title: Linkin Park

text: The band continued to explore a wider variation of musical types on their fourth album, "A Thousand Suns" (2010), layering their music with more electronic sounds. The band's fifth album, "Living Things" (2012), combined musical elements from all of their previous records. Their sixth album, "The Hunting Party" (2014), returned to a heavier rock sound, and their seventh album, "One More Light" (2017), was a substantially more pop-oriented record. Linkin Park went on a hiatus when longtime lead vocalist Bennington died in July 2017. In April 2022, Shinoda revealed the band was neither working on new music nor planning on touring for the foreseeable future.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park is among the best-selling bands of the 21st century and the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 100 million records worldwide. They have won two Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, two "Billboard" Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, 10 MTV Europe Music Awards and three World Music Awards. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium. "Billboard" ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade list. In 2012, the band was voted as the greatest artist of the 2000s in a Bracket Madness poll on VH1. In 2014, the band was declared as "The Biggest Rock Band in the World Right Now" by "Kerrang!".


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park was founded by three high school friends: Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon, and Brad Delson. The three attended Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. After graduating from high school, the three began to take their musical interests more seriously, recruiting Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Mark Wakefield to perform in their band, then called Xero. Though limited in resources, the band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda's makeshift bedroom studio in 1996, resulting in a four-track demo album, entitled "Xero", released in November 1997. However, tensions and frustration within the band grew after they failed to land a record deal. The lack of success and stalemate in progress prompted Wakefield, at that time the band's vocalist, to leave the band in search of other projects. Farrell also left to tour with Tasty Snax, a Christian punk and ska band.


title: Linkin Park

text: After spending a considerable time searching for Wakefield's replacement, Xero recruited Arizona vocalist Chester Bennington, who was recommended by Jeff Blue, the vice president of Zomba Music in March 1999. Bennington, formerly of a post-grunge band Grey Daze, became a standout among applicants because of the dynamic in his singing style. The band then agreed on changing their name from Xero to Hybrid Theory; the newborn vocal chemistry between Shinoda and Bennington helped revive the band, inciting them to work on new material. In 1999, the band released a self-titled extended play, which they circulated across internet chat-rooms and forums with the help of an online "street team".


title: Linkin Park

text: The band still struggled to sign a record deal. They turned to Jeff Blue for additional help after facing numerous rejections from several major record labels. After failing to catch Warner Bros. Records on three previous reviews, Blue, who was now the vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped the band sign a deal with the company as a developing artist in 1999. However, the label advised the band to change their name to avoid confusion with Hybrid. The band considered the names "Plear" and "Platinum Lotus Foundation" before deciding on "Linkin Park", a play on and homage to Santa Monica's Lincoln Park, now called Christine Emerson Reed Park. They initially wanted to use the name "Lincoln Park", however they changed it to "Linkin" to acquire the internet domain "linkinpark.com".


title: Linkin Park

text: Bennington and Shinoda both reported that Warner Bros. Records was skeptical of Linkin Park's initial recordings. The label's A&R was not pleased with the band's hip-hop and rock-style approach. An A&R representative suggested that Bennington should demote or fire Shinoda and exclusively focus on making a rock record. Bennington supported Shinoda and refused to compromise Linkin Park's vision for the album. Farrell returned in late 2000, and the band released their breakthrough album, "Hybrid Theory", that same year.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park released "Hybrid Theory" on October 24, 2000. The album, which represented half a decade's worth of the band's work, was edited by Don Gilmore. "Hybrid Theory" was a massive commercial success; it sold more than 4.8 million copies during its debut year, earning it the status of best-selling album of 2001, while singles such as "Crawling" and "One Step Closer" established themselves as staples among alternative rock radio play lists during the year. Additionally, other singles from the album were featured in films such as "Dracula 2000", "Little Nicky", and "Valentine". "Hybrid Theory" won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for the song "Crawling" and was nominated for two other Grammy Awards: Best New Artist and Best Rock Album. MTV awarded the band their Best Rock Video and Best Direction awards for "In the End". Through the winning of the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance, "Hybrid Theory"s overall success had catapulted the band into mainstream success.


title: Linkin Park

text: During this time, Linkin Park received many invitations to perform on many high-profile tours and concerts including Ozzfest, Family Values Tour, and KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas. The band worked with Jessica Sklar to found their official fan club and street team, "Linkin Park Underground", in November 2001. Linkin Park also formed their own tour, Projekt Revolution, which featured other notable artists such as Cypress Hill, Adema, and Snoop Dogg. Within a year's stretch, Linkin Park had performed at over 320 concerts. The experiences and performances of the precocious band were documented in their first DVD, "Frat Party at the Pankake Festival", which debuted in November 2001. Now reunited with former bassist Phoenix, the band began work on a remix album, dubbed "Reanimation", which would include works from "Hybrid Theory" and non-album tracks. "Reanimation" debuted on July 30, 2002, featuring the likes of Black Thought, Jonathan Davis, Aaron Lewis, and many others. "Reanimation" claimed the second spot on the "Billboard" 200, and sold nearly 270,000 copies during its debut week. "Hybrid Theory" is also in the RIAA's "Top 100 Albums".


title: Linkin Park

text: Following the success of "Hybrid Theory" and "Reanimation", Linkin Park spent a significant amount of time touring around the United States. The band members began to work on new material amidst their saturated schedule, spending a sliver of their free time in their tour bus's studio. The band officially announced the production of a new studio album in December 2002, revealing their new work was inspired by the rocky region of Meteora in Greece, where numerous monasteries have been built on top of the rocks. "Meteora" features a mixture of the band's nu metal and rap metal style with newer innovative effects, including the induction of a shakuhachi (a Japanese flute made of bamboo) and other instruments. Linkin Park's second album debuted on March 25, 2003, and instantly earned worldwide recognition, going to No. 1 in the US and UK, and No. 2 in Australia.


title: Linkin Park

text: "Meteora" sold more than 800,000 copies during its first week, and it ranked as the best selling album on the Billboard charts at the time. The album's singles, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Breaking the Habit", "Faint", and "Numb", received significant radio attention. By October 2003, "Meteora" sold nearly three million copies. The album's success allowed Linkin Park to form another Projekt Revolution, which featured other bands and artists including Mudvayne, Blindside, and Xzibit. Additionally, Metallica invited Linkin Park to play at the Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003, which included well-known acts such as Limp Bizkit, Mudvayne and Deftones. The band released an album and DVD, titled "Live in Texas", which featured some audio and video tracks from the band's performances in Texas during the tour. In early 2004, Linkin Park started a world tour titled the "Meteora World Tour". Supporting bands on the tour included Hoobastank, P.O.D., Story of the Year and Pia.


title: Linkin Park

text: "Meteora" earned the band multiple awards and honors. The band won the MTV awards for Best Rock Video for "Somewhere I Belong" and the Viewer's Choice Award for "Breaking the Habit". Linkin Park also received significant recognition during the 2004 Radio Music Awards, winning the Artist of the Year and Song of the Year ("Numb") awards. Although "Meteora" was not nearly as successful as "Hybrid Theory", it was the third best selling album in the United States during 2003. The band spent the first few months of 2004 touring around the world, first with the third Projekt Revolution tour, and later several European concerts. At the same time, the band's relationship with Warner Bros. Records was deteriorating rapidly on account of several trust and financial issues. After months of feuding, the band finally negotiated a deal in December 2005.


title: Linkin Park

text: Following "Meteora"'s success, the band worked on many side projects. Bennington appeared on DJ Lethal's "State of the Art" and other work with Dead by Sunrise, while Shinoda did work with Depeche Mode. In 2004, the band began to work with Jay-Z to produce another remix album, titled "Collision Course". The album, which featured intermixed lyrics and background tracks from both artists' previous albums, debuted in November 2004. Shinoda also formed Fort Minor as a side project. With the aid of Jay-Z, Fort Minor released their debut album, "The Rising Tied", to critical acclaim.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park also participated in numerous charitable events, most notably raised money to benefit victims of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and later Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The band donated $75,000 to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in March 2004. They also helped relief efforts for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami victims by staging several charity concerts and setting up an additional fund called Music for Relief. Most notably, however, the band participated at Live 8, a series of charitable benefit concerts set up to raise global awareness. Alongside Jay-Z, the band performed on Live 8's stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a global audience. The band would later be reunited with Jay-Z at the Grammy Award Ceremony 2006, during which they performed "Numb/Encore", en route to winning a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. They were joined on stage by Paul McCartney who added verses from the song "Yesterday". They would later go on to play at the 2006 Summer Sonic music festival, which was hosted by Metallica in Japan.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park returned to the recording studios in 2006 to work on new material. To produce the album, the band chose producer Rick Rubin. Despite initially stating the album would debut sometime in 2006, the album was delayed until 2007. The band had recorded thirty to fifty songs in August 2006, when Shinoda stated the album was halfway completed. Bennington later added that the new album would stray away from their previous nu metal sound. Warner Bros. Records officially announced that the band's third studio album, titled "Minutes to Midnight", would be released on May 15, 2007, in the United States. After spending fourteen months working on the album, the band members opted to further refine their album by removing five of the original seventeen tracks. The album's title, a reference to the Doomsday Clock, foreshadowed the band's new lyrical themes. "Minutes to Midnight" sold over 625,000 copies in its first week, making it one of the most successful debut week albums in recent years. The album also took the top spot on the Billboard Charts.


