title: Amelia Earhart

text: Between 1930 and 1935, Earhart had set seven women's speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft, including the Kinner Airster, Lockheed Vega, and Pitcairn Autogiro. By 1935, recognizing the limitations of her "lovely red Vega" in long, transoceanic flights, Earhart contemplated, in her own words, a new "prize ... one flight which I most wanted to attempt – a circumnavigation of the globe as near its waistline as could be". For the new venture, she would need a new aircraft.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: While Earhart was away on a speaking tour in late November 1934, a fire broke out at the Putnam residence in Rye, destroying many family treasures and Earhart's personal mementos. Putnam had already sold his interest in the New York-based publishing company to his cousin, Palmer Putnam. Following the fire, the couple decided to move to the West Coast, where Putnam took up his new position as head of the editorial board of Paramount Pictures in North Hollywood. While speaking in California in late 1934, Earhart had contacted Hollywood "stunt" pilot Paul Mantz in order to improve her flying, focusing especially on long-distance flying in her Vega, and wanted to move closer to him.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: At Earhart's urging, Putnam purchased a small house in June 1935 adjacent to the clubhouse of the Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake, a San Fernando Valley celebrity enclave community nestled between the Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures studio complexes, where they had earlier rented a temporary residence. Earhart and Putnam would not move in immediately, however; they decided to do considerable remodeling and enlarge the existing small structure to meet their needs. This delayed the occupation of their new home for several months.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In September 1935, Earhart and Mantz formally established a business partnership that they had been considering since late 1934, by creating the short-lived Earhart-Mantz Flying School, which Mantz controlled and operated through his aviation company, United Air Services. The company was located at the Burbank Airport, about five miles (8 km) from Earhart's Toluca Lake home. Putnam handled publicity for the school that primarily taught instrument flying using Link Trainers.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1935, Earhart joined Purdue University as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and as a technical advisor to its Department of Aeronautics. Early in 1936, Earhart started planning a round-the-world flight. Although others had flown around the world, her flight would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km) because it followed a roughly equatorial route. With financing from Purdue, in July 1936, a Lockheed Electra 10E (reg. NR16020) was built at Lockheed Aircraft Company to her specifications, which included extensive modifications to the fuselage to incorporate many additional fuel tanks. Earhart dubbed the twin engine monoplane her "flying laboratory". The plane was built at Lockheed's Burbank, California, plant, and after delivery it was hangared at Mantz's United Air Services, which was just across the airfield from the Lockheed plant.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Although the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory", little useful science was planned and the flight was arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book. Earhart chose Captain Harry Manning as her navigator; he had been the captain of the , the ship that had brought Earhart back from Europe in 1928. Manning was not only a navigator, but he was also a pilot and a skilled radio operator who knew Morse code.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The original plan was a two-person crew. Earhart would fly and Manning would navigate. During a flight across the country that included Earhart, Manning, and Putnam, Earhart flew using landmarks. She and Putnam knew where they were. Manning did a navigation fix, but that fix alarmed Putnam, because Manning's position put them in the wrong state. They were flying close to the state line, so the navigation error was minor, but Putnam was still concerned. Sometime later, Putnam and Mantz arranged a night flight to test Manning's navigational skill. Under poor navigational conditions, Manning's position was off by 20 miles. Elgen M. and Marie K. Long consider Manning's performance reasonable because it was within an acceptable error of 30 miles, but Mantz and Putnam wanted a better navigator.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a second navigator because there were significant additional factors that had to be dealt with while using celestial navigation for aircraft. Noonan was experienced in both marine (he was a licensed ship's captain) and flight navigation. Noonan had recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's China Clipper seaplane routes across the Pacific. Noonan had also been responsible for training Pan American's navigators for the route between San Francisco and Manila. The original plans were for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularly difficult portion of the flight; then Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia and she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the project.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On March 17, 1937, Earhart and her crew flew the first leg from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Harry Manning and Mantz (who was acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board. Due to lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii. Ultimately, the Electra ended up at the United States Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. The flight resumed three days later from Luke Field with Earhart, Noonan and Manning on board. The next destination was Howland Island, a small island in the Pacific. Manning, the only skilled radio operator, had made arrangements to use radio direction finding to home in to the island. The flight never left Luke Field. During the takeoff run, there was an uncontrolled ground-loop, the forward landing gear collapsed, both propellers hit the ground, the plane skidded on its belly, and a portion of the runway was damaged. The cause of the ground-loop is controversial. Some witnesses at Luke Field, including the Associated Press journalist, said they saw a tire blow. Earhart thought either the Electra's right tire had blown and/or the right landing gear had collapsed. Some sources, including Mantz, cited pilot error.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: With the aircraft severely damaged, the flight was called off and the aircraft was shipped by sea to the Lockheed Burbank facility for repairs.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Manning, having taken a leave of absence to do the flight, felt that there had been too many problems and delays. He ended his association with the trip, leaving only Earhart with Noonan, neither of whom were skilled radio operators.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: While the Electra was being repaired, Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and prepared for a second attempt. This time flying west to east, the second attempt began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami, Florida, and after arriving there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's opposite direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt. On this second flight, Fred Noonan was Earhart's only crew member. The pair departed Miami on June 1 and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, arrived at Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. At this stage, about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would be over the Pacific.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: On <time datetime="1937-07-02T00:00Z">July 2, 1937</time> at 10:00 in the morning (midnight GMT), Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae Airfield () in the heavily loaded Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island (), a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft (2,000 m) long and 1,600 ft (500 m) wide, 10 ft (3 m) high and away. The expected flying time was about 20 hours, so, accounting for the 2-hour time-zone difference between Lae and Howland and crossing of the International Dateline, the aircraft was expected to arrive at Howland the morning of the next day, 2 July. The aircraft departed Lae with about 1100 gallons of gasoline.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In March 1937, Kelly Johnson had recommended engine and altitude settings for the Electra. One of the recommended schedules was:


