title: Rorschach test

text: "Form" is the most common determinant, and is related to intellectual processes. "Color" responses often provide direct insight into one's emotional life. "Movement" and "shading" have been considered more ambiguously, both in definition and interpretation. Rorschach considered "movement" only as the experiencing of actual motion, while others have widened the scope of this determinant, taking it to mean that the subject sees something "going on".


title: Rorschach test

text: More than one determinant can contribute to the formation of the subject's perception. Fusion of two determinants is taken into account, while also assessing which of the two constituted the primary contributor. For example, ""form"-"color"" implies a more refined control of impulse than ""color"-"form"". It is, indeed, from the relation and balance among determinants that personality can be most readily inferred.


title: Rorschach test

text: A striking characteristic of the Rorschach inkblots is their symmetry. Many unquestionably accept this aspect of the nature of the images but Rorschach, as well as other researchers, certainly did not. Rorschach experimented with both asymmetric and symmetric images before finally opting for the latter.


title: Rorschach test

text: Asymmetric figures are rejected by many subjects; symmetry supplied part of the necessary artistic composition. It has a disadvantage in that it tends to make answers somewhat stereotyped. On the other hand, symmetry makes conditions the same for right and left handed subjects; furthermore, it facilitates interpretation for certain blocked subjects. Finally, symmetry makes possible the interpretation of whole scenes.


title: Rorschach test

text: The impact of symmetry in the Rorschach inkblot's has also been investigated further by other researchers.


title: Rorschach test

text: The "Exner scoring system", also known as the "Rorschach Comprehensive System" (RCS), is the standard method for interpreting the Rorschach test. It was developed in the 1960s by Dr. John E. Exner, as a more rigorous system of analysis. It has been extensively validated and shows high inter-rater reliability.


title: Rorschach test

text: In 1969, Exner published "The Rorschach Systems", a concise description of what would be later called "the Exner system". He later published a study in multiple volumes called "The Rorschach: A Comprehensive system", the most accepted full description of his system.


title: Rorschach test

text: Creation of the new system was prompted by the realization that at least five related, but ultimately different methods were in common use at the time, with a sizeable minority of examiners not employing any recognized method at all, basing instead their judgment on subjective assessment, or arbitrarily mixing characteristics of the various standardized systems.


title: Rorschach test

text: The key components of the Exner system are the clusterization of Rorschach variables and a sequential search strategy to determine the order in which to analyze them, framed in the context of standardized administration, objective, reliable coding and a representative normative database.


title: Rorschach test

text: The system places a lot of emphasis on a cognitive triad of "information processing", related to how the subject processes input data, "cognitive mediation", referring to the way information is transformed and identified, and "ideation".


title: Rorschach test

text: In the system, responses are scored with reference to their level of vagueness or synthesis of multiple images in the blot, the location of the response, which of a variety of determinants is used to produce the response (i.e., what makes the inkblot look like what it is said to resemble), the form quality of the response (to what extent a response is faithful to how the actual inkblot looks), the contents of the response (what the respondent actually sees in the blot), the degree of mental organizing activity that is involved in producing the response, and any illogical, incongruous, or incoherent aspects of responses. It has been reported that popular responses on the first card include bat, badge and coat of arms.


title: Rorschach test

text: Using the scores for these categories, the examiner then performs a series of calculations producing a structural summary of the test data. The results of the structural summary are interpreted using existing research data on personality characteristics that have been demonstrated to be associated with different kinds of responses.


title: Rorschach test

text: With the Rorschach plates (the ten inkblots), the area of each blot which is distinguished by the client is noted and coded—typically as "commonly selected" or "uncommonly selected". There were many different methods for coding the areas of the blots. Exner settled upon the area coding system promoted by S. J. Beck (1944 and 1961). This system was in turn based upon Klopfer's (1942) work.


title: Rorschach test

text: As pertains to response form, a concept of "form quality" was present from the earliest of Rorschach's works, as a subjective judgment of how well the form of the subject's response matched the inkblots (Rorschach would give a higher form score to more "original" yet good form responses), and this concept was followed by other methods, especially in Europe; in contrast, the Exner system solely defines "good form" as a matter of word occurrence frequency, reducing it to a measure of the subject's distance to the population average.


title: Rorschach test

text: Rorschach performance assessment system (R-PAS) is a scoring method created by several members of the Rorschach Research Council. They believed that the Exner scoring system was in need of an update, but after Exner's death, the Exner family forbade any changes to be made to the Comprehensive System. Therefore, they established a new system: the R-PAS. It is an attempt at creating a current, empirically based, and internationally focused scoring system that is easier to use than Exner's Comprehensive System. The R-PAS manual is intended to be a comprehensive tool for administering, scoring, and interpreting the Rorschach. The manual consists of two chapters that are basics of scoring and interpretation, aimed for use for novice Rorschach users, followed by numerous chapters containing more detailed and technical information.


title: Rorschach test

text: In terms of updated scoring, the authors only selected variables that have been empirically supported in the literature. To note, the authors did not create new variables or indices to be coded, but systematically reviewed variables that had been used in past systems. While all of these codes have been used in the past, many have been renamed to be more face valid and readily understood. Scoring of the indices has been updated (e.g. utilizing percentiles and standard scores) to make the Rorschach more in line with other popular personality measures.


title: Rorschach test

text: In addition to providing coding guidelines to score examinee responses, the R-PAS provides a system to code an examinee's behavior during Rorschach administration. These behavioral codes are included as it is believed that the behaviors exhibited during testing are a reflection of someone's task performance and supplements the actual responses given. This allows generalizations to be made between someone's responses to the cards and their actual behavior.


title: Rorschach test

text: The R-PAS also recognized that scoring on many of the Rorschach variables differed across countries. Therefore, starting in 1997, Rorschach protocols from researchers around the world were compiled. After compiling protocols for over a decade, a total of 15 adult samples were used to provide a normative basis for the R-PAS. The protocols represent data gathered in the United States, Europe, Israel, Argentina and Brazil.


title: Rorschach test

text: Comparing North American Exner normative data with data from European and South American subjects showed marked differences in some features, some of which impact important variables, while others (such as the average number of responses) coincide.


title: Rorschach test

text: For instance, texture response is typically zero in European subjects (if interpreted as a need for closeness, in accordance with the system, a European would seem to express it only when it reaches the level of a "craving" for closeness), and there are fewer "good form" responses, to the point where schizophrenia may be suspected if data were correlated to the North American norms.


title: Rorschach test

text: Form is also often the only determinant expressed by European subjects; while color is less frequent than in American subjects, color-form responses are comparatively frequent in opposition to form-color responses; since the latter tend to be interpreted as indicators of a defensive attitude in processing affect, this difference could stem from a higher value attributed to spontaneous expression of emotions.


title: Rorschach test

text: The differences in form quality are attributable to purely cultural aspects: different cultures will exhibit different "common" objects (French subjects often identify a chameleon in card VIII, which is normally classed as an "unusual" response, as opposed to other animals like cats and dogs; in Scandinavia, "Christmas elves" "(nisser)" is a popular response for card II, and "musical instrument" on card VI is popular for Japanese people), and different languages will exhibit semantic differences in naming the same object (the figure of card IV is often called a "troll" by Scandinavians and an "ogre" by French people).


title: Rorschach test

text: Many of Exner's "popular" responses (those given by at least one third of the North American sample used) seem to be universally popular, as shown by samples in Europe, Japan and South America, while specifically card IX's "human" response, the crab or spider in card X and one of either the butterfly or the bat in card I appear to be characteristic of North America.


title: Rorschach test

text: Form quality, popular content responses and locations are the only coded variables in the Exner systems that are based on frequency of occurrence, and thus immediately subject to cultural influences; therefore, cultural-dependent interpretation of test data may not necessarily need to extend beyond these components.


title: Rorschach test

text: The cited language differences can result in misinterpretation if not administered in the subject's native language or a very well mastered second language, and interpreted by a master speaker of that language. For example, a bow tie is a frequent response for the center detail of card III, but since the equivalent term in French translates to "butterfly tie", an examiner not appreciating this language nuance may code the response differently from what is expected.


title: Rorschach test

text: Below are the ten inkblots printed in "Rorschach Test – Psychodiagnostic Plates", together with the most frequent responses for either the whole image or the most prominent details according to various authors.


title: Rorschach test

text: The Rorschach test is used almost exclusively by psychologists. Forensic psychologists use the Rorschach 36% of the time.


title: Rorschach test

text: Another survey found that 124 out of 161 (77%) of clinical psychologists engaging in assessment services utilize the Rorschach, and 80% of psychology graduate programs teach its use.


title: Rorschach test

text: Another study found that its use by clinical psychologists was only 43%, while it was used less than 24% of the time by school psychologists.


title: Rorschach test

text: During World War II, United States Army Medical Corps chief psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley and psychologist Gustave Gilbert administered the Rorschach test to the 22 defendants in the Nazi leadership group prior to the first Nuremberg trials, and the test scores were published some decades later.


