title: Missy Elliott

text: "The New Yorker" stated that Elliott became the first Black female rapper to reach the mainstream in Middle America. An article from "Vibe" credits Elliott's debut album "Supa Dupa Fly" for "changing the rap game for women", noting the rapper's "refusal to be pigeonholed" with her image, and instead, embraced "the complexities inherent with Black womanhood", with the author commenting that female rappers tend to be placed into one of two categories: androgyny or hyper-sexualization. "The New York Times" and "The Bulletin" have called her the "Queen of the Beats". Jem Aswad of "Variety" commented that Elliott and longtime collaborator Timbaland "reshaped the sound of hip-hop", as they made songs "out of pings and bips and bloops (both vocal and electronic) that quickly became part of the foundation of virtually all that followed." Similarly, Doreen St. Félix of "The New Yorker" wrote that her debut album "expanded the definition of rap" and "defined a new hip-hop aesthetic", with Elliott and Timbaland developing a grammar by "collecting extra-musical noises", "crafting" a new R&B sound, and incorporating a "singsong technique" in her flow. The author noted that, a generation later, the majority of rappers "are also vocalists". For "Los Angeles Times" writer Gerrick D. Kennedy, Elliott "ushered in a new era of creatively ambitious music videos." The aesthetic for the music video for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" inspired several others released afterward. Commercially, Missy Elliott led female hip hop album sales during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Missy Elliott in addition to Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and The Clipse are considered to have an intricate part of establishing Virginia as one of the East Coast's strongholds in hip hop. As of 2015, she has remained the best selling female rap album artist in the US. ABC website editor Gab Burke expressed that Elliott "railed against the male-dominated mainstream rap scene throughout her career, constantly pushed the boundaries, and cemented a place for women in hip hop."


title: Missy Elliott

text: According to "Marie Claire", Elliott has influenced several music acts visually and vocally. Cardi B, Lil Wayne, Lizzo, Tyler, the Creator, Solange Knowles, Chloe Bailey, M.I.A., Janelle Monáe, Anderson .Paak, Rapsody, Ciara, Bree Runway, Doja Cat, Ivy Queen, Ari Lennox, Tayla Parx, Sean Bankhead, ASAP Ferg, Leikeli47, Tierra Whack, Noname, Okenyo, Little Simz, Coda Conduct, Dawn Richard, Banks, Rich the Kid, Crystal Caines, Coi Leray, Lady Leshurr, Stefflon Don, Flo Milli, Krept and Konan, Rye Rye, Le1f, Qveen Herby, Saweetie, and Erica Banks have cited Elliott's work as an inspiration.


title: Missy Elliott

text: Elliott has won four Grammy Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards, two American Music Awards, six BET Awards, and a Billboard Women in Music award for Innovator. On June 13, 2019, Elliott was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming the first female rapper to receive this honor, and the third overall, following Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri. Also in 2019, Elliott received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, and became the first female rapper to receive the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award by MTV.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2018, Elliott received "Essence" magazine's Black Women In Music honor, and in 2019, she was presented with the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Music Pioneer Award at the United Nations. In 2020, Urban One presented her with the Music Innovation Award.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In May 2021, Elliott was among the inaugural inductees for the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame. In November 2021, Elliott was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In December 2022, Elliott received a second honorary doctorate, this time from Norfolk State University, who also helped rename a Portsmouth street after her.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2005, there were plans to make a biographical film about the life story of Elliott. It was to be co-produced by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, and written by Diane Houston. In mid-June 2007, Elliott said she was still working on the script with Houston in order "to come up with the right stuff 'cause I don't want it to be watered down. I want it to be raw and uncut the way my life was." Initially, it seemed Timbaland would not be a part of the movie. When Missy asked him, he refused, believing this dramatized his character; "the movie is about her life, her story, that goes deeper than putting me into the movie".


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2002, Elliott wrote a letter on behalf of PETA to the mayor of her hometown Portsmouth, Virginia, asking that all shelter animals be neutered/spayed before being adopted. For the reality TV show "The Road to Stardom", there was a contest for viewers to create a public service ad for the Break the Cycle fund.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2004, she joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to promote their "Viva Glam" campaign. In addition to the ad campaign, Elliott promoted the MAC Viva Glam V lipstick from which 100% of the sale goes to the MAC AIDS Fund.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In 2007, Elliott appeared on an ABC's "Extreme Makeover" and awarded four scholarships for a weight loss program to four underprivileged teens.


title: Missy Elliott

text: In August 2017, a 27-year-old Virginia man named Nathan Coflin began a Change.org petition that gained over 30,000 signatures in support of a statue to honor Elliott's philanthropic endeavors to be erected in her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia. On the petition's proposed site for this statue a Confederate Monument previously stood. This led to widespread media coverage in several national publications including The Washington Post, HuffPost, Newsweek and "Time Magazine".


title: Missy Elliott

text: In October 2022, a portion of McLean Street in Portsmouth, Virginia was renamed Missy Elliott Boulevard.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd (), formerly Tsaritsyn (; ) (1589–1925), and Stalingrad (; ) (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area of , with a population of slightly over 1 million residents. Volgograd is the sixteenth-largest city by population size in Russia, the second-largest city of the Southern Federal District, and the fourth-largest city on the Volga.


title: Volgograd

text: The city was founded as the fortress of "Tsaritsyn" in 1589. By the nineteenth century, Tsaritsyn had become an important river-port and commercial centre, leading to its population to grow rapidly. In November 1917, at the start of the Russian Civil War, Tsaritsyn came under Bolshevik control. It fell briefly to the White Army in mid-1919 but returned to Bolshevik control in January 1920. In 1925, the city was renamed "Stalingrad" in honor of Joseph Stalin, who then ruled the country. During World War II, Axis forces attacked the city, leading to the Battle of Stalingrad, one of, if not the largest and bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, from which it received the title of Hero City. In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev's administration renamed the city to "Volgograd" as part of de-Stalinization. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the city became the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd today is the site of "The Motherland Calls", an 85-meter high statue dedicated to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, which is the tallest statue in Europe, as well as the tallest statue of a woman in the world. The city has many tourist attractions, such as museums, sandy beaches, and a self-propelled floating church. Volgograd was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


title: Volgograd

text: Tsaritsyn has been linked to Turkic Sāriğšin or *Sāriğsın meaning "Yellow tomb" or Sāriğšın "City of the Yellow (Golden) Throne".


title: Volgograd

text: Although the city may have originated in 1555, documented evidence of "Tsaritsyn" at the confluence of the and Volga rivers dates from 1589. Grigori Zasekin established the fortress "Sary Su" ("yellow water" in the local Tatar language), or "Sary Sin" ("yellow river"), as part of the defenses of the unstable southern border of the Tsardom of Russia. The structure stood slightly above the mouth of the Tsaritsa River on the right bank. It soon became the nucleus of a trading settlement.


title: Volgograd

text: At the beginning of the 17th century, the garrison consisted of 350 to 400 people. In 1607 the fortress garrison rebelled for six months against the troops of Tsar Vasili Shuisky. In the following year saw the construction of the first stone church in the city, dedicated to St. John the Baptist.


title: Volgograd

text: In 1670 troops of Stepan Razin captured the fortress; they left after a month. In 1708 the insurgent Cossack Kondraty Bulavin (died July 1708) held the fortress. In 1717 in the , raiders from the Kuban under the command of the Crimean Tatar blockaded the town and enslaved thousands in the area. In August 1774 Yemelyan Pugachev unsuccessfully attempted to storm the city.


title: Volgograd

text: In 1691 Moscow established a customs-post at Tsaritsyn. In 1708 Tsaritsyn was assigned to the Kazan Governorate; in 1719 to the Astrakhan Governorate. According to the census in 1720, the city had a population of 408 people. In 1773 the settlement was designated as a provincial and district town. From 1779 it belonged to the Saratov Viceroyalty. In 1780 the city came under the newly established Saratov Governorate.


title: Volgograd

text: In the nineteenth century, Tsaritsyn became an important river-port and commercial center. As a result, it also became a hub for migrant workers; in 1895 alone, over 50,000 peasant migrants came to Tsaritsyn in search of work. The population expanded rapidly, increasing from fewer than 3,000 people in 1807 to about 84,000 in 1900. By 1914, the population had again jumped and was estimated at 130,000. Sources show 893 Jews registered as living there in 1897, with the number exceeding 2,000 by the middle of the 1920s. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Tsaritsyn was essentially a frontier town; almost all of the structures were wooden, with neither paved roads nor electricity. The first railway reached the town in 1862. The first theatre opened in 1872, the first cinema in 1907. In 1913 Tsaritsyn got its first tram-line, and the city's first electric lights were installed in the city center.


title: Volgograd

text: Between 1903 and 1907, the area was one of the least healthy in Europe, with a mortality rate of 33.6 for every 1000 persons. Untreated sewage spilled into the river, causing several cholera epidemics between 1907 and 1910. Although the region had an active Sanitary Executive Commission that sent out instructions on the best ways to prevent outbreaks and dispatched a delegate from the Anti-Plague Commission to Tsaritsyn in 1907, local municipal officials did not put any precautions into place, citing economic considerations. The city's drinking water came directly from the river, the intake pipe dangerously close to both the port and the sewage drain. There were neither funds nor political will to close the port (the main hub of economic activity) or move the intake pipes. As a result, in the three years spanning 1908 to 1910, Tsaritsyn lost 1,045 people to cholera. With a population of only 102,452 at the time, that amounts to a staggering 1.01% loss of the population.


title: Volgograd

text: Between 1908 and 1911, Tsaritsyn was home to Sergei Trufanov, also known as the 'mad monk' Iliodor. He spent most of his time causing infighting and power struggles within the Russian Orthodox Church, fomenting anti-semitic zeal and violence in local populations, attacking the press, denouncing local municipal officials and causing unrest wherever he went. The most permanent mark he left on the city was the Holy Spirit Monastery (), built in 1909, parts of which still stand today.