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart used part of the above schedule for the Oakland to Honolulu leg of the first world flight attempt. Johnson estimated that 900 gallons of fuel would provide 40% more range than required for that leg. Using 900 gallons was 250 gallons less than the Electra's maximum fuel tank capacity; that meant a weight savings of , so Earhart included Mantz as a passenger on that leg. The Oakland to Honolulu leg had Earhart, Noonan, Manning, and Mantz on board. The flight from Oakland to Honolulu took 16 hours. The Electra also loaded 900 gallons of fuel for the shorter Honolulu to Howland leg (with only Earhart, Noonan, and Manning on board), but the airplane crashed on take off; the crash ended the first world flight attempt.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Around <time datetime="1937-07-02T15:00+10:00">3 pm Lae time</time>, Earhart reported her altitude as 10,000 ft but that they would reduce altitude due to thick clouds. Around <time datetime="1937-07-02T17:00+10:00">5 pm</time>, Earhart reported her altitude as 7,000 ft and speed as 150 knots.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During the flight, Noonan may have been able to do some celestial navigation to determine his position. If crossing the International Dateline was not taken into account, a 1° or 60 mile position error would result.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In preparation for the trip to Howland Island, the U.S. Coast Guard had sent the cutter to the island. The cutter offered many services such as ferrying news reporters to the island, but it also had communication and navigation functions. The plan was the cutter could: communicate with Earhart's aircraft via radio; transmit a radio homing signal to make it easy to find Howland Island without precise celestial navigation; do radio direction finding if Earhart used her 500 kHz transmitter; use an experimental high-frequency direction finder for Earhart's voice transmissions; and use her boilers to "make smoke" (create a dark column of smoke that can be seen over the horizon). All of the navigation methods would fail to guide Earhart to Howland Island.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The Electra had radio equipment for both communication and navigation, but details about that equipment are not clear. The Electra failed to establish two-way radio communications with and failed to radiolocate "Itasca". Many explanations have been proposed for those failures.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The plane had a modified Western Electric model 13C transmitter. The 50-watt transmitter was crystal controlled and capable of transmitting on 500 kHz, 3105 kHz, and 6210 kHz. Crystal control means that the transmitter cannot be tuned to other frequencies; the plane could transmit only on those three frequencies. The transmitter had been modified at the factory to provide the 500 kHz capability.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The plane had a modified Western Electric model 20B receiver. Ordinarily, the receiver covered four frequency bands: 188–420 kHz, 550–1500 kHz, 1500–4000 kHz, and 4000–10000 kHz. The receiver was modified to lower the frequencies in the second band to 485–1200 kHz. That modification allowed the reception of 500 kHz signals; such signals were used for marine distress calls and radio navigation. The model 20B receiver has two antenna inputs: a low-frequency antenna input and a high-frequency antenna input. The receiver's band selector also selects which antenna input is used; the first two bands use the low-frequency antenna, and the last two bands select the high-frequency antenna.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: It is unknown whether the model 20B receiver had a beat frequency oscillator that would enable the detection of continuous wave transmissions such as Morse code and radiolocation beacons. Neither Earhart nor Noonan were capable of using Morse code. They relied on voice communications. Manning, who was on the first world flight attempt but not the second, was skilled at Morse and had acquired an FCC aircraft radiotelegraph license for 15 words per minute in March 1937, just prior to the start of the first flight.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A separate automatic radio direction finder receiver, a prototype Hooven Radio Compass, had been installed in the plane in October 1936, but that receiver was removed before the flight to save weight. The Hooven Radio Compass was replaced with a Bendix coupling unit that allowed a conventional loop antenna to be attached to an existing receiver (i.e., the Western Electric 20B). The loop antenna is visible above the cockpit on Earhart's plane.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Alternatively, the loop antenna may have been connected to a Bendix RA-1 auxiliary receiver with direction finding capability up to 1500 kHz. It is not clear that such a receiver was installed, and if it were, it may have been removed before the flight. Elgen and Marie Long describe Joe Gurr training Earhart to use a Bendix receiver and other equipment to tune radio station KFI on 640 kHz and determine its direction.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Whichever receiver was used, there are pictures of Earhart's radio direction finder loop antenna and its 5-band Bendix coupling unit. The details of the loop and its coupler are not clear. Elgen and Marie Long claim that the coupling unit adapted a standard RDF-1-B loop to the RA-1 receiver, and that the system was limited to frequencies below 1430 kHz. During the first world flight attempt's leg from Honolulu to Howland (when Manning was a navigator), "Itasca" was supposed to transmit a CW homing beacon at either 375 kHz or 500 kHz. At least twice during the world flight, Earhart failed to determine radio bearings at 7500 kHz. If the RDF equipment was not suitable for that frequency, then attempting such a fix would be operator error and fruitless. However, the earlier 7-band Navy RDF-1-A covered 500 kHz–8000 kHz. The later 3-band DU-1 covered 200 kHz–1600 kHz. It is not clear where the RDF-1-B or Earhart's coupler performance sits between those two units. In addition, the RDF-1-A and DU-1 coupler designs have other differences. The intention is to have the ordinary receive antenna connected to the coupler's antenna input; from there, it is passed on to the receiver. In the RDF-1-A design, the coupler must be powered on for that design function to work. In the later DU-1 design, the coupler need not be powered.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: There were problems with the RDF equipment during the world flight. During the transatlantic leg of the flight (Brazil to Africa), the RDF equipment did not work. The radio direction finding station at Darwin expected to be in contact with Earhart when she arrived there, but Earhart stated that the RDF was not functioning; the problem was a blown fuse. During a test flight at Lae, Earhart could hear radio signals, but she failed to obtain an RDF bearing. While apparently near Howland Island, Earhart reported receiving a 7500 kHz signal from "Itasca", but she was unable to obtain an RDF bearing.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The antennas and their connections on the Electra are not certain. A dorsal Vee antenna was added by Bell Telephone Laboratories. There had been a trailing wire antenna for 500 kHz, but the Luke Field accident collapsed both landing gear and wiped off the ventral antennas. After the accident, the trailing wire antenna was removed, the dorsal antenna was modified, and a ventral antenna was installed. It is not certain, but it is likely that the dorsal antenna was only connected to the transmitter (i.e., no "break in" relay), and the ventral antenna was only connected to the receiver. Once the second world flight started, problems with radio reception were noticed while flying across the US; Pan Am technicians may have modified the ventral antenna while the plane was in Miami. At Lae, problems with transmission quality on 6210 kHz were noticed. Once the flight took off from Lae, Lae did not receive radio messages on 6210 kHz (Earhart's daytime frequency) until four hours later (at <time datetime="1937-07-02T14:18+10:00" title="04:18Z">2:18 pm</time>); Lae's last reception was at <time datetime="1937-07-02T17:18+10:00" title="07:18Z">5:18 pm</time> and was a strong signal; Lae received nothing after that; presumably the plane switched to 3105 kHz (Earhart's nighttime frequency). "Itasca" heard Earhart on 3105 kHz, but did not hear her on 6210 kHz. TIGHAR postulates that the ventral receiving antenna was scraped off while the Electra taxied to the runway at Lae; consequently, the Electra lost its ability to receive HF transmissions.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The USCGC "Itasca" was on station at Howland. Its task was to communicate with Earhart's Electra and guide them to the island once they arrived in the vicinity. Noonan and Earhart expected to do voice communications on 3105 kHz during the night and 6210 kHz during the day.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Through a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland Island using radio navigation was not successful. Fred Noonan had earlier written about problems affecting the accuracy of radio direction finding in navigation. Another cited cause of possible confusion was that the "Itasca" and Earhart planned their communication schedule using time systems set a half-hour apart, with Earhart using Greenwich Civil Time (GCT) and the "Itasca" under a Naval time zone designation system.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The Electra expected "Itasca" to transmit signals that the Electra could use as an RDF beacon to find the "Itasca". In theory, the plane could listen for the signal while rotating its loop antenna. A sharp minimum indicates the direction of the RDF beacon. The Electra's RDF equipment had failed due to a blown fuse during an earlier leg flying to Darwin; the fuse was replaced. Near Howland, Earhart could hear the transmission from "Itasca" on 7500 kHz, but she was unable to determine a minimum, so she could not determine a direction to "Itasca". Earhart was also unable to determine a minimum during an RDF test at Lae. One likely theory is that Earhart's RDF equipment did not work at 7500 kHz; most RDF equipment at the time was not designed to work above 2000 kHz. When operated above their design frequency, loop antennas lose their directionality.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: "Itasca" had its own RDF equipment, but that equipment did not work above 550 kHz, so "Itasca" could not determine the direction to the Electra's HF transmissions at 3105 and 6210 kHz. The Electra had been equipped to transmit a 500 kHz signal that "Itasca" could use for radio direction finding, but some of that equipment had been removed. The equipment originally used a long trailing wire antenna. While the plane was in flight, the wire antenna would be paid out at the tail; efficient transmissions at 500 kHz needed a long antenna. The antenna was bulky and heavy, so the trailing wire antenna was removed to save weight. If nothing else had been done, the plane would have been unable to transmit an RDF signal that "Itasca" could use. Such a modification was made, but without voice communication from "Itasca" to the plane, the ship could not tell the plane to use its 500 kHz signal. Even if "Itasca" could get a bearing to the plane, the "Itasca" could not tell the plane that bearing, so the plane could not head to the ship.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Some sources have noted Earhart's apparent lack of understanding of her direction-finding system, which had been fitted to the aircraft just prior to the flight. The system was equipped with a new receiver from Bendix that operated on five wavelength "bands", marked 1 to 5. The loop antenna was equipped with a tuneable loading coil that changed the effective length of the antenna to allow it to work efficiently at different wavelengths. The tuner on the antenna was also marked with five settings, 1 to 5, but, critically, these were not the same frequency bands as the corresponding bands on the radio. The two were close enough for settings 1, 2 and 3, but the higher frequency settings, 4 and 5, were entirely different. The upper bands (4 and 5) could not be used for direction finding. Earhart's only training on the system was a brief introduction by Joe Gurr at the Lockheed factory, and the topic had not come up. A card displaying the band settings of the antenna was mounted so it was not visible. Gurr explained that higher frequency bands would offer better accuracy and longer range.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Motion picture evidence from Lae suggests that an antenna mounted underneath the fuselage may have been torn off from the fuel-heavy Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway, though no antenna was reported found at Lae.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During Earhart and Noonan's approach to Howland Island, the "Itasca" received strong and clear voice transmissions from Earhart identifying as KHAQQ, but she apparently was unable to hear voice transmissions from the ship. Signals from the ship would also be used for direction finding, implying that the aircraft's direction finder was also not functional.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The first calls, routine reports stating the weather as cloudy and overcast, were received at <time datetime="1937-07-02T02:45-11:30" title="14:15Z">2:45</time> and just before <time datetime="1937-07-02T05:00-11:30" title="16:30Z">5 am on July 2</time>. These calls were broken up by static, but at this point the aircraft would still be a long distance from Howland.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: At <time datetime="1937-07-02T06:14-11:30" title="17:44Z">6:14 am</time> another call was received stating the aircraft was within , and requested that the ship use its direction finder to provide a bearing for the aircraft. Earhart began whistling into the microphone to provide a continual signal for them to home in on. It was at this point that the radio operators on the "Itasca" realized that their RDF system could not tune in the aircraft's 3105 kHz frequency; radioman Leo Bellarts later commented that he "was sitting there sweating blood because I couldn't do a darn thing about it." A similar call asking for a bearing was received at <time datetime="1937-07-02T06:45-11:30" title="18:15Z">6:45 am</time>, when Earhart estimated they were out.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Another "Itasca" radio log (position 2) at <time datetime="1937-07-02T07:42-11:30" title="19:12Z">7:42 am</time> states:


