title: North-West Rebellion

text: Despite some notable early victories at Duck Lake, Fish Creek, and Cut Knife, the resistance was quashed when overwhelming government forces and a critical shortage of supplies brought about the Métis' defeat in the four-day Battle of Batoche. The remaining Aboriginal allies scattered. Several chiefs were captured, and some served prison time. Eight men were hanged in Canada's largest mass hanging, for murders performed outside the military conflict.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Riel was captured, put on trial, and convicted of treason. Despite many pleas across Canada for clemency, he was hanged. Riel became a heroic martyr to Francophone Canada. That was one cause for the rise of ethnic tensions into a deep division, whose repercussions continue to be felt. The suppression of the conflict contributed to the present reality of the Prairie Provinces being controlled by English speakers, who allowed only a very limited francophone presence, and helped cause the alienation of French Canadians, who were embittered by the repression of their countrymen. The key role that the Canadian Pacific Railway played in transporting troops caused support by the Conservative government to increase, and Parliament authorized funds to complete the country's first transcontinental railway.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The conflict is referred to by several names, including the "North-West Rebellion", the "North-West Resistance", the "1885 Resistance", the "Northwest Uprising", the "Saskatchewan Rebellion", and the "Second Riel Rebellion". The conflict, in addition to the Red River Rebellion, was collectively referred to as the "Riel Rebellions".


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Although the terms "rebellion" and "resistance" can be used synonymously, its use in relation to this conflict has been a subject of debate, with some academics arguing the usage of one term changes the perspective of how the conflict is understood. As a result, Indigenous studies scholars and many historians refer to Indigenous uprisings in reaction to European colonization as resistances; owing to the fact that many Indigenous nations self-governed the land before the Canadian government exerted their sovereignty over it. Use of the term resistance has also spread to other organizations and publications, including "Canadian Geographic", "The Canadian Encyclopedia", and the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: After the Red River Resistance of 1869–1870, many of the Métis moved from Manitoba to the Fort Carlton region of the North-West Territories, where they founded the Southbranch settlements of Fish Creek, Batoche, St. Laurent, St. Louis, and Duck Lake on or near the South Saskatchewan River. In 1882, surveyors began dividing the land of the newly formed District of Saskatchewan in the square concession system. The Métis lands were laid out in the seigneurial system of strips reaching back from a river which the Métis were familiar with in their French-Canadian culture. A year after the survey the 36 families of the parish of St. Louis found that their land and village site that included a church and a school (in Township 45, Range 7 west of the 2nd Meridian of the Dominion Land Survey) had been sold by the Crown to the Prince Albert Colonization Company. Not having clear title, the Métis feared losing their land which, now that the buffalo herds were gone, was their primary source of sustenance.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: In 1884, the Métis (including the Anglo-Métis) asked Louis Riel to return from the United States, where he had fled after the Red River Resistance, to appeal to the government on their behalf. The government gave a vague response. In March 1885, Riel, Gabriel Dumont, Honoré Jackson (a.k.a. Will Jackson), and others set up the Provisional Government of Saskatchewan, believing that they could influence the federal government in the same way as they had in 1869.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The role of aboriginal peoples prior to—and during—the outbreak of the conflict is often misunderstood. A number of factors have created the misconception that the Cree and Métis were acting in unison. By the end of the 1870s, the stage was set for discontent among the aboriginal people of the prairies: the bison population was in serious decline (creating enormous economic difficulties) and, in an attempt to assert control over aboriginal settlement, the federal government often violated the terms of the treaties it had signed during the latter part of the decade. Thus, widespread dissatisfaction with the treaties and rampant poverty spurred Big Bear, a Cree chief, to embark on a diplomatic campaign to renegotiate the terms of the treaties (the timing of this campaign happened to coincide with an increased sense of frustration among the Métis). When the Cree initiated violence in the spring of 1885, it was almost certainly unrelated to the revolt of Riel and the Métis (which was already underway). In both the Frog Lake Massacre and the Looting of Battleford, small dissident groups of Cree men revolted against the authority of Big Bear and Poundmaker.</ref> Although he quietly signalled to Ottawa that these two incidents were the result of desperate and starving people and were, as such, unrelated to the conflict, Edgar Dewdney, the lieutenant-governor of the territories, publicly claimed that the Cree and the Métis had joined forces.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: For Riel and the Métis, several factors had changed since the Red River Resistance. The railway had been completed across the prairies in 1883, though sections were still under construction north of Lake Superior, making it easier for the government to get troops into the area. In addition, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) had been created, developing an armed local force. Riel lacked support from English settlers of the area as well as the great majority of tribes. Riel's claim that God had sent him back to Canada as a prophet caused Catholic officials (who saw it as heresy) to try to minimize his support. The Catholic priest, Albert Lacombe, worked to obtain assurances from Crowfoot that his Blackfoot warriors would not participate in a conflict.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The District of Saskatchewan, part of the Northwest Territories in 1885, was divided into three sub-districts and had a population of 10,595. To the east, the Carrot River sub-district with 1,770 people remained quiet. The Prince Albert sub-district located in the centre of the district had a population of 5,373 which included the Southbranch settlements with about 1,300. The South branch settlement was the centre of Louis Riel's Provisional Government of Saskatchewan during the conflict. To the west, where the Cree uprising led by Poundmaker and Big Bear occurred, was the Battleford sub-district with 3,603 people.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The largest settlement and the capital of the district was Prince Albert with about 800 people followed by Battleford with about 500 people who were "divided about equally between French, Métis and English".


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The Métis population in Saskatchewan in 1885 was about 5,400. A majority tried to stay neutral in the dispute with the national government, as the priests recommended. About 350 armed men supported Riel. A smaller number opposed him, led by Charles Nolin. In addition, he had the support of a small number of members of First Nations. Riel's supporters included the older, less assimilated Métis, often with close associations with the First Nations population. Many moved back and forth into First Nations communities and preferred to speak Indigenous languages more than French. Riel's opponents were younger, better educated Métis; they wanted to be more integrated into Canadian society, not to set up a separate domain as Riel promised.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Riel had been invited in to lead the movement but he turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone, thereby alienating the Catholic clergy, the whites, nearly all of the First Nations, and most of the Métis. He had a force of a couple hundred Métis and a smaller number of First Nations at Batoche in May 1885, confronting 900 government troops.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On March 26, 1885, the 150 to 200 Métis and Aboriginal warriors under the command of Gabriel Dumont defeated a combined group of 90 Prince Albert Volunteers and North-West Mounted Police led by their superintendent Leif Newry Fitzroy Crozier at Battle of Duck Lake, outside Batoche. The federal government had, shortly before the battle at Duck Lake, sent Major General Frederick Middleton to the West. Eventually, over a period of many weeks, Middleton brought 3,000 troops to the West, and incorporated another 2,000, mostly English-Canadian volunteers, and 500 North-West Mounted Police into his force.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On March 30, 1885, a raiding party of Cree people, short of food due to declining bison populations, approached Battleford. The inhabitants fled to the nearby North-West Mounted Police post, Fort Battleford. The Cree then took food and supplies from the empty stores and houses. As well, Cree insurgents looted Hudson's Bay Company posts at Lac la Biche and Green Lake on April 26.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On April 2, 1885, at Frog Lake, Saskatchewan (now in Alberta) a Cree raiding party led by Cree war chief, Wandering Spirit, attacked the small town. Angered by what seemed to be unfair treaties and the withholding of vital provisions by the Canadian government, and also by the dwindling buffalo population, their main source of food, Big Bear and his Cree decided to rebel after the successful Métis victory at Duck Lake. They gathered all the white settlers in the area into the local church. They killed Thomas Quinn, the town's Indian agent, after a disagreement broke out. The Cree then attacked the settlers, killing eight more and taking three captive.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The massacre prompted the Canadian government to take notice of the growing unrest in the North-West Territories. When the rebellion was put down, the government hanged Wandering Spirit, the war chief responsible for the Frog Lake Massacre.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On April 15, 1885, 200 Cree warriors descended on Fort Pitt. They intercepted a police scouting party, killing a constable, wounding another, and captured a third. Surrounded and outnumbered, garrison commander Francis Dickens capitulated and agreed to negotiate with the attackers. Big Bear released the remaining police officers but kept the townspeople as hostages and destroyed the fort. Six days later, Inspector Dickens and his men reached safety at Battleford.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Recognizing that an uprising might be imminent, the federal government had, three days before Duck Lake, sent Major General Frederick Middleton, the commander of the Canadian Militia, to Winnipeg, where a unit of militia, the 90th Winnipeg Rifles, and of militia artillery, the Winnipeg Field Battery, already existed. After Duck Lake, the government immediately commenced the mobilization of some of Canada's ill-equipped part-time militia units (the Non-Permanent Active Militia), as well as the units of cavalry, artillery and infantry regulars that made up the tiny Permanent Active Militia, Canada's almost-nonexistent regular army. By March 30, after hasty mobilization in Toronto, two trains containing the 10th Royal Grenadiers and Queen's Own Rifles militia battalions were ready to leave Toronto. Other militia units, the 9th Voltigeurs from Quebec City, and the 65th Mount Royal Rifles from Montreal, were also quickly mobilized. Soon every major city in the East was the scene of embarkation for inexperienced young militiamen cheered by immense crowds.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The first militia to struggle westward had to contend with the many lengthy breaks in the CPR line in northern Ontario. They marched through snow, or were carried in exposed sleighs. Where there were short stretches of track, the militia rode on hastily-constructed railroad flatcars which did nothing to shelter them from the extreme cold. Many of the soldiers suffered greatly from the winter weather. However, the first troops sent west were, in succeeding weeks, followed by thousands more.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On April 24, 1885, at Fish Creek, Saskatchewan, 200 Métis achieved a remarkable victory over a superior government force numbering 900 soldiers who were sent to quell the conflict. The reversal, though not decisive enough to alter the outcome of the war, temporarily halted Major General Frederick Middleton's column's advance on Batoche. That was where the Métis would later make their final stand.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On May 2, 1885, the Cree war chief Fine-Day successfully held off Lieutenant Colonel William Otter at the Battle of Cut Knife near Battleford. Despite its use of a gatling gun, a flying column of Canadian militia was forced to retreat. Fine-Day was affiliated with the chief Poundmaker. Big Bear did not get involved.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: On May 9, 1885, Middleton attacked Batoche itself. The greatly outnumbered Métis ran out of ammunition after three days of battle and siege. The Métis resorted to firing sharp objects and small rocks from their guns, until they were killed or dispersed when Middleton's soldiers advanced in strength and overran their rifle pits. Riel surrendered on May 15. Gabriel Dumont and other participants escaped across the border to the Montana Territory of the United States. The defeat of the Métis and Riel's capture led to the collapse of the Provisional Government.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: But the downfall of Batoche did not end the separate conflict with the Cree. By May 28, 1885, Major General Thomas Bland Strange brought a force of militia, including a NWMP detachment, from Calgary, Alberta, into contact with a fleeing Cree force under Big Bear. The Native fighters carried the day at Frenchman's Butte in a battle at the end of May.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The last armed engagement in the conflict was the Battle of Loon Lake. On June 3, 1885, a small detachment of NWMP under the command of Major Sam Steele caught up to Big Bear's force which was moving northward after their victory at Frenchman's Butte. Big Bear's fighters were almost out of ammunition, and fled after a short exchange of fire and the release of their hostages.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Demoralized, defenceless, and with no hope of relief after Poundmaker's defeat, most of Big Bear's fighters surrendered over the next few weeks. On July 2 Big Bear surrendered to the NWMP on an island in the Saskatchewan River near Fort Carlton. The government addressed the critical food shortage of the Cree and Assiniboine by sending food and other supplies. Poundmaker and Big Bear were sentenced to prison. Eight others were hanged in the largest mass hanging in Canadian history. These men, found guilty of killing outside of the military conflict, were Wandering Spirit, (Kapapamahchakwew) a Plains Cree war chief, Little Bear (Apaschiskoos), Walking the Sky (AKA Round the Sky), Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Ika (AKA Crooked Leg) and Man Without Blood, for murders committed at Frog Lake and at Battleford (the murders of Farm Instructor Payne and Battleford farmer Barney Tremont).


