title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: After five days of shuttling between consulates – and including a heated argument with an official at the Cuban consulate, impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and at least some CIA scrutiny – Oswald was told by a Cuban consular officer that he was disinclined to approve the visa, saying "a person like [Oswald] in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm". Later, on October 18, the Cuban embassy approved the visa, but by this time Oswald was back in the United States and had given up on his plans to visit Cuba and the Soviet Union. Still later, eleven days before the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., saying, "Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana, as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business."


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: While the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had visited Mexico City and the Cuban and Soviet consulates, questions regarding whether someone posing as Oswald had appeared at the embassies were serious enough to be investigated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Later, the Committee agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald had visited Mexico City and concluded that "the majority of evidence tends to indicate" that Oswald visited the consulates, but the Committee could not rule out the possibility that someone else had used his name in visiting the consulates.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: According to a CIA document released in 2017, it is possible Oswald was trying to get the necessary documents from the embassies to make a quick escape to the Soviet Union after the assassination.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: On October 2, 1963, Oswald left Mexico City by bus and arrived in Dallas the next day. Ruth Paine said that her neighbor told her on October 14 about a job opening at the Texas School Book Depository, where her neighbor's brother, Wesley Frazier, worked. Mrs. Paine informed Oswald, who was interviewed at the depository and was hired there on October 16 as a $1.25 an hour minimum wage order filler. Oswald's supervisor, Roy S. Truly (1907–1985), said that Oswald "did a good day's work" and was an above-average employee. During the week, Oswald stayed in a Dallas rooming house under the name "O. H. Lee", but he spent his weekends with Marina at the Paine home in Irving. Oswald did not drive a car, but he commuted to and from Dallas on Mondays and Fridays with his co-worker Wesley Frazier. On October 20 (a month before the assassination), the Oswalds' second daughter, Audrey, was born.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The Dallas branch of the FBI became interested in Oswald after its agent learned that the CIA had determined that Oswald had been in contact with the Soviet embassy in Mexico, making Oswald a possible espionage case. FBI agents twice visited the Paine home in early November, when Oswald was not present, and spoke to Mrs. Paine. Oswald visited the Dallas FBI office about two to three weeks before the assassination, asking to see Special Agent James P. Hosty. When he was told that Hosty was unavailable, Oswald left a note that, according to the receptionist, read: "Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife" [signed] "Lee Harvey Oswald". The note allegedly contained a threat, but accounts vary as to whether Oswald threatened to "blow up the FBI" or merely "report this to higher authorities". According to Hosty, the note said, "If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take the appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities." Agent Hosty said that he destroyed Oswald's note on orders from his superior, Gordon Shanklin, after Oswald was named the suspect in the Kennedy assassination.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In the days before Kennedy's arrival, several local newspapers published the route of Kennedy's motorcade, which passed the Texas School Book Depository. On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Oswald asked Frazier for an unusual mid-week lift back to Irving, saying he had to pick up some curtain rods. The next morning (the day of the assassination), he returned to Dallas with Frazier. He left $170 and his wedding ring, but took a large paper bag with him. Frazier reported that Oswald told him the bag contained curtain rods. The Warren Commission concluded that the package of "curtain rods" actually contained the rifle that Oswald was going to use for the assassination.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: One of Oswald's co-workers, Charles Givens, testified to the Commission that he last saw Oswald on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at approximately 11:55 a.m., which was 35 minutes before the motorcade entered Dealey Plaza. The Commission report stated that Oswald was not seen again "until after the shooting". In an FBI report taken the day after the assassination, Givens said that the encounter took place at 11:30 a.m. and that he saw Oswald reading a newspaper in the first-floor domino room at 11:50 a.m, 20 minutes later. William Shelley, a foreman at the depository, also testified that he saw Oswald near the telephone on the first floor between 11:45 and 11:50 a.m. Janitor Eddie Piper also testified that he spoke to Oswald on the first floor at 12:00 p.m. Another co-worker, Bonnie Ray Williams, was eating his lunch on the sixth floor of the depository and was there until at least 12:10 p.m. He said that during that time, he did not see Oswald, or anyone else, on the sixth floor and thought that he was the only person up there. He also said that some boxes in the southeast corner may have prevented him from seeing deep into the "sniper's nest". Carolyn Arnold, the secretary to the Vice President of the TSBD, informed the FBI that as she left the building to watch the motorcade, she caught a glimpse of a man whom she believed to be Oswald standing in the first-floor hallway of the building just prior to the assassination.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: As Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza at approximately 12:30 p.m. on November 22, Oswald fired three rifle shots from the southeast-corner window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, killing the President and seriously wounding Texas Governor John Connally. One shot apparently missed the presidential limousine entirely, another struck both Kennedy and Connally, and a third bullet struck Kennedy in the head, killing him. Bystander James Tague received a minor facial injury from a small piece of curbstone that had fragmented after it was struck by one of the bullets.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Witness Howard Brennan was sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository and watching the motorcade go by. He notified police that he heard a shot come from above and looked up to see a man with a rifle fire another shot from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor. He said he had seen the same man minutes earlier looking through the window. Brennan gave a description of the shooter, and Dallas police subsequently broadcast descriptions at 12:45 p.m., 12:48 p.m., and 12:55 p.m. After the second shot was fired, Brennan recalled, "This man I saw previous[ly] was aiming for his last shot ... and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he had hit his mark."


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The paper bag Frazier had described was found by police near the open sixth-floor window from which Oswald was determined to have fired; it was long and had marks on its inside consistent with having been used to carry a rifle. A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and three shell casings were found near the window as well.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: According to the investigations, after the shooting Oswald covered the rifle with boxes and descended via the rear stairwell. About 90 seconds after the shots sounded, he was encountered in the second-floor lunchroom by Dallas police officer Marrion L. Baker, who was with Oswald's supervisor, Roy Truly. Baker let Oswald pass after Truly identified him as an employee. Baker later said Oswald did not seem "nervous" or "out of breath". Truly said that Oswald looked "startled" when Baker pointed his gun directly at him. Mrs. Robert Reid, a clerical supervisor at the depository who returned to her office within two minutes of the shooting, said she saw Oswald, "very calm", on the second floor holding a Coca-Cola bottle. As they walked past each other, Mrs. Reid said to Oswald, "The President has been shot" to which he mumbled something in response, but Reid did not understand him. Oswald was believed to have left the depository through the front entrance just before police sealed it off. Truly later pointed out to officers that Oswald was the only employee that he was certain was missing.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: At about 12:40 p.m., 10 minutes after the shooting, Oswald boarded a city bus. Probably due to heavy traffic, he requested a transfer from the driver and got off two blocks later. Oswald then took a taxicab to his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley Avenue and entered through the front door at about 1:00 p.m. According to his housekeeper Earlene Roberts, Oswald immediately went to his room, "walking pretty fast". Roberts said that Oswald left "a very few minutes" later, zipping up a jacket he was not wearing when he had entered earlier. As Oswald left, Roberts looked out of the window of her house and last saw him standing at the northbound Beckley Avenue bus stop in front of her house.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The Warren Commission concluded that at approximately 1:15 p.m., Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit drove up in his patrol car alongside Oswald, presumably because Oswald resembled the broadcast description of the man seen by witness Howard Brennan firing shots at Kennedy's motorcade. He encountered Oswald near the corner of East 10th Street and North Patton Avenue. This location is about nine-tenths of a mile (1.4 km) southeast of Oswald's rooming house – a distance that the Warren Commission concluded "Oswald could have easily walked". Tippit pulled alongside Oswald and "apparently exchanged words with [him] through the right front or vent window". "Shortly after 1:15 p.m.", Tippit exited his car. Oswald immediately fired his pistol and killed the policeman with four shots. Numerous witnesses heard the shots and saw Oswald flee the scene holding a revolver; nine positively identified him as the man who shot Tippit and fled. Four cartridge cases found at the scene were identified by expert witnesses before the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee as having been fired from the revolver later found in Oswald's possession, excluding all other weapons. The bullets taken from Tippit's body could not be positively identified as having been fired from Oswald's revolver, as the bullets were too extensively damaged to make conclusive assessments.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Shoe store manager Johnny Brewer testified that he saw Oswald "ducking into" the entrance alcove of his store. Suspicious of this activity, Brewer watched Oswald continue up the street and slip without paying into the nearby Texas Theatre, where the film "War Is Hell" was playing. He alerted the theater's ticket clerk, who telephoned police at about 1:40 p.m.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: As police arrived, the house lights were brought up and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting near the rear of the theater. Police Officer Nick McDonald testified that he was the first to reach Oswald and that Oswald seemed ready to surrender saying, "Well, it is all over now." McDonald said that Oswald pulled out a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, then pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. McDonald stated that the pistol did not fire because the pistol's hammer came down on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his hand as he grabbed for the pistol. McDonald also said that Oswald struck him, but that he struck back and Oswald was disarmed. As he was led from the theater, Oswald shouted he was a victim of police brutality.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Soon after his arrest, Oswald encountered reporters in a hallway. Oswald declared, "I didn't shoot anybody" and, "They've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!" Later, at an arranged press meeting, a reporter asked, "Did you kill the President?" and Oswald – who by that time had been advised of the charge of murdering Tippit, but had not yet been arraigned in Kennedy's death – answered, "No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question." As he was led from the room the question was called out, "What did you do in Russia?" and, "How did you hurt your eye?"; Oswald answered, "A policeman hit me." By early the next morning (shortly after 1:30 a.m.) he had been arraigned for the assassination of President Kennedy.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Oswald was interrogated several times during his two days at Dallas Police Headquarters. He admitted that he went to his rooming house after leaving the book depository. He also admitted that he changed his clothes and armed himself with a .38 caliber revolver before leaving his house to go to the theater. Oswald denied killing Kennedy and Tippit, denied owning a rifle, and said two photographs of him holding a rifle and a pistol were fakes. He denied telling his co-worker he wanted a ride to Irving to get curtain rods for his apartment (he said that the package contained his lunch). He also denied carrying a long, bulky package to work the morning of the assassination. Oswald denied knowing an "A. J. Hidell". Oswald was then shown a forged Selective Service System card bearing his photograph and the alias, "Alek James Hidell" that he had in his possession at the time of his arrest. Oswald refused to answer any questions concerning the card, saying "you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do".