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart's <time datetime="1937-07-02T07:58-11:30" title="19:28Z">7:58 am</time> transmission said she could not hear the "Itasca" and asked them to send voice signals so she could try to take a radio bearing. This transmission was reported by the "Itasca" as the loudest possible signal, indicating Earhart and Noonan were in the immediate area. They could not send voice at the frequency she asked for, so Morse code signals were sent instead. Earhart acknowledged receiving these but said she was unable to determine their direction.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In her last known transmission at <time datetime="1937-07-02T08:43-11:30" title="20:13Z">8:43 am</time> Earhart broadcast "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." However, a few moments later she was back on the same frequency (3105 kHz) with a transmission that was logged as "questionable": "We are running on line north and south." Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (10 km). The "Itasca" used her oil-fired boilers to generate smoke for a period of time, but the fliers apparently did not see it. The many scattered clouds in the area around Howland Island have also been cited as a problem: their dark shadows on the ocean surface may have been almost indistinguishable from the island's subdued and very flat profile.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Whether any post-loss radio signals were received from Earhart and Noonan remains unclear. If transmissions were received from the Electra, most if not all were weak and hopelessly garbled. Earhart's voice transmissions to Howland were on 3105 kHz, a frequency restricted in the United States by the FCC to aviation use. This frequency was thought to be not fit for broadcasts over great distances. When Earhart was at cruising altitude and midway between Lae and Howland (over from each) neither station heard her scheduled transmission at <time datetime="1937-07-02T08:15Z">0815 GCT</time>. Moreover, the 50-watt transmitter used by Earhart was attached to a less-than-optimum-length V-type antenna.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The last voice transmission received on Howland Island from Earhart indicated she and Noonan were flying along a line of position (running N–S on 157–337 degrees) which Noonan would have calculated and drawn on a chart as passing through Howland. After all contact was lost with Howland Island, attempts were made to reach the flyers with both voice and Morse code transmissions. Operators across the Pacific and the United States may have heard signals from the downed Electra but these were unintelligible or weak.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Some of these reports of transmissions were later determined to be hoaxes but others were deemed authentic. Bearings taken by Pan American Airways stations suggested signals originating from several locations, including Gardner Island (Nikumaroro), 360 miles (580 km) to the SSE. It was noted at the time that if these signals were from Earhart and Noonan, they must have been on land with the aircraft since water would have otherwise shorted out the Electra's electrical system. Sporadic signals were reported for four or five days after the disappearance but none yielded any understandable information. The captain of later said: "There was no doubt many stations were calling the Earhart plane on the plane's frequency, some by voice and others by signals. All of these added to the confusion and doubtfulness of the authenticity of the reports."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Beginning approximately one hour after Earhart's last recorded message, the USCGC "Itasca" undertook an ultimately unsuccessful search north and west of Howland Island based on initial assumptions about transmissions from the aircraft. The United States Navy (USN) soon joined the search and over a period of about three days sent available resources to the search area in the vicinity of Howland Island. The initial search by the "Itasca" involved running up the 157/337 line of position to the NNW from Howland Island. The "Itasca" then searched the area to the immediate NE of the island, corresponding to the area, yet wider than the area searched to the NW. Based on bearings of several supposed Earhart radio transmissions, some of the search efforts were directed to a specific position on a line of 281 degrees (approximately northwest) from Howland Island without evidence of the flyers. Four days after Earhart's last verified radio transmission, on July 6, 1937, the captain of the battleship "Colorado" received orders from the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District to take over all naval and coast guard units to coordinate search efforts.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Later search efforts were directed to the Phoenix Islands south of Howland Island. A week after the disappearance, naval aircraft from the "Colorado" flew over several islands in the group including Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro), which had been uninhabited for over 40 years. The subsequent report on Gardner read: "Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there... At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons)... lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or takenoff in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her aircraft in this lagoon and swum or waded ashore." They also found that Gardner's shape and size as recorded on charts were wholly inaccurate. Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of Howland Island, based on a possibility the Electra had ditched in the ocean, was afloat, or that the aviators were in an emergency raft.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The official search efforts lasted until July 19, 1937. At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in U.S. history up to that time, but search and rescue techniques during the era were rudimentary and some of the search was based on erroneous assumptions and flawed information. Official reporting of the search effort was influenced by individuals wary about how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press. Despite an unprecedented search by the United States Navy and Coast Guard, no physical evidence of Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E was found. The aircraft carrier , the battleship USS "Colorado", the , the Japanese oceanographic survey vessel "Koshu", and the Japanese seaplane tender "Kamoi" searched for six–seven days each, covering .


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Immediately after the end of the official search, Putnam financed a private search by local authorities of nearby Pacific islands and waters, concentrating on the Gilberts. In late July 1937, Putnam chartered two small boats, and, while he remained in the United States, directed a search of the Phoenix Islands, Christmas (Kiritimati) Island, Fanning (Tabuaeran) Island, the Gilbert Islands, and the Marshall Islands, but no trace of the Electra or its occupants was found.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Back in the United States, Putnam acted to become the trustee of Earhart's estate so that he could pay for the searches and related bills. In probate court in Los Angeles, Putnam requested to have the "declared death "in absentia"" seven-year waiting period waived so that he could manage Earhart's finances. As a result, Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: There has been considerable speculation on what happened to Earhart and Noonan. Most historians hold to the simple "crash and sink" theory, but a number of other possibilities have been proposed, including several conspiracy theories.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Some have suggested that Earhart and Noonan survived and landed elsewhere, but were either never found or killed, making en-route locations like Tarawa unlikely. Proposals have included the uninhabited Gardner Island, from the vicinity of Howland, the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands, at the closest point of Mili Atoll, and the Japanese-controlled Northern Mariana Islands, from Howland.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Many researchers believe that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel while searching for Howland Island, ditched at sea, and died. The plane would have carried enough fuel to reach Howland with some extra to spare. The extra fuel would cover some contingencies such as headwinds and searching for Howland. The plane could fly a compass course toward Howland through the night. In the morning, the time of apparent sunrise would allow the plane to determine its line of position (a "sun line" that ran 157°–337°). From that line, the plane could determine how much farther it must travel before reaching a parallel sun line that ran through Howland. At 6:14 AM "Itasca" time, Earhart estimated they were away from Howland. As the plane closed with the island, it expected to be in radio contact with "Itasca". With the radio contact, the plane should have been able to use radio direction finding (RDF) to head directly for the "Itasca" and Howland. The plane was not receiving a radio signal from "Itasca", so it would have been unable to determine a respective RDF bearing. Although "Itasca" was receiving HF radio signals from the plane, it did not have HF RDF equipment, so it could not determine a bearing to the plane. Almost no communications were transmitted to the plane. Consequently, the plane was not directed to Howland, and was left on its own with little fuel. Presumably, the plane reached the parallel sun line and started searching for Howland on that line of position. At 7:42 AM, Earhart reported, "We must be on you, but cannot see you – but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." At 8:43 AM, Earhart reported, "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." Between Earhart's low-on-fuel message at 7:42 AM and her last confirmed message at 8:43, her signal strength remained consistent, indicating that she never left the immediate Howland area as she ran out of fuel. The U.S. Coast Guard made this determination by tracking her signal strength as she approached the island, noting signal levels from her reports of 200 and 100 miles out. These reports were roughly 30 minutes apart, providing vital ground-speed clues. Based on these facts, and the lack of additional signals from Earhart, the Coast Guard first responders initiating the search concluded that she ran out of fuel somewhere very close to and north of Howland.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During the 1970s, retired USN captain Laurance Safford began a lengthy analysis of the flight. His research included the intricate radio transmission documentation. Safford concluded that the flight had suffered from "poor planning, worse execution". In 1982, retired USN rear admiral Richard R. Black, who was in administrative charge of the Howland Island airstrip and was present in the radio room on the "Itasca", asserted that "the Electra went into the sea about 10 am, July 2, 1937, not far from Howland". British aviation historian Roy Nesbit interpreted evidence in contemporary accounts and Putnam's correspondence and concluded that Earhart's Electra was not fully fueled at Lae. William L. Polhemous, the navigator on Ann Pellegreno's 1967 flight that followed Earhart and Noonan's original flight path, studied navigational tables for July 2, 1937, and thought Noonan may have miscalculated the "single line approach" intended to "hit" Howland.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: David Jourdan, a former Navy submariner and ocean engineer specializing in deep-sea recoveries, has claimed that any transmissions attributed to Gardner Island were false. Through his company Nauticos, he extensively searched a quadrant north and west of Howland Island during two deep-sea sonar expeditions (2002 and 2006, total cost $4.5 million) and found nothing. The search locations were derived from the line of position (157–337) broadcast by Earhart on July 2, 1937. Nevertheless, Elgen Long's interpretations have led Jourdan to conclude, "The analysis of all the data we have – the fuel analysis, the radio calls, other things – tells me she went into the water off Howland." Earhart's stepson George Palmer Putnam Jr. has been quoted as saying he believes "the plane just ran out of gas". Earhart biography author Susan Butler posits that the aircraft went into the ocean out of sight of Howland Island and rests on the seafloor at a depth of . Tom D. Crouch, senior curator of the National Air and Space Museum, has said the Electra is "18,000 ft. down" and compares its archaeological significance to the "Titanic", saying, "the mystery is part of what keeps us interested. In part, we remember her because she's our favorite missing person."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The Gardner Island hypothesis assumes that Earhart and Noonan, unable to find Howland Island, would not waste time searching for it, instead turning to the south to look for other islands. The 157/337 radio transmission suggests they flew a course of 157° that would take them past Baker Island; if they missed this, then sometime later they would fly over the Phoenix Islands, now part of the Republic of Kiribati, about south-southeast of Howland Island. One of the Phoenix Islands, known as Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro), has been the subject of inquiry as a possible crash-landing site.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A week after Earhart disappeared, Navy planes from USS "Colorado" (which had sailed from Pearl Harbor) searched Gardner Island. The planes saw signs of recent habitation and the November 1929 wreck of the , but did not see any signs of Earhart's plane or people. After the Navy ended its search, G. P. Putnam undertook a search in the Phoenix Group and other islands, but nothing was found.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In October 1937, Eric Bevington and Henry E. Maude visited Gardner with some potential settlers. A group walked all the way around the island, but did not find a plane or other evidence.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Around April 1940, a skull was discovered and buried, but British colonial officer Gerald Gallagher did not learn of it until September. Gallagher did a more thorough search of the discovery area, including looking for artifacts such as rings. The search found more bones, a bottle, a shoe, and a sextant box. On September 23, 1940, Gallagher radioed his superiors that he had found a "skeleton ... possibly that of a woman", along with an old-fashioned sextant box (later revealed to have been left during a recent hydrographic survey), under a tree on the island's southeast corner. Gallagher stated that the "Bones look more than four years old to me but there seems to be very slight chance that this may be remains of Amelia Earhart." He was ordered to send the remains to Fiji. On 4 April 1941, Dr. D. W. Hoodless of the Central Medical School (later named the Fiji School of Medicine) examined the bones, took measurements, and wrote a report. Using Karl Pearson's formulas for stature and the lengths of the femur, tibia, and humerus, Hoodless concluded that the person was about tall. Hoodless wrote that the skeleton "could be that of a short, stocky, muscular European, or even a half-caste, or person of mixed European descent." Earhart's 1930 pilot's license states she was and . Hoodless also wrote that "it may be definitely stated that the skeleton is that of a MALE. Owing to the weather-beaten condition of all the bones it is impossible to be dogmatic in regard to the age of the person at the time of death, but I am of the opinion that he was not less than 45 years of age and that probably he was older: say between 45 and 55 years." Earhart was just under 40 years old when she disappeared. Hoodless offered to make more detailed measurements if needed, but suggested that any further examination be done by the Anthropological Department at Sydney University. These bones were apparently misplaced in Fiji and presumed lost. Around the turn of the 21st century, researchers used Hoodless's measurements to argue against his conclusions that the bones were that of a male. In two 2015 episodes of "Expedition Unknown", host Josh Gates searched under a house which had belonged to another doctor from the Fiji School of Medicine, where in 1968 the house's new owner had found a box containing bones including a skull; these were brought to a local museum and lost. Gates combed several bone fragments from the area where the box had been found; these were DNA tested and determined to belong to a male.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: During World War II, US Coast Guard LORAN Unit 92, a radio navigation station built in the summer and fall of 1944, and operational from mid-November 1944 until mid-May 1945, was located on Gardner Island's southeast end. Dozens of Coast Guard personnel were involved in its construction and operation, but were mostly forbidden from leaving the small base or having contact with the Gilbertese colonists then on the island, and found no artifacts known to relate to Earhart.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1988, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) began an investigation and sent eleven research expeditions to Nikumaroro, producing inconclusive results. They have suggested that Earhart and Noonan may have flown without further radio transmissions for two and a half hours along the line of position Earhart noted in her last transmission received at Howland, then found the then-uninhabited Gardner Island, landed the Electra on an extensive reef flat near the wreck of a large freighter (the SS "Norwich City") on the northwest side of the atoll, and ultimately perished.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Artifacts discovered by TIGHAR on Nikumaroro have included improvised tools, an aluminum panel, an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas, and a size-9 woman's shoe heel. Recently rediscovered photos of Earhart's Electra just before departure in Miami show an aluminum panel over a window on the right side. Ric Gillespie, head of TIGHAR, claimed that the aluminum panel artifact has the same dimensions and rivet pattern as the one shown in the photo "to a high degree of certainty". Based on this new evidence, Gillespie returned to the atoll in June 2015, but operations using a remotely operated underwater vehicle to investigate a sonar detection of a possible wreckage were hampered by technical problems. Further, a review of sonar data concluded it was most likely a coral ridge.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In July 2017, staff from the New England Air Museum notified TIGHAR that the unique rivet pattern of the aluminum panel precisely matched the top of the wing of a Douglas C-47 Skytrain in the museum inventory, particularly significant since a C-47B crashed on a nearby island during World War II and villagers acknowledged bringing aluminum from that wreck to Gardner Island.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Some consider TIGHAR's theory the most plausible Earhart-survival theory, although not proven and not accepted beyond crash-and-sink. Other sources have criticized TIGHAR as seizing on unlikely possibilities as circumstantial evidence; for example, an article criticized the suggestion that a jar of freckle ointment found on Nikumaroro might have been Earhart's, when the Electra was "virtually a flying gas station" with little room for amenities, as Earhart and Noonan carried extra gas tanks in every scrap of available space and absence of any corroborating evidence connecting the artifact to her.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The 2019 National Geographic special "Expedition Amelia" depicts an August 2019 search for Earhart's aircraft off Nikumaroro's reef conducted by ocean explorer Robert Ballard, who has found several ocean wrecks including the "Titanic". Ballard was intrigued by documented radio signal bearings that intersect near Nikumaroro, although they were taken from different locations and at different times. Ballard's expedition had more sophisticated search equipment than TIGHAR used on its expedition in 2012.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: He completed his expedition in October 2019. After days of searching the deep cliffs supporting the island and the nearby ocean, Ballard did not find any evidence of the plane or any associated wreckage of it. Allison Fundis, Ballard's chief operating officer of the expedition stated, "We felt like if her plane was there, we would have found it pretty early in the expedition."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The documentary states of the Gardner Island hypothesis that "It's a nice story. But like all the other evidence obtained here over the decades, there is no provable link to Amelia or her plane."