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The trial of Louis Riel occurred shortly after the resistance, where he was found guilty of high treason, and hanged. His trial sparked a national controversy between English and French Canada.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) played a key role in the government's response to the conflict, as it was able to transport federal troops to the area quickly. While it had taken three months to get troops to the Red River Rebellion, the government was able to move forces in nine days by train in response to events in the North-West Territories. The successful operation increased political support for the floundering and incomplete railway, which had been close to financial collapse. The government authorized enough funds to finish the line. Thus, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was able to realize his National Dream of linking Canada across the continent.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: After the fighting, new Territorial Council ridings were created, although still only covering specific areas of concentrated settlement. The North-West Territories election of 1885 was held. The Scrip Commission was dispatched to the District of Saskatchewan and to present-day Alberta to address Métis land claims.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The conflict was Canada's first independent military action. It cost about $5 million, and lost the Conservative Party most of their support in Quebec. It guaranteed Anglophone control of the Prairies, and demonstrated the national government was capable of decisive action. Those who served with the Militia and Police during the conflict received the North West Canada Medal, established in September 1885.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: While the conflict was ongoing, the American and British press took note of the actions of both the Métis and the Canadian Government. Some newspapers, such as the "Times" and "Guardian", wrote approvingly of the actions taken by the Canadian government.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The Saskatchewan Métis requested land grants; they were all provided by the government by the end of 1887, and the government resurveyed the Métis river lots in accordance with their wishes. The Métis did not understand the long term value of their new land, however, and sold much of it to speculators who later resold it to farmers. The French language and Catholic religion faced increasing marginalisation in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as exemplified by the emerging controversy surrounding the Manitoba Schools Question. The Métis were increasingly forced to live on undesirable land or in the shadow of Indian reserves (as the Métis did not have treaty status as Indians with a right to land).


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Riel's trial and Macdonald's refusal to commute his sentence caused lasting upset in Quebec, and led to a fundamental francophone distrust of Anglophone politicians. French Canada felt it had been unfairly targeted.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck Lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Rebellion is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today."


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Batoche, where a Métis Provisional Government had been formed, has been declared a National Historic Site. Batoche marks the site of Gabriel Dumont's grave site, Albert Caron's House, Batoche school, Batoche cemetery, Letendre store, Dumont's river crossing, Gariépy's crossing, Batoche crossing, St. Antoine de Padoue Church, Métis rifle pits, and RNWMP battle camp.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Fort Carlton Provincial Historic site has been rebuilt as it had been ravaged by three separate fires. Big Bear (Mistahimaskwa) had used the site in his initial negotiations for Treaty Six in about 1884, and finally, the following year he surrendered here after his engagement at Steele Narrows. The Prince Albert blockhouse was employed by the North-West Mounted Police on evacuating from Fort Carlton after the first fire. Duck Lake is home to the Duck Lake Historical Museum and the Duck Lake Regional Interpretive Centre, and murals which reflect the history of the conflict in the area. The Battle of Duck Lake, the Duck Lake Massacre, and a buffalo jump are all located here. The "First Shots Cairn" was erected on Saskatchewan Highway 212 as a landmark commemorating the scene of the first shots in the Battle of Duck Lake. The Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine at St. Laurent north of Duck Lake is a local pilgrimage site. The Battle of Fish Creek National Historic Site, the name has been changed to Tourond's Coulee / Fish Creek National Historic Site to preserve the battlefield of April 24, 1885, at "la coulée des Tourond", Madame Tourond's home, early Red River cart Fish Creek Trail and the site of Middleton's camp and graveyard.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The Marr Residence is a municipal heritage property of Saskatoon which served as a field hospital for wounded soldiers during the conflict. Fort Otter was constructed at Battleford's government house located at the capital of the North-West Territories. Poundmaker was arrested at Fort Battleford and sentenced to a prison term. Eight First Nations men were hanged, five due to participation in the Frog Lake Massacre, two for murders in the Battleford area, and one for the killing of a Mountie at Fort Pitt on April 15. Fort Battleford has been declared a National Historic site of Canada to commemorate its role as military base of operations for Cut Knife Hill, Fort Pitt, as a refuge for 500 area settlers and its role in the Siege of Battleford. Fort Pitt, the scene of the Battle of Fort Pitt, is a Provincial Park and National Historic site where a National Historic Sites and Monuments plaque designates where Treaty Six was signed. Frog Lake Massacre National Historic Site of Canada, at Frog Lake, Alberta, is the location of a Cree uprising that occurred in the District of Saskatchewan North-west Territories. Frenchman Butte is a National Historic Site of Canada. It is the location of an 1885 battle between Cree and Canadian troops.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: At Cutknife is the world's largest tomahawk, the Poundmaker Historical Centre and Big Bear monument erected by cairn erected by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. There is also now, correctly located, a cairn erected upon Cut Knife Hill the look site of the Poundmaker Battle site and Battle River valley. The Narrows between Makwa Lake and Sanderson Bay, in the Makwa Lake Provincial Park, was the site of the last engagement of the conflict. Steele Narrows Provincial Historic Park conserves the lookout point of a Cree burial ground. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police training depot at Regina was established in 1874, and still survives. The RCMP chapel, a frame building built in 1885, is still standing. It was used to jail Indian prisoners. One of three Territorial Government Buildings remains on Dewdney Avenue in the provincial capital city of Regina which was the site of the Trial of Louis Riel, where the drama the "Trial of Louis Riel" is still performed. Following the May trial, Louis Riel was hanged November 16, 1885. The RCMP Heritage Centre, in Regina, opened in May 2007. The Métis brought his body to Saint-Vital, his mother's home, now the Riel House National Historic Site, and then interred it at the Saint-Boniface Basilica in Manitoba, his birthplace, for burial. Highway 11, stretching from Regina to just south of Prince Albert, has been named "Louis Riel Trail" by the province; the roadway passes near locations of the conflict.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The members of the Canadian Militia are commemorated through a number of memorials in Canada, including the North-West Rebellion Monument in Queen's Park, in Toronto, Ontario, and The Volunteer Monument in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A statue for Wm. B. Osgoode and John Rogers, who fell in action at Cutknife Hill, also stands at the Cartier Square Drill Hall, in Ottawa, Ontario.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: A 2004 University of Saskatchewan MA thesis said that even though the 1885 North-West Rebellion was "one of the most-written about events in Canadian history", the historiography of the rebellion underestimated the significance and long lasting impact of the rebellion. The writers of these histories were white males who presented the events from a Euro-Canadian perspective. Historians largely overlooked the impact of the rebellion on residents of the region while focusing on the "territorial and national repercussions". In a literature review, the author said that historians had focused on the military aspects of the event. Publications about the event in first five decades following the rebellion, were mainly memoirs by white men who had participated in the conflictsoldiers and the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) or Hudson Bay Company (HBC) employees and factors. Most of the former knew little about the region as they were there for a very short period of time and they wrote their memoires years after the rebellion. The HBC employees spent more time in the region and were more knowledgeable. Academic historians also focused on leaders such as General Middleton, Louis Riel, Big Bear, and Poundmaker. Others traced the roots of the rebellion and its causes.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Arthur Silver Morton, who was the University of Saskatchewan's first librarian, compiled many of the original manuscripts, transcripts, and photographs related to the Northwest Resistance of 1885 that were made available in 1995 as part of project funded by Industry Canada in 1995.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Canadian historian George Stanley conducted research on Louis Riel and the North-West Rebellion in the 1930s while completing his postgraduate degrees at Oxford University, where he published his 1936 book "The Birth of Western Canada: A History of The Riel Rebellion". For more than five decades Stanley's 1936 "The Birth of Western Canada" was reprinted and used as a textbook. Stanley's 1936 book and the 1972 book published by his student Desmond Morton"The last war drum: the North West campaign of 1885" informed North-West Rebellion encyclopedia entries in the "Canadian Encyclopedia" and "Encyclopedia Britannica". Stanley focused on the "racial aspects of the rebellion" and was the first English-Canadian scholar to do so. He demonstrated empathy with the plight of the Metis and First Nations, although in hindsight his work would now be described by many as both "racist and close-minded". Until the early 2000s, Stanley's served as the foundational text book providing the accepted narrative on the events.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: The next major academic work to treat the "rebellion as a whole" since Stanley's, was the 1984 publication "Prairie Fire: The 1885 North-West Rebellion" by historian Bob Beal and journalist Rod Macleod. They downplayed the event as local with "no real legacy of bitterness in the West". They describe it as an incident during the white settlers' occupation of the North-West Territories and government's imposition of their laws on the indigenous population.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: In the centenary of the 1885 Rebellion, a conference entitled "1885 and After: Native Society in Transition" was held in May at the University of Saskatchewan. During the centenary, a number of articles and books were published on the topic including the five-volume "The Collected Writings of Louis Riel" by Stanley, Raymond Huel, Gilles Martel, and University of Calgary-based political scientist, Thomas Flanagan, and Flanagan's "Riel and the Rebellion: 1885 Reconsidered." Flanagan spent much of his academic career focusing on issues related to the Métis and Louis Riel. Since the 1970s Tom Flanagan published numerous scholarly studies "debunking the heroism of Métis icon Louis Riel, arguing against native land claims, and calling for an end to aboriginal rights." He served as consultant and expert witness in multiple litigations related to land claims, including Métis land claims and aboriginal collective rights. He was highly critical of the way in which section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, acknowledged existing aboriginal and treaty rights resulting in a flood of law suits involving aboriginal, treaty rights, Metis land claims and residential school claims.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: In his 1987 publication, "Footprints in the Dust", Douglas Light, focused on the local history of the region incorporating Métis and First Nation perspectives on events including accounts of everyday life. This was described as a "valuable and distinctive contribution to rebellion historiography".


