title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In 1974, Weizsäcker was the Presidential candidate of his party for the first time, but he lost to Walter Scheel of the FDP, who was supported by the ruling center-left coalition. Ahead of the 1976 elections, CDU chairman Helmut Kohl included him in his shadow cabinet for the party's campaign to unseat incumbent Helmut Schmidt as chancellor. Between 1979 and 1981, Weizsäcker served as Vice President of the Bundestag.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker served as the Governing Mayor ("Regierender Bürgermeister") of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984. During his years in office, he tried to keep alive the idea of Germany as a cultural nation, divided into two states. In his speeches and writings, he repeatedly urged his compatriots in the Federal Republic to look upon themselves as a nation firmly anchored in the Western alliance, but with special obligations and interests in the East. Weizsäcker irritated the United States, France and Britain, the half-city's occupying powers, by breaking with protocol and visiting Erich Honecker, the East German Communist Party chief, in East Berlin.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: From 1981 to 1983, Weizsäcker headed a minority government in West Berlin, after the CDU had only won 48 percent of seats in the state assembly. His government was tolerated by the Free Democratic Party, who were in a coalition with the Social Democrats at the federal level at the time. After Helmut Kohl had won the federal election in 1983 and had formed a government with the Free Democrats, Weizsäcker did the same in West Berlin.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In 1984, Weizsäcker was elected as President of West Germany by the German Federal Convention, succeeding Karl Carstens and drawing unusual support from both the governing center-right coalition and the opposition Social Democratic Party; he defeated the Green party candidate, Luise Rinser.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Richard von Weizsäcker took office as president on 1 July 1984. In his inaugural address, he appealed to his nation's special consciousness, saying: "Our situation, which differs from that of most other nations, is no reason to deny ourselves a national consciousness. To do so would be unhealthy for ourselves and eerie to our neighbors." He dedicated his first years in office mainly to foreign policy, travelling widely with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and choosing former Foreign Office employees as his personal advisors.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker, who was known as a great speaker, delivered his most famous speech in 1985, marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945. This came at a difficult time in West German politics. The country was caught up in a debate about whether Holocaust denial should be criminalized. At the same time, chancellor Helmut Kohl had accepted an invitation to visit a congress of the Silesian association of expellees which was to take place under the slogan "Silesia is ours!" (""Schlesien ist unser!""). This seemed to contradict the official position of the federal diet and government so that Kohl needed to lobby for the intended slogan to be changed.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: It was originally planned that United States President Ronald Reagan should take part in the Second World War memorial event in the Bundestag, shifting the emphasis from remembering the past to highlighting West Germany in its partnership with the Western Bloc. On Weizsäcker's strong urging, the occasion was marked without Reagan, who visited West Germany several days earlier instead, surrounding the G7–summit in Bonn. Reagan's visit nevertheless sparked controversy, especially in the United States. In an attempt to reproduce the gesture made by Kohl and French President François Mitterrand a year earlier at Verdun, the chancellor and Reagan were set to visit the military cemetery in Bitburg. This raised objections, since the cemetery included the last resting place for several members of the "Waffen-SS".


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: It was in this climate that Weizsäcker addressed parliament on 8 May 1985. Here, he articulated the historic responsibility of Germany and Germans for the crimes of Nazism. In contrast to the way the end of the war was still perceived by a majority of people in Germany at the time, he defined 8 May as a "day of liberation". Weizsäcker pointed out the inseparable link between the Nazi takeover of Germany and the tragedies caused by the Second World War. In a passage of striking boldness, he took issue with one of the most cherished defenses of older Germans. "When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust became known at the end of the war," he said, "all too many of us claimed they had not known anything about it or even suspected anything."


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Most notably, Weizsäcker spoke of the danger of forgetting and distorting the past. "There is no such thing as the guilt or innocence of an entire nation. Guilt is, like innocence, not collective but personal. There is discovered or concealed individual guilt. There is guilt which people acknowledge or deny. [...] All of us, whether guilty or not, whether young or old, must accept the past. We are all affected by the consequences and liable for it. [...] We Germans must look truth straight in the eye – without embellishment and without distortion. [...] There can be no reconciliation without remembrance."


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker declared that younger generations of Germans "cannot profess a guilt of their own for crimes they did not commit." With his speech, Weizsäcker was also one of the first representatives of Germany to remember the homosexual victims of Nazism as a "victim group." This was also the case with his recognition of the Sinti and Roma as another victim group, a fact that was highlighted by the long-time head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker's speech was praised both nationally and internationally. "The New York Times" called it a "sober message of hope to the uneasy generations of young West Germans". The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Werner Nachmann, thanked Weizsäcker for his strong words, as did Karl Ibach, a former member of the German Resistance, who called his speech a "moment of glory ("Sternstunde") of our republic". Weizsäcker was however criticized for some of his remarks by members of his own party. Lorenz Niegel, a politician of the sister party CSU, who had not taken part in the ceremony, objected to the term "day of liberation", referring to it instead as a "day of deepest humiliation". The Greens were also absent during the speech, choosing instead to visit Auschwitz. A year later, the Green politician Petra Kelly called the speech "correct, but not more than self-evident", pointing to speeches president Gustav Heinemann had made during his presidency. The harshest criticism came from the Federation of Expellees, whose president Herbert Czaja, while thanking the president for highlighting the expellees' fate, criticized his remark that "conflicting legal claims must be subordinated under the imperative of reconciliation".


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: The speech was later released on vinyl and sold around 60,000 copies. Two million printed copies of its text were distributed globally, translated into thirteen languages, with 40,000 being sold in Japan alone. This does not include copies of the speech printed in newspapers, such as "The New York Times", which reproduced it in full.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Speaking to a congress of West German historians in Bamberg on 12 October 1988, Weizsäcker rejected the alleged attempts by some historians to compare the systematic murder of Jews in Nazi Germany to mass killings elsewhere – such as Stalin's purges – or to seek external explanations for it. Thereby he declared an end to the "Historikerstreit" ('historians' dispute') that had sharply divided German scholars and journalists for two years, stating "Auschwitz remains unique. It was perpetrated by Germans in the name of Germany. This truth is immutable and will not be forgotten."


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In his remarks to the historians, Weizsäcker said their dispute had prompted accusations that they sought to raise a "multitude of comparisons and parallels" that would cause "the dark chapter of our own history to disappear, to be reduced to a mere episode." Andreas Hillgruber, a historian at Cologne University, whose 1986 book in which he linked the collapse of the eastern front and the Holocaust was one of the subjects of the dispute, declared himself in full agreement with Weizsäcker, insisting that he had never tried to "relativize" the past.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Because of the high esteem in which he was held by Germany's political establishment and in the population, Weizsäcker is so far the only candidate to have stood for elections for the office of President unopposed; he was elected in that way to a second term of office on 23 May 1989.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker took office for his second presidential term on 1 July 1989, and in the course of it he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the Reunification of Germany. Thereupon, Weizsäcker became the first all-German Head of State since Karl Dönitz in May 1945. At midnight on 3 October 1990, during the official festivities held before the Reichstag building in Berlin to mark the moment of the reunification of Germany, President Weizsäcker delivered the only speech of the night, immediately after the raising of the flag, and before the playing of the National Anthem. His brief remarks, however, were almost inaudible, due to the sound of the bells marking midnight, and of the fireworks that were released to celebrate the moment of reunification. In those remarks he praised the accomplishment of German unity in freedom and in peace. He gave a longer speech at the act of state at the Berliner Philharmonie later that day.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In 1990, Weizsäcker became the first head of state of the German Federal Republic to visit Poland. During his four-day visit, he reassured Poles that the newly unified German state would treat their western and northern borders, which included prewar German lands, as inviolable.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In 1992, Weizsäcker gave the eulogy at the state funeral of former Chancellor Willy Brandt at the "Reichstag", the first state funeral for a former chancellor to take place in Berlin since the death of Gustav Stresemann in 1929. The funeral was attended by an array of leading European political figures, including French President François Mitterrand, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker stretched the traditionally ceremonial position of Germany's president to reach across political, national, and age boundaries to address a wide range of controversial issues. He is credited with being largely responsible for taking the lead on an asylum policy overhaul after the arson attack by neo-Nazis in Mölln, in which three Turkish citizens died in 1993. He also earned recognition at home and abroad for attending memorial services for the victims of neo-Nazi attacks in Mölln and Solingen. The services were snubbed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who dismayed many Germans by saying it was not necessary for the government to send a representative.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In March 1994, Weizsäcker attended the Frankfurt premiere of the film "Schindler's List" along with the Israeli ambassador, Avi Primor, and the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Ignatz Bubis.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: During the debate over the change of the seat of the German government from Bonn to Berlin, the president spoke out in favor of Berlin. In a memorandum released in February 1991, he declared that he would not act as a mere "decoration of a so-called capital", urging the diet to move more constitutional organs to Berlin. To compensate for a delay in the transfer to Berlin of the government and the federal parliament, Weizsäcker declared in April 1993 that he would be performing an increased share of his duties in Berlin. He decided not to wait for the renovation and conversion as the presidential seat of the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince's Palace) at Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard, and to use instead his existing official residence in West Berlin, the Bellevue Palace beyond Tiergarten park.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In an interview book released in 1992, midway through his second term, Weizsäcker voiced a harsh critique of the leading political parties in Germany, claiming that they took a larger role in public life than was awarded to them by the constitution. He criticized the high number of career politicians ("Berufspolitiker"), who "in general are neither expert nor dilettante, but generalists with particular knowledge only in political battle". The immediate reactions toward this interview were mixed. Prominent party politicians such as Rainer Barzel and Johannes Rau criticized the remarks, as did Minister of Labour Norbert Blüm, who asked the president to show more respect towards the work done by party members. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, on the other hand, conceded that Weizsäcker was "essentially right". While comments from politicians were mainly negative, a public poll conducted by the "Wickert-Institut" in June 1992 showed that 87.4 percent of the population agreed with the president. Political commentators generally interpreted the remarks as a hidden attack on the incumbent chancellor Helmut Kohl, since Weizsäcker's relationship with his former patron had cooled over the years. In a column for the German newspaper "Der Spiegel", chief-editor Rudolf Augstein criticized the president for his attack, writing: "You cannot have it both ways: on the one hand giving a right and seminal political incentive, but on the other hand insulting the governing class and its chief".


