title: Kenyan Drake

text: In Week 1 against the San Francisco 49ers, Drake rushed for 60 yards and his first rushing touchdown of the season during the 24–20 win. In Week 6 against the Dallas Cowboys, he had 20 carries for 164 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in the 38–10 victory.


title: Kenyan Drake

text: In Week 10 against the Buffalo Bills, Drake rushed for 100 yards during the 32–30 win which would later be referred to as Hail Murray. In Week 12, against the New England Patriots, he had 22 carries for 78 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in the 20–17 loss. Drake finished the 2020 season with 239 carries for 955 rushing yards and ten rushing touchdowns.


title: Kenyan Drake

text: On March 19, 2021, Drake signed a two-year, $14.5 million contract with the Las Vegas Raiders. He was placed on injured reserve on December 8 with a broken right ankle he suffered against the Washington Football Team in Week 13. Drake finished the 2021 season with 63 carries for 254 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns to go along with 30 receptions for 291 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown.


title: Kenyan Drake

text: On August 31, 2022, Drake signed with the Baltimore Ravens. In Week 6, against the New York Giants, Drake had 119 rushing yards and one rushing touchdown in the 24–20 loss. In Week 9 against the New Orleans Saints, Drake ran for 93 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in the 27-13 victory.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The battle in Berlin was an end phase of the Battle of Berlin. While the Battle "of" Berlin encompassed the attack by three Soviet Army Groups to capture not only Berlin but the territory of Germany east of the River Elbe still under German control, the battle "in" Berlin details the fighting and German capitulation that took place within the city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The outcome of the battle to capture the capital of Nazi Germany was decided during the initial phases of the Battle of Berlin that took place outside the city. As the Soviets invested Berlin and the German forces placed to stop them were destroyed or forced back, the city's fate was sealed. Nevertheless, there was heavy fighting within the city as the Red Army fought its way, street by street, into the centre.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 23 April 1945, the first Soviet ground forces started to penetrate the outer suburbs of Berlin. By 27 April, Berlin was completely cut off from the outside world. The battle in the city continued until 2 May 1945. On that date, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, General Helmuth Weidling, surrendered to the commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov. Chuikov was a constituent of Marshal Georgiy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The sector in which most of the fighting in the overall battle took place was the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line outside Berlin. The Battle of the Seelow Heights was one of the last pitched battles of World War II. It was fought over four days, from 16 April until 19 April 1945. Close to one million Soviet soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces were in action to break through the "Gates to Berlin" which was defended by about 100,000 German soldiers and 1,200 tanks and guns.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 19 April, the fourth day, the 1st Belorussian Front broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front, having captured Forst the day before, was fanning out into open country. One powerful thrust was heading north-west towards Berlin while other armies headed west towards a section of United States Army front line south-west of the city who were on the Elbe.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By the end of 19 April the German eastern front line north of Frankfurt around Seelow and to the south around Forst had ceased to exist. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet fronts to envelop the German 9th Army in a large pocket east of Frankfurt. Attempts by the 9th Army to break out to the west would result in the Battle of Halbe. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between 1 and 19 April, with over 2,807 tanks lost, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 20 April, Adolf Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery of the 79th Rifle Corps of the 1st Belorussian Front first shelled Berlin. Thereafter, Soviet artillery continued the bombardment of Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered; the weight of explosives delivered by their artillery during the battle was greater than the tonnage dropped by the Western Allied bombers on the city. The 1st Belorussian Front advanced towards the east and north-east of the city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The 1st Ukrainian Front had pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of General Ferdinand Schörner's Army Group Centre and had passed north of Jüterbog, well over halfway to the American front line on the Elbe at Magdeburg. To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula, held by Hasso von Manteuffel's 3rd Panzer Army.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By 24 April, elements of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The next day, 25 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front broke through the 3rd Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin and crossed the Rando Swamp. They were now free to move west towards the British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund. The Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division of Zhadov's 5th Guards Army made contact with the 69th Infantry Division of the First United States Army near Torgau on the Elbe. The Soviet investment of Berlin was consolidated with leading units probing and penetrating the "S-Bahn" defensive ring. By the end of 25 April, there was no prospect that the German defence of the city could do anything but temporarily delay the capture of the capital by the Soviets as the decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans fighting outside the city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 20 April, Hitler ordered and the "Wehrmacht" initiated Operation Clausewitz, which called for the complete evacuation of all "Wehrmacht" and SS offices in Berlin; this essentially formalized Berlin's status as a frontline city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The forces available to Artillery General Helmuth Weidling for the city's defence included several severely depleted "Wehrmacht" and "Waffen-SS" divisions, in all about 45,000 men. These formations were supplemented by the Berlin Police force, child soldiers in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the "Volkssturm" militia of males not already in the military. Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the "Volkssturm" had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. Hitler appointed "SS-Brigadeführer" Wilhelm Mohnke commander of the city's central government district. Mohnke's command post was in bunkers under the Reich Chancellery. The core group of his fighting men were the 800 members of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Guard Battalion (assigned to guard the "Führer"). He had a total of over 2,000 men under his command.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Weidling organised the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' to 'H', each commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience. The 20th Infantry Division was to the west of the city; the 9th Parachute Division to the north; Panzer Division Müncheberg (Werner Mummert) to the north-east; the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland (Joachim Ziegler) to the south-east; and to the east of Tempelhof Airport. The reserve, the 18th Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: A Soviet combat group was a mixed arms unit of about eighty men in assault groups of six to eight soldiers, closely supported by field artillery. These were tactical units which were able to apply the tactics of house to house fighting that they had been forced to develop and refine at each "Festungsstadt" (fortress city) they had encountered since Stalingrad.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The German tactics used for urban warfare in Berlin were dictated by three considerations: the experience that they had gained during five years of war, the physical characteristics of the city, and the methods used by the Soviets. Most of the central districts of Berlin consist of city blocks with straight wide roads and contain several waterways, parks and large railway marshalling yards. It is a predominantly flat area, with some low hills such as Kreuzberg, which is above sea level. Much of the housing stock consisted of apartment blocks built in the second half of the 19th century. Most of those, thanks to housing regulations and few elevators, were five stories high and built around a courtyard that could be reached from the street through a corridor large enough to accommodate a horse and cart or a small delivery truck. In many places, these apartment blocks were built around several courtyards, one behind the other, each reached through the outer courtyards by a ground level corridor similar to that between the first courtyard and the road. The larger, more expensive flats faced the street while the smaller, more modest dwellings were grouped around the inner courtyards.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Just as the Soviets had learned a lot about urban warfare, so had the Germans. The "Waffen-SS" did not use makeshift barricades erected close to street corners, because these could be raked by artillery fire from guns firing over open sights further along the straight streets. Instead, they put snipers and machine guns on the upper floors and roofs because the Soviet tanks could not elevate their guns that high, and simultaneously they put men armed with "Panzerfaust" anti-tank weapons in cellar windows to ambush tanks as they moved down the streets. These tactics were quickly adopted by the Hitler Youth and the "Volkssturm".


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Initially Soviet tanks advanced down the middle of the streets, but to counter the German tactics, they altered their own and started to hug the sides of the streets; this allowed for supporting cross-fire from tanks either side of the wider thoroughfares. The Soviets also mounted sub-machine gunners on the tanks who sprayed every doorway and window, but this meant the tank could not traverse its turret quickly. Another solution was to rely on heavy howitzers (152 mm and 203 mm) firing over open sights to blast defended buildings and to use anti-aircraft guns against the German gunners on the higher floors. Soviet combat groups started to move from house to house instead of directly down the streets. They moved through the apartments and cellars, blasting holes through the walls of adjacent buildings (making effective use of abandoned German "Panzerfausts"), while others fought across the rooftops and through the attics. These enfilading tactics took the Germans lying in ambush for tanks in the flanks. Flamethrowers and grenades proved to be very effective, but as the Berlin civilian population had not been evacuated, these tactics inevitably killed many non-combatants.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: With the decisive stages of the battle being fought outside the city, Berlin's fate was sealed, yet the resistance inside continued. On 23 April, Hitler appointed German Artillery General ("General der Artillerie") Helmuth Weidling commander of the Berlin Defence Area. Only a day earlier, Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat order issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. On 20 April, Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling replaced Lieutenant-Colonel ("Oberstleutnant") Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin. Only one day earlier, Kaether had replaced Lieutenant-General ("Generalleutnant") Helmuth Reymann, who had held the position for only about a month.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By 23 April, some of Chuikov's rifle units had crossed the Spree and Dahme rivers south of Köpenick and by 24 April were advancing towards Britz and Neukölln. Accompanying them were the leading tanks of Colonel-General Mikhail Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army. Sometime after midnight, a corps of Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin's 5th Shock Army crossed the Spree close to Treptow Park. At dawn on 24 April the LVI Panzer Corps still under Weidling's direct command, counterattacked, but were severely mauled by the 5th Shock Army, which was able to continue its advance around mid-day. Meanwhile, the first large Soviet probe into the city was put into operation. Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army attacked across the Teltow Canal. At 06:20 a bombardment by 3,000 guns and heavy mortars began (a staggering 650 pieces of artillery per kilometer of front). At 07:00 hours the first Soviet battalions were across, to be followed by tanks around 12:00, shortly after the first of the pontoon bridges were completed. By the evening Treptow Park was in Soviet hands and they had also reached the "S-Bahn".


title: Battle in Berlin

text: While the fighting raged in the south-east of the city, between 320 and 330 French volunteers commanded by "SS-Brigadeführer" Gustav Krukenberg and organised as "Sturmbataillon" (assault battalion) "Charlemagne" were attached to XI SS "Panzergrenadier" Division "Nordland". They moved from the SS training ground near Neustrelitz to the centre of Berlin through the western suburbs, which apart from unmanned barricades across the Havel and Spree were devoid of fortifications or defenders. Of all the reinforcements ordered to Berlin that day, only this "Sturmbataillon" arrived.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed commander of Defence Sector C which included the "Nordland" Division, whose previous commander, Joachim Ziegler, was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the "Nordland" Division whose "Norge" and "Danmark" regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Just midday as Krukenberg reached his command, the last German bridgehead south of the Teltow Canal was being abandoned. During the night Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs, Chief of the General Staff of "Oberkommando des Heeres" (OKH) that within 24 hours the "Nordland" would have to fall back to the central sector Z (Z for "Zentrum" or "Mitte").