title: North-West Rebellion

text: At the University of Saskatchewan, Alan Anderson prepared a report on French Settlements in Saskatchewan which informed relevant content in the online "Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan" published in 2006 by the University of Regina's Canadian Plains Research Center.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: J.R.Miller's 1989 "Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens" was described in a 2021 "British Journal of Canadian Studies" article as the "first overall survey of Aboriginal–newcomer history in Canada". Miller "consistently highlighted the Aboriginal perspective". By 2018, when the book was reprinted for the fourth time, the relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers had evolved further driven by priorities, economic opportunities, collective action on the part of Indigenous communities, and changes in governments at the federal, provincial and territorial levels. Miller says that early relations between Indigenous people and Euro-Canadian were characterised by a mutuality and collaboration, with each remaining autonomous, especially in trading relationships and as military allies. Miller says that this mutuality "held good for far longer than white historiography has tended to see. The mutuality collapsed through competition for resources particularly as agricultural settlers arrived in increasing numbers. In his chapter on the rebellion, Miller says that the way histories about the conflict have been written are based on "a great deal of misunderstanding and myth-making" and that there was no Indian rebellion in 1885.


title: North-West Rebellion

text: Lawrence J. Barkwell's 2005 book "Batoche 1885: The Militia of the Metis Liberation Movement" was his first publication of biographies of participants in the Metis resistance. Barkwell is also the author of the 2011 305-page book "Veterans and Families of the 1885 Northwest Resistance". He updated his "1885 Northwest Resistance Movement Biographies" in 2018 which lists the men and women who participated in the 1885 Northwest Resistance. Barwell's research, which is published by the Gabriel Dumont Institutean affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina"provides a more human face" to the 1885 Resistance."


title: I Couldn't Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job.

text: , also known in its short form as Yu-Shibu, is a Japanese light novel series written by Jun Sakyou and illustrated by Masaki Inuzumi. The series was awarded Gold in the 23rd Fantasia Awards. An anime adaptation by Asread aired from October to December 2013.


text: The story revolves around a young man named Raul Chaser who dreamed of becoming a hero with his team of skilled heroes-in-training, but due to the collapse of the Demon Empire, the Hero Program was suspended. With Raul's dream crushed, he was forced to find a new line of work and ended up employed at a small department store called Magic Shop Leon. Raul's life since then has been busy but dull, when one day someone arrives at the store applying for a job. Raul finds out that the new hire is the Demon Lord's child and also happens to be a cute girl.


text: The light novels are written by Jun Sakyou, and illustrated by Masaki Inuzumi. It was published by Fujimi Shobo. Its original run began on January 20, 2012, and finished on July 20, 2014, with 10 total volumes.


text: The anime television series aired in Japan from October 5 to December 21, 2013. It was produced by Asread and directed by Kinji Yoshimoto, with Masashi Suzuki handling series composition and writing the scripts, Tetsuya Takeuchi designing the characters and Hiroaki Tsutsumi and Masaru Yokoyama composing the music. There are a total of 12 episodes + 1 OVA overall.


title: Color grading

text: Color grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of altering the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, color, saturation, detail, black level, and white balance may be enhanced whether for motion pictures, videos, or still images. Color grading and color correction are often used synonymously as terms for this process and can include the generation of artistic color effects through creative blending and compositing of different layer masks of the source image. Color grading is generally now performed in a digital process either in a controlled environment such as a color suite, and is usually done in a dim or dark environment.


title: Color grading

text: The earlier photochemical film process, referred to as color timing, was performed at a film lab during printing by varying the intensity and color of light used to expose the rephotographed image. Since, with this process alone, the user was unable to immediately view the outcome of their changes, the use of a Hazeltine color analyzer was common for viewing these modifications in real time.


title: Color grading

text: Color timing is used in reproducing film elements. "Color grading" was originally a lab term for the process of changing color appearance in film reproduction when going to the answer print or release print in the film reproduction chain. By the late 2010s, this film grading technique had become known as "color timing" and still involved changing the duration of exposure through different filters during the film development process. Color timing is specified in printer points which represent presets in a lab contact printer where 7 to 12 printer points represent one stop of light. The number of points per stop varied based upon negative or print stock and different presets at film labs.


title: Color grading

text: In a film production, the creative team would meet with the “lab timer” who would watch a running film and make notes dependent upon the team's directions. After the session, the timer would return to the lab and put the film negative on a device (the Hazeltine) which had preview filters with a controlled backlight, picking exact settings of each printer point for each scene. These settings were then punched onto a paper tape and fed to the high-speed printer where the negative was exposed through a backlight to a print stock. Filter settings were changed on the fly to match the printer lights that were on the paper tape. For complex work such as visual effects shots, "wedges” running through combinations of filters were sometimes processed to aid the choice of the correct grading.


title: Color grading

text: With the advent of television, broadcasters quickly realised the limitations of live television broadcasts and they turned to broadcasting feature films from release prints directly from a telecine. This was before 1956 when Ampex introduced the first Quadruplex videotape recorder (VTR) VRX-1000. Live television shows could also be recorded to film and aired at different times in different time zones by filming a video monitor. The heart of this system was the "kinescope", a device for recording a television broadcast to film.


title: Color grading

text: The early telecine hardware was the "film chain" for broadcasting from film and utilized a film projector connected to a video camera. As explained by Jay Holben in "American Cinematographer Magazine", "The telecine didn't truly become a viable post-production tool until it was given the ability to perform colour correction on a video signal."


title: Color grading

text: In a cathode-ray tube (CRT) system, an electron beam is projected at a phosphor-coated envelope, producing a spot of light the size of a single pixel. This beam is then scanned across a film frame from left to right, capturing the "vertical" frame information. Horizontal scanning of the frame is then accomplished as the film moves past the CRT's beam. Once this photon beam passes through the film frame, it encounters a series of dichroic mirrors which separate the image into its primary red, green and blue components. From there, each individual beam is reflected onto a photomultiplier tube (PMT) where the photons are converted into an electronic signal to be recorded to tape.


title: Color grading

text: In a charge-coupled device (CCD) telecine, a white light is shone through the exposed film image onto a prism, which separates the image into the three primary colors, red, green and blue. Each beam of colored light is then projected at a different CCD, one for each color. The CCD converts the light into an electronic signal, and the telecine electronics modulate these into a video signal that can then be color graded.


title: Color grading

text: Early color correction on Rank Cintel MkIII CRT telecine systems was accomplished by varying the primary gain voltages on each of the three photomultiplier tubes to vary the output of red, green and blue. Further advancements converted much of the color-processing equipment from analog to digital and then, with the next-generation telecine, the Ursa, the coloring process was completely digital in the 4:2:2 color space. The Ursa Gold brought about color grading in the full 4:4:4 color space.


title: Color grading

text: Color correction control systems started with the Rank Cintel TOPSY (Telecine Operations Programming SYstem) in 1978. In 1984 Da Vinci Systems introduced their first color corrector, a computer-controlled interface that would manipulate the color voltages on the Rank Cintel MkIII systems. Since then, technology has improved to give extraordinary power to the digital colorist. Today there are many companies making color correction control interfaces including Da Vinci Systems, Pandora International, Pogle and more.