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: On his trip to Israel in October 1985, Weizsäcker was greeted on arrival by his Israeli counterpart, President Chaim Herzog. The president was given a full honor-guard welcome at Ben-Gurion Airport; among Cabinet ministers who lined up to shake his hand were right-wingers of the Herut party, the main faction of Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud party, who had previously refused to greet German leaders. Weizsäcker's visit was the first by a head of state, but not the first by a West German leader, as Chancellor Willy Brandt had paid a visit to Israel in June 1973. During a four-day state visit to the United Kingdom in July 1986, Weizsäcker addressed a joint session of the Houses of Parliament, the first German to be accorded that honor.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: In 1987, he travelled to Moscow to meet Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in what was perceived as a difficult time in West German-Soviet relations, after chancellor Kohl had angered Moscow by comparing Gorbachev to Joseph Goebbels. During a speech at the Kremlin, Weizsäcker said: "The Germans, who today live separated into East and West, have never stopped and will never stop to feel like one nation." His speech was, however, censored in the official Communist Party newspaper "Pravda". However, when German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher protested against this to his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze, the speech was then printed unabridged in the lesser paper "Izvestia". Weizsäcker also appealed to the Soviet authorities to agree to a pardon for the last inmate in the Spandau Prison, former Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. This proved unsuccessful, and Hess committed suicide six weeks later. The visit was nevertheless considered a success, as Gorbachev was quoted afterwards saying that "a new page of history was opened", after the two had discussed matters of disarmament. Also in 1987, Erich Honecker became the first East German leader to visit the Federal Republic. While state guests in Germany are usually welcomed by the President, Honecker was still not greeted officially by Weizsäcker, but by chancellor Kohl, since the Federal Republic did not consider the GDR a foreign state. Weizsäcker did however receive Honecker later at his seat of office, the Hammerschmidt Villa.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: As an elder statesman, Weizsäcker long remained involved in politics and charitable affairs in Germany after his retirement as president. He chaired a commission established by the Social Democratic-Green government of the day for reforming the Bundeswehr. Along with Henry Kissinger, in 1994 he supported Richard Holbrooke in creating the American Academy in Berlin. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker served as a member of the Advisory Council of Transparency International. In a letter addressed to Nigeria's military ruler Sani Abacha in 1996, he called for the immediate release of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the former head of state of Nigeria, who had become the first military ruler in Africa to keep his promise to hand over power to an elected civilian government but was later sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker also served on many international committees. He was chairman of the Independent Working Group on the future of the United Nations and was one of three "Wise Men" appointed by European Commission President Romano Prodi to consider the future of the European Union. From 2003 until his death, he was a member of the Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property, led by the former head of the Federal Constitutional Court, Jutta Limbach. In November 2014, Weizsäcker retired as chairman of the Bergedorf Round Table, a discussion forum on foreign policy issues.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker died in Berlin on 31 January 2015, aged 94. He was survived by his wife, Marianne, and three of their four children. Upon his death, there was general praise for his life and political career. In its obituary, "The New York Times" called Weizsäcker "a guardian of his nation’s moral conscience", while "The Guardian" commented that Germany was "uniquely fortunate" in having had him as a leader.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: He was honored with a state funeral on 11 February 2015 at Berlin Cathedral. Eulogies were given by incumbent president Joachim Gauck, foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and former vice president of the Bundestag Antje Vollmer (Green Party). Steinmeier praised Weizsäcker's role in foreign relations, where he had worked towards reconciliation with France and Poland and supported a dialogue with the communist regimes in the East, often against his own party. The funeral was attended by many serving high-ranking politicians in Germany, including chancellor Angela Merkel. Also in attendance were former presidents Roman Herzog, Horst Köhler, and Christian Wulff, as well as former chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder. Princess Beatrix, former Queen of the Netherlands, was also present, as was former Polish president Lech Wałęsa. After the ceremony, soldiers stood to attention as Weizsäcker's coffin was brought to its resting place at Waldfriedhof Dahlem. In the subsequent days, many Berliners visited Weizsäcker's grave to pay tribute and lay down flowers. On 15 April 2020, von Weizsäcker's 100th birthday, incumbent Governing Mayor of Berlin Michael Müller and Ralf Wieland, president of the Abgeordnetenhaus, Berlin's state parliament, laid down a wreath at his grave in honour of his services to the city of Berlin.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker, who had joined the CDU in 1954, was known for often publicly voicing political views different from his own party line, both in and out of the presidential office. While he was himself sceptical of Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik", he urged his party not to block it entirely in the lower house, the Bundestag, since rejection would be met with dismay abroad. When the CDU gained a sweeping victory in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in April 1972, his party decided to take the opportunity to dispose of chancellor Brandt with a vote of no confidence, replacing him with Rainer Barzel, and Weizsäcker was one of only three elect CDU politicians to speak out against the proposal. He maintained an easy-going and open demeanor towards members of all other parties. In 1987, at a time when the CDU actively tried to label the Green Party as unconstitutional, the President had regular contact with high-ranking Green politicians such as Antje Vollmer, who was also active in the Evangelical Church in Germany, and Joschka Fischer, who said that with his understanding of state "he [Weizsäcker] is closer to the Green Party than to Kohl, not NATO, but Auschwitz as reason of state ("Staatsräson")."


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Helmut Kohl, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998, was an early patron of Weizsäcker's, effectively helping him into parliament. However, their relationship took a first strain in 1971, when Weizsäcker supported Rainer Barzel over Kohl for the CDU-chairmanship. Subsequently, Kohl unsuccessfully tried to deny Weizsäcker the chance to become president in 1983. After he had taken office, Weizsäcker criticized Kohl's government on numerous occasions, taking liberties not previously heard of from someone in a ceremonial role such as his. For instance, he urged the chancellor to recognize the Oder–Neisse line and spoke out for a more patient approach to the journey towards German reunification. Other examples include the aforementioned speech in 1985 and his critique of party politics in 1992. Following a critical interview Weizsäcker gave to "Der Spiegel" magazine in September 1997, Kohl reacted during a meeting of his parliamentary group by saying that Weizsäcker (whom he called "that gentleman") was no longer "one of us". This was followed by CDU spokesman Rolf Kiefer stating that the CDU had removed Weizsäcker from its membership database, since the former president had not paid his membership fees in a long time. Weizsäcker then took the matter to the party's arbitrating body and won. The tribunal ruled that he was allowed to let his membership rest indefinitely. After his death, "Spiegel" editor Gerhard Spörl called Weizsäcker the "intellectual alternative medicine to Kohl".


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: After his presidency came to an end, Weizsäcker remained vocal in daily politics, e.g. speaking for a more liberal immigration policy, calling the way his party handled it "simply ridiculous". He also spoke out in favour of dual citizenship and a change of German citizenship law from "jus sanguinis" to "jus soli", a view not generally shared by his party colleagues. Towards the former East-German leading party, the PDS (today called "Die Linke"), Weizsäcker urged his party colleagues to enter into a serious political discussion. He went as far as speaking in favor of a coalition government between Social Democrats and the PDS in Berlin after the 2001 state election.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker's publications include "Die deutsche Geschichte geht weiter" ("German History Continues"), first published in 1983; "Von Deutschland aus" "(From Germany Abroad)", a collection of speeches first published in 1985; "Von Deutschland nach Europa" ("From Germany to Europe", 1991) and his memoirs "Vier Zeiten" ("Four Times"), published in German in 1997 and in English as "From Weimar to the Wall: My Life in German Politics" in 1999. In a review in "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", Friedrich Karl Fromme wrote that the memoirs tell nothing new about the times he lived in, but "something about the person". In 2009, he published a book on his recollections of German reunification, titled "Der Weg zur Einheit" ("The Path to Unity"). German newspaper "Die Welt" dismissed the book as "boring", accusing the account of being too balanced.