title: Linkin Park

text: The album's first single, "What I've Done", was released on April 2, and premiered on MTV and Fuse within the same week. The single was acclaimed by listeners, becoming the top-ranked song on the Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts. The song is also used in soundtrack for the 2007 action film, "Transformers". Mike Shinoda was also featured on the Styles of Beyond song "Second to None", which was also included in the film. Later in the year, the band won the "Favorite Alternative Artist" in the American Music Awards. The band also saw success with the rest of the album's singles, "Bleed It Out", "Shadow of the Day", "Given Up", and "Leave Out All the Rest", which were released throughout 2007 and early 2008. The band also collaborated with Busta Rhymes on his single "We Made It", which was released on April 29.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park embarked on a large world tour titled "Minutes to Midnight World Tour". The band promoted the album's release by forming their fourth Projekt Revolution tour in the United States which included many musical acts like My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, HIM, Placebo, and many others. They also played numerous shows in Europe, Asia, and Australia which included a performance at Live Earth Japan on July 7, 2007. and headlining Download Festival in Donington Park, England and Edgefest in Downsview Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The band completed touring on their fourth Projekt Revolution tour before taking up an Arena tour around the United Kingdom, visiting Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester, before finishing on a double night at the O2 arena in London. Bennington stated that Linkin Park plans to release a follow-up album to "Minutes to Midnight". However, he stated the band will first embark on a United States tour to gather inspiration for the album. Linkin Park embarked on another Projekt Revolution tour in 2008. This was the first time a Projekt Revolution tour was held in Europe with three shows in Germany and one in the United Kingdom. A Projekt Revolution tour was also held in the United States which featured Chris Cornell, the Bravery, Ashes Divide, Street Drum Corps and many others. Linkin Park finished the tour with a final show in Texas. Mike Shinoda announced a live CD/DVD titled "", which is a live video recording from the Projekt Revolution gig at the Milton Keynes Bowl on June 29, 2008, which was officially released on November 24, 2008.


title: Linkin Park

text: In May 2009, Linkin Park announced they were working on a fourth studio album, which was planned to be released in 2010. Shinoda told IGN that the new album would be 'genre-busting,' while building off of elements in "Minutes to Midnight". He also mentioned that the album would be more experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge". Bennington also addressed the media to confirm that Rick Rubin would return to produce the new album. The band later revealed the album would be called "A Thousand Suns". While working on the new album, Linkin Park worked with successful film composer Hans Zimmer to produce the score for "". The band released a single for the movie, titled "New Divide". Joe Hahn created a music video for the song, which featured clips from the film. On June 22, Linkin Park played a short set in Westwood Village after the premier of the movie. After completing work for "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", the band returned to the studio to finalize their album.


title: Linkin Park

text: On April 26, the band released an app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, a game called "8-Bit Rebellion!" It featured the band as playable characters, and a new song called "Blackbirds" which was unlockable by beating the game. The song was also later released as an iTunes bonus track on "A Thousand Suns".


title: Linkin Park

text: "A Thousand Suns" was released on September 14. The album's first single, "The Catalyst", was released on August 2. The band promoted their new album by launching a concert tour, which started in Los Angeles on September 7. Linkin Park also relied on MySpace to promote their album, releasing two additional songs, "Waiting for the End" and "Blackout" on September 8. Furthermore, a documentary about the album's production, titled "Meeting of A Thousand Suns", was available for streaming on the band's MySpace page. On August 31, 2010, it was announced that the band would perform the single live for the first time at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010. The venue of the debut live performance of the single was Griffith Observatory, an iconic location used in Hollywood movies. "Waiting for the End" was released as the second single of "A Thousand Suns".


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park reached No.8 in "Billboard" Social 50, a chart of the most active artists on the world's leading social networking sites. In other "Billboard" Year-End charts, the band reached No.92 in the "Top Artists" chart, as well as "A Thousand Suns" reaching No.53 in the Year-End chart of the "Billboard" Top 200 albums and No.7 in the 2010 Year-End Rock Albums, and "The Catalyst" reaching No.40 in the Year-End Rock Songs chart.


title: Linkin Park

text: The band was nominated for six Billboard Awards in 2011 for Top Duo or Group, Best Rock Album for "A Thousand Suns", Top Rock Artist, Top Alternative Artist, Top Alternative Song for "Waiting for the End" and Top Alternative Album for "A Thousand Suns", but did not win any award. The band charted in numerous "Billboard" Year-End charts in 2011. The band was No.39 in the Top Artists Chart, No.84 in the "Billboard" 200 Artists chart, No.11 in the Social 50 Chart, No.6 in the Top Rock Artists Chart, No.9 in the Rock Songs Artists Chart, No.16 in the Rock Albums Chart, No.4 in the Hard Rock Albums Chart, and No.7 in the Alternative Songs Chart.


title: Linkin Park

text: In July 2011, Bennington told "Rolling Stone" that Linkin Park aims to produce a new album every eighteen months, and that he would be shocked if a new album did not come out in 2012. He later revealed in another interview in September 2011 that the band was still in the beginning phases of the next album, saying "We just kind of began. We like to keep the creative juices flowing, so we try to keep that going all the time ... we like the direction that we're going in". Later, on March 28, 2012, Shinoda confirmed that the band is filming a music video for "Burn It Down". Joe Hahn directed the video. Shinoda spoke to "Co.Create" about the album's art, saying that it will "blow them [the fans] away ... the average person is not going to be able to look at it and go, I understand that that's completely new, like not just the image but the way they made the image is totally new. So there's going to be that".


title: Linkin Park

text: On April 15, 2012, Shinoda announced that "Living Things" would be the title of Linkin Park's fifth album. Shinoda stated that they chose the title "Living Things" because the album is more about people, personal interactions, and it is far more personal than their previous albums. The band promoted the album on the 2012 edition of the Honda Civic Tour, with co-headliners Incubus. The band performed "Burn It Down" at 2012 Billboard Music Awards. On May 24, the band released the music video for "Burn It Down" and debuted "Lies Greed Misery", another song from "Living Things", on BBC Radio 1. "Powerless", the twelfth and closing track of the album, was featured in the closing credits of the film "".


title: Linkin Park

text: "Living Things" sold over 223,000 copies during its debut week, ranking No. 1 on the US Albums Charts. Linkin Park's single "Castle of Glass" was nominated for 'Best Song in a Game' at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. The band also performed at the award ceremony on December 7, but lost the award to "Cities" by Beck. Linkin Park also played at the Soundwave music festival in Australia, where they shared the stage with Metallica, Paramore, Slayer and Sum 41.


title: Linkin Park

text: On August 10, 2013, the band collaborated with American musician Steve Aoki to record the song "A Light That Never Comes" for Linkin Park's online puzzle-action game "LP Recharge" (short for "Linkin Park Recharge"), which was launched on Facebook and the official "LP Recharge" website on September 12, 2013. On the day of the game's release, Linkin Park made a post on their Facebook explaining that the song used to promote the game would be included on a new remix album, entitled "Recharged", which was released on October 29, 2013, on CD, vinyl, and digital download. Similar to "Reanimation", the album features remixes of ten of the songs from "Living Things", with contributions from other artists, such as Ryu of Styles of Beyond, Pusha T, Datsik, KillSonik, Bun B, Money Mark, and Rick Rubin. The band also worked on the soundtrack for the film "Mall", which was directed by Joe Hahn.


title: Linkin Park

text: In an interview with Fuse, Shinoda confirmed that Linkin Park had begun recording their sixth studio album in May 2013. The band released the first single from their upcoming album, titled, "Guilty All the Same" on March 6, 2014, through Shazam. The single was later released on the following day by Warner Bros. Records and debut at No. 28 on the US Billboard Rock Airplay charts before peaking at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock charts in the following weeks. Shortly after the single's release, the band revealed their sixth album would be titled "The Hunting Party". The album was produced by Shinoda and Delson, who wanted to explore musical elements from "Hybrid Theory" and the band's earlier material. Shinoda commented the album is a "90s style of rock record". He elaborated, "It's a rock record. It's loud and it's rock, but not in the sense of what you've heard before, which is more like '90s hardcore-punk-thrash.' The album includes musical contributions from rapper Rakim, Page Hamilton of Helmet, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, and Daron Malakian of System of a Down. "The Hunting Party" was released on June 13, 2014, in most countries, and later released in the United States on June 17.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park performed at Download Festival on June 14, 2014, where they played their debut album, "Hybrid Theory", in its entirety. Linkin Park headlined Rock am Ring and Rock im Park in 2014, along with Metallica, Kings of Leon, and Iron Maiden. They also headlined with Iron Maiden again at the Greenfield Festival in July. On June 22, Linkin Park made an unscheduled headline appearance at the Vans Warped Tour, where they played with members of Issues, the Devil Wears Prada, A Day To Remember, Yellowcard, Breathe Carolina, Finch, and Machine Gun Kelly. In January 2015, the band embarked on a tour to promote the release of "The Hunting Party", consisting of 17 concerts across the United States and Canada. The tour was canceled after only three concerts when Bennington injured his ankle. On May 9, Linkin Park performed at the first edition of Rock in Rio USA, in direct support for Metallica.


title: Linkin Park

text: On November 9, 2014, MTV Europe named Linkin Park the "Best Rock" act of 2014 at their annual music awards ceremony. The band won the 'Best Rock Band' and 'Best Live Act' titles of 2014 on Loudwire's Music Awards. "Revolver" ranked "The Hunting Party" as the fourth best album of 2014. In an interview with AltWire on May 4, Shinoda reflected on "The Hunting Party" and commented on Linkin Park's future, stating; "I'm really happy with the reaction from "The Hunting Party", and I think we're ready to move somewhere new on the next album, which will be coming [in 2016]".