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Soviet combat groups of the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs of Neukölln towards Tempelhof Airport which was located just inside the "S-Bahn" defensive ring. Defending Sector D was Panzer Division "Müncheberg". This division, down to its last dozen tanks and thirty armoured personnel carriers (APC)s, had been promised replacements for battle losses but only stragglers and "Volkssturm" were available to fill the ranks. The Soviets advanced cautiously, using flamethrowers to overcome defensive positions. By dusk Soviet T-34 tanks had reached the airfield, only six kilometres (four miles) south of the "Führerbunker", where they were checked by stiff German resistance. The "Müncheberg" Division managed to hold the line until the afternoon of the next day, but this was the last time they were able to check the Soviet advance for more than a few hours.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 26 April, with Neukölln heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups, Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermannplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. The two understrength German divisions defending the south-east were now facing five Soviet armies. From east to west they were: the 5th Shock Army, advancing from Treptow Park; the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army moving through Neukölln north (temporarily checked at Tempelhof Airport), and Colonel-General Pavel Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army (part of Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front) advancing from Mariendorf. As the "Nordland" Division fell back towards Hermannplatz, the French SS and one-hundred Hitler Youth attached to their group destroyed 14 Soviet tanks with "panzerfausts"; one machine gun position by the Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for 48 hours. The "Nordlands"' remaining armour, eight Tiger tanks and several assault guns, were ordered to take up positions in the Tiergarten, because although these two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance, they could not stop it. SS-"Oberscharführer" Schmidt recalled, "I was assigned as platoon leader of a 'dwindled company' which included a squad of Hungarian volunteers, "Volkssturm" men, "Hitlerjugend", as well as members of the "Heer" [army]... Daily, the Russians advanced closer to the government quarter, which we were to defend. It became more and more difficult to hold the line 'under all circumstances'..."


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Hitler summoned Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the German Air Force ("Luftwaffe") from Hermann Göring. While flying over Berlin in a Fieseler Storch, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At Tempelhof Airport, the flak batteries conducted direct fire against advancing Soviet tanks until they were overrun. On the following day, 27 April, 2,000 German women were rounded up and ordered to help clear Tempelhof Airport of debris so that the Red Army Air Force could start to use it. Marshal Zhukov appointed Colonel-General Berzarin to start organising the German civil administration in the areas that they had captured. "Bürgermeister", just as the directors of the Berlin utilities, were summoned to appear before Berzarin's staff.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: As the Soviet armies of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front converged on the centre of the city there were many accidental 'friendly fire' incidents involving artillery shelling because the spotter planes and the artillery of the different Soviet Fronts were not coordinated and frequently mistook assault groups in other armies as enemy troops. Indeed, the rivalry between the Soviet armies to capture the city centre was becoming intense. A corps commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front joked with laconic humour, "Now we should be scared not of the enemy, but of our neighbour... There's nothing more depressing in Berlin than learning about the successes of your neighbour". Beevor has suggested that the rivalry went further than just jokes and says that Chuikov deliberately ordered the left flank of the 8th Guards Army (of 1st Belorussian Front) across the front of the 3rd Guards Tank Army (of the 1st Ukrainian Front), blocking its direct path to the Reichstag. As Chuikov did not inform Rybalko, commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Army, that the 8th was doing this, the troops ordered to carry out this manoeuvre suffered disproportionate casualties from friendly fire.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: In the south-west, Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army, supported by Lieutenant-General Luchinsky's 28th Army, were advancing through the wooded park and suburbs of the Grunewald, attacking what remained of the XVIII "Panzergrenadier" Division on their eastern flank and entering Charlottenburg. In the south, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army crossed the Landwehr Canal on 27 April, the last major obstacle between them and the "Führerbunker" next to the Reich Chancellery less than away. In the south-east, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army had bypassed the Friedrichshain "flak" tower and was now between Frankfurter Allee and the south bank of the Spree, where its IX Corps was fighting.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By 27 April the Soviet Armies had penetrated the German's "S-Bahn" outer defensive ring from all directions. The Germans had been forced back into a pocket about long from west to east and about wide at its narrowest, just west of the old city centre, near the Tiergarten. In the north-west, Lieutenant-General F.I. Perkohorovitch's 47th Army was now approaching Spandau, and was also heavily involved in a battle to capture Gatow airfield, which was defended by "Volkssturm" and Luftwaffe cadets using the feared 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in their anti-tank role. In the north, Colonel-General Semyon Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army was bogged down just south of Siemensstadt. Colonel-General Vasily Kuznetsov's 3rd Shock Army had bypassed the Humboldthain flak tower (leaving it to follow-up forces), and had reached the north of the Tiergarten and Prenzlauerberg.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On the morning of 27 April, the Soviets continued the assault with a heavy bombardment of the inner city. The 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army were ordered to take Belle-Alliance-Platz (Belle-Alliance being an alternative name for the Battle of Waterloo) that in a twist of history was defended by French SS soldiers of "Sturmbataillon" "Charlemagne" attached to the "Nordland" Division. That night Weidling gave a battle situation report to Hitler, and presented him with a detailed breakout plan which would be spearheaded with just under forty tanks (all the combat-ready German tanks available in Berlin). Hitler rejected the plan, saying he would stay in the bunker and that Weidling would carry on with the defence.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: In sector Z (centre) Krukenberg "Nordland" divisional headquarters was now a carriage in the "Stadtmitte U-Bahn" station. The "Nordland's" armour was reduced to four captured Soviet armoured personnel carriers and two half-tracks, so Kruneberg's men's chief weapon was now the "Panzerfaust" which were used for close quarters battle against both Soviet armour and in house to house fighting against Soviet combat groups.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At dawn on 28 April, the youth divisions "Clausewitz", "Scharnhorst" and "Theodor Körner", attacked from the south-west in the direction of Berlin. They were part of Wenck's XX Corps and were made up of men from the officer training schools, making them some of the best units the Germans had left. They covered a distance of about , before being halted at the tip of Lake Schwielow south-west of Potsdam and still from Berlin. In the evening of 28 April, the BBC broadcast a Reuters news report about Heinrich Himmler's attempted negotiations with the western Allies through Count Folke Bernadotte in Luebeck. Upon being informed, Hitler flew into a rage and told those who were still with him in the bunker complex that Himmler's act was the worst treachery he had ever known. Hitler ordered von Greim and Reitsch to fly to Karl Dönitz's headquarters at Ploen and arrest the "traitor" Himmler.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By 28 April, the "Müncheberg" Division had been driven back to the Anhalter railway station less than south of the "Führerbunker". To slow the advancing Soviets, allegedly on Hitler's orders, the bulkheads under the Landwehr Canal were blown up. It caused panic in the "U-Bahn" tunnels under the Anhalter railway station in which some were trampled to death. But the water level only suddenly rose by about and after that much more slowly. Initially it was thought that many thousands had drowned, but when the tunnels were pumped out in October 1945 it was found that most of the bodies were of people who had died of their wounds, not from drowning. In any event, the Soviets continued their advance with three T-34s, making it as far as Wilhelmstrasse "U-Bahn" station before being ambushed and destroyed by the Frenchmen of the "Nordland" Division.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: During 27 and 28 April, most of the formations of Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front that were engaged in the Battle in Berlin were ordered to disengage and proceed south to take part in the Prague Offensive (the last great offensive of the European theatre). This did not mitigate their resentment at being denied the honour of capturing the centre of Berlin, but left the 1st Belorussian Front under Marshal Zhukov to claim that honour for themselves alone.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By 28 April, the Germans were now reduced to a strip less than wide and in length, from Alexanderplatz in the east to Charlottenburg and the area around the Olympic Stadium ("Reichssportfeld") in the west. Generally, the Soviets avoided fighting their way into tunnels and bunkers (of which there were about 1,000 in the Berlin area); instead, they sealed them off and continued the advance. However, just over to the north of the "Reichstag" the 3rd Shock Army did use heavy guns at point blank range to blast a hole in the walls of Moabit prison; after a breach was made and the prison stormed, the garrison there quickly surrendered. The 3rd Shock Army were in sight of the Victory Column in the Tiergarten and during the afternoon advanced towards the Moltke Bridge over the Spree, just north of the Ministry of the Interior and a mere from the "Reichstag". German demolition charges damaged the Moltke bridge but left it still passable to infantry. As dusk fell and under heavy artillery bombardment, the first Soviet troops crossed the bridge. By midnight, the Soviet 150th and 171st Rifle Divisions had secured the bridgehead against any counterattack the Germans could muster.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On 28 April, Krebs made his last telephone call from the "Führerbunker". He called Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" (OKW, "high command of the armed forces"), in Fürstenberg. Krebs told Keitel that, if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Walther Wenck, commander of XII Army, and Theodor Busse, commander of the IX Army. Meanwhile, Hitler's private secretary (and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery) Martin Bormann wired to the head of the navy Admiral Dönitz: [the] "Reich Chancellery ("Reichskanzlei") [is] a heap of rubble." He went on to say that the foreign press was reporting fresh acts of treason and "that without exception Schörner, Wenck and the others must give evidence of their loyalty by the quickest relief of the Führer".