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty and Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz (chief of homicide) conducted the first interrogation of Oswald on Friday, November 22. When Oswald was asked to account for himself at the time of the assassination, he replied that he was eating his lunch in the first-floor lounge (known as the "domino room"). He said that he then went to the second-floor lunchroom to buy a Coca-Cola from the soda machine there and was drinking it when he encountered Dallas motorcycle policeman Marrion L. Baker, who had entered the building with his gun drawn. Oswald said that while he was in the domino room, he saw two "Negro employees" walking by, one he recognized as "Junior" and a shorter man whose name he could not recall. Junior Jarman and Harold Norman confirmed to the Warren Commission that they had "walked through" the domino room around noon during their lunch break. When asked if anyone else was in the domino room, Norman testified that somebody else was there, but he could not remember who it was. Jarman testified that Oswald was not in the domino room when he was there.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: When homicide detective Jim Leavelle testified before the Warren Commission, he said that the first time he had ever sat in on an interrogation with Oswald was on Sunday morning, November 24, 1963. When Counsel Joseph Ball asked Leavelle if he had ever spoken to Oswald before this interrogation, he stated, "No, I had never talked to him before". Leavelle then stated during his testimony that "the only time I had connections with Oswald was this Sunday morning [November 24, 1963]. I never had [the] occasion... to talk with him at any time..." During Oswald's last interrogation on November 24, according to postal inspector Harry Holmes, Oswald was again asked where he was at the time of the shooting. Holmes (who attended the interrogation at the invitation of Captain Will Fritz) said that Oswald replied that he was working on an upper floor when the shooting occurred, then went downstairs where he encountered Dallas motorcycle policeman Marrion L. Baker.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Oswald asked for legal representation several times during the interrogation, and he also asked for assistance during encounters with reporters. When H. Louis Nichols, President of the Dallas Bar Association, met with him in his cell on Saturday, he declined their services, saying he wanted to be represented by John Abt, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA, or by lawyers associated with the American Civil Liberties Union. Both Oswald and Ruth Paine tried to reach Abt by telephone several times Saturday and Sunday, but Abt was away for the weekend. Oswald also declined his brother Robert's offer on Saturday to obtain a local attorney.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: During an interrogation with Captain Fritz, when asked, "Are you a communist?", he replied, "No, I am not a communist. I am a Marxist."


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: On Sunday, November 24, detectives were escorting Oswald through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him from the city jail (located on the fourth floor of police headquarters) to the nearby county jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby approached Oswald from the side of the crowd and shot him once in the abdomen at close range. As the shot rang out, a police detective recognized Ruby and exclaimed: "Jack, you son of a bitch!" The crowd outside the headquarters applauded when they heard that Oswald had been shot.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: An unconscious Oswald was taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m; Dallas police chief Jesse Curry announced his death on a TV news broadcast.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: At 2:45 p.m. the same day, an autopsy was performed on Oswald in the Office of the County Medical Examiner. Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose announced the results of the gross autopsy: "The two things that we could determine were, first, that he died from a hemorrhage from a gunshot wound, and that otherwise he was a physically healthy male." Rose's examination found that the bullet entered Oswald's left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: A network television pool camera was broadcasting live to cover the transfer; millions of people watching on NBC saw the shooting as it happened, and on other networks within minutes afterward. In 1964, Robert H. Jackson of the "Dallas Times Herald" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his photograph taken just a moment after the shot was fired, as Oswald began to double over in pain.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Ruby later said he had been distraught over Kennedy's death and that his motive for killing Oswald was "saving Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial". Others have hypothesized that Ruby was part of a conspiracy. G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 to 1979, said: "The most plausible explanation for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby was that Ruby had stalked him on behalf of organized crime, trying to reach him on at least three occasions in the forty-eight hours before he silenced him forever."


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Miller Funeral Home had great difficulty finding a cemetery willing to accept Oswald's remains; Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth eventually agreed. A Lutheran reverend reluctantly agreed to officiate but then failed to appear. Reverend Louis Saunders of the Fort Worth Council of Churches volunteered, saying that "someone had to help this family". He performed a brief graveside service under heavy guard on November 25. Reporters covering the burial were asked to act as pallbearers.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Oswald's original tombstone, which gave his full name, birth date, and death date, was stolen four years after the assassination, and his mother replaced it with a marker simply inscribed "Oswald". His mother's body was buried beside his in 1981.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: A claim that a look-alike Russian agent was buried in place of Oswald led to the body's exhumation on October4, 1981. Dental records confirmed it was Oswald. The remains were reburied in a new coffin because of water damage to the original.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In 2010, Miller Funeral Home employed a Los Angeles auction house to sell the original coffin to an anonymous bidder for $87,468. The sale was halted after Oswald's brother Robert (19342017) sued to reclaim the coffin. In 2015, a district judge in Tarrant County, Texas ruled that the funeral home intentionally concealed the existence of the coffin from Robert Oswald, who had originally purchased it and believed that it had been discarded after the exhumation, and ordered it returned to Robert Oswald along with damages equal to the sale price. Robert Oswald's attorney stated that the coffin would likely be destroyed "as soon as possible".


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order that created the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. The commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, and the Warren Report could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions:


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The proceedings of the commission were closed, though not secret. Approximately three percent of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In 1968, the Ramsey Clark Panel examined various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence. It concluded that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him: one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone, and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its right side.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In 1979, after a review of the evidence and of prior investigations, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) largely concurred with the Warren Commission and was preparing to issue a finding that Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy. Late in the Committee's proceedings, a dictabelt recording was introduced, purportedly recording sounds heard in Dealey Plaza before, during, and after the shots. After an analysis by the firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman appeared to indicate more than three gunshots, the HSCA revised its findings to assert a "high probability that two gunmen fired" at Kennedy and that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy". Although the Committee was "unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy", it made a number of further findings regarding the likelihood that particular groups, named in the findings, were involved. Four of the twelve members of the HSCA dissented from this conclusion.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The acoustic evidence has since been discredited. Officer H.B. McLain, from whose motorcycle radio the HSCA acoustic experts said the Dictabelt evidence came, has repeatedly stated that he was not yet in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. McLain asked the Committee, "'If it was my radio on my motorcycle, why did it not record the revving up at high speed plus my siren when we immediately took off for Parkland Hospital?'"