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Weizsäcker received many honors in his career, including honorary membership in the Order of Saint John; an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1993; creation of the Richard von Weizsäcker Professorship at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University and the Robert Bosch Foundation of Stuttgart in 2003; and more than eleven other honorary doctorates, ranging from the Weizmann Institute in Israel to Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard universities, the Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Law (1995) at Uppsala University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, the Leo Baeck Prize from the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and the Buber-Rosenzweig Medallion from the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation. After his death, deputy director of Poland's international broadcaster, Rafal Kiepuszewski, called Weizsäcker "the greatest German friend Poland has ever had".


title: Richard von Weizsäcker

text: Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck praised Weizsäcker, with the latter declaring upon the news of his death: "We are losing a great man and an outstanding head of state." French president François Hollande highlighted Weizsäcker's "moral stature."


title: MI7

text: MI7 was a branch of the British War Office’s Directorate of Military Intelligence with responsibilities for press liaison and propaganda. The branch was originally established in the First World War and disbanded after the signing of the Armistice. The branch was re-formed at the start of the Second World War. The new MI7, while less significant than its predecessor, acted as a necessary liaison link between the War Office and the Ministry of Information and Political Warfare Executive.


title: MI7

text: On the outbreak of the First World War, a subsection of the Directorate of Military Operations, MO5(h), was established with responsibility for press and cable censorship and the issuing of War Office communiques through the Press Bureau. Initially just two General Staff Officers (GSO2) were allocated to the subsection. It became immediately apparent that two men was insufficient for the task and within a fortnight the subsection was expanded to a senior General Staff Officer (GSO1) with eight assistant ‘censors’ working under him.


title: MI7

text: In February 1915, the Directorate of Special Intelligence was formed and consequently MO5(h) was upgraded and designated as the MO7 section. It was nominally under the command of Colonel Coleridge, the Military Assistant Director of the Press Bureau. As part of the War Office, MO7 was concerned with press publicity. It gave the first war correspondents permission to visit the Western Front in May 1915. Its duty was to ensure that the military authorities maintained control over the Press and correspondents' work. In January 1916, as part of a reorganisation of the Imperial General Staff, a new Directorate of Military Intelligence was created and MO7 became Military Intelligence Section 7.


title: MI7

text: MI7 was organised in a series of sub-sections distinguished by lower-case letters in brackets. The precise duties of these sub-sections varied with time, but may be roughly summarised as follows.


title: MI7

text: A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh, served in MI7(b) after recovering from wounds sustained at the Battle of the Somme.


title: MI7

text: From April 1916, when it was first established under the direction of Captain Peter Chalmers Mitchell, until early October 1917, most of MI7(b)'s staff worked from Adelphi Court, on the Strand, London, whereupon the whole section moved into Adastral House on the Victoria Embankment. Not to be confused with the later Air Ministry headquarters on Kingsway, the first Adastral House was the former De Keyser's Royal Hotel, located by Blackfriars Bridge. The bankrupt hotel was requisitioned in May 1916 for use as Government offices and was utilised by both the Royal Flying Corps and MI7.


title: MI7

text: As a branch of military intelligence, paperwork was routinely destroyed to maintain strict security. A further large-scale destruction of papers was organised when MI7 was closed down at the end of WWI. A few important files are scattered amongst War Office, Foreign Office and Ministry of Information records at the British National Archives. Also, some documents from MI7(b) have survived because they were retained by one of its operatives, Lieutenant James Price Lloyd. In 2012, relatives discovered after his death, when his property in Builth Wells, Wales was being sorted and cleared, that he had kept up to 150 files from his time at MI7(b).


title: MI7

text: The archive consisted of two broad categories of articles written between 1917 and 1918 - the "Tales of the VC". More than 90 stories of individual heroism by men from all over the Empire can be viewed on the National Library of Wales website and on the Europeana 1914-18 website. Samples of the remaining 60 articles can be found in archives such as "MI7b-the discovery of a lost propaganda archive from the Great War".


title: MI7

text: In September 1939, MI7 was reformed at the outset of the Second World War as the largely civilian Press and Propaganda section of the War Office Directorate of Military Intelligence. It was transferred to the Ministry of Information in around June 1940.


title: MI7

text: The Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany served in MI7(b) during the early months of the Second World War and was based at the Air Ministry building Adastral House (now known as No 1 Kingsway).


title: MI7

text: The name MI7 has often been used in fiction as the title for an intelligence agency or organization similar to the actual MI5 or MI6.


title: MI7

text: In the Bond film "Dr. No" (1962) there are two explicit references to James Bond working for MI6; although, one of these (where the words are spoken by 'M') has been dubbed to "MI7", although the speaker's lips clearly say "MI6".


title: MI7

text: In the "Operation Susie" episode of "The Professionals", central organization CI5 comes into conflict with elements of MI7 working to a different agenda.


title: MI7

text: Rowan Atkinson's character of Johnny English from the spy spoof films "Johnny English", "Johnny English Reborn" and "Johnny English Strikes Again" is an MI7 agent. The character was originally presented in a series of adverts for Barclaycard as MI7 agent Richard Latham.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Lisa Eichhorn (born February 4, 1952) is an American actress, writer and producer. She made her film debut in 1979 in the John Schlesinger film "Yanks", for which she received two Golden Globe nominations. Her international career has included film, theatre and television.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Lisa Warren Eichhorn was born in Glens Falls, New York, on February 4, 1952, to Dorothy Elizabeth Golly and Frank Warren Eichhorn, and shortly thereafter moved to Westbury, Long Island, with her older brother and two half-sisters. In 1958, the family moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where Eichhorn later attended Mt. Penn High School. At the end of her junior year, she left to study in Svolvær, Norway, as a Rotary International Exchange student, and graduated from Mt. Penn in absentia in 1970.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn began college at Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, taking a wide range of subjects. She quickly realized that her passion was drama and English, and these subjects became her focus. She left Ontario after two years to study at St. Peter's College, Oxford, on a year-long Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship, though this was not as an admitted member of the University in Statu Pupillari.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: While at Oxford, Eichhorn met Alan Rickman at a cocktail party. Rickman encouraged her to audition for London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she was accepted in 1975.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Upon graduating from RADA in 1977, Eichhorn immediately began rehearsals for the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch, playing Ophelia in "Hamlet". This was followed by a wide range of regional work, including "Stop the World - I Want to Get Off" for the Queen's Theatre, Rosalind in "As You Like It" at the Bolton Octagon, "The Wings of the Dove" for the BBC, and "The Fatal Weakness" opposite Elaine Stritch at the Theatre Royal, Windsor.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In December 1977, Eichhorn met with John Schlesinger for the role of Lancashire shop-girl Jean Moreton in his wartime romance, "Yanks". She convinced him she was British and he gave her a screen test and, subsequently, the part. Although Eichhorn then felt duty-bound to tell Schlesinger she was actually American, he insisted that she was his choice regardless of her nationality. Eichhorn won two Golden Globe nominations for her performance in "Yanks": Best Actress and Best New Star.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: The day after filming wrapped on "Yanks", Eichhorn flew to Boston to play Gertrude Wentworth in Merchant-Ivory's "The Europeans", for which she won a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn made a handful of London television appearances, then moved to Hollywood where she collaborated with actor Treat Williams on her first American film, "Why Would I Lie?" (originally titled "The Fabricator"). Around this time, Ivan Passer and Paul Gurian enlisted Eichhorn to play Maureen (Mo) Cutter in "Cutter's Way" (previously "Cutter and Bone") with Jeff Bridges and John Heard. Eichhorn's performance as Alex Cutter's wistful, alcoholic wife was deemed "the most underrated performance of the decade" by the American Film Institute and earned her the Best Actress Award (American division) at the Deauville Film Festival.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 1980, Eichhorn was cast opposite Gene Hackman in the low-budget Universal feature, "All Night Long". Barbra Streisand's then-agent, Sue Mengers, wanted a bigger outing for her husband, director Jean-Claude Tramont, and persuaded him to replace Eichhorn with Streisand on the film: three weeks into principal photography Eichhorn was fired from the project.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In the summer, Eichhorn travelled to Poland to shoot the CBS/TimeLife venture "The Wall" for Harry Sherman. She moved to Connecticut for the birth of her daughter in 1981, then returned to L.A. to play Margaret in "The Hasty Heart" opposite Kurt Russell. George Cukor came backstage after one performance and told her she was like Greta Garbo.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn's film work at this time included "Wildrose" and "Opposing Force" in L.A. and "East Lynne", with Martin Shaw, and "The Weather in the Streets", with Michael York and Joanna Lumley, for the BBC in London.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 1984, Eichhorn starred in "Golden Boy" at the Royal National Theatre, London. She made her New York theatre debut opposite Nathan Lane in "The Common Pursuit" in 1986, while playing Elizabeth Carlyle on "All My Children" for a year.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn was invited to be a Life Member of the Actors Studio in 1988. She shot the film "Moon 44" for Roland Emmerich in Germany, then began a fruitful association with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England, in Alex Finlayson's award-winning "Winding the Ball", under the direction of Greg Hersov.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 1990, Eichhorn made her Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre in "The Speed of Darkness", with Len Cariou, Stephen Lang and Robert Sean Leonard. She went on to star opposite Sada Thompson and Justin Kirk in "Any Given Day" at the Longacre Theatre, and in the film "A Modern Affair" opposite Stanley Tucci.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 1996, Eichhorn returned to Los Angeles for her daughter's high school career. She starred in two more Hersov-Finlayson collaborations at the Royal Exchange Manchester: "Tobaccoland" and "Misfits", in which she played Marilyn Monroe. She returned to New York in 2000 to do a variety of theatre, television and teaching.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 2003, Eichhorn moved back to London to pursue writing and producing. She returned to the Royal Exchange Manchester in 2004 to play Ouisa in "Six Degrees of Separation", and played Joy Gresham opposite Julian Glover's C.S. Lewis in "Shadowlands" at Salisbury Playhouse.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn continues to live in London where she works in theatre ("Women of Lockerbie", "Enduring Freedom") and television ("Spooks", "Midsomer Murders", "Inspector Morse", "Cracker"), while developing several projects for film.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: In 2007, Eichhorn produced and co-wrote "Defenders of Riga", which was the official Latvian film entry to the 2009 Academy Awards.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn began teaching Acting and Directing in 1992 at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has taught at the University of Southern California, Disney, DreamWorks, and London's National Film and Television School and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She has also been a guest speaker at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, and has taught in Milan, Kosovo and Latvia under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Visiting Artists Program.