title: Battle in Berlin

text: During the evening, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamerplatz and to make sure that Himmler was punished. Fearing that Hitler was escaping in the plane, troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot down the Arado but the plane took off successfully.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: During the night of 28 April, Wenck reported to Keitel that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. This was particularly true of XX Corps that had been able to establish temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. According to Wenck, no relief for Berlin by his army was now possible. This was even more so as support from the IX Army could no longer be expected. Keitel gave Wenck permission to break off his attempt to relieve Berlin.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At 04:00 hours on 29 April, in the "Führerbunker", General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Hitler dictated the document to Traudl Junge, shortly after he had married Eva Braun.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: After Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front had broken out of their bridgehead, General Heinrici disobeyed Hitler's direct orders and allowed von Manteuffel's request for a general withdrawal of the III Panzer Army. By 29 April, Army Group Vistula Headquarters staff could no longer contact the IX Army, so there was little in the way of coordination that Heinrici's staff could still to do. As Heinrici had disobeyed a direct order from Hitler (in allowing von Manteuffel to retreat), he was relieved of his command. However, von Manteuffel refused Keitel's request that he take over, and although ordered to report to OKW headquarters, Heinrici dallied and never arrived. Keitel later recalled the incident in his memoirs and said that command passed to the senior army commander of the XXI Army, General Kurt von Tippelskirch. Other sources claim that von Tippelskirch's appointment was temporary and only until the arrival of General Kurt Student. Student was captured by British forces and never arrived. Whether von Tippelskirch or Student or both took command, the rapidly deteriorating situation that the Germans faced, meant that Army Group Vistula's coordination of the armies under its nominal command during the last few days of the war were of little significance.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: In the early hours of 29 April, the 150th and 171st Rifle divisions started to fan out from the Moltke bridgehead into the surrounding streets and buildings. Initially the Soviets were unable to bring forward artillery, as the combat engineers had not had time to strengthen the bridge or build an alternative. The only form of heavy weaponry available to the assault troops were individual "Katyusha" rockets lashed to short sections of railway lines. Major-General Shatilov's 150th Rifle Division had a particularly hard fight, capturing the heavily fortified Ministry of the Interior building. Lacking artillery, the men had to clear it room by room with grenades and sub-machine guns.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: In the south-east at dawn on 29 April, Colonel Antonov's 301st Rifle Division pressed on with its assault. After very heavy fighting, the formation managed to capture the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, but a "Waffen SS" counter-attack forced the regiments of the division to withdraw from the structure. Still confined to the building were seven inmates who had been spared in the massacre of other prisoners on 23 April. To the south-west Chuikov's 8th Guards Army attacked north across the Landwehr canal into the Tiergarten.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The "Nordland" Division was now under Mohnke's central command. All the men were exhausted from days and nights of continuous fighting. The Frenchmen of the "Nordland" had proved particularly good at destroying tanks, of the 108 Soviet tanks knocked out in the central district, they had accounted for about half of them. That afternoon the last two Knight's Crosses of the Third Reich were awarded; one went to Frenchman Eugéne Vaulôt, who had personally destroyed eight tanks, the other was awarded to SS-"Sturmbannführer" Friedrich Herzig, the commander of the 503 SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. Two other men received less prestigious awards for only knocking out five tanks each.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: During the evening of 29 April, at Weidling's headquarters in the Bendlerblock, now within metres of the front line, Weidling discussed with his divisional commanders, the possibility of breaking out to the south-west to link up with the XII Army, whose spearhead had reached the village of Ferch in Brandenburg on the banks of the Schwielowsee near Potsdam. The breakout was planned to start the next night at 22:00. Late in the evening, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the IX Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolf Holste's spearhead." In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of IX Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive."


title: Battle in Berlin

text: By this time, several smaller Polish units had already taken part in the battle in Berlin (such as the 1st Polish Motorized Mortar Brigade, the 6th Polish Motorised Pontoon Battalion, and the 2nd Polish Howitzer Brigade). Soviet forces were lacking infantry support, and armored units, without infantry support, were taking heavy casualties. As of 30 April, the Soviet forces were joined by the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division after a request from the Soviet command for infantry reinforcements. Originally, one infantry regiment was to support the 1st Mechanised Corps, and two, the 12th Guards Tank Corps; contrary to the original plan, two regiments (1st and 2nd) ended up supporting the 1st Corps, and only one (3rd) the 12th Corps. The 3rd Polish Infantry Regiment was operating with the 66th Guards Tank Brigade of the 12th Guards Tank Corps. The 1st Polish Infantry Regiment was split up into "combat teams" supporting the 19th and 35th Mechanized Brigades, with the 2nd Polish Infantry Regiment supporting the 219th Tank Brigade; all units of the Soviet 1st Mechanized Corps. Upon arrival, the Polish forces found that the Soviet units had suffered tremendous losses; the 19th and 35th Mechanized Brigades had sustained over 90% casualties, and thus the Polish 1st Infantry Regiment originally assigned to support them had to, in effect, take over their tasks. The 66th Guards Tank Brigade of the 12th Corps that received the 3rd Polish Infantry Regiment for support had similarly taken heavy losses, having already lost 82 tanks due to insufficient infantry cover.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At 06:00 on 30 April the 150th Rifle Division had still not captured the upper floors of the Ministry of the Interior, but while the fighting was still going on, the 150th launched an attack from there across the 400 metres of Königsplatz towards the "Reichstag". For the Soviets, the "Reichstag" was the symbol of the Third Reich; it was of such significant value that the Soviets wanted to capture it before the May Day parade in Moscow (ironically, it was never restored by the Nazis after the fire). The assault was not an easy one. The Germans had dug a complicated network of trenches around the building and a collapsed tunnel had filled with water from the Spree forming a moat across Königsplatz. The initial infantry assault was decimated by cross fire from the "Reichstag" and the Kroll Opera House on the western side of Königsplatz. By now the Spree had been bridged and the Soviets were able to bring up tanks and artillery to support fresh assaults by the infantry, some of which were tasked with out-flanking the Opera House and attacking it from the north-west. By 10:00 the soldiers of the 150th had reached the moat, but accurate fire from 12.8 cm FlaK 40 anti-aircraft guns, two kilometres away high on the flak tower close by the Berlin Zoo, prevented any further successful advance across the moat during daylight. Throughout the rest of the day, as ninety artillery pieces, some as large as the 203 mm howitzer, as well as "Katyusha" rocket launchers, bombarded the "Reichstag" and its defensive trenches. Colonel Negoda's 171st Rifle Division, on the left flank of the 150th, continued to capture the buildings of the diplomatic quarter to the north of Königsplatz.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: As the perimeter shrank and the surviving defenders fell back on the centre, they became concentrated. By now, there were about 10,000 soldiers in the city centre, who were being assaulted from all sides. One of the other main thrusts was along Wilhelmstrasse on which the Air Ministry building, which was built of reinforced concrete, was situated. It was pounded by large concentrations of Soviet artillery. The remaining German Tiger tanks of the Hermann von Salza battalion took up positions in the east of the Tiergarten to defend the centre against the 3rd Shock Army (which, although heavily engaged around the "Reichstag", was also flanking the area by advancing through the northern Tiergarten) and the 8th Guards Army advancing through the south of the Tiergarten. These Soviet forces had effectively cut the sausage-shaped area held by the Germans in half and made an escape to the west for those German troops in the centre much more difficult.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: During the morning, Mohnke informed Hitler the centre would be able to hold for less than two days. Later that morning, Weidling informed Hitler in person that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition that night and again asked Hitler permission to break out. At about 13:00, Weidling, who was back in his headquarters in the Bendlerblock, finally received Hitler's permission to attempt a breakout. During the afternoon, Hitler shot himself and Braun took cyanide. In accordance with Hitler's instructions, the bodies were burned in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, became the new "Head of Government" and Chancellor of Germany ("Reichskanzler"). At 3:15 am, "Reichskanzler" Goebbels and Bormann sent a radio message to Admiral Dönitz informing him of Hitler's death. Per Hitler's last wishes, Dönitz was appointed as the new "President of Germany" ("Reichspräsident").