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In 1982, a panel of twelve scientists appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, including Nobel laureates Norman Ramsey and Luis Alvarez, unanimously concluded that the acoustic evidence submitted to the HSCA was "seriously flawed", was recorded after the shots, and did not indicate additional gunshots. Their conclusions were published in the journal "Science".


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In a 2001 article in the journal "Science & Justice", D.B. Thomas wrote that the NAS investigation was itself flawed. He concluded with a 96.3 percent certainty that at least two gunmen fired at President Kennedy and that at least one shot came from the grassy knoll. In 2005, Thomas's conclusions were rebutted in the same journal. Ralph Linsker and several members of the original NAS team reanalyzed the timings of the recordings and reaffirmed the earlier conclusion of the NAS report that the alleged shot sounds were recorded approximately one minute after the assassination. In 2010, D.B. Thomas challenged the 2005 "Science & Justice" article and restated his conclusion that there were at least two gunmen.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Photos of Oswald holding the rifle that was later determined to be the murder weapon are an important piece of evidence linking Oswald to the crime. The photos were uncovered with other possessions belonging to Oswald in the garage of Ruth Paine in Irving, Texas, on November 23, 1963. Marina Oswald told the Warren Commission that around March 31, 1963, she had taken pictures of Oswald as he posed with a Carcano rifle, a holstered pistol, and two Marxist newspapers – "The Militant" and "The Worker".


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Oswald had sent one of the photos to "The Militant"'s New York office with an accompanying letter stating he was "prepared for anything": according to Sylvia Weinstein, who handled the newspaper's subscriptions at the time, Oswald was seen as a "kookie" and politically "dumb and totally naive", as he apparently did not know that "The Militant", published by the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, and "The Worker", published by the pro-Soviet Communist Party USA, were rival publications and ideologically opposed to each other.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: In 1964, Marina testified before the Warren Commission that she had photographed Oswald, at his request and using his camera. These photos were labelled CE 133-A and CE 133-B. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald's left hand and newspapers in front of his chest in the other, while the rifle is held with the right hand in CE 133-B. The Carcano in the images had markings matching those on the rifle found in the Book Depository after the assassination. Oswald's mother testified that on the day after the assassination she and Marina destroyed another photograph with Oswald holding the rifle with both hands over his head, with "To my daughter June" written on it.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: When shown one of the photos during his interrogation by Dallas police, Oswald stated that it was a fake. According to Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz:


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: He said that the picture was not his, that the face was his face, but that this picture had been made by someone superimposing his face, the other part of the picture was not him at all and that he had never seen the picture before. ... He told me that he understood photography real well, and that in time, he would be able to show that it was not his picture, and that it had been made by someone else.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: The HSCA obtained another first-generation print (from CE 133-A) on April 1, 1977, from the widow of George de Mohrenschildt. The words "Hunter of fascists – ha ha ha!" written in block Russian were on the back. Also in English were added in script: "To my friend George, Lee Oswald, 5/IV/63 [April 5, 1963]." Handwriting experts for the HSCA concluded the English inscription and signature were by Oswald. After two original photos, one negative and one first-generation copy had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third backyard photo (CE 133-C) showing Oswald with newspapers held away from his body in his right hand.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: These photos, widely recognized as some of the most significant evidence against Oswald, have been subjected to rigorous analysis. Photographic experts consulted by the HSCA concluded they were genuine, answering twenty-one points raised by critics. Marina Oswald has always maintained she took the photos herself, and the 1963 de Mohrenschildt print bearing Oswald's signature clearly indicate they existed before the assassination. Nonetheless, some continue to contest their authenticity. In 2009, after digitally analyzing the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle and paper, computer scientist Hany Farid concluded that the photo "almost certainly was not altered".


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Some critics have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission and have proposed several other theories, such as that Oswald conspired with others, or was not involved at all and was framed. A Gallup Poll taken in mid-November 2013, showed 61% believed that Kennedy was killed as a result of conspiracy, and only 30% thought Oswald acted alone.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Oswald was never prosecuted because he was murdered two days after the assassination. In March 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. Garrison believed that the men were part of an arms smuggling ring supplying weapons to the anti-Castro Cubans in a conspiracy with elements of the CIA to kill Kennedy. The trial of Clay Shaw began in January 1969 in Orleans Parish Criminal Court. The jury acquitted Shaw.


title: Lee Harvey Oswald

text: Several films have fictionalized a trial of Oswald, depicting what may have happened had Ruby not killed Oswald. "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" (1964); "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" (1977); and "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (1986) have imagined such a trial. In 1988, a 21-hour unscripted mock trial was held on television, argued by lawyers before a judge, with unscripted testimony from surviving witnesses to the events surrounding the assassination; the jury returned a verdict of guilty. In 1992 the American Bar Association conducted two mock Oswald trials. The first trial ended in a hung jury. In the second trial the jury acquitted Oswald.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Mount Takahe is a snow-covered shield volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, from the Amundsen Sea. It is a mountain with parasitic vents and a caldera up to wide. Most of the volcano is formed by trachytic lava flows, but hyaloclastite is also found. Snow, ice, and glaciers cover most of Mount Takahe. With a volume of , it is a massive volcano; the parts of the edifice that are buried underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are probably even larger. It is part of the West Antarctic Rift System along with eighteen other known volcanoes.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The volcano was active in the Quaternary period, from 2.5 million years ago to the present. Radiometric dating has yielded ages of up to 300,000years for its rocks, and it reached its present height about 200,000years ago. Several tephra layers encountered in ice cores at Mount Waesche and Byrd Station have been attributed to Mount Takahe, although some of them were later linked to eruptions of Mount Berlin instead. The tephra layers were formed by explosive or phreatomagmatic eruptions. Major eruptions took place around 17,700years ago—possibly forming an ozone hole over Antarctica—and in the early Holocene. Mount Takahe's last eruption occurred about 7,600 years ago, and there is no present-day activity.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Mount Takahe is at the Bakutis Coast, eastern Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Bear Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea coast are north of Mount Takahe. It is an isolated mountain, and the closest volcanoes are Mount Murphy and Toney Mountain away.


title: Mount Takahe

text: No major air routes or supply roads to Antarctic stations pass close to the volcano, and some parts of the edifice are accessible only by helicopter. The name of the volcano refers to the takahē, a flightless nearly extinct bird from New Zealand; members of the 1957–1958 Marie Byrd Land Traverse party nicknamed an aircraft that had resupplied them "takahe". Mount Takahe was first visited in 1957–1958 and again in 1968, 1984-1985 and 1998-1999.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The volcano rises above the ice level to a maximum elevation of . It is an undissected nearly perfect cone, a shield volcano with an exposed volume of about . The subglacial part, which might bottom out at below sea level, could have an even larger volume and is elongated in an east–west direction. On its summit lies a flat, snow-filled caldera with a and volcanic neck. A lava dome may crop out inside the caldera. Radial fissure vents are found around the volcano, and vents also occur around the caldera rim. There are at least three parasitic vents with basaltic composition on its lower flanks, with three cinder cones found on the western and southern slopes. One of these cinder cones has been described as a subdued vent. The Jaron Cliffs are found on the southern slope.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The volcano is largely uneroded and thus exposures of its internal structure that would allow reconstructing its history are rare. Only twelve outcrops, with a total area of less than , emerge from the ice that covers Mount Takahe. The interior structure of the volcano is unknown. Based on these outcrops, lava flows with a thickness of appear to be widespread on Mount Takahe, while pyroclastic rocks such as deposits of Strombolian eruptions, lapilli tuffs and lahar deposits are less common. Occurrences of pyroclastic rocks at the summit have been correlated with tephra deposits elsewhere in Antarctica. Additional, obsidian-bearing and recently erupted lava bomb-and-block units crop out in the caldera rim, at Bucher Rim. Tuyas reportedly exist at Mount Takahe.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Mount Takahe is almost entirely covered by ice of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which rises about above sea level. A tributary of the Thwaites Glacier passes close to Mount Takahe. There are two small glaciers on the volcano itself, on the southwestern and northern flanks. They are eroding eruption products from the summit area, and moraines have been mapped both on the western flank and in the summit caldera. Glacial erosion is not pronounced, only a few corries cut into the lower slopes. The ice cover on the mountain includes both snow-covered and ice-covered areas, with sastrugi and other wind-roughened surfaces. The polar environment is cold and dry, which slows weathering processes. Air temperatures recorded at Mount Takahe are usually below freezing.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Some rock units at the foot of the volcano were emplaced underneath ice or water and feature hyaloclastite and pillow lavas. These units rise to about above the present-day ice level. Some of these units, such as Gill Bluff, Möll Spur and Stauffer Bluff, are "hydrovolcanic deltas" comparable to lava deltas which formed when lava flows from Mount Takahe or parasitic vents entered the ice, generating meltwater lakes surrounding the lavas. They crop out at the base of the volcano and are well preserved. Ice elevation was not stable during the emplacement of these deltas, and meltwater drained away, leading to the formation of diverse structures within the hyaloclastite deltas. The deltas may have formed during ice highstands 66,000 and 22,000–15,000years ago.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The West Antarctic Rift System is a basin and range province similar to the Great Basin in North America; it cuts across Antarctica from the Ross Sea to the Bellingshausen Sea. The Rift became active during the Mesozoic. Owing to thick ice cover it is not clear whether it is currently active, and there is no seismic activity. Most of the Rift lies below sea level. To the south it is flanked by the Transantarctic Mountains and to the north by the volcanic province of Marie Byrd Land. Volcanic activity in Marie Byrd Land commenced about 34million years ago, but high activity began 14million years ago. A major uplifted dome, in width, is centred on the Amundsen Sea coast and is associated with the Rift.