title: Rorschach test

text: Because of the large amount of data used to interpret the test, psychologist Zygmunt Piotrowski, began work to computerize ink blot interpretation in the 1950s and 1960s. This work included over 1,000 rules and included no summary nor narrative conclusions. A subsequent computerized interpretation of Rorschach test scores, that included summary and conclusions was developed in the 1970s by psychologists Perline and Cabanski, and marketed internationally. This computerized interpretation of the test was used to interpret the set of scores developed by Dr. Gilbert on Nazi Hermann Goering along with several other Nazis while awaiting trial at Nuremberg Prison.


title: Rorschach test

text: In the 1980s psychologist John Exner developed a computerized interpretation of the Rorschach test, based on his own scoring system, the Exner Comprehensive System. Presently, of the three computerized assessments, only the Exner system is available on the market.


title: Rorschach test

text: The arguments for or against computerized assessment of the Rorschach is likely to remain unresolved for some time, as there is no absolute correct interpretation against which the different markers (scores) denoting mental health can be compared. Although scores for a theoretically typical healthy adult have been proposed and reasonable attempts to standardize the computer interpretation against these scores have been obtained, more work in this area needs to be done.


title: Rorschach test

text: Many psychologists in the United Kingdom do not trust its efficacy and it is rarely used. Although skeptical about its scientific validity, some psychologists use it in therapy and coaching "as a way of encouraging self-reflection and starting a conversation about the person's internal world." It is still used, however, by some mental health organisations such as the Tavistock Clinic. In a survey done in the year 2000, 20% of psychologists in correctional facilities used the Rorschach while 80% used the MMPI.


title: Rorschach test

text: Shortly after publication of Rorschach's book, a copy found its way to Japan where it was discovered by one of the country's leading psychiatrists in a second-hand book store. He was so impressed that he started a craze for the test that has never diminished. The Japanese Rorschach Society is by far the largest in the world and the test is "routinely put to a wide range of purposes". In 2012 the test was described, by presenter Jo Fidgen, for BBC Radio 4's programme "Dr Inkblot", as "more popular than ever" in Japan.


title: Rorschach test

text: Some skeptics consider the Rorschach inkblot test pseudoscience, as several studies suggested that conclusions reached by test administrators since the 1950s were akin to cold reading. In the 1959 edition of "Mental Measurement Yearbook", Lee Cronbach (former President of the Psychometric Society and American Psychological Association) is quoted in a review: "The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on Rorschach interpretations." In addition, major reviewer Raymond J. McCall writes (p. 154): "Though tens of thousands of Rorschach tests have been administered by hundreds of trained professionals since that time (of a previous review), and while many relationships to personality dynamics and behavior have been hypothesized, the vast majority of these relationships "have never been validated empirically", despite the appearance of more than 2,000 publications about the test." A moratorium on its use was called for in 1999.


title: Rorschach test

text: A 2003 report by Wood and colleagues had more mixed views: "More than 50 years of research have confirmed Lee J. Cronbach's (1970) final verdict: that some Rorschach scores, though falling woefully short of the claims made by proponents, nevertheless possess 'validity greater than chance' (p. 636). [...] Its value as a measure of thought disorder in schizophrenia research is well accepted. It is also used regularly in research on dependency, and, less often, in studies on hostility and anxiety. Furthermore, substantial evidence justifies the use of the Rorschach as a clinical measure of intelligence and thought disorder."


title: Rorschach test

text: The basic premise of the test is that objective meaning can be extracted from responses to blots of ink which are supposedly meaningless. Supporters of the Rorschach inkblot test believe that the subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus can provide insight into their thought processes, but it is not clear "how" this occurs. Also, recent research shows that the blots are not entirely meaningless, and that a patient typically responds to meaningful as well as ambiguous aspects of the blots. Reber (1985) describes the blots as merely ".. the vehicle for the interaction .." between client and therapist, concluding: ".. the usefulness of the Rorschach will depend upon the sensitivity, empathy and insightfulness of the tester totally independently of the Rorschach itself. An intense dialogue about the wallpaper or the rug would do as well provided that both parties believe."


title: Rorschach test

text: In the 1960s, research by psychologists Loren and Jean Chapman, at the University of Wisconsin, published in the "Journal of Abnormal Psychology", showed that at least some of the apparent validity of the Rorschach was due to an illusion. At that time, the five signs most often interpreted as diagnostic of homosexuality were 1) buttocks and anuses; 2) feminine clothing; 3) male or female sex organs; 4) human figures without male or female features; and 5) human figures with both male and female features. The Chapmans surveyed 32 experienced testers about their use of the Rorschach to diagnose homosexuality. At this time homosexuality was regarded as a psychopathology, and the Rorschach was the most popular projective test. The testers reported that homosexual men had shown the five signs more frequently than heterosexual men. Despite these beliefs, analysis of the results showed that heterosexual men were just as likely to report these signs, which were therefore totally ineffective for determining homosexuality. The five signs did, however, match the guesses students made about which imagery would be associated with homosexuality.


title: Rorschach test

text: The Chapmans investigated the source of the testers' false confidence. In one experiment, students read through a stack of cards, each with a Rorschach blot, a sign and a pair of "conditions" (which might include homosexuality). The information on the cards was fictional, although subjects were told it came from case studies of real patients. The students reported that the five invalid signs were associated with homosexuality, even though the cards had been constructed so there was no association at all. The Chapmans repeated this experiment with another set of cards, in which the association was negative; the five signs were never reported by homosexuals. The students still reported seeing a strong positive correlation. These experiments showed that the testers' prejudices could result in them "seeing" non-existent relationships in the data. The Chapmans called this phenomenon "illusory correlation" and it has since been demonstrated in many other contexts.


title: Rorschach test

text: A related phenomenon called "invisible correlation" applies when people fail to see a strong association between two events because it does not match their expectations. This was also found in clinicians' interpretations of the Rorschach. Homosexual men are more likely to see a monster on Card IV or a part-animal, part-human figure in Card V. Almost all of the experienced clinicians in the Chapmans' survey missed these valid signs. The Chapmans ran an experiment with fake Rorschach responses in which these valid signs were always associated with homosexuality. The subjects missed these perfect associations and instead reported that invalid signs, such as buttocks or feminine clothing, were better indicators.


title: Rorschach test

text: In 1992, the psychologist Stuart Sutherland argued that these artificial experiments are easier than the real-world use of the Rorschach, and hence they probably underestimated the errors that testers were susceptible to. He described the continuing popularity of the Rorschach after the Chapmans' research as a "glaring example of irrationality among psychologists".


title: Rorschach test

text: Some critics argue that the testing psychologist must also project onto the patterns. A possible example sometimes attributed to the psychologist's subjective judgement is that responses are coded (among many other things), for "Form Quality": in essence, whether the subject's response fits with how the blot actually looks. Superficially this might be considered a subjective judgment, depending on how the examiner has internalized the categories involved. But with the Exner system of scoring, much of the subjectivity is eliminated or reduced by use of frequency tables that indicate how often a particular response is given by the population in general. Another example is that the response "bra" was considered a "sex" response by male psychologists, but a "clothing" response by females.


title: Rorschach test

text: In Exner's system, however, such a response is always coded as "clothing" unless there is a clear sexual reference in the response.


title: Rorschach test

text: Third parties could be used to avoid this problem, but the Rorschach's inter-rater reliability has been questioned. That is, in some studies the scores obtained by two independent scorers do not match with great consistency.


title: Rorschach test

text: When interpreted as a projective test, results are poorly verifiable. The Exner system of scoring (also known as the "Comprehensive System") is meant to address this, and has all but displaced many earlier (and less consistent) scoring systems. It makes heavy use of what factor (shading, color, outline, etc.) of the inkblot leads to each of the tested person's comments. Disagreements about test validity remain: while Exner proposed a rigorous scoring system, latitude remained in the actual interpretation, and the clinician's write-up of the test record is still partly subjective.


title: Rorschach test

text: Reber (1985) comments ".. there is essentially no evidence whatsoever that the test has even a shred of validity."


title: Rorschach test

text: Nevertheless, there is substantial research indicating the utility of the measure for a few scores. Several scores correlate well with general intelligence. One such scale is R, the total number of responses; this reveals the questionable side-effect that more intelligent people tend to be elevated on many pathology scales, since many scales do not correct for high R: if a subject gives twice as many responses overall, it is more likely that some of these will seem "pathological". Also correlated with intelligence are the scales for Organizational Activity, Complexity, Form Quality, and Human Figure responses.


title: Rorschach test

text: The same source reports that validity has also been shown for detecting such conditions as schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; thought disorders; and personality disorders (including borderline personality disorder). There is some evidence that the Deviant Verbalizations scale relates to bipolar disorder. The authors conclude that "Otherwise, the Comprehensive System doesn't appear to bear a consistent relationship to psychological disorders or symptoms, personality characteristics, potential for violence, or such health problems as cancer".


title: Rorschach test

text: It is also thought that the test's reliability can depend substantially on details of the testing procedure, such as where the tester and subject are seated, any introductory words, verbal and nonverbal responses to subjects' questions or comments, and how responses are recorded. Exner has published detailed instructions, but Wood et al. cites many court cases where these had not been followed. Similarly, the procedures for coding responses are fairly well specified but extremely time-consuming leaving them very subject to the author's style and the publisher to the quality of the instructions (such as was noted with one of Bohm's textbooks in the 1950s) as well as clinic workers (which would include examiners) being encouraged to cut corners.