title: Color grading

text: Note that some of these functions must be prioritized over others; for example, color grading may be done to ensure that the recorded colors match those of the original scene, whereas other times, the goal may instead be to establish a very artificial stylized look.


title: Color grading

text: Traditionally, color grading was done towards practical goals. For example, in the film "Marianne", grading was used so that night scenes could be filmed more cheaply in daylight. Secondary color grading was originally used to establish color continuity; however, the trend today is increasingly moving towards creative goals such as improving the aesthetics of an image, establishing stylized looks, and setting the mood of a scene through color. Due to this trend, some colorists suggest the phrase "color enhancement" over "color correction".


title: Color grading

text: Primary color grading affects the whole image by providing control over the color density curves of red, green, blue color channels, across the entire frame. Secondary grading can isolate a range of hue, saturation and brightness values to bring about alterations in hue, saturation and luminance only in that range, allowing the grading of secondary colors, while having a minimal or usually no effect on the remainder of the color spectrum. Using digital grading, objects and color ranges within a scene can be isolated with precision and adjusted. Color tints can be manipulated and visual treatments pushed to extremes not physically possible with laboratory processing. With these advancements, the color grading process has become increasingly similar to well-established digital painting techniques, ushering forth a new era of digital cinematography.


title: Color grading

text: The evolution of digital color grading tools has advanced to the point where the colorist can use geometric shapes (such as mattes or masks in photo software such as Adobe Photoshop) to isolate color adjustments to specific areas of an image. These tools can highlight a wall in the background and color only that wall, leaving the rest of the frame alone, or color everything but that wall. Subsequent color grading tools (typically software-based) have the ability to use spline-based shapes for even greater control over isolating color adjustments. Color keying is also used for isolating areas to adjust.


title: Color grading

text: Inside and outside of area-based isolations, digital filtration can be applied to soften, sharpen or mimic the effects of traditional glass photographic filters.


title: Color grading

text: When trying to isolate a color adjustment on a moving subject, the colorist traditionally would manually move a mask to follow the subject. In its most simple form, motion tracking software automates this time-consuming process using algorithms to evaluate the motion of a group of pixels. These techniques are generally derived from match moving techniques used in special effects and compositing work.


title: Color grading

text: The evolution of the telecine device into film scanning allowed the digital information scanned from a film negative to be of sufficient resolution to transfer back to film. In the early 1990s, Kodak developed the Cineon Film System to capture, manipulate, and record back to film and they called this the “Digital Intermediate”. This term stuck. The first digital intermediate of any form was the Cinesite restoration of “"Snow White and The Seven Dwarves"” in 1993. (Previously, in 1990, for "Rescuers Down Under", the Disney CAPS system had been used to scan artwork, color and composite it, and then record it to film, but this was also intermixed with a traditional lab development process over a length of time]


title: Color grading

text: In the late 1990s, the films "Pleasantville" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" advanced the technology to the point that the creation of a digital intermediate was practical, which greatly expanded the capabilities of the digital telecine colorist in a traditionally film-oriented world. Since 2010, almost all feature films have gone through the DI process, while manipulation through photochemical processing is rare or used on archival films.


title: Color grading

text: In Hollywood, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" was the first film to be wholly digitally graded. The negative was scanned with a Spirit DataCine at 2K resolution, then colors were digitally fine-tuned using a Pandora MegaDef color corrector on a Virtual DataCine. The process took several weeks, and the resulting digital master was output to film again with a Kodak laser recorder to create a master internegative.


title: Color grading

text: Modern motion picture processing typically uses both digital cameras and digital projectors. Calibrated devices are most commonly used to maintain a consistent appearance within the workflow.


title: Color grading

text: In early use, hardware-based systems (da Vinci 2K, Pandora International MegaDEF, etc.) have historically offered better performance but a smaller feature set than software-based systems. Their real time performance was optimized to particular resolution and bit depths, as opposed to software platforms using standard computer industry hardware that often trade speed for resolution independence, e.g. Apple's Color (previously Silicon Color Final Touch), ASSIMILATE SCRATCH, Adobe SpeedGrade and SGO Mistika. While hardware-based systems always offer real-time performance, some software-based systems need to pre-render as the complexity of the color grading increases. On the other hand, software-based systems tend to have more features such as spline-based windows/masks and advanced motion tracking.


title: Color grading

text: The line between hardware and software no longer exists as many software-based color correctors (e.g. Pablo , Mistika, SCRATCH, Autodesk Lustre, Nucoda Film Master and FilmLight's Baselight) use multi processor workstations and a GPU (graphics processing unit) as a means of hardware acceleration. As well, some newer software-based systems use a cluster of multiple parallel GPUs on the one computer system to improve performance at the very high resolutions required for feature film grading. e.g. Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve. Some color grading software like Synthetic Aperture's Color Finesse runs solely as software and will even run on low-end computer systems. High-speed RAID arrays are an essential part of the process for all systems.


title: Color grading

text: Hardware systems are no longer common because of the price/performance of software systems. The control panels are placed in a color suite for the colorist to operate the telecine remotely.


title: Color grading

text: In 2016, an international professional organization for film colorists, the Colorist Society International, was founded at the NAB Show in Las Vegas.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The Red Balloon () is a 1956 French fantasy comedy-drama featurette written, produced, and directed by Albert Lamorisse. The thirty-four-minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient, mute, red balloon, was filmed in the Ménilmontant neighbourhood of Paris.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Lamorisse used his children as actors in the film. His son, Pascal, plays himself in the main role, and his daughter, Sabine, portrays a young girl.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film won numerous awards, including an Oscar for Lamorisse for writing the Best Original Screenplay in 1956 and the Palme d'Or for short films at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. It also became popular with children and educators. It is the only short film to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film follows Pascal (Pascal Lamorisse), a young boy who, on his way to school one morning, discovers a large helium-filled red balloon. As he plays with it, he realizes it has a mind and will of its own. It begins to follow him wherever he goes, never straying far from him, and at times floating outside his apartment window, as his mother will not allow it inside.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The balloon follows Pascal through the streets of Paris, and they draw a lot of attention and envy from other children as they wander the streets. At one point the balloon enters his classroom, causing an uproar from his classmates. That alerts the principal, who locks Pascal up inside his office. Later, after being set free, Pascal and the balloon encounter a young girl (Sabine Lamorisse) with a blue balloon that also seems to have a mind of its own, just like his.


title: The Red Balloon

text: One Sunday, the balloon is told to stay home while Pascal and his mother go to church. However, it follows them through the open window and into the church, and they are led out by a scolding beadle.


title: The Red Balloon

text: As Pascal and the balloon wander around the neighborhood, a gang of older boys, who are envious of the balloon, steal it while Pascal is inside a bakery, however, he manages to retrieve it. Following a chase through narrow alleyways, the boys finally catch up to them. They hold Pascal back as they bring the balloon down with sling shots and stones before one of them destroys it by stomping on it.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film ends as all the other balloons in Paris come to Pascal's aid and take him on a cluster balloon ride over the city.


title: The Red Balloon

text: As the film was filmed in Paris after World War II, its mise-en-scène is quite dark and grey and therefore gives a depressing quality to the setting and mood. In contrast, the balloon's bright color acts as a symbol of hope and light within the film. The cluster balloon ride in the closing scene could also be said to represent a religious or spiritual analogy. For example, when the balloon is destroyed, its "spirit" lives on as it is transferred to all the other balloons in the city, which is said to be a metaphor for Christ. Themes of self-realisation and loneliness are also present in the film.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The theme of innocence is persistent and is one of the main focuses of the film. Through a child's gaze, a cynical world is transformed into an almost magical one, highlighting the power of the innocence and imagination of children.


title: The Red Balloon

text: In addition, authors such as Myles P. Breen have identified the film as having thematic/stylistic qualities that are reflective of the poetic medium. This perspective is rationalised by Breen through quoting film theorist Christian Metz, who states, “in a poem there is no story line, and nothing intrudes between the author and the reader”. The film, therefore, is categorised by Breen as being a filmic poem, partially due to its loose, non-narrative structure.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film serves as a color record of the Belleville area of Paris, which had fallen into decay by the 1960s, prompting the Parisian government to demolish it as a slum-clearance effort. Part of the site was built up with housing projects; the remainder was left as wasteland for 20 years. Some of what is seen in the film no longer exists: one of the bakeries, the school, the famous shaped staircase situated just beyond the equally famous café "Au Repos de la Montagne", the steep steps of the passage Julien Lacroix where Pascal finds the balloon, and the empty lot where all the battles take place. Instead stands the Parc de Belleville. The apartment where Pascal lives with his mother, located at 15, rue du Transvaal, the church, known as the Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix de Ménilmontant, and the bus stop Pyrénées-Ménilmontant, located at the intersection of rue des Pyrénées and rue de Ménilmontant, still stand.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Albert Lamorrise was a former auditor at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC), and the crew that he used for the making of the film was entirely composed of IDHEC graduates.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The main role is played by Albert Lamorrisse's son, Pascal. French singer Renaud and his brother play the twin brothers who appear at the end of the film, wearing red coats. They got the role through their uncle, Edmond Séchan, who was the director of photography for the film.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film premiered and opened nationwide in France on 19 October 1956; it was released in the United Kingdom on 23 December 1956 (as the supporting film to the 1956 Royal Performance Film "The Battle of the River Plate", which ensured it a wide distribution) and in the United States on 11 March 1957.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film has been featured in many festivals over the years, including the Wisconsin International Children's Film Festival; the Los Angeles Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; the Wisconsin Film Festival; and others.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film, in its American television premiere, was introduced by then-actor Ronald Reagan as an episode of the CBS anthology series "General Electric Theater" on 2 April 1961.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, the film was popular in elementary classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. A four-minute clip is on the rotating list of programming on Classic Arts Showcase.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Since its first release in 1956, the film has generally received overwhelmingly favorable reviews from critics. The film critic for "the New York Times", Bosley Crowther, hailed the simple tale and praised director Lamorisse, writing: "Yet with the sensitive cooperation of his own beguiling son and with the gray-blue atmosphere of an old Paris quarter as the background for the shiny balloon, he has got here a tender, humorous drama of the ingenuousness of a child and, indeed, a poignant symbolization of dreams and the cruelty of those who puncture them."


