title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg took part in decades of political protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. His poem "September on Jessore Road" called attention to the plight of Bengali refugees which was caused by the 1971 Genocide and it exemplifies what literary critic Helen Vendler described as Ginsberg's persistence in protesting against "imperial politics" and "persecution of the powerless". His collection "The Fall of America" shared the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book "Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg was born into a Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paterson. He was the second son of Louis Ginsberg, also born in Newark, a schoolteacher and sometime poet, and the former Naomi Levy, born in Nevel (Russia) and a fervent Marxist.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: As a teenager, Ginsberg began to write letters to "The New York Times" about political issues, such as World War II and workers' rights. He published his first poems in the "Paterson Morning Call". While in high school, Ginsberg became interested in the works of Walt Whitman, inspired by his teacher's passionate reading. In 1943, Ginsberg graduated from Eastside High School and briefly attended Montclair State College before entering Columbia University on a scholarship from the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Paterson.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1945, he joined the Merchant Marine to earn money to continue his education at Columbia. While at Columbia, Ginsberg contributed to the "Columbia Review" literary journal, the "Jester" humor magazine, won the Woodberry Poetry Prize, served as president of the Philolexian Society (literary and debate group), and joined Boar's Head Society (poetry society).


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: He was a resident of Hartley Hall, where other Beat Generation poets such as Jack Kerouac and Herbert Gold also lived. Ginsberg has stated that he considered his required freshman seminar in Great Books, taught by Lionel Trilling, to be his favorite Columbia course.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: According to The Poetry Foundation, Ginsberg spent several months in a mental institution after he pleaded insanity during a hearing. He was allegedly being prosecuted for harboring stolen goods in his dorm room. It was noted that the stolen property was not his, but belonged to an acquaintance. Ginsberg also took part in public readings at the Episcopal St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery which would later hold a memorial service for him after his death.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg referred to his parents in a 1985 interview as "old-fashioned delicatessen philosophers". His mother was also an active member of the Communist Party and took Ginsberg and his brother Eugene to party meetings. Ginsberg later said that his mother "made up bedtime stories that all went something like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Of his father Ginsberg said: "My father would go around the house either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for ruining poetry with his 'obscurantism.' I grew suspicious of both sides."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Naomi Ginsberg had schizophrenia which often manifested as paranoid delusions, disordered thinking and multiple suicide tentatives. She would claim, for example, that the president had implanted listening devices in their home and that her mother-in-law was trying to kill her. Her suspicion of those around her caused Naomi to draw closer to young Allen, "her little pet," as Bill Morgan says in his biography of Ginsberg, titled "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg". She also tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists and was soon taken to Greystone, a mental hospital; she would spend much of Ginsberg's youth in mental hospitals. His experiences with his mother and her mental illness were a major inspiration for his two major works, "Howl" and his long autobiographical poem "Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894–1956)".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: When he was in junior high school, he accompanied his mother by bus to her therapist. The trip deeply disturbed Ginsberg—he mentioned it and other moments from his childhood in "Kaddish". His experiences with his mother's mental illness and her institutionalization are also frequently referred to in "Howl." For example, "Pilgrim State, Rockland, and Grey Stone's foetid halls" is a reference to institutions frequented by his mother and Carl Solomon, ostensibly the subject of the poem: Pilgrim State Hospital and Rockland State Hospital in New York and Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. This is followed soon by the line "with mother finally ******." Ginsberg later admitted the deletion was the expletive "fucked." He also says of Solomon in section three, "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother," once again showing the association between Solomon and his mother.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg received a letter from his mother after her death responding to a copy of "Howl" he had sent her. It admonished Ginsberg to be good and stay away from drugs; she says, "The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the window—I have the key—Get married Allen don't take drugs—the key is in the bars, in the sunlight in the window." In a letter she wrote to Ginsberg's brother Eugene, she said, "God's informers come to my bed, and God himself I saw in the sky. The sunshine showed too, a key on the side of the window for me to get out. The yellow of the sunshine, also showed the key on the side of the window." These letters and the absence of a facility to recite kaddish inspired Ginsberg to write "Kaddish", which makes references to many details from Naomi's life, Ginsberg's experiences with her, and the letter, including the lines "the key is in the light" and "the key is in the window."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In Ginsberg's first year at Columbia he met fellow undergraduate Lucien Carr, who introduced him to a number of future Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes. They bonded, because they saw in one another an excitement about the potential of American youth, a potential that existed outside the strict conformist confines of post–World War II, McCarthy-era America. Ginsberg and Carr talked excitedly about a "New Vision" (a phrase adapted from Yeats' "A Vision"), for literature and America. Carr also introduced Ginsberg to Neal Cassady, for whom Ginsberg had a long infatuation. In the first chapter of his 1957 novel "On the Road" Kerouac described the meeting between Ginsberg and Cassady. Kerouac saw them as the dark (Ginsberg) and light (Cassady) side of their "New Vision", a perception stemming partly from Ginsberg's association with communism, of which Kerouac had become increasingly distrustful. Though Ginsberg was never a member of the Communist Party, Kerouac named him "Carlo Marx" in "On the Road". This was a source of strain in their relationship.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Also, in New York, Ginsberg met Gregory Corso in the Pony Stable Bar. Corso, recently released from prison, was supported by the Pony Stable patrons and was writing poetry there the night of their meeting. Ginsberg claims he was immediately attracted to Corso, who was straight, but understood of homosexuality after three years in prison. Ginsberg was even more struck by reading Corso's poems, realizing Corso was "spiritually gifted." Ginsberg introduced Corso to the rest of his inner circle. In their first meeting at the Pony Stable, Corso showed Ginsberg a poem about a woman who lived across the street from him and sunbathed naked in the window. Amazingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's girlfriend that he was living with during one of his forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg took Corso over to their apartment. There the woman proposed sex with Corso, who was still very young and fled in fear. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac and Burroughs and they began to travel together. Ginsberg and Corso remained lifelong friends and collaborators.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Shortly after this period in Ginsberg's life, he became romantically involved with Elise Nada Cowen after meeting her through Alex Greer, a philosophy professor at Barnard College whom she had dated for a while during the burgeoning Beat generation's period of development. As a Barnard student, Elise Cowen extensively read the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, when she met Joyce Johnson and Leo Skir, among other Beat players. As Cowen had felt a strong attraction to darker poetry most of the time, Beat poetry seemed to provide an allure to what suggests a shadowy side of her persona. While at Barnard, Cowen earned the nickname "Beat Alice" as she had joined a small group of anti-establishment artists and visionaries known to outsiders as beatniks, and one of her first acquaintances at the college was the beat poet Joyce Johnson who later portrayed Cowen in her books, including "Minor Characters" and "Come and Join the Dance", which expressed the two women's experiences in the Barnard and Columbia Beat community. Through his association with Elise Cowen, Ginsberg discovered that they shared a mutual friend, Carl Solomon, to whom he later dedicated his most famous poem "Howl." This poem is considered an autobiography of Ginsberg up to 1955, and a brief history of the Beat Generation through its references to his relationship to other Beat artists of that time.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1948, in an apartment in Harlem, Ginsberg had an auditory hallucination while reading the poetry of William Blake (later referred to as his "Blake vision"). At first, Ginsberg claimed to have heard the voice of God but later interpreted the voice as that of Blake himself reading "Ah! Sun-flower", "The Sick Rose", and The "Little Girl Lost", also described by Ginsberg as "voice of the ancient of days." The experience lasted several days. Ginsberg believed that he had witnessed the interconnectedness of the universe. He looked at latticework on the fire escape and realized some hand had crafted that; he then looked at the sky and intuited that some hand had crafted that also, or rather, that the sky was the hand that crafted itself. He explained that this hallucination was not inspired by drug use but said he sought to recapture that feeling later with various drugs. Ginsberg stated: "[...] not that some hand had placed the sky but that the sky was the living blue hand itself. Or that God was in front of my eyes—existence itself was God," and "[...] it was a sudden awakening into a totally deeper real universe than I'd been existing in."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg moved to San Francisco during the 1950s. Before "Howl and Other Poems" was published in 1956 by City Lights, he worked as a market researcher.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1954, in San Francisco, Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010), with whom he fell in love and who remained his lifelong partner. Selections from their correspondence have been published.