title: Rorschach test

text: United States courts have challenged the Rorschach as well. "Jones v Apfel" (1997) stated (quoting from "Attorney's Textbook of Medicine") that Rorschach "results do not meet the requirements of standardization, reliability, or validity of clinical diagnostic tests, and interpretation thus is often controversial". In "State ex rel H.H." (1999) where under cross-examination Dr. Bogacki stated under oath "many psychologists do not believe much in the validity or effectiveness of the Rorschach test" and "US v Battle" (2001) ruled that the Rorschach "does not have an objective scoring system."


title: Rorschach test

text: Another controversial aspect of the test is its statistical norms. Exner's system was thought to possess normative scores for various populations. But, beginning in the mid-1990s others began to try to replicate or update these norms and failed. In particular, discrepancies seemed to focus on indices measuring narcissism, disordered thinking, and discomfort in close relationships. Lilienfeld and colleagues, who are critical of the Rorschach, have stated that this proves that the Rorschach tends to "overpathologise normals". Although Rorschach proponents, such as Hibbard, suggest that high rates of pathology detected by the Rorschach accurately reflect increasing psychopathology in society, the Rorschach also identifies half of all test-takers as possessing "distorted thinking", a false positive rate unexplained by current research.


title: Rorschach test

text: The accusation of "over-pathologising" has also been considered by Meyer et al. (2007). They presented an international collaborative study of 4704 Rorschach protocols, obtained in 21 different samples, across 17 countries, with only 2% showing significant elevations on the index of perceptual and thinking disorder, 12% elevated on indices of depression and hyper-vigilance and 13% elevated on persistent stress overload—all in line with expected frequencies among non-patient populations.


title: Rorschach test

text: The test is also controversial because of its common use in court-ordered evaluations. This controversy stems, in part, from the limitations of the Rorschach, with no additional data, in making official diagnoses from the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-IV).


title: Rorschach test

text: Irving B. Weiner (co-developer with John Exner of the Comprehensive system) has stated that the Rorschach "is a measure of personality functioning, and it provides information concerning aspects of personality structure and dynamics that make people the kind of people they are. Sometimes such information about personality characteristics is helpful in arriving at a differential diagnosis, if the alternative diagnoses being considered have been well conceptualized with respect to specific or defining personality characteristics".


title: Rorschach test

text: In the vast majority of cases, anyway, the Rorschach test was not singled out but used as one of several in a battery of tests, and despite the criticism of usage of the Rorschach in the courts, out of 8,000 cases in which forensic psychologists used Rorschach-based testimony, the appropriateness of the instrument was challenged only six times, and the testimony was ruled inadmissible in only one of those cases. One study has found that use of the test in courts has increased by three times in the decade between 1996 and 2005, compared to the previous fifty years. Others however have found that its usage by forensic psychologists has decreased.


title: Rorschach test

text: Psychologists object to the publication of psychological test material out of concerns that a patient's test responses will be influenced (""primed"") by previous exposure. The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that, "Publishing the questions and answers to any psychological test compromises its usefulness" and calls for "keeping psychological tests out of the public domain." The same statement quotes their president as saying, "The CPA's concern is not with the publication of the cards and responses to the Rorschach test per se, for which there is some controversy in the psychological literature and disagreement among experts, but with the larger issue of the publication and dissemination of psychological test content".


title: Rorschach test

text: From a legal standpoint, the Rorschach test images have been in the public domain for many years in most countries, particularly those with a copyright term of up to 70 years "post mortem auctoris". They have been in the public domain in Hermann Rorschach's native Switzerland since 1992 (70 years after the author's death, or 50 years after the cut-off date of 1942), according to Swiss copyright law. They are also in the public domain under United States copyright law where all works published before 1923 are considered to be in the public domain. This means that the Rorschach images may be used by anyone for any purpose. William Poundstone was, perhaps, first to make them public in his 1983 book "Big Secrets", where he also described the method of administering the test.


title: Rorschach test

text: The American Psychological Association (APA) has a code of ethics that supports "freedom of inquiry and expression" and helping "the public in developing informed judgments".


title: Rorschach test

text: It claims that its goals include "the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with whom psychologists work", and it requires that psychologists "make reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity and security of test materials". The APA has also raised concerns that the dissemination of test materials might impose "very concrete harm to the general public". It has not taken a position on publication of the Rorschach plates but noted "there are a limited number of standardized psychological tests considered appropriate for a given purpose". A public statement by the British Psychological Society expresses similar concerns about psychological tests (without mentioning any test by name) and considers the "release of [test] materials to unqualified individuals" to be misuse if it is against the wishes of the test publisher.


title: Rorschach test

text: In his 1998 book "Ethics in Psychology", Gerald Koocher notes that some believe "reprinting copies of the Rorschach plates ... and listing common responses represents a serious unethical act" for psychologists and is indicative of "questionable professional judgment".


title: Rorschach test

text: Other professional associations, such as the Italian Association of Strategic Psychotherapy, recommend that even information about the purpose of the test or any detail of its administration should be kept from the public, even though "cheating" the test is held to be practically impossible.


title: Rorschach test

text: On September 9, 2008, Hogrefe attempted to claim copyright over the Rorschach ink blots during filings of a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization against the Brazilian psychologist Ney Limonge. These complaints were denied. Further complaints were sent to two other websites that contained information similar to the Rorschach test in May 2009 by legal firm Schluep and Degen of Switzerland.


title: Rorschach test

text: Psychologists have sometimes refused to disclose tests and test data to courts when asked to do so by the parties, citing ethical reasons; it is argued that such refusals may hinder full understanding of the process by the attorneys, and impede cross-examination of the experts. APA ethical standard 1.23(b) states that the psychologist has a responsibility to document processes in detail and of adequate quality to allow reasonable scrutiny by the court.


title: Rorschach test

text: Controversy ensued in the psychological community in 2009 when the original Rorschach plates and research results on interpretations were published in the "Rorschach test" article on Wikipedia. Hogrefe & Huber Publishing, a German company that sells editions of the plates, called the publication "unbelievably reckless and even cynical of Wikipedia" and said it was investigating the possibility of legal action. Due to this controversy an was temporarily established on Wikipedia to prevent the removal of the plates.


title: Rorschach test

text: James Heilman, an emergency room physician involved in the debate, compared it to the publication of the eye test chart: though people are likewise free to memorize the eye chart before an eye test, its general usefulness as a diagnostic tool for eyesight has not diminished. For those opposed to exposure, publication of the inkblots is described as a "particularly painful development", given the tens of thousands of research papers which have, over many years, "tried to link a patient's responses to certain psychological conditions." Controversy over Wikipedia's publication of the inkblots has resulted in the blots being published in other locations, such as "The Guardian" and "The Globe and Mail". Later that year, in August 2009, two psychologists filed a complaint against Heilman with the Saskatchewan medical licensing board, arguing that his uploading of the images constituted unprofessional behavior. In 2012, two articles were published showing consequences of the publication of the images in Wikipedia. The first one studied negative attitudes towards the test generated during the Wikipedia-Rorschach debate, while the second suggested that reading the Wikipedia article could help to fake "good" results in the test.


title: Rorschach test

text: Publication of the Rorschach images is also welcomed by critics who consider the test to be pseudoscience. Benjamin Radford, editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine, stated that the Rorschach "has remained in use more out of tradition than good evidence" and was hopeful that publication of the test might finally hasten its demise.


title: Rorschach test

text: Australian artist Ben Quilty has used the Rorschach technique in his paintings, by loading impasto oil paint onto a canvas and then pressing a second, unpainted, canvas onto the first, and proceeding to create an artwork from the shape created by this method.


title: Rorschach test

text: The mask of the fictional antihero of the same name in the graphic novel limited series "Watchmen" displays a constantly morphing inkblot based on the designs used in the tests, with the mask's black and white coloring consistent with his sense and view of morality.


title: Rorschach test

text: In 2022, a Malayalam language film titled Rorschach was announced with actor Mammootty in the lead role, inspiring queries and discussion in social media about the test.


title: American Made (film)

text: American Made is a 2017 American action comedy film directed by Doug Liman, written by Gary Spinelli, and starring Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Alejandro Edda, Mauricio Mejía, Caleb Landry Jones, and Jesse Plemons. It is inspired by the life of Barry Seal, a former TWA pilot who flew missions for the CIA, and became a drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s. In order to avoid jail time, Seal became an informant for the DEA.


title: American Made (film)

text: The film was first released in Taiwan on August 18, 2017, and then in the United States on September 29, 2017. It is the first film directed by Liman to be released by Universal Pictures since "The Bourne Identity" in 2002, and played in 2D and IMAX in select theaters. It grossed $134 million worldwide against a budget of around $50 million and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Cruise's performance.


title: American Made (film)

text: In 1978, Baton Rouge pilot Barry Seal, who flies commercial jets for TWA, is recruited by a CIA case officer calling himself Monty Schafer. He asks Seal, who has been smuggling Cuban cigars into the country via Canada, to fly clandestine reconnaissance missions for the CIA over Central America using a small, fast, twin-engine Piper Smith Aerostar 600, outfitted with sophisticated aerial surveillance cameras. Seal tells his wife, Lucy, he's still with TWA.