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park collaborated with Steve Aoki on the song "Darker Than Blood" for Aoki's album "Neon Future II", which was released in May 2015. The first preview of the song came during Aoki's performance on February 28, 2015, at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois. The song was debuted on Twitch on April 13 and released on April 14.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park began working on new material for a seventh studio album in November 2015. Chester Bennington commented on the album's direction by stating, "We've got a lot of great material that I hope challenges our fanbase as well as inspires them as much as it has us." In February 2017, Linkin Park released promotional videos on their social network accounts, which featured Shinoda and Bennington preparing new material for the album. Mike Shinoda stated the band was following a new process when producing the album. Brad Delson elaborated: "We've made so many records and we clearly know how to make a record and we definitely didn't take the easy way out this time."


title: Linkin Park

text: The first single from the new album was revealed to be titled "Heavy" and features pop singer Kiiara, the first time the band has featured a female vocalist on an original song for a studio album. The lyrics for the song were co-written by Linkin Park with Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter. The single was released for download on February 16. As they have done in the past, Linkin Park had cryptic messages online in relation to the new album. The album cover was revealed through digital puzzles across social media; the cover features six kids playing in the ocean. The band's seventh album, "One More Light", was released on May 19, 2017.


title: Linkin Park

text: Bennington died on July 20, 2017; his death was ruled a suicide by hanging. Shinoda confirmed Bennington's death on Twitter, writing, "Shocked and heartbroken, but it's true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one". The band had released a music video for their single "Talking to Myself" earlier that day. One day after Bennington's death, the band canceled the North American leg of their One More Light World Tour. On the morning of July 24, Linkin Park released an official statement on their website as a tribute to Bennington. On July 28, Shinoda announced that donations made to the band's Music for Relief charity would be redirected to the One More Light Fund, which had been set up in Bennington's memory. On August 4, when the band was initially scheduled to play on "Good Morning America", Chris Cornell's twelve-year-old daughter Toni appeared with OneRepublic to perform "Hallelujah" as a tribute to Bennington (who was the godfather to her younger brother, Christopher) and her father. Bennington had previously performed the song at the funeral for Cornell, who had also died from a suicide by hanging two months earlier.


title: Linkin Park

text: On August 22, Linkin Park announced plans to host a tribute concert in Los Angeles to honor Bennington. The band thanked fans for their support, stating, "The five of us are so grateful for all of your support as we heal and build the future of Linkin Park". The band later confirmed that the concert, titled , would take place on October 27 at the Hollywood Bowl. The event included Linkin Park's first performance following Bennington's death. The event featured multiple guests performing Linkin Park songs along with the band. The event was over three hours long and was streamed live via YouTube. It has been streamed 22.7 million times as of September 2022.


title: Linkin Park

text: In November 2017, the band announced that a live album compiled from their final tour with Bennington, titled "One More Light Live", would be released on December 15. On November 19, Linkin Park received an American Music Award for Favorite Alternative Artist and dedicated the award to Bennington.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park has remained on hiatus since Bennington's death. During an Instagram live chat on December 17, 2017, Shinoda was asked whether Linkin Park would perform with a hologram version of Bennington in the future. He replied, "Can we not do a holographic Chester? I can't even wrap my head around the idea of a holographic Chester. I've actually heard other people outside the band suggest that, and there's absolutely no way. I cannot fuck with that."


title: Linkin Park

text: On January 28, 2018, Shinoda replied to a tweet from a fan inquiring about his future with Linkin Park, writing "I have every intention on continuing with LP, and the guys feel the same. We have a lot of rebuilding to do, and questions to answer, so it'll take time." On March 29, however, Shinoda stated that he was uncertain of Linkin Park's future when being interviewed by "Vulture". On April 17, Linkin Park was nominated for three awards at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, but did not win any of them. The band was presented with The George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement at UCLA on May 18. On February 18, 2019, Shinoda said in an interview that the band is open to the idea of continuing though what form that takes has yet to be decided. Shinoda stated "I know the other guys, they love to be onstage, they love to be in a studio, and so to not do that would be like, I don't know, almost like unhealthy." When asked about the band's future minus Bennington, Shinoda stated, "It's not my goal to look for a new singer. If it does happen, it has to happen naturally. If we find someone that is a great person and good stylistic fit, I could see trying to do some stuff with somebody. I would never want to feel like we are replacing Chester."


title: Linkin Park

text: On April 28, 2020, bassist Dave Farrell revealed the band is working on new music. On August 13, the band released "She Couldn't", a track that was originally recorded in 1999, and it was included on a 20th anniversary edition of their debut album "Hybrid Theory", released on October 9. On January 8, 2021, Linkin Park released a remix of "One Step Closer" by American electronic duo 100 Gecs. The band revealed it was the first of many new remixes inspired by "Reanimation" to come. On October 29, 2021, when asked about the band playing live shows again, Shinoda stated that "Now is not the time [for the band's return]. We don't have the focus on it. We don't have the math worked out. And I don't mean that by financially math, I mean that like emotional and creative math." In April 2022, Shinoda reiterated that the band was not working on a new album, new music, or touring.


title: Linkin Park

text: On January 19, 2010, Linkin Park released a new song titled "Not Alone" as part of a compilation from Music for Relief called "Download to Donate for Haiti" in support of the Haiti Earthquake crisis. On February 10, 2010, Linkin Park released the official music video for the song on their homepage. The single itself was released on October 21, 2011.


title: Linkin Park

text: On January 11, 2011, an updated version of "Download to Donate for Haiti" was launched, called "Download to Donate for Haiti V2.0", with more songs to download. For the updated compilation, the band released Keaton Hashimoto's remix of "The Catalyst" from the "Linkin Park featuring YOU" contest.


title: Linkin Park

text: Shinoda designed two T-shirts, in which the proceeds would go to Music for Relief to help the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disasters. Music for Relief released "Download to Donate: Tsunami Relief Japan", another compilation of songs, in which the proceeds would go to Save the Children. The band released the song titled as "Issho Ni", meaning "we're in this together", on March 22, 2011, via "".


title: Linkin Park

text: In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, Linkin Park played at Club Nokia during the "Music for Relief: Concert for the Philippines" in Los Angeles, and raised donations for victims. The show was broadcast on AXS TV on February 15. Other artists during the show included the Offspring, Bad Religion, Heart, and the Filharmonic.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park combines elements of rock music, hip hop and electronica, and have been categorized as alternative rock, nu metal, rap rock, , , , hard rock, hip hop, rap metal, pop, and industrial rock. Despite being considered nu metal, the band never considered themselves as such.


title: Linkin Park

text: Both "Hybrid Theory" and "Meteora" combine the alternative metal, nu metal, rap rock, rap metal, and alternative rock sound with influences and elements from hip hop, and electronica, utilizing programming and synthesizers. William Ruhlmann from AllMusic regarded it as "a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style," whereas "Rolling Stone" described their song "Breaking the Habit" as "risky, beautiful art".


title: Linkin Park

text: In "Minutes to Midnight" the band experimented with their established sound and drew influences from a wider and more varied range of genres and styles, a process "Los Angeles Times" compares to a stage in U2's work. Only two songs on the album's tracklist feature rap vocals and the majority of the album can be considered alternative rock.


title: Linkin Park

text: The vocal interplay between Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda plays as a major part within Linkin Park's music, with Bennington being the lead vocalist and Shinoda as the rapping vocalist. On Linkin Park's third album, "Minutes to Midnight", Shinoda sings lead vocals on "In Between", "Hands Held High", and on the B-side "No Roads Left". On numerous songs from band's fourth album, "A Thousand Suns", such as the album's singles ("The Catalyst", "Burning in the Skies", "Iridescent"), both Shinoda and Bennington sing. The album has been regarded as a turning point in the band's musical career, having a stronger emphasis on electronica. James Montgomery, of MTV, compared the record to Radiohead's "Kid A", while Jordy Kasko of "Review, Rinse, Repeat" likened the album to both "Kid A" and Pink Floyd's landmark album "The Dark Side of the Moon". Shinoda stated that he and the other band members were deeply influenced by Chuck D and Public Enemy. He elaborated: "Public Enemy were very three-dimensional with their records because although they seemed political, there was a whole lot of other stuff going on in there too. It made me think how three-dimensional I wanted our record to be without imitating them of course, and show where we were at creatively". One of the record's political elements is its samples of notable speeches by American political figures. "A Thousand Suns" was described as trip hop, electronic rock, ambient, alternative rock, industrial rock, experimental rock, rap rock, and progressive rock.