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Also in San Francisco, Ginsberg met members of the San Francisco Renaissance (James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Madeline Gleason and Kenneth Rexroth) and other poets who would later be associated with the Beat Generation in a broader sense. Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams wrote an introductory letter to San Francisco Renaissance figurehead Kenneth Rexroth, who then introduced Ginsberg into the San Francisco poetry scene. There, Ginsberg also met three budding poets and Zen enthusiasts who had become friends at Reed College: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch. In 1959, along with poets John Kelly, Bob Kaufman, A. D. Winans, and William Margolis, Ginsberg was one of the founders of the "Beatitude" poetry magazine.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Wally Hedrick—a painter and co-founder of the Six Gallery—approached Ginsberg in mid-1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery. At first, Ginsberg refused, but once he had written a rough draft of "Howl," he changed his "fucking mind," as he put it. Ginsberg advertised the event as "Six Poets at the Six Gallery." One of the most important events in Beat mythos, known simply as "The Six Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955. The event, in essence, brought together the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation. Of more personal significance to Ginsberg, the reading that night included the first public presentation of "Howl," a poem that brought worldwide fame to Ginsberg and to many of the poets associated with him. An account of that night can be found in Kerouac's novel "The Dharma Bums", describing how change was collected from audience members to buy jugs of wine, and Ginsberg reading passionately, drunken, with arms outstretched.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg's principal work, "Howl," is well known for its opening line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked [...]." "Howl" was considered scandalous at the time of its publication, because of the rawness of its language. Shortly after its 1956 publication by San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The ban became a cause célèbre among defenders of the First Amendment, and was later lifted, after Judge Clayton W. Horn declared the poem to possess redeeming artistic value. Ginsberg and Shig Murao, the City Lights manager who was jailed for selling "Howl," became lifelong friends.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg claimed at one point that all of his work was an extended biography (like Kerouac's "Duluoz Legend"). "Howl" is not only a biography of Ginsberg's experiences before 1955, but also a history of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg also later claimed that at the core of "Howl" were his unresolved emotions about his schizophrenic mother. Though "Kaddish" deals more explicitly with his mother, "Howl" in many ways is driven by the same emotions. "Howl" chronicles the development of many important friendships throughout Ginsberg's life. He begins the poem with "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", which sets the stage for Ginsberg to describe Cassady and Solomon, immortalizing them into American literature. This madness was the "angry fix" that society needed to function—madness was its disease. In the poem, Ginsberg focused on "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland", and, thus, turned Solomon into an archetypal figure searching for freedom from his "straightjacket". Though references in most of his poetry reveal much about his biography, his relationship to other members of the Beat Generation, and his own political views, "Howl," his most famous poem, is still perhaps the best place to start.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to a shabby lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur that was to become known as the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem "Kaddish," Corso composed "Bomb" and "Marriage", and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together "Naked Lunch" from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures constantly of the residents of the "hotel" until it closed in 1963. During 1962–1963, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled extensively across India, living half a year at a time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Benares (Varanasi). On his road to India he stayed two months in Athens ( 29/08/1961 - 31/10/1961) where he visited various cites such as Delphi, Mycines, Crete, and then he continued his journey to Israel, Kenya and finally India. Also during this time, he formed friendships with some of the prominent young Bengali poets of the time including Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. Ginsberg had several political connections in India; most notably Pupul Jayakar who helped him extend his stay in India when the authorities were eager to expel him.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In May 1965, Ginsberg arrived in London, and offered to read anywhere for free. Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind." Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England—or at least in the history of English Poetry."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Soon after the bookshop reading, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 11, 1965. The event attracted an audience of 7,000, who heard readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George MacBeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins and Tom McGrath. The event was organized by Ginsberg's friend, the filmmaker Barbara Rubin.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as "Wholly Communion". A book featuring images from the film and some of the poems that were performed was also published under the same title by Lorrimer in the UK and Grove Press in US.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Though the term "Beat" is most accurately applied to Ginsberg and his closest friends (Corso, Orlovsky, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc.), the term "Beat Generation" has become associated with many of the other poets Ginsberg met and became friends with in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A key feature of this term seems to be a friendship with Ginsberg. Friendship with Kerouac or Burroughs might also apply, but both writers later strove to disassociate themselves from the name "Beat Generation." Part of their dissatisfaction with the term came from the mistaken identification of Ginsberg as the leader. Ginsberg never claimed to be the leader of a movement. He claimed that many of the writers with whom he had become friends in this period shared many of the same intentions and themes. Some of these friends include: David Amram, Bob Kaufman; Diane di Prima; Jim Cohn; poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov; poets associated with the New York School such as Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. LeRoi Jones before he became Amiri Baraka, who, after reading "Howl", wrote a letter to Ginsberg on a sheet of toilet paper. Baraka's independent publishing house Totem Press published Ginsberg's early work. Through a party organized by Baraka, Ginsberg was introduced to Langston Hughes while Ornette Coleman played saxophone.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Later in his life, Ginsberg formed a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg gave his last public reading at Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, a few months before his death. In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono to pay homage to the 90-year-old great Carl Rakosi.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1950, Kerouac began studying Buddhism and shared what he learned from Dwight Goddard's "Buddhist Bible" with Ginsberg. Ginsberg first heard about the Four Noble Truths and such sutras as the Diamond Sutra at this time.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg's spiritual journey began early on with his spontaneous visions, and continued with an early trip to India with Gary Snyder. Snyder had previously spent time in Kyoto to study at the First Zen Institute at Daitoku-ji Monastery. At one point, Snyder chanted the Prajnaparamita, which in Ginsberg's words "blew my mind." His interest piqued, Ginsberg traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as well as the Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery. Continuing on his journey, Ginsberg met Dudjom Rinpoche in Kalimpong, who taught him: "If you see something horrible, don't cling to it, and if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: After returning to the United States, a chance encounter on a New York City street with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (they both tried to catch the same cab), a Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist master, led to Trungpa becoming his friend and lifelong teacher. Ginsberg helped Trungpa and New York poet Anne Waldman in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg was also involved with Krishnaism. He had started incorporating chanting the Hare Krishna mantra into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. After learning that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in the Western world had rented a store front in New York, he befriended him, visiting him often and suggesting publishers for his books, and a fruitful relationship began. This relationship is documented by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami in his biographical account "Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta". Ginsberg donated money, materials, and his reputation to help the Swami establish the first temple, and toured with him to promote his cause.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Despite disagreeing with many of Bhaktivedanta Swami's required prohibitions, Ginsberg often sang the Hare Krishna mantra publicly as part of his philosophy and declared that it brought a state of ecstasy. He was glad that Bhaktivedanta Swami, an authentic swami from India, was now trying to spread the chanting in America. Along with other counterculture ideologists like Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts, Ginsberg hoped to incorporate Bhaktivedanta Swami and his chanting into the hippie movement, and agreed to take part in the Mantra-Rock Dance concert and to introduce the swami to the Haight-Ashbury hippie community.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: On January 17, 1967, Ginsberg helped plan and organize a reception for Bhaktivedanta Swami at San Francisco International Airport, where fifty to a hundred hippies greeted the Swami, chanting Hare Krishna in the airport lounge with flowers in hands. To further support and promote Bhaktivendata Swami's message and chanting in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg agreed to attend the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event 1967 held at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. It featured some leading rock bands of the time: Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape, who performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami and donated proceeds to the Krishna temple. Ginsberg introduced Bhaktivedanta Swami to some three thousand hippies in the audience and led the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Music and chanting were both important parts of Ginsberg's live delivery during poetry readings. He often accompanied himself on a harmonium, and was often accompanied by a guitarist. It is believed that the Hindi and Buddhist poet Nagarjun had introduced Ginsberg to the harmonium in Banaras. According to Malay Roy Choudhury, Ginsberg refined his practice while learning from his relatives, including his cousin Savitri Banerjee. When Ginsberg asked if he could sing a song in praise of Lord Krishna on William F. Buckley, Jr.'s TV show "Firing Line" on September 3, 1968, Buckley acceded and the poet chanted slowly as he played dolefully on a harmonium. According to Richard Brookhiser, an associate of Buckley's, the host commented that it was "the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: At the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the 1970 Black Panther rally at Yale campus Allen chanted "Om" repeatedly over a sound system for hours on end.