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Starting from 16:00 on 30 April, the 1st Battalion of the Polish 1st Regiment (assigned to the region of 35th Mechanized Brigade) begun an assault on a barricade on Pestalozzistrasse, a major obstacle which made previous tank attacks in that direction suicidal. The Polish 2nd and 3rd Regiments cleared the path through the barricades on Goethestrasse and Schillerstrasse for the tanks of the Soviet 19th Brigade.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Because of the smoke, dusk came early to the centre of Berlin. At 18:00 hours, while Weidling and his staff finalized their breakout plans in the Bendlerblock, three regiments of the Soviet 150th Rifle Division, under cover of a heavy artillery barrage and closely supported by tanks, assaulted the "Reichstag". All the windows were bricked up, but the soldiers managed to force the main doors and entered the main hall. The German garrison, of about 1,000 defenders (a mixture of sailors, SS and Hitler Youth) fired down on the Soviets from above, turning the main hall into a medieval style killing field. Suffering many casualties, the Soviets got beyond the main hall and started to work their way up through the building. The fire and subsequent wartime damage had turned the building's interior into a maze of rubble and debris amongst which the German defenders were strongly dug in. The Soviet infantry were forced to clear them out. Fierce room-to-room fighting ensued. As May Day approached Soviet troops reached the roof, but fighting continued inside. Moscow claimed that they hoisted the Red Flag on the top of the "Reichstag" at 22:50, however Beevor points out that this may have been an exaggeration as "Soviet propaganda was fixated with the idea of the "Reichstag" being captured by 1 May". Whatever the truth, the fighting continued as there was still a large contingent of German soldiers down in the basement. The Germans were well stocked with food and ammunition and launched counter-attacks against the Red Army, leading to close fighting in and around the "Reichstag". Close combat raged throughout the night and the coming day of 1 May, until the evening when some German troops pulled out of the building and crossed the Friedrichstraße "S-Bahn" Station, where they moved into the ruins hours before the main breakout across the Spree. About 300 of the last German combatants surrendered. A further 200 defenders were dead and another 500 were already "hors de combat", lying wounded in the basement, many before the final assault had started.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The barricade at Pestalozzistrasse was taken on the morning of 1 May, allowing Soviet tanks of the 34th Brigade to advance and to reestablish contact with the 19th Mechanized Brigade supported by the 2nd and 3rd Battalion of the 1st Regiment, which pushed through the barricades at Goethestrasse and Schillerstrasse. Further, heavily fortified German positions in and around the church at the Karl August-Platz were taken, allowing the Polish and Soviet units to advance along the Goethestrasse and Schillerstrasse. In the meantime, the Polish 2nd Regiment, with its own artillery support, took the heavily fortified Berlin Institute of Technology that was situated in the triangle between Charlottenburgerstrasse, Hardenbergstrasse and Jebenstrasse. With support by the Polish 3rd Infantry Regiment, the Soviet 66th Guards Tank Brigade (which had only 15 tanks) broke through Franklinstrasse and advanced towards the Berlin-Tiergarten station. The stronghold of the Tiergarten ("S-Bahn") station was then secured by the 3rd Infantry Regiment. Thereafter, Polish and Soviet units took control of the Zoologischer Garten station and the railway line between them. By these actions, the Red Army had broken through the central Berlin west line of defence.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At about 04:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army. Krebs returned empty-handed after refusing to agree to an unconditional surrender. Only "Reichskanzler" Goebbels now had the authority to agree to an unconditional surrender. In the late afternoon, Goebbels had his children poisoned. At about 20:00, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, left the bunker and close to the entrance bit on a cyanide ampoule, and either shot themselves at the same time or were given a "coup de grâce" immediately afterwards by the SS guard detailed to dispose of their bodies. As promised by the Soviets, at 10:45 on 1 May they unleashed a "hurricane of fire" on the German pocket in the centre to force the Germans to surrender unconditionally.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: For a brief period after Hitler's suicide, Goebbels was Germany's "Reichskanzler". On 1 May, after Goebbels' own suicide, for an equally brief period, "Reichspräsident" Admiral Karl Dönitz appointed Ludwig von Krosigk as "Reichskanzler". The headquarters of the Dönitz government were located around Flensburg, along with Mürwik, near the Danish border. Accordingly, the Dönitz administration was referred to as the Flensburg Government.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The commanders of two formidable Berlin fortresses agreed to surrender to the Soviets, so sparing both sides the losses involved in further bombardment and assault. The commander of the Zoo flak tower (that had proved impervious to direct hits from 203 mm howitzer shells) was asked to surrender on 30 April; after a long delay a message was sent back to the Soviets on 1 May informing them that the garrison would surrender to the Soviets at midnight that night. The reason for the delay was because the garrison intended to join in the attempt at a breakout. The other fortress was the Spandau Citadel of "Trace italienne" design which although several hundred years old presented a difficult structure to storm. After negotiations, the citadel's commander surrendered to Lieutenant-General F. I. Perkhorovitch's 47th Army just after 15:00 on 1 May.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Weidling had given the order for the survivors to break out to the north-west starting at around 21:00 hours on 1 May. The breakout started later than planned at around 23:00 hours. The first group from the Reich Chancellery was led by Mohnke. Bormann, Werner Naumann, and remaining "Führerbunker" personnel followed. Burgdorf, who played a key role in the death of Erwin Rommel, along with Krebs, committed suicide. Mohnke's group avoided the Weidendammer Bridge (over which the mass breakout took place) and crossed by a footbridge, but his group became split. A Tiger tank that spearheaded the first attempt to storm the Weidendammer Bridge was destroyed. There followed two more attempts and on the third attempt, made around 1:00, Bormann and SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger in another group from the Reich Chancellery managed to cross the Spree. They were reported to have died a short distance from the bridge, their bodies seen and identified by Artur Axmann who followed the same route.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Krukenberg and many of the survivors of the remnants of the "Nordland" Division crossed the Spree shortly before dawn but could not break through and were forced back into the centre. There they split up; some discarded their uniforms and tried to pass themselves off as civilians, but most were either killed or, like Krukenberg, captured. An attempt to break out northward along the Schönhauser Allee by German troops on the north-eastern side of the central defence area failed because the Soviets were now aware that breakout attempts were being made and were hurriedly putting cordons in place to stop them. The remnants of the "Münchenberg" Division (five tanks, four artillery pieces, and a handful of troops) and the remnants of the 18th Panzer Grenadier and 9th Parachute divisions broke out of the centre westward through the Tiergarten. They were followed by thousands of stragglers and civilians. Spandau was still in the hands of a Hitler Youth detachment, so an attempt was made to force a passage across the Charlotten Bridge over the Havel. Despite heavy shelling which killed many, German weight of numbers meant that they were able to drive the Soviet infantry back and many thousands crossed into Spandau. The armoured vehicles that crossed the bridge made for Staaken.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: Mohnke (and what was left of his group) could not break through the Soviet rings. Most were taken prisoner and some committed suicide. General Mohnke and the others who had been in the "Führerbunker" were interrogated by SMERSH. Only a handful of survivors reached the Elbe and surrendered to the Western Allies. The majority were killed or captured by the Soviets. The number of German soldiers and civilians killed attempting the breakout is unknown.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: On the morning of 2 May, the Soviets stormed the Reich Chancellery. In the official Soviet version, the battle was similar to that of the battle for the "Reichstag". There was an assault over Wilhelmplatz and into the building with a howitzer to blast open the front doors and several battles within the building. Major Anna Nikulina, a political officer with Lieutenant-General I. P. Rossly's 9th Rifle Corps of the 5th Shock Army carried and unfurled the red flag on the roof. However, Beevor suggests that the official Soviet description is probably an exaggeration, as most of the German combat troops had left in the breakouts the night before, and resistance must have been far less than that inside the "Reichstag".


title: Battle in Berlin

text: At 01:00 hours, the Soviets picked up radio message from the German LVI Corps requesting a cease-fire and stating that emissaries would come under a white flag to Potsdamer bridge. General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 06:00 hours. He was taken to see Lieutenant-General Chuikov at 8:23 am. Chuikov, who had commanded the successful defence of Stalingrad, asked: "You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?" Weidling replied: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVI Panzer Corps." Chuikov then asked: "Where is Krebs? What did he say?" Weidling replied: "I saw him yesterday in the Reich Chancellery." Weidling then added: "I thought he would commit suicide." In the discussions that followed, Weidling agreed to an unconditional surrender of the city of Berlin. He agreed to order the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets. Under the direction of Chuikov and Soviet General Vasily Sokolovsky (Chief of staff of the 1st Ukrainian Front), Weidling put his order to surrender in writing.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The 350-strong garrison of the Zoo flak tower finally left the building. There was sporadic fighting in a few isolated buildings where some SS still refused to surrender. The Soviets simply blasted any such building to rubble. Most Germans, soldiers and civilians, were grateful to receive food issued at Red Army soup kitchens. The Soviets went house to house and rounded up anyone in a uniform including firemen and railwaymen, which led to them later exaggerating the total number of German troops in the city.


title: Battle in Berlin

text: The Red Army made a major effort to feed the residents of the city which began on Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin's orders. However, in many areas, vengeful Soviet troops (usually rear echelon units) looted, raped (an estimated 100,000) and murdered civilians for several weeks.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Dominique Provost-Chalkley (born 24 March 1990) is a British-Canadian actor, best known for their role as Waverly Earp on the television series "Wynonna Earp".