title: American Made (film)

text: In the 1980s, Schafer asks Seal to start acting as a courier between the CIA and General Noriega in Panama. During a mission, the Medellín Cartel picks Seal up and asks him to fly cocaine on his return flights to the United States. Seal accepts and starts flying the cartel's cocaine to Louisiana, delivering the drugs via airdrop in the countryside instead of landing at an airport. The CIA turns a blind eye to the drug smuggling, but the DEA tracks Seal down. To avoid the authorities, Seal and his family must relocate to the remote town of Mena, Arkansas, and his wife comes to accept the wealth generated by his new life. The small town gradually becomes wealthy as the hub of U.S. cocaine trafficking.


title: American Made (film)

text: Later, Schafer asks Seal to run guns to the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras. Seal realizes that the Contras are not serious about the war and just want to get rich and he starts trading the guns to the cartel. The CIA sets up a Contra training base in Mena and Seal flies the Contras in, but many of them escape as soon as they arrive.


title: American Made (film)

text: Seal makes so much money he buries it in suitcases in the backyard. Seal's freeloading brother-in-law JB moves in, needing a job. Eventually, he starts stealing money from the Seals and is arrested after Sheriff Joe Downing catches him with a briefcase full of laundered cash. With JB out on bail, Seal gives him money and a plane ticket to Bora Bora and tells him to get lost for his safety. JB demands weekly cash and insults Lucy. As Barry chases after him, JB is killed in his car by a bomb placed by the Medellín Cartel, who had previously promised to "take care" of the JB problem.


title: American Made (film)

text: The FBI soon catches wind of the sudden exuberance on the streets of Mena, not helped by JB's reckless spending, and eventually, the CIA shuts the program down and abandons Seal, who is arrested by the FBI, DEA, ATF and Arkansas State Police simultaneously. Seal escapes prosecution by making a deal with the White House, which wants evidence of the Sandinistas being drug traffickers. They ask Seal to get photos that tie the Medellín Cartel to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. Seal manages to get the pictures, but the White House releases them as propaganda against the Sandinistas. Seal is prominently shown in the pictures, which leads to his indictment by the crusading state attorney general, and the cartel plotting revenge.


title: American Made (film)

text: Seal is convicted but sentenced to only 1,000 hours of community service. Moving from motel to motel making video recordings of his experiences, Seal fears an explosion anytime he starts his car. As his community service is performed at the same Salvation Army building every night, Seal cannot hide from the cartel and is shot dead by assassins. The CIA destroys all evidence connecting them to Seal. After Seal is dead, the CIA continues smuggling, instead using Iran to get guns to the Contras, as proposed by Schafer.


title: American Made (film)

text: The film ends with Schafer getting promoted for his idea, though it is soon discovered by the public with reporters asking President Reagan and Vice President Bush about the scandal. Lucy and her kids move back to Baton Rouge, where she is seen contentedly working in fast food. One of her expensive pieces of jewelry is seen on her wrist.


title: American Made (film)

text: In the summer of 2013, screenwriter Gary Spinelli was looking for a project that was based on real events. On the bonus feature of "American Made," Spinelli said:


title: American Made (film)

text: The film was originally titled "Mena" and in 2014 was featured on The Black List, a survey showcasing the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. On January 14, 2015, it was announced that Tom Cruise and "Edge of Tomorrow" Director Doug Liman would reunite for what was originally titled "Mena".


title: American Made (film)

text: Sarah Wright, Jayma Mays and Domhnall Gleeson were added to the cast in April. Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones and Lola Kirke were added to the cast in May 2015.


title: American Made (film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on May 18, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. Filming locations there include counties Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Morgan and Pickens. Filming on the Georgia Unit wrapped on July 12, 2015. On August 20, 2015, Cruise arrived in Medellin, Colombia, and on August 31, in Santa Marta to scout filming locations for the film. Filming in Colombia commenced on August 26, 2015 and wrapped on September 11, 2015. Production on the film resumed February 3, 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana as filming has been suspended due to a plane crash in Colombia that occurred in September 2015. Reshoots occurred in late January 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: American Made (film)

text: A plane crash on the set of the film in Colombia on September 11, 2015, killed two people and caused serious injuries to another member of the crew. The plane (a twin-engine Piper Aerostar), which was carrying crew members (three American pilots), was returning to Enrique Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellín when it ran into bad weather and the crash occurred. The dead were identified as Carlos Berl and Alan Purwin, who was the founder and president of Helinet Aviation, a company which provides aerial surveillance technology to government agencies and law enforcement, and a film pilot who had worked in top films. American pilot Jimmy Lee Garland was seriously injured and rushed to a local hospital.


title: American Made (film)

text: In May 2015, Universal set the film for release on January 6, 2017. On August 8, 2016, the film's release was pushed to September 29, 2017, and its title changed from "Mena" to "American Made". It was released in Europe on August 23, 2017, and in the United States on September 29, 2017, and also screened at the Deauville Film Festival on September 1, 2017.


title: American Made (film)

text: "American Made" grossed $51.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $83.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $134.9 million, against a production budget of $50 million.


title: American Made (film)

text: In North America, "American Made" was released alongside the openings of "Flatliners" and "'Til Death Do Us Part", as well as the wide expansion of "Battle of the Sexes", and was projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,023 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $960,000 from Thursday night previews, the lowest total by a Cruise-led film in recent years, and $6.1 million on its first day. Initially, studio estimates had the film opening to $17 million, finishing third at the box office, behind holdovers "It" ($17.3 million) and "" ($17 million). The following day, actual results had the film debuting to $16.8 million, with "Kingsman" beating out "It" by a gross of $16.93 million to $16.90 million. 91% of its opening weekend audience was over the age of 25. In its second weekend, the film grossed $8.1 million (a drop of 51%), finishing 6th.


title: American Made (film)

text: The film was released in 21 countries on August 25, 2017, and grossed a total of $6.1 million over the weekend. It finished number one in 11 of the territories, including the UK, where it replaced five-time champ "Dunkirk".


title: American Made (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 273 reviews, with an average rating of 6.95/10. The site's critical consensus states, ""American Made"s fast-and-loose attitude with its real-life story mirrors the cavalier – and delightfully watchable – energy Tom Cruise gives off in the leading role." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on reviews from 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 55% "definite recommend".


title: American Made (film)

text: "Variety"s Guy Lodge wrote: "A sweat-slicked, exhausting but glibly entertaining escapade on its own terms, "American Made" is more interesting as a showcase for the dateless elasticity of Cruise's star power. It feels, for better or worse, like a film he could have made at almost any point in the last 30 years."


title: American Made (film)

text: Leslie Felperin of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "This is yet another hyper-competent, boyishly devil-may-care character that offers Cruise, famous for his derring-do on set, a chance to do his own stunts and fly a plane; it's not a role all that far out of the ageing megastar's wheelhouse."


title: American Made (film)

text: Despite the film's suggestion that he was recruited by the CIA while working for TWA, Seal denied in court that he had ever worked for the CIA. Monty Schafer was a fictional character and not based on a real-life CIA agent. A 1996 report by the CIA inspector general acknowledged that the agency had conducted a covert training exercise at the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport with another federal agency, but found no evidence that the agency had been involved in any illegal activities.


title: American Made (film)

text: Seal was fired from TWA in 1974 for falsely claiming medical leave when he was involved in a smuggling scheme. Seal's connections with cartel bosses were also not direct when he was running his drug operations, and he did not meet Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers in person until 1984, when he was working as an informant for the DEA on an undercover operation, following his arrest.


title: American Made (film)

text: His third wife Deborah, whom Lucy was loosely based on, stated that Seal started his drug smuggling business in 1975, not 1980 like the film suggests, and that it was centered around marijuana before it involved cocaine. Seal's DEA record also noted that he expanded to smuggling cocaine in 1978 and claimed that he was smuggling marijuana as early as 1976. Additionally, Seal's ties to the Medellín Cartel did not begin after being kidnapped while refueling his plane in Colombia, but when he met a smuggler who flew for cartel operative Jorge Ochoa during a flight home from Honduras where he served nine months in a local jail after being caught smuggling drugs in 1979.


title: American Made (film)

text: When asked by Abraham Riesman of "Vulture" if the film was a biopic, director Doug Liman said "You know, we're not making a biopic. Tom Cruise doesn't look like Barry Seal. His character is inspired by the stories we learned about Barry." Although Cruise reportedly gained weight for the role, he is only tall, and Seal was an obese man who reportedly weighed . (Barry Seal weighed 300 pounds (140 kg) only later in his life, weight probably taken from a morgue report after his death, there are multiple pictures of him weighing much less)


title: American Made (film)

text: Liman has also acknowledged that the film's zero-gravity love scene was his idea and that he received the inspiration for it after he and Cruise collided in the cockpit while filming a flight scene.


title: American Made (film)

text: Seal was unapologetic about his weapons and drug smuggling operations, even stating once in a television interview, "Whether you call it soldier of fortune or what, it's a way of life for me. I enjoy it and I'm going to keep doing it." He also never crash-landed into a suburban neighborhood. Liman has described the film as "a fun lie based on a true story."


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Tobias Simpson Menzies (born 7 March 1974) is an English stage, television and film actor. He is known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series "The Crown", for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and British Academy Television Award nominations. Menzies also played Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in STARZ's "Outlander," for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in HBO's "Rome" and Edmure Tully in HBO's "Game of Thrones".


