22-caliber pistol in his backpack. Carneal rode to school with his sister and arrived at approximately 7:45 a.m. When he arrived, he inserted earplugs and took the pistol out of his bag. He fired ten rounds in fast succession at a youth group of students. Three girls later died and five other students were wounded.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Brittney Thomas, a survivor, said that when she turned around during the shooting, she was "kind of facing down the barrel of the gun."


title: Heath High School shooting

text: A member of the group, Benjamin Strong, testified that Carneal dropped the gun of his own accord after the shooting. Carneal placed his pistol on the ground and surrendered to the school principal, Bill Bond. After dropping the gun, Carneal said to Strong: "Kill me, please. I can't believe I did that."


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Michael Adam Carneal (born July 1, 1983) was a 14-year-old freshman at the time of the shooting. Carneal told reporters that he could not give a single explanation for his crimes, and that contributing factors included a mistaken belief of his, that his parents did not love him, taunting from classmates, and false claims he was gay. He stated that he did not know who he was aiming at until he read the names in the paper.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Weeks before the incident, Carneal stole a .38 caliber handgun from his parents' room and attempted to sell it. A student took the gun, threatening to tell police if Carneal did not give it to him. Carneal had told students that "something big is going to happen on Monday" but no one took him seriously.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: In the weeks before the shooting, Carneal stole several firearms from both his own home and a neighbor's home.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: On the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, Carneal went to his neighbor's home and broke into the garage, taking:


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Presumably sometime after Thanksgiving Day, Carneal stole two shotguns from his father's closet and hid them under his bed.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: According to reports, Carneal had been bullied by other students and had anxiety, depression, and severe paranoia. His paranoia was manifested in habits such as covering up vents and windows while in bathrooms, because he believed he was being watched. Following the shooting, Carneal was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder and dysthymia. Kathleen O'Connor, who treated Carneal while he was incarcerated at the Northern Kentucky Youth Development Center, initially agreed with this diagnosis but later determined that Carneal had paranoid schizophrenia.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Dewey Cornell and Diane Schetky, who evaluated Carneal after the shooting, later changed their diagnosis to schizophrenia. He has been hospitalized several times since the start of his incarceration due to psychosis, and takes the anti-depressant Zoloft and Geodon, an anti-psychotic used to treat schizophrenia.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Carneal had in his locker at the time a copy of Stephen King's novel "Rage", first published in 1977 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. After this shooting, King requested his publisher to allow it to go out of print, fearing that it might inspire similar tragedies. "Rage" for a time continued to be available in the United Kingdom in "The Bachman Books" collection, although the collection now no longer contains "Rage".


title: Heath High School shooting

text: In October 1998, a plea of guilty from Michael Carneal was accepted due to his mental illness. Under a plea arrangement, the judge agreed to accept the pleas on condition that Carneal would receive a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 25 years (2022). According to prosecutor Tim Kaltenbach, the plea allows Carneal to receive mental health treatment during imprisonment as long as this is necessary for him or until he is released.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Carneal was transported to the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange when he turned 18 where he remains. Prior to that he was held in at Northern Kentucky Youth Development Center, a Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice facility in Crittenden. Carneal's Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) ID is 151127. Carneal began serving time with KDOC on June 1, 2001.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: In 2007, Carneal filed an appeal claiming that he was too mentally ill to plead guilty to the shooting at Heath High School. He asked the Kentucky Supreme Court for a re-trial. Prosecutors appealed and the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected his request. Carneal will continue to serve out his sentence.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: In 2012, he attempted to withdraw his plea claiming he was mentally ill at the time he made it. Later in the year the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request, stating he should have acted sooner. He was originally scheduled to be eligible for parole on November 16, 2022. However, his hearing was rescheduled and began on September 19, 2022.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: On September 26, 2022, The parole board unanimously denied Carneal's bid for parole and was ordered to serve out, meaning he will remain incarcerated for the rest of his life.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: The families of the deceased have agreed to a $42 million settlement from Carneal. At the time of settlement Carneal had no assets and his family's insurance company, Kentucky Farm Bureau, has insisted repeatedly through court motions that it is not liable for his actions.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: In early 1999, the parents of three victims represented by Jack Thompson filed a $33 million lawsuit against two Internet pornography sites, several computer game companies and makers and distributors of the 1994 film "Natural Born Killers" and the 1995 film "The Basketball Diaries". They claimed that media violence inspired Carneal and therefore should be held responsible for the deaths that occurred.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: The case was dismissed in 2002. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was "simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom." The same year, an identical case was brought against the same companies by the family of the teacher killed in the Columbine High School massacre. Both Thompson and United States Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed Carneal's proficient marksmanship was due to practice in violent video games. It was dismissed in 2002.


title: Heath High School shooting

text: Family of victims organized a 20th anniversary service to commemorate the victims, and open a memorial for the victims placed across the street from the school. The memorial was built in a circle to symbolize the prayer circle that was targeted, with five benches representing the five surviving victims.


title: Robert C. Martin

text: Robert Cecil Martin (born 5 December 1952), colloquially called "Uncle Bob", is an American software engineer, instructor, and best-selling author. He is most recognized for developing many software design principles and for being a founder of the influential Agile Manifesto.


title: Robert C. Martin

text: Martin has authored many books and magazine articles. He was the editor-in-chief of "C++ Report" magazine and served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.


title: Robert C. Martin

text: In 1991, Martin founded Object Mentor, now defunct, which provided instructor-led training on the extreme programming methodology. , he operated two companies:


title: Robert C. Martin

text: Five of Martin's principles have become known collectively as the "SOLID principles". Though he invented most of the principles he promotes, the Liskov substitution principle was invented by Barbara Liskov, while the open–closed principle was invented by Bertrand Meyer.