title: Lisa Eichhorn

text: Eichhorn met actor John Curless in 1976 when he substituted for her stage fighting instructor at RADA. They were married for a year and a half. While filming "Cutter's Way" in 1979, Eichhorn met makeup artist Ben Nye, Jr. They married in 1981, and had a daughter Emily Eichhorn-Nye (born 1981). They divorced in 1986. In 1990, Eichhorn met Edward M. Ferguson III, with whom she lived in New York and Los Angeles until 2000. Eichhorn met solicitor Richard Moxon when setting up her company, GiftHorse Productions, in 2003. They married in August 2006 but were divorced in 2012.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on butterflies in the rainforests of Brazil.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Batesian mimicry is the most commonly known and widely studied of mimicry complexes, such that the word mimicry is often treated as synonymous with Batesian mimicry. There are many other forms however, some very similar in principle, others far separated. It is often contrasted with Müllerian mimicry, a form of mutually beneficial convergence between two or more harmful species. However, because the mimic may have a degree of protection itself, the distinction is not absolute. It can also be contrasted with functionally different forms of mimicry. Perhaps the sharpest contrast here is with aggressive mimicry where a predator or parasite mimics a harmless species, avoiding detection and improving its foraging success.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: The imitating species is called the "mimic", while the imitated species (protected by its toxicity, foul taste or other defenses) is known as the "model". The predatory species mediating indirect interactions between the mimic and the model is variously known as the "[signal] receiver", "dupe" or "operator". By parasitizing the honest warning signal of the model, the Batesian mimic gains an advantage, without having to go to the expense of arming itself. The model, on the other hand, is disadvantaged, along with the dupe. If impostors appear in high numbers, positive experiences with the mimic may result in the model being treated as harmless. At higher frequency there is also a stronger selective advantage for the predator to distinguish mimic from model. For this reason, mimics are usually less numerous than models, an instance of frequency dependent selection. Some mimetic populations have evolved multiple forms (polymorphism), enabling them to mimic several different models and thereby to gain greater protection. Batesian mimicry is not always perfect. A variety of explanations have been proposed for this, including limitations in predators' cognition.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: While visual signals have attracted most study, Batesian mimicry can employ deception of any of the senses; some moths mimic the ultrasound warning signals sent by unpalatable moths to bat predators, constituting auditory Batesian mimicry, while some weakly electric fish appear to mimic the electrolocation signals of strongly electric fish, probably constituting electrical mimicry.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Henry Walter Bates (1825–1892) was an English explorer-naturalist who surveyed the Amazon rainforest with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. While Wallace returned in 1852, Bates remained for over a decade. His field research included collecting almost a hundred species of butterflies from the families Ithomiinae and Heliconiinae, as well as thousands of other insects specimens. In sorting these butterflies into similar groups based on appearance, inconsistencies began to arise. Some appeared superficially similar to others, even so much so that Bates could not tell some species apart based only on wing appearance. However, closer examination of less obvious morphological characters seemed to show that they were not even closely related. Shortly after his return to England he read a paper on his theory of mimicry at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 21 November 1861, which was then published in 1862 as 'Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley' in the society's "Transactions". He elaborated on his experiences further in "The Naturalist on the River Amazons".


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Bates put forward the hypothesis that the close resemblance between unrelated species was an antipredator adaptation. He noted that some species showed very striking coloration, and flew in a leisurely manner, almost as if taunting predators to eat them. He reasoned that these butterflies were unpalatable to birds and other insectivores, and were thus avoided by them. He extended this logic to forms that closely resembled such protected species, mimicking their warning coloration but not their toxicity.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: This naturalistic explanation fitted well with the recent account of evolution by Wallace and Charles Darwin, as outlined in his famous 1859 book "The Origin of Species". Because this Darwinian explanation required no supernatural forces, it met with considerable criticism from anti-evolutionists, both in academic circles and in the broader social realm.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Most living things have predators and therefore are in a constant evolutionary arms race to develop antipredator adaptations, while the predator adapts to become more efficient at defeating the prey's adaptations. Some organisms have evolved to make detection less likely, for example by nocturnality and camouflage. Others have developed chemical defences such as the deadly toxins of certain snakes and wasps, or the noxious scent of the skunk. Such prey often send clear and honest warning signals to their attackers with conspicuous aposematic (warning) patterns. The brightness of such warning signs is correlated with the level of toxicity of the organism.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: In Batesian mimicry, the mimic effectively copies the coloration of an aposematic animal, known as the model, to deceive predators into behaving as if it were distasteful. The success of this dishonest display depends on the level of toxicity of the model and the abundance of the model in the geographical area. The more toxic the model is, the more likely it is that the predator will avoid the mimic. The abundance of the model species is also important for the success of the mimic because of frequency dependent selection. When the model is abundant, mimics with imperfect model patterns or slightly different coloration from the model are still avoided by predators. This is because the predator has a strong incentive to avoid potentially lethal organisms, given the likelihood of encountering one. However, in areas where the model is scarce or locally extinct, mimics are driven to accurate aposematic coloration. This is because predators attack imperfect mimics more readily where there is little chance that they are the model species. Frequency dependent selection may also have driven Batesian mimics to become polymorphic in rare cases where a single genetic switch controls appearance, as in the swallowtail butterflies (the Papilionidae) such as the pipevine swallowtail.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Batesian mimicry is a case of protective or defensive mimicry, where the mimic does best by avoiding confrontations with the signal receiver. It is a "disjunct" system, which means that all three parties are from different species. An example would be the robber fly "Mallophora bomboides", which is a Batesian mimic of its bumblebee model and prey, "B. americanorum" (now more commonly known as "Bombus pensylvanicus"), which is noxious to predators due to its sting.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Batesian mimicry stands in contrast to other forms such as aggressive mimicry, where the mimic profits from interactions with the signal receiver. One such case of this is in fireflies, where females of one species mimic the mating signals of another species, deceiving males to come close enough for them to eat. Mimicry sometimes does not involve a predator at all though. Such is the case in "dispersal mimicry", where the mimic once again benefits from the encounter. For instance, some fungi have their spores dispersed by insects by smelling like carrion. In protective mimicry, the meeting between mimic and dupe is not such a fortuitous occasion for the mimic, and the signals it mimics tend to lower the probability of such an encounter.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: A case somewhat similar to Batesian mimicry is that of mimetic weeds, which imitate agricultural crops. In weed or Vavilovian mimicry, the weed survives by having seeds which winnowing machinery identifies as belonging to the crop. Vavilovian mimicry is not Batesian, because man and crop are not enemies. By contrast, a leaf-mimicking plant, the chameleon vine, employs Batesian mimicry by adapting its leaf shape and colour to match that of its host to deter herbivores from eating its edible leaves.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Another analogous case within a single species has been termed "Browerian mimicry" (after Lincoln P. Brower and Jane Van Zandt Brower). This is a case of automimicry; the model is the same species as its mimic. Equivalent to Batesian mimicry within a single species, it occurs when there is a "palatability spectrum" within a population of harmful prey. For example, monarch ("Danaus plexippus") caterpillars feed on milkweed species of varying toxicity. Some feed on more toxic plants and store these toxins within themselves. The more palatable caterpillars thus profit from the more toxic members of the same species.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Another important form of protective mimicry is Müllerian mimicry, discovered by and named after the naturalist Fritz Müller. In Müllerian mimicry both model and mimic are aposematic, so mimicry may be mutual, does not necessarily constitute a bluff or deception and as in the wasps and bees may involve many species in a mimicry ring.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: In imperfect Batesian mimicry, the mimics do not exactly resemble their models. An example of this is the fly "Spilomyia longicornis", which mimics vespid wasps. However, it is not a perfect mimic. Wasps have long black antennae and this fly does not. Instead, they wave their front legs above their heads to look like the antennae on the wasps. Many reasons have been suggested for imperfect mimicry.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Mimics may confuse predators by resembling both model and nonmimic at the same time (satiric mimicry).


title: Batesian mimicry

text: The selective advantage of better mimicry may not outweigh the advantages of other strategies like thermoregulation or camouflage.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Only certain traits may be required to deceive predators; for example, tests on the sympatry/allopatry border (where the two are in the same area, and where they are not) of the mimic "Lampropeltis elapsoides" and the model "Micrurus fulvius" showed that color proportions in these snakes were important in deceiving predators but that the order of the colored rings was not.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: Predators may identify their prey by sound as well as sight; mimics have accordingly evolved to deceive the hearing of their predators. Bats are nocturnal predators that rely on echolocation to detect their prey. Some potential prey are unpalatable to bats, and produce an ultrasonic aposematic signal, the auditory equivalent of warning coloration. In response to echolocating red bats and big brown bats, tiger moths such as "Cycnia tenera" produce warning sounds. Bats learn to avoid the harmful moths, but similarly avoid other species such as some pyralid moths that produce such warning sounds as well. Acoustic mimicry complexes, both Batesian and Müllerian, may be widespread in the auditory world.


title: Batesian mimicry

text: The electric eel, "Electrophorus", is capable of delivering a powerful electric shock that can stun or kill its prey. Bluntnose knifefishes, "Brachyhypopomus", create an electric discharge pattern similar to the low voltage electrolocation discharge of the electric eel. This is thought to be Batesian mimicry of the powerfully-protected electric eel.