title: Mount Takahe

text: About 18 central volcanoes were active in Marie Byrd Land from the Miocene to the Holocene. Among the volcanic areas in Marie Byrd Land are the Flood Range with Mount Berlin, the Ames Range, the Executive Committee Range with Mount Sidley and Mount Waesche, the Crary Mountains, Toney Mountain, Mount Takahe and Mount Murphy. These volcanoes mainly occur in groups or chains, but there also are isolated edifices. Mount Takahe is located in the eastern Marie Byrd Land volcanic province and with an estimated volume of could be the largest of the Marie Byrd Land volcanoes, comparable to Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Most of these volcanoes are large, capped off by a summit caldera and appear to have begun as fast-growing shield volcanoes. Later, calderas formed. Eventually, late in the history of the volcanoes parasitic vents were active. The volcanoes are all surmounted by rocks composed of trachyte, phonolite, pantellerite, or comendite. Their activity has been attributed either to the reactivation of crustal structures or to the presence of a mantle plume. The volcanoes rise from a Paleozoic basement.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Mount Takahe may feature a large magma chamber and a heat flow anomaly underneath the ice has been found at the volcano. A magnetic anomaly has also been linked to the mountain.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Trachyte is the most common rock on Mount Takahe, phonolite being less common. Basanite, hawaiite, and mugearite are uncommon, but the occurrence of benmoreite and pantellerite has been reported, and some rocks have been classified as andesites. Hawaiite occurs exclusively in the older outcrops, basanite only in parasitic vents and mugearite only on the lower sector of the volcano. Despite this, most of the volcano is believed to consist of mafic rocks with only about 10–15% of felsic rocks, as the upper visible portion of the volcano could be resting on a much larger buried base. The parasitic vents probably make up less than 1% of the edifice. Ice-lava interactions produced hyaloclastite, palagonite and sideromelane. No major changes in magma chemistry occurred during the last 40,000years but some variation has been recorded.


title: Mount Takahe

text: All these rocks appear to have a common origin and define an alkaline–peralkaline suite. Phenocrysts include mainly plagioclase, with less common olivine and titanomagnetite; apatite has been reported as well. The magmas appear to have formed through fractional crystallization at varying pressures, and ultimately came from the lithosphere at depth, that was affected by subduction processes over 85million years ago.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The volcano was active in the late Quaternary. Radiometric results reported in 1988 include ages of less than 360,000years for rocks in the caldera rim and of less than 240,000years for volcanic rocks on the flanks. In his 1990 book "Volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate and Southern Oceans" LeMasurier gave 310,000±90,000years old as the oldest date for samples tested, citing unpublished K-Ar dates, but in a 2016 review of dates for Mount Takahe LeMasurier reported that none were older than 192,000years. A 2013 paper also by LeMasurier reported maximum ages of 192,000years for caldera rim rocks and of 66,000years for lower flank rocks. The entire volcano may have formed in less than 400,000years or even less than 200,000years, which would imply a fast growth of the edifice. Rocks aged 192,000±6,300years old are found at the summit caldera, implying that the volcano had reached its present-day height by then.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Early research indicated that most of Mount Takahe formed underneath the ice, but more detailed field studies concluded that most of the volcano developed above the ice surface. The ice surface has fluctuated over the life of Mount Takahe with an increased thickness during marine isotope stages 4 and 2, explaining why units originally emplaced under ice or water now lie above the ice surface and alternate with lava flow deposits. These elevated deposits were emplaced about 29,000–12,000years ago while the lava delta-like deposits are between about 70,000and 15,000years old. After it grew out of the ice, Mount Takahe increased in size through the emission of lava flows with occasional pyroclastic eruptions. Outcrops in the summit region indicate that most eruptions were magmatic, but some hydromagmatic activity occurred. Cinder cones and tuff cones formed during the late stage of activity.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Tephra layers in ice cores drilled at Byrd Station have been attributed to Mount Takahe. The volcano reaches an altitude high enough that tephras erupted from it can readily penetrate the tropopause and spread over Antarctica through the stratosphere. The occurrence of several volcanic eruptions in the region about 30,000years ago has been suggested to have caused a cooling of the climate of Antarctica, but it is also possible that the growth of the ice sheets at that time squeezed magma chambers at Mount Takahe and thus induced an increase of the eruptive activity.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Assuming that most tephra layers at Byrd come from Mount Takahe, it has been inferred that the volcano was very active between 60,000 and 7,500 years ago, with nine eruptive periods and two pulses between 60,000–57,000and 40,000–14,000years ago. In the latter part of the latter period hydrovolcanic eruptions became dominant at Mount Takahe, with a maximum around the time when the Wisconsin glaciation ended. It is possible that between 18,000 and 15,000years ago, either a crater lake formed in the caldera or the vents were buried by snow and ice. The caldera itself might have formed between 20,000 and 15,000years ago, probably not through a large explosive eruption.


title: Mount Takahe

text: It cannot be entirely ruled out that Byrd Station tephras originate at other volcanoes of Marie Byrd Land such as Mount Berlin. In particular, tephra layers between 30,000and 20,000years ago have been attributed to the latter volcano.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Tephra layers from Mount Takahe have also been found at Dome C, Dome F, Mount Takahe itself, Mount Waesche, Siple Dome and elsewhere in Antarctica. Apart from ice cores, tephras attributed to Mount Takahe have been found in sediment cores taken from the sea. Volcanic eruptions at Mount Takahe lack the pyroclastic flow deposits observed in other large explosive eruptions. The thickness of the Byrd ice core tephras attributed to Mount Takahe suggested that the eruptions were not large, but later research has indicated that large Plinian eruptions also occurred.


title: Mount Takahe

text: A series of eruptions about 200 years long took place at Mount Takahe 17,700years ago. These eruptions have been recorded from ice cores at the WAIS Divide and at Taylor Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, where they constrain estimates of the rate of deglaciation. These eruptions released a large quantity of halogens into the stratosphere, which together with the cold and dry climate conditions of the last glacial maximum would presumably have led to massive ozone destruction and the formation of an ozone hole. Bromine and sulfur isotope data indicate that the amount of UV radiation in the atmosphere did increase at that time in Antarctica. As is the case with the present-day ozone hole, the ozone hole created by the Takahe eruptions might have altered the Antarctic climate and sped up deglaciation, which was accelerating at that time, but later research has determined that the warming was most likely not volcanically forced.


title: Mount Takahe

text: Activity waned after this point, two hydromagmatic eruptions being recorded 13,000and 9,000years ago and a magmatic eruption 7,500years ago. This last eruption is also known from the Byrd ice core and may correspond to an eruption 8,200±5,400years ago recorded at Mount Waesche and the Takahe edifice and to two 6217 and 6231 BC tephra layers at Siple Dome. Tephra from a 8,200before present eruption has been recorded at Siple Dome and Mount Waesche. A 7,900before present eruption at Mount Takahe is one of the strongest eruptions at Siple Dome and Byrd Station of the last 10,000years. Another eruption reported by the Global Volcanism Program may have occurred in 7050 BC. At Siple Dome, a further eruption between 10,700 and 5,600years ago is recorded and one tephra layer around 1783 BC (accompanied by increased sulfate concentrations in ice) might also come from Mount Takahe. Glass shards at Law Dome emplaced in 1552 and 1623 AD may come from this volcano as well.