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Another theory is that Earhart and Noonan were captured by Japanese forces, perhaps after somehow navigating to somewhere within the Japanese South Seas Mandate.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1966, CBS correspondent Fred Goerner published a book claiming that Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed when their aircraft crashed on the island of Saipan, part of the Northern Mariana Islands archipelago. Saipan is more than 2,700 miles away from Howland Island, however. Later proponents of the Japanese capture hypothesis have generally suggested the Marshall Islands instead, which while still distant from the intended location (~800 miles), is slightly more possible.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1990, the NBC series "Unsolved Mysteries" broadcast an interview with a Saipanese woman who claimed to have witnessed Earhart and Noonan's execution by Japanese soldiers. No independent confirmation has ever emerged for any of these claims. Various purported photographs of Earhart during her captivity have been identified as either fraudulent or having been taken before her final flight.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A slightly different version of the Japanese capture hypothesis is not that the Japanese captured Earhart, but rather that they shot down her plane. Henri Keyzer-Andre, a former Pan Am pilot, propounded this view in his 1993 book "Age Of Heroes: Incredible Adventures of a Pan Am Pilot and his Greatest Triumph, Unravelling the Mystery of Amelia Earhart".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Since the end of World War II, a location on Tinian, which is five miles (8 km) southwest of Saipan, had been rumored to be the grave of the two aviators. In 2004, an archaeological dig at the site failed to turn up any bones.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A recent proponent of this theory is Mike Campbell, who published the 2012 book "Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last" in its favor. Campbell cites claims from Marshall Islanders to have witnessed a crash, as well as a U.S. Army Sergeant who found a suspicious gravesite near a former Japanese prison on Saipan.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A number of Earhart's relatives have been convinced that the Japanese were somehow involved in Amelia's disappearance, citing unnamed witnesses including Japanese troops and Saipan natives. According to one cousin, the Japanese cut the Lockheed Electra into scrap and threw the pieces into the ocean, to explain why the airplane was not found in the Marshall Islands.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 2017, a History Channel documentary called "", proposed that a photograph in the National Archives of Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands was actually a picture of a captured Earhart and Noonan. The picture showed a Caucasian male on a dock who appeared to look like Noonan and a woman sitting on the dock but facing away from the camera, who was judged to have a physique and haircut resembling Earhart's. The documentary theorizes that the photo was taken after Earhart and Noonan crashed at Mili Atoll. The documentary also said that physical evidence recovered from Mili matches pieces that could have fallen off an Electra during a crash or subsequent overland move to a barge. "The Lost Evidence" proposed that a Japanese ship seen in the photograph was the "Koshu Maru", a Japanese military ship. "The Lost Evidence" was quickly discredited, however, after Japanese blogger Kota Yamano found the original source of the photograph in the Archives in the National Diet Library Digital Collection. The original source of the photo was a Japanese travel guide published in October 1935, implying that the photograph was taken in 1935 or before, and thus would be unrelated to Earhart and Noonan's 1937 disappearance. Additionally, the researcher who discovered the photo also identified the ship in the right of the photo as another ship called "Koshu", seized by Allied Japanese forces during World War I, and not the "Koshu Maru".


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A common criticism of all versions of the Japanese capture hypothesis is that the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands were considerably distant from Howland Island. To reach and land there would have required Earhart and Noonan, though low on fuel, to change her northeast course as she neared Howland Island and fly hundreds of miles northwest, a feat "not supported by the basic rules of geography and navigation." Additionally, had the Japanese found a crashed Earhart and Noonan, they would have had substantial motivation to rescue the famous aviators and be hailed as heroes.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The unresolved circumstances of Earhart's disappearance, along with her fame, attracted a great body of other claims relating to her last flight. Several unsupported theories have become known in popular culture.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The World War II-era movie "Flight for Freedom" (1943) is a story of a fictional female aviator (obviously inspired by Earhart) who engages in a spying mission in the Pacific. The movie helped further a myth that Earhart was spying on the Japanese in the Pacific at the request of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. By 1949, both the United Press and U.S. Army Intelligence had concluded that this rumor was groundless. Jackie Cochran, another pioneering aviator and one of Earhart's friends, made a postwar search of numerous files in Japan and was convinced that the Japanese were not involved in Earhart's disappearance.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A rumor that claimed that Earhart had made propaganda radio broadcasts as one of the many women compelled to serve as Tokyo Rose was investigated closely by George Putnam. According to several biographies of Earhart, Putnam investigated this rumor personally but after listening to many recordings of numerous Tokyo Roses, he did not recognize her voice among them.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The theory that Earhart may have turned back mid-flight has been posited. She would then have tried to reach the airfield at Rabaul, New Britain (northeast of mainland Papua New Guinea), approximately from Howland.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 1990, Donald Angwin, a veteran of the Australian Army's World War II campaign in New Britain, contacted researchers to suggest that a wrecked aircraft he had witnessed in jungle about southwest of Rabaul, on April 17, 1945, may have been Earhart's Electra.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: reported that he and other members of a forward patrol on Japanese-occupied New Britain had found a wrecked twin-engined, unpainted all-metal aircraft. The soldiers recorded a rough position on a map, along with serial numbers seen on the wreckage. The map was found in the possession of another veteran in 1993, but subsequent searches of the area indicated failed to find a wreck.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Angwin died in 2001. David Billings, an Australian aircraft engineer, has continued to investigate his theory. Billings claims that the serial numbers written on the map, , represent:


title: Amelia Earhart

text: These would be consistent with a Lockheed Electra 10E, such as that flown by Earhart, although they do not contain enough information to identify the wreck in question as NR16020.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: "Pacific Wrecks", a website that documents World War II-era aircraft crash sites, notes that no Electra has been reported lost in or around Papua New Guinea. Ric Gillespie of TIGHAR believes that based on Earhart's last estimated position, somewhat close to Howland Island, it was impossible for the aircraft to end up at New Britain, and over 13 hours' flight time away.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In November 2006, the National Geographic Channel aired episode two of the "Undiscovered History" series about a claim that Earhart survived the world flight, moved to New Jersey, changed her name, remarried and became Irene Craigmile Bolam. This claim had originally been raised in the book "Amelia Earhart Lives" (1970) by author Joe Klaas, based on the research of Major Joseph Gervais. Irene Bolam, who had been a banker in New York during the 1940s, denied being Earhart, filed a lawsuit requesting $1.5 million in damages and submitted a lengthy affidavit in which she rebutted the claims. The book's publisher, McGraw-Hill, withdrew the book from the market shortly after it was released and court records indicate that the company reached an out-of-court settlement with her. Subsequently, Bolam's personal life history was thoroughly documented by researchers, eliminating any possibility that she was Earhart. Kevin Richlin, a professional criminal forensic expert hired by "National Geographic", studied photographs of both women and cited many measurable facial differences between Earhart and Bolam.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart was a widely known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with the circumstances of her disappearance at a comparatively early age have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. Hundreds of articles and scores of books have been written about her life, which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls. Earhart is generally regarded as a feminist icon.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart's accomplishments in aviation inspired a generation of female aviators, including the more than 1,000 women pilots of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) who ferried military aircraft, towed gliders, flew target practice aircraft, and served as transport pilots during World War II.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: The home where Earhart was born is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum and is maintained by The Ninety-Nines, an international group of female pilots of whom Earhart was the first elected president.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: A small section of Earhart's Lockheed Electra starboard engine nacelle recovered in the aftermath of the March 1937 Hawaii crash has been confirmed as authentic and is now regarded as a control piece that will help to authenticate possible future discoveries. The evaluation of the scrap of metal was featured on an episode of "History Detectives" on Season 7 in 2009.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Two notable memorial flights by female aviators subsequently followed Earhart's original circumnavigational route.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 2001, another commemorative flight retraced the route undertaken by Earhart in her August 1928 transcontinental record flight. Dr. Carlene Mendieta flew an original Avro Avian, the same type that was used in 1928.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In 2013, Amelia Rose Earhart (no relation), a pilot and a reporter from Denver, Colorado, announced that she would be recreating the 1937 flight in the middle of 2014 in a single engine Pilatus PC-12NG. She completed the flight without incident on July 11, 2014.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: In June and July 2017, Brian Lloyd flew his Mooney M20K 231 around the world to commemorate Earhart's attempted circumnavigation 80 years earlier. Lloyd followed a route similar to the one taken by Earhart.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Countless other tributes and memorials have been made in Amelia Earhart's name, including a 2012 tribute by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a State Department event celebrating the ties of Earhart and the United States to its Pacific neighbors, noting: "Earhart ... created a legacy that resonates today for anyone, girls and boys, who dreams of the stars." In 2013, "Flying" magazine ranked Earhart No. 9 on its list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation". The following list is not considered definitive, but serves also to give significant examples of tributes and honors.


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart's life has spurred the imaginations of many writers and others; the following examples are given although many other mentions have also occurred in contemporary or current media:


title: Amelia Earhart

text: Earhart was a successful and heavily promoted writer who served as aviation editor for "Cosmopolitan" magazine from 1928 to 1930. She wrote magazine articles, newspaper columns, and essays, and published two books based upon her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime:


title: 2022 in video games

text: In the video game industry, 2022 saw the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry, slowing hardware sales for most of the year as well as development delays for major titles. The industry continued its trend of acquisitions and mergers, highlighted by Microsoft announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. The industry as a whole still dealt with issues such a workplace harassment and discrimination, as well as crunch periods, leading to at least the quality assurance staff at three separate studios to vote to unionize.


title: 2022 in video games

text: Production of the ninth generation consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, remained constrained for the first part of the year, but eased up later in the year. New hardware trends included the widespread availability of graphics cards with real-time ray tracing, increasing realism fidelity in some games, and the release of the Steam Deck by Valve, a handheld personal computing device capable of playing most games available on Steam. The gaming community remained cautious on the metaverse and blockchain games, though leading publishers expressed their desires to move more into that space.


title: 2022 in video games

text: According to market research firm Newton, the global video game industry had total revenues of $184.4 billion, about a 4% decline year-to-year. Half of that was from mobile games, while console games, computer games, and browser games made up 28%, 21%, and 1% of the market, respectively.


title: 2022 in video games

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February that year, several video game developers and publishers with ties to Eastern Europe provided support for Ukrainian aid. On February 24, 11 bit studios pledged to donate all profits earned over the following seven days from "This War of Mine" (2014) and its downloadable content to the Ukrainian Red Cross. CD Projekt Red donated 1 million zloty (about ) to the Polish Humanitarian Action group. Embracer Group donated to Red Cross, SOS Children's Villages, and ACT Alliance, among other charities. SCS Software donated over to "multiple charities", and released new DLC for "American Truck Simulator" and "Euro Truck Simulator 2" to raise funds for Ukrainian charities. The Pokémon Company and Niantic announced they would donate $200K each, alongside an addition $75K raised by Niantic employees, to organisations such as GlobalGiving to provide humanitarian relief in Ukraine. In addition, Niantic announced the suspended availability of "Pokémon Go", "Pikmin Bloom", and "Ingress" in both Russia and Belarus.


title: 2022 in video games

text: Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard, among others, halted sales of physical and digital products into Russia during the conflict. Electronic Arts announced on March 2 that it had started the process to remove the Russia national football team and Russian football clubs from its "FIFA" series as well as removing the Belarusian and Russian national teams and their club teams from "NHL 22". In addition to preventing purchase of their games in Russia, Nintendo announced on March 9 that "", a tactical war game with a faction based on Soviet-era Russia, would be indefinitely delayed due to "recent world events".


title: 2022 in video games

text: Two game bundles offered by itch.io and Humble Bundle raised over and for Ukraine aid support, respectively. Epic Games made all proceeds from "Fortnite" during the last two weeks of March 2022 go to charitable aid for Ukraine, and raised over .


title: 2022 in video games

text: After the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization", which overturned "Roe v. Wade" and eliminated the protected right to abortion, several video game companies affirmed they would offer their employees abortion benefits, including the ability to travel to states with protected abortion rights if necessary. Such companies include Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Devolver Digital, Daybreak Games, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Electronic Arts, and Bungie.


title: 2022 in video games

text: Series with new installments include "", "", "Atelier", "Azure Striker Gunvolt", "Batman", "Bayonetta", "Bendy", "Borderlands", "Call of Duty", "The Dark Pictures Anthology", "", "Digimon", "Doraemon", "Dragon Ball", "Dungeon Fighter Online", "Dying Light", "Earth Defense Force", "ELEX", "", "Freedom Planet", "Getsu Fūma Den", "God of War", "Gran Turismo", "Grid", "Gungrave", "Hello Neighbor", "Horizon", "Horizon Chase", "Joe & Mac", "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", "Kao the Kangaroo", "Kirby", "Kunio-kun", "The King of Fighters", "Lego Star Wars", "Let It Die", "The Lord of the Rings", "Mana", "Mario + Rabbids", "Mario Strikers", "Monkey Island", "Mystery Dungeon", "Need for Speed", "Nobunaga's Ambition", "OlliOlli", "Outlast", "Overlord", "PGA Tour 2K", "Pocky and Rocky", "Pokémon", "Postal", "Redout", "River City Girls", "RWBY", "Saints Row", "Science Adventure", "Shadow Warrior", "Shovel Knight", "Sniper Elite", "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Splatoon", "Star Ocean", "Star Trek", "Tactics Ogre", "Taiko no Tatsujin", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Test Drive", "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six", "Total War", "", "Warhammer 40,000", "WWE 2K", "Xenoblade Chronicles", and "Yu-Gi-Oh!".