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg further brought mantras into the world of rock and roll when he recited the Heart Sutra in the song "Ghetto Defendant." The song appears on the 1982 album Combat Rock by British first wave punk band The Clash.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg came in touch with the Hungryalist poets of Bengal, especially Malay Roy Choudhury, who introduced Ginsberg to the three fish with one head of Indian emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar. The three fish symbolised coexistence of all thought, philosophy, and religion.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In spite of Ginsberg's attraction to Eastern religions, the journalist Jane Kramer argues that he, like Whitman, adhered to an "American brand of mysticism" that was "rooted in humanism and in a romantic and visionary ideal of harmony among men."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: The Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International partnered to present "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends," a gallery and online exhibition of images of Gelek Rimpoche by Allen Ginsberg, a student with whom he had an “indissoluble bond,” in 2021 at Tibet House US in New York City. Fifty negatives from Ginsberg's Stanford University photo archive celebrated "the unique relationship between Allen and Rimpoche." The selection of never-before presented images, featuring great Tibetan masters including the Dalai Lama, Tibetologists, and students were "guided by Allen’s extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he’d circled with the intention to print."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1960, he was treated for a tropical disease, and it is speculated that he contracted hepatitis from an unsterilized needle administered by a doctor, which played a role in his death 37 years later.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg was a lifelong smoker, and though he tried to quit for health and religious reasons, his busy schedule in later life made it difficult, and he always returned to smoking.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In the 1970s, Ginsberg had two minor strokes which were first diagnosed as Bell's palsy, which gave him significant paralysis and stroke-like drooping of the muscles in one side of his face.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Later in life, he also had constant minor ailments such as high blood pressure. Many of these symptoms were related to stress, but he never slowed down his schedule.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1986, Ginsberg was awarded the Golden Wreath by the Struga Poetry Evenings International Festival in Macedonia, the second American poet to be so awarded since W. H. Auden. At Struga, Ginsberg met with the other Golden Wreath winners, Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1989, Ginsberg appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's award-winning film "Silence = Death" about the fight of gay artists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg continued to help his friends as much as he could: he gave money to Herbert Huncke out of his own pocket, regularly supplied neighbor Arthur Russell with an extension cord to power his home recording setup, and housed a broke, drug-addicted Harry Smith.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: With the exception of a special guest appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam on February 20, 1997, Ginsberg gave what is thought to be his last reading at The Booksmith in San Francisco on December 16, 1996.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: After returning home from the hospital for the last time, where he had been unsuccessfully treated for congestive heart failure, Ginsberg continued making phone calls to say goodbye to nearly everyone in his address book. Some of the phone calls, were sad and interrupted by crying, and others were joyous and optimistic. Ginsberg continued to write through his final illness, with his last poem, "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)", written on March 30.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: He died on April 5, 1997, surrounded by family and friends in his East Village loft in Manhattan, succumbing to liver cancer via complications of hepatitis at the age of 70. Gregory Corso, Roy Lichtenstein, Patti Smith and others came by to pay their respects. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his family plot in Gomel Chesed Cemetery in Newark. He was survived by Orlovsky.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1998, various writers, including Catfish McDaris read at a gathering at Ginsberg's farm to honor Allen and the Beats.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: "Good Will Hunting" (released in December 1997) was dedicated to Ginsberg, as well as Burroughs, who died four months later.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg's willingness to talk about taboo subjects made him a controversial figure during the conservative 1950s, and a significant figure in the 1960s. In the mid-1950s, no reputable publishing company would even consider publishing "Howl". At the time, such "sex talk" employed in "Howl" was considered by some to be vulgar or even a form of pornography, and could be prosecuted under law. Ginsberg used phrases such as "cocksucker", "fucked in the ass", and "cunt" as part of the poem's depiction of different aspects of American culture. Numerous books that discussed sex were banned at the time, including "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The sex that Ginsberg described did not portray the sex between heterosexual married couples, or even longtime lovers. Instead, Ginsberg portrayed casual sex. For example, in "Howl", Ginsberg praises the man "who sweetened the snatches of a million girls." Ginsberg used gritty descriptions and explicit sexual language, pointing out the man "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup." In his poetry, Ginsberg also discussed the then-taboo topic of homosexuality. The explicit sexual language that filled "Howl" eventually led to an important trial on First Amendment issues. Ginsberg's publisher was brought up on charges for publishing pornography, and the outcome led to a judge going on record dismissing charges, because the poem carried "redeeming social importance," thus setting an important legal precedent. Ginsberg continued to broach controversial subjects throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. From 1970 to 1996, Ginsberg had a long-term affiliation with PEN American Center with efforts to defend free expression. When explaining how he approached controversial topics, he often pointed to Herbert Huncke: he said that when he first got to know Huncke in the 1940s, Ginsberg saw that he was sick from his heroin addiction, but at the time heroin was a taboo subject and Huncke was left with nowhere to go for help.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg was a signer of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority", circulated among draft resistors in 1967 by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. Other signers and RESIST members included Mitchell Goodman, Henry Braun, Denise Levertov, Noam Chomsky, William Sloane Coffin, Dwight Macdonald, Robert Lowell, and Norman Mailer. In 1968, Ginsberg signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: He was present the night of the Tompkins Square Park riot (1988) and provided an eyewitness account to "The New York Times".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg talked openly about his connections with communism and his admiration for past communist heroes and the labor movement at a time when the Red Scare and McCarthyism were still raging. He admired Fidel Castro and many other Marxist figures from the 20th century. In "America" (1956), Ginsberg writes: "America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry". Biographer Jonah Raskin has claimed that, despite his often stark opposition to communist orthodoxy, Ginsberg held "his own idiosyncratic version of communism." On the other hand, when Donald Manes, a New York City politician, publicly accused Ginsberg of being a member of the Communist Party, Ginsberg objected: "I am not, as a matter of fact, a member of the Communist party, nor am I dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government or any government by violence ... I must say that I see little difference between the armed and violent governments both Communist and Capitalist that I have observed".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg travelled to several communist countries to promote free speech. He claimed that communist countries, such as China, welcomed him because they thought he was an enemy of capitalism, but often turned against him when they saw him as a troublemaker. For example, in 1965 Ginsberg was deported from Cuba for publicly protesting the persecution of homosexuals. The Cubans sent him to Czechoslovakia, where one week after being named the "Král majálesu" ("King of May", a students' festivity, celebrating spring and student life), Ginsberg was arrested for alleged drug use and public drunkenness, and the security agency StB confiscated several of his writings, which they considered to be lewd and morally dangerous. Ginsberg was then deported from Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1965, by order of the StB. Václav Havel points to Ginsberg as an important inspiration.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: One contribution that is often considered his most significant and most controversial was his openness about homosexuality. Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for gay people. In 1943, he discovered within himself "mountains of homosexuality." He expressed this desire openly and graphically in his poetry. He also struck a note for gay marriage by listing Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong companion, as his spouse in his "Who's Who" entry. Subsequent gay writers saw his frank talk about homosexuality as an opening to speak more openly and honestly about something often before only hinted at or spoken of in metaphor.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In writing about sexuality in graphic detail and in his frequent use of language seen as indecent, he challenged—and ultimately changed—obscenity laws. He was a staunch supporter of others whose expression challenged obscenity laws (William S. Burroughs and Lenny Bruce, for example).