title: Mount Takahe

text: The Global Volcanism Program reports 5550 BC as the date of the most recent eruption, and the volcano is currently considered dormant. There is no evidence of fumarolic activity or warm ground, unlike at Mount Berlin, which is the other young volcano of Marie Byrd Land. Seismic activity recorded at depth around the volcano may be linked to its activity. Mount Takahe has been prospected for the possibility of obtaining geothermal energy.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 American psychological horror film directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Ted Tally, adapted from Thomas Harris's 1988 novel. It stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee who is hunting a serial killer, "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine), who skins his female victims. To catch him, she seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The film also features performances from Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, and Kasi Lemmons.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" was released on February 14, 1991, and grossed $272.7 million worldwide on a $19 million budget, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1991 worldwide. It premiered at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear, while Demme received the Silver Bear for Best Director. It became the third and most recent film (the other two being 1934's "It Happened One Night" and 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") to win Academy Awards in all the major five categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is the only horror film to win Best Picture.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" is regularly cited by critics, film directors and audiences as one of the greatest and most influential films. In 2018, "Empire" ranked it 48th on their list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. The American Film Institute ranked it the fifth-greatest and most influential thriller film while Starling and Lecter were ranked among the greatest film heroines and villains. The film is considered "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant by the U.S. Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2011. A sequel, "Hannibal", was released in 2001, followed by the prequel films "Red Dragon" (2002) and "Hannibal Rising" (2007).


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In 1990, Clarice Starling is pulled from her FBI training at the Quantico, Virginia FBI Academy by Jack Crawford of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer. Crawford believes Lecter's insight could prove useful in the pursuit of a psychopath serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", who kills young women and removes their skin from their bodies.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: At the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Dr. Frederick Chilton makes a crude pass at Starling before he escorts her to Lecter's cell. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's interviewing and rebuffs her. As she is leaving, a prisoner named Miggs flicks semen at her. Lecter, who considers this an "unspeakably ugly" act, calls Starling back and tells her to seek out his old patient. This leads her to a storage facility, where she discovers a jar containing a man's severed head. She returns to Lecter, who says the man is linked to Buffalo Bill. He offers to profile Buffalo Bill on condition he be transferred away from Chilton, whom he detests. Another Buffalo Bill victim is found with a death's head moth lodged in her throat.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, the daughter of a United States senator. Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Lecter a fake deal, promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps them capture Buffalo Bill and rescue Catherine. Instead, Lecter demands a "quid pro quo" from Starling, offering clues about Buffalo Bill in exchange for personal information. Starling tells Lecter about her father's murder when she was ten years old. Chilton secretly records the conversation and reveals Starling's deceit to Lecter before offering him a different deal. Lecter agrees and is flown to Memphis, where he meets and torments Senator Martin, then gives her false information on Buffalo Bill, including that his name is "Louis Friend".


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Starling figures out that "Louis Friend" is an anagram of "iron sulfide"—fool's gold. She visits Lecter, who is now imprisoned in a cell in a Tennessee courthouse, and requests the truth. Lecter says all the information she needs is contained in the Buffalo Bill case file, then insists on continuing their "quid pro quo". She recounts a traumatic childhood incident of hearing spring lambs being slaughtered on a relative's Montana farm. Lecter speculates that Starling hopes that saving Catherine will end the recurring nightmares she has of lambs screaming. Lecter returns the Buffalo Bill case files to Starling as Chilton arrives and has the police escort her from the building. Later that evening, Lecter kills his guards, escapes from his cell, and disappears.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Starling analyzes Lecter's file annotations and figures out that Buffalo Bill knew his first victim, Frederika Bimmel. Starling travels to her Ohio hometown and discovers that Bimmel and Buffalo Bill were tailors. At Frederika's home, she notices unfinished dresses and dress patterns identical to the patches of skin removed from the victims. She phones Crawford and says Buffalo Bill is making a "suit" with human skin. Crawford is already en route to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with hospital archives and finding a man named Jame Gumb, who believes he is transsexual but was deemed too insane to apply for a sex-change operation. Starling continues interviewing Frederika's friends while Crawford and an FBI Hostage Rescue Team storm Gumb's address in Illinois, finding the house empty. Meanwhile, Starling goes to interview another person who knew Frederika. At the house, she meets "Jack Gordon", but realizes he is Gumb after spotting a death's head moth flying loose. She pursues him into a cavernous basement and finds Catherine trapped in a dry well. In a dark room, Gumb stalks Starling with night-vision goggles, but reveals himself by cocking his revolver. Starling reacts quickly and shoots Gumb dead.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: At the FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Lecter, who is at a Bimini airport. He assures her that he has no intention of pursuing her and requests that she return the favor, which she says she cannot. Lecter subsequently hangs up the phone because he is "having an old friend for dinner". He trails a newly-arrived Chilton into the crowd.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In the years following its release, "The Silence of the Lambs" was subject to much film criticism regarding its themes of human sexuality and sexual politics. Throughout the film, Clarice Starling's gender is emphasized as a distinguishing feature as she is a minority amongst her numerous male peers, though film scholar Barry Forshaw notes that "any feminist agenda is never bluntly formulated verbally."


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Some gay male critics and feminists felt that the film's portrayal of Buffalo Bill negatively associated the LGBT community with deviance, psychopathy, and violence. Despite this, Bill's sexual orientation is never explicitly stated in the film, and Lecter expressly states Bill is "not really transsexual".


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Demme responded that Buffalo Bill "wasn't a gay character. He was a tormented man who hated himself and wished he was a woman because that would have made him as far away from himself as he possibly could be." Demme added that he "came to realize that there is a tremendous absence of positive gay characters in movies".


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In a 1992 interview with "Playboy" magazine, the feminist and women's rights advocate Betty Friedan stated: "I thought it was absolutely outrageous that "The Silence of the Lambs" won four Oscars. [...] I'm not saying that the movie shouldn't have been shown. I'm not denying the movie was an artistic triumph, but it was about the evisceration, the skinning alive of women. That is what I find offensive. Not the "Playboy" centerfold."


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" is based on the 1988 novel by Thomas Harris. It was the second film to feature the character Hannibal Lecter; the first, "Manhunter" (1986), was also adapted from a Harris novel. Prior to the release of the "Silence of the Lambs" novel, Orion Pictures partnered with Gene Hackman to adapt it for film. With Hackman set to direct and possibly star in as FBI agent Jack Crawford, negotiations were made to split the $500,000 cost of rights between Hackman and the studio. The producers also had to acquire the rights to the Lecter character, which were owned by "Manhunter" producer Dino De Laurentiis. Owing to the financial failure of "Manhunter", De Laurentiis lent the rights to Orion for free.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In November 1987, Ted Tally was brought on to write the adaptation; Tally had crossed paths with Harris many times, with his interest in adapting "The Silence of the Lambs" originating from receiving an advance copy of the book from Harris. When Tally was about halfway through with the first draft, Hackman withdrew from the project and financing fell through. However, Orion co-founder Mike Medavoy encouraged Tally to keep writing as the studio took care of financing and searched for a replacement director. Orion sought director Jonathan Demme to helm the project. With the screenplay not yet completed, Demme signed on after reading the novel. From there, the project developed quickly; Tally said: "[Demme] read my first draft not long after it was finished, and we met, then I was just startled by the speed of things. We met in May 1989 and were shooting in November. I don't remember any big revisions."