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: They began dancing at the age of four and, at the age of 16, began training as an actor and singer at the Laine Theatre Arts School.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Provost-Chalkley began appearing on television in 2008 as a dancer in the ITV series "Britannia High." In 2010, they were an alternate in the West End hit musical "Dirty Dancing". In 2012, they starred as Vanya in the British thriller film "The Seasoning House" and were featured in an episode of the E4's sitcom "The Midnight Beast." In 2015, they played Zrinka in the Hollywood blockbuster film "."


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: On stage, they played Holly in "Viva Forever!", a jukebox musical about the Spice Girls that took place in West End from 2012 to 2013.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: In 2016, they began playing Waverly Earp on the Canadian-American television series "Wynonna Earp", a performance for which they received considerable fan attention; they have been noted for their performance of a queer character by the LGBT community. They originally auditioned for the lead role. In 2018, they, along with the cast of Wynonna Earp, received the People's Choice Award for best Sci-Fi show. The show won as a write-in candidate due to the show's fandom known as "Earpers". They have also played a variety of guest roles in other television series, including on "Murdoch Mysteries" (2016) and "12 Monkeys" (2017)


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: In 2017, they played a supporting role in "The Carmilla Movie", a feature film based on the popular web series of the same name.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: In 2019, they played the role of Sue in the queer holiday movie, Season of Love, where they performed a Billy Steinberg song, "Lift Your Spirit Up".


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Wrote songs "Pride Liberates" and "Keeping Me Safe" which are sung by singer/song writer and friend, Emy Taliana. Both songs can be heard on Emy Taliana's album, "Everything Is Love."


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Child of Danielle Provost and Christopher Chalkley, an artist and activist, manager, founder and president of the People's Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC), a collective that aims to enhance the neighborhood with art and local artists.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Provost-Chalkley was born in Bristol, England. They are also Canadian, due to their Quebecois mother.


title: Dominique Provost-Chalkley

text: Provost-Chalkley came out, stating "I am queer. I am into ALL humans", on 24 March 2020, their 30th birthday, through an initiative called "Rainbow Waves" spawned from their organisation Start The Wave.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In sociology and criminology, strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim, strain theories have been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Neil Smelser (1963), Robert Agnew (1992), Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld (1994) and Jie Zhang (2012).


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Strain theory is a sociology and criminology theory developed in 1938 by Robert K. Merton. The theory states that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve socially accepted goals (such as the American dream), though they lack the means. This leads to strain which may lead individuals to commit crimes, like selling drugs or becoming involved in prostitution as a means to gain financial security.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Robert King Merton was an American sociologist who argued that society can encourage deviance to a large degree. Merton believed that socially accepted goals put pressure on people to conform. His theory was developed largely due to the social and economic circumstances occurring in the United States during the early 1900s. Robert Merton's Strain Theory stems from a fundamental question that he posed on why the rates of deviance were so different among different societies. He thought that there could be deviance where there is a difference between what defines success and the proper means to achieve said goals. He found that the United States is a prime example of high levels of deviance because of the high social value of achieving success, primarily monetary, but there are contradictions to the means for acquiring such success. Employees who have a college education are respected but the robber barons who stole for their money were also admired, which demonstrates that success is viewed as more important than the actual means to achieve success.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In addition, he saw how minority groups had a harder time acquiring a good education, and if they could, they had a harder time acquiring a respectable living; yet the same high standard for success is enforced on everyone regardless if they had the means to satisfy such standards. These contradictions led him to develop the strain theory because of society’s high reverence towards achieving “success.” Individuals are forced to work within the system or become members of deviant subcultures in order to achieve socially prescribed goals. Merton's belief became the theory known as Strain Theory. Merton added that when individuals are faced with a gap between their goals (usually monetary) and their current status, strain occurs. When individuals are faced with strain, Merton outlined five different ways that they respond:


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: British Sociologist and Criminologist Jock Young drew on Merton's theory in his book "The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity" in 1999. Analysing crime from both a cultural and structural point of view, he argued in the structural sense that the dismantling of the welfare state in conjunction with the widening disparities between the rich and poor has served to further exclude disadvantaged groups. Because contemporary consumer capitalism places a greater than ever emphasis on conspicuous consumption and material success, this thus intensified feelings of deprivation experienced by the less successful.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: General strain theory (GST) is a sociology and criminology theory developed in 1992 by Robert Agnew. Agnew believed that Merton's theory was too vague in nature and did not account for criminal activity which did not involve financial gain. The core idea of general strain theory is that people who experience strain or stress become distressed or upset which may lead them to commit crime in order to cope. One of the key principles of this theory is emotion as the motivator for crime. The theory was developed to conceptualize the full range of sources in society where strain possibly comes from, which Merton's strain theory does not. The theory also focuses on the perspective of goals for status, expectations and class rather than focusing on money (as Merton's theory does). Examples of General Strain Theory are people who use illegal drugs to make themselves feel better, or a student assaulting his peers to end the harassment they caused.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Institutional anomie theory (IAT) is a criminology theory developed in 1994 by Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld. The theory proposes that an institutional arrangement with a market, where the market/economy is allowed to operate/dominate without restraints from other social intuitions like family will likely cause criminal behavior. Derived from Merton's Strain Theory, IAT expands on the macro levels of the theory. IAT's focus centers on the criminal influences of varied social institutions, rather than just the economic structure.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Illegitimate opportunities is a sociology theory developed in 1960 by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin. The theory states that crimes result from a high number of illegitimate opportunities and not from a lack of legitimate ones. The theory was created from Merton's strain theory to help address juvenile delinquency.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: The theory of "role strain", developed by sociologist William J. Goode in 1960, states that social institutions are supported and operated by role relationships. Due to these role relationships that individuals may feel "role strain", or difficulty fulfilling their sociological duties in the relationship. It is through this "role strain" that social action and social structure are maintained. With these relationships, come social obligations that members of that society are required to follow, which people are usually not forced to fulfill. In order for the society to continue existing, these obligations must be fulfilled at the volition of the individuals in it, which the theory states is what most people are inclined to do. Due to the fact that there is no force involved in maintaining these role relationships, there will be individuals who can not, or will not, conform to these societal expectations.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In addition, the individuals within the society are not bound to one role relationship. In fact, all individuals will be part of multiple role relationships. Possession of multiple relationships can account for the conflicts of interest often faced in social settings. According to Goode, however, due to these multiple relationships, an individual will almost always have a total amount of role obligations that demand more than what the individual can give, whether it is in terms of time, emotional favor, or material resources. This can give rise to "role strain", which can lead the individual to attempting to fulfill socially acceptable goals in means that may not be socially acceptable (as explained in general strain theory).


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: While the theory of role strain attempts to attribute the maintenance of society to role relationships, Goode also acknowledges that the theory does not account for the existence of more complex social settings, such as that of urban society. The theory of role strain does not account for several aspects of urban life, such as the fact that some individuals accept absolutely none of the society's central values, the fact that individuals vary in their emotional commitment to these societal values, how these role relationships change when individuals go through a change in social position, or how these relationships hold up during times of crisis.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In the year 1992, Robert Agnew asserted that strain theory could be central in explaining crime and deviance, but that it needed revision so that it was not tied to social class or cultural variables, but re-focused on norms. To this end, Agnew proposed a general strain theory that is neither structural nor interpersonal but rather individual and emotional, paying special attention to an individual's immediate social environment. He argued that an individual's actual or anticipated failure to achieve positively valued goals, actual or anticipated removal of positively valued stimuli, and actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli all result in strain.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Anger and frustration confirm negative relationships. The resulting behavior patterns will often be characterized by more than their share of unilateral action because an individual will have a natural desire to avoid unpleasant rejections, and these unilateral actions (especially when antisocial) will further contribute to an individual's alienation from society. If particular rejections are generalized into feelings that the environment is unsupportive, more strongly negative emotions may motivate the individual to engage in crime. This is most likely to be true for younger individuals, and Agnew suggested that research focus on the magnitude, recency, duration, and clustering of such strain-related events to determine whether a person copes with strain in a criminal or conforming manner. Temperament, intelligence, interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, the presence of conventional social support, and the absence of association with antisocial ("e.g.", criminally inclined) age and status peers are chief among the factors Agnew identified as beneficial.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In recent years, Zhang and colleagues have argued that socio-psychological strain factors were more indicative than mental disorders in suicide ideation and risk. Zhang suggests that these mental strains, manifesting as an intense internal frustration and psychological suffering, develop from competing pressures in an individual's life, and identified four sources that precede suicide in a study on suicides in rural China: 1) value strain from differential values, 2) aspirational strain from the discrepancy between reality and aspiration, 3) deprivation strain from relative deprivation, including poverty, and 4) coping strain from not being able to cope in the face of crisis. The theory's particular strength is that, unlike many other theories on suicide, and strain, it does not restrict itself to one domain of possible risk factors; such as the social, psychiatric, or psychological.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: This strain theory of suicide developed from Durkheim's notion of anomie, and the work of Merton and Agnew on strain theory. Although mental illness on its own is not a definite risk factor for suicide to be considered a cause, their research suggests when it goes along with these strains, the risk is exponentially higher. On the other hand, the relationship between suicide and strain may also be moderated by social regulation, -integration, and psychological factors such as personality. Durkheim's anomie contributes to strain risk, so the strain theory on suicide agrees with the suggestion that a person well integrated into a social institution (family, religion, employment, school) may be at lower risk of suicide, even if confronted with a major strain, whereas a person without such integration might be more negatively affected.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: A strain is made up of at least two pressures or variables, similar to the formation of cognitive dissonance. Zhang proposes four types of strain that precede a suicide, each deriving from a particular source. These are:


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: 'Value strain' is the result of two social values or beliefs that conflict and compete in a person’s daily life and internalised value system. The more equally important the two conflicting values, the greater the strain. An example Zhang gives is a second-generation immigrant in the US who must abide by the ethnic rules of their family while also adapting to American culture at school and with peers. Another example can be found in developing countries where the values of traditional collectivism compete with modern individualism.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: "Aspirational strain" is the result of a discrepancy between an individual’s aspirations or goals, and the reality of their daily life that prevents them from achieving their aspirations. An example would be a young adult moving to a large city, expecting to become successful and life an affluent lifestyle, only to find that the means to achieve this might not be equally available due to their social status. The misleading notion of "work hard, play hard" may also cause aspirational strain, as a person might work two jobs but still won’t be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle. The larger the discrepancy between aspiration and reality, the greater the strain.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: The notion of ‘if everyone is poor no one is’ might explain why in cases where a person of low socioeconomic standing is surrounded by those of similar standing, the strain is not as great (although the stress may very well be present). This contrasts with cases where the individual sees that those around them are much better off, causing them to feel deprived and miserable, resulting in deprivation strain. This type of strain is more common in economically polarized societies where the rich and poor live geographically close to one another, although social media has also done much to create a sense of relative deprivation, especially amongst the youth.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: 'Coping strain' occurs when, in times of crisis, a person is not able to sufficiently cope, most commonly due to deficient or inappropriate coping methods. The crisis might be a daily occurrence or a major event, and although many might cope effectively and not experience strain, there are those who cannot manage the strain. Psychological wellbeing may come into play here, as conditions like anxiety or depression may lower (or speak towards) a person’s difficulty coping. Examples include the loss of a loved one, sudden financial loss, bullying, and being fired. Being inexperienced in dealing with crises might increase the strain, which could be linked to the rates of suicide amongst teens and young adults.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: Strain theory was tested following its development. Most of these test examined ideal goals such as occupational goals and individual expectations, which would most ideally lead to crimes if not achieved under rule of strain theory. However, most of the research found that this was not the case. An example of these studies was a study done by Travis Hirschi in the 1969. He analyzes a large body of data on delinquency collected in Western Contra Costa County, California that contrast with strain theory.


title: Strain theory (sociology)

text: In addition to the study done by Hirschi, strain theory was explored in a 2001 study conducted by Jason D. Boardman (and others). The study explored how societal strain and stress can lead to drug use by individuals, in particular how one's neighborhood environment can affect their susceptibility to drug abuse. This study specifically centered around troubled neighborhoods in Detroit, and the results were based on census data taken of these neighborhoods, mainly because this data contained information on each individual resident's use of drugs. From this data, the study found that the more disadvantaged a neighborhood is, the more its residents abuse drugs. The study credited this positive trend to higher levels of stress and fewer available resources. According to strain theory, this lack of resources may compel an individual to abuse drugs to attain the positively valued goal of happiness by using the means that are currently available, which in the case of rough neighborhoods, were drugs.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Kenneth Robertson Bruce (born 2 February 1951) is a British broadcaster who is best known for hosting his long-running weekday mid-morning show on BBC Radio 2 from 1986 to 1990, and then again since 1992.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce was born and raised in Glasgow. He attended Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School, Glasgow, before training as a chartered accountant. Bruce's first job was washing cars. He began his broadcasting career with the Hospital Broadcasting Service in Glasgow.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce became a staff announcer for BBC Radio 4 Scotland. Following the launch of BBC Radio Scotland in November 1978, he became one of the original presenters of "Nightbeat", alongside Iain Purdon. Charles Nove subsequently joined the presentation rota. He also presented a Saturday morning show.


title: Ken Bruce

text: In 1980, he took on the mid-morning slot and then, in 1983, he presented a daily afternoon entertainment show. He hosted his mid-morning show on the BBC World Service in the late 1980s.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce's first broadcasts were from Scotland when he took over the presentation of "Radio 2 Ballroom" from Scotland after the death of Radio Scotland's announcer/presenter of Scottish Dance Music programmes, David Findlay. He presented "Radio 2 Ballroom" programmes regularly from November 1980 until 1982. He became a stand-in presenter on Radio 2, mainly covering for Ray Moore on the "Early" show. Bruce also presented shows for Radio Scotland from London. Bruce became a regular presenter for Radio 2 in January 1984 when he assumed hosting duties for the Saturday late night show in addition to his continuing show on Radio Scotland.


title: Ken Bruce

text: In January 1985, Bruce left Radio Scotland and took over from Terry Wogan on "The Radio 2 Breakfast Show", being replaced himself by Derek Jameson in April 1986. He then began his first stint on the mid-morning show which lasted until the end of March 1990, when he took over the late show until the end of that year. He then hosted the early show throughout 1991, and on 6 January 1992 he returned to the mid-morning slot, where he remains today. Since 14 January 2019, Bruce's show follows Zoe Ball at 9:30 and is followed by Jeremy Vine at 12:00.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce's show emphasises music, including regular live performances. Competitions are usually music-based, with a love song and dedications feature at 10:15 am. Other regular features include the "Record of the Week" and the "Album of the Week" and the "Tracks of My Years", where a celebrity picks two songs each day for their particular meaning. "The Love Song" is played at 10:15 am each day, preceded by dedications, although a number of songs in the rotation are not romantic love songs.


title: Ken Bruce

text: The show also includes a daily quiz, "PopMaster". It previously included other competitions such as "Spin It to Win It" and "Words Don't Come Easily", although these were dropped in 2007 following the phone-in scandal. "PopMaster" returned in early 2008, although the other competitions did not.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Stand-in presenters have included Richard Allinson, Simon Mayo, Aled Jones, Zoe Ball, Michael Ball, Claudia Winkleman, Fearne Cotton, Trevor Nelson, Gary Davies, and Scott Mills.


title: Ken Bruce

text: The comedian and impressionist Rob Brydon, who is noted for his mimicry of Bruce, sat in for him on 25 August 2008 and again as an April fool prank in 2011 when Brydon impersonated Bruce throughout.


title: Ken Bruce

text: "PopMaster" has run as a feature of Bruce's show since 16 February 1998. With questions set by music expert Phil Swern, it offers a smart speaker for successfully completing the Three-in-Ten bonus round. If the listener fails, they are awarded a set of Bluetooth headphones (replacing the previous consolation prizes of a Bluetooth speaker, and before that an MP3 player). An earlier consolation prize, a "Space" radio, has been known to appear on eBay, to Bruce's amusement. The losing contestant is given a T-shirt with "One Year Out" printed across the front (a catchphrase Bruce uses in the quiz when a contestant trying to place the year a song was in the charts is out by one year). This consolation prize replaced a CD wallet as of 27 February 2012.


title: Ken Bruce

text: The public phone-in PopMaster quiz was suspended after airing on 18 July 2007. A celebrity version was introduced on 20 July and continued until 18 January 2008. "Three-in-Ten" was not held in the celebrity version and there was no tie breaker in the event of a draw. It was rumoured that members of the public would be able to play again before Christmas 2007 but this did not happen. Following an announcement by Bruce on 7 January 2008, the regular format returned on 21 January. The game returned with new dramatic, orchestral and guitar based jingles.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce himself was a "PopMaster" contestant during his show on 17 May 2013, when he took part in a special "Eurovision" edition of the quiz, live from Malmö, Sweden. Bruce competed against Paddy O'Connell, with John Kennedy O'Connor chairing the quiz.


title: Ken Bruce

text: While Bruce was on holiday in August 2007, he was briefly replaced by Davina McCall. This attracted more than 150 complaints from listeners.


title: Ken Bruce

text: During his show on 21 April 2008, theatre producer Bill Kenwright told Bruce that Elvis Presley once visited London in 1958 and was taken on a tour of the city by Tommy Steele. It was believed that Presley had never visited England and the claim caused considerable controversy.


title: Ken Bruce

text: In December 2008, a crew of fishermen listeners were inadvertently relaying the show to every ship and coastguard station for miles around. It was not possible to contact the vessel, so a request was made to Bruce, who duly said: "If you are on a ship near the Small rocks, please turn me off."


title: Ken Bruce

text: Soon after, while duetting with Steve Wright's "Ask Elvis" (a.k.a. Mitch Benn), Bruce recorded a version of the Andy Stewart song “Donald, Where's yer Troosers?” for the "Bandaged" CD to raise money for Children in Need. This was released as a download.


title: Ken Bruce

text: On April Fools' Day 2011, Bruce's radio show was presented by comedian Rob Brydon impersonating Bruce throughout. Brydon interviewed "Sir Terry Wogan" (impersonated by Peter Serafinowicz), and Bruce himself appeared at the end of the show as his "brother Kenn with two Ns".


title: Ken Bruce

text: As a result of restrictions imposed due to Covid-19, from 23 March 2020 to 31 May 2021, Bruce self-isolated and presented his show from his home. He has spoken about remote work to the BBC website, saying: "We get a lot more people just asking for a simple hello or a mention for relatives just because they are not seeing them as much as they could. Particularly working from home, I sympathise with that, because there are lots of people I’m not seeing. We are all kind of feeling we are in this together, so it has brought broadcaster and listener rather closer together. It has made us have to be a little bit more creative with what we include in the programme. We do a lot more saying thank you to people who are keeping our essentials services going, and we are also giving people ideas of things to do while they are in lockdown".