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies was born in Hammersmith, London, England, the son of Peter Menzies and Gillian ("née" Simpson). His mother was a teacher and his father a BBC radio producer. He has one younger brother, Luke, who is a solicitor. Menzies attended the Perry Court Rudolf Steiner School in Canterbury, Kent, where he was trained in the Steiner System, which includes movement, singing and instrumental music. Then he attended the Frensham Heights School, near Farnham in Surrey, at the same time as Hattie Morahan and Jim Sturgess.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies attended Deborah Moody's Year Out Drama Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon from 1993 to 1994 before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, eventually graduating with a BA Degree in Acting (1998). Upon completion of his BA, Menzies participated in improvisation workshops through The Spontaneity Shop, a British improvisation comedy company, as part of a graduate scheme through RADA.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies' first professional television role, beginning in 1998, was an eleven-episode stint on BBC's long-running medical drama "Casualty". Then he featured in director David Attwood's made-for-TV film "Summer in the Suburbs" and a series-three episode of ITV's crime drama "Midsomer Murders". In 2002 Menzies portrayed Vince in ITV's romantic comedy series "I Saw You", appeared in three episodes of SAS drama "Ultimate Force" and featured in a series-one episode of WWII drama "Foyle's War". He also appeared in made-for-television film "A Very Social Secretary," directed by Jon Jones, which launched UK Channel 4's spin-off station, More4.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: From 2005 to 2007 Menzies portrayed Marcus Junius Brutus, Julius Caesar's friend and later co-assassin, in the HBO/BBC historical drama series "Rome" (2005–07). He next appeared as William Elliot in ITV's production of Jane Austen's classic "Persuasion" and Derrick Sington in Channel 4's feature-length drama "The Relief of Belsen", which chronicled the British liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp at the end of WWII. In 2008 Menzies starred in two stylistically different mini-series. The first was BBC's anthology mini-series "Fairy Tales", in an episode entitled "The Empress's New Clothes", where he portrayed Aidee. Second was the series finale of BBC's "Bonekickers", which followed a team of British archaeologists as they investigated mysteries and conspiracy theories surrounding historical artifacts. The next year saw Menzies return to episodic television with roles in ITV's legal drama "Kingdom", alongside Stephen Fry, a special episode of BBC's comedy "Pulling" and several episodes of BBC One's spy drama "Spooks".


title: Tobias Menzies

text: "The Deep", BBC's 2010 science fiction-thriller mini-series set on submarines in the deep waters below Arctic ice, saw Menzies co-star alongside Minnie Driver and James Nesbitt. That same year he portrayed real-life Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming in PBS's mini-series "Any Human Heart", an adaptation of William Boyd's 2012 novel, which chronicled historical events through fictional protagonist Logan Mountstuart. He would go on to feature in a series four episode of ITV's "", a British adaptation of Dick Wolf's long-running American procedural franchise. In 2011, Menzies featured as tabloid journalist Ross McGovern in BBC Two's seven part mini-series "The Shadow Line", opposite Stephen Rea and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The next year, in ITV's supernatural courtroom drama "Eternal Law", Menzies portrayed a fallen angel who had become a prosecuting attorney in York, England. He would go on to feature in an episode of BBC Two's political satire "The Thick of It", an episode of Channel 4's political thriller mini-series "Secret State", three episodes of BBC's medical satire "Getting On," and two episodes of BBC's Shakespearean documentary "Simon Schama's Shakespeare".


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In 2013 Menzies first appeared as Edmure Tully, the heir to House Tully of Riverrun, in HBO's "Game of Thrones," which was based upon George R. R. Martin's fantasy book series. The role was recurring, with Menzies' final appearance occurring in the 2019 series finale. That same year, Menzies starred in the series two finale of Channel 4's anthology series "Black Mirror", and a two episode stint on BBC's long-running crime drama "Silent Witness". 2014 saw Menzies portray Maggie Gyllenhaal's bodyguard, Nathaniel Bloom, in the BBC's Emmy nominated mini-series "The Honourable Woman," and Alexander in the series premier of BBC's dog training comedy "Puppy Love." The same year, Menzies first appeared in Starz's time travel drama series, "Outlander," which is based upon author Diana Gabaldon's best-selling series of novels. He portrayed the recurring dual roles of Frank Randall, a 20th-century historian, and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall, his brutal 18th-century ancestor. From 2015 to 2019, Menzies appeared in the recurring role of Dr. Harries, OB/GYN to lead character Sharon, in Amazon's original series "Catastrophe".


title: Tobias Menzies

text: BBC One's adaptation of John le Carré's espionage novel "The Night Manager" saw Menzies, opposite Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, in the role of British intelligence director Geoffrey Dromgoole in the spring of 2016. That same year, he starred in Channel 4's series pilot "The Circuit", a comedy set at a neighborhood dinner party. In 2017, in his first voice over work on television, Menzies portrayed Mandalorian warrior Tiber Saxon on Disney XD's animated series Star Wars Rebels. It was announced in 2016 that Menzies had been cast as James Fitzjames, Captain of the Royal Navy vessel HMS "Erebus", in AMC's anthology series "The Terror". The series, based upon Dan Simmons' 2007 novel of the same name, chronicled a fictionalized account of real-life expeditionary ships HMS "Erebus" and HMS "Terror" during the third Franklin Expedition of the Arctic in 1848. That same year, he appeared as the Duke of Cornwall in BBC Two's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear," opposite Anthony Hopkins and Emily Watson.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In March 2018 it was announced that Menzies had been cast to portray Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in seasons three and four of Netflix's hit series "The Crown" opposite Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II. Menzies was announced, in June 2019, as a cast member for the Channel 4/Hulu original series "This Way Up," a comedy set around the life of an English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) teacher, from actress and writer Aisling Bea. In January 2022, he was set to lead limited drama series "Manhunt" created by Monica Beletsky, based on the book "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer" by James Swanson.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies' first professional film role was 2000's dramatic comedy "The Low Down," opposite Aidan Gillen, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. His next role, in Miramax's 2004 biographical drama "Finding Neverland", saw Menzies feature opposite Johnny Depp's J.M. Barrie, the creator of beloved children's character Peter Pan. The next year, Menzies appeared in the romantic comedy "Piccadilly Jim", opposite Sam Rockwell, and director Adrian Shergold's drama "Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman," opposite Timothy Spall. He also featured in "Casino Royale", Columbia Pictures' 2006 reboot of the James Bond film franchise, as personal aide to M, chief of British secret intelligence agency Mi6.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In 2007, Menzies portrayed a Naval officer on the beaches of Normandy, opposite James McAvoy, in the Academy Award nominated adaptation of Ian McEwan's WWII drama "Atonement". The Rose Theatre, an Elizabethan theatre outside London, produced a short video which was shown in 2009, and featured Menzies in the role of Mephistophilis, in Christopher Marlow's play "Doctor Faustus". He would go on to appear in three films in 2010. The first was Independent Pictures' adaptation of Russian author Anton Chekhov's "The Duel", where he portrayed Von Koren. Second was Swipe Films' production of "Jackboots on Whitehall", an animated film featuring puppets. Menzies, alongside Alan Cumming and Timothy Spall, provided voice work for the comedy spoof, which explored the idea of Nazis invading the United Kingdom at the end of WWII. In his third film of 2010, Menzies starred opposite Genevieve O'Reilly in the drama "Forget Me Not", an independent film which premiered at the Culver Plaza Theater in Culver City, CA. .


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Dramatic comedy "Hysteria (2011)" featured Menzies, opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, in the story of the creation of the first Victorian era vibrator. That same year, he would feature in writer Andrew Steggall's short film "The Door", an official selection at the 28th annual Warsaw International Film Festival, which was based upon the tale "The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells. In 2012, Menzies starred in director Carrie Cracknell's "Nora", a short film inspired by the Young Vic's theatrical production of Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll's House". His next film was 2014's thriller "The Birthday Gift", a short film which was screened at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival that year. Menzies would go on to star in the short film/micro-play "Groove is in the Heart", a collaboration between the Royal Court Theatre and The Guardian which was screened at the London Film Festival, and submarine action film "Black Sea", a modern-day pirate thriller, opposite Jude Law.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: 2016 saw Menzies feature in three films. First was director Benedict Andrews' forbidden relationship drama "Una", which was based upon the play "Blackbird" from Scottish playwright David Harrower, followed by filmmaker James Hughes' experimental film "The Velvet Abstract", which saw Menzies provide narration. Last was "", the fifth installment in the Underworld franchise, with Menzies starring as the main antagonist, Marius, opposite Kate Beckinsale's Selene.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In August 2017, it was announced that Menzies had been cast in director Emily Harris' adaptation of "Carmilla", a fantasy film based upon the Gothic novella of the same name by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies' theatrical debut was in Hristo Boytchev's comedy "The Colonel Bird", which ran at The Gate London in 1999. The next year, he featured in The Royal Exchange's presentation of "The Way of the World", a production of playwright William Cosgreve's 1700s grandiloquent play of manners and Complicite theatre company's "Light", an adaptation of author Torgny Lindgren's novel "Ljuset" (1987). In late 2001, Menzies appeared in Almeida Theatre's production of Anton Checkhov's play "Platonov", an adaptation of the early, unnamed play that was Checkhov's first large scale drama. The next year, he portrayed Valentine in the Royal Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's tragic comedy "Arcadia".