title: Linkin Park

text: Their fifth album, "Living Things", is also an electronic-heavy album, but includes other influences, resulting in a harder sound by comparison. The band returned to a heavier sound compared to their last three albums on "The Hunting Party", which was described as an alternative metal, nu metal, hard rock, rap rock, and rap metal album. Their seventh album, "One More Light," was described as pop, pop rock and electropop.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park's influences include Limp Bizkit, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane's Addiction, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Machines of Loving Grace, Metallica, Refused, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Descendents, Misfits, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, N.W.A, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions, Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, and the Beatles.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. The group's first studio album "Hybrid Theory" is one of the best-selling albums in the US (12 million copies shipped) and worldwide (30 million copies sold). "Billboard" estimates that Linkin Park earned US$5 million between May 2011 and May 2012, making them the 40th-highest-paid musical artist. 11 of the band's singles have reached the number one position on "Billboard" Alternative Songs chart, the second-most for any artist.


title: Linkin Park

text: In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth-greatest band of the music video era and the third-best of the new millennium. "Billboard" ranked Linkin Park No. 19 on the Best Artists of the Decade chart. The band was recently voted as the greatest artist of the 2000s in a Bracket Madness poll on VH1. In 2014, the band was declared as the "Biggest Rock Band in the World Right Now" by "Kerrang!". In 2015, "Kerrang!" gave "In the End" and "Final Masquerade" the top two positions on "Kerrang!"s Rock 100 list.


title: Linkin Park

text: Linkin Park also became the fifteenth most liked page on Facebook, tenth most liked artist, and most liked group followed by the Black Eyed Peas. Linkin Park's "Numb" is the third and "In the End" is the sixth "timeless song" on Spotify. The two songs making Linkin Park the only artist to have two timeless songs in top ten.


title: Linkin Park

text: "Hybrid Theory" by the group was listed in the 2005 edition of the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", It was also ranked at #11 on "Billboard" "Hot 200 Albums of the Decade". In addition the album was included in "Best of 2001" by "Record Collector", "The top 150 Albums of the Generation" by "Rock Sound" and "50 Best Rock Albums of the 2000s" by "Kerrang!". The album "Meteora" was included in "Top 200 Albums of the Decade" by "Billboard" at No. 36. The album sold 20 million copies worldwide. The collaborative EP "Collision Course" with Jay-Z became the second ever EP to top the "Billboard" 200, going on to sell over 300,000 copies in its first week after Alice in Chains' "Jar of Flies" in 1994. The album "Minutes to Midnight", in the United States, had the biggest first week sales of 2007 at the time, with 625,000 albums sold. In Canada, the album sold over 50,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart. Worldwide, the album shipped over 3.3 million copies in its first four weeks of release.


title: Linkin Park

text: "The New York Times" Jon Caramanica commented Linkin Park "brought the collision of hard rock and hip-hop to its commercial and aesthetic peak" at the beginning of the 2000s. Several rock and non-rock artists have cited Linkin Park as an influence, including Of Mice & Men, One OK Rock, Kutless, My Heart to Fear, Ill Niño, Bishop Nehru, Misono, From Ashes to New, Bring Me the Horizon, Coldrain, Red, Girl on Fire, Alt-j, Manafest, Spyair, Hardy, Silentó, 3OH!3, The Prom Kings, I Prevail, Crossfaith, AJ Tracey, Kiiara, the Chainsmokers, Lupe Fiasco, The Devil Wears Prada, Kevin Rudolf, Steve Aoki, Blackbear, Amber Liu, Machine Gun Kelly, Billie Eilish, Starset, Tokio Hotel, the Weeknd, Duki, Stormzy and Imagine Dragons.


title: Linkin Park

text: On August 20, 2020, their 20th anniversary, Linkin Park collaborated with virtual reality rhythm game "Beat Saber" to release 11 maps based on their songs.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl was born in Wales to affluent Norwegian immigrant parents, and spent most of his life in England. He served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He became a fighter pilot and, subsequently, an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. He rose to prominence as a writer in the 1940s with works for children and for adults, and he became one of the world's best-selling authors. His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the British Book Awards' Children's Author of the Year in 1990. Dahl and his work have been criticised for racial stereotypes, misogyny and anti-semitism, the latter contradicted by those who knew him. In 2008, "The Times" placed Dahl 16th on its list of "The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945". In 2021, "Forbes" ranked him the top-earning dead celebrity.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl's short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring villainous adult enemies of the child characters. His children's books champion the kindhearted and feature an underlying warm sentiment. His works for children include "James and the Giant Peach", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "The Witches", "Fantastic Mr Fox", "The BFG", "The Twits", "George's Marvellous Medicine" and "Danny, the Champion of the World". His works for older audiences include the short story collections "Tales of the Unexpected" and "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Roald Dahl was born in 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegians Harald Dahl (1863–1920) and Sofie Magdalene Dahl ("née" Hesselberg) (1885–1967). Dahl's father, a wealthy shipbroker, had immigrated to the UK from Sarpsborg in Norway and settled in Cardiff in the 1880s with his first wife, Frenchwoman Marie Beaurin-Gresser. They had two children together (Ellen Marguerite and Louis) before her death in 1907. His mother immigrated to the UK and married his father in 1911. Dahl was named after Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. His first language was Norwegian, which he spoke at home with his parents and his sisters Astri, Alfhild, and Else. The children were raised in Norway's Lutheran state church, the Church of Norway, and were baptised at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff. His grandmother Ellen Wallace was a descendant of an early 18th-century Scottish immigrant to Norway.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl's sister Astri died from appendicitis at age seven in 1920 when Dahl was three years old, and his father died of pneumonia at age 57 several weeks later. Later that year, his youngest sister, Asta, was born. Upon his death, Harald Dahl left a fortune assessed for probate of £158,917 10s. 0d. (equivalent to £ in ). Dahl's mother decided to remain in Wales instead of returning to Norway to live with relatives, as her husband had wanted their children to be educated in English schools, which he considered the world's best. When he was six years old, Dahl met his idol Beatrix Potter, author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" featuring the mischievous Peter Rabbit, the first licensed fictional character. In 2020 their meeting would be dramatised in the television drama film, "".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl first attended The Cathedral School, Llandaff. At age eight, he and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at the local sweet shop, which was owned by a "mean and loathsome" old woman named Mrs Pratchett. The five boys named their prank the "Great Mouse Plot of 1924". Mrs Pratchett inspired Dahl's creation of the cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull in "Matilda", and a prank, this time in a water jug belonging to Trunchbull, would also appear in the book. Gobstoppers were a favourite sweet among British schoolboys between the two World Wars, and Dahl referred to them in his fictional Everlasting Gobstopper which was featured in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl transferred to St Peter's boarding school in Weston-super-Mare. His parents had wanted him to be educated at an English public school, and this proved to be the nearest because of the regular ferry link across the Bristol Channel. Dahl's time at St Peter's was unpleasant; he was very homesick and wrote to his mother every week but never revealed his unhappiness to her. After her death in 1967, he learned that she had saved every one of his letters; they were broadcast in abridged form as BBC Radio 4's "Book of the Week" in 2016 to mark the centenary of his birth. Dahl wrote about his time at St Peter's in his autobiography "Boy: Tales of Childhood".


title: Roald Dahl

text: From 1929, when he was 13, Dahl attended Repton School in Derbyshire. Dahl disliked the hazing and described an environment of ritual cruelty and status domination, with younger boys having to act as personal servants for older boys, frequently subject to terrible beatings. His biographer Donald Sturrock described these violent experiences in Dahl's early life. Dahl expresses some of these darker experiences in his writings, which is also marked by his hatred of cruelty and corporal punishment.


title: Roald Dahl

text: According to Dahl's autobiography, "Boy: Tales of Childhood", a friend named Michael was viciously caned by headmaster Geoffrey Fisher. Writing in that same book, Dahl reflected: "All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely... I couldn’t get over it. I never have got over it." Fisher was later appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and he crowned Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, the caning took place in May 1933, a year after Fisher had left Repton; the headmaster was in fact J. T. Christie, Fisher's successor as headmaster. Dahl said the incident caused him to "have doubts about religion and even about God".


title: Roald Dahl

text: He was never seen as a particularly talented writer in his school years, with one of his English teachers writing in his school report "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended." Dahl was exceptionally tall, reaching in adult life. He played sports including cricket, football and golf, and was made captain of the squash team. As well as having a passion for literature, he developed an interest in photography and often carried a camera with him.


title: Roald Dahl

text: During his years at Repton, the Cadbury chocolate company occasionally sent boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. Dahl dreamt of inventing a new chocolate bar that would win the praise of Mr Cadbury himself; this inspired him in writing his third children's book, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (1964), and to refer to chocolate in other children's books.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Throughout his childhood and adolescent years, Dahl spent the majority of his summer holidays with his mother's family in Norway. He wrote about many happy memories from those visits in "Boy: Tales of Childhood", such as when he replaced the tobacco in his half-sister's fiancé's pipe with goat droppings. He noted only one unhappy memory of his holidays in Norway: at around the age of eight, he had to have his adenoids removed by a doctor. His childhood and first job selling kerosene in Midsomer Norton and surrounding villages in Somerset are subjects in "Boy: Tales of Childhood".