title: The Red Balloon

text: When the film was re-released in the United States in late 2006 by Janus Films, "Entertainment Weekly" magazine film critic Owen Gleiberman praised its direction and simple story line that reminded him of his youth, and wrote: "More than any other children's film, "The Red Balloon" turns me into a kid again whenever I see it...[to] see "The Red Balloon" is to laugh, and cry, at the impossible joy of being a child again."


title: The Red Balloon

text: Film critic Brian Gibson wrote: "So far, this seems a post-Occupation France happy to forget the blood and death of Adolf Hitler's war a decade earlier. But soon people’s occasional, playful efforts to grab the floating, carefree balloon become grasping and destructive. In a gorgeous sequence, light streaming down alleys as children's shoes clack and clatter on the cobblestones, the balloon bouncing between the walls, Pascal is hunted down for his floating pet. Its ballooning sense of hope and freedom is deflated by a fierce, squabbling mass. Then, fortunately, it floats off, with the breeze of magic-realism, into a feeling of escape and peace, "The Red Balloon" taking hold of Pascal, lifting him out of this rigid, petty, earthbound life."


title: The Red Balloon

text: In a review in "The Washington Post," critic Philip Kennicott had a cynical view: "[The film takes] place in a world of lies. Innocent lies? Not necessarily. "The Red Balloon" may be the most seamless fusion of capitalism and Christianity ever put on film. A young boy invests in a red balloon the love of which places him on the outside of society. The balloon is hunted down and killed on a barren hilltop–-think Calvary–-by a mob of cruel boys. The ending, a bizarre emotional sucker punch, is straight out of the New Testament. Thus is investment rewarded-–with Christian transcendence or, at least, an old-fashioned Assumption. This might be sweet. Or it might be a very cynical reduction of the primary impulse to religious faith."


title: The Red Balloon

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on twenty reviews. The critical consensus reads: ""The Red Balloon" invests the simplest of narratives with spectacular visual inventiveness, making for a singularly wondrous portrait of innocence."


title: The Red Balloon

text: In 1960, Lamorisse released a second film, "Stowaway in the Sky", which also starred Pascal and was a spiritual successor to the film.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Bob Godfrey's and Zlatko Grgic's animated film, "Dream Doll" (1979), has a very similar plot and ending to the film, except instead of a red balloon, the protagonist is obsessed with an inflatable nude woman.


title: The Red Balloon

text: Don Hertzfeld's 1997 short film "Billy's Balloon", which also showed at Cannes, is a parody of the film.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The music video for "Son of Sam" by Elliott Smith, from his 2000 album Figure 8, is a direct homage to the film.


title: The Red Balloon

text: A boy with a bright red balloon is featured in the epilogue of Damien Chazelle's 2016 musical film "La La Land".


title: The Red Balloon

text: Guitarist Keith Calmes' album "Follow the Red Balloon" is named as an homage to the spirit of Pascal and Sabine.


title: The Red Balloon

text: The film was first released on VHS by Embassy Home Entertainment in 1984. A laserdisc of it was later released by The Criterion Collection in 1986, and was produced by Criterion, Janus Films, and Voyager Press. Included in it was Lamorisse's award-winning short "White Mane" (1953). A DVD version became available in 2008, and a Blu-ray version was released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010; it has now been confirmed as region-free.


title: The Red Balloon

text: A tie-in book was first published by Doubleday Books, (now Penguin Random House), in 1957, using black and white and color stills from the film, with added prose. It was highly acclaimed and went on to win 'A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year.' Lamorisse was credited as its sole author.


title: The Red Balloon

text: A soundtrack, featuring music adapted from the film by Lamorisse, was released on the Nonesuch Records label.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: The Comanchero Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle gang in Australia. The Comancheros are participants in the United Motorcycle Council of NSW, which convened a conference in 2009 to address legislation aimed against the "bikie" clubs, their poor public image in the wake of several violent clashes and ongoing biker wars, and defusing deadly feuds such as the Comancheros' battles with the Hells Angels. The sincerity of these efforts to defend the battered image of the clubs has been met with skepticism.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: William George "Jock" Ross, a Scottish immigrant, formed the club in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1968. He chose the name after seeing the 1961 John Wayne film "The Comancheros". (There was already a Californian motorcycle club of the same name, first mentioned in a 1965 article by Hunter S. Thompson, and in his book "Hell's Angels" a year later.) Ross hung a sign on the wall of the Comancheros' clubhouse that read: "If it's white, sniff it/If it's female or it moves, fuck it/If it narks-kill it".


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: In late 1982 a second Comanchero chapter was formed by Anthony Mark "Snoddy" Spencer, who had broken away from the first chapter after challenging Ross' authority. When visiting the United States with Charles Paul "Charlie" Scibberas, another member of the second chapter, Spencer met with members of the Texan motorcycle club the Bandidos and the two gangs became allies. At the time, P2P, one of the chemicals necessary for manufacture of amphetamines', were legal in Australia, but not in the United States.. The Bandidos wanted an alliance to have P2P smuggled into the United States to assist with manufacturing amphetamines, the market for which they dominated in Texas. The Bandidos eventually patched-over the second Comanchero chapter to become the Bandidos' first Australian chapter in November 1983.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: The Comancheros and Bandidos were now rivals, and in September 1984 the two clubs engaged in the Milperra massacre, a shoot-out that left seven people dead – four Comancheros, two Bandidos, and a 14-year-old bystander. Ross received a lifetime jail sentence for his involvement in the gunfight, but served only five years and three months before he was released.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: The Comancheros and Hells Angels clashed at Terminal 3 of Sydney Airport on 22 March 2009 in a brawl involving 10 people in the two rival bikie gangs. The brawl left Anthony Zervas, the brother of a Hells Angel, dead. The fighting was witnessed by over 50 travellers, CCTV cameras and airport staff, including airport security, who could do little to intervene. The security staff were unarmed and Australian Federal Police arrived late. Six Comancheros were arrested as a result of the altercation and convicted of "riot and affray". In November 2011 Comancheros leader Mahmoud "Mick" Hawi was found guilty of affray and murder, but in May 2014 the murder conviction was overturned on appeal and a retrial ordered. Hawi pleaded guilty to manslaughter and in March 2015 he was sentenced to a minimum of 3.5 years jail. In February 2018 Hawi was shot dead, at age 37, whilst sitting in his car outside a gym in Rockdale, NSW.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: In late 2009 Duax Ngakuru was elected as national president. Four years later Mick Murray was elected.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: The Comancheros established a single Western Australian chapter in 2010 which is located on Wellman Street, Northbridge, at the Fitness and Fight Centre.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: The Comanchero expansion into Western Australia was delayed by the 2010 arrest of Steve Milenkovski who was about to be patched as the Perth's Chapter president when he was arrested in the culmination of Operation Baystone. Operation Baystone resulted in Milenkovski, Yavuz Ozan, Hao Bi, and Mark Vick Kitos being charged with various drug offences. The operation seized 7.5 kilograms of methylamphetamine brought to Western Australia from New South Wales.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: In August 2012 Milenkovski was found guilty of two counts of Possess a Prohibited Drug with Intent to Sell or Supply after a 9-week Perth District Court trial and sentenced to 17 years jail as the "king pin". Two of his co-accused, were convicted of one charge each of attempted possession including David Tanevski who was sentenced to eight years' jail. Hao Bi, who was alleged to have been the courier was acquitted.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: In May 2014 eight men including two patched members of the Comanchero were charged for allegedly extorting businesses in Northbridge.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: On 5 September 2012, Comanchero member Faalau Pisu was murdered, being shot in the head outside the Serbian National Defence Council at Canley Vale, New South Wales whilst attending a wedding. A 25-year-old gang member and a 27-year-old associate of the club were also shot and injured. NSW Police allege that an internal rift within the Comancheros was behind recent shootings involving Comanchero members.


title: Comanchero Motorcycle Club

text: It was later revealed by authorities and media that the Comancheros were at conflict with the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club, who had been partially responsible for the infighting. Members of Rock Machine chapters in New South Wales had reported links to a Serbian organized crime group and used that influence to patch over members of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club in mid 2012, causing tension with existing Sydney Comancheros. One of those Rock Machine members to patch over, Faalau Pisu, would be shot dead at a wedding in south-west Sydney on November 5. Two days later, the Rock Machine Sydney chapter retaliated against the Comancheros for the murder of Pisu. Comancheros member, John Devine, was shot six times at a construction site in Rhodes. Devine was the cousin of Comancheros leader, Mark Buddle. Australian authorities also reported tensions between the Rock Machine chapter in Maroubra and the Comancheros in Milperra. The situation would resolve itself, with Mark Buddle, being forced to flee Australia due to a litany of charges against him for unrelated matters.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: Yesvantpur Junction railway station also Yeshwanthapura Junction railway station (station code: YPR) is one of the three important stations which serves the city of Bangalore which is located in Yesvantpur locality. It is one of the developing stations of Bangalore created for reducing the rush at Bangalore City railway station.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: This station is located on the Bangalore–Pune & Bangalore–Hyderabad main lines. Being a main location, all trains bound towards Hubli & Hyderabad either originate from here or the ones from Bangalore City have a stop at this station.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: Direct trains to major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ajmer, Jaipur, Ayodhya, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Howrah, Chennai, Trivandrum, Kannur, Tumakuru, Ahmedabad, Pondicherry etc. also originate from Yeshwantpur.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: Yesvantpur Junction railway station has a total of 6 platforms out of which platform 1,2,4,5 and 6 are platforms for originating & terminating trains. Platform 3 is generally used by passing-through trains. There are two overbridges , one connecting platform 1 and 2 , and another from platform 2 to platforms 3,4,5,and 6. It has 2 entrances-one from Yeshwantapur old area , and another from Tumkur Road. The one on Tumkur Road connects to platform-6 . The Yeshwanthpur metro station is at a walkable distance from the station.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: Yesvantpur Junction railway station has 6 non-AC retiring rooms and 12 dormitories at a reasonable cost. Other facilities such as AC VIP Lounge, Essential stalls, and an ATM also available in the station. It even provides free Wi-Fi for the people in and nearby the station.


title: Yesvantpur Junction railway station

text: A vehicle parking facility is planned to be built in front of the station building in association with Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation as Yeshwanthpur metro station is opposite to this railway station. Also a connectivity bridge at first floor between the railway station and metro station along with other amenities such as passenger-facilitation centre at the main entry; retiring rooms and a food plaza are also planned.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Marathon is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Bungie, and released in December 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. The game takes place several centuries into the future in outer space and sets the player as a security officer attempting to stop an alien invasion aboard a colony ship named the "Marathon".