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Ragnar Lodbrok, according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Danish and Swedish king. He is known from Old Norse poetry of the Viking Age, Icelandic sagas, and near-contemporary chronicles. According to traditional literature, Ragnar distinguished himself by conducting many raids against the British Isles and the Holy Roman Empire during the 9th century. He also appears in Norse legends, and according to the legendary sagas "Tale of Ragnar's Sons" and a "Saga about Certain Ancient Kings", Ragnar Lodbrok's father has been given as the legendary king of the Swedes, Sigurd Ring.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: According to the "Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok", "Tale of Ragnar's Sons", "Heimskringla", "Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks", "Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum", and many other Icelandic sources, Ragnar was the son of the king of Sweden Sigurd Ring. Nearly all of the sagas agree that the Danish king Randver was Sigurd's father, with the "Hervarar saga" citing his wife as Åsa, the daughter of King Harald of the Red Moustache from Norway. The accounts further tell that Randver was a grandson of the legendary Scandinavian king Ivar Vidfamne by his daughter Aud (whom the "Hervarar saga" calls Alfhild). After the death of king Ivar Vidfamne, Aud's eldest son by the Danish king Hrœrekr Ringslinger, Harald, conquered all of his grandfather's territory and became known as Harald Wartooth. Harald's nephew Sigurd Ring became the chief king of Sweden after Randver's death (Denmark according to "Hervarar saga"), presumably as the subking of Harald. Sigurd and Harald fought the Battle of the Brávellir (Bråvalla) on the plains of Östergötland, where Harald and many of his men died. Sigurd then ruled Sweden and Denmark (being sometimes identified with a Danish king Sigfred who ruled from about 770 until his death prior to 804). He sired a son with the princess Alfhild of the petty kingdom of Álfheimr, Ragnar Lodbrok, who succeeded him. Eysteinn Beli, who according to the "Hervarar Saga" was Harald Wartooth's son, ruled Sweden sometime after Sigurd until he was slain by the sons of Ragnar and Aslaug.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: In their accounts of his reign, the Sagas of Scandinavian Prehistory, known as "fornaldarsǫgur", tell more about Ragnar's marriages than about feats of warfare. According to the "Sögubrot", "he was the biggest and fairest of men that human eyes have seen, and he was like his mother in appearance and took after her kin". He first killed a giant snake that guarded the abode of the Geatish jarl Herrauð's daughter Thora Borgarhjort, thereby winning her as his wife. The unusual protective clothes that Ragnar wore, when attacking the serpent, earned him the nickname Lodbrok. His sons with Thora were Erik and Agnar. After Thora died, he discovered Kráka, a woman of outstanding beauty and wisdom living with a poor peasant couple in Norway, and married her. This marriage resulted in the sons Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, Ragnvald and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye. Kráka was later revealed to actually be Aslaug, a secret daughter of the renowned hero Sigurd Fafnesbane. As the sons grew up to become renowned warriors, Ragnar, not wishing to be outdone, resolved to conquer England with merely two ships. He was however defeated by superior English forces and was thrown into a snake pit to die in agony. The "Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok", "Tale of Ragnar's Sons", and "Heimskringla" all tell of the Great Heathen Army that invaded England at around 866, led by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok to wreak revenge against King Ælla of Northumbria who is told to have captured and executed Ragnar.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: The "Chronicon Roskildense" (c. 1138) mentions Lodbrok (Lothpardus) as father to the utterly cruel Norse King Ywar (rex crudelissimus Normannorum Ywar) and his brothers, Inguar (a double of Ywar), Ubbi, Byorn and Ulf, who rule the northern peoples. They call on the various Danish petty kings to help them ruin the realm of the Franks. Ywar successfully attacks the kingdoms of Britain, though not as an act of revenge as in the Icelandic sagas. The chronicle of Sven Aggesen (c. 1190) is the first Danish text that mentions the full name, Regnerus Lothbrogh. His son Sigurd invades Denmark and kills its king, whose daughter he marries as he takes over the throne. Their son in turn is Knut, ancestor of the later Danish kings.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Neither of these sources mentions Ragnar Lodbrok as a Danish ruler. The first to do so is Saxo Grammaticus in his work "Gesta Danorum" (c. 1200). This work mixes Norse legend with data about Danish history derived from the chronicle of Adam of Bremen (c. 1075). Here Ragnar's father Sigurd Ring is a Norwegian prince married to a Danish princess, and different from the victor of Brávellir (who had flourished about thirteen generations earlier). Sigurd Ring and his cousin and rival Ring (that is, Sigfred and Anulo of recorded history, d. 812) are both killed in battle, whereupon Ragnar is elevated to the Danish kingship (identified by Saxo with Ragnfred, d. 814). His first deed is the defeat of the Swedish king Frö, who has killed Ragnar's grandfather. Ragnar is assisted in this by a ferocious shield-maiden named Ladgerda (Lagertha), whom Ragnar forces to marry him. In this marriage he sires the son Fridleif and two daughters. Ragnar later repudiates his marriage to Ladgerda and marries Thora Borgarhjort, a daughter of the Swedish king Herrauðr, after killing two venomous giant snakes that guard Thora's residence. His sons with Thora are Radbard, Dunvat, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Björn Ironside, Agnar and Ivar the Boneless. From a non-marital relationship with an unnamed woman (described only as a daughter of a man named Esbjørn), Ragnar fathered Ubbe. Another, final marriage, to Svanlaug (possibly another name for Aslaug) produces another three sons: Ragnvald, Eric Weatherhat and Hvitserk.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: The sons were installed as sub-kings in various conquered territories. Ragnar led a Viking expedition to England and killed its king, Hama, before killing the earls of Scotland and installing Sigurd Snake-in-the Eye and Radbard as governors. Norway was also subjugated, and Fridleif was made ruler there and in Orkney. Later on, Ragnar with three sons invaded Sweden where a new king called Sörle had appeared and withheld the heritage of Thora's sons. Sörle and his army were massacred and Björn Ironside was installed on the throne. Some time later Björn was put in charge of Norway, while Ragnar appointed another son, Eric Weatherhat, as ruler in Sweden; he was subsequently killed by a certain Eysteinn. One of the sons, Ubbe, revolted against his father at the instigation of his maternal grandfather Esbjørn, and could only be defeated and captured with utmost effort. Saxo moreover tells of repeated expeditions to the British Isles, one of which cost the lives of Dunvat and Radbard. Ælla, son of Hama, with the help of allies known collectively as the "Galli" – possibly a group of Norse-Gaels (who were known in Old Irish as "Gall-Goídil"), expelled Ragnar's sub-ruler Ivar the Boneless from England and remained a persistent enemy. Finally, the Scythians were forced to accept Hvitserk as their ruler. In the end Hvitserk was treacherously captured by the Hellespontian prince Daxon and burnt alive with his own admission. Hearing this, Ragnar led an expedition to Kievan Rus' and captured Daxon who was curiously spared and exiled.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Unlike the Icelandic sources, Saxo's account of Ragnar Lodbrok's reign is largely a catalog of successful Viking invasions over an enormous geographical area. Among the seaborne expeditions was one against the Bjarmians and Finns (Saami) in the Arctic north. The Bjarmian use of magic spells caused foul weather and the sudden death of many Danish invaders, and the Finnish archers on skis turned out to be a formidable foe. Eventually these two tribes were put to flight and the Bjarmian king was slain. The historical king Harald Klak is by Saxo (based on a passage in Adam's chronicle) made into another persistent enemy of Ragnar, who several times incited the Jutes and Scanians to rebel, but was regularly defeated. After the last victory over Harald, Ragnar learned that King Ælla had massacred Ragnar's men on Ireland. Incensed, he attacked the English king with his fleet but was captured and thrown into the snake pit, similar to the Icelandic sagas. In spite of all his praise for Ragnar Lodbrok, Saxo also considers his fate as God's rightful vengeance for the contempt he had shown the Christian religion.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: While the narrative Norse sources date from the 12th and 13th centuries, there are also many older poems that mention him and his kin. The "Ragnarsdrápa", ostensibly composed by Bragi Boddason in the 9th century, praises a Ragnar, son of Sigurd, for a richly decorated shield that the poet has received. The shield depicts the assault on Jörmunrek, the Hjaðningavíg tale, the ploughing of Gefjon, and Thor's struggle with the Midgard Serpent. Recent scholarship has suggested that the poem is in fact from c. 1000 and celebrates the Norse reconquest of England. The four tales depicted on the shield would then symbolize four aspects of the Lodbrok saga (the initial defeat of the sons of Lodbrok in England due to recklessness, Ivar the Boneless's deceitful approach to King Ælla, Ivar's cunning snatching of land from Ælla, Ragnar's struggle against the giant serpent in order to win Thora). The "Knutsdrapa" of Sigvat Thordarson (c. 1038) mentions the death of Ælla at the hands of Ivar in York, who "carved the eagle on Ælla's back". From this the story of the atrocious revenge of Lodbrok's sons already seems to be present. The reference to a "blood eagle" punishment has however been much debated by modern scholars. Another lay, "Krakumal", put in the mouth of the dying Ragnar in the snake pit, recounts the exploits of Ragnar and mentions battles over a wide geographical area, several relating to the British isles. The poem's name, "Kráka's lay", alludes to Ragnar's wife's Kráka, though modern philologists commonly date it to the 12th century in its present form.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: There is one runic inscription mentioning Lodbrok, carved on the prehistorical tumulus of Maeshowe on Orkney in the early 12th century. It reads: "This howe was built a long time before Lodbrok's. Her sons, they were bold; scarcely ever were there such tall men of their hands". The expression "her sons" has given rise to the theory that Lodbrok was originally thought of as a woman, mother of the historically known sons.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: The Siege of Paris and the Sack of Paris of 845 was the culmination of a Viking invasion of the kingdom of the West Franks. The Viking forces were led by a Norse chieftain named "Reginherus", or Ragnar. This Ragnar has often been tentatively identified with the legendary saga figure Ragnar Lodbrok, but the accuracy of this is disputed by historians. Ragnar Lodbrok is also sometimes identified with a Ragnar who was awarded land in Torhout, Flanders, by Charles the Bald in about 841 but eventually lost the land as well as the favour of the King. Ragnar's Vikings raided Rouen on their way up the Seine in 845 and in response to the invasion, determined not to let the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis (near Paris) be destroyed, Charles assembled an army which he divided into two parts, one for each side of the river. Ragnar attacked and defeated one of the divisions of the smaller Frankish army, took 111 of their men as prisoners and hanged them on an island on the Seine to honour the Norse god Odin, as well as to incite terror in the remaining Frankish forces. Ragnar's fleet made it back to his overlord, the Danish King Horik I, but Ragnar soon died from a violent illness that also spread in Denmark.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Among the oldest texts to mention the name Lodbrok is the Norman history of William of Jumièges from c. 1070. According to William, the Danish kings of old had the custom to expel the younger sons from the kingdom to have them out of the way. It was during the time this practice was in fashion that King Lodbrok succeeded his unnamed father on the Danish throne. After gaining power he honoured the said custom and ordered his junior son Björn Ironside to leave his realm. Björn thus left Denmark with a considerable fleet and started to ravage in West Francia and later the Mediterranean. Roughly contemporary with William is Adam of Bremen whose history of the Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen contains many traditions about Viking Age Scandinavia. In a passage referring to the Viking raids of the late 9th century, he mentions the Danish or Norse pirates Horich, Orwig, Gotafrid, Rudolf and Inguar (Ivar). This Ivar is in particular seen as a cruel persecutor of Christians, and a son of Lodbrok (Inguar, filius Lodparchi).