title: Volgograd

text: In light of the explosive population growth, the lack of political action on sanitation and housing, the multiple epidemics and the presence of volatile personalities, it is no surprise that the lower Volga region was a hotbed of revolutionary activity and civil unrest. The inability of the Tsarist government to provide basic protections from cholera on the one hand and subjecting the populace to strict but ineffective health measures on the other, caused multiple riots in 1829, in the 1890's and throughout the first decade of the 1900s, setting the stage for multiple Russian revolutions and adding fuel to the political fire. During the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923, Tsaritsyn came under Soviet control from November 1917. In 1918 White Movement troops under Pyotr Krasnov, the Ataman of the Don Cossack Host, besieged Tsaritsyn. The Reds repulsed three assaults by the Whites. However, in June 1919 the White Armed Forces of South Russia, under the command of General Denikin, captured Tsaritsyn, and held it until January 1920. The fighting from July 1918 to January 1920 became known as the Battle for Tsaritsyn.


title: Volgograd

text: On April 10, 1925, the city was renamed Stalingrad, in honor of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party. This was officially to recognize the city and Stalin's role in its defense against the Whites between 1918 and 1920.


title: Volgograd

text: Once the Soviets established control, ethnic and religious minorities were targeted. The only Jewish school in the area was closed down in 1926. In 1928, a campaign was launched by the Regional Executive Council to close down the synagogue in Stalingrad. Due to local pushback, they were not successful until 1929, when the council convened a Special Commission. The Commission convinced local municipal powers that the building was in need of major repairs, was unsafe and much too small for the over 800 worshippers who regularly showed up for high holidays.


title: Volgograd

text: In 1931, the German settlement-colony Old Sarepta (founded in 1765) became a district of Stalingrad. Renamed "Krasnoarmeysky Rayon" (or "Red Army District"), it was the largest area of the city. The first higher education institute was opened in 1930. A year later, the Stalingrad Industrial Pedagogical Institute, now Volgograd State Pedagogical University, was opened. Under Stalin, the city became a center of heavy industry and transshipment by rail and river.


title: Volgograd

text: During World War II, German and Axis forces attacked the city, and in 1942 it was the site of one of the pivotal battles of the war. The Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest single battle in the history of warfare (casualties estimates vary between 1,250,000 and 1,798,619).


title: Volgograd

text: The battle began on August 23, 1942, and on the same day, the city suffered heavy aerial bombardment that reduced most of it to rubble. Martial law had already been declared in the city on July 14. By September, the fighting reached the city center. The fighting was of unprecedented intensity; the city's central railway station changed hands thirteen times, and the Mamayev Kurgan (one of the highest points of the city) was captured and recaptured eight times.


title: Volgograd

text: By early November, the German forces controlled 90 percent of the city and had cornered the Soviets in two narrow pockets, but they were unable to eliminate the last pockets of Soviet resistance before Soviet forces launched a huge counterattack on November 19. This resulted in the Soviet encirclement of the German Sixth Army and other Axis units. On January 31, 1943 the Sixth Army's commander, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, surrendered, and by February 2, with the elimination of straggling German troops, the Battle of Stalingrad was over.


title: Volgograd

text: In 1945 the Soviet Union awarded Stalingrad the title Hero City for its resistance. Great Britain's King George VI awarded the citizens of Stalingrad the jeweled "Sword of Stalingrad" in recognition of their bravery.


title: Volgograd

text: A number of cities around the world (especially those that had suffered similar wartime devastation) established sister, friendship, and twinning links (see list below) in the spirit of solidarity or reconciliation. One of the first "sister city" projects was that established during World War II between Stalingrad and Coventry in the United Kingdom; both had suffered extensive devastation from aerial bombardment. In March 2022 this twinning link was paused because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Volgograd

text: On 10 November 1961, Nikita Khrushchev's administration changed the name of the city to Volgograd ("Volga City") as part of his programme of de-Stalinization following Stalin's death. This action was and remains somewhat controversial, because Stalingrad has such importance as a symbol of resistance during World War II.


title: Volgograd

text: During Konstantin Chernenko's brief rule in 1984, proposals were floated to revive the city's Stalinist name for that reason. There was a strong degree of local support for a reversion, but the Russian government did not accept such proposals.


title: Volgograd

text: On May 21, 2007, Roman Grebennikov of Communist Party was elected as mayor with 32.47% of the vote, a plurality. Grebennikov became Russia's youngest mayor of a federal subject administrative center at the time.


title: Volgograd

text: In 2010, Russian monarchists and leaders of the Orthodox organizations demanded that the city should take back its original name of Tsaritsyn, but the authorities rejected their proposal.


title: Volgograd

text: On January 30, 2013, the Volgograd City Council passed a measure to use the title "Hero City Stalingrad" in city statements on nine specific dates annually. On the following dates, the title "Hero City Stalingrad" can officially be used in celebrations:


title: Volgograd

text: In addition, 50,000 people signed a petition to Vladimir Putin, asking that the city's name be permanently changed to Stalingrad. President Putin has replied that such a move should be preceded by a local referendum and that the Russian authorities will look into how to bring about such a referendum.


title: Volgograd

text: In 2011, the City Duma canceled direct election of the mayor and confirmed the position of City Manager. This was short-lived, as in March 2012, Volgograd residents voted for relevant amendments to the city charter to reinstate the direct mayoral elections.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd is the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Volgograd—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Volgograd is incorporated as Volgograd Urban Okrug.


title: Volgograd

text: Although the city was on an important trade route for moving timber, grain, cotton, cast iron, fish, salt and linseed oil, the economic reach of the Volga was relatively small. When the first rail lines were linked up to Moscow in 1871, this isolated area was suddenly and efficiently connected to the rest of the empire. Thanks to that connection, the province became a major producer, processor and exporter of grain, supplying most of Russia. By the 1890s, the economy of Volgograd (then Tsaritsyn), relied mainly on the trade of grain, naphtha, fish and salt. Modern Volgograd remains an important industrial city. Industries include shipbuilding, oil refining, steel and aluminum production, manufacture of heavy machinery and vehicles at the Volgograd Tractor Plant and Titan-Barrikady plant, and chemical production. The large Volgograd Hydroelectric Plant is a short distance to the north of Volgograd.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd is a major railway junction served by the Privolzhskaya Railway. Rail links from the Volgograd railway station include Moscow; Saratov; Astrakhan; the Donbas region of Ukraine; the Caucasus and Siberia. It stands at the east end of the Volga–Don Canal, opened in 1952 to link the two great rivers of Southern Russia. European route E40, the longest European route connecting Calais in France with Ridder in Kazakhstan, passes through Volgograd. The M6 highway between Moscow and the Caspian Sea also passes through the city. The Volgograd Bridge, under construction since 1995, was inaugurated in October 2009. The city river terminal is the center for local passenger shipping along the Volga River.


title: Volgograd

text: The Volgograd International Airport provides air links to major Russian cities as well as Antalya, Yerevan and Aktau.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd's public transport system includes a light rail service known as the Volgograd Metrotram. Local public transport is provided by buses, trolleybuses and trams.


title: Volgograd

text: At the time of the official 2010 Census, the ethnic makeup of the city's population whose ethnicity was known (999,785) was:


title: Volgograd

text: A memorial complex commemorating the battle of Stalingrad, dominated by an immense allegorical sculpture "The Motherland Calls", was erected on the Mamayev Kurgan (Russian: Мамаев Курган), the hill that saw some of the most intense fighting during the battle. This complex includes the Hall of Military Glory, a circular building housing an eternal flame and bearing plaques with the names of the fallen heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad. This memorial features an hourly changing of the guard that draws many tourists during the warmer months. Across from this Hall, there is a statue called Mother's Sorrow, which depicts a grieving woman holding a fallen soldier in her arms. During the summer months, this statue is surrounded by a small water feature, called the Lake of Tears. Further down the hill of this complex, there is a Plaza of Heroes (also known as Heroes' Square), featuring multiple allegorical sculptures of heroic deeds. This plaza is sometimes referred to by the title of the most famous of these sculptures, called "Having withstood, we conquered death".


title: Volgograd

text: The Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad is a large cultural complex that sits on the shore of the Volga river. It is located on the site of the "Penza Defense Junction", a group of buildings along Penzenskaya Street (now Sovetskaya Street), which was defended by the 13th Guards Rifle Division. The complex includes Gerhardt's Mill, which is preserved in its bombed out state. The museum on the complex grounds houses the largest painting in Russia, a panoramic painting of the battlefield as seen from Mamayev Kurgan, where "The Motherland Calls" statue now stands. This museum also features Soviet military equipment from the 1940s, numerous exhibits of weapons (including a rifle of the famous sniper Vasily Zaytsev), uniforms, personal belongings of generals and soldiers involved in the battle and detailed maps and timelines of the battle.


title: Volgograd

text: The Volgograd Planetarium was a gift from East Germany in honor of what would have been Stalin's 70th birthday. Neoclassical in style, the building facade is designed like a Roman temple, with six Tuscan columns topped by capitals decorated with stars. Designed by Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina, the dome is crowned by a female personification of Peace, holding an astrolabe with a dove. Opened in 1954, it was only the second purpose-built planetarium in the Soviet Union. The entryway interior features a mural of Stalin in the white uniform of a naval admiral, surrounded by lilies and doves, more symbols of peace. On either side of the mural, are busts of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Soviet rocket scientist, and Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut and the first human to venture into outer space. On the second floor, there are large stained glass windows, featuring images related to Soviet space exploration. The planetarium was outfitted with a Zeiss projector, the first produced by the Carl Zeiss Company in their Jena plant after the end of World War 2. The projector supplied was the UPP-23/1s model, which was produced between 1954 and 1964; it is still operational and in regular use at the Volgograd Planetarium. The projector was supplemented by a digital system in 2019; the Fulldome Pro model LDX12. Zeiss also provided the 365mm refractor telescope for the observatory, which is still in operation today. The planetarium hosts scientific and educational lectures, provides Fulldome shows, has scheduled tours, features daytime and nighttime observations and runs an astronomy club for children.