title: Roald Dahl

text: After finishing his schooling, in August 1934 Dahl crossed the Atlantic on the and hiked through Newfoundland with the Public Schools Exploring Society.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In July 1934, Dahl joined the Shell Petroleum Company. Following two years of training in the United Kingdom, he was assigned first to Mombasa, Kenya, then to Dar es Salaam in the British colony of Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania). Along with the only two other Shell employees in the entire territory, he lived in luxury in the Shell House outside Dar es Salaam, with a cook and personal servants. While out on assignments supplying oil to customers across Tanganyika, he encountered black mamba snakes and lions, among other wildlife.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In August 1939, as the Second World War loomed, the British made plans to round up the hundreds of Germans living in Dar-es-Salaam. Dahl was commissioned as a lieutenant into the King's African Rifles, commanding a platoon of Askari men, indigenous troops who were serving in the colonial army.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an aircraftman with service number 774022. After a car journey from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with sixteen other men, of whom only three survived the war. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, west of Baghdad. Following six months' training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was commissioned as a pilot officer on 24 August 1940, and was judged ready to join a squadron and face the enemy.


title: Roald Dahl

text: He was assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators, the last biplane fighter aircraft used by the RAF. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not receive any specialised training in aerial combat or in flying Gladiators. On 19 September 1940, Dahl was ordered to fly his Gladiator by stages from Abu Sueir (near Ismailia, in Egypt) to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip south of Mersa Matruh. On the final leg, he could not find the airstrip and, running low on fuel and with night approaching, he was forced to attempt a landing in the desert. The undercarriage hit a boulder and the aircraft crashed. Dahl's skull was fractured and his nose was smashed; he was temporarily blinded. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and lost consciousness. He wrote about the crash in his first published work.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersa Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight. He was transported by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. There he fell in and out of love with a nurse, Mary Welland. A RAF inquiry into the crash revealed that the location to which he had been told to fly was completely wrong, and he had mistakenly been sent instead to the no man's land between the Allied and Italian forces.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In February 1941, Dahl was discharged from the hospital and deemed fully fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Squadron had been transferred to the Greek campaign and based at Eleusina, near Athens. The squadron was now equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. Dahl flew a replacement Hurricane across the Mediterranean Sea in April 1941, after seven hours' experience flying Hurricanes. By this stage in the Greek campaign, the RAF had only 18 combat aircraft in Greece: 14 Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheim light bombers. Dahl flew in his first aerial combat on 15 April 1941, while flying alone over the city of Chalcis. He attacked six Junkers Ju 88s that were bombing ships and shot one down. On 16 April in another air battle, he shot down another Ju 88.


title: Roald Dahl

text: On 20 April 1941, Dahl took part in the Battle of Athens, alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle, and Dahl's friend David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German aircraft downed, but because of the confusion of the aerial engagement, none of the pilots knew which aircraft they had shot down. Dahl described it as "an endless blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from every side".


title: Roald Dahl

text: In May, as the Germans were pressing on Athens, Dahl was evacuated to Egypt. His squadron was reassembled in Haifa. From there, Dahl flew sorties every day for a period of four weeks, shooting down a Vichy French Air Force Potez 63 on 8 June and another Ju 88 on 15 June. In a memoir, Dahl recounts in detail an attack by him and his fellow Hurricane pilots on the Vichy-held Rayak airfield. He says that as he and his fellow Hurricane pilots swept in:


title: Roald Dahl

text: . . . low over the field at midday we saw to our astonishment a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember seeing bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over. It was a Sunday morning and the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building. We went round again, but this time we were no longer a surprise and they were ready for us with their ground defences, and I am afraid that our chivalry resulted in damage to several of our Hurricanes, including my own. But we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Despite this somewhat light-hearted account, Dahl also noted that, ultimately, Vichy forces killed four of the nine Hurricane pilots in his squadron. Describing the Vichy forces as "disgusting," he stated that "...thousands of lives were lost, and I for one have never forgiven the Vichy French for the unnecessary slaughter they caused."


title: Roald Dahl

text: When he began to get severe headaches that caused him to black out, he was invalided home to Britain where he stayed with his mother in Buckinghamshire. Though at this time Dahl was only a pilot officer on probation, in September 1941 he was simultaneously confirmed as a pilot officer and promoted to war substantive flying officer.


title: Roald Dahl

text: After being invalided home, Dahl was posted to an RAF training camp in Uxbridge. He attempted to recover his health enough to become an instructor. In late March 1942, while in London, he met the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Major Harold Balfour, at his club. Impressed by Dahl's war record and conversational abilities, Balfour appointed the young man as assistant air attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Initially resistant, Dahl was finally persuaded by Balfour to accept, and took passage on the from Glasgow a few days later. He arrived in Halifax, Canada, on 14 April, after which he took a sleeper train to Montreal.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Coming from war-starved Britain (in what was a wartime period of rationing in the United Kingdom), Dahl was amazed by the wealth of food and amenities to be had in North America. Arriving in Washington a week later, Dahl found he liked the atmosphere of the US capital. He shared a house with another attaché at 1610 34th Street, NW, in Georgetown. But after ten days in his new posting, Dahl strongly disliked it, feeling he had taken on "a most ungodly unimportant job". He later explained, "I'd just come from the war. People were getting killed. I had been flying around, seeing horrible things. Now, almost instantly, I found myself in the middle of a pre-war cocktail party in America."


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl was unimpressed by his office in the British Air Mission, attached to the embassy. He was also unimpressed by the ambassador, Lord Halifax, with whom he sometimes played tennis and whom he described as "a courtly English gentleman". Dahl socialized with Charles E. Marsh, a Texas publisher and oilman, at his house at 2136 R Street, NW, and the Marsh country estate in Virginia. As part of his duties as assistant air attaché, Dahl was to help neutralise the isolationist views still held by many Americans by giving pro-British speeches and discussing his war service; the United States had entered the war only the previous December, following the attack on Pearl Harbor.


title: Roald Dahl

text: At this time Dahl met the noted British novelist C. S. Forester, who was also working to aid the British war effort. Forester worked for the British Ministry of Information and was writing propaganda for the Allied cause, mainly for American consumption. "The Saturday Evening Post" had asked Forester to write a story based on Dahl's flying experiences; Forester asked Dahl to write down some RAF anecdotes so that he could shape them into a story. After Forester read what Dahl had given him, he decided to publish the story exactly as Dahl had written it. He originally titled the article as "A Piece of Cake" but the magazine changed it to "Shot Down Over Libya" to make it sound more dramatic, although Dahl had not been shot down; it was published on 1 August 1942 issue of the "Post". Dahl was promoted to flight lieutenant (war-substantive) in August 1942. Later he worked with such other well-known British officers as Ian Fleming (who later published the popular "James Bond" series) and David Ogilvy, promoting Britain's interests and message in the US and combating the "America First" movement.


title: Roald Dahl

text: This work introduced Dahl to espionage and the activities of the Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, known by the codename "Intrepid". During the war, Dahl supplied intelligence from Washington to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. As Dahl later said: "My job was to try to help Winston to get on with FDR, and tell Winston what was in the old boy's mind." Dahl also supplied intelligence to Stephenson and his organisation, known as British Security Coordination, which was part of MI6. Dahl was once sent back to Britain by British Embassy officials, supposedly for misconduct—"I got booted out by the big boys," he said. Stephenson promptly sent him back to Washington—with a promotion to wing commander rank. Toward the end of the war, Dahl wrote some of the history of the secret organisation; he and Stephenson remained friends for decades after the war.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Upon the war's conclusion, Dahl held the rank of a temporary wing commander (substantive flight lieutenant). Owing to the severity of his injuries from the 1940 accident, he was pronounced unfit for further service and was invalided out of the RAF in August 1946. He left the service with the substantive rank of squadron leader. His record of five aerial victories, qualifying him as a flying ace, has been confirmed by post-war research and cross-referenced in Axis records. It is most likely that he scored more than those victories during 20 April 1941, when 22 German aircraft were shot down.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl married American actress Patricia Neal on 2 July 1953 at Trinity Church in New York City. Their marriage lasted for 30 years and they had five children:


title: Roald Dahl

text: On 5 December 1960, four-month-old Theo Dahl was severely injured when his baby carriage was struck by a taxicab in New York City. For a time, he suffered from hydrocephalus. As a result, his father became involved in the development of what became known as the "Wade-Dahl-Till" (or WDT) valve, a device to improve the shunt used to alleviate the condition. The valve was a collaboration between Dahl, hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade, and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital neurosurgeon Kenneth Till, and was used successfully on almost 3,000 children around the world.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In November 1962, Dahl's daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis, age seven. Her death left Dahl "limp with despair", and feeling guilty about not having been able to do anything for her. Dahl subsequently became a proponent of immunisation—writing "" in 1988 in response to measles cases in the UK—and dedicated his 1982 book "The BFG" to his daughter. After Olivia's death and a meeting with a Church official, Dahl came to view Christianity as a sham. In mourning he had sought spiritual guidance from Geoffrey Fisher, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and was dismayed being told that, although Olivia was in Paradise, her beloved dog Rowley would never join her there. Dahl recalled years later: "I wanted to ask him how he could be so absolutely sure that other creatures did not get the same special treatment as us. I sat there wondering if this great and famous churchman really knew what he was talking about and whether he knew anything at all about God or heaven, and if he didn't, then who in the world did?"