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Jodie Foster was interested in playing FBI agent Clarice Starling immediately after reading the novel. However, in spite of the fact that Foster had just won an Academy Award for her performance in "The Accused" (1988), Demme was not convinced that she was right for the role. Having just collaborated on "Married to the Mob" (1988), Demme's first choice for the role of Starling was Michelle Pfeiffer, who turned it down, later saying, "It was a difficult decision, but I got nervous about the subject matter." He then approached Meg Ryan, who turned it down as well for its gruesome themes, and then Laura Dern, of whom the studio was skeptical as not being a bankable choice. As a result, Foster was awarded the role due to her passion towards the character.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: For the role of Lecter, Demme originally approached Sean Connery. After Connery turned it down, Anthony Hopkins was offered the role based on his performance in "The Elephant Man" (1980). When Hopkins's agent told him a script was en route titled "The Silence of the Lambs", Hopkins responded, "Is it a children's story?" Hopkins called his agent back after reading the first 10 pages saying, "This is the best part I've ever read." He accepted the role after he had dinner with Demme.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Other actors considered for the role included Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Derek Jacobi and Daniel Day-Lewis. Forest Whitaker has stated that he also auditioned for the role. The mask Hopkins wore became an iconic symbol of the film. It was created by Ed Cubberly, of Frenchtown, New Jersey, who had made masks for NHL goalkeepers.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Hopkins created his interpretation of Lecter based upon the voice of the HAL 9000 as voiced by Douglas Rain in "" as well as the vocal cadence of writer Truman Capote; contrary to belief, in a "GQ" interview in 2021, Hopkins stated that he had not based his character's vocal cadence on that of Katharine Hepburn, and that the decision to play Lecter as still and unblinking had not been taken after Charles Manson. Hopkins was initially scared to talk to Foster, knowing that she had just won an Oscar.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Gene Hackman was cast to play Jack Crawford, the Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, but he found the script too violent. Scott Glenn was then cast in the role. In preparation for the role, Glenn met with John E. Douglas. Douglas gave Glenn a tour of the Quantico facility and also played for him an audio tape containing various recordings that serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris had made of themselves raping and torturing a 16-year-old girl. According to Douglas, Glenn wept as he listened to the recordings, and even changed his liberal stance on the death penalty.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Principal photography on "The Silence of the Lambs" began on November 15, 1989, and wrapped on March 1, 1990. Filming primarily took place in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with some scenes shot in nearby northern West Virginia. The Victorian home in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, used as Buffalo Bill's home in the film went up for sale in August 2015 for $300,000. The home sat on the market for nearly a year, before finally selling for $195,000. The exterior of the Western Center near Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, served as the setting for Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. In what was a rare act of cooperation at the time, the FBI allowed scenes to be filmed at the FBI Academy in Quantico; some FBI staff members even acted in bit parts.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The design for the basement and pit used by Buffalo Bill was inspired by the real-life kidnappings and murders performed by Gary M. Heidnik.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The musical score for "The Silence of the Lambs" was composed by Howard Shore, who would also collaborate with Demme on "Philadelphia". Recorded in Munich during the latter half of the summer of 1990, the score was performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra. "I tried to write in a way that goes right into the fabric of the movie," explained Shore on his approach. "I tried to make the music just fit in. When you watch the movie you are not aware of the music. You get your feelings from all elements simultaneously, lighting, cinematography, costumes, acting, music. Jonathan Demme was very specific about the music." The music editor was Suzana Peric. A soundtrack album was released by MCA Records on February 5, 1991. Music from the film was later used in the trailers for its 2001 sequel, "Hannibal".


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In addition to Shore's score, recordings of popular music are used prominently in the film. This includes British post-punk music, such as the song "Hip Priest" by The Fall which can be heard playing during the climactic scene in which Starling enters Buffalo Bill's house. The song "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus became a cult hit after it was featured in an iconic scene with Buffalo Bill applying makeup and speaking to himself in the mirror.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" was released on February 14, 1991, grossing almost $14 million from 1,497 theaters over the 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, placing at number one at the US box office. It remained at number one for five weeks.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The film opened at the Odeon Leicester Square in London in June 1991 and grossed £290,936 in its opening week, which distributor Rank claimed was a world record opening week from one theatre. The following week it expanded to 281 screens and grossed £4,260,472 for the week, a UK record.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The film grossed $131 million in the United States and Canada with a total worldwide gross of $273 million. It was the fourth-highest grossing film of 1991 in North America and the fifth-highest-grossing film worldwide.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" was a sleeper hit that gradually gained widespread success and critical acclaim. Foster, Hopkins, and Levine garnered much acclaim for their performances. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of 144 film critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Director Jonathan Demme's smart, taut thriller teeters on the edge between psychological study and all-out horror, and benefits greatly from stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster." Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 19 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", specifically mentioned the "terrifying qualities" of Hannibal Lecter. Ebert later added the film to his list of "The Great Movies", recognizing the film as a "horror masterpiece" alongside such classics as "Nosferatu", "Psycho", and "Halloween". However, the film is also notable for being one of two multi-Academy Award winners (the other being "Unforgiven") to get a bad review from Ebert's colleague, Gene Siskel. Writing for "Chicago Tribune", Siskel said, "Foster's character, who is appealing, is dwarfed by the monsters she is after. I'd rather see her work on another case."


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The film won the Big Five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Demme), Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally), making it only the third film in history to accomplish that feat. It was also nominated for Best Sound (Tom Fleischman and Christopher Newman) and Best Film Editing, but lost to "" and "JFK", respectively.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: Other awards include Best Film by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, CHI Awards and PEO Awards. Demme won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. It was also nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Film. Screenwriter Ted Tally received an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. The film was awarded Best Horror Film of the Year during the 2nd Horror Hall of Fame telecast, with Vincent Price presenting the award to the film's executive producer Gary Goetzman.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In 1998, the film was listed as one of the 100 greatest films in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. In 2006, at the Key Art Awards, the original poster for "The Silence of the Lambs" was named best film poster "of the past 35 years". "The Silence of the Lambs" placed seventh on Bravo's "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" for Lecter's escape scene. The American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) the number one film villain of all time and Clarice Starling (as portrayed by Foster) the sixth-greatest film hero of all time. In 2011, ABC aired a prime-time special, "", that counted down the best films chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and "People" magazine. "The Silence of the Lambs" was selected as the best suspense/thriller and Dr. Hannibal Lecter was selected as the fourth-greatest film character.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: In 2015, "Entertainment Weekly"s 25th anniversary year, it included "The Silence of the Lambs" in its list of the 25 best movies made since the magazine's beginning.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: The film was released on VHS in October 1991 by Orion Home Video. It was the most rented video in the United States upon release. It was released on DVD on March 6, 2001 by MGM Home Entertainment in both Widescreen (1.85:1) and Full Screen (1.33:1) versions. The Criterion Collection, which had released the film on LaserDisc in 1994, released a DVD special edition in 1998, and later a Blu-Ray edition in 2018.


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: According to "The Guardian", before "The Silence of the Lambs", serial killers in film had been "claw-handed bogeymen with melty faces and rubber masks. By contrast, Lecter was highly intelligent with impeccable manners," and played by an actor with "impeccable credentials".


title: The Silence of the Lambs (film)

text: When "The Silence of the Lambs" was re-released in the United Kingdom in 2017, the British Board of Film Classification reclassified it from an 18 to a 15 certificate. The film's co-producer Ed Saxon said audiences had become desensitized and that the film had become less shocking. However, the BBFC's Craig Lapper felt that audiences had instead become used to procedural crime dramas with serial killers as dramatic tropes, and suggested that "The Silence of the Lambs" had created interest in these themes.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The Seattle metropolitan area's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 makes it one of the nation's fastest-growing large cities.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about south of the Canadian border. A major gateway for trade with East Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling .


title: Seattle

text: The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, Oregon, on the schooner "Exact" at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named "Seattle" in 1852, in honor of Chief Si'ahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Today, Seattle has high populations of Native, Scandinavian, European American, Asian American and African American people, as well as a thriving LGBT community that ranks sixth in the United States by population.


title: Seattle

text: Logging was Seattle's first major industry, but by the late 19th century, the city had become a commercial and shipbuilding center as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. Growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed into a technology center from the 1980s onwards with companies like Microsoft becoming established in the region; Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a Seattleite by birth. Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle in 1994, and major airline Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle's international airport, Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city's population by almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000. Seattle also has a significant musical history. Between 1918 and 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene nurtured the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as well as the origin of the bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Heart, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, and the alternative rock movement grunge.


title: Seattle

text: Archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people (subsequently called the Duwamish tribe) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay.


title: Seattle

text: The first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition for the Royal Navy to chart the Pacific Northwest.


title: Seattle

text: In 1851, a large party of American pioneers led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River; they formally claimed it on September 14, 1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail on the schooner "Exact" from Portland, Oregon, stopping in Astoria, and landed at Alki Point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851. After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement "Duwamps".


title: Seattle

text: Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location, reestablished their old land claim and called it "New York", but renamed "New York Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning, roughly, "by and by" or "someday". For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers. David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement Seattle after Chief Si'ahl (, anglicized as "Seattle") chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. A modern transliteration of the original Coast Salish settlements around Elliott Bay is rendered in Lushootseed as .