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Between 2003 and 2005, Menzies would co-star in the anti-war drama "Serjeant Musgrave's Dance" at the Everyman Theatre, and would portray the young teacher Irwin in Alan Bennett's "The History Boys", which Nicholas Hytner directed at the Royal National Theatre. Of his role in "The History Boys", one reviewer wrote:


title: Tobias Menzies

text: He would go on to star in Michael Blakemore's West End production of "Three Sisters," for which he was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award, and the title role in Rupert Goold's production of "Hamlet", at the Royal Theatre, Northampton. Of his role in "Hamlet", one reviewer wrote:


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies took on a supporting role in Playhouse Theatre's 2006 presentation of Pirandello's play "As You Desire Me". The next year, he would feature in two productions. First was the role of Peter Trifimov in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, followed by a turn as Harry Bagley in Almeida Theatre's production of Caryl Churchill's politically sexual comedy "Cloud Nine". Late 2008 saw Menzies portray Edgar opposite Pete Postlethwaite in Liverpool Playhouse's production of "King Lear", which continued with a run at London's Young Vic Theatre in early 2009.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In 2011, Menzies featured as Dr. Joseph Cardin, opposite Keira Knightley's Karen Wright, in Lillian Hellman's 1934 drama "The Children's Hour", which focuses on the harmful effects of wrongful accusations and rumors. He would go on that same year to star in director Rupert Goold's "Decade", a play presented through a series of short vignettes penned to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. George Farquhar's 1706 play "The Recruiting Officer", which was based upon the methods used by the British Army to recruit troops during the War of Spanish Succession, saw Menzies star as Captain Plume during the first quarter of 2012. The next year, he would feature in director Carey Cracknell's "Rough Cuts: Searched", at the Royal Court Theatre, and star in National Theatre's experimental play "The Hush", which explored the connection between sound and memory.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Wallace Shawn's monologue play "The Fever", which explored the main character's internal struggle with the morality of a privileged existence, saw Menzies perform to a micro audience at London's decadent May Fair Hotel in early 2015. Director Robert Icke purposely staged the play, produced by Almeida Theatre, at the May Fair Hotel in order to assist the small audience to better internalize its meaning. That same year, he would join an extensive cast for a sixteen-hour production of Homer's "The Iliad", performed throughout the day at the British Museum and concluding at the Almeida Theatre, as well as being broadcast live. Working again with director Robert Icke, 2016 would see Menzies star in a modernised interpretation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" prior to performing dramatic readings of selected sonnets by Shakespeare in Middle Temple Hall's choral programme "The Dark Lady and the Tender Churl." Two years later, Menzies would return to the Almeida in their digital theatre production "Figures of Speech", which highlighted performances of well known historical speeches. He appeared in series three of the project, which has featured artists such as Ian McKellen, Fiona Shaw, and Andrew Scott.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Early 2019 saw Menzies appear in the Gate Theatre's production of Sarah Ruhl's "Dear, Elizabeth". The play, which dramatized letters between American poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, featured two different actors each night of the show's run. Later that year, Menzies starred in Almeida Theatre's production of "The Hunt", which was set in Denmark and adapted from 2012's thriller film "Jagten (The Hunt)." The production ran from mid June to early August 2019. His performance garnered positive reviews, with one saying:


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Menzies' first professional radio performance was 2010's drama "A Nice Little Holiday", the story of British playwright John Osborne's 1961 besieged holiday in the South of France, which aired on BBC Radio 4 in September of that year. The next year, he would read an abridgement of Matthew Hollis' biography of poet and literary critic Edward Thomas, best known for his poem "Adelstrop", on BBC Radio 4's series "Book of the Week". In his third collaboration with BBC Radio 4, Menzies was the voice of "John Charrington's Wedding" (2012), the second episode of a five-part series titled "Ghost Stories of E Nesbit". 2013's three-part radio drama, commissioned by BBC Radio 4, saw Menzies portray British writer and National Trust supporter James Lees-Milne, opposite Victoria Hamilton as novelist Nancy Mitford. The series consisted of three interconnected plays, based upon his WWII era journals, cataloging the decline of the English country house and titled "Sometimes into the Arms of God," "The Unending Battle," and "What England Owes". That same year, he would star in BBC Radio 3's drama "Serious Money", adapted for radio by Emma Harding from Caryl Churchill's play of the same name, and BBC Radio 4's political drama "Every Duchess In England," based upon Parliament's response to England's financial crisis of 1931.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: In 2014, Menzies featured in a five-part series for BBC Radio 4's "Book of the Week" where he read Laurie Lee's "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning," an account of his travels in 1930s Spain, in sections released over a five-day period. He would go on the next year to star as Andy Warhol in Sarah Wooley's BBC Radio 4 drama "Fifteen Minutes," opposite Adrian Rawlins, and a second five-part "Book of the Week" series where he, along with the author, would read British travel writer Robert Macfarlane's celebration of language, "Landmarks". 2016 would see Menzies in another series which combined literary readings and music in an episode of BBC Radio 3's "Words and Music" series entitled "Trapped". The episode explored both physical and mental entrapment with readings, including authors such as George Orwell and Charlotte Brontë, by both Menzies and Kate Phillips. He would also feature in BBC Radio 4's "Comment Is Free," a political and social commentary focusing on a wife, portrayed by Rachael Stirling, who is forced to watch both the public and media eviscerate her husband's story.


title: Tobias Menzies

text: Once again reading for BBC radio 4's series "Book of the Week", Menzies narrated author Philip Hoare's exploration of our fascination with water and the sea in 2017's five-part "RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR."


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The Addams Family is an American macabre/black comedy sitcom based on Charles Addams' "New Yorker" cartoons. The 30-minute television series was responsible for taking the unnamed characters in the single-panel gag cartoons and giving them names, back stories and a household setting. This was spearheaded by David Levy, who created and developed the series with Donald Saltzman in cooperation with cartoonist Addams, who gave each character a name and description for the first time. The series was shot in black-and-white, airing for two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966, for a total of 64 episodes. The show's opening theme was composed and sung by Vic Mizzy.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The show was originally produced by head writer Nat Perrin for Filmways, Inc., at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer now owns the rights to the series.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The Addams Family is a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests and supernatural abilities, though no explanation for their powers is explicitly given in the series. The wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams is madly in love with his refined wife, Morticia. Along with their daughter Wednesday, their son Pugsley, Uncle Fester, and Grandmama, they reside at 0001 Cemetery Lane in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire style mansion. The theme song contains the lyric, "Their house is a museum", which is borne out by the variety of objects in the interior scenes, some of which are collector's items and others of which are only bizarre (such as the mounted swordfish head with a human leg protruding from the mouth and a stuffed two-headed giant tortoise) all props that were stolen once the series was cancelled.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The family is attended by their servants - towering butler Lurch, and Thing, a hand that appears from within wooden boxes and other places. Other relatives who made recurring appearances included Cousin Itt, Morticia's older sister Ophelia, and Morticia's mother Grandma Frump.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: Much of the humor derives from the Addamses' culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even when the guests express confusion, fear, and dismay at the decor of the house and the sight of Lurch and Thing. Some visitors have bad intentions, which the family generally ignores, and suffer no harm. The Addameses are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their own good-natured and (to them) normal behavior. Accordingly, they view "conventional" tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. Almost invariably, visitors to the Addamses' want to leave and never come back.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: These relatives made appearances on the show, but members of the family mentioned other relatives in each of the episodes:


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: Series creator David Levy explained the premise of the show to syndicated columnist Erskine Johnson in August 1964: "We have made [the family] full-bodied people, not monsters ... They are not grotesque and hideous manifestations. At the same time we are protecting the images of [Charles] Addams' 'children', as he refers to them. We are living up to the spirit of his cartoons. He is more than just a cartoonist. He's a social commentator and a great wit." The tone was set by series producer Nat Perrin, who was a close friend of Groucho Marx's and writer of several Marx Brothers films. Perrin created story ideas, directed one episode, and rewrote every script. The series often employed the same type of zany satire and screwball humor seen in the Marx Brothers films, in addition to wordplay, physical comedy, and occasionally slapstick. One running gag labeled people who were not members of the family as "strange" or complained of their behavior. Another one was members of the family trading objects when they collided; in "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor", Gomez ends up with Morticia's knitting and Morticia has his cigar. Other running jokes were about strange food and drink, e.g. toadstools and hemlock; bats, the dungeon, the cemetery, and other "creepy" things; and Gomez's glee at losing money on the stock market. It lampooned politics ("Gomez, the Politician" and "Gomez, the People's Choice"); modern art ("Art and the Addams Family" and Morticia's painting in several episodes); Shakespeare and other literature ("My Fair Cousin Itt", and other episodes); the legal system ("The Addams Family in Court"); royalty ("Morticia Meets Royalty"); rock n' roll and Beatlemania ("Lurch, the Teenage Idol").