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg was a supporter and member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States that works to abolish age of consent laws and legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Saying that he joined the organization "in defense of free speech", Ginsberg stated: "Attacks on NAMBLA stink of politics, witchhunting for profit, humorlessness, vanity, anger and ignorance ... I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys too—everybody does, who has a little humanity". In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in a documentary on NAMBLA called "" (playing on the gay male slang term "Chickenhawk"), in which he read a "graphic ode to youth".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In her 2002 book "Heartbreak", Andrea Dworkin claimed Ginsberg had ulterior motives for allying with NAMBLA. In reference to his onetime friend Dworkin, Ginsberg stated:


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg talked often about drug use. He organized the New York City chapter of LeMar (Legalize Marijuana). Throughout the 1960s he took an active role in the demystification of LSD, and, with Timothy Leary, worked to promote its common use. He remained for many decades an advocate of marijuana legalization, and, at the same time, warned his audiences against the hazards of tobacco in his "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag (Don't Smoke):" "Don't Smoke Don't Smoke Nicotine Nicotine No / No don't smoke the official Dope Smoke Dope Dope."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg worked closely with Alfred W. McCoy on the latter's book "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia", which claimed that the CIA was knowingly involved in the production of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. In addition to working with McCoy, Ginsberg personally confronted Richard Helms, the director of the CIA in the 1970s, about the matter, but Helms denied that the CIA had anything to do with selling illegal drugs. Allen wrote many essays and articles, researching and compiling evidence of the CIA's alleged involvement in drug trafficking, but it took ten years, and the publication of McCoy's book in 1972, before anyone took him seriously. In 1978, Ginsberg received a note from the chief editor of "The New York Times", apologizing for not having taken his allegations seriously. The political subject is dealt with in his song/poem "CIA Dope calypso". The United States Department of State responded to McCoy's initial allegations stating that they were "unable to find any evidence to substantiate them, much less proof." Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a.k.a. the Church Committee, also found the charges to be unsubstantiated.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Most of Ginsberg's very early poetry was written in formal rhyme and meter like that of his father, and of his idol William Blake. His admiration for the writing of Jack Kerouac inspired him to take poetry more seriously. In 1955, upon the advice of a psychiatrist, Ginsberg dropped out of the working world to devote his entire life to poetry. Soon after, he wrote "Howl", the poem that brought him and his Beat Generation contemporaries to national attention and allowed him to live as a professional poet for the rest of his life. Later in life, Ginsberg entered academia, teaching poetry as Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College from 1986 until his death.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg claimed throughout his life that his biggest inspiration was Kerouac's concept of "spontaneous prose." He believed literature should come from the soul without conscious restrictions. Ginsberg was much more prone to revise than Kerouac. For example, when Kerouac saw the first draft of "Howl," he disliked the fact that Ginsberg had made editorial changes in pencil (transposing "negro" and "angry" in the first line, for example). Kerouac only wrote out his concepts of spontaneous prose at Ginsberg's insistence because Ginsberg wanted to learn how to apply the technique to his poetry.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: The inspiration for "Howl" was Ginsberg's friend, Carl Solomon, and "Howl" is dedicated to him. Solomon was a Dada and Surrealism enthusiast (he introduced Ginsberg to Artaud) who had bouts of clinical depression. Solomon wanted to commit suicide, but he thought a form of suicide appropriate to dadaism would be to go to a mental institution and demand a lobotomy. The institution refused, giving him many forms of therapy, including electroshock therapy. Much of the final section of the first part of "Howl" is a description of this.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg used Solomon as an example of all those ground down by the machine of "Moloch." Moloch, to whom the second section is addressed, is a Levantine god to whom children were sacrificed. Ginsberg may have gotten the name from the Kenneth Rexroth poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill," a poem about the death of one of Ginsberg's heroes, Dylan Thomas. Moloch is mentioned a few times in the Torah and references to Ginsberg's Jewish background are frequent in his work. Ginsberg said the image of Moloch was inspired by peyote visions he had of the Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco which appeared to him as a skull; he took it as a symbol of the city (not specifically San Francisco, but all cities). Ginsberg later acknowledged in various publications and interviews that behind the visions of the Francis Drake Hotel were memories of the Moloch of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" (1927) and of the woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. Moloch has subsequently been interpreted as any system of control, including the conformist society of post-World War II America, focused on material gain, which Ginsberg frequently blamed for the destruction of all those outside of societal norms.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: He also made sure to emphasize that Moloch is a part of humanity in multiple aspects, in that the decision to "defy" socially created systems of control—and therefore go against Moloch—is a form of self-destruction. Many of the characters Ginsberg references in "Howl", such as Neal Cassady and Herbert Huncke, destroyed themselves through excessive substance abuse or a generally wild lifestyle. The personal aspects of "Howl" are perhaps as important as the political aspects. Carl Solomon, the prime example of a "best mind" destroyed by defying society, is associated with Ginsberg's schizophrenic mother: the line "with mother finally fucked" comes after a long section about Carl Solomon, and in Part III, Ginsberg says: "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother." Ginsberg later admitted that the drive to write "Howl" was fueled by sympathy for his ailing mother, an issue which he was not yet ready to deal with directly. He dealt with it directly with 1959's "Kaddish", which had its first public reading at a Catholic Worker Friday Night meeting, possibly due to its associations with Thomas Merton.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by Modernism (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), Romanticism (specifically William Blake and John Keats), the beat and cadence of jazz (specifically that of bop musicians such as Charlie Parker), and his Kagyu Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist William Blake, the American poet Walt Whitman and the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its New World exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: He corresponded with William Carlos Williams, who was then in the middle of writing his epic poem "Paterson" about the industrial city near his home. After attending a reading by Williams, Ginsberg sent the older poet several of his poems and wrote an introductory letter. Most of these early poems were rhymed and metered and included archaic pronouns like "thee." Williams disliked the poems and told Ginsberg, "In this mode perfection is basic, and these poems are not perfect."