title: Prime Minister of Bulgaria

text: The prime minister of Bulgaria () is the head of government of Bulgaria. They are the leader of a political coalition in the Bulgarian parliament – known as the National Assembly of Bulgaria (, "Narodno sabranie") – and the leader of the cabinet.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: The sixth season of the American mystery drama television series "Pretty Little Liars", based on the books of the same name by Sara Shepard, was renewed on June 10, 2014 for two additional seasons, making the show ABC Family's longest running original series.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: The sixth and seventh seasons will consist of 20 episodes each. It aired 10 episodes for the first half the season, which began airing on June 2, 2015. Filming for the sixth season began on March 24, 2015, which was confirmed by showrunner I. Marlene King on Twitter. The season premiere was written by I. Marlene King and Lijah J. Barasz and was directed by Chad Lowe. The title of the premiere, "Game On, Charles", was revealed by King after the fifth-season finale. It was previously said that the sixth season will not include a special holiday-themed episode between the first and second half of the season, which aired on January 12, 2016, however on October 9, 2015 at New York Comic Con it was announced that there would be a behind-the-scenes special. Previous holiday-themed episodes have been the thirteenth episode of each previous season excluding the first season.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: ABC Family promoted the sixth season by creating an online contest in which fans of the show could be a part of the marketing campaign to promote the show by sending in their art for consideration. The promotional poster was released on May 21, 2015 which was included in the June/July cover of "Seventeen". For the second part of the season, ABC Family released a promotional poster on December 15, 2015, with the new-launched name for the network, "Freeform".


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: After trying to escape the dollhouse in the season five finale, Charles punishes Emily, Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Mona, subjecting them to various types of torture while Alison, Ezra, Caleb, and Toby try to find a way to help find the girls. Andrew becomes a suspect after being reported missing. Realizing what Charles is planning to do with Alison, the Liars hatch a plan to get out of the dollhouse by setting his vault on fire. The plan worked successfully, and the girls get out of the dollhouse where they are met by Alison, Ezra, Caleb, Toby, and the police. Andrew is arrested and accused of kidnapping the girls. However, the girls are far from okay, as they all suffer from PTSD from their time in captivity. Another girl, Sara Harvey, who went missing the same time Ali did, is found in the dollhouse, reportedly having been held there for two years. Unable to deal with her home life, she runs away and stays with Emily for a while. Meanwhile, Ali tries to get answers out of her dad about Charles DiLaurentis, but he insists there is no one of that name in their family; however, Jason remembers Charles as his imaginary friend when he was a kid. Later, Andrew is released from police custody because of lack of evidence, and the Liars realize that he isn't Charles after all.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: After discovering a photo of Mrs. DiLaurentis with Jason and another boy, Alison and Jason found out that they had an older brother that was, in fact, Charles. Kenneth explains that Charles tried to hurt Alison when she was a kid; he was subsequently admitted to Radley for diagnosis, and he died when he was 16. The Liars then searched Radley for answers, discovering that there was another person who visited Charles in Radley: Alison's great aunt Carol. Alison, Jason, Hanna, and Spencer later discover Charles' grave in her backyard. Meanwhile, Mona later returns to Rosewood, heavily questioned by the police about her actions while her friendship with Lesli is strained because of her involvement with Mona's actions. It is later revealed that Lesli was a former patient at Radley, and was roommates with Bethany Young, leading the girls to suspect that Lesli may be 'A'. Mona, however, tells them that Lesli is only pretending to be stable and that Charles faked his own death.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: When the girls found out that Charles was coming to the DiLaurentis household (for his birthday), they plan on catching him as he is set to meet with Jason. However, the plan backfires when the police appeared. Rosewood High ultimately bans the girls from their prom and graduation after an incident at Aria's photo gallery contest. Hanna discovers that the company who gave her a scholarship is affiliated with Radley (and Mr. DiLaurentis). She and Spencer decided to return the money to the company, where they meet Rhys Matthews, whom they later suspected to be Charles. The girls also became suspicious of Aria's friend Clark, believing that he may be working for Charles when they saw him following Rhys into a warehouse. Despite being banned, the girls head over to the prom when they discover that Alison was meeting Charles there. Subsequently, Charles kidnaps Alison at the prom; the girls began searching for her, along with Ezra, Toby, Caleb, Sara, Mona, and Clark (who is revealed to be an undercover agent).


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Working with Mona and Sara, the girls finally infiltrate A's lair, where they discover a live feed of Alison coming face to face with Charles, who is revealed to be CeCe Drake. CeCe then begins to explain her story and motives, revealing that she was born as Charles, but was not accepted by her father for believing she was a girl. She was sent to Radley, where she eventually transitioned into Charlotte. She also explains what led to Mrs. Cavanaugh's death at the hands of Bethany Young, her complicated relationship with Bethany and her subsequent death, the events regarding the night Alison disappeared, the deal she made with Mona, the events at the burning lodge, Wilden's death, the events in New York, and their mother's death. She explained that she did everything just to be closer to her family, and she became 'A' when she thought that the Liars were happy about Alison's 'death', so she wanted to make them suffer for it but couldn't stop the game because she grew obsessed with it. CeCe also reveals that Sara is both the other Red Coat and The Black Widow, working under CeCe's orders, leaving Emily distraught. CeCe heads for the roof to commit suicide (after her bomb attempt fails and Emily subdues Sara), but Alison and the girls convince her to stop, saying they now understand why she became 'A'. CeCe then surrenders and declares the game over. On Labor Day weekend, the girls say goodbye as they are leaving for college except for Alison who stays in Rosewood.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Five years later, as the girls have each pursued their own path and have started adjusting to a life without 'A', they are once again called back to Rosewood when Alison asks for their help for her sister Charlotte to be released from the psychiatric hospital. While the girls agree to help, Aria is the only who tells the brutally honest truth: she is still scared of Charlotte and doesn't want her released. Eventually, she is, only for her to be murdered the same night and then thrown from the church's bell tower. At her funeral, the girls are stunned to see Sara show up and begin to question her sudden appearance.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Sara starts stalking Emily. It is later revealed that on the night 'A' was revealed, after Emily punched Sara, Sara tried to stand up and put her hands on an electrical block, severely injuring her hands and making it difficult for her to touch or hold things. Eventually, a new 'A' rises, sending threatening messages with creep emojis to the Liars, determined to get answers on the night Charlotte was murdered. Convinced that Sara is 'Uber A', the girls search for answers. Ali reveals that she and Charlotte's doctor, Elliott, are dating. Later they are married by Aria. The girls initially suspect Aria killed Charlotte. The suspicion shifts to Ezra and then Byron. Later, the suspicion shifts to Melissa when Spencer discovers Melissa's suitcase is broken with the missing part matching the description of the alleged murder weapon. Emily eventually finds it and is nearly run over by a truck and the driver steals the weapon. To save Ezra from losing his book deal with Aria's publishing company, she decides to write and submit some chapters for Ezra's new book. She's forced to tell him and they finish it together.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Emily is donating eggs to pay for school and loses her eggs when the clinic encounters a minor shutdown of its freezers; Aria gets burned by a fire caused by a malfunction at Hanna's bridal shower; and Alison falls down a flight of stairs. The girls build a plan of attack, which offers Hanna as bait. After Ali sees what appears to be her dead mother and Detective Wilden, she starts to question her sanity and checks herself into the same hospital Charlotte attended. Spencer, Toby and Mona work together to catch Sara, but instead they find old medical records for a woman named Mary Drake, and she was the one who gave birth to Charles while a patient at the Radley (now a hotel managed by Ashley Marin) 25 years ago, the DiLaurentis family adopted Charles as she was unable to take care of him.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: The girls' plan is leave Hanna waiting for 'Uber A' to arrive at Lost Woods Resort, while Aria and the boys are out hiding, but when Hanna goes missing they find out that 'Uber A' used a secret passage and kidnapped her. Looking over footage from cameras outside, they all are shocked to see what looks to be Mrs. D, asking themselves how this is possible. At Alison's house, "Wilden" rips off his mask revealing himself to be Elliott, and Mary Drake, who is revealed to be Jessica's twin, joins him. They succeeded in committing Alison, and with Ali hospitalized, he has her money and the house as her husband, which is their revenge for what happened to Charlotte, as he was in love with her and Mary always felt an attachment as her birth mother. She glances at a photograph of Charlotte and says it is what she would've wanted. In the last scene, we see Hanna's unconscious body being dragged by 'Uber A' in the church's bell tower.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: The show was renewed for a sixth and seventh season on June 10, 2014, right before the season five premiere aired, making "Pretty Little Liars" ABC Family's longest running original series. The sixth and the seventh season will consist of 20 episodes each. Filming for season 6 began on March 24, 2015. It aired 10 episodes for the first half the season, which began airing on June 2, 2015. The table read for the premiere occurred on March 23, 2015, King began writing the mid-season finale, the "summer finale", which was titled "Game Over, Charles", on May 12, 2015.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Unlike previous seasons, the sixth season will not include a special holiday-themed episode between the first and second half of the season, just like the first season. Previous holiday-themed episodes have been the thirteenth episode of each previous season excluding the first. The second half of the season will feature a new intro, after using the same intro in the previous seasons, and will feature the characters after the five-year time jump.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Janel Parrish confirmed in an interview that she would be returning to the sixth season as a series regular after her character, Mona Vanderwaal, was supposedly killed in the mid-season finale of season 5.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: In the fifth-season finale, it was revealed that Mona was alive and had been held prisoner in 'A's dollhouse. Rumer Willis was announced to be returning to the show as Zoe, Emily's coach when she was in Haiti building houses. Rebecca Breeds however, playing another friend of Emily from Haiti named Nicole, replaced Willis' character. It was announced on March 25, 2015, that "Project Runway" alum Dre Davis was cast as Kimberly Brown. However, it was revealed that Davis will instead be playing Sara Harvey, a girl who went missing the same time as Alison. It was announced on April 21, 2015, that Troian Bellisario's real life best friend Lulu Brud Zsebe would appear on the show as Sabrina, which Bellisario commented "It's a pinch me I'm dreaming scenario."