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce has presented BBC "Proms in the Park" for many years. Since 1988, he has been Radio 2's commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest, having taken over from fellow broadcaster and friend Ray Moore. In 1998, he shared this role with being UK spokesman for that year's contest, reading out the points for the UK telephone vote, taking it over from Colin Berry, who then returned the following year. and presented the Eurovision Song Contest Previews from 1989 to 1991 on BBC1. He is a regular presenter of the long-running "Sunday Night is Music Night".


title: Ken Bruce

text: He occasionally makes appearances in "Dictionary Corner" on Channel 4's "Countdown", the most recent stint being during the week of 11 February 2013. When the original presenter Richard Whiteley died in 2005, Bruce said: "[he was] such a nice man – that was the defining quality of him, a genuinely nice man. And he had no real ego."


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce holds a PCV (Passenger Carrying Vehicle) driving licence and is the co-owner of a number of AEC Routemaster buses with Charles Nove, Alan Dedicoat and Steve Madden. He has referred to the buses as "a fantastic piece of engineering and such fun to have".


title: Ken Bruce

text: On 30 December 2012, Bruce won an edition of "Celebrity Mastermind", with his specialist subject being the Jeeves novels of P.G. Wodehouse.


title: Ken Bruce

text: In 2014, Bruce narrated the BBC One game show "Reflex". He appeared in celebrity episodes of "The Chase" on 4 October 2014 and 12 December 2021. Bruce featured with his son Charlie on the fifth series of "Big Star's Little Star" and in October 2018, he made a cameo appearance on "Hollyoaks".


title: Ken Bruce

text: In 2022, he was interviewed about Pennyhooks Farm and his son, 18-year-old Murray, who is one of several non-verbal people working on the care farm, in the BBC One "We Are England" documentary "Farming England: Farming on the Spectrum - Oxfordshire".


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce has four sons and two daughters. His youngest son was born in February 2008. He lives with his third wife Kerith near Thame, Oxfordshire. One of his sons is autistic and Bruce is an active campaigner for autism charities.


title: Ken Bruce

text: Bruce's autobiography was published on 4 September 2009, entitled "The Tracks of My Years: The Autobiography".


title: Ken Bruce

text: In September 2018, Bruce became the patron of Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio, replacing former mayor of Aylesbury and long-standing patron and co-founder of the station, Freda Roberts. Bruce said: "Hospital Radio continues to thrive and I am delighted to take on the role of patron."


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: Video DownloadHelper is an extension for the Firefox web browser and Chrome web browser. It allows the user to download videos from sites that stream videos through HTTP. The extension was developed by Michel Gutierrez.


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: , Video DownloadHelper is the third most popular extension for Firefox (after Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin) and the second most popular Mozilla-recommended extension with 2,848,968 users.


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: In the second quarter of 2015, version 5 of the extension for Firefox was rebased using Mozilla's Add-ons SDK (previous versions used XUL).


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: Firefox Quantum ceased support for extensions that use XUL or the Add-ons SDK so the extension was rebased using WebExtensions APIs. As a result of Mozilla's changes, reliance upon the companion application increased. Firefox 57.0 and Video DownloadHelper 7.0.0 were released on the same day (14 November 2017). The most recent release (7.3.7, 26 Jun 2019) addresses problems that were caused by changes to YouTube.


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: Where aggregation (ADP) or conversion is required by the end user, or by a site from which download is required: if the companion app is unlicensed, the end result will include a watermark (a QR code). Since 2019 user reviews complain of slow conversion and unfinished downloads.


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: The software is financed through ads on the developer's website, donations, and associated software sales.


title: Video DownloadHelper

text: Eric Griffith of "PC Magazine" named it one of the best Firefox extensions of 2012. Erez Zukerman of "PC World" rated it 4/5 stars and called it "a valuable tool". TechRadar rated it 5/5 stars and wrote, "Anyone who wants to watch videos, not only online, but also on the train, in the car or on the plane, is very well served with Video DownloadHelper."


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: Priyanka Vickram Chaturvedi (born 19 November 1979) is an Indian politician serving as Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra and Deputy Leader of Shiv Sena. Prior to this, she was a member and one of the National Spokespersons of Indian National Congress.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: She has also been a columnist for " Tehelka", " Daily News and Analysis" and Firstpost. As a trustee of two NGOs, she works to promote children's education, women's empowerment and health. She also runs a book review blog which is amongst the top ten weblogs on books in India.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: Chaturvedi was born on 19 November 1976 and raised in Mumbai. Her family comes from Uttar Pradesh. She attended St. Joseph's High School, Juhu in 1995, graduating in Commerce from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, Vile Parle in 1999. She is married and has two children.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: Chaturvedi started her career as Director of MPower Consultants, a Media, PR and event management company. She is Trustee of Prayas Charitable Trust which runs two schools to provide education to over 200 under-privileged children. In 2010, she was selected as a participant in ISB's 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Certificate programme, a global initiative supported by the Goldman Sachs Foundation for women entrepreneurs.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: She joined Congress in 2010, becoming General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress from North-West Mumbai in 2012.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: Chaturvedi has a significant presence in social media and is known for defending the policies of the opposition Congress party on Twitter. She criticized Narendra Modi for not calling out Smriti Irani on lying and filing false affidavit of her educational credentials. Further, she took a dig at Irani by singing a parody to the theme of Irani's previous TV serial "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" as "Kyuki Mantri Bhi Kabhi Graduate Thi".


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: On 17 April 2019, she posted on Twitter to express her dismay about UPCC (Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee) reinstating some party workers who were earlier suspended for their unruly behavior with her, following which she resigned from the Congress and joined Shiv Sena.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: On 19 April 2019 she joined Shiv Sena in the presence Uddhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray. At the time of joining Shiv Sena she expressed to work as a common Shiv Sainik under the leadership of Uddhav Thackray.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: In 2015, as a member of a delegation of young political leaders chosen by the UK High Commission and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK, she visited London to study and understand their democracy. She also participated in "Asian Forum on Global Governance" program jointly organized by Observer Research Foundation and Zeit Stiftung in the same year.


title: Priyanka Chaturvedi

text: In Feb 2017, Priyanka had spoken on the topic of “Impact of Demonetisation on Indian economy” in Melbourne, Australia at an event hosted by former Ministerial Adviser Mr Nitin Gupta. Priyanka had also visited the ISKCON Temple in Albert Park, and the Richmond Football Club during her Melbourne trip.


title: Stage fright

text: Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, real or imagined, whether actually or potentially (for example, when performing before a camera). Performing in front of an unknown audience can cause significantly more anxiety than performing in front of familiar faces. In some cases, the person will suffer no such fright from this, while they might suffer from not knowing who they're performing to. In some cases stage fright may be a part of a larger pattern of social phobia (social anxiety disorder), but many people experience stage fright without any wider problems. Quite often, stage fright arises in a mere anticipation of a performance, often a long time ahead. It has numerous manifestations: stuttering, tachycardia, tremor in the hands and legs, sweaty hands, facial nerve tics, dry mouth, and dizziness.


title: Stage fright

text: Stage fright can occur in people of all experiences and backgrounds, from those who are completely new to being in front of an audience to those who have done so for years. It is commonly recognized in the population. Stage fright may, for example, have a negative impact on the individual's performance, such that it affects their confidence during job interviews, presentations, etc. It also affects athletes, teachers, actors, comedians, musicians, and politicians. Many people with no other problems in communication can experience stage fright, but some people with chronic stage fright also have social anxiety or social phobia which are chronic feelings of high anxiety in any social situation. Stage fright can also be seen in school situations, like stand up projects and class speeches.


title: Stage fright

text: When someone starts to feel the sensation of being scared or nervous they start to experience anxiety. According to a Harvard Mental Health Letter, "Anxiety usually has physical symptoms that may include a racing heart, a dry mouth, a shaky voice, blushing, trembling, sweating, lightheadedness, and nausea". It triggers the body to activate its sympathetic nervous system. This process takes place when the body releases adrenaline into the blood stream causing a chain of reactions to occur. This bodily response is known as the "fight or flight" syndrome, a naturally occurring process in the body done to protect itself from harm. "The neck muscles contract, bringing the head down and shoulders up, while the back muscles draw the spine into a concave curve. This, in turn, pushes the pelvis forward and pulls the genitals up, slumping the body into a classic fetal position".


title: Stage fright

text: In trying to resist this position, the body will begin to shake in places such as the legs and hands. Several other things happen besides this. Muscles in the body contract, causing them to be tense and ready to attack. Second, "blood vessels in the extremities constrict". This can leave a person with the feeling of cold fingers, toes, nose, and ears. Constricted blood vessels also gives the body extra blood flow to the vital organs.