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Marathon" is the first game in a series of three games collectively known as the "Marathon Trilogy", which also includes its two sequels, "" and "Marathon Infinity", released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1996, Bungie released "Super Marathon", a port of "Marathon" and "Marathon 2" to the short-lived Apple Bandai Pippin video game console.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Bungie released the source code of "Marathon 2" in 1999, which enabled the development of an open-source enhanced version of the Marathon 2 engine called Aleph One. The game's assets itself were released by Bungie as freeware in 2005.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Gameplay takes place in a real-time, 3D-rendered world of ceilings and floors of various heights and widths, all viewed from a first-person perspective. All surfaces in the game are texture mapped and have dynamic lighting. The player assumes the role of a nameless security officer aboard a large colony ship called the "Marathon", constructed from Mars' moon Deimos. The player controls the movement of their character primarily through use of the keyboard. Using assignable keys, they can move forward and backward, turn left or right, sidestep left or right, look up, down or forward, and glance left or right. "Marathon" also features free look, allowing the player to use the mouse to fire weapons and rotate their character's view. "Marathon" was one of the earliest computer games to employ free look and give the player the ability to look up or down. The game interface includes an overhead map, a motion sensor indicating the positions and movements of both enemies and allied characters through red triangles and green squares respectively, and bars displaying the player's current shield and oxygen levels.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: The player progresses through the levels in sequence, killing enemy creatures and avoiding numerous obstacles while trying to survive. While levels are completed in a fixed order, many are non-linear and require extensive exploration to complete. Obstacles include dark and narrow passages, ceilings that crush the player, pits of harmful molten material or coolant, locked doors or platforms that must be activated by remote switches, and puzzles that may involve precise timing and speed to complete successfully. Some levels have low-gravity, oxygen-free environments and/or magnetic fields that interfere with the player's motion sensor. Rather than restoring lost health by picking up power-ups as in many first-person shooters, the player instead replenishes their shields and oxygen through activating recharge stations placed in walls; if either drops below zero, they die. Upon dying, the player revives at the last save point. The player can only save their game by locating and then activating a pattern buffer device. These devices are placed infrequently throughout the game's levels and some even lack them entirely.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Unique among first-person shooters of its time, "Marathon" has a detailed, complex plot that is fundamental to gameplay and player advancement. Computer terminals placed in the openings of walls in the game serve as the primary means by which this plot is relayed. The player accesses these terminals to interface with the artificial intelligences of the "Marathon", who provide information regarding the player's current objective. In most cases, the player must use specific terminals to advance to the next level of the game (via teleportation). While some levels simply require the player to reach the endpoint, on others the player must first accomplish specific tasks before they can move on, such as retrieving a specific item, flipping a switch, exploring all or part of a level, exterminating all alien creatures, or securing areas populated by human characters. Some terminals that do not need to be accessed to complete the game but still may contain additional plot information, such as engineering documents, crew diaries, or conversations between the ship's artificial intelligences. Some levels have secret terminals that are often difficult to locate, a few of which contain easter egg messages from the game's designers.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Marathon's engine, like the Jedi engine featured in "", was very slightly superior to the "Doom" engine, but not nearly as advanced as the Build engine. Like the Build engine, it was capable of a limited form of rooms over rooms and even impossible spaces, as long as the player couldn't see both rooms at the same time. However, it lacked mirrors, sloped floors and ceilings, destructible environments, and many of the other advanced features offered by the Build engine.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: In addition to its main single player scenario, "Marathon" also features a multiplayer deathmatch mode that can accommodate eight players on the same local area network. One user (the "gatherer") initiates a game invitation to the computers of other players ("joiners"). Competing together in teams or individually, players score points by killing opponents and lose points by being killed by opponents; the player or team with the best kill-to-death ratio wins the match. Matches conclude after either a particular number of minutes or kills, as configured ahead of time by the gatherer when initiating the match.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Marathon"'s game files contain ten levels for the multiplayer mode. In addition to being inaccessible by single players, these levels also distinguish themselves from the main game environments by their designs, intended to facilitate smooth multiplayer gameplay: smaller overall level sizes, spacious areas, faster doors and platforms, fewer aliens, heavier weaponry, multiple predetermined player spawn points, strategic placement of power-ups, and an absence of pattern buffers and terminals. When a player is killed in multiplayer, they can respawn immediately at a random spawn point unless the gatherer has enabled penalties for being killed or committing suicide, which require the player to wait for a period of ten seconds or fifteen seconds respectively before reviving themselves.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Marathon"'s multiplayer was one of its most anticipated features prior to release and won "Marathon" the Macworld Game Hall of Fame Award for the best network game of 1995. Lead designer Jason Jones stated that the development of "Marathon" was probably delayed by a month due to time spent playing multiplayer deathmatches. The code for multiplayer was written almost entirely by Alain Roy who reportedly received a Quadra 660AV in compensation for his efforts. According to Jones, the network code is packet-based and uses the Datagram Delivery Protocol to transfer information between each machine.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Marathon" primarily takes place in 2794 aboard the "UESC Marathon", a large Earth colony ship constructed from the Martian moon Deimos. The "Marathon"'s mission is to travel to the Tau Ceti system and build a colony on its fourth planet. The player's character is an unnamed security officer assigned to the "Marathon". The narrative is presented to the player using messages on computer terminals scattered throughout the game's levels. These messages include crew logs, historical documents, and other records, but principally include conversations that the player character has with three artificial intelligences (AIs) that run "UESC Marathon": Leela, Durandal, and Tycho.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: At the start of the game, the player character is aboard a shuttle returning from the colony to "Marathon" when an alien ship attacks the system. The officer makes his way to "Marathon" to find that the aliens used an electromagnetic pulse to disable much of the ship. Of the three AIs, only Leela is functional, and she guides the officer in a counter-strike against the aliens and to restore the other AIs and key systems. Leela learns that Durandal (one of the shipboard AIs) had been in contact with the aliens prior to their engagement with Marathon. The alien race, known as the S'pht, are being forced to fight by the Pfhor, an insectoid-like race. Leela soon discovers that Durandal had become "rampant" before the attack, and is able to think freely for himself. Leela aids the officer to disable Durandal's access to vital "Marathon" systems while sending a warning message to Earth, but in turn Durandal has the Pfhor send more forces to attack the "Marathon", ultimately kidnapping the security officer. Leela intercedes to free the officer, but warns him that the S'pht attack has nearly destroyed her systems. The officer races to complete a bomb in the ship's engineering rooms, hoping it will force the Pfhor and S'pht to leave, but it is too late as Leela is "killed" by the S'pht, and Durandal takes over, forcing the officer to continue to follow his orders to stay alive.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Durandal has the officer repair the ship's transporters, allowing him to go aboard the alien Pfhor vessel. Inside, while fighting off the Pfhor, the officer discovers a large cybernetic organism that the Pfhor use to control the S'pht. The officer destroys the organism, and guided by Durandal, the S'pht revolt against the Pfhor, first on their ship, and then aboard the "Marathon". With most of the Pfhor threat gone, Durandal announces his intention to transfer himself to the Pfhor ship, which the S'pht have control of, and leave with them. As a parting gift, Durandal reveals that Leela was never fully destroyed, and the S'pht release their grasp on her before departing. As the alien ship departs the system, the officer works with Leela to clear the last remaining Pfhor aboard "Marathon" before assessing the full damage that has been done.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Marathon" was a commercial success. At the time, Alex Seropian of Bungie said that "the customer demand for "Marathon" is ten-fold than it was for "Pathways"," leading to supply shortages. The game reached sales above 100,000 units before the release of "Marathon 2". It ultimately surpassed 150,000 sales by October 1995. As with all Bungie titles before "", its lifetime sales fell below 200,000 units by 2002.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: "Next Generation" reviewed the Macintosh version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and said that "this comes highly recommended". "MacUser" named "Marathon" the best action game of 1995, ahead of "Doom II".


title: Marathon (video game)

text: In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" named "Marathon" the 64th best game ever. The editors wrote: "This 3D action-fest was a big reason all the Mac users kept saying 'DOOM what?'"