title: Volgograd

text: Across the street from the Panorama Museum, stands Pavlov's House, another surviving monument to the Battle of Stalingrad. Several monuments and memorials can be found nearby, including a statue of Lenin, a statue in honor of children who survived war and another to the Pavlov's House defenders.


title: Volgograd

text: As a port city along an important and busy trading route, Volgograd has always been a diverse place. An 1897 survey reveals 893 Jews (512 men and 381 women), 1,729 Muslims (938 men and 791 women), and 193 Catholics (116 men and 77 women).


title: Volgograd

text: Land for the Holy Spirit Monastery was originally allocated in 1904, but construction did not begin until 1909 and was not complete until 1911. Sergei Trufanov, also known as the 'mad monk' of Tsaritsyn, was the driving force behind fundraising and getting the project off the ground. The original complex had a church that could accommodate 6,000 people, the monastery itself could house 500 and an auditorium that held 1,000. There was a school, space for workshops, a printing office and an almshouse. The land the monastery stood on also hosted multiple gardens, a fountain and several inner yards.


title: Volgograd

text: In 1912, the monastery was divided to a male and female section, housing both monks and nuns. In 1914, the school on the grounds of the Holy Spirit Monastery became part of the city school system and in 1915, housed 53 girls whose fathers were on the front lines. During the Russian Civil War, an infirmary was set up and the complex was alternately used by both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. In 1923, once the area was under firm Bolshevik control, the monastery was closed. During the following decades, the complex was used as an orphanage, a library, a cinema and a student hostel. Eventually, many of the buildings fell into disuse and became dilapidated. At the onset of World War 2, the complex was given to the military and many of the original buildings were demolished.


title: Volgograd

text: After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Volgograd diocese was established and the military began the process of transferring what was left of the Holy Spirit Monastery back to the church. A theological school was established in 1992 and restoration of the site continues today.


title: Volgograd

text: Construction of the cathedral began on April 22, 1901, with the laying of the foundation stone by Bishop Hermogenes. The domes were installed in 1915 and consecration took place on May 19, 1918. Almost as soon as it was built, the cathedral fell out of use. The Soviet powers closed it down officially in 1929, with the crosses and bells removed and the liturgical objects confiscated. The cathedral was then used as a motor depot and eventually demolished in 1932. In 2001, the long project of rebuilding the cathedral was begun. The first foundation stone was laid in 2016 and the finished replica was finally consecrated in 2021 by Patriarch Kirill.


title: Volgograd

text: The new church stands in central Volgograd, bounded by Communist Street (Russian: Коммунистическая Улица) and Mir Street (Russian: Улица Мира) on the north and south and Volodarsk Street (Russian: Улица Володарского) and Gogol Street (Russian: Улица Гоголя) on the west and east, respectively. This area is also a park, called Alexander's Garden (Russian: Александровский Сад). The cathedral stands across the street from a World War 2 monument, and a statue of and chapel for, the eponymous Alexander Nevsky.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd hosts one of the few self-propelled floating churches in the world: the chapel boat of Saint Vladimir of Volgograd. Spearheaded by Vladimir Koretsky and assisted by a Dutch Orthodox priest who was part of the organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the Saint Vladimir was consecrated in October 2004 on the shore of the Volga. Originally a decommissioned landing craft found in a shipyard outside St. Petersburg, it took two years to convert it into a floating church. The boat chapel sports three shining domes and was decorated with icons and religious motifs by a local Volgograd artist. On its maiden voyage, the Saint Vladimir reached Astrakhan in the south and Saratov in the north; traveling an 800 kilometer (~500 mile) span of the Volga River.


title: Volgograd

text: In addition to this self propelled church, Vladimir Koretsky first built two other floating churches in Volgograd, both of which must be towed by another craft. The Saint Innocent was originally a repair vessel and was located in a shipyard in Volgograd. Despite it being in poor condition, the boat had good sized cabins and a kitchen unit; the hull was restored, the largest cabins were merged and a single shining dome was added. Icons and sacred relics were donated by parishes from all over the country and the floating church was consecrated on 22 May 1998. During its first year in operation, it visited 28 villages, where 446 people were baptised and 1,500 received communion. The Saint Innocent was mobile for four months of the year, operating mostly on the Don River, and spent the rest of the time moored in Pyatimorsk, providing a semi permanent church for that rural locality.


title: Volgograd

text: Due to the success of the Saint Innocent, the ACN launched the creation of a second floating church, this time built atop an old barge. Christened the Saint Nicholas, in honor of the original floating church built in 1910, it was moored at a yacht club in Volgograd for several years, serving as a place of worship for passing ships crews. It was later towed to Oktyabrsky, a remote southern village of the Volgograd Oblast, to serve as a semi-permanent church.


title: Volgograd

text: All of these floating churches were inspired by the original; a retrofitted tug-passenger steamer, which ran between Kazan and Astrakhan, named the Saint Nicholas. Commissioned in 1858, it was first christened the Kriushi, then the Pirate, until it was purchased by the Astrakhan diocese in 1910 and converted into a church. It served for 8 years, traveling up and down the Volga River, sometimes clocking 4,000 miles a year. Much like every other church in Russia, it was decommissioned in 1918 by the Soviets. It made such an impact on the local population however, that almost 80 years later, it was the inspiration for a new "flotilla of God".


title: Volgograd

text: Also known as Beit David Synagogue, it was named after David Kolotilin, a Jewish leader during the Soviet period. Although some sources claim that this was the first synagogue to serve the Jews of Volgograd, was constructed in 1888, and its original purpose was exclusively that of a synagogue, there is little evidence to support this. What little documentation exists suggests that it was indeed built at the turn of the century, but its original purpose is unknown. In fact, a 1903 tourist guide to Tsaritsyn, warns that almost all of the buildings in the town are wooden and makes no mention of this structure, so an 1888 construction date is highly unlikely. It is a two-story, rectangular building, made of brick and richly decorated. The architectural style is typical of residential buildings constructed in Tsaritsyn after the turn of the century. The original building barely survived the Battle of Stalingrad; it was in ruins as late as 1997, with broken windows and gaping holes made by Nazi bombs. Some sources suggest that the building was reconstructed, but not restored, by 1999. Emissaries of the Chabad-Lubavitch organization launched a campaign to return the building to the Jewish community and were finally successful in 2003. With the help of multiple fundraising campaigns and generous donors, including Edward Shifrin and Alex Schneider, the synagogue was restored. An annex was constructed in 2005 to mimic the original style and the building was rededicated in 2007. The prayer hall can be found on the first floor, with communal offices on the second. Located at 2 Balachninskaya Street in the center of Volgograd. In addition to regular religious services, it also hosts a soup kitchen, a Jewish day school and an overnight children's camp. As of 2022, the community is led by Rabbi Zalman Yoffe.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd was a host city to four matches of the FIFA World Cup in 2018. A new modern stadium, Volgograd Arena, was built for this occasion on the bank of the Volga River to serve as the venue. The stadium has a seating capacity for 45,000 people, including a press box, a VIP box and seats for people with limited mobility.


title: Volgograd

text: Volgograd has a cold semi arid climate (Köppen: "BSk") with hot summers and cold winters. Precipitation is low and spread more or less evenly throughout the year.


title: Master of Puppets

text: Master of Puppets is the third studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released on March 3, 1986, by Elektra Records. Recorded in Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios with producer Flemming Rasmussen, it was the band's last album to feature bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in Sweden during the album's promotional tour.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The album's artwork, designed by Metallica and Peter Mensch and painted by Don Brautigam, depicts a cemetery field of white crosses tethered to strings, manipulated by a pair of hands in a clouded, blood-red sky, with a fiery orange glow on the horizon. Instead of releasing a single or video in advance of the album's release, Metallica embarked on a five-month American tour in support of Ozzy Osbourne. The European leg was canceled after Burton's death in September 1986, and the band returned home to audition a new bassist.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" peaked at number 29 on the "Billboard" 200 and received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised its music and political lyrics. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential metal albums of all time, and is credited with consolidating the American thrash metal scene. It was certified six times platinum by the RIAA in 2003 for shipping six million copies in the United States, and was later certified six times platinum by Music Canada and platinum by the BPI. In 2015, "Master of Puppets" became the first metal recording to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


title: Master of Puppets

text: Metallica's 1983 debut "Kill 'Em All" laid the foundation for thrash metal with its aggressive musicianship and vitriolic lyrics. The album revitalized the American underground scene, and inspired similar records by contemporaries. The band's second album "Ride the Lightning" extended the limits of the genre with its more sophisticated songwriting and improved production. The album caught the attention of Elektra Records representative Michael Alago, who signed the group to an eight-album deal in the fall of 1984. Elektra reissued "Ride the Lightning" on November 19, and the band began touring larger venues and festivals throughout 1985. After parting with manager Jon Zazula, Metallica hired Q Prime executives Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch. During the summer, the band played the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington, alongside Bon Jovi and Ratt to an audience of 70,000.