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 1965, his wife Patricia Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with their fifth child, Lucy. Dahl took control of her rehabilitation over the next months; Neal had to re-learn to talk and walk, but she managed to return to her acting career. This period of their lives was dramatised in the film "The Patricia Neal Story" (1981), in which the couple were played by Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 1972 Roald Dahl met Felicity d'Abreu Crosland, niece of Lt.-Col. Francis D'Abreu who was married to Margaret Bowes Lyon, the first cousin of the Queen Mother, while Felicity was working as a set designer on an advert for Maxim coffee with the author's then wife, Patricia Neal. Soon after the pair were introduced, they began an 11-year affair. In 1983 Neal and Dahl divorced and Dahl married Felicity, at Brixton Town Hall, South London. Felicity (known as Liccy) gave up her job and moved into Gipsy House, Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, which had been Dahl's home since 1954.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In the 1986 New Years Honours List, Dahl was offered an appointment to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), but turned it down. He reportedly wanted a knighthood so that his wife would be Lady Dahl. In 2012, Dahl was featured in the list of "The New Elizabethans" to mark the diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A panel of seven academics, journalists and historians named Dahl among the group of people in the UK "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character". In September 2016, his daughter Lucy received the BBC's "Blue Peter" Gold badge in his honour, the first time it has ever been awarded posthumously.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was "A Piece of Cake", on 1 August 1942. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by "The Saturday Evening Post" for US$1,000 () and published under the title "Shot Down Over Libya".


title: Roald Dahl

text: His first children's book was "The Gremlins", published in 1943, about mischievous little creatures that were part of Royal Air Force folklore. The RAF pilots blamed the gremlins for all the problems with the aircraft. The protagonist Gus—an RAF pilot, like Dahl—joins forces with the gremlins against a common enemy, Hitler and the Nazis. While at the British Embassy in Washington, Dahl sent a copy to the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who read it to her grandchildren, and the book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made. Dahl went on to write some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "James and the Giant Peach", "The Witches", "Fantastic Mr Fox", "The BFG", "The Twits" and "George's Marvellous Medicine".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, which often blended humour and innocence with surprising plot twists. The Mystery Writers of America presented Dahl with three Edgar Awards for his work, and many were originally written for American magazines such as "Collier's" ("The Collector's Item" was "Collier's" Star Story of the week for 4 September 1948), "Ladies Home Journal", "Harper's", "Playboy" and "The New Yorker". Works such as "Kiss Kiss" subsequently collected Dahl's stories into anthologies, and gained significant popularity. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories; they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death. His three Edgar Awards were given for: in 1954, the collection "Someone Like You"; in 1959, the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, the episode of "Tales of the Unexpected" based on "Skin".


title: Roald Dahl

text: One of his more famous adult stories, "The Smoker", also known as "Man from the South", was filmed twice as both 1960 and 1985 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", filmed as a 1979 episode of "Tales of the Unexpected", and also adapted into Quentin Tarantino's segment of the film "Four Rooms" (1995). This oft-anthologised classic concerns a man in Jamaica who wagers with visitors in an attempt to claim the fingers from their hands. The original 1960 version in the Hitchcock series stars Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre. Five additional Dahl stories were used in the Hitchcock series. Dahl was credited with teleplay for two episodes, and four of his episodes were directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself, an example of which was "Lamb to the Slaughter" (1958).


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl acquired a traditional Romanichal vardo in the 1960s, and the family used it as a playhouse for his children at home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. He later used the vardo as a writing room, where he wrote "Danny, the Champion of the World" in 1975. Dahl incorporated a Gypsy wagon into the main plot of the book, where the young English boy, Danny, and his father, William (played by Jeremy Irons in the film adaptation) live in a vardo. Many other scenes and characters from Great Missenden are reflected in his work. For example, the village library was the inspiration for Mrs Phelps' library in "Matilda", where the title character devours classic literature by the age of four.


title: Roald Dahl

text: His short story collection "Tales of the Unexpected" was adapted to a successful TV series of the same name, beginning with "Man from the South". When the stock of Dahl's own original stories was exhausted, the series continued by adapting stories written in Dahl's style by other authors, including John Collier and Stanley Ellin. Another collection of short stories, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More", was published in 1977, and the eponymous short story will be adapted into a film in 2023 by director Wes Anderson with Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character Henry Sugar.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Some of Dahl's short stories are supposed to be extracts from the diary of his (fictional) Uncle Oswald, a rich gentleman whose sexual exploits form the subject of these stories. In his novel "My Uncle Oswald", the uncle engages a temptress to seduce 20th century geniuses and royalty with a love potion secretly added to chocolate truffles made by Dahl's favourite chocolate shop, Prestat of Piccadilly, London. "Memories with Food at Gipsy House", written with his wife Felicity and published posthumously in 1991, was a mixture of recipes, family reminiscences and Dahl's musings on favourite subjects such as chocolate, onions and claret.


title: Roald Dahl

text: The last book published in his lifetime, "Esio Trot", released in January 1990, marked a change in style for the author. Unlike other Dahl works (which often feature tyrannical adults and heroic/magical children), it is the story of an old, lonely man trying to make a connection with a woman he has loved from afar. In 1994, the English language audiobook recording of the book was provided by Monty Python member Michael Palin. Screenwriter Richard Curtis adapted it into a 2015 BBC television comedy film, "Roald Dahl's Esio Trot", featuring Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as the couple.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl's children's works are usually told from the point of view of a child. They typically involve adult villains who hate and mistreat children, and feature at least one "good" adult to counteract the villain(s). These stock characters are possibly a reference to the abuse that Dahl stated that he experienced in the boarding schools he attended. Dahl's books see the triumph of the child; children's book critic Amanda Craig said, "He was unequivocal that it is the good, young and kind who triumph over the old, greedy and the wicked." Anna Leskiewicz in "The Telegraph" wrote "It's often suggested that Dahl's lasting appeal is a result of his exceptional talent for wriggling his way into children’s fantasies and fears, and laying them out on the page with anarchic delight. Adult villains are drawn in terrifying detail, before they are exposed as liars and hypocrites, and brought tumbling down with retributive justice, either by a sudden magic or the superior acuity of the children they mistreat."


title: Roald Dahl

text: While his whimsical fantasy stories feature an underlying warm sentiment, they are often juxtaposed with grotesque, darkly comic and sometimes harshly violent scenarios. "The Witches", "George's Marvellous Medicine" and "Matilda" are examples of this formula. "The BFG" follows, with the good giant (the BFG or "Big Friendly Giant") representing the "good adult" archetype and the other giants being the "bad adults". This formula is also somewhat evident in Dahl's film script for "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Class-conscious themes also surface in works such as "Fantastic Mr Fox" and "Danny, the Champion of the World" where the unpleasant wealthy neighbours are outwitted.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl also features characters who are very fat, usually children. Augustus Gloop, Bruce Bogtrotter and Bruno Jenkins are a few of these characters, although an enormous woman named Aunt Sponge features in "James and the Giant Peach" and the nasty farmer Boggis in "Fantastic Mr Fox" is an enormously fat character. All of these characters (with the possible exception of Bruce Bogtrotter) are either villains or simply unpleasant gluttons. They are usually punished for this: Augustus Gloop drinks from Willy Wonka's chocolate river, disregarding the adults who tell him not to, and falls in, getting sucked up a pipe and nearly being turned into fudge. In "Matilda", Bruce Bogtrotter steals cake from the evil headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and is forced to eat a gigantic chocolate cake in front of the school; when he unexpectedly succeeds at this, Trunchbull smashes the empty plate over his head. In "The Witches", Bruno Jenkins is lured by the witches (whose leader is the Grand High Witch) into their convention with the promise of chocolate, before they turn him into a mouse. Aunt Sponge is flattened by a giant peach. When Dahl was a boy his mother used to tell him and his sisters tales about trolls and other mythical Norwegian creatures, and some of his children's books contain references or elements inspired by these stories, such as the giants in "The BFG", the fox family in "Fantastic Mr Fox" and the trolls in "The Minpins".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Receiving the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Dahl encouraged his children and his readers to let their imagination run free. His daughter Lucy stated "his spirit was so large and so big he taught us to believe in magic."