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: According to the contemporary "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and Asser's "Life of Alfred", in 878 the "brother of Hingwar and Healfden", with a naval fleet, a contingent of the Great Heathen Army invaded Devon in England and fought the Battle of Cynwit. There the Vikings lost, their king slain and many dead, with few escaping to their ships. After the battle the Saxons took great plunder, and among other things the banner called "Raven". The early 12th century "Annals of St Neots" further state that ""they say that the three sisters of Hingwar and Hubba, daughters of Lodebroch (Lodbrok), wove that flag and got it ready in one day. They say, moreover, that in every battle, wherever the flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory a live crow would appear flying on the middle of the flag; but if they were doomed to be defeated it would hang down motionless, and this was often proved to be so."" This is among the earlier references to the legendary hero Ragnar Lodbrok.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: The Irish "Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib" from the 12th century, with information deriving from earlier annals, mentions king Halfdan (d. 877) under the name "mac Ragnaill". The form Ragnall may refer to either Ragnvald or Ragnar, and the entry is a strong indication that the name of Ivar's and Halfdan's father was really Ragnar or a similar name. The early 11th century "Three Fragments" contains a passage that gives a semi-legendary background to the capture of York by the Vikings in 866. The two younger sons of Halfdan, King of Lochlann, expelled the eldest son Ragnall who sailed to the Orkney islands with his three sons and settled there. Two of the sons later raided the English and Franks, proceeding to plunder in the Mediterranean. One of them learnt from a vision that Ragnall had fought a battle where the third son had been slain and in which he himself had most likely perished. The two Viking sons then returned home with a lot of dark-skinned captives. It has been hypothesized that this is an Irish version of "Ragnar Lodbrok's saga", the Mediterranean expedition being a historical event taking place in 859-61.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: The Great Heathen Army is said to have been led by the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, to wreak revenge against King Ælla of Northumbria who had previously executed Ragnar by casting him into a pit full of venomous snakes. Among the organizers were at least some of the brothers: Ivar the Boneless, Ubba, Halfdan, Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, all of whom are known as historical figures, save the slightly more dubious Hvitserk. Ivar the Boneless was the leader of the Great Heathen Army from 865 to 870, but he disappears from English historical accounts after 870. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler Æthelweard records Ivar's death as 870. Halfdan Ragnarsson became the leader of the Great Heathen Army in about 870 and he led it in an invasion of Wessex. A great number of Viking warriors arrived from Scandinavia, as part of the Great Summer Army, led by King Bagsecg of Denmark, bolstering the ranks of Halfdan's army.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", the Danes battled the West Saxons nine times, including the Battle of Ashdown on 8 January 871, where Bagsecg was killed. Halfdan accepted a truce from the future Alfred the Great, newly crowned king of Wessex. After Bagsecg's death Halfdan was the only remaining king of the invading host. He may also have been a King of part of Denmark (Jutland?), since a co-ruler Halfdan is mentioned in Frankish sources in 873. According to late sagas Björn Ironside became King of Sweden and Uppsala, although this presents chronological inconsistencies. Björn had two sons, Erik and Refil Björnsson. His son Erik became the next king of Sweden, and was succeeded in turn by Erik Refilsson, the son of Refil. Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye is perhaps the same person as Sigfred, brother of Halfdan, who was king in Denmark together with Halfdan in 873. According to the sagas Sigurd became King of Zealand, Skåne and the lesser Danish Isles. Sigfred-Sigurd possibly succeeded his brother Halfdan as King of entire Denmark in about 877, and may be the Viking king Sigfred who was killed in West Francia in 887.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Whereas Ragnar's sons Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Björn Ironside, Ubba and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye are historical figures, opinion regarding their father is divided. Contemporary academia regards most of the stories about him to be fiction. According to Hilda Ellis Davidson, writing in 1979,


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Certain scholars in recent years have come to accept at least part of Ragnar's story as based on historical fact.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: In her commentary on Saxo's "Gesta Danorum", Davidson notes that Saxo's coverage of Ragnar's legend in book IX of the "Gesta" appears to be an attempt to consolidate many of the confusing and contradictory events and stories known to the chronicler into the reign of one king, Ragnar. That is why many acts ascribed to Ragnar in the "Gesta" can be associated, through other sources, with various figures, some of whom are more historically tenable.


title: Ragnar Lodbrok

text: Attempts to reliably associate the legendary Ragnar with one or several of those men have failed because of the difficulty in reconciling the various accounts and their chronology. But the tradition of a Viking hero named Ragnar (or similar) who wreaked havoc in mid-9th-century Europe and who fathered many famous sons is remarkably persistent, and some aspects of it are strengthened by relatively reliable sources, such as Irish historical tradition and, indirectly, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Fereydun Robert Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. With his comedy partner Carrie Brownstein, Armisen was the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series "Portlandia". He also co-created and stars in the mockumentary IFC series "Documentary Now!" (2015–present) alongside Bill Hader and Seth Meyers as well as the Showtime comedy series "Moonbase 8" (2020–present) alongside John C. Reilly and Tim Heidecker. He voiced Speedy Gonzales on "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011–2013). Armisen founded ThunderAnt.com, a website that features the comedy sketches created with Brownstein, and is the bandleader and frequent drummer for the "Late Night with Seth Meyers" house band, The 8G Band. Armisen is also well-known for his time on the NBC late-night comedy and variety show "Saturday Night Live".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen has acted in comedy films including "Melvin Goes to Dinner" (2003), "" (2005), "The Ex" (2006), and "The Dictator" (2012). He is also notable for his guest starring appearances in television shows such as "30 Rock", "Parks and Recreation", "Brooklyn Nine-Nine", "New Girl", "Broad City", "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", "Difficult People", "The Last Man on Earth", "Toast of London" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm".


title: Fred Armisen

text: For his work on "Portlandia", Armisen was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series in 2012, 2013, and 2014 and for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2014. He received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album for "Standup for Drummers" in 2019. He has also won two Peabody Awards, one in 2008 as part of the "Saturday Night Live" political satire cast and one in 2011 for "Portlandia". Since 2019, he co-stars and acts as writer and executive producer on the Spanish-language series "Los Espookys", which he co-created. In 2021, he was executive producer on the documentary "Charm Circle", directed by Nira Burstein.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen was born on December 4, 1966, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He moved with his family to New York as a baby and briefly lived in Brazil in his youth. He was raised on Long Island in Valley Stream, New York, where he was a high school classmate of fellow "SNL" alumnus Jim Breuer. Armisen attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan before dropping out to begin a career as a rock drummer. He has mentioned excitement at seeing the bands The Clash and Devo perform on television and wanting to be a performer since he was a child.


title: Fred Armisen

text: His mother, schoolteacher Hildegardt Mirabal Level, was born in San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela, and he has family from both San Rafael de Atamaica and from Apure. His father, Fereydun Herbert "Fred" Armisen, who worked for IBM, was born in Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany, to a German mother and a Korean-born father.


title: Fred Armisen

text: For much of his life, Armisen thought his paternal grandfather was Japanese. However, his grandfather – Ehara Masami, better known by his professional pseudonym Masami Kuni or birth name Park Yeong-in – was actually born in Ulsan, Korea, and had adopted a Japanese name and persona after the massacre of Koreans in 1923 when he was a high school student. Park studied aesthetics at Tokyo Imperial University and became a professional dancer before moving to Germany. A document from the US Office of War Information hints that he worked for Nazi Germany during World War II as a "tool for Joseph Goebbels' war propaganda effort" while spying for the Third Reich's Axis ally the Empire of Japan, and was credited as "one of the most clever agents they have". After the war, he returned to Japan, and formed a premier modern dance company. He eventually emigrated to the US, where he taught dance at what is now Cal State Fullerton from 1964 to 1975. Park Yeong-in's family were members of the Korean aristocracy, and Armisen's Korean lineage can be verifiably traced back to the 1600s.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 1984, Armisen played drums in a local band along with his high school friends in Valley Stream, New York, but the group soon ended. In 1988, he moved to Chicago to play drums for the punk rock band Trenchmouth, and in the 1990s he played background drums with Blue Man Group.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen played drums on three tracks for Les Savy Fav's 2007 album "Let's Stay Friends", as well as tracks for Matthew Sweet's 2011 album "Modern Art" and Wandering Lucy's 1996 album "Leap Year".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen is the bandleader and frequent drummer of the 8G Band, the house band for "Late Night with Seth Meyers", as of February 24, 2014.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 2018, Armisen played drums as part of Devo at John Waters' Burger Boogaloo festival in Oakland, California.


title: Fred Armisen

text: While not playing with the band Trenchmouth, Armisen's interests switched to acting. In a January 2006 interview, he said, "I wanted to be on TV somehow. For some reason, I always thought it would be an indirect route; I didn't know that it would be comedy and "Saturday Night Live". I just wanted to do something with performing that would lead me there."