title: Seattle

text: The name "Seattle" appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. The Town of Seattle was disincorporated on January 18, 1867, and remained a mere precinct of King County until late 1869, when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated December 2, 1869, with a mayor–council government. The corporate seal of the City of Seattle carries the date "1869" and a likeness of Chief Si'ahl in left profile. That same year, Seattle acquired the epithet of the "Queen City", a designation officially changed in 1982 to "Emerald City".


title: Seattle

text: Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, like many other cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure.


title: Seattle

text: The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, rode on the lumber industry. During this period the road now known as Yesler Way won the nickname "Skid Road," supposedly after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. The later dereliction of the area may be a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American lexicon as "Skid Row". Like much of the American West, Seattle saw numerous conflicts between labor and management, as well as ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886. This violence originated with unemployed whites who were determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle (anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma). In 1900, Asians were 4.2% of the population. Authorities declared martial law and federal troops arrived to put down the disorder.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle had achieved sufficient economic success that when the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 destroyed the central business district, a far grander city-center rapidly emerged in its place. Finance company Washington Mutual, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire. However, the Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard.


title: Seattle

text: The second and most dramatic boom resulted from the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893. In a short time, Seattle became a major transportation center. On July 14, 1897, the "S.S. Portland" docked with its famed "ton of gold," and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for the miners in Alaska and the Yukon. Few of those working men found lasting wealth. However, it was Seattle's business of clothing the miners and feeding them salmon that panned out in the long run. Along with Seattle, other cities like Everett, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bremerton, and Olympia, all in the Puget Sound region, became competitors for exchange, rather than mother lodes for extraction, of precious metals. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century, and funded many new Seattle companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer. Seattle brought in the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a system of parks and boulevards.


title: Seattle

text: The Gold Rush era culminated in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of today's University of Washington campus.


title: Seattle

text: A shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century became massive during World War I, making Seattle somewhat of a company town. The subsequent retrenchment led to the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country. A 1912 city development plan by Virgil Bogue went largely unused. Seattle was mildly prosperous in the 1920s but was particularly hard hit in the Great Depression, experiencing some of the country's harshest labor strife in that era. Violence during the Maritime Strike of 1934 cost Seattle much of its maritime traffic, which was rerouted to the Port of Los Angeles.


title: Seattle

text: The Great Depression in Seattle affected many minority groups, one being the Asian Pacific Americans; they were subject to racism, loss of property, and failed claims of unemployment due to citizenship status.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle was one of the major cities that benefited from programs such as the WPA, CCC, UCL, and PWA. The workers, mostly men, built roads, parks, dams, schools, railroads, bridges, docks, and even historical and archival record sites and buildings. However, Seattle faced massive unemployment, loss of lumber and construction industries as Los Angeles prevailed as the bigger West Coast city. Seattle had building contracts that rivaled New York City and Chicago, but lost to LA as well. Seattle's eastern farm land faded due to Oregon's and the Midwest's, forcing people into town.


title: Seattle

text: The famous "Hooverville" arose during the Depression, leading to Seattle's growing homeless population. Stationed outside Seattle, the Hooverville housed thousands of men but very very few children and no women. With work projects close to the city, Hooverville grew and the WPA settled into the city.


title: Seattle

text: A movement by women arose from Seattle during the Depression. Fueled by Eleanor Roosevelt's book "It's Up to the Women", women pushed for recognition, not just as housewives, but as the backbone to family. Using newspapers and journals "Working Woman" and "The Woman Today", women pushed to be seen as equal and receive some recognition.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle's University of Washington was greatly affected during the Depression era. As schools across Washington lost funding and attendance, the UW actually prospered during the time period. While Seattle public schools were influenced by Washington's superintendent Worth McClure, they still struggled to pay teachers and maintain attendance. The UW, despite academic challenges that plagued the college due to differing views on teaching and learning, focused on growth in student enrollment rather than improving the existing school.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle was also the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting vaudeville acts and silent movies. He went on to became one of America's greatest theater and movie tycoons. Scottish-born architect B. Marcus Priteca designed several theaters for Pantages in Seattle, which were later demolished or converted to other uses. Seattle's surviving Paramount Theatre, on which he collaborated, was not a Pantages theater.


title: Seattle

text: War work again brought local prosperity during World War II, this time centered on Boeing aircraft. The war dispersed the city's numerous Japanese-American businessmen due to the Japanese American internment. After the war, the local economy dipped. It rose again with Boeing's growing dominance in the commercial airliner market. Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World's Fair, for which the iconic Space Needle was built. Another major local economic downturn was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when Boeing was heavily affected by the oil crises, loss of government contracts, and costs and delays associated with the Boeing 747. Many people left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights."


title: Seattle

text: Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company separated its headquarters from its major production facilities; the headquarters were moved to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant and Everett wide-body plant. The company's credit union for employees, BECU, remains based in the Seattle area and has been open to all residents of Washington since 2002.


title: Seattle

text: On March 20, 1970, twenty-eight people were killed when the Ozark Hotel was burned by an unknown arsonist.


title: Seattle

text: As prosperity began to return in the 1980s, the city was stunned by the Wah Mee massacre in 1983, when thirteen people were killed in an illegal gambling club in the Seattle Chinatown-International District. Beginning with Microsoft's 1979 move from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to nearby Bellevue, Washington, Seattle and its suburbs became home to a number of technology companies including Amazon, F5 Networks, RealNetworks, Nintendo of America, and T-Mobile. This success brought an influx of new residents with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000, and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country. In 1993, the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" brought the city further national attention, as did the television sitcom "Frasier". The dot-com boom caused a great frenzy among the technology companies in Seattle but the bubble ended in early 2001.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle in this period attracted widespread attention as home to these many companies, but also by hosting the 1990 Goodwill Games and the APEC leaders conference in 1993, as well as through the worldwide popularity of grunge, a sound that had developed in Seattle's independent music scene. Another bid for worldwide attention—hosting the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999—garnered visibility, but not in the way its sponsors desired, as related protest activity and police reactions to those protests overshadowed the conference itself. The city was further shaken by the Mardi Gras Riots in 2001, and then literally shaken the following day by the Nisqually earthquake.


title: Seattle

text: Another boom began as the city emerged from the Great Recession which commenced when Amazon.com moved its headquarters from North Beacon Hill to South Lake Union. This initiated a historic construction boom which resulted in the completion of almost 10,000 apartments in Seattle in 2017, which is more than any previous year and nearly twice as many as were built in 2016. Beginning in 2010, and for the next five years, Seattle gained an average of 14,511 residents per year, with the growth strongly skewed toward the center of the city, as unemployment dropped from roughly 9 percent to 3.6 percent. The city has found itself "bursting at the seams", with over 45,000 households spending more than half their income on housing and at least 2,800 people homeless, and with the country's sixth-worst rush hour traffic.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle is located between the saltwater Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, is part of Puget Sound, which makes the city an oceanic port. To the west, beyond Puget Sound, are the Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula; to the east, beyond Lake Washington and the Eastside suburbs, are Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Range. Lake Washington's waters flow to Puget Sound through the Lake Washington Ship Canal (consisting of two man-made canals, Lake Union, and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks at Salmon Bay, ending in Shilshole Bay on Puget Sound).


title: Seattle

text: The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. The surrounding area lends itself well to sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking year-round.


title: Seattle

text: The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills; the lists vary but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The Wallingford, Delridge, Mount Baker, Seward Park, Washington Park, Broadmoor, Madrona, Phinney Ridge, Sunset Hill, Blue Ridge, Broadview, Laurelhurst, Hawthorne Hills, Maple Leaf, and Crown Hill neighborhoods are all located on hills as well. Many of the hilliest areas are near the city center, with Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Beacon Hill collectively constituting something of a ridge along an isthmus between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. The break in the ridge between First Hill and Beacon Hill is man-made, the result of two of the many regrading projects that reshaped the topography of the city center. The topography of the city center was also changed by the construction of a seawall and the artificial Harbor Island (completed 1909) at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway, the terminus of the Green River. The highest point within city limits is at High Point in West Seattle, which is roughly located near 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle St. Other notable hills include Crown Hill, View Ridge/Wedgwood/Bryant, Maple Leaf, Phinney Ridge, Mt. Baker Ridge, and Highlands/Carkeek/Bitterlake.