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Though he disliked these early poems, Williams loved the exuberance in Ginsberg's letter. He included the letter in a later part of "Paterson". He encouraged Ginsberg not to emulate the old masters, but to speak with his own voice and the voice of the common American. From Williams, Ginsberg learned to focus on strong visual images, in line with Williams' own motto "No ideas but in things." Studying Williams' style led to a tremendous shift from the early formalist work to a loose, colloquial free verse style. Early breakthrough poems include "Bricklayer's Lunch Hour" and "Dream Record".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Carl Solomon introduced Ginsberg to the work of Antonin Artaud ("To Have Done with the Judgement of God" and "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society"), and Jean Genet ("Our Lady of the Flowers"). Philip Lamantia introduced him to other Surrealists and Surrealism continued to be an influence (for example, sections of "Kaddish" were inspired by André Breton's "Free Union"). Ginsberg claimed that the anaphoric repetition of "Howl" and other poems was inspired by Christopher Smart in such poems as "Jubilate Agno". Ginsberg also claimed other more traditional influences, such as: Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg also made an intense study of haiku and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, from which he adapted a concept important to his work, which he called the "Eyeball Kick". He noticed in viewing Cézanne's paintings that when the eye moved from one color to a contrasting color, the eye would spasm, or "kick." Likewise, he discovered that the contrast of two seeming opposites was a common feature in haiku. Ginsberg used this technique in his poetry, putting together two starkly dissimilar images: something weak with something strong, an artifact of high culture with an artifact of low culture, something holy with something unholy. The example Ginsberg most often used was "hydrogen jukebox" (which later became the title of a song cycle composed by Philip Glass with lyrics drawn from Ginsberg's poems). Another example is Ginsberg's observation on Bob Dylan during Dylan's hectic and intense 1966 electric-guitar tour, fueled by a cocktail of amphetamines, opiates, alcohol, and psychedelics, as a "Dexedrine Clown". The phrases "eyeball kick" and "hydrogen jukebox" both show up in "Howl", as well as a direct quote from Cézanne: "Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus".