title: Master of Puppets

text: Metallica was motivated to make an album that would impress critics and fans, and began writing new material in mid-1985. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich were the main songwriters on the album, already titled "Master of Puppets". The two developed ideas at a garage in El Cerrito, California, before inviting bassist Cliff Burton and guitarist Kirk Hammett for rehearsals. Hetfield and Ulrich described the songwriting process as starting with "guitar riffs, assembled and reassembled until they start to sound like a song". After that, the band came up with a song title and topic, and Hetfield wrote lyrics to match the title. "Master of Puppets" is Metallica's first album not to feature songwriting contributions from former lead guitarist Dave Mustaine. Mustaine claimed he had co-written "Leper Messiah", based on an old song called "The Hills Ran Red". The band denied this, but stated that one section incorporated Mustaine's ideas.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The band was not satisfied with the acoustics of the American studios they considered, and decided to record in Ulrich's native Denmark. Ulrich took drum lessons, and Hammett worked with Joe Satriani to learn how to record more efficiently. Ulrich was in talks with Rush's bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee to produce the album, but the collaboration never materialized because of uncoordinated schedules. Metallica recorded the album with producer Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, from September 1 to December 27, 1985. The writing of all the songs except "Orion" and "The Thing That Should Not Be" was completed before the band's arrival in Copenhagen. Rasmussen stated that the band brought well-prepared demos of the songs, and only slight changes were made to the compositions in the studio. The recording took longer than the previous album because Metallica had developed a sense of perfectionism and had higher ambitions.


title: Master of Puppets

text: Metallica eschewed the slick production and synthesizers of contemporary hard rock and glam metal albums. With a reputation for drinking, the band stayed sober on recording days. Hammett recalled that the group was "just making another album" at the time and "had no idea that the record would have such a range of influence that it went on to have". He also said that the group was "definitely peaking" at the time and that the album had "the sound of a band really gelling, really learning how to work well together."


title: Master of Puppets

text: Rasmussen and Metallica did not manage to complete the mixtapes as planned. Instead, the multitrack recordings were sent in January 1986 to Michael Wagener, who finished the album's mixing. The cover was designed by Metallica and Peter Mensch and painted by Don Brautigam. It depicts a cemetery field of white crosses tethered to strings, manipulated by a pair of hands in a blood-red sky. Ulrich explained that the artwork summarized the lyrical content of the album—people being subconsciously manipulated. The original artwork was sold at Rockefeller Plaza, New York City for $28,000 in 2008. The band mocked the warning stickers promoted by the PMRC with a facetious Parental Advisory label on the cover: "The only track you probably won't want to play is 'Damage, Inc.' due to multiple use of the infamous 'F' word. Otherwise, there aren't any 'shits', 'fucks', 'pisses', 'cunts', 'motherfuckers', or 'cocksuckers' anywhere on this record".


title: Master of Puppets

text: The album was recorded with the following equipment: Hammett's guitars were a 1974 Gibson Flying V, a Jackson Randy Rhoads, and a Fernandes Stratocaster copy; Hetfield used a Jackson King V played through a Mesa Boogie Mark IIC+ amplifier modified as a pre-amp; Burton played an Aria Pro II SB1000 through Mesa Boogie amplifier heads and cabinets; Ulrich played Tama drum equipment, and borrowed a rare Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum from Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" features dynamic music and thick arrangements. Metallica delivered a more refined approach and performance compared to the previous two albums, with multilayered songs and technical dexterity. This album and its predecessor "Ride the Lightning" follow a similar track sequencing: both open with an up-tempo song with an acoustic intro, followed by a lengthy title track, and a fourth track with ballad qualities. Although both albums are similarly structured, the musicianship on "Master of Puppets" is more powerful and epic in scope, with tight rhythms and delicate guitar solos. According to music writer Joel McIver, "Master of Puppets" introduced a new level of heaviness and complexity in thrash metal, displaying atmospheric and precisely executed songs. Hetfield's vocals had matured from the hoarse shouting of the first two albums to a deeper, in-control, yet aggressive style.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The songs explore themes such as control and the abuse of power. The lyrics describe the consequences of alienation, oppression, and feelings of powerlessness. Author Ryan Moore thought the lyrics depicted "ominous yet unnamed forces of power wielding total control over helpless human subjects". The lyrics were considered perceptive and harrowing, and were praised for being honest and socially conscious by writer Brock Helander. Referring to the epic proportions of the songs, BBC Music's Eamonn Stack stated that "at this stage in their careers Metallica weren't even doing songs, they were telling stories". The compositions and arrangements benefited from bassist Cliff Burton's classical training and understanding of harmony.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Battery" refers to angry violence, as in the term "assault and battery". Some critics contended that the title actually refers to an artillery battery, and interpreted it as "Hetfield of a war tactic as the aggressor" personifying destruction. The song begins with bass-heavy acoustic guitars that build upon multitracked layers until they are joined by a sonic wall of distorted electric guitars. It then breaks into fast, aggressive riffing, featuring off-beat rhythms and heavily distorted minor dyads where root-fifth power chords might be expected. Hetfield improvised the riff while relaxing in London.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" consists of several riffs with odd meters and a cleanly picked middle section with melodic solo. The song shares a similar structure with "The Four Horsemen" from the band's first album: two verse-chorus sets lead to a lengthy interlude to another verse-chorus set. The opening and pre-verse sections feature fast downpicked chromatic riffing at around 212 beats per minute in mostly time. Every fourth bar of each verse and the outro is cut short by more than a beat; the time signature of these bars is often idealistically analyzed as being , but it is performed with a delay after the third beat, making it closer to (). A lengthy interlude follows the second chorus, beginning with a clean, arpeggiated section over which Hetfield contributes a melodic solo; the riffing becomes distorted and progressively more heavy and Hammett provides a more virtuosic solo before the song eventually returns to the main verse. The song closes with a fade-out of sinister laughter. The lyrical theme is cocaine addiction.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "The Thing That Should Not Be" was inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos created by famed horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, with notable direct references to "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and to Cthulhu himself, who is the subject matter of the song's chorus. It is considered the heaviest track on the album, with the main riff emulating a beast dragging itself into the sea. The Black Sabbath-influenced guitars are down-tuned, creating slow and moody ambience. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" was based on Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and conveys the thoughts of a patient unjustly caged in a mental institution. The song opens with a section of clean single strings and harmonics. The clean, arpeggiated main riff is played in alternating and time signatures. The song is structured with alternating somber clean guitars in the verses, and distorted heavy riffing in the choruses, unfolding into an aggressive finale. This structure follows a pattern of power ballads Metallica set with "Fade to Black" on "Ride the Lightning", "One" on "...And Justice for All" and later "The Day That Never Comes" on "Death Magnetic".


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Disposable Heroes" is an anti-war song about a young soldier whose fate is controlled by his superiors. With sections performed at 220 beats per minute, it is one of the most intense tracks on the record. The guitar passage at the end of each verse was Hammett's imitation of the sort of music he found in war films. The syncopated riffing of "Leper Messiah" challenges the hypocrisy of the televangelism that emerged in the 1980s. The song describes how people are willingly turned into blind religious followers who mindlessly do whatever they are told. The 136 beats per minute mid-tempo riffing of the verses culminates in a descending chromatic riff in the chorus; it increases to a galloping 184 beats per minute for the middle section that climaxes in a distorted scream of "Lie!". The title derives from the lyrics to the David Bowie song "Ziggy Stardust". "Orion" is a multipart instrumental highlighting Burton's bass playing. It opens with a fade-in bass section, heavily processed to resemble an orchestra. It continues with mid-tempo riffing, followed by a bass riff at half-tempo. The tempo accelerates during the latter part, and ends with music fading out. Burton arranged the middle section, which features its moody bass line and multipart guitar harmonies. "Damage, Inc." rants about senseless violence and reprisal at an unspecified target. It starts with a series of reversed bass chords based on the chorale prelude of Bach's "Come, Sweet Death". The song then jumps into a rapid rhythm with a pedal-point riff in E that Hammett says was influenced by Deep Purple.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" was hailed as a masterpiece by critics outside of the thrash metal audience and cited by some as the genre's greatest album. In a contemporary review, Tim Holmes of "Rolling Stone" asserted that the band had redefined heavy metal with the technical skill and subtlety showcased on the album, which he described as "the sound of global paranoia". "Kerrang!" wrote that "Master of Puppets" "finally put Metallica into the big leagues where they belong". Editor Tom King said Metallica was at an "incredible song-writing peak" during the recording sessions, partially because Burton contributed to the songwriting. By contrast, "Spin" magazine's Judge I-Rankin was disappointed with the album and said, although the production is exceptional and Metallica's experimentation is commendable, it eschews the less "intellectual" approach of "Kill 'Em All" for a MDC-inspired direction that is inconsistent.


title: Master of Puppets

text: In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Steve Huey viewed "Master of Puppets" as Metallica's best album and remarked that, although it was not as unexpected as "Ride the Lightning", it is a more musically and thematically consistent album. Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" said the songs were the band's most intense at that point, and veer toward "the progressive tendency of Rush." Adrien Begrand of PopMatters praised the production as "a metal version of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound" and believed none of Metallica's subsequent albums could match its passionate and intense musical quality. BBC Music's Eamonn Stack called the album "hard, fast, rock with substance" and likened the songs to stories of "biblical proportions". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff compared the album to "Ride the Lightning" and found "Master of Puppets" not a remake, though similar in "awesome power and effect". Robert Christgau was more critical. Writing in "" (1990), he said the band's energy and political motivations are respectable, but the music evokes clichéd images of "revolutionary heroes" who are "male chauvinists too inexperienced to know better".