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl was also famous for his inventive, playful use of language, which was a key element to his writing. He invented new words by scribbling down his words before swapping letters around and adopting spoonerisms and malapropisms. The lexicographer Susan Rennie stated that Dahl built his new words on familiar sounds, adding:


title: Roald Dahl

text: A UK television special titled "Roald Dahl's Revolting Rule Book" which was hosted by Richard E. Grant and aired on 22 September 2007, commemorated Dahl's 90th birthday and also celebrated his impact as a children's author in popular culture. It also featured eight main rules he applied on all his children's books:


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 2016, marking the centenary of Dahl's birth, Rennie compiled "The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary" which includes many of his invented words and their meaning. Rennie commented that some of Dahl's words have already escaped his world, for example, "Scrumdiddlyumptious": "Food that is utterly delicious". In his poetry, Dahl gives a humorous re-interpretation of well-known nursery rhymes and fairy tales, parodying the narratives and providing surprise endings in place of the traditional happily-ever-after. Dahl's collection of poems "Revolting Rhymes" is recorded in audiobook form, and narrated by actor Alan Cumming.


title: Roald Dahl

text: For a brief period in the 1960s, Dahl wrote screenplays. Two, the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", were adaptations of novels by Ian Fleming. Dahl also began adapting his own novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which was completed and rewritten by David Seltzer after Dahl failed to meet deadlines, and produced as the film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971). Dahl later disowned the film, saying he was "disappointed" because "he thought it placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie". He was also "infuriated" by the deviations in the plot devised by David Seltzer in his draft of the screenplay. This resulted in his refusal for any more versions of the book to be made in his lifetime, as well as an adaptation for the sequel "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator".


title: Roald Dahl

text: A major part of Dahl's literary influences stemmed from his childhood. In his younger days, he was an avid reader, especially awed by fantastic tales of heroism and triumph. He met his idol, Beatrix Potter, when he was six years old. His other favourite authors included Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Frederick Marryat, and their works made a lasting mark on his life and writing. Joe Sommerlad in "The Independent" writes, "Dahl’s novels are often dark affairs, filled with cruelty, bereavement and Dickensian adults prone to gluttony and sadism. The author clearly felt compelled to warn his young readers about the evils of the world, taking the lesson from earlier fairy tales that they could stand hard truths and would be the stronger for hearing them."


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl was also influenced by Lewis Carroll’s "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The "Drink Me" episode in "Alice" inspired a scene in Dahl's "George's Marvellous Medicine" where a tyrannical grandmother drinks a potion and is blown up to the size of a farmhouse. Finding too many distractions in his house, Dahl remembered the poet Dylan Thomas had found a peaceful shed to write in close to home. Dahl travelled to visit Thomas's hut in Carmarthenshire, Wales in the 1950s and, after taking a look inside, decided to make a replica of it to write in.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl liked ghost stories, and claimed that "Trolls" by Jonas Lie was one of the finest ghost stories ever written. While he was still a youngster, his mother, Sofie Dahl, related traditional Norwegian myths and legends from her native homeland to Dahl and his sisters. Dahl always maintained that his mother and her stories had a strong influence on his writing. In one interview, he mentioned: "She was a great teller of tales. Her memory was prodigious and nothing that ever happened to her in her life was forgotten." When Dahl started writing and publishing his famous books for children, he included a grandmother character in "The Witches", and later said that she was based directly on his own mother as a tribute.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 1961, Dahl hosted and wrote for a science fiction and horror television anthology series called "Way Out", which preceded the "Twilight Zone" series on the CBS network for 14 episodes from March to July. One of the last dramatic network shows shot in New York City, the entire series is available for viewing at The Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles. He also wrote for the satirical BBC comedy programme "That Was the Week That Was", which was hosted by David Frost.


title: Roald Dahl

text: The British television series, "Tales of the Unexpected", originally aired on ITV between 1979 and 1988. The series was released to tie in with Dahl's short story anthology of the same name, which had introduced readers to many motifs that were common in his writing. The series was an anthology of different tales, initially based on Dahl's short stories. The stories were sometimes sinister, sometimes wryly comedic and usually had a twist ending. Dahl introduced on camera all the episodes of the first two series, which bore the full title "Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, at the age of 74 of a rare cancer of the blood, myelodysplastic syndrome, in Oxford, and was buried in the cemetery at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. According to his granddaughter, the family gave him a "sort of Viking funeral". He was buried with his snooker cues, some very good burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw. Today, children continue to leave toys and flowers by his grave.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In November 1996, the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery was opened at the Buckinghamshire County Museum in nearby Aylesbury. The main-belt asteroid 6223 Dahl, discovered by Czech astronomer Antonín Mrkos, was named in his memory in 1996.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 2002, one of Cardiff Bay's modern landmarks, the Oval Basin plaza, was renamed "Roald Dahl Plass". "Plass" is Norwegian for "place" or "square", alluding to the writer's Norwegian roots. There have also been calls from the public for a permanent statue of him to be erected in Cardiff. In 2016, the city celebrated the centenary of Dahl's birth in Llandaff. Welsh Arts organisations, including National Theatre Wales, Wales Millennium Centre and Literature Wales, came together for a series of events, titled Roald Dahl 100, including a Cardiff-wide City of the Unexpected, which marked his legacy.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl's charitable commitments in the fields of neurology, haematology and literacy during his life have been continued by his widow since his death, through Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity, formerly known as the Roald Dahl Foundation. The charity provides care and support to seriously ill children and young people throughout the UK. In June 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in the author's home village Great Missenden was officially opened by Cherie Blair, wife of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl and advance his work in literacy education. Over 50,000 visitors from abroad, mainly from Australia, Japan, the United States and Germany, travel to the village museum every year.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 2008, the UK charity Booktrust and Children's Laureate Michael Rosen inaugurated The Roald Dahl Funny Prize, an annual award to authors of humorous children's fiction. On 14 September 2009 (the day after what would have been Dahl's 93rd birthday) the first blue plaque in his honour was unveiled in Llandaff. Rather than commemorating his place of birth, however, the plaque was erected on the wall of the former sweet shop (and site of "The Great Mouse Plot of 1924") that features in the first part of his autobiography "Boy". It was unveiled by his widow Felicity and son Theo. In 2018, Weston-super-Mare, the town described by Dahl as a "seedy seaside resort", unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to him, on the site of the since-demolished boarding school Dahl attended, St Peter's. The anniversary of Dahl's birthday on 13 September is celebrated as "Roald Dahl Day" in Africa, the United Kingdom and Latin America.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In honour of Dahl, the Royal Gibraltar Post Office issued a set of four stamps in 2010 featuring Quentin Blake's original illustrations for four of the children's books written by Dahl during his long career; "The BFG", "The Twits", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and "Matilda". A set of six commemorative Royal Mail stamps was issued in 2012, featuring Blake's illustrations for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "The Witches", "The Twits", "Matilda", "Fantastic Mr Fox", and "James and the Giant Peach". Dahl's influence has extended beyond literary figures. For instance film director Tim Burton recalled from childhood "the second layer [after Dr. Seuss] of connecting to a writer who gets the idea of the modern fable—and the mixture of light and darkness, and not speaking down to kids, and the kind of politically incorrect humour that kids get. I've always like that, and it's shaped everything I've felt that I've done." Steven Spielberg read "The BFG" to his children when they were young, stating the book celebrates the fact that it's OK to be different as well as to have an active imagination: "It's very important that we preserve the tradition of allowing young children to run free with their imaginations and magic and imagination are the same thing." Actress Scarlett Johansson named "Fantastic Mr Fox" one of the five books that made a difference to her.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Regarded as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century", Dahl was named by "The Times" one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He ranks amongst the world's best-selling fiction authors with sales estimated at over 250 million, and his books have been published in 63 languages. In 2000 Dahl topped the list of Britain's favourite authors. In 2003 four books by Dahl, led by "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" at number 35, ranked among the Top 100 in "The Big Read", a survey of the British public by the BBC to determine the "nation's best-loved novel" of all time. In surveys of UK teachers, parents and students, Dahl is frequently ranked the best children's writer. In a 2006 list for the Royal Society of Literature, "Harry Potter" creator J. K. Rowling named "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" one of her top ten books every child should read. Critics have commented on the similarities between the Dursley family from "Harry Potter" and the nightmarish guardians seen in many of Dahl's books, such as Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker from "James and the Giant Peach", Grandma from "George's Marvellous Medicine", and the Wormwoods from "Matilda". In 2012, "Matilda" was ranked number 30 among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by "School Library Journal", a monthly with primarily US audience. The Top 100 included four books by Dahl, more than any other writer. The American magazine "Time" named three Dahl books in its list of the 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time, more than any other author. Dahl is one of the most borrowed authors in UK libraries.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 2012, Dahl was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life he most admires. In 2016 Dahl's enduring popularity was proved by his ranking in Amazon's the top five best-selling children's authors on the online store over the last year, looking at sales in print and on the Kindle store. In a 2017 UK poll of the greatest authors, songwriters, artists and photographers, Dahl was named the greatest storyteller of all time, ranking ahead of Dickens, Shakespeare, Rowling and Spielberg. In 2017, the airline Norwegian announced Dahl's image would appear on the tail fin one of their Boeing 737-800 aircraft. He is one of the company's six "British tail fin heroes", joining Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, England World Cup winner Bobby Moore, novelist Jane Austen, pioneering pilot Amy Johnson and aviation entrepreneur Freddie Laker.


title: Roald Dahl

text: In September 2021, Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company in a deal worth more than £500 million ($686 million). A film adaptation of "Matilda the Musical" will be released by Netflix and Sony Pictures Releasing in December 2022, and the cast includes Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl reviewed Australian author Tony Clifton's "God Cried", a picture book about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War. The article appeared in the August 1983 issue of the "Literary Review" and was the subject of much media comment and criticism at the time. According to Dahl, until this point in time "a race of people", meaning Jews, had never "switched so rapidly from victims to barbarous murderers." The empathy of all after the Holocaust had turned "into hatred and revulsion." Dahl wrote that Clifton's book would make readers "violently anti-Israeli", with Dahl stating: "I am not anti-Semitic. I am anti-Israel." He asked: "must Israel, like Germany, be brought to her knees before she learns how to behave in this world?" The United States, he said, was "so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions" that "they dare not defy" Israelis.


title: Roald Dahl

text: Following the "Literary Review" article, Dahl told a journalist from the "New Statesman": "There's a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason." In 1990, during an interview with "The Independent", Dahl explained that his issue with Israel began when they invaded Lebanon in 1982: "they killed 22,000 civilians when they bombed Beirut. It was very much hushed up in the newspapers because they are primarily Jewish-owned. I'm certainly anti-Israeli and I've become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides. It's the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do—that's why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel." Responding in 1990 to a journalist from "The Jewish Chronicle", whom he considered rude, he said: "I am an old hand at dealing with you buggers."