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Allen Ginsberg also found inspiration in music. He frequently included music in his poetry, invariably composing his tunes on an old Indian harmonium, which he often played during his readings. He wrote and recorded music to accompany William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience". He also recorded a handful of other albums. To create music for "Howl" and "Wichita Vortex Sutra," he worked with the minimalist composer, Philip Glass.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg worked with, drew inspiration from, and inspired artists such as Bob Dylan, The Clash, Patti Smith, Phil Ochs, and The Fugs. He worked with Dylan on various projects and maintained a friendship with him over many years.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 1981, Ginsberg recorded a song called "Birdbrain." He was backed by the Gluons, and the track was released as a single. In 1996, he recorded a song co-written with Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, "The Ballad of the Skeletons," which reached number 8 on the Triple J Hottest 100 for that year.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: From the study of his idols and mentors and the inspiration of his friends—not to mention his own experiments—Ginsberg developed an individualistic style that's easily identified as Ginsbergian. Ginsberg stated that Whitman's long line was a dynamic technique few other poets had ventured to develop further, and Whitman is also often compared to Ginsberg because their poetry sexualized aspects of the male form.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Many of Ginsberg's early long line experiments contain some sort of anaphora, repetition of a "fixed base" (for example "who" in "Howl", "America" in "America") and this has become a recognizable feature of Ginsberg's style. He said later this was a crutch because he lacked confidence; he did not yet trust "free flight." In the 1960s, after employing it in some sections of "Kaddish" ("caw" for example) he, for the most part, abandoned the anaphoric form.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Several of his earlier experiments with methods for formatting poems as a whole became regular aspects of his style in later poems. In the original draft of "Howl", each line is in a "stepped triadic" format reminiscent of William Carlos Williams. He abandoned the "stepped triadic" when he developed his long line although the stepped lines showed up later, most significantly in the travelogues of "The Fall of America". "Howl" and "Kaddish", arguably his two most important poems, are both organized as an inverted pyramid, with larger sections leading to smaller sections. In "America", he also experimented with a mix of longer and shorter lines.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: Ginsberg's mature style made use of many specific, highly developed techniques, which he expressed in the "poetic slogans" he used in his Naropa teaching. Prominent among these was the inclusion of his unedited mental associations so as to reveal the mind at work ("First thought, best thought." "Mind is shapely, thought is shapely.") He preferred expression through carefully observed physical details rather than abstract statements ("Show, don't tell." "No ideas but in things.") In these he carried on and developed traditions of modernism in writing that are also found in Kerouac and Whitman.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In "Howl" and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman. Both wrote passionately about the promise (and betrayal) of American democracy, the central importance of erotic experience, and the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence. J. D. McClatchy, editor of the "Yale Review", called Ginsberg "the best-known American poet of his generation, as much a social force as a literary phenomenon." McClatchy added that Ginsberg, like Whitman, "was a bard in the old manner—outsized, darkly prophetic, part exuberance, part prayer, part rant. His work is finally a history of our era's psyche, with all its contradictory urges." McClatchy's barbed eulogies define the essential difference between Ginsberg ("a beat poet whose writing was [...] journalism raised by combining the recycling genius with a generous mimic-empathy, to strike audience-accessible chords; always lyrical and sometimes truly poetic") and Kerouac ("a poet of singular brilliance, the brightest luminary of a 'beat generation' he came to symbolise in popular culture [...] [though] in reality he far surpassed his contemporaries [...] Kerouac is an originating genius, exploring then answering—like Rimbaud a century earlier, by necessity more than by choice—the demands of authentic self-expression as applied to the evolving quicksilver mind of America's only literary virtuoso [...]").