title: Seattle

text: North of the city center, Lake Washington Ship Canal connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. It incorporates four natural bodies of water: Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and Union Bay.


title: Seattle

text: Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), and caused one fatality.


title: Seattle

text: Other strong quakes occurred on January 26, 1700 (estimated at 9 magnitude), December 14, 1872 (7.3 or 7.4), April 13, 1949 (7.1), and April 29, 1965 (6.5). The 1965 quake caused three deaths in Seattle directly and one more by heart failure. Although the Seattle Fault passes just south of the city center, neither it nor the Cascadia subduction zone has caused an earthquake since the city's founding. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, especially in zones built on fill.


title: Seattle

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , water (41.16% of the total area).


title: Seattle

text: Seattle has a temperate climate, classified in the Mediterranean zone by the main climatic classification (Köppen: "Csb"), but some sources put the city in the oceanic zone ("Cfb"). It has cool, wet winters and mild, relatively dry summers, covering characteristics of both. The climate is sometimes characterized as a "modified Mediterranean" climate because it is cooler and wetter than a "true" Mediterranean climate, but shares the characteristic dry summer (which has a strong influence on the region's vegetation).


title: Seattle

text: Temperature extremes are moderated by the adjacent Puget Sound, greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. Thus extreme heat waves are rare in the Seattle area, as are very cold temperatures (below about ). The Seattle area is the cloudiest region of the United States, due in part to frequent storms and lows moving in from the adjacent Pacific Ocean. With many more "rain days" than other major American cities, Seattle has a well-earned reputation for frequent rain. In an average year, at least of precipitation falls on 150 days, more than nearly all U.S. cities east of the Rocky Mountains. However, because it often has merely a light drizzle falling from the sky for many days, Seattle actually receives significantly less rainfall (or other precipitation) overall than many other U.S. cities like New York City, Miami, or Houston. Seattle is cloudy 201 days out of the year and partly cloudy 93 days.


title: Seattle

text: According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey (ACS), the racial makeup of the city was 65.7% White Non-Hispanic, 16.9% Asian, 6.8% Black or African American, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 0.4% Native American, 0.9% Pacific Islander, 0.2% other races, and 5.6% two or more races.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white. The 2010 census showed that Seattle was one of the whitest big cities in the country, although its proportion of white residents has been gradually declining. In 1960, whites constituted 91.6% of the city's population, while in 2010 they constituted 69.5%. According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. Those who spoke Asian languages other than Indo-European languages made up 10.2% of the population, Spanish was spoken by 4.5% of the population, speakers of other Indo-European languages made up 3.9%, and speakers of other languages made up 2.5%.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle's foreign-born population grew 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. The Chinese population in the Seattle area has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. The earliest Chinese-Americans that came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were almost entirely from Guangdong Province. The Seattle area is also home to a large Vietnamese population of more than 55,000 residents, as well as over 30,000 Somali immigrants. The Seattle-Tacoma area is also home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States, numbering about 19,000 Cambodian Americans, and one of the largest Samoan communities in the mainland U.S., with over 15,000 people having Samoan ancestry. Additionally, the Seattle area had the highest percentage of self-identified mixed-race people of any large metropolitan area in the United States, according to the 2000 United States Census Bureau. According to a 2012 HistoryLink study, Seattle's 98118 ZIP code (in the Columbia City neighborhood) was one of the most diverse ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the United States.


title: Seattle

text: According to the ACS 1-year estimates, in 2018, the median income of a city household was $93,481, and the median income for a family was $130,656. 11.0% of the population and 6.6% of families were below the poverty line. Of people living in poverty, 11.4% were under the age of 18 and 10.9% were 65 or older.


title: Seattle

text: It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of the near-term results of which is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing.


title: Seattle

text: In recent years, the city has experienced steady population growth, and has been faced with the issue of accommodating more residents. In 2006, after growing by 4,000 citizens per year for the previous 16 years, regional planners expected the population of Seattle to grow by 200,000 people by 2040. However, former mayor Greg Nickels supported plans that would increase the population by 60%, or 350,000 people, by 2040 and worked on ways to accommodate this growth while keeping Seattle's single-family housing zoning laws. The Seattle City Council later voted to relax height limits on buildings in the greater part of Downtown, partly with the aim to increase residential density in the city center. As a sign of increasing downtown core growth, the Downtown population crested to over 60,000 in 2009, up 77% since 1990.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle has a relatively high number of adults living alone. According to the 2000 U.S. Census interim measurements of 2004, Seattle has the fifth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8%.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle has a notably large lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. According to a 2006 study by UCLA, 12.9% of city residents polled identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This was the second-highest proportion of any major U.S. city, behind San Francisco. Greater Seattle also ranked second among major U.S. metropolitan areas, with 6.5% of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. According to 2012 estimates from the United States Census Bureau, Seattle has the highest percentage of same-sex households in the United States, at 2.6 percent, surpassing San Francisco (2.5 percent). The Capitol Hill district has historically been the center of LGBT culture in Seattle.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle's economy is driven by a mix of older industrial companies and "new economy" internet and technology companies, as well as service, design, and clean technology companies. The city's gross metropolitan product (GMP) was $231 billion in 2010, making it the 11th largest metropolitan economy in the United States. The Port of Seattle, which also operates Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, is a major gateway for trade with Asia and cruises to Alaska. It also is the 8th largest port in the United States when measured by container capacity. Its maritime cargo operations merged with the Port of Tacoma in 2015 to form the Northwest Seaport Alliance. Although it was affected by the Great Recession, Seattle has retained a comparatively strong economy, and is noted for start-up businesses, especially in green building and clean technologies. In February 2010, the city government committed Seattle to become North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching zero net per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.


title: Seattle

text: Large companies continue to dominate the business landscape. Seven companies on Fortune 500's 2022 list of the United States' largest companies (based on total revenue) are headquartered in Seattle: Internet retailer Amazon (#2), coffee chain Starbucks (#120), freight forwarder Expeditors International of Washington (#225), department store Nordstrom (#245), forest products company Weyerhaeuser (#354), online travel company Expedia Group (#404) and real-estate tech company Zillow (#424) . Other Fortune 500 companies commonly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco (#11), the largest retail company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Microsoft (#14) is located in Redmond. Furthermore, Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer Paccar (#151). Other major companies headquartered in the area include Nintendo of America in Redmond, T-Mobile US in Bellevue, and Providence Health & Services (the state's largest health care system and fifth largest employer) in Renton. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafés.


title: Seattle

text: Before moving its headquarters to Chicago and then ultimately Arlington, Virginia, aerospace manufacturer Boeing (#60) was the largest company based in Seattle. Its largest division, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is still headquartered within the Puget Sound region. The company also has large aircraft manufacturing plants in Everett and Renton; it remains the largest private employer in the Seattle metropolitan area. In 2006 former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies Corixa (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), Trubion, and ZymoGenetics. Vulcan Inc., the holding company of billionaire Paul Allen, is behind most of the development projects in the region. While some see the new development as an economic boon, others have criticized Nickels and the Seattle City Council for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense. In 2005, "Forbes" ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels. Owing largely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, Seattle and Washington State have some of the highest minimum wages in the country, at $15 per hour for smaller businesses and $16 for the city's largest employers.


title: Seattle

text: Operating a hub at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Alaska Airlines maintains its headquarters in the city of SeaTac, next to the airport. Seattle is a hub for global health with the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, Infectious Disease Research Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In 2015, the Washington Global Health Alliance counted 168 global health organizations in Washington state. Many are headquartered in Seattle.


title: Seattle

text: Seattle has been a regional center for the performing arts for many years. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra has won many awards and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (opened in 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States. The city also boasts lauded summer and winter chamber music festivals organized by the Seattle Chamber Music Society.


title: Seattle

text: The 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre; Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of Actors' Equity contract).


title: Seattle

text: In addition, the 900-seat Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill hosts numerous cultural events, especially lectures and recitals.


title: Seattle

text: Between 1918 and 1951, there were nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs along Jackson Street, running from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Bumps Blackwell, Ernestine Anderson, and others.


title: Seattle

text: Early popular musical acts from the Seattle/Puget Sound area include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four, vocal group The Fleetwoods, 1960s garage rockers The Wailers and The Sonics, and instrumental surf group The Ventures, some of whom are still active.