title: Marathon (video game)

text: Gaming historians have referred to "Marathon" as the Macintosh's answer to the PC's "Doom", i.e. a first person shooter killer app. In 2012, "Time" named it one of the 100 best video games ever released.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: In 1996, Bungie completed a port of "Marathon" to Apple's short-lived Pippin video game console. The port was released as part of "Super Marathon", a compilation of "Marathon" and "" which was published and distributed by Bandai rather than Bungie themselves. "Super Marathon" bears the distinction of being the first console game developed by Bungie, predating "Oni" and "".


title: Marathon (video game)

text: In 1999, Bungie released the source code of "Marathon 2", which enabled the development of an open-source enhanced version of the Marathon 2 engine called Aleph One. Though initially only "M1A1" (a "total conversion" to "M2"'s engine) could be used to play the first "Marathon", Aleph One eventually gained native "M1" asset support. Aleph One allows "Marathon" to be played on modern versions of Windows, macOS, Linux, and other platforms. It also extends multiplayer to work over the Internet via TCP/IP.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: In 2000, Bungie was bought by Microsoft, financially fueling the "Halo" franchise. The concepts of an AI working with an armed player character continued from the roots laid out in the Marathon series.


title: Marathon (video game)

text: An Aleph One-based port of "Marathon" for Apple's iPhone and iPad was released for free (with in-game purchases) on the iTunes App Store in July 2011.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Shobhana Samarth (17 November 1916 – 9 February 2000) was an Indian actress, director and producer who began her career in the early days of talkie movies in the Hindi film industry and continued in lead roles into the 1950s.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: She started in Marathi cinema. Her first Hindi film, "Nigahen Nafrat", was released in 1935. She is best remembered for her portrayal of Sita in "Ram Rajya" (1943). In 1997, she was honoured with the Filmfare Special Award for her contribution to the arts.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Samarth later produced and directed a pair of movies that launched the careers of her daughters, Nutan and Tanuja.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Shobhana was born on 17 November 1916 in Bombay, British India, as Saroj Shilotri. An only child, her father Prabhakar Shilotri was a "pioneer banker", having started the Shilotri Bank in Bombay. Her mother Rattan Bai, in 1936, acted in the film "Frontiers of Freedom", in Marathi ("Swarajyachya Seemewar").


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Shobhna studied initially in Cathedral School, Bombay, for one year. In 1928 her father suffered financial losses and the business went into liquidation. The family then shifted to Bangalore in 1931, where Shobhana attended Baldwin Girls High School. To earn a living, her father taught students on a private basis, while her mother taught in a Marathi school.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: In December that year, her father died of a heart attack and the mother and daughter returned to Bombay to stay with her maternal uncle. Shobhana studied in a convent school, but was unable to complete her matriculation, as she had begun her film career by then. Shobhana also taught privately to make money.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: During this time she met her future husband Kumarsen Samarth, who had just returned from Germany and was keen on directing films. They got engaged and she started work on her first film. Her uncle was opposed to her acting in films, and she and her mother moved out of his home (ironically his daughter and Shobhana's cousin Nalini Jaywant herself became an actress).


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Shobana's first film was "Orphans Of Society" (1935), also called "Nigahe Nafrat" or "Vilasi Ishwar" for Kolhapur Cinetone, directed by Vinayak and starring Vinayak and Baburao Pendharkar. The film was not a success, but Shobhana was critically acclaimed for her role.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: The film was bilingual, made in Urdu and Marathi. Shobhana claims in an interview that she did not know any Urdu at that time of filming, speaking the dialogues by rote and it was only later that she picked up the language. She was with Kolhapur Cinetone for thirteen months, but acted in one film.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: She left Kolhapur Cinetone and joined Sagar Movietone (Sagar Film Company), where she acted in a film called "Kokila" (1937), directed by Sarvottam Badami, starring Motilal, Sabita Devi and Sitara Devi. Her other film for Sagar was "Do Diwane" (1936), directed by C. M. Luhar and co-starring Motilal, Yakub and Aruna Devi.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: By the end of 1937, Shobhana left Sagar and joined General Films, acting in "Industrial India" (Nirala Hindustan), directed by Mohan Sinha with Prem Adib and Wasti. The second film for them was "Pati Patni" (1939), directed by V. M. Gunjal with co-stars Yakub, Sitara Devi and Wasti.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: By 1939, she had joined Hindustan Cinetone, making four films with them, which included "Kaun Kisi ka" (1939), "Saubhagya" (1940) by C. M. Luhar, and "Apni Nagariya" (1940) by V. M. Gunjal. She then worked in a film directed by her husband, Kumar Sen Samarth, called "Ghar Javai" (1941), where she was cast with Damuanna Malvankar.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: In 1942 came her career-defining film "Bharat Milap", directed by Vijay Bhatt and starring Durga Khote as Kaikeyi, Shobhana as Sita and Prem Adib as Ram. Following this was "Ram Rajya" in 1943, and Shobhana became identified as Sita, leading to several other films where they recreated the roles. Shobhana as Sita and Prem Adib as Rama became extremely popular and were accepted by the audiences and had them featuring as Rama and Sita on calendars.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Shobhana was married to director and cinematographer Kumarsen Samarth from Vile Parle (E), Mumbai. They had three daughters, Nutan, Tanuja and Chatura and a son, Jaideep. Eventually, the couple parted amicably and Shobhana became linked to actor Motilal Rajvansh.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Two of her daughters, Nutan and Tanuja, also became actresses. Shobhana produced their debut films. Her other daughter, Chatura, is an artist and her son Jaideep is an advertising film producer. Chatura and Jaideep never acted in films.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: Nutan's son Mohnish Bahl is also an actor, as are Tanuja's daughters Kajol and Tanishaa Mukerji. Kajol is married to actor Ajay Devgan. Other members of the dynasty include Shomu Mukherjee, who married Tanuja.


title: Shobhna Samarth

text: She and her daughter Nutan were estranged for more than two decades, but reconciled in the year 1983 before Nutan's death from cancer in February 1991. At her own death from cancer in 2000, Shobhana had seven granddaughters, one grandson, three great-granddaughters, and two great-grandsons.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: Natasha Shneider (May 22, 1956 – July 2, 2008), born Natalia Mikhailovna Schneiderman (, ), was a Latvian-born Russian-American musician and actress. She was most notably the keyboardist and vocalist in the band Eleven, along with her partner, bandmate Alain Johannes. Shneider contributed to tracks for Chris Cornell and Queens of the Stone Age, and together with Johannes toured with Cornell on his "Euphoria Morning" tour in 1999 and with Queens in 2005 on their "Lullabies to Paralyze" tour. She died of cancer in 2008.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: Shneider was born in Riga, Latvia (at the time a member state of the Soviet Union), to a Jewish family. She proved musically gifted from an early age and both of her parents were musicians.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: In the early 1970s, Shneider was a member of 'Sovremennik', a state-run pop orchestra, that featured her on vocals and piano, as well as her first husband Serge Kapustin (born 1949) on guitar and percussion. Her brother Vladimir Shneider (1951 - 2012) produced and played piano and keyboards for the 'Singing Hearts', which was one of Russia's hottest groups in the mid-1970s, whose output and sound were heavily controlled by the Soviet authorities. Vladimir Shneider recalled: "We'd sing 37 songs about how good the Communist Party is, and at the end—if we were lucky — we were allowed to play a mellow song like Killing Me Softly or Ain't No Sunshine. But never rock."


title: Natasha Shneider

text: In May 1976, the Schneiderman siblings and Kapustin defected to the West, arriving in New York City without finances or connections. Natasha and Kapustin's son Robin was born just two months after arriving. They took day jobs and played evening gigs around the city - Vladimir Schneiderman also changed his surname to Shneider, with Natasha changing her married surname from Kapustina to Kapustin. In 1978 they arrived in Hollywood where they met Guy Costa, the head of Motown's Studio Operations, who introduced them to Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records. As a consequence of the meeting with Gordy they were signed to the label, reputedly the first Russian band to be on a major label. In June 1980 their newly named group, Black Russian, released an album of R&B styled pop that was well received by "Billboard" who highlighted the songs "Mystified"," Leave Me Now" (which was later released as a single), "Emptiness", "New York City", and "Love's Enough". The album was not a commercial success and Black Russian did not continue. Natasha Shneider and Serge Kapustin then divorced.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: In 1987, Shneider married her second husband Alain Johannes and they released the album "Walk the Moon" under the MCA label. In 1990 they formed the band Eleven with drummer Jack Irons and released their debut album "Awake in a Dream" the following year. The group would go on to release four more albums over the next twenty years, with Irons leaving during their third album ("Thunk") in 1995 to play with Pearl Jam, and coming back for the fifth album ("Howling Book") in 2003.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: Shneider and Johannes participated with Josh Homme and other artists on The Desert Sessions, Volumes 7 & 8. They also contributed to the 2002 Queens of the Stone Age album "Songs for the Deaf", and joined the band as part of their touring line-up in support of their 2005 album, "Lullabies to Paralyze" (Alain Johannes also contributed on several "Lullabies"' tracks).


title: Natasha Shneider

text: They wrote, performed and produced with Chris Cornell for his 1999 solo album, "Euphoria Morning", and formed part of his band for the subsequent tour. The song ""Someone to Die For"" that Shneider wrote alongside Cornell and Johannes, was part of the soundtrack of "Spider-Man 2" (2004), performed by Jimmy Gnecco of Ours and Brian May of Queen. A demo version of the song performed by Cornell and Eleven is available on the internet.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: Shneider acted in two feature films, playing the roles of Soviet cosmonaut Irina Yakunina in the 1984 film "2010", and as Polish former exchange student Wanda Yakubovska in the film "Spiker" (1986). She also had roles in the TV shows "Miami Vice" and "Hill Street Blues". Shneider wrote and performed the song "Who's in Control", for the 2004 film "Catwoman", and contributed harpsichord to the 2008 Louis XIV track "Guilt By Association".