title: Master of Puppets

text: Released on March 3, 1986, the album had a 72-week run on the "Billboard" 200 album charts and earned the band its first gold certification. The album debuted on March 29, 1986, at number 128 and peaked at number 29 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. "Billboard" reported that 300,000 copies were sold in its first three weeks. More than 500,000 copies were sold in its first year, even with virtually no radio airplay and no music videos. In 2003, "Master of Puppets" was certified 6× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with six million copies shipped in the United States. Between the beginning of the Nielsen SoundScan era in 1991 and 2009, 4,578,000 copies were sold. The album was less successful on an international level, despite entering the top 5 on the Finnish and the top 40 on the German and Swiss album charts in its inaugural year. In 2004, it peaked within the top 15 in Sweden. In 2008, the album reached the top 40 on the Australian and Norwegian album charts. It received 6× platinum certification from Music Canada and a gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipments of 600,000 and 100,000 copies, respectively.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" has appeared in several publications' best album lists. It was ranked number 167 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, and upgrading to number 97 in a 2020 revised list. The magazine would also later rank it second on its 2017 list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time", behind Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". "Time" included the album in its list of the 100 best albums of all time. According to the magazine's Josh Tyrangiel, "Master of Puppets" reinforced the velocity of playing in heavy metal and diminished some of its clichés. "Slant Magazine" placed the album at number 90 on its list of the best albums of the 1980s, saying "Master of Puppets" is Metallica's best and most sincere recording. The album is featured in Robert Dimery's book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". IGN named "Master of Puppets" the best heavy metal album of all time. The website stated it was Metallica's best because it "built upon and perfected everything they had experimented with prior" and that "all the pieces come together in glorious cohesion". Music journalist Martin Popoff also ranked it the best heavy metal album. The album was voted the fourth greatest guitar album of all time by "Guitar World" in 2006, and the title track ranked number 61 on the magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitar solos. "Total Guitar" ranked the main riff of the title track at number 7 among the top 20 guitar riffs. The April 2006 edition of "Kerrang!" was dedicated to the album and gave away to readers the cover album "Master of Puppets: Remastered".


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Master of Puppets" became thrash metal's first platinum album and by the early 1990s thrash metal successfully challenged and redefined the mainstream of heavy metal. Metallica and a few other bands headlined arena concerts and appeared regularly on MTV, although radio play remained incommensurate with their popularity. "Master of Puppets" is widely accepted as the genre's most accomplished album, and paved the way for subsequent development. The album, in the words of writer Christopher Knowles, "ripped Metallica away from the underground and put them atop the metal mountain". David Hayter from "Guitar Planet" recognized the album as one of the most influential records ever made and a benchmark by which other metal albums should be judged. MTV's Kyle Anderson had similar thoughts, saying that 25 years after its release the album remained a "stone cold classic". Carlos Ramirez from Noisecreep believes that "Master of Puppets" stands as one of the most representative albums of its genre.


title: Master of Puppets

text: 1986 is seen as a pinnacle year for thrash metal in which the genre broke out of the underground due to albums such as Megadeth's "Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?" and Slayer's "Reign in Blood". Anthrax released "Among the Living" in 1987, and by the end of the year these bands, alongside Metallica, were being called the "Big Four" of thrash metal. "Master of Puppets" frequently tops critic and fan polls of favorite thrash metal albums. Histories of the band tend to position "Ride the Lightning", "Master of Puppets", and "...And Justice for All" as a trilogy over the course of which the band's music progressively matured and became more sophisticated. In 2015, the album was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Kerrang!" released a tribute album titled "Master of Puppets: Remastered" with the April 8, 2006, edition of the magazine to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Master of Puppets". The album featured cover versions of Metallica songs by Machine Head, Bullet for My Valentine, Chimaira, Mastodon, Mendeed, and Trivium—all of which are influenced by Metallica.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The title track was also featured in the fourth season finale of the Netflix series "Stranger Things", as the character Eddie Munson plays the song in the Upside Down dimension to draw the dimension's monsters away from his friends. Kelly McClure of "Salon" compares the song's newfound popularity to Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", another song featured in the show's fourth season. The song's appearance on "Stranger Things" saw the song resurging on Spotify's charts, behind "Running Up That Hill", and the band stated on social media that "It’s an incredible honor to be such a big part of Eddie’s journey and to once again be keeping company with all of the amazing artists featured in the show."


title: Master of Puppets

text: Metallica opted for extensive touring instead of releasing a single or video to promote the album. The Damage, Inc. Tour began in March 1986, and the band spent March to August touring as the opening act for Ozzy Osbourne in the United States, the first tour Metallica played to arena-sized audiences. During sound checks, the group played riffs from Osbourne's previous band Black Sabbath, which Osbourne perceived as mockery. Ulrich, however, stated that Metallica was honored to play with Osbourne, who treated the band well on the tour. Metallica was noted by the media for their excessive drinking habit while touring and earned the nickname "Alcoholica". The band members occasionally even wore satirical T-shirts reading "Alcoholica/Drank 'Em All".


title: Master of Puppets

text: The band usually played a 45-minute set often followed by an encore. According to Ulrich, the audiences in bigger cities were already familiar with Metallica's music, unlike in the smaller towns they've visited. "In the B-markets, people really don't know what we're all about. But after 45 or 50 minutes we can tell we've won them over. And fans who come to hear Ozzy go home liking Metallica." Metallica won over Osbourne's fans and slowly began to establish a mainstream following. Hetfield broke his wrist in a mid-tour skateboarding accident, and guitar technician John Marshall played rhythm guitar on several dates.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The European leg of the tour commenced in September, with Anthrax as the supporting band. The morning after a performance on September 26 in Stockholm, the band's bus rolled off the road, and Burton was thrown through a window and killed instantly. The driver claimed he hit a patch of black ice, but others believed he was either drunk or fell asleep at the wheel. The driver was charged with manslaughter but was not convicted. The band returned to San Francisco and hired Flotsam and Jetsam bassist Jason Newsted to replace Burton. Many of the songs that appeared on the band's next album, "...And Justice for All", were composed during Burton's career with the band.


title: Master of Puppets

text: All of the songs have been performed live, and some became permanent setlist features. Four tracks were featured on the nine-song set list for the album's promotional tour: "Battery" as opener, "Master of Puppets", "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", and "Damage, Inc." The title track, which was issued as a single in France, became a live staple and the most-played Metallica song. "Loudwire"s Chad Childers characterized the band's performance as "furious" and the song as the set's highlight. "Rolling Stone" described the live performance as "a classic in all its eight-minute glory". While filming its 3D movie "" (2013) at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, crosses were rising from the stage during the song, reminiscent of the album's cover art.


title: Master of Puppets

text: "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" is the second-most performed song from the album. The live performance is often accompanied by lasers, pyrotechnical effects and film screens. "Battery" is usually played at the beginning of the setlist or during the encore, accompanied by lasers and flame plumes. "Disposable Heroes" is featured in the video album "" (2009) filmed in Mexico City, in which the song was played on the second of three nights at the Foro Sol. "Orion" is the least-performed song from the album. Its first live performance was during the Escape from the Studio '06 tour, when the band performed the album in its entirety, honoring the 20th anniversary of its release. The band performed the album in the middle of the set. "Battery", "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", "Damage, Inc." and the full-length "Master of Puppets" were revived for the band's concerts in 1997 and 1998, after having been retired for a number of years.


title: Master of Puppets

text: The bonus tracks on the digital re-release were recorded live at the Seattle Coliseum, Seattle, Washington, on August 29 and 30, 1989, and also appeared on the live album "" (1993).