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: His collection "The Fall of America" shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book "Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992". In 1993, he received a John Jay Award posthumously from Columbia.


title: Allen Ginsberg

text: In 2014, Ginsberg was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. The agency is among the most widespread and recognizable social welfare organizations in the world, with a presence in 192 countries and territories. UNICEF's activities include providing immunizations and disease prevention, administering treatment for children and mothers with HIV, enhancing childhood and maternal nutrition, improving sanitation, promoting education, and providing emergency relief in response to disasters.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF is the successor of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, created on 11 December 1946, in New York, by the U.N. Relief Rehabilitation Administration to provide immediate relief to children and mothers affected by World War II. The same year, the U.N. General Assembly established UNICEF to further institutionalize post-war relief work. In 1950, its mandate was extended to address the long-term needs of children and women, particularly in developing countries. In 1953, the organization became a permanent part of the United Nations System, and its name was subsequently changed to its current form, though it retains the original acronym.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF relies entirely on voluntary contributions from governments and private donors. Its total income as of 2020 was $7.2 billion; of which public-sector partners contributed $5.45 billion. It is governed by a 36-member executive board that establishes policies, approves programs, and oversees administrative and financial plans. The board is made up of government representatives elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF's programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. Most of its work is in the field, with a network that includes 150 country offices, headquarters and other facilities, and 34 "national committees" that carry out its mission through programs developed with host governments. Seven regional offices provide technical assistance to country offices as needed, while its Supply Division—based in the cities of Copenhagen and New York—helps provide over $3 billion in critical aid and services.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2018, UNICEF assisted in the birth of 27 million babies, administered pentavalent vaccines to an estimated 65.5 million children, provided education for 12 million children, treated four million children with severe acute malnutrition, and responded to 285 humanitarian emergencies in 90 countries. UNICEF has received recognition for its work, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1989 and the Princess of Asturias Award in 2006. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF, along with the World Health Organization and other agencies, published guidance about healthy parenting.


title: UNICEF

text: As early as September 1943, Polish health specialist Ludwik Rajchman suggested in an article published in "Free World" entitled "A United Nations Health Service — Why not?" that a health service should be incorporated into the future international organization. He also proposed a "health tax" paid by member states.


title: UNICEF

text: At the end of the UNRRA, Rajchman proposed to use its residual funds for a child-feeding program beneficiary of US funding. The organization was created by resolution 57(I) of the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1946 and named United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). As its first chairman, Rajchman chose Maurice Pate of the Commission for Relief in Belgium to direct the agency and "to think about organizing an action, a fund for the benefit of children, war victims chiefly." Rajchman, as head of a special UN subcommittee and with the support of La Guardia, Herbert Hoover and Maurice Pate, presented the resolution to the General assembly. From a temporary emergency relief agency in 1946 providing food and clothing to children and mothers displaced by World War II, the agency became a permanent UN Organization in 1953, and extended its efforts toward general programs of children welfare.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF relies on country offices to help carry out its work through a unique program of cooperation developed with the host government. The programs seeks to develop practical strategies for fulfilling and protecting the rights of children and women. Regional offices guide this work and provide technical assistance to country offices as needed. Overall management and administration of the organization take place at its headquarters in New York City.


title: UNICEF

text: Guiding and monitoring all of UNICEF's work is an executive board made up of 36 members who are government representatives. The board establishes policies, approves programs and decides on administrative and financial plans and budgets. Its work is coordinated by the bureau, comprising the president and four vice-presidents, each officer representing one of the five regional groups. These five officers are elected by the executive board annually from among its members, with the presidency rotating among the regional groups on an annual basis. As a matter of custom, permanent members of the Security Council do not serve as officers of the executive board.


title: UNICEF

text: The office of the secretary of the executive board helps maintain an effective relationship between the executive board and the UNICEF secretariat, and organizes field visits by board members.


title: UNICEF

text: There are national committees in 34 countries, each established as an independent local non-governmental organization. Their primary function is to raise funds from the private sector, as UNICEF is entirely dependent on voluntary contributions. National committees collectively account for about one-third of the agency's annual income, including from corporations, civil society organizations, around six million individual donors worldwide.


title: UNICEF

text: In the United States, Nepal and some other countries, UNICEF is known for its "Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF" program in which children collect money for UNICEF from the houses they trick-or-treat on Halloween night, sometimes instead of candy. The program was discontinued in Canada in 2006.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF is present in 191 countries and territories around the world, but not involved in nine others (Bahamas, Brunei, Cyprus, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Singapore, and Taiwan).


title: UNICEF

text: Many people in developed countries first hear about UNICEF's work through the activities of one of the 36 national committees for UNICEF. These non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are primarily responsible for fundraising, selling UNICEF greeting cards and products, creating private and public partnerships, advocating for children's rights, and providing other support. The US Fund for UNICEF is the oldest of the national committees, founded in 1947.


title: UNICEF

text: On 19 April 2007, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg was appointed UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, in which role she has visited Brazil (2007), China (2008), and Burundi (2009).


title: UNICEF

text: In 2009, the British retailer Tesco used "Change for Good" as advertising, which is trademarked by UNICEF for charity usage but not for commercial or retail use. This prompted the agency to say, "it is the first time in Unicef's history that a commercial entity has purposely set out to capitalize on one of our campaigns and subsequently damage an income stream which several of our programs for children are dependent on". They went on to call on the public "who have children's welfare at heart, to consider carefully who they support when making consumer choices". "Change for Good" is also supported by Australian airline Qantas, relying on passengers to fundraise via a given envelope since 1991, and has raised over $36 million, with over 19,500 kg of coins every year. Frequent flyers can also redeem their mile points to donate. Norman Gillespie, UNICEF Australia's chief executive, said "If every Qantas passenger traveling domestically gave us just a few of their forgotten coins each time they traveled it would make little difference to their day, but a world of difference in saving children's lives."


title: UNICEF

text: On 7 September 2006, an agreement between UNICEF and the Spanish Catalan association football club FC Barcelona was reached whereby the club would donate €1.5 million per year to the organization for five years. As part of the agreement, FC Barcelona would wear the UNICEF logo on the front of their uniforms in yellow (as seen in the picture on the right of Lionel Messi). This was the first time a football club sponsored an organization rather than the other way around. It was also the first time in FC Barcelona's history that they have had another organization's name across the front of their uniform. In 2016, the team signed a new four-year sponsorship deal with UNICEF guaranteeing the organization £1.58 million per year and free advertising. From 2022 onwards, Barcelona has made a partnership with Swedish company Spotify and has since put the UNHCR logo in gold at the bottom of the back of their jerseys.