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dahl had Jewish friends, including the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, who commented: "I thought he might say anything. Could have been pro-Arab or pro-Jew. There was no consistent line. He was a man who followed whims, which meant he would blow up in one direction, so to speak." Amelia Foster, director of the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, says: "This is again an example of how Dahl refused to take anything seriously, even himself. He was very angry at the Israelis. He had a childish reaction to what was going on in Israel. Dahl wanted to provoke, as he always provoked at dinner. His publisher was a Jew, his agent was a Jew... and he thought nothing but good things of them. He asked me to be his managing director, and I'm Jewish." However, as a result of his views, in 2014 the Royal Mint decided not to produce a coin to commemorate the centenary of Dahl's birth because he was considered to be "associated with antisemitism and not regarded as an author of the highest reputation".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Jeremy Treglown, in his 1994 biography, writes of Dahl's first novel "Sometime Never" (1948): "plentiful revelations about Nazi anti-Semitism and the Holocaust did not discourage him from satirizing 'a little pawnbroker in Hounsditch called Meatbein who, when the wailing started, would rush downstairs to the large safe in which he kept his money, open it and wriggle inside on to the lowest shelf where he lay like a hibernating hedgehog until the all-clear had gone. In a short story entitled "Madame Rosette", the eponymous character is termed "a filthy old Syrian Jewess".


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 2020, Dahl's family published a statement on the official Roald Dahl website apologising for his antisemitism. The statement says "The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements. Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words." The apology was received with appreciation by Jewish groups but some Jewish organizations, such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said that: "For his family and estate to have waited thirty years to make an apology, apparently until lucrative deals were signed with Hollywood, is disappointing and sadly rather more comprehensible."


title: Roald Dahl

text: In 1972, Eleanor Cameron, also a children's book author, published an article in "The Horn Book" criticising "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", stating: "What I object to in "Charlie" is its phony presentation of poverty and its phony humour, which is based on punishment with overtones of sadism". She took issue with the depiction of the Oompa-Loompas as imported African slaves and suggested that teachers look for better literature to use in the classroom. In 1973, Dahl posted a reply, calling Cameron's accusations "insensitive" and "monstrous". The Horn Book published Cameron's response, where she clarified that she intended her article not to be a personal attack on Dahl, but to point out that though the book is a work of fiction, it still influences reality. She again objected to the Oompa-Loompa depiction, writing, "the situation of the Oompa-Loompas is real; it could not be more so, and it is anything but funny". The debate between the two authors sparked much discussion and a number of letters to the editor. A 1991 article by Michael Dirda published in "The Washington Post", echoed Cameron's comments, writing "the Oompa-Loompas... reveal virtually every stereotype about blacks".


title: Roald Dahl

text: Dirda's article discussed many of the other criticisms of Dahl's writing as well, including his alleged misogyny. He wrote ""The Witches" verges on a general misogyny" and Michele Landsberg's 1998 article analyzing the alleged issues in Dahl's work also stated: "Throughout his work, evil, domineering, smelly, fat, ugly women are his favorite villains." Una Malley's 2008 article mentioned Dahl's short story collection "Switch Bitch", calling it "a collection better forgotten, laden with crude and often disturbing sexual fantasy writing". However, Malley argued that there are feminist messages in Dahl's work, even if they may be obscured: ""The Witches" offers up plenty of feminist complexities. The witches themselves are terrifying and vile things, and always women... The book is often viewed as sexist, but that assessment ignores one of the heroines of the story, the child narrator’s grandmother."


title: Colosseum

text: The Colosseum ( ; ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world today, despite its age. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian () in 72 and was completed in 80 AD under his successor and heir, Titus (). Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (). The three emperors that were patrons of the work are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named the Flavian Amphitheatre (; ) by later classicists and archaeologists for its association with their family name (Flavius).


title: Colosseum

text: The Colosseum is built of travertine limestone, tuff (volcanic rock), and brick-faced concrete. It could hold an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators at various points in its history, having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles including animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.


title: Colosseum

text: Although substantially ruined by earthquakes and stone robbers taking "spolia", the Colosseum is still an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome and was listed as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. It is one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions and also has links to the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum. The Colosseum is depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.


title: Colosseum

text: Originally, the building's Latin name was simply the . Though the modern name Flavian Amphitheatre () is often used, there is no evidence it was used in classical antiquity. This name refers to the patronage of the Flavian dynasty, during whose reigns the building was constructed, but the structure is better known as the Colosseum. In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name "Amphitheatrum Caesareum" (with "Caesareum" an adjective pertaining to the title "Caesar"), but this name may have been strictly poetic as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed a Flavian Amphitheatre in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).


title: Colosseum

text: The name "Colosseum" is believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero on the model of the Colossus of Rhodes. The giant bronze sculpture of Nero as a solar deity was moved to its position beside the amphitheatre by the emperor Hadrian (). The word "colosseum" is a neuter Latin noun formed from the adjective "colosseus", meaning "gigantic" or "colossean". By the year 1000 the Latin name "Colosseum" had been coined to refer to the amphitheatre from the nearby "Colossus Solis".


title: Colosseum

text: The spelling was sometimes altered in and "coliseum" are attested from the 12th and 14th centuries respectively. In the 12th century, the structure was recorded as the . In the High Middle Ages, the Flavian amphitheatre is attested as the late 13th-century , and in by the early 16th century, by which time the word could be applied to any amphitheatre. From derived the , in use by the middle of the 15th century and employed by John Capgrave in his "Solace of Pilgrims", in which he remarked: . An English translation by John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, of Antonio de Guevara's biography of Marcus Aurelius () in about 1533 referred to ... Similarly, the , or , are attested as referring first to the amphitheatre in Rome, and then to any amphitheatre (as in 1367). By 1460, an equivalent existed in ; by 1495 had appeared the , and by 1548 the .


title: Colosseum

text: The earliest citation for the name Colosseum in Early Modern English is the 1600 translation, by Philemon Holland, of the "Urbis Romae topographia" of Bartolomeo Marliani, which he used in the preparation of his translation of Livy's Augustan era "Ab Urbe Condita Libri". The text states: "This Amphitheatre was commonly called Colosseum, of Neroes Colossus, which was set up in the porch of Neroes house." Similarly, John Evelyn, translating the used by the architectural theorist Roland Fréart de Chambray, wrote "And 'tis indeed a kind of miracle to see that the Colosseum … and innumerable other Structures which seemed to have been built for Eternity, should be at present so ruinous and dilapidated".


title: Colosseum

text: After Nero's suicide and the civil wars of the Year of the Four Emperors, the Colossus of Nero statue was remodeled by the condemned emperor's successors into the likeness of Helios ("Sol") or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. It was then commonly referred to as the "Colossus solis". Nero's head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors. Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. The emperor Constantine the Great remodeled the statue's face as his own.


title: Colosseum

text: In the 8th century, an epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede celebrated the symbolic significance of the statue in a prophecy that is variously quoted: "Quamdiu stat Colisæus, stat et Roma; quando cadet colisæus, cadet et Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus" ("as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome; when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world"). This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus (as in, for instance, Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"). However, at the time that the Pseudo-Bede wrote, the masculine noun "coliseus" was applied to the statue rather than to the amphitheatre.


title: Colosseum

text: The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze. The statue itself was largely forgotten and only its base survives, between the Colosseum and the nearby Temple of Venus and Roma.


title: Colosseum

text: The site chosen was a flat area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran as well as an artificial lake/marsh. By the 2nd century BC the area was densely inhabited. It was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain. He built the grandiose Domus Aurea on the site, in front of which he created an artificial lake surrounded by pavilions, gardens and porticoes. The existing Aqua Claudia aqueduct was extended to supply water to the area and the gigantic bronze Colossus of Nero was set up nearby at the entrance to the Domus Aurea. Although the Colossus was preserved, much of the Domus Aurea was torn down. The lake was filled in and the land reused as the location for the new Flavian Amphitheatre. Gladiatorial schools and other support buildings were constructed nearby within the former grounds of the Domus Aurea. Vespasian's decision to build the Colosseum on the site of Nero's lake can be seen as a populist gesture of returning to the people an area of the city which Nero had appropriated for his own use. In contrast to many other amphitheatres, which were on the outskirts of a city, the Colosseum was constructed in the city centre, in effect, placing it both symbolically and precisely at the heart of Rome.