title: Master of Puppets

text: In 2017, the album was remastered and reissued in a limited edition deluxe box set with an expanded track listing and bonus content. The deluxe edition set includes the original album on vinyl and CD, with two additional vinyl records containing a live recording from Chicago; nine CDs of interviews, rough mixes, demo recordings, outtakes, and live recordings recorded from 1985 to 1987; a cassette of a fan recording of Metallica's September 1986 live concert in Stockholm, which was Cliff Burton's final performance before his death; and two DVDs of interviews and live recordings recorded in 1986.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: The Lincoln Lawyer is a 2011 American legal thriller film adapted from the 2005 novel of the same title by Michael Connelly. The film is directed by Brad Furman, with a screenplay written by John Romano, and stars Matthew McConaughey as the titular lawyer, Mickey Haller. The film also stars Ryan Phillippe, Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, William H. Macy, and Bryan Cranston.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: The story is adapted from the first of several novels featuring the character of Mickey Haller, who works out of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Town Car rather than an office. Haller is hired to defend the son of a wealthy Los Angeles businesswoman in an assault case. Details of the crime bring up uncomfortable parallels with a former case, and Haller discovers the two cases are intertwined.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: The film was released on March 18, 2011. It received generally positive reviews and grossed $87 million.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller works in LA County, California, mostly from the back of his black Lincoln Town Car, chauffeured by Earl Briggs. Most of his career has been defending low-end criminals, such as a biker club led by Eddie Vogel.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Haller goes to meet Gloria Dayton, one of his former clients arrested for cocaine possession. Haller learned that she had a client, Hector Arrande Moya, who had paid her in cocaine for her services. He arranged an agreement with the prosecutor to trade this information for putting Dayton in the rehabilitation clinic at USC Med.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Haller is hired for a high-profile case, representing wealthy Louis Roulet, a Beverly Hills playboy and son of real estate mogul Mary Windsor. He is accused of brutally beating prostitute Regina Campo, but insists he is the innocent victim of a setup. Haller and his investigator, Frank Levin, analyze photos and evidence and find the case similar to a past case where the client, Jesus Martinez, was tried for murdering a woman. Despite his repeated proclamations of innocence, Haller explains the overwhelming evidence and persuades Martinez to plead guilty to receive 15 years but avoid the death penalty.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Haller's ex-wife, DA Maggie McPherson, has always disliked him representing guilty clients, though they remain close. Haller wonders if he was wrong for persuading Martinez to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. Haller visits Martinez, who becomes agitated when Haller shows him Roulet's photo. Now believing Roulet is the killer in the Martinez case, he is bound by attorney–client confidentiality rules, and unable to reveal what he knows; it now becomes obvious why Roulet had chosen to hire Haller as his lawyer against the advice of his family lawyer.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Roulet breaks into Haller's house and nonchalantly admits to committing the murder for which Martinez was convicted; through his sources, Roulet knew that Haller had been looking back into the previous case. Roulet makes veiled threats towards Haller's ex-wife and their daughter. Levin is found shot to death after leaving Haller a voicemail message claiming he found Martinez's "ticket out of jail." Haller discovers that his late father's rare .22 Colt Woodsman is missing from its box, the same caliber gun that killed Levin.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Detective Lankford, who dislikes Haller, discovers the gun's registration and suspects his involvement in Levin's murder. Haller is certain that Roulet stole the weapon when he broke into his home.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Legally obliged to defend his client, guilty or not, Haller ruthlessly cross-examines Campo and discredits her in the jury's eyes. He then sets up a known prison informant, Dwayne Jeffrey "DJ" Corliss, with information on the previous murder, with the help of Dayton who is in the same USC Med facility as DJ. When the informant testifies, Haller discredits him, and the district attorney can only move to dismiss all charges. Roulet is set free, but the police arrest him immediately after for the previous murder, based upon testimony Haller coaxed from the informant.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Haller acquires a pistol from Earl for protection. Roulet is released due to lack of evidence and intends to kill Haller's ex-wife and daughter. Haller is waiting at Maggie's when Roulet arrives. Haller vows that he will not stop until Martinez is freed and Roulet is convicted for his crime; Roulet mockingly tells him he cannot guard his family all the time. The bikers whom Haller previously represented suddenly arrive and brutally beat Roulet.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Maggie discovers Levin had found a parking ticket issued to Roulet near the previous murder victim's house. It is strong evidence against Roulet in his pending murder trial and will support Martinez's innocence. Upon arriving home, Haller discovers Roulet's mother, Mary Windsor, waiting inside. She shoots him with the Colt Woodsman, confessing that she murdered Levin to protect her son. When Mary moves to shoot Haller again, he draws the pistol obtained from Earl and fatally shoots her.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Martinez is released, and the DA will seek the death penalty for Roulet. As Haller rides off to his next case, he is pulled over by Vogel and the biker gang, whose case he takes pro bono in gratitude for their help.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 6.70/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "It doesn't offer any twists on the predictable courtroom thriller formula, but with a charming Matthew McConaughey leading its solid cast, "The Lincoln Lawyer" offers briskly enjoyable entertainment." At Metacritic, the film has an average weighted score of 63 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: After watching a rough cut of the film on November 12, 2010, Michael Connelly, author of the book "The Lincoln Lawyer", said:


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3 stars out of a possible 4, saying, "The plotting seems like half-realized stabs in various directions made familiar by other crime stories. But for what it is, "The Lincoln Lawyer" is workmanlike, engagingly acted and entertaining."


title: The Lincoln Lawyer (film)

text: The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 12, 2011. It was later released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on August 15, 2017.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Edward Stephen Hall (born 15 January 1988) is an English media personality, actor, boxer, and former strongman.


title: Eddie Hall

text: He won the World's Strongest Man 2017 competition. Hall has also won national competitions such as UK's Strongest Man, Britain's Strongest Man, and England's Strongest Man multiple times.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Edward Stephen Hall was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme on 15 January 1988. As a teenager, he was a successful competitive swimmer. He attended Clayton Hall Academy, but was expelled at the age of 15. Soon afterwards, he began homeschooling. In 2008, he began working as a car mechanic in Market Drayton. He competed as a bodybuilder and entered the strongman circuit, having done a strongman competition at the Iceman gym in Stoke-on-Trent.


title: Eddie Hall

text: In 2010, Dave Meer of Tamworth had to drop out of the England championships organised by Elite Strongman because of injury. He arranged for Hall to take his place, which led to Hall making it into the 2010 finals and winning on his first attempt by half a point.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Hall finished first at the UK's Strongest Man 2011 competition in Belfast, with Ken Nowicki in second and Rich Smith in third. His win was helped by setting a new national record in the "Viking Hold", hanging on to 20 kg (44lbs) axes in each hand at full stretch for one minute and 18 seconds. Hall tore tendons in an arm during the competition, but was hopeful of a spot at the World's Strongest Man in September. However, his improved ranking could only guarantee a spot for 2012, and he did not compete at WSM in 2011. Winning the UK title meant that Hall became the first choice to replace Jono MacFarlane of New Zealand in the Giants Live Melbourne event in February 2012, when the latter suffered a back injury. He placed fourth in his first taste of international competition. Later, in April 2012, he was invited to compete at Europe's Strongest Man, another Giants Live event. This was held at Headingley Carnegie Stadium, home of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team and Hall found himself competing alongside six of the ten finalists from World's Strongest Man 2011, including two-time World's Strongest Man, Žydrūnas Savickas. Hall finished in eighth place.


title: Eddie Hall

text: In 2012, Hall competed at the World's Strongest Man competition, but did not progress beyond his qualifying group. In April 2013, Hall failed to qualify for Europe's Strongest Man 2013. However, he was given a second chance when Ervin Katona was forced to retire due to injury. Hall competed in his place and came in eighth place. In April, Hall also featured on BBC One's "Watchdog" programme, who enlisted his help to test even the strongest of drivers in specific circumstances. Hall competed at the 2013 World's Strongest Man competition later that year, winning two events in his heat but narrowly missing out on qualifying for the final.


title: Eddie Hall

text: In 2014, Hall reached the final for the first time, coming second in the Squat Lift event and ultimately finishing sixth. In March 2015, Hall achieved the world record for lifting the weight of in the deadlift. The record was achieved at the Arnold Classic in Australia, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was present to cheer him on. He promptly broke his own record at the World Deadlift Championships 2015, with a deadlift.


title: Eddie Hall

text: In April 2015, he finished fourth at the World's Strongest Man, an improvement of two places on the previous year. In December 2015, a feature documentary about Hall, titled "", was released. The film, directed by Matt Bell and produced by Tom Swanston, follows Hall for two years as he strives to become the strongest man in the world.


title: Eddie Hall

text: In March 2016, he achieved a new world record for the Elephant Bar deadlift in the Arnold Strongman Classic, by lifting . However, the record was beaten the next year by Jerry Pritchett who lifted which was again beaten twice by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson who lifted and in 2018 and 2019 respectively. In July 2016, Hall set a new world record in the conventional deadlift under strongman rules (standard bar with figure 8 straps and multi-ply suit) with a lift of at the World Deadlift Championships besting the world record he previously shared with Jerry Pritchett and Benedikt Magnússon earlier that same day. The 500 kg lift made Hall bleed from his ears and nostrils, and made him blind before he fainted to the floor. The record stood for 3 years and 9 months until 2 May 2020, when it was beaten by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson with the current world record of at the World's Ultimate Strongman Feats of Strength series.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Hall is the winner of the 2017 World's Strongest Man competition and announced his intention to retire from the World's Strongest Man and return to lower-weight competitions after expressing health-related concerns. In an interview, Hall stated that a genetic analysis had shown that a genetic mutation that causes myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy contributed to his large muscle mass. In 2018, Hall appeared on the Channel 5 show "Celebs In Solitary", where he attempted to spend five days in solitary confinement. In 2019, Hall presented the SPORTbible webseries "Beasted!" where he, along with Luke Fullbrook and Chris Peil, helped guide eight men through exercise plans and diets to improve their fitness.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Hall started his professional boxing career in 2020 when his rival Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson challenged him after breaking the world record for the deadlift. He confidently responded "I'm going to train the hardest, eat the hardest, sleep the hardest and recover the hardest" amidst having boxed before and with his swimming background, claiming superior levels of cardio and endurance. He incorporated a lot of explosive punches, punching boxing machines and many athletes including gymnast Nile Wilson, pop star Peter Andre and his training partners as hard as he can. Hall's extensive training regime also incorporated a lot of bench presses, squats, deadlifts, medicine ball slams and burpees.


title: Eddie Hall

text: On 19 March 2022, Hall faced Björnsson in Dubai, in a titan weight class boxing match which was tag-lined the heaviest match in history. Hall took the better of the first couple of rounds and managed to put Björnsson down while knocking him against the ropes at the beginning of the second round. But Björnsson bludgeoned Hall and knocked him down twice to the floor in rounds three and six. Hall sustained bleeding lacerations on top of both eyes and lost by unanimous decision with all three judges scoring the bout 57–54 in favour of Björnsson. Hall's boxing stance during the fight (specially from the fourth round onwards) garnered a lot of attention because of its uniqueness, having kept distinctly leaning over to the right side mimicking the natural movement of a Fiddler Crab, trying to negate the reach and height advantage of Björnsson.


title: Eddie Hall

text: On 20 April 2022 Hall got a tattoo on his foot stating "World’s Strongest Man - Hafthor Julius Bjornsson" to commemorate the fight and his loss.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Hall is married to Alexandra, a barbershop owner in Trent Vale, with whom he has a son named Maximus. Hall also has a daughter named Layla from a previous partner.


title: Eddie Hall

text: Eddie Hall has a YouTube channel, "Eddie Hall The Beast", where he posts training footage, VLOGs from Giants Live shows and World's Strongest Man, eating challenges, inspirational videos, and more. As of November 19th, 2022, "Eddie Hall The Beast" currently has 2.19 million subscribers.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as "Oklahoma!" (1955), "Carousel" (1956), and "The Music Man" (1962). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a vengeful prostitute in "Elmer Gantry" (1960). She played the lead role of Shirley Partridge, the widowed mother of five children, in the musical situation-comedy television series "The Partridge Family" (1970–1974), which co-starred her real-life stepson, David Cassidy, son of Jack Cassidy.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones was born on March 31, 1934, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Methodist parents Marjorie (née Williams), a homemaker, and Paul Jones, owners of the Jones Brewing Company. Jones' paternal grandfather came from Wales. She was named after child star Shirley Temple.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones says that many people have incorrectly assumed that her middle name was named after vaudeville and film legend Mae West, but Jones was actually named after her aunt. Coincidentally, the first star Jones ever met was West, who was performing at the Twin Coaches supper club in Rostraver around 1954.