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: On April 24, 2015, it was announced that actor Titus Makin Jr. had joined the cast, as his audition playing Lorenzo was leaked, however on May 27, 2015, it was announced that Travis Winfrey will be the one playing Lorenzo, who will be a cop assigned to watch over Alison and also her new love interest. On May 28, 2015, Titus revealed on Twitter that he is going to play Clark Wilkins.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: For the second half of the season, several castings was announced, and will appear after the five-year time jump. On June 24, 2015, it was announced that two male recurring characters will be introduced in the second half of the season. The description of the characters was a sophisticated-yet-approachable 27-year-old working in the fashion industry named Jordan, and Liam, a 24-year-old editorial assistant from Boston. It was later announced that Roberto Aguire was cast as Liam Greene, Aria's new boyfriend, and that Australian actor David Coussins will recur as Jordan, Hanna's fiancé. On July 21, 2015, it was announced that one more recurring character will be introduced, the smart and sleek Yvonne, a politician's daughter who will cause some major drama for one of the Liars. It was later announced that Kara Royster will play Yvonne Phillips, Toby's new love interest, first appearing in the fourteenth episode. It was reported by "TVLine" on June 23, 2015, that Blake Berris will appear in one episode in the second half of the season. Kara Royster was cast as Yvonne, a friend of the character Toby. She will play a recurring role and will appear in three episodes starting with the 14th episode.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: Executive producer Oliver Goldstick revealed in an interview that the first half of the sixth season would contain 10 episodes instead of 12, like the previous seasons, and would deal almost exclusively with the mystery of Charles DiLaurentis and every unanswered "A" mystery question since the start of the show. King said that "This is our chance to finally end this great and wonderful story." In an interview I. Marlene King said that the sixth season will deal with the mystery of Charles DiLaurentis and the "A" mystery. She confirmed that a time jump to after college will be included, and will happen after the first ten episodes. King also confirmed that the sixth season will include the liars graduating from high school.


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: In an interview with "Entertainment Online", King said that the sixth season "is about answers and closure for all of them. It is an ending to the story that we started so long ago, but it's a very fast-paced ending to the story." As a regard to the first 10 episodes of the season, executive producer Joseph Dougherty said that they "are going to be like nothing that's ever happened before on this series. It's an incredible amount of information in every episode, but if we've done the job completely right, you should be able to figure the mystery out just before you find out."


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: ABC Family promoted the sixth season by creating an online contest in which fans of the show could be a part of the marketing campaign to promote the show by sending in their art for consideration. After the fifth-season finale, fans could send their art to a website, where they would be given a chance to be used in ABC Family's summer ad and campaign. More than 3,100 submissions was sent in, and the winner was picked out and was included in the cover of "Seventeen" on May 21, 2015. ABC Family promoted the season by calling it "Summer of Answers". For the second part of the season, ABC Family released a promotional poster on December 15, 2015, with the new-launched name for the network, "Freeform".


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: On July 18, 2015, a handful of information regarding the mid-season finale including the reveal of 'A' was allegedly leaked on Reddit. The person behind the account claimed to have been fired after being a PA at the set of "Pretty Little Liars" after failing a drug test, and could therefore reveal information about the show. Showrunner I. Marlene King took to Instagram, where she posted a picture and reassured the audience that the claims were false and that the identity of 'A' had not been leaked. ABC Family responded to the leaks, stating, "All of the info on the site is false. No crew member was fired from PLL and we believe it is just a fan spreading incorrect information to rile up the fan base."


title: Pretty Little Liars (season 6)

text: The sixth season was met with positive reviews from critics. The season premiere was down from the previous premiere and down from the season five finale, with a 1.1 at the target 18–49 demographic and 2.38 total viewers, making it the least watched season premiere in the show's history.


title: Naga Viper pepper

text: The Naga Viper pepper is a hot chili pepper. In 2011, it was recorded as the "World's Hottest Chili" by the "Guinness World Records" with a rating of 1,382,118 Scoville heat units (SHU), but was surpassed in SHU by the current world record holder, the Carolina Reaper, in 2017.


title: Naga Viper pepper

text: The Naga Viper was created in England by chilli farmer Gerald Fowler of the Chilli Pepper Company in Cark, Cumbria. It is claimed to be an unstable three-way hybrid produced from the Naga Morich, the Bhut jolokia and the Trinidad scorpion, which are some of the world's hottest peppers.


title: Muridae

text: The Muridae, or murids, are the largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 1,383 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia.


title: Muridae

text: The name Muridae comes from the Latin ' (genitive '), meaning "mouse", since all true mice belong to the family, with the more typical mice belonging to the genus "Mus".


title: Muridae

text: Murids are found nearly everywhere in the world, though many subfamilies have narrower ranges. Murids are not found in Antarctica or many oceanic islands. Although none of them are native to the Americas, a few species, notably the house mouse and black rat, have been introduced worldwide. Murids occupy a broad range of ecosystems from tropical forests to tundras. Fossorial, arboreal, and semiaquatic murid species occur, though most are terrestrial animals. The extensive list of niches filled by murids helps to explain their relative abundance.


title: Muridae

text: A broad range of feeding habits is found in murids, ranging from herbivorous and omnivorous species to specialists that consume strictly earthworms, certain species of fungi, or aquatic insects. Most genera consume plant matter and small invertebrates, often storing seeds and other plant matter for winter consumption. Murids have sciurognathous jaws (an ancestral character in rodents) and a diastema is present. Murids lack canines and premolars. Generally, three molars (though sometimes only one or two) are found, and the nature of the molars varies by genus and feeding habit.


title: Muridae

text: Some murids are highly social, while others are solitary. Females commonly produce several litters annually. In warm regions, breeding may occur year-round. Though the lifespans of most genera are generally less than two years, murids have high reproductive potential and their populations tend to increase rapidly and then drastically decline when food resources have been exhausted. This is often seen in a three- to four-year cycle.


title: Muridae

text: The murids are small mammals, typically around long excluding the tail, but ranging from in the African pygmy mouse to in the southern giant slender-tailed cloud rat. They typically have slender bodies with scaled tails longer than the body, and pointed snouts with prominent whiskers, but with wide variation in these broad traits. Some murids have elongated legs and feet to allow them to move with a hopping motion, while others have broad feet and prehensile tails to improve their climbing ability, and yet others have neither adaptation. They are most commonly some shade of brown in color, although many have black, grey, or white markings.


title: Muridae

text: Murids generally have excellent senses of hearing and smell. They live in a wide range of habitats from forest to grassland, and mountain ranges. A number of species, especially the gerbils, are adapted to desert conditions and can survive for a long time with minimal water. They consume a wide range of foods depending on the species, with the aid of powerful jaw muscles and gnawing incisors that grow throughout life. The dental formula of murids is .


title: Muridae

text: Murids breed frequently, often producing large litters several times per year. They typically give birth between twenty and forty days after mating, although this varies greatly between species. The young are typically born blind, hairless, and helpless, although exceptions occur, such as in spiny mice.


title: Muridae

text: As with many other small mammals, the evolution of the murids is not well known, as few fossils survive. They probably evolved from hamster-like animals in tropical Asia some time in the early Miocene, and have only subsequently produced species capable of surviving in cooler climates. They have become especially common worldwide during the current geological epoch, as a result of hitching a ride commensally with human migrations.


title: Muridae

text: Murids feature in literature, including folk tales and fairy stories. In the "Pied Piper of Hamelin", retold in many versions since the 14th century, including one by the Brothers Grimm, a rat-catcher lures the town's rats into the river, but the mayor refuses to pay him. In revenge, the rat-catcher lures away all the children of the town, never to return. Mice feature in some of Beatrix Potter's small books, including "The Tale of Two Bad Mice" (1904), "The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse" (1910), "The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse" (1918), and "The Tailor of Gloucester" (1903), which last was described by J. R. R. Tolkien as perhaps the nearest to his idea of a fairy story, the rest being "beast-fables". Among Aesop's Fables are "The Cat and the Mice" and "The Frog and the Mouse". In James Herbert's first novel, "The Rats", (1974), a vagrant is attacked and eaten alive by a pack of giant rats; further attacks follow.


title: Motel 6

text: Motel 6 is a privately owned hospitality company with a chain of budget motels in the United States and Canada. Motel 6 also operates Studio 6, a chain of extended-stay hotels. The hotel brand is owned by The Blackstone Group's real estate business. Blackstone purchased the business in 2012 from Accor Hotels, and established G6 Hospitality as the management company for Motel 6 and Studio 6.


title: Motel 6

text: Motel 6 was founded in Santa Barbara, California, in 1962, by two local building contractors: William Becker and Paul Greene. The partners developed a plan to build motels with rooms at low cost rates. They decided on a $6 room rate per night (equivalent to $ in ), which would cover building costs, land leases, and janitorial supplies; hence the company name "Motel 6".