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The Hall of Languages building at Syracuse University served as creative inspiration for the Addams Family home.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: "The Addams Family" debuted at the same time as "The Munsters", another black-and-white, macabre-themed family sitcom. To distinguish themselves from the competition, both shows avoided casting guest stars who had appeared on the other series, and John Astin argued in interviews that the two shows are fundamentally different, since the Munsters were physically monsters, but completely normal in every other respect, whereas the Addamses were normal looking, but highly eccentric. Despite this, the general public perceived the two shows as virtually interchangeable, and has continued to do so in the decades since they were both cancelled.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The ABC network originally wanted to save money by using prerecorded library production music for the series, but producer David Levy insisted on hiring Vic Mizzy as composer. The show's theme, written and arranged by longtime Hollywood composer Vic Mizzy, is dominated by a harpsichord and a bass harmonica. Mizzy first improvised the iconic finger snaps when he presented his composition for approval, they worked so well they became part of the percussive accompaniment. Ted Cassidy punctuated the lyrics with the words "neat", "sweet", and "petite". Mizzy's theme was released by RCA Victor as a 45-rpm single, although it failed to chart in the U.S. The song was revived for the 1992 animated series, as well as in 2007 for a series of Addams Family television commercials for M&M's chocolates.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: When "The Addams Family" was first brought to the big screen, the studio was not going to use the theme. Audience tests proved that the appeal was too great to delete it. It was also revisited in the dance scene in "Addams Family Values".


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The closing theme is similar, but is instrumental and features such instruments as a triangle, a woodblock, a siren whistle, and a duck call replacing some of the finger snaps.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: The show has aired worldwide. In the United Kingdom, it aired on ITV from 1965 to 1966, on Channel 4 on Friday evenings from 1984 to 1985, and on Sky 1 from 1991 to 1992. It was aired on BBC Two at 6 pm on Monday nights from February 1992 until the end of 1993, on Saturdays in 1994, and later during school summer holidays before leaving the air at the end of August 1996.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: In October 2011, the series was picked up by Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang and ran from October of that year for Halloween alongside "The Munsters" until Halloween 2013.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: MGM Home Entertainment (distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) has released "The Addams Family" on DVD in Region 1, 2 and 4 in three-volume sets.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: As of April 2019, the series can be purchased on iTunes, and can be streamed in the United States via Amazon Video and IMDb. The minisodes are available on Crackle and Vudu.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: A soundtrack album was released in 1965 containing all of Vic Mizzy's compositions for the series entitled "Original Music From The Addams Family".


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: A reunion TV film, "Halloween with the New Addams Family", aired on NBC in October 1977 and starred all of the original cast, except for Blossom Rock, who was very ill at the time and was replaced as Grandmama by "Phyllis" actress Jane Rose. Elvia Allman portrayed Mother Frump, whom Margaret Hamilton had played in the original series. Veteran character actors Parley Baer and Vito Scotti, who both had recurring roles in the original series, also appeared in the movie. The film also included extended family members created specifically for this production, such as Gomez's brother Pancho (played by Henry Darrow) and two additional children, Wednesday Jr. and Pugsley Jr. The latter two were portrayed as near copies of the original children, now known as Wednesday Sr. and Pugsley Sr., who were once again played respectively by Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax, the original Wednesday and Pugsley in the series. Vic Mizzy rewrote and conducted the series theme as an instrumental.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: In 1972, the third episode of the Saturday morning animated series "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" featured the Addams Family. Astin, Jones, Coogan, and Cassidy all reprised their roles; 11-year-old Jodie Foster provided the voice of Pugsley. This episode was the pilot for the 1973 animated series. Coogan and Cassidy were the only original series cast members who returned for this series. Jodie Foster also returned as the voice of Pugsley. Astin reprised his role as Gomez Addams for the 1992 animated adaptation of the series. Weatherwax and Loring, the only other original cast members still living at the time, did not participate.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: In 1998, a standalone film, "Addams Family Reunion", aired on the Fox Family Channel, followed by the series "The New Addams Family" that ran from 1998 to 2000. Astin appeared in the series as Grandpapa Addams.


title: The Addams Family (1964 TV series)

text: A successful film, "The Addams Family", was released by Paramount Pictures in 1991, starring Raul Julia as Gomez, Anjelica Huston as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd as an amnesiac Uncle Fester, and Christina Ricci as Wednesday. After the film's release, series creator David Levy filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures; the suit was settled out of court. A sequel, "Addams Family Values", followed in 1993, to greater critical success than the first film, though it earned less at the box office.


title: North Pole

text: The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic North Pole.


title: North Pole

text: The North Pole is by definition the northernmost point on the Earth, lying antipodally to the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value. No time zone has been assigned to the North Pole, so any time can be used as the local time. Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about away, though some perhaps semi-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, which is located from the Pole.


title: North Pole

text: While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at by USS "Nautilus" in 1958. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, a group of Russians have also annually established a private base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.


title: North Pole

text: Attempts to reach the North Pole began in the late 19th century, with the record for "Farthest North" being surpassed on numerous occasions. The first undisputed expedition to reach the North Pole was that of the airship "Norge", which overflew the area in 1926 with 16 men on board, including expedition leader Roald Amundsen. Three prior expeditions – led by Frederick Cook (1908, land), Robert Peary (1909, land) and Richard E. Byrd (1926, aerial) – were once also accepted as having reached the Pole. However, in each case later analysis of expedition data has cast doubt upon the accuracy of their claims.


title: North Pole

text: The Earth's axis of rotation – and hence the position of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed (relative to the surface of the Earth) until, in the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the axis might "wobble" slightly. Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent "variation of latitude", as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across the Earth's surface, by a range of a few metres. The wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the eight-month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer. The exact point of intersection of the Earth's axis and the Earth's surface, at any given moment, is called the "instantaneous pole", but because of the "wobble" this cannot be used as a definition of a fixed North Pole (or South Pole) when metre-scale precision is required.


title: North Pole

text: It is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates (latitude, longitude, and elevations or orography) to fixed landforms. However, given plate tectonics and isostasy, there is no system in which all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System.


title: North Pole

text: As early as the 16th century, many prominent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea, which in the 19th century was called the Polynya or Open Polar Sea. It was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, already commonly used in the cold northern latitudes.


title: North Pole

text: One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871, the "Polaris" expedition, a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, ended in disaster. Another British Royal Navy attempt to get to the pole, part of the British Arctic Expedition, by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°20'26" North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. De Long ended tragically when their ship, the , was crushed by ice. Over half the crew, including De Long, were lost.


title: North Pole

text: In April 1895, the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen struck out for the Pole on skis after leaving Nansen's icebound ship "Fram". The pair reached latitude 86°14′ North before they abandoned the attempt and turned southwards, eventually reaching Franz Josef Land.


title: North Pole

text: In 1897, Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée and two companions tried to reach the North Pole in the hydrogen balloon "Örnen" ("Eagle"), but came down north of Kvitøya, the northeasternmost part of the Svalbard archipelago. They trekked to Kvitøya but died there three months after their crash. In 1930 the remains of this expedition were found by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition.


title: North Pole

text: The Italian explorer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi and Captain Umberto Cagni of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) sailed the converted whaler "Stella Polare" ("Pole Star") from Norway in 1899. On 11 March 1900, Cagni led a party over the ice and reached latitude 86° 34’ on 25 April, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by . Cagni barely managed to return to the camp, remaining there until 23 June. On 16 August, the "Stella Polare" left Rudolf Island heading south and the expedition returned to Norway.


title: North Pole

text: The US explorer Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 with two Inuit men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, but he was unable to produce convincing proof and his claim is not widely accepted.


title: North Pole

text: The conquest of the North Pole was for many years credited to US Navy engineer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the Pole on 6 April 1909, accompanied by Matthew Henson and four Inuit men, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah. However, Peary's claim remains highly disputed and controversial. Those who accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey were not trained in [Western] navigation, and thus could not independently confirm his navigational work, which some claim to have been particularly sloppy as he approached the Pole.


title: North Pole

text: The distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point. Peary's account of a journey to the Pole and back while traveling along the direct line – the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints that he was facing – is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid pressure ridges and open leads.


title: North Pole

text: The British explorer Wally Herbert, initially a supporter of Peary, researched Peary's records in 1989 and found that there were significant discrepancies in the explorer's navigational records. He concluded that Peary had not reached the Pole. Support for Peary came again in 2005, however, when British explorer Tom Avery and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and Canadian Eskimo Dog teams, reaching the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours – nearly five hours faster than Peary. However, Avery's fastest 5-day march was , significantly short of the claimed by Peary. Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia. Having now seen for myself how he travelled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole."


title: North Pole

text: The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by US naval officer Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft. Although verified at the time by a committee of the National Geographic Society, this claim has since been undermined by the 1996 revelation that Byrd's long-hidden diary's solar sextant data (which the NGS never checked) consistently contradict his June 1926 report's parallel data by over . The secret report's alleged en-route solar sextant data were inadvertently so impossibly overprecise that he excised all these alleged raw solar observations out of the version of the report finally sent to geographical societies five months later (while the original version was hidden for 70 years), a realization first published in 2000 by the University of Cambridge after scrupulous refereeing.


title: North Pole

text: The first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his US sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship "Norge". "Norge", though Norwegian-owned, was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile. The flight started from Svalbard in Norway, and crossed the Arctic Ocean to Alaska. Nobile, with several scientists and crew from the "Norge", overflew the Pole a second time on 24 May 1928, in the airship "Italia". The "Italia" crashed on its return from the Pole, with the loss of half the crew.