title: Shirley Jones

text: The family later moved to the small nearby town of Smithton, Pennsylvania. Jones began singing at the age of six in the Methodist Church choir and took voice lessons from Ralph Lewando. Upon attending South Huntingdon High School in Ruffs Dale, Pennsylvania, she participated in school plays.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Her first audition was for an open bi-weekly casting call held by John Fearnley, casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein and their various musicals. At the time, Jones had never heard of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Fearnley was so impressed, he ran across the street to fetch Richard Rodgers, who was rehearsing with an orchestra for an upcoming musical. Rodgers then called Oscar Hammerstein at home. The two saw great potential in Jones. She became the first and only singer to be put under personal contract with the songwriters. They first cast her in a minor role in "South Pacific". For her second Broadway show, "Me and Juliet", she started as a chorus girl, and then an understudy for the lead role, earning rave reviews in Chicago.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones impressed Rodgers and Hammerstein with her musically trained voice, and was cast as the female lead in the "Oklahoma!" film adaptation in 1955. Other film musicals quickly followed, including "Carousel" (1956), "April Love" (1957), and "The Music Man" (1962), in which she was often typecast as a wholesome, kind character. However, she won a 1960 Academy Award for her performance in "Elmer Gantry" portraying a woman corrupted by the title character played by Burt Lancaster. Her character becomes a prostitute who encounters her seducer years later and reveals his true character. The director, Richard Brooks, had originally fought against her being in the movie, but after seeing her first scene, told her she would win an Oscar for her performance. She was reunited with Ron Howard (who had played her brother in "The Music Man") in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" (1963). Jones landed the role of a lady who fell in love with the professor in "Fluffy" (1965).


title: Shirley Jones

text: In her film career, she has worked with some of Hollywood's icons: Jimmy Stewart, Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and director John Ford.


title: Shirley Jones

text: In 1970, after turning down the role of Carol Brady on "The Brady Bunch", a role that ultimately went to her best friend, Florence Henderson, Jones was the producers' first choice to audition for the lead role of Shirley Partridge in "The Partridge Family", an ABC musical sitcom based loosely on the real-life musical family The Cowsills. The series focused on a young widowed mother whose five children form a pop rock group after the entire family painted its signature bus to travel. She was convinced that the combination of music and comedy would be a surefire hit. Jones realized, however, that:


title: Shirley Jones

text: During its first season, it became a hit and was screened in over 70 countries. Within months, Jones and her co-stars were pop culture television icons. Her real-life 20-year-old stepson David Cassidy, who was an unknown actor at the time, played Shirley Partridge's eldest son Keith and became a teen idol. The show also spawned a number of albums and singles by The Partridge Family, performed by David Cassidy and Shirley Jones. That same year, "I Think I Love You" reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 music chart, making Jones the second person, after Frank Sinatra, and the first woman to win an acting Oscar and also have a number-one hit on that chart, an achievement only matched by Cher and Barbra Streisand (Cher had already topped the singles chart with "I Got You Babe" in 1965, but did not win her Oscar until 1987). The Partridge Family won a NARM award for the best-selling single of the year in 1970 for their hit "I Think I Love You". In 1971, The Partridge Family was nominated for a Grammy under the Best New Artist category.


title: Shirley Jones

text: By 1974, it was one of six series to be canceled that year (along with "Room 222", "The F.B.I.", "The Brady Bunch", "", and "Here's Lucy") to make room for new shows.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Shirley Jones's friendship with David Cassidy's family began in the mid-to-late 1950s, when David was just six, after he learned about his father's divorce from his mother Evelyn Ward. Upon David's first meeting with Shirley before co-starring with her on "The Partridge Family", he said, "The day he tells me that they're divorced, he tells me, 'We're remarried, and let me introduce you to my new wife.' He was thrilled when her first film, "Oklahoma!" (1955), had come out; and my dad took me to see it—I just see her, and I go, uh-oh, it doesn't really quite register with me, 'cause I'm in total shock, because I wanted to hate her, but the instant that I met her, I got the essence of her. She's a very warm, open, sweet, good human being. She couldn't have thawed it for me—the coldness and the ice—any more than she did." Shirley was shocked to hear her real-life stepson was going to audition for the role of Keith Partridge. David said, "At the auditions, they introduced me to the lead actress [Shirley Jones] 'cause they had no idea, they had no idea. So I said, 'What are you doing here?' She looked at me and said, 'What are you doing here?' And I said, 'Well, I'm reading for the lead guy.' I said, 'What are you doing here?' She said, 'I'm the mother!'" Cassidy discussed his relationship with his stepmother on the show: "She wasn't my mother, and I can be very open, and we can speak, and we became very close friends. She was a very good role model for me, watching the way, you know, she dealt with people on the set, and watching people revere her."


title: Shirley Jones

text: Cassidy appeared on many shows alongside his stepmother, including "A&E Biography", "TV Land Confidential", and "The Today Show", and he was one of the presenters of his stepmother's "Intimate Portrait" on Lifetime Television, and the reality show pilot "In Search of the Partridge Family", where he served as co-executive producer. The rest of the cast also celebrated the 25th, 30th, and 35th anniversaries of "The Partridge Family" (although Cassidy was unavailable to attend the 25th anniversary in 1995 owing to other commitments). In addition, Jack Cassidy's death in 1976 drew Jones and Cassidy closer as Shirley's three children and stepson mourned their father.


title: Shirley Jones

text: In 1979, Jones tried her hand at television for the second time, starring in the NBC show "Shirley", which, like "The Partridge Family", featured a family headed by a widowed mother, but the show failed to win ratings and was cancelled toward the middle of the season. Jones also played the "older woman" girlfriend of Drew Carey's character in several episodes of "The Drew Carey Show", and reprised Shirley Partridge in a cameo in a 2000 episode of "That '70s Show."


title: Shirley Jones

text: She was also in the dramatic project "There Were Times, Dear", in which she played a loyal wife whose husband is dying of Alzheimer's disease; she was nominated for an Emmy Award for this work.


title: Shirley Jones

text: In February 1986, Jones unveiled her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street just around the corner from Hollywood Boulevard. In 1983, she appeared in a rare revival of Noël Coward's operetta, "Bitter Sweet". In 2004, she returned to Broadway in a revival of "42nd Street", portraying diva Dorothy Brock opposite Patrick Cassidy, the first time a mother and son were known to star together on Broadway. In July 2005, Jones revisited the musical "Carousel" onstage in Massachusetts, portraying "Cousin Nettie".


title: Shirley Jones

text: In July 2006, Jones received another Emmy Award nomination for her supporting performance in the television film "Hidden Places". She was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for the same film but lost to Helen Mirren for "Elizabeth I". She also appeared in "Grandma's Boy" (2006) as a nymphomaniac senior citizen. On November 16, 2007, she took the stage at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, during the Oklahoma Centennial Spectacular concert that celebrated the state's 100th birthday. Jones sang the songs "Oklahoma!" and "People Will Say We're In Love" from the musical "Oklahoma!".


title: Shirley Jones

text: In early 2008, it was announced that Jones would play Colleen Brady on the long-running NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives". Jones guest-starred on ABC Family's short-lived show "Ruby & The Rockits" as David and Patrick's mother.


title: Shirley Jones

text: In 2008, U.K. label Stage Door Records released the retrospective collection "Then & Now" featuring 24 songs from Jones's musical career, including songs from the films "Oklahoma!", "Carousel", and "April Love". The album featured new recordings of songs including "Beauty and the Beast", "Memory", and a sentimental tribute to "The Music Man". She had a recurring role as Burt Chance's mother in the Fox TV comedy series "Raising Hope".


title: Shirley Jones

text: In mid-2012, Jones played Mrs. Paroo, when her son Patrick played Harold Hill, in a California Musical Theatre revival of "The Music Man".


title: Shirley Jones

text: On August 5, 1956, Jones married actor and singer Jack Cassidy. They had three sons, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. David Cassidy was Jack's son from his first marriage to actress Evelyn Ward, and became her stepson. Jones divorced Cassidy in 1975. She married actor and comedian Marty Ingels on November 13, 1977. Jones and Ingels wrote an autobiography based on their relationship called "Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story". Despite drastically different personalities and separations (she filed, then withdrew, a divorce petition in 2002), they remained married until Ingels' death on October 21, 2015, from a massive stroke. After his death, Jones said: "He often drove me crazy, but there's not a day I won’t miss him and love him to my core."