title: Motel 6

text: Becker and Greene had specialized in building low-cost housing developments, and they wanted to provide an alternative to other major hotel chains, such as Holiday Inn, whose locations were becoming increasingly upscale in quality and price in the 1960s, after starting out with a budget-oriented concept. Becker and Greene spent two years formulating their business model and searched for ways to cut costs as much as possible. During the chain's early years, Motel 6 emphasized itself as a "no-frills" lodging chain with rooms featuring coin-operated black-and-white television receivers instead of the free color televisions found in the more expensive motels, along with functional interior decor, to reduce the time it took to clean the rooms. The first location in Santa Barbara had no restaurant on-site, a notable difference from other hotels of the era. To this day, most motels have no on-site dining, though there is usually a choice of restaurants nearby.


title: Motel 6

text: As the 1960s progressed, the Motel 6 idea became very popular in the lodging industry, and other chains began to imitate the concept, as Motel 6 was slowly beginning to take a small share of the market away from the traditional hotels. In 1965, Motel 6 opened its 15th property, and first location outside California, in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Realizing the need to move quickly, Becker and Green set out on an ambitious expansion program and had opened its 25th location in Gilroy, California, by 1966. The occupancy rate by then was about 85 percent, well above the industry average, and as a result of their success, Motel 6 became an attractive acquisition target. Becker and Greene sold the chain to an investment group in 1968.


title: Motel 6

text: In the early 1970s, Motel 6 opened its largest location, Motel 6 Tropicana, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Additionally, the chain moved east and opened a location in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1972. By 1980, Motel 6 had reached 300 locations. It was sold to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 1985, who moved the chain away from its "no frills" approach and began including amenities such as telephones and color television.


title: Motel 6

text: Market share declined throughout the 1980s, in part because of increased competition from other budget hotels. During this time, it bought out the Sixpence Inn chain in the western U.S., and Envoy Inn (formerly Bargaintel) in the Midwestern United States and Pennsylvania. Regal 8 Motels were acquired in 1991. In 1990, the company was bought by the French-based Accor. In 1993, it opened its first high-rise location—Motel 6 LAX in Los Angeles, California.


title: Motel 6

text: Unlike the majority of hotel chains, Motel 6 directly owns and operates most of its locations. To expand more rapidly outside its traditional Western United States base, the chain started franchising in 1994. Accor management also took over motels that had been franchised by other chains. Motel 6 began to renovate all bedrooms, sold under-performing locations, and upgraded door locks and other security measures. Newer properties, as well as acquisitions, have interior corridors. Its competitors include America's Best Value Inn, Days Inn, Econo Lodge, and Super 8 Motels. In 1999, Motel 6 launched Studio 6 Extended Stay, hotels with suites that are designed for longer stays and feature kitchenettes.


title: Motel 6

text: In 2000, Motel 6 went international by opening its first location outside the U.S. in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Then, in 2002, Motel 6 celebrated its 40th anniversary at its first location in Santa Barbara, California.


title: Motel 6

text: In 2006, Accor and Motel 6 invested more than $6 million in properties to help rebuild New Orleans and Gulfport following Hurricane Katrina. One of the Motel 6 co-founders, William Becker, died of a heart attack at the age of 85 the next year.


title: Motel 6

text: The company was sold by Accor to The Blackstone Group in 2012 for $1.9 billion. Blackstone announced that Motel 6 would be operated on a stand-alone basis.


title: Motel 6

text: In September 2017, immigration attorneys accused Motel 6 desk clerks at two locations in the area of Phoenix, Arizona, of notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when guests checked in with identification from Mexico. The attorneys said court records showed that federal immigration agents arrested at least 20 people at the Motel 6 locations over the course of seven months in 2017. Motel 6 said the practice was "implemented at the local level without the knowledge of senior management" and every location had been given a directive that they were "prohibited from voluntarily providing daily guest lists to ICE." Motel 6 was sued for discrimination and privacy violations in connection with the case and on November 2, 2018, agreed to settle with the plaintiffs for $7.6 million.


title: Motel 6

text: Additionally, Washington state filed a lawsuit in January 2018 against Motel 6 for giving the names of thousands of other motel guests to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. In April 2019, Motel 6 agreed to pay $12 million to settle the lawsuit.


title: Motel 6

text: On April 24, 2018, the American Customer Satisfaction Index published a study of America's most popular hotel chains, placing G6 Hospitality's Motel 6 at the bottom of the category for the second year in a row.


title: Motel 6

text: Motel 6 locations offer guests free basic wireless internet access, and some locations offer an upgrade to premium wireless internet access with the charge not exceeding $4.99.


title: Motel 6

text: Since 1999, Motel 6 operates Studio 6, a chain of extended-stay hotels that offers more amenities than a standard Motel 6 location, while also offering weekly and monthly rates. Studio 6 provides an expanded kitchenette area, including a full-sized refrigerator, coffeemaker, toaster, microwave oven, electric cooktop and a set of dishes/utensils, in all its rooms. Studio 6 allows pets with certain restrictions. Studio 6 hotels are located in 15 U.S. states and Canada. Its competitors include Extended Stay Hotels, and Choice Hotels' Suburban Extended Stay Hotels. Some Studio 6 locations have been converted from other brands, such as Homestead Studio Suites.


title: Motel 6

text: In March 2008, Motel 6 began a system-wide renovation program called the "Phoenix Project" to update the look and amenities of all bedrooms.


title: Motel 6

text: Before the remodel, most rooms had colorful road-trip inspired bed covers, carpeted floors, shower curtains, CRT televisions and beige furnishings. Stained carpets and dirty shower curtains were a common complaint on online customer reviews.


title: Motel 6

text: The remodel was designed with an eye towards not only modernizing rooms but keeping room rates low for years to come. Designers accomplished this by making the rooms more energy efficient, easy to clean, and easier to keep clean in the long term (keeping housekeeping and maintenance costs low).