title: Stage fright

text: Propranolol is occasionally prescribed off-label to treat performance anxiety. As a beta-blocker drug, Propranolol prevents the adrenaline released from the "fight or flight" bodily response from attaching to the heart, lungs and other parts of the body. This reduces or eliminates the physical symptoms of performance anxiety including increased heart rate (tachycardia), rapid breathing (hyperventilation), dry mouth, trembling, shaky voice, and sweating. Propranolol is not an officially approved treatment for performance anxiety; however, past studies and patient experiences indicate the drug is effective at reducing the physical symptoms. Propranolol does not help with the mental symptoms of anxiety including the emotional feeling of nervousness since the drug does not alter the neurochemistry of the brain unlike typical medications prescribed for other forms of anxiety such as anti-depressants.


title: Stage fright

text: There are also ways to treat performance anxiety without the use of medication. Relaxing the body with deep breaths, mentally preparing oneself, and redirecting one's attention are techniques that may help with minimizing stage fright. Although it is a common assumption that alcohol can be used to calm nerves, other forms of treatment prove to be much better at treating stage fright. Alcohol consumption may actually affect one's performance and lead to lapses in memory and overall absentmindedness.


title: Stage fright

text: Many well-known public performers have been afflicted with stage fright and were able to overcome their problem, including Al Jolson, Lily Pons, Brian Wilson, Virginia O'Brien, Michael Gambon, Lorde, Jason Alexander, Mose Allison, Maya Angelou, David Brenner, Peter Coyote, Olympia Dukakis, Richard Lewis, Roy Orbison, Barbra Streisand, Adele, David Warner, Niall Horan, Frankie Howerd, Mike Yarwood, Ian Holm, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Frankie Boyle, Peter Gabriel, Donald Fagen, John Lydon, Meg White (which was so extreme that it led to her early retirement from the music industry) and Amanda Seyfried.


title: Stage fright

text: In some cases, famous stars have struggled to cope with their anxiety. Hugh Grant said on starring in the 2007 film "Music and Lyrics" that he "did the whole film full of lorazepam."


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: Cry Baby is the debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Melanie Martinez, released on August 14, 2015, through Atlantic Records. Between September and December 2012, Martinez rose to prominence upon participating in the third season of the American edition of "The Voice". After the show's completion, the singer began working independently on original material, which she says she spent the majority of 2013 writing. The album was supported by the release of three singles. Two singles preceded the album's release: lead single "Pity Party", was released on June 2, 2015, while the second single, "Soap", was released on July 10, 2015. The third and final single from the album, "Sippy Cup" was released July 31, 2015. The singer's debut single, "Dollhouse", was also included on the tracklist. "Cry Baby" is a visual concept album about a character named Cry Baby, who is a fantasy version of Martinez. Musically, "Cry Baby" is primarily an alternative pop, electropop, and indie pop record, and received generally positive reviews from critics. In the United States, the album was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, after earning 2 million album-equivalent units (sales, streaming, and track sales). In 2020, the song "Play Date", went viral on video-sharing platform TikTok, causing the album to re-enter charts globally.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: Martinez had an extended play completely done around 2013, which she began recording soon after she was eliminated from "The Voice" and was ready to put it out. However, after creating her song "Dollhouse" in September 2013, she decided not to release the aforementioned extended play. She began conceptualizing her debut album, which differed from the sound of the 2013 EP. In May 2014, Melanie put out her "Dollhouse" EP, and announced that summer that she hoped to have her album out around October. When October came, Melanie released the video for "Carousel" and postponed her release date for her album, and stated that she hoped to have it out in spring. That spring, Kinetics & One Love announced that all of the vocals for Melanie's album were finished, and Melanie officially announced that her album would be titled "Cry Baby". Melanie began teasing some titles for tracks. The first single was "Pity Party" and was confirmed on May 27, 2015. The music video was accidentally leaked by Melanie herself on May 29, but she later tweeted that she was happy and excited for the fans who had seen it and promised there was "more to come" during her live stream on June 1. It was officially released on the day of the live stream. During the live stream, Martinez announced that the release day of "Cry Baby" would be in August. The second single, "Soap", was confirmed in late June, and it was announced soon before it was to be released on July 10. It leaked a day earlier. The one-shot music video came out the same day.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: On July 16, the album art and release date were leaked on Amazon, although the release date was false. On July 17, the album art was officially revealed, and merchandise bundles were available to pre-order on Martinez's website, with the digital pre-order on July 24. Before the 24th, the track list of the album was leaked, although the websites that leaked it replaced "Tag, You're It" with "Jump Rope" and "Play Date" with "Half Hearted". The track list was officially revealed on the 24th with the pre-order. Starting on July 27, Melanie released a snippet of each song (apart from the ones on the deluxe edition) on her Instagram page. On July 28, Melanie released the snippet for "Sippy Cup" and announced that it would be released on July 31. On July 30, "Spin" premiered the video, and "Sippy Cup" was released the day after. The album was released on August 14. The CD was packaged as a storybook, with jewel case CDs available later. Both a picture disk and a standard black vinyl were released in the future. Cassettes were then released, advertised as being in yellow, blue, and pink. There is also a less common green cassette. All physical copies of the album are the standard explicit, with the deluxe and clean being digital exclusives.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: The album is about a character, named Cry Baby, a fantasy version of Martinez when she was a very young child (specifically before she started education), and a representation of her vulnerable and messed-up side. Martinez described Cry Baby as "a child who experiences adult things". She states that many of the things that have happened to Cry Baby are embellished versions of things that have happened in her own life, except the part where Cry Baby gets kidnapped and kills her kidnapper. Each song on the tracklist has a childhood-related title and contains childhood-related metaphors, while the deeper messages being crossed to the listener carry more adult themes and problems. For example, the song "Cry Baby" refers to someone who is teased for openly displaying their emotions (as opposed to an actual baby), and the song "Training Wheels" is actually about taking a relationship to the next level. The storybook available in the pre-order bundle features rhymes and illustrations based on the album, written by Martinez herself.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: The album was released on August 14, 2015, by Atlantic Records, through digital download, CD, vinyl, and audio cassette. The vinyl and CD have special packaging, which includes a storybook that follows the album by illustrator Chloe Tersigni.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: "Pity Party" was released as the first single. The music video was released on Vessel by Martinez on May 29, 2015, for early access users. It was then released three days later, on June 1, 2015, on YouTube. It was certified Platinum by RIAA.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: "Soap" was released as the second single. It was released on July 10, 2015, along with a music video. It was certified Gold by RIAA. As of the end of 2017, "Soap" became an online trending song on the application TikTok (formerly known as Musical.ly), and a challenge known as the "Soap Challenge" gained speed, which saw users play Martinez's song while using liquid dish soap on makeup wipes to blow a stream of foam with their mouth.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: "Sippy Cup" was released as the third single on July 31, 2015, with a music video. It was the darker sequel to the music video of her 2014 single, "Dollhouse".


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: Martinez said in an interview that she would be releasing music videos for all tracks of the album. The song "Training Wheels" had a music video released on November 18, 2015, as a double-feature with a new video for "Soap", but "Training Wheels" was not announced as a single by Martinez. "Alphabet Boy" received a music video on June 2, 2016. A double feature music video for "Tag, You're It" and "Milk and Cookies" was released on August 23, 2016. The song "Pacify Her" had a music video released on November 15, 2016. The song "Mrs. Potato Head" had a music video released on December 1, 2016. The song "Mad Hatter" had its music video released on September 23, 2017, serving as the conclusion to the Cry Baby visual story.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: In April 2020, Martinez's song "Play Date", one of the album's deluxe tracks, reached the "Viral 50" songs on Spotify and is subsequently rising on the charts. This resulted from a popular trend on TikTok, where users make an edit of a celebrity with the song playing in the background. Martinez posted on Instagram, addressing the song's success as the "best birthday present ever". On May 1, 2020, the song was certified Gold by RIAA and as of December 8, 2020 the song has been certified Platinum. In an interview with "Idolator" on May 8, 2020, Martinez revealed plans to record a music video for the song from home.


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: "Cry Baby" received generally positive reviews from music critics. Allan Raible at "ABC News" gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, describing it as "a jarring, affecting record that will stick with you days after listening. It's not for passive listening. It is a rare pop record that is both catchy beyond belief and an artistic triumph." Jason Scott at Popdust.com described the album as "13 tracks of pure hypnotic bliss [that] tests the absolute bounds of alt-pop, puncturing and bleeding out of [Martinez's] Lesley Gore and Purity Ring influence," highlighting "Sippy Cup", "Mrs. Potato Head", "Soap", "Cry Baby" and "Alphabet Boy". AllMusic's Matt Collar compared Martinez to Björk and Beyoncé, and said that "her songs also fit nicely next to the work of contemporaries like Lorde and Lana Del Rey." Emma Guido at "Under the Gun Review" gave the album a 9.5 out of 10, calling the album "a journey with Martinez’s creepy alter ego as she battles her demons and obsessions", calling her songwriting methods "expressional, passionate and marvelously creative" and writing that "the haunted carnival-esque ambience of "Cry Baby"...takes on a new form of indie-pop music that the world has been waiting to hear."


title: Cry Baby (Melanie Martinez album)

text: Cry Baby's Extra Clutter EP is the third extended play by American recording artist Melanie Martinez, released on November 25, 2016. The EP is a physical vinyl release and her first EP without a digital release of the three bonus tracks from "Cry Baby" as well as the limited-release 2015 Christmas single, "Gingerbread Man". The vinyl was only available for purchase via Urban Outfitters and Martinez's website. The EP's cover art was drawn by Chloe Tersigni.