title: Natasha Shneider

text: On July 2, 2008, Shneider died from cancer. The news broke with a message posted on the MySpace page of the band Sweethead, of which Shneider's close friend and former band-mate Troy Van Leeuwen is a member:


title: Natasha Shneider

text: On August 16, 2008, Queens of the Stone Age performed a concert in celebration of Shneider's life at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. They were joined on stage by Alain Johannes, Tenacious D's Jack Black and Kyle Gass, Matt Cameron, Brody Dalle, Jesse Hughes, Chris Goss and PJ Harvey, playing a variety of QOTSA and non-QOTSA songs. Proceeds from the concert went to defray the costs associated with Shneider's illness.


title: Natasha Shneider

text: In late 2009, a song she co-wrote with Johannes, "Time for Miracles", was recorded by Adam Lambert and used in the movie "2012". In 2010 the track WYUT, co-written by Shneider, Johannes and Natalie Imbruglia, appeared on Imbruglia's album "Come to Life".


title: Natasha Shneider

text: While on his solo tour between 2011 and 2016, Chris Cornell would often pay tribute to her and play the song "When I'm Down", (from the album "Euphoria Morning" that Shneider produced) accompanied by a vinyl recording of the original piano track that Shneider performed for the song.


title: Peter Brock

text: Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, although he raced vehicles of other manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Volvo, Porsche and Peugeot. He won the Bathurst 1000 endurance race nine times, the Sandown 500 touring car race nine times, the Australian Touring Car Championship three times, the Bathurst 24 Hour once and was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2001. Brock's business activities included the Holden Dealer Team (HDT) that produced Brock's racing machines as well as a number of modified high-performance road versions of his racing cars.


title: Peter Brock

text: Peter Brock was born at the Epworth Hospital, Richmond, Victoria, the son of Geoff and Ruth Brock (née Laidlay). The family lived in the country town of Hurstbridge (now an outer suburb of Melbourne) and Brock continued to live there throughout his life. He attended Eltham High School in Eltham, Victoria. His first car was an Austin 7 that he bought for £5 (A$10). He claimed that his driving skill improved at this point of his life because the car did not have brakes (or a body, which was removed with his mother's axe).


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock was drafted into the Australian Army in 1965 and spent his two years of National Service stationed at the Blamey Barracks near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. During his time in the army, Brock was against the Federal Government's plan to send conscripts to Vietnam. Brock was in the Medical Corps where he often served as an ambulance driver. According to his brother Lewis, Brock and his mates used to race the ambulances around the base. Although they did not know each other at the time, also stationed at the Barracks from 1965 to 1967 was a young Dick Johnson who from the 1980s would go on to be one of Brock's chief touring car rivals.


title: Peter Brock

text: It was while on leave from the army in 1966 that Brock first visited Bathurst to watch the 500-mile production car race that was to become the Bathurst 1000. It was after watching the race that he decided that he wanted to become a race driver when he left the army. His brother Phil also became a racing driver, and co-drove with his brother in the Bathurst 1000 on two occasions.


title: Peter Brock

text: During his early career Brock raced some "wild and woolly" creations including the famous blue 6-cylinder Holden-powered Austin A30. Brock rose to public attention in touring car racing.


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock made his debut at Bathurst in the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500 in a Holden HT Monaro GTS 350 alongside Des West, with the pair finishing third behind their winning HDT teammates Colin Bond and Tony Roberts. He won the Bathurst 500 for the first time in 1972 (the last year the race was run over 500 miles and the last year in which driving solo was permitted).


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock would win the event a total of nine times between 1972 and 1987, a feat that has not been equalled. His 1979 win was remarkable in that he and co-driver Jim Richards claimed victory by six laps, a record that, due to changes in race regulations introduced in the mid- to late 1980s, most notably the introduction of the Safety Car in 1987, may never be broken, and broke the circuit lap record for touring cars on the 163rd and final lap of the race (the record would stand until Brock himself broke it in 1982). Brock had tried to set the lap record on the final lap of the 1978 race, but he was inadvertently baulked by the Alfa Romeo of Ray Gulson through The Dipper. In 32 starts at Bathurst he claimed pole position a record six times (1974, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983 and 1989), with all bar his 1989 pole in a Ford Sierra RS500 being for Holden. Brock also sat on pole for the 1997 V8 Supercars race but the time was set by his co-driver Mark Skaife. His record at this race earned him the popular nickname "King of the Mountain".


title: Peter Brock

text: Peter Brock also won the second (and last) Bathurst 24 Hour race in 2003 driving a 7.0L V8-powered Holden Monaro 427C for Garry Rogers Motorsport. Brock won the race, which although not the Bathurst 1000, he regarded as his tenth Bathurst win driving alongside V8 Supercar drivers Greg Murphy, Jason Bright and Todd Kelly. The #05 Monaro won the race by less than half a second from the 2002 race winning GRM Monaro 427C driven by Nathan Pretty, Garth Tander, Steven Richards and Cameron McConville. The two Monaros finished 12 laps in front of the third-placed Porsche 996 GT3 RC of Peter Fitzgerald, Paul Morris, John Teulan and Scott Shearman.


title: Peter Brock

text: Along with his record at the Bathurst race, Brock also claimed victory in the traditional lead up race to Bathurst, the Sandown 500, nine times, including a string of seven consecutive wins from 1975 until 1981. He won a total of 37 races during his career in the Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercar championships, a record only eventually equalled by Mark Skaife in 2006 and beaten in 2007.


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock had a brief foray into Open wheel racing when he raced a Ford powered Birrana 273 to 8th place in the 1973 Australian Formula 2 Championship. Although he had some minor, non-championship wins in the car, his best placing in the national championship series was second behind series champion Leo Geoghegan in Round 2 or Oran Park in Sydney. Brock's HDT boss Harry Firth later told that he let Brock race the Birrana to get formula racing "out of his system". Later in early 1984, Brock tested a Ralt RT4 with a view to possibly driving one in the 1984 Australian Drivers' Championship and the end of year Australian Grand Prix (which at the time were run to Formula Mondial rules), and put in some competitive lap times at Calder Park. However, he later decided that with the road car business, touring car commitments and the planned Sports Car races at Silverstone and Le Mans, he simply could not devote enough time to the project to make it worth doing.


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock and the Holden Dealer Team worked in partnership, with full factory approval and assistance, to produce a number of high-performance modifications to the Commodores under existing CAMS Group C regulations from 1980 to 1987. Some of these were HDT "homologation specials", one step away from race cars. It was around this time that Brock began his run of six Bathurst 1000 wins in seven years with a pair of hat trick wins from 1978 to 1980 (with Jim Richards) and 1982 to '84 (with Larry Perkins and John Harvey), including his record-breaking six-lap victory in the 1979 event.


title: Peter Brock

text: While Brock was always typecast in a Holden, he did have 'brief flirtations' with other makes in touring car racing. After his 1987 Holden split, he campaigned a BMW M3 in 1988, becoming the official BMW Australia backed team for the year (his only win in the BMW would be in the 1988 Pepsi 250 at Oran Park), before driving a Ford Sierra RS500 in 1989 and 1990. As the turbo-charged Sierras were the Group A cars to have at the time it was seen as a logical move to return to the front end of the field.


title: Peter Brock

text: During 1988 Brock also campaigned a V8 Ford XF Falcon in the Calder Park Thunderdome-based AUSCAR series, though unlike touring car rivals such as Jim Richards, Allan Grice and Brad Jones, Brock's foray into Superspeedway racing was brief.


title: Peter Brock

text: With the increasing costs of running two Sierras, and with the teams technical support from the UK-based Andy Rouse also stopping thanks to Rouse moving to drive for Toyota, Brock returned to driving a Holden in 1991, teaming with former HDT co-driver Perkins (who had left the HDT in mid-1985) to run a pair of VN SS Group A Commodores. The association with Perkins Engineering only lasted for one year, though Brock continued to run the ATCC driving in Commodores.


title: Peter Brock

text: A further flirtation away from Holden was in 1994 when he raced a Volvo 850 in the one-off Eastern Creek 12-Hour. He also competed for the same Volvo Dealer Racing team in the Australian Super Touring Championship in 1996, finishing 6th in the championship with a best finish of second in Round 7 at Lakeside in Brisbane.


title: Peter Brock

text: Brock's first international race came in 1971 when Harry Firth made a late decision to enter the HDT in the Guia touring car Race at the Macau Grand Prix. Driving one of the team's old Series Production LC Torana GTR XU-1s, Brock finished second behind 1971 European Touring Car Champion Dieter Glemser, who according to Brock in his regular "Auto Action" column, drove a full works Ford Capri 2600. Ford rival Allan Moffat also raced in his GTHO Falcon, but struggled throughout the meeting with tyre troubles and wasn't a factor in the race being some 20 seconds per lap slower than the Torana. Brock claimed that scrutineering was almost non-existent at Macau, while Firth would describe Glemser's Capri and the Alfa Romeo GTA of third placed Hong Kong driver Albert Poon as "pretty damned rude" for not being strictly production cars as they were supposed to be.


title: Peter Brock

text: Unlike several other Australian drivers, including Alan Jones and Larry Perkins, Brock did not seek a full-time racing career outside Australia. He did attempt the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in privateer vehicles, firstly in 1976 in the Team Brock BMW 3.0CSL which was bought in South Africa in late 1975 and shipped to Melbourne, where it was completely stripped and rebuilt. His co-driver was former Aussie and UK resident Brian Muir with the BMW lasting 17 hours before a head gasket blew. He then returned for the 1981 race teamed with former HDT teammate Colin Bond and Bathurst co-driver Jim Richards in the Porsche Cars Australia #74 Porsche 924 Carrera GTR but while the team practiced, they were only named as a reserve, not participating in the race itself.