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen's subsequent television work, such as some "memorable Andy Kaufman–esque appearances" on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", as well as work for "Crank Yankers" and "Adult Swim", led to a role in 2002 as a featured player in the cast of "Saturday Night Live". In the 2004 season, he was promoted to repertory cast member status.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen has landed several minor yet memorable roles that were defined by an interviewer as "feral foreigners" in comedy films such as "Eurotrip", "", "", "Deck the Halls", "The Ex", "The Promotion", "The Rocker", "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny", and "Confessions of a Shopaholic".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Further television work included an appearance on "Parks and Recreation" in the 2009 episode "Sister City". For the Cartoon Network series "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011–2014), Armisen voices Speedy Gonzales. He and fellow "Saturday Night Live" alums Bill Hader and Seth Meyers write, produce, and star in the IFC mockumentary series "Documentary Now!" which premiered in 2015.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen starred in the IFC sketch series "Portlandia" alongside Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney); the first season debuted on January 21, 2011. With Brownstein, he appeared on the 2012 "Simpsons" episode "The Day the Earth Stood Cool", in which they play the Simpsons' new neighbors, who encourage everyone to be cool like them.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 2014, Armisen worked as bandleader on "Late Night with Seth Meyers", for which he received positive reviews for his deadpan comedy and especially for his interplay with the host.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in 2002. He was promoted to a repertory player in 2004. After 11 years as a cast member, he decided to leave the show. At the time of his 2013 departure from the show, Armisen was the third-longest-tenured cast member (behind Seth Meyers and Darrell Hammond), and he appeared in the second-highest number of sketches (856) of any cast member. Since then, Armisen has come back for multiple cameo appearances on the show, including when he hosted the season 41 finale on May 21, 2016, with musical guest Courtney Barnett.


title: Fred Armisen

text: The following is a partial list of notable roles Armisen has played in "Saturday Night Live" sketches.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 1998, he posed as a music journalist for the short film "Fred Armisen's Guide to Music and South by Southwest". It was filmed by then-girlfriend Sally Timms and featured Armisen's "pranking musicians and industry types" during the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. In various segments he asked self-described "stupid" questions, pretended to be German, and also acted blind. A year later, Armisen starred with alternative rock legend Steve Albini in Chevelle's "Point #1 EPK".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen is part of ThunderAnt, a comedy duo with Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein. The duo specializes in creating comedic short skits often about independent vocations such as one-man shows, feminist bookstores, and bicycle rights activists.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen has directed music videos for bands like The Helio Sequence. Armisen also had a role in the Wilco documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", which featured footage from his stint opening for front man Jeff Tweedy's 2001 solo tour. He also appeared in video segments on Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0. Armisen occasionally writes for Pitchfork Media and interviewed Cat Power for that company. He appeared as Jens Hannemann on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on October 19, 2007, promoting a 28-minute DVD called "Fred Armisen presents Jens Hannemann: "COMPLICATED DRUMMING TECHNIQUE"". In 2010, Armisen briefly joined Joanna Newsom's tour for her album "Have One on Me" as his character Jens Hannemann. On "SNL", Armisen often plays musical instruments in sketches, has two recurring characters who are musicians (Mackey the drummer from the Rialto Grande and Ferecito from "Showbiz Grande Explosion"), or impersonates famous figures in the music world such as Liberace, Phil Spector, Lou Reed, and Prince.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen appeared in the official music video for Man Man's song "Rabbit Habits", playing a man who charms his blind date (Charlyne Yi) but runs away after she turns into a werewolf.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 2013, Armisen appeared in the official music video for Portland, Oregon-based band Red Fang's song "Blood Like Cream". In 2021, he appeared as the protagonist in the official music video for the 2020 mix of George Harrison's song "My Sweet Lord".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Along with Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, Armisen voiced radio characters in the video game "Grand Theft Auto IV".


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen performed as a singer/drummer/comedic actor in the Blue Man Group's "How to be a Megastar Live!". He played the part of a salesman on TV who advertises for the Megastar Rock Manual. He also drummed in the performance and was a backup singer.


title: Fred Armisen

text: In late 2014, Armisen was featured on the popular comedy web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" with host Jerry Seinfeld.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen is a longtime fan of punk rock music and can be seen in the documentaries "Salad Days" and "".


title: Fred Armisen

text: In 2015, Armisen was the recipient of "Smithsonian" magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Performing Arts.


title: Fred Armisen

text: He appears as Michael on the sixth episode of the revival of "The Kids in the Hall", released on May 13, 2022.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen was married to English singer and songwriter Sally Timms from 1998 to 2004 and to actress Elisabeth Moss from 2009 to 2011. Moss described their time together as "extremely traumatic and awful and horrible" and said Armisen could be best summed up as follows: "He's so great at doing impersonations. But the greatest impersonation he does is that of a normal person." He dated artist Alice Lancaster, who, after their break-up, painted a portrait of him entitled "Fred Armisen: Portrait of a Sociopath".


title: Fred Armisen

text: "I think I was a terrible husband. I think I'm a terrible boyfriend," Armisen later told Howard Stern. "I feel bad for everyone I've gone out with."


title: Fred Armisen

text: He started dating actress Natasha Lyonne in 2014. Lyonne confirmed that they had ended their relationship in April 2022. She stated "We love each other just about as much as two people can love each other and we're still talking all the time."


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen, as of March 2018, resides in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Prior to his move he was a resident of Portland, Oregon's Pearl District. He has stated that he is an atheist.


title: Fred Armisen

text: Since working together on ThunderAnt, Carrie Brownstein and Armisen developed what Brownstein has called "one of the most intimate, functional, romantic, but nonsexual relationships [they have] ever had." According to Armisen, their relationship is "all of the things that I've ever wanted, you know, aside from like the physical stuff, but the intimacy that I have with her is like no other."


title: Fred Armisen

text: Armisen is a fan of the video game "Red Dead Redemption". On a 2018 episode of "Larry King Now", he described himself as being "very good" at the game. This prompted the studio Rockstar Games to cast him in the next installment of the series, "Red Dead Redemption 2". He is also a fan of black metal and death metal.


title: Alternative rock

text: Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop music. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to musicians influenced by the musical style or independent, DIY ethos of late-1970s punk rock.


title: Alternative rock

text: Traditionally, alternative rock varied in terms of its sound, social context, and regional roots. Throughout the 1980s, magazines and zines, college radio airplay, and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock's distinct styles (and music scenes), such as noise pop, indie rock, grunge, and shoegaze. In September 1988, "Billboard" introduced "alternative" into their charting system to reflect the rise of the format across radio stations in the United States by stations like KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and WDRE-FM in New York, which were playing music from more underground, independent, and non-commercial rock artists.


title: Alternative rock

text: Initially, several alternative styles achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands, such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction, were signed to major labels. Most alternative bands, however, remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television, or newspapers. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream, and many alternative bands became successful.


title: Alternative rock

text: Due to the success of bands such as The White Stripes and The Strokes in the early 2000s, an influx of new alternative rock bands that drew inspiration from garage rock, post-punk and new wave found commercial success in the early and mid 2000s, establishing the garage rock revival and post-punk revival movements.


title: Alternative rock

text: In the past, popular music tastes were dictated by music executives within large entertainment corporations. Record companies signed contracts with those entertainers who were thought to become the most popular, and therefore who could generate the most sales. These bands were able to record their songs in expensive studios, and their works then offered for sale through record store chains that were owned by the entertainment corporations, along with eventually selling the merchandise into big box retailers. Record companies worked with radio and television companies to get the most exposure for their artists. The people making the decisions were business people dealing with music as a product, and those bands who were not making the expected sales figures were then excluded from this system.


title: Alternative rock

text: Before the term "alternative rock" came into common usage around 1990, the sorts of music to which it refers were known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term "Alternative Music" to describe the groups he was writing about. In 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had a late night new wave show entitled "Rock and Roll Alternative". "College rock" was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture. According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red, "NME" and "Sounds" magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term "indie" was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, "indie" had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status.


title: Alternative rock

text: The use of the term "alternative" to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at the time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were "new music" and "post modern", respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. A similar term, "alternative pop", emerged around 1985.