title: Motel 6

text: Beginning in 1986, Motel 6 has advertised through radio commercials featuring the voice of writer and National Public Radio commentator Tom Bodett, with the tagline "We'll leave the light on for you." The ads were created by Dallas advertising agency The Richards Group. They feature a tune composed by Tom Faulkner, performed by him on guitar and Milo Deering on fiddle. The first spots were conceived and written by David Fowler. In 1996, the ads won a Clio Award. The campaign itself has won numerous national and international awards and was selected by "Advertising Age" magazine as one of the Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the Twentieth Century.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: The LSO underwent periods of eclipse in the 1930s and 1950s when it was regarded as inferior in quality to new London orchestras, to which it lost players and bookings: the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s and the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic after the Second World War. The profit-sharing principle was abandoned in the post-war era as a condition of receiving public subsidy for the first time. In the 1950s the orchestra debated whether to concentrate on film work at the expense of symphony concerts; many senior players left when the majority of players rejected the idea. By the 1960s the LSO had recovered its leading position, which it has retained subsequently. In 1966, to perform alongside it in choral works, the orchestra established the LSO Chorus, originally a mix of professional and amateur singers, later a wholly amateur ensemble.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: As a self-governing body, the orchestra selects the conductors with whom it works. At some stages in its history it has dispensed with a principal conductor and worked only with guests. Among conductors with whom it is most associated are, in its early days, Hans Richter, Sir Edward Elgar, and Sir Thomas Beecham, and in more recent decades Pierre Monteux, André Previn, Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, and Valery Gergiev.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: Since 1982, the LSO has been based in the Barbican Centre in the City of London. Among its programmes there have been large-scale festivals celebrating composers as diverse as Berlioz, Mahler and Bernstein. The LSO claims to be the world's most recorded orchestra; it has made gramophone recordings since 1912 and has played on more than 200 soundtrack recordings for the cinema, of which the best known include the "Star Wars" series. The LSO is consistently ranked as one of the world's leading orchestras.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: At the turn of the twentieth century there were no permanent salaried orchestras in London. The main orchestras were those of Covent Garden, the Philharmonic Society and the Queen's Hall; their proprietors engaged players individually for each concert or for a season. As there were competing demands for the services of the finest players it was an accepted practice that, even though under contract to play for a concert, a player was at liberty to accept a better-paid engagement if it were offered. He would then engage another player to deputise for him at the original concert and the rehearsals for it. The treasurer of the Philharmonic Society described the system thus: "A, whom you want, signs to play at your concert. He sends B (whom you don't mind) to the first rehearsal. B, without your knowledge or consent, sends C to the second rehearsal. Not being able to play at the concert, C sends D, whom you would have paid five shillings to stay away." There was much competition for good orchestral players, with well-paid engagements offered by more than fifty music halls, by pit bands in West End musical comedies, and by grand hotels and restaurants which maintained orchestras.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: In 1904, the manager of the Queen's Hall, Robert Newman and the conductor of his promenade concerts, Henry Wood, agreed that they could no longer tolerate the deputy system. After a rehearsal in which Wood was faced with dozens of unfamiliar faces in his own orchestra, Newman came to the platform and announced: "Gentlemen, in future there will be "no" deputies! Good morning!" This caused a furore. Orchestral musicians were not highly paid, and removing their chances of better-paid engagements permitted by the deputy system was a serious financial blow to many of them. While travelling by train to play under Wood at a music festival in the north of England in May 1904, soon after Newman's announcement, some of his leading players discussed the situation and agreed to try to form their own orchestra. The principal movers were three horn players (Adolf Borsdorf, Thomas Busby, and Henri van der Meerschen) and a trumpeter, John Solomon.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: Busby organised a meeting at St. Andrew's Hall, not far from the Queen's Hall. Invitations were sent to present and former members of the Queen's Hall Orchestra. About a hundred players attended. Busby explained the scheme: a new ensemble, the London Symphony Orchestra, to be run on co-operative lines, "something akin to a Musical Republic", with a constitution that gave the organisation independence. At concerts promoted by the LSO the members played without fee, their remuneration coming at the end of each season in a division of the orchestra's profits. This worked well in good years, but any poorly-patronised series left members out of pocket, and reliant on the LSO's engagements to play for provincial choral societies and other managements. The proposal was approved unanimously, and a management committee was elected, comprising the four original movers and Alfred Hobday (viola) and E F (Fred) James (bassoon). Busby was appointed chief executive, a post variously titled "Secretary", "managing director", "general secretary" and "general manager" over the years.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: Borsdorf was a player of international reputation, and through his influence, the orchestra secured Hans Richter to conduct its first concert. Newman held no grudge against the rebels and made the Queen's Hall available to them. He and Wood attended the LSO's first concert, on 9 June 1904. The programme consisted of the prelude to "Die Meistersinger", music by Bach, Mozart, Elgar and Liszt, and finally Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. In a favourable review in "The Times", J A Fuller Maitland noted that 49 members of the new orchestra were rebels against Newman's no-deputy rule, 32 had left the Queen's Hall Orchestra earlier, and the other 21 had no connection with Wood and Newman.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: The orchestra made its first British tour in 1905, conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. Elgar's conducting was highly praised; as to the orchestra, Ernest Newman wrote in "The Manchester Guardian", "Its brass and its wood-wind were seen to be of exceptional quality, but the strings, fine as they are, have not the substance nor the colour of the Hallé strings." The following year the LSO played outside Britain for the first time, giving concerts in Paris, conducted by Edouard Colonne, Sir Charles Stanford and André Messager. Richard Morrison, in his centenary study of the LSO, writes of "stodgy programmes of insipid Cowen, worthy Stanford, dull Parry and mediocre Mackenzie"; they put the Parisian public off to a considerable degree, and the players ended up out of pocket.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: In its early years Richter was the LSO's most frequently-engaged conductor, with four or five concerts every season; the orchestra's website and Morrison's 2004 book both count him as the orchestra's first chief conductor, though the 1911 "Musical Times" article indicates otherwise. Richter retired from conducting in 1911, and Elgar was elected conductor-in-chief for the 1911–12 season. Elgar conducted six concerts, Arthur Nikisch three, and Willem Mengelberg, Fritz Steinbach and Gustave Doret one each. As a conductor Elgar did not prove to be a big enough box-office draw, and after one season he was replaced by the charismatic Hungarian maestro Nikisch.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: Nikisch was invited to tour North America in 1912, and despite his long association with the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras, he insisted that the LSO should be contracted for the tour. The orchestra, 100-strong (all men except for the harpist), was booked to sail on the Titanic, but the tour schedule was changed at the last minute, and the players sailed safely on the Baltic. The tour was arduous, but a triumph. "The New York Press" said, "The great British band played with a vigor, force and temperamental impetuousness that almost lifted the listener out of his seat." "The New York Times" praised all departments of the orchestra, though, like "The Manchester Guardian", it found the strings "brilliant rather than mellow". The paper had a little fun at the LSO's expense: from the viewpoint of a country that had long enjoyed permanent, salaried orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, it gently mocked the LSO's "bold stand for the sacred right of sending substitutes"


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: Shortly after the beginning of the war the board of the orchestra received a petition from rank and file players protesting about Borsdorf's continued membership of the LSO. Although he had done as much as anyone to found the orchestra, had lived in Britain for 30 years and was married to an Englishwoman, Borsdorf was regarded by some colleagues as an enemy alien and was forced out of the orchestra.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: During the war the musical life of Britain was drastically curtailed. The LSO was helped to survive by large donations from Sir Thomas Beecham, who also subsidised the Hallé and the Royal Philharmonic Society. For a year he took the role, though not the title, of chief conductor of the LSO. In 1916 his millionaire father died and Beecham's financial affairs became too complicated for any further musical philanthropy on his part. In 1917 the LSO's directors agreed unanimously that they would promote no more concerts until the end of the war. The orchestra played for other managements, and managed to survive, although the hitherto remunerative work for regional choral societies dwindled to almost nothing.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: When peace resumed many of the former players were unavailable. A third of the orchestra's pre-war members were in the armed forces, and rebuilding was urgently needed. The orchestra was willing to allow the ambitious conductor Albert Coates to put himself forward as chief conductor. Coates had three attractions for the orchestra: he was a pupil of Nikisch, he had rich and influential contacts, and he was willing to conduct without fee. He and the orchestra got off to a disastrous start. Their first concert featured the premiere of Elgar's Cello Concerto. Apart from the concerto, which the composer conducted, the rest of the programme was conducted by Coates, who overran his rehearsal time at the expense of Elgar's. Lady Elgar wrote, "that brutal selfish ill-mannered bounder ... that brute Coates went on rehearsing." In "The Observer" Newman wrote, "There have been rumours about during the week of inadequate rehearsal. Whatever the explanation, the sad fact remains that never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable an exhibition of itself." Coates remained as chief conductor for two seasons, and after the initial debacle is credited by Morrison with "breathing life and energy into the orchestra".


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: After Coates left, the orchestra reverted to its preferred practice of engaging numerous guest conductors rather than a single principal conductor. Among the guests were Elgar, Beecham, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Serge Koussevitzky; soloists in the 1920s included Sergei Rachmaninoff, Artur Schnabel and the young Yehudi Menuhin. Revenues were substantial, and the orchestra seemed to many to be entering into a golden age. In fact, for lack of any serious competition in the 1920s, the LSO allowed its standards of playing to slip. In 1927 the Berlin Philharmonic, under Furtwängler, gave two concerts at the Queen's Hall. These, and later concerts by the same orchestra in 1928 and 1929, made obvious the poor standards then prevailing in London. Both the BBC and Beecham had ambitions to bring London's orchestral standards up to those of Berlin. After an early attempt at co-operation between the BBC and Beecham, they went their separate ways. In 1929 the BBC began recruiting for the new BBC Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult. The prospect of joining a permanent, salaried orchestra was attractive enough to induce some LSO players to defect. The new orchestra immediately received enthusiastic reviews that contrasted starkly with the severe press criticisms of the LSO's playing. According to the critic W J Turner the LSO's problem was not that its playing had deteriorated, but that it had failed to keep up with the considerable improvements in playing achieved over the past two decades by the best European and American orchestras.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: In 1931, Beecham was approached by the rising young conductor Malcolm Sargent with a proposal to set up a permanent, salaried orchestra with a subsidy guaranteed by Sargent's patrons, the Courtauld family. Originally Sargent and Beecham had in mind a reorganised version of the LSO, but the orchestra baulked at weeding out and replacing underperforming players. In 1932 Beecham lost patience and agreed with Sargent to set up a new orchestra from scratch. The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), as it was named, consisted of 106 players including a few young musicians straight from music college, many established players from provincial orchestras, and 17 of the LSO's leading members.


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: To try to raise its own standards the LSO had engaged Mengelberg, a famous orchestral trainer, known as a perfectionist. He made it a precondition that the deputy system must be abandoned, which occurred in 1929. He conducted the orchestra for the 1930 season, and music critics commented on the improvement in the playing. Nonetheless, as patently the third-best orchestra in London, the LSO lost work it had long been used to, including the Covent Garden seasons, the Royal Philharmonic Society concerts and the Courtauld-Sargent concerts. The orchestra persuaded Sir Hamilton Harty, the popular conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, to move from Manchester to become the LSO's principal conductor. Harty brought with him eight of the Hallé's leading players to replenish the LSO's ranks, depleted by defections to the BBC and Beecham. Critics including Neville Cardus recognised the continued improvement in the LSO's playing: "On this evening's hearing the London Symphony Orchestra is likely, after all, to give its two rivals a gallant run. Under Sir Hamilton it will certainly take on a style of sincere expression, distinguished from the virtuoso brilliance cultivated by the B.B.C. Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Beecham." Among the milestones on the orchestra's path to recovery were the premieres of Walton's "Belshazzar's Feast" (1930) and First Symphony (1934), showing the orchestra "capable of rising to the challenge of the most demanding contemporary scores" (Morrison).


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: The foundation of the Glyndebourne Festival in 1934 was another good thing for the LSO, as its players made up nearly the entirety of the festival orchestra. An important additional source of income for the orchestra was the film industry. In March 1935 the LSO recorded Arthur Bliss's incidental music for Alexander Korda's film "Things to Come". According to the LSO's website the recording took 14 full orchestral sessions and "started a veritable revolution in film production history. ... For the first time, music for the cinema, previously regarded as a lowly art form, captured the attention of classical music scholars and enthusiasts, music critics and the film and music public. The LSO had begun its long historic journey as the premier film orchestra."


title: London Symphony Orchestra

text: In London Harty did not prove to be a box-office draw, and according to Morrison, he was "brutally and hurtfully" dropped in 1934, as his LSO predecessor Elgar had been in 1912. After this the orchestra did not appoint a chief conductor for nearly 20 years. By 1939 the orchestra's board was planning an ambitious programme for 1940, with guests including Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, Erich Kleiber and George Szell.