title: North Pole

text: In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole-1, was established by Soviet scientists 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole after the ever first landing of four heavy and one light aircraft onto the ice at the North Pole. The expedition members — oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov, meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, and the leader Ivan Papanin — conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months. By 19 February 1938, when the group was picked up by the ice breakers "Taimyr" and "Murman", their station had drifted 2850 km to the eastern coast of Greenland.


title: North Pole

text: In May 1945 an RAF Lancaster of the "Aries" expedition became the first Commonwealth aircraft to overfly the North Geographic and North Magnetic Poles. The plane was piloted by David Cecil McKinley of the Royal Air Force. It carried an 11-man crew, with Kenneth C. Maclure of the Royal Canadian Air Force in charge of all scientific observations. In 2006, Maclure was honoured with a spot in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.


title: North Pole

text: Discounting Peary's disputed claim, the first men to set foot at the North Pole were a Soviet party including geophysicists Mikhail Ostrekin and Pavel Senko, oceanographers Mikhail Somov and Pavel Gordienko, and other scientists and flight crew (24 people in total) of Aleksandr Kuznetsov's "Sever-2" expedition (March–May 1948). It was organized by the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotelny Island to the North Pole and landed there at 4:44pm (Moscow Time, ) on 23 April 1948. They established a temporary camp and for the next two days conducted scientific observations. On 26 April the expedition flew back to the continent.


title: North Pole

text: Next year, on 9 May 1949 two other Soviet scientists (Vitali Volovich and Andrei Medvedev) became the first people to parachute onto the North Pole. They jumped from a Douglas C-47 Skytrain, registered CCCP H-369.


title: North Pole

text: On 3 May 1952, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and Lieutenant William Pershing Benedict, along with scientist Albert P. Crary, landed a modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain at the North Pole. Some Western sources considered this to be the first landing at the Pole until the Soviet landings became widely known.


title: North Pole

text: The United States Navy submarine "USS Nautilus" (SSN-571) crossed the North Pole on 3 August 1958. On 17 March 1959 "USS Skate" (SSN-578) surfaced at the Pole, breaking through the ice above it, becoming the first naval vessel to do so.


title: North Pole

text: Setting aside Peary's claim, the first confirmed surface conquest of the North Pole was that of Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean Luc Bombardier, who traveled over the ice by snowmobile and arrived on 19 April 1968. The United States Air Force independently confirmed their position.


title: North Pole

text: On 6 April 1969 Wally Herbert and companions Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the British Trans-Arctic Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of dog teams and airdrops). They continued on to complete the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean – and by its longest axis, Barrow, Alaska, to Svalbard – a feat that has never been repeated. Because of suggestions (later proven false) of Plaisted's use of air transport, some sources classify Herbert's expedition as the first confirmed to reach the North Pole over the ice surface by any means. In the 1980s Plaisted's pilots Weldy Phipps and Ken Lee signed affidavits asserting that no such airlift was provided. It is also said that Herbert was the first person to reach the pole of inaccessibility.


title: North Pole

text: On 17 August 1977 the Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker "Arktika" completed the first surface vessel journey to the North Pole.


title: North Pole

text: In 1982 Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton became the first people to cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season. They departed from Cape Crozier, Ellesmere Island, on 17 February 1982 and arrived at the geographic North Pole on 10 April 1982. They travelled on foot and snowmobile. From the Pole, they travelled towards Svalbard but, due to the unstable nature of the ice, ended their crossing at the ice edge after drifting south on an ice floe for 99 days. They were eventually able to walk to their expedition ship "MV Benjamin Bowring" and boarded it on 4 August 1982 at position 80:31N 00:59W. As a result of this journey, which formed a section of the three-year Transglobe Expedition 1979–1982, Fiennes and Burton became the first people to complete a circumnavigation of the world via both North and South Poles, by surface travel alone. This achievement remains unchallenged to this day.


title: North Pole

text: In 1985 Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest) and Neil Armstrong (the first man to stand on the moon) landed at the North Pole in a small twin-engined ski plane. Hillary thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest.


title: North Pole

text: In 1986 Will Steger, with seven teammates, became the first to be confirmed as reaching the Pole by dogsled and without resupply.


title: North Pole

text: USS "Gurnard" (SSN-662) operated in the Arctic Ocean under the polar ice cap from September to November 1984 in company with one of her sister ships, the attack submarine USS "Pintado" (SSN-672). On 12 November 1984 "Gurnard" and "Pintado" became the third pair of submarines to surface together at the North Pole. In March 1990, "Gurnard" deployed to the Arctic region during exercise Ice Ex '90 and completed only the fourth winter submerged transit of the Bering and Seas. "Gurnard" surfaced at the North Pole on 18 April, in the company of the USS "Seahorse" (SSN-669).


title: North Pole

text: On 6 May 1986 USS "Archerfish" (SSN 678), USS "Ray" (SSN 653) and USS "Hawkbill" (SSN-666) surfaced at the North Pole, the first tri-submarine surfacing at the North Pole.


title: North Pole

text: On 21 April 1987 Shinji Kazama of Japan became the first person to reach the North Pole on a motorcycle.


title: North Pole

text: On 18 May 1987 USS "Billfish" (SSN 676), USS "Sea Devil" (SSN 664) and HMS "Superb" (S 109) surfaced at the North Pole, the first international surfacing at the North Pole.


title: North Pole

text: In 1988 a team of 13 (9 Soviets, 4 Canadians) skied across the arctic from Siberia to northern Canada. One of the Canadians, Richard Weber, became the first person to reach the Pole from both sides of the Arctic Ocean.


title: North Pole

text: On April 16, 1990, a German-Swiss expedition led by a team of the University of Giessen reached the Geographic North Pole for studies on pollution of pack ice, snow and air. Samples taken were analyzed in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Canada and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Further stops for sample collections were on multi-year sea ice at 86°N, at Cape Columbia and Ward Hunt Island.


title: North Pole

text: On 4 May 1990 Børge Ousland and Erling Kagge became the first explorers ever to reach the North Pole unsupported, after a 58-day ski trek from Ellesmere Island in Canada, a distance of 800 km.


title: North Pole

text: On 7 September 1991 the German research vessel "Polarstern" and the Swedish icebreaker "Oden" reached the North Pole as the first conventional powered vessels. Both scientific parties and crew took oceanographic and geological samples and had a common tug of war and a football game on an ice floe. "Polarstern" again reached the pole exactly 10 years later, with the "Healy".


title: North Pole

text: In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Lada Niva Marshs (special very large wheeled versions made by BRONTO, Lada/Vaz's experimental product division) were driven to the North Pole. The 1998 expedition was dropped by parachute and completed the track to the North Pole. The 2000 expedition departed from a Russian research base around 114 km from the Pole and claimed an average speed of 20–15 km/h in an average temperature of −30 °C.


title: North Pole

text: Commercial airliner flights on the Polar routes may pass within viewing distance of the North Pole. For example, the flight from Chicago to Beijing may come close as latitude 89° N, though because of prevailing winds return journeys go over the Bering Strait. In recent years journeys to the North Pole by air (landing by helicopter or on a runway prepared on the ice) or by icebreaker have become relatively routine, and are even available to small groups of tourists through adventure holiday companies. Parachute jumps have frequently been made onto the North Pole in recent years. The temporary seasonal Russian camp of Barneo has been established by air a short distance from the Pole annually since 2002, and caters for scientific researchers as well as tourist parties. Trips from the camp to the Pole itself may be arranged overland or by helicopter.


title: North Pole

text: The first attempt at underwater exploration of the North Pole was made on 22 April 1998 by Russian firefighter and diver Andrei Rozhkov with the support of the Diving Club of Moscow State University, but ended in fatality. The next attempted dive at the North Pole was organized the next year by the same diving club, and ended in success on 24 April 1999. The divers were Michael Wolff (Austria), Brett Cormick (UK), and Bob Wass (USA).


title: North Pole

text: In 2005 the United States Navy submarine USS "Charlotte" (SSN-766) surfaced through of ice at the North Pole and spent 18 hours there.


title: North Pole

text: In July 2007 British endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completed a swim at the North Pole. His feat, undertaken to highlight the effects of global warming, took place in clear water that had opened up between the ice floes. His later attempt to paddle a kayak to the North Pole in late 2008, following the erroneous prediction of clear water to the Pole, was stymied when his expedition found itself stuck in thick ice after only three days. The expedition was then abandoned.


title: North Pole

text: By September 2007 the North Pole had been visited 66 times by different surface ships: 54 times by Soviet and Russian icebreakers, 4 times by Swedish "Oden", 3 times by German "Polarstern", 3 times by USCGC "Healy" and USCGC "Polar Sea", and once by CCGS "Louis S. St-Laurent" and by Swedish "Vidar Viking".


title: North Pole

text: On 2 August 2007 a Russian scientific expedition Arktika 2007 made the first ever manned descent to the ocean floor at the North Pole, to a depth of , as part of the research programme in support of Russia's 2001 extended continental shelf claim to a large swathe of the Arctic Ocean floor. The descent took place in two MIR submersibles and was led by Soviet and Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov. In a symbolic act of visitation, the Russian flag was placed on the ocean floor exactly at the Pole.