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones was friends with her co-star Gordon MacRae and his ex-wife Sheila, and he was named godfather to her first son, Shaun. She also admitted that she had a crush on MacRae and was starstruck when she worked opposite him on "Oklahoma!" She says it was she who convinced MacRae to take the part as Billy Bigelow in "Carousel," where they worked together for a second time. Frank Sinatra had originally been cast, but dropped out during the first days of filming because each scene had to be shot twice, once in CinemaScope 55 (a wider-than-usual, 55-mm, 6-track stereo system) and once in 35-mm CinemaScope. Sinatra felt that he should have been paid twice because technically he was shooting two films. Three weeks after he left, they found a way to film the scene once on 55-mm, then transfer it onto 35-mm.


title: Shirley Jones

text: On the evening of December 11, 1976, after Jones had refused an offer of reconciliation from Jack Cassidy, she received news that her ex-husband's penthouse apartment was on fire. Apparently, the fire started from his lit cigarette when he fell asleep on the couch; the following morning, firefighters found Cassidy's body inside the gutted apartment. Jack "wanted to come back (to me) right up to the day he died", Jones said in a 1983 newspaper interview. "And as I realized later, I wanted him. That's the terrible part. Much as I love Marty and have a wonderful relationship—I'd say this with Marty sitting here—I'm not sure if Jack were alive I'd be married to Marty." Jones was 20 years old when she met Cassidy, who was eight years her senior, and she refers to him as the most influential person in and the love of her life.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones is the grandmother of ten: Caitlin, Jake, Juliet, Caleb, Roan, Lila, and Mairin Cassidy by son Shaun; Cole and Jack by son Patrick; and Meaghan by son Ryan Cassidy. Her grandson Jack was a contestant on the singing competition television show "The Voice" in 2017.


title: Shirley Jones

text: Jones was devastated when Suzanne Crough died on April 27, 2015; Crough played one of her TV daughters on "The Partridge Family". She had a very close relationship with the younger actress and remained close friends long after the series was cancelled, and regularly would send cards and birthday presents for Crough and her children. Jones said of Crough's death on Hollywood Life:


title: Shirley Jones

text: With regard to David Cassidy's alcohol abuse and legal problems, Jones once shared her family's related concerns: David Cassidy died on November 21, 2017. The day after his death, Jones commented publicly:


title: The Promised Neverland

text: "The Promised Neverland" was adapted into an anime television series produced by CloverWorks and broadcast on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block. The series' first season ran for 12 episodes from January to March 2019. A second season ran for 11 episodes from January to March 2021. A live-action film adaptation was released in December 2020. Amazon Studios is also developing an American live-action series.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: In 2018, the manga won the 63rd Shogakukan Manga Award in the "shōnen" category. As of August 2022, "The Promised Neverland" had over 41 million copies in circulation, including digital versions, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. The manga has been overall well received by critics, in particularly for its storytelling, characters and world-building. The anime series' first season was well received, being considered as one of the best of 2010s. The second season, however, received negative reception, with criticisms to its rushed pacing and simplification of the original manga's plot.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: In a strange world filled with sentient creatures of different species, an agreement called "The Promise" was made to end a long war between humans and the so-called demons. "The Promise" was an agreement where each would live in their own separate "worlds": the human world, free from the threat of demons; and the demon world, where human breeding farms were set up to provide food for the demons. By eating humans, demons take on their attributes which prevent them from degenerating into mindless monsters. In the demon world, a special breeding program was set up under the guise of orphanages; there, a human "Mother" would oversee the children to make sure they grew up as intelligent as possible. These children had identifying numbers tattooed on them and had no knowledge of the outside world. They believed that they were orphans and once they reached a certain age or intelligence, they would be taken out for adoption, but were fed to high-ranking demons instead.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: In the year 2045, 1,000 years after the formation of "The Promise", the bright and cheerful Emma is an 11-year-old orphan living in Grace Field House, a self-contained orphanage housing her and 37 other orphans. They lead an idyllic life, with plentiful food, plush beds, clean clothes, games and the love of their "Mom", Isabella. Their education is seen as an important part of their development, and Emma with her two best friends Norman and Ray, always excel in the regular exams. The orphans are allowed complete freedom, except to venture beyond the perimeter wall or gate which separate the house from the outside world. One night, a girl named Conny is sent away to be "adopted", but Emma and Norman follow with her favorite stuffed animal toy. At the gate, they find Conny dead and discover the truth about their existence in this idyllic orphanage – to be raised as meat for demons. Emma and Norman plan with Ray to escape from Grace Field House with the children, but Norman is taken off to be "adopted". Emma and Ray then decide to escape with some of their older siblings, leaving half of the younger children behind.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: The escapees find life outside Grace Field House is filled with dangers, but under the leadership of Emma and Ray, they become determined to return to free their remaining siblings, along with children from the other Farms. They encounter demons of all descriptions, including Mujika and Sonju who aid them in their quest. Emma and Ray later meet up again with Norman and together with their allies, they fight a battle for freedom against the demon queen Legravalima and the human Peter Ratri who manages the Farms. Eventually, through her own determination, Emma secures the freedom of all the children and re-forges "The Promise", bringing all of them to the human world, but at the cost of her own memory.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: The series' first conception originated by the end of 2013, from a draft originally simply titled "Neverland", but was later changed to "The Promised Neverland" after running into some copyright issues. Kaiu Shirai brought the 300-page "The Promised Neverland" draft to the "Weekly Shōnen Jump" editorial department. Suguru Sugita, the editor of "The Promised Neverland", said that "the series was an ambitious work that did not seem like a "Jump" manga, with both bright and dark scenes that needed a world of fantasy that would also create suspense". According to Shirai, Sugita suggested to complete the series in twelve volumes; "a size around that of "Death Note" manga is enough, no longer than that".


title: The Promised Neverland

text: They had difficulties trying to find an artist whose style could match the story, ranging from famous illustrators to new and upcoming talent. Shirai considered Posuka Demizu as one of the candidates, as he and Sugita felt that her art was the best fit for the series' imagery. Some candidates turned down the offer, giving comments like that "the story did not feel like a "Jump" manga", or that "it would not become a hit", so they were "really happy and excited" when Demizu agreed to work on it. Sugita said that Shirai and Demizu had a kind of synergy similar to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the creators of "Death Note". Before "The Promised Neverland" began its serialization, Shirai and Demizu published the one-shot on the "Shōnen Jump+" online platform in February 2016. The one-shot was popular among readers and Sugita expressed that they were the right team for "The Promised Neverland".


title: The Promised Neverland

text: Shirai was inspired by children's folklore books from all over the world and video games like "Final Fantasy" for the series' setting creation, while for the horror elements, he said that he only used his imagination because he did not like horror films. He also mentioned that part of the story came from some nightmares that he had as a kid, especially after having read "Hansel and Gretel", stories about children being eaten, and a manga focused on spirits that made him ask himself if the monsters could solve their problems if they raised humans like cattle. Shirai said: "All these fears, ideas, influences, have come together. This is how the story of "The Promised Neverland" was born".


title: The Promised Neverland

text: Demizu said that the Japanese folklore and its monsters were a first source of inspiration, also citing European fairy tales like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel". She also mentioned Naoki Urasawa's "Monster", Ghibli's universe and prison escape films, like "Escape from Alcatraz", "Papillon", "The Great Escape" and the American television series "Prison Break".


title: The Promised Neverland

text: The series' setting was inspired by the Victorian England, as Shirai expressed that he wanted to "destabilize the readers and to lead them on the false leads" by making them think that the story was set in an English orphanage in the 19th century. He also wanted to avoid situating the story in a very specific time frame. He had no particular reasons to choose England, but the Grace Field House orphanage name written in English in the text appealed to him. Shirai also said that "the European town planning is a benchmark, a very popular style highly appreciated for the Japanese". Demizu did a two-month language study trip to England when she was younger and took a lot of photos that she used as a reference for the series. She was particularly impressed by the English forests and atmosphere.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: Regarding the title and its relation to Neverland, the fictional island of "Peter Pan" created by J. M. Barrie, Shirai said that it is a magical, fairy tale place to have fun thanks to Peter Pan, but that half the place is dark and dangerous. He said that these two parts, "the cohabitation of childish playfulness" and "the dangerous shadow that hovers at the bottom" are factors that he tried to transcribe through "The Promised Neverland". Shirai and his editor wanted to keep "Neverland" in the title, considering the story and its development. They then came up with “Promised” around the time they were working on the post-escape story. They considered the word to be important and agreed to also mention it in the plot.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: Despite its dark tone, Shirai wanted to publish "The Promised Neverland" in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" instead of a "seinen" manga magazine because "the plot is not related to age, even if the themes of the story are dark, and that there was no reason to deprive the magazine's readership of a story due to an editorial line". He added that the series has canon "shōnen" manga themes, such as mutual aid or surpassing oneself. According to Shirai, the main characters are children because the magazine is mainly read by young readers, making it easier for the readers to relate to them, and the concept of children rebelling against adults was used because it is a classic theme in many stories. Although Shirai admitted that the story is darker than the majority of the "Weekly Shōnen Jump" manga, they avoided using "extreme trends" such as ""ero-guro"", "violence" or "nonsense", since, according to the series' editor, that would just make it "an ordinary manga", and they tried to include those essences as little as possible and use them only when they were necessary for the story.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: Shirai said that the idea of students with the lowest grades being the first to leave the Farm to be eaten by the demons, while not necessarily a metaphor, was a way of inviting the reader to reflect on current society. Although Shirai admitted similarities between the series and the Japanese society and its school system, he said that "it is not meant to be a underlying critique and was rather an approach to daily life family, school and the way children look at adults". Despite some interpretations made by PETA, claiming that the series is a pamphlet against mass farming and pro-vegetarians, Shirai expressed that he was not trying to imbue the work with moral values, and as an author, he was not in position to judge. He emphasized that it was never explicitly said that demons were bad people in the story. He further said: "That people make a connection with veganism and intensive breeding doesn't bother me, but our main goal is to create a story to entertain people, not to offer a moral judgment. Our manga is not a critique of the consumer society as such".


title: The Promised Neverland

text: According to the official 2020 fan book, "The Promised Neverland 0: Mystic Code", the writing process for the final chapters was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Shirai felt that the length of the chapters, particularly chapter 179 and the final chapter, limited the content that he wanted to include.


title: The Promised Neverland

text: "The Promised Neverland" is written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. The manga was serialized in Shueisha's "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from August 1, 2016 to June 15, 2020. Shueisha collected its chapters in twenty "tankōbon" volumes, released from December 2, 2016 to October 2, 2020.