title: UNICEF

text: In January 2007 UNICEF struck a partnership with Canada's national tent pegging team. The team was officially re-flagged as "UNICEF Team Canada", and its riders wear UNICEF's logo in competition, and team members promote and raise funds for UNICEF's campaign against childhood HIV-AIDS.


title: UNICEF

text: The Swedish club Hammarby IF followed the Spanish and Canadian lead on 14 April 2007, also raising funds for UNICEF and displaying the UNICEF name on their sportswear. The Danish football club Brøndby IF participated in a similar arrangement from 2008 to 2013.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2007, NASCAR driver Jacques Villeneuve has occasionally placed the UNICEF logo on the #27 Bill Davis Racing pickup truck in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.


title: UNICEF

text: Australian A-League club Sydney FC announced they would also enter into a partnership with UNICEF raising funds for children in the Asia-Pacific region, and would also display the UNICEF logo for the remainder of the 2011-12 A-League season.


title: UNICEF

text: In Botswana, UNICEF has funded the development of new state-of-the-art HIV/AIDS education for every schoolchild in Botswana from nonprofit organization TeachAids.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF announced a landmark partnership with Scottish club Rangers F.C. UNICEF partnered with the Rangers Charity Foundation and pledged to raise £300,000 by 2011.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2010, UNICEF created a partnership with Phi Iota Alpha, making them the first Greek Lettered Organization UNICEF has ever worked with. In 2011, Phi Iota Alpha raised over $20,000 for the Tap Project and the Trick or Treats for UNICEF Campaign.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2013, they agreed a contract with Greek association football champions Olympiacos F.C. who will show the organization's logo on the front of their shirts.


title: UNICEF

text: Started in 2015, Kid Power is a division of UNICEF that was created as an effort to involve kids in helping other kids in need. UNICEF Kid Power developed the world's first Wearable for Good, called Kid Power Bands, which is a kids' fitness tracker bracelet that connects to a smartphone app. The app lets users complete missions, which counts total steps and awards points. The points then unlock funding from partners, which is then used by UNICEF to deliver lifesaving packets of therapeutic food to severely malnourished children around the world.


title: UNICEF

text: Since 1950, when a group of children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, donated $17 which they received on Halloween to help post-World War II victims, the Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box has become a tradition in North America during the fall. These small orange boxes are handed to children at schools and other locations before 31 October. , the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign has collected approximately C$91 million in Canada and over US$167 million in the U.S.


title: UNICEF

text: In 1994, UNICEF held a summit encouraging animation studios around the world to create individual animated spots demonstrating the international rights of children. Cartoons for Children's Rights is the collection of animated shorts based on UNICEF's Convention on the Rights of the Child.


title: UNICEF

text: To raise money to support its Education and Literacy Programs, UNICEF collaborates with companies worldwide – international as well as small- and medium-sized businesses.


title: UNICEF

text: Since 2004, the organization has been supported by Montblanc, working collaboratively to help the world's children getting better access to education.


title: UNICEF

text: According to "Vaccine News Daily", Merck & Co. partnered with UNICEF in June 2013 to decrease maternal mortality, HIV and tuberculosis prevalence in South Africa. Merck's program "Merck for Mothers" will give US$500 million worldwide for programs that improve health for expectant mothers and their children.


title: UNICEF

text: In May 2010, Crucell N.V. announced an additional US$110 million award from UNICEF to supply its pentavalent pediatric vaccine Quinvaxem to the developing world.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF works directly with companies to improve their business practices, bringing them in line with obligations under international law, and ensuring that they respect children's rights in the realms of the marketplace, workplace, and the community. In 2012, UNICEF worked with Save the Children and The United Nations Global Compact to develop the Children's Rights and Business Principles and now these guidelines form the basis of UNICEF's advice to companies. UNICEF works with companies seeking to improve their social sustainability by guiding them through a due diligence process where issues throughout their supply chain, such as child labour, can be identified and actions to ratify them are put in place.


title: UNICEF

text: The Girl Star project is a series of films which documents stories of girls from the most disadvantaged communities across five northern states in India who, through via education, have managed to break socio-economic constraints to make a success of their lives and become self-sufficient. These young women have grown to become role models in their communities, inspiring younger girls to go to school and continue their education. They have selected professions from the most conventional such as teaching and nursing to the most unconventional like archery, bee-keeping, , often entering what has traditionally been a man's domain.


title: UNICEF

text: Kids United, succeeded by Kids United Nouvelle Génération (Kids United New Generation), is a French musical group consisting of five children born between 2000 and 2009 (six children when the group was originally formed). Erza Muqoli was a founding member. It was created to support UNICEF campaigns and is sponsored by Hélène Ségara and Corneille, two francophone singers. The first album, "Un monde meilleur" (A better world), was launched on Universal Children's Day in 2015 and received gold certification in France. The second album, "Tout le bonheur du monde" (All the happiness in the world), was released in 2016 and was certified 2× platinum. The group released its third album in 2017, "Forever United". After becoming Kids United Nouvelle Génération, it released its fourth album in 2018 "Au bout de nos rêves" (At the end of our dreams), and its fifth album in 2019, "L'hymne de la vie" (The hymn of life). The group remains active and has achieved great success within Francophonic countries.


title: UNICEF

text: U-Report is a free SMS social monitoring tool and real-time information system for community participation, designed to strengthen community-led development, citizen engagement, and positive change. SMS polls and alerts are sent out to U-reporters and real-time response information is collected. Results and ideas are shared back with the community. Issues polled include among others health, education, water, sanitation and hygiene, youth unemployment, HIV/ AIDS, disease outbreaks; social welfare sectors. The initiative is currently operational in 68 countries and covers more than 11 million people.


title: UNICEF

text: On 19 June 2019 the 2021 Rugby League World Cup (England) announced that UNICEF would become the official tournament charity. The announcement was made at Mansion House, London as part of a launch event for the Rugby League World Cup legacy program called 'Inspired by RLWC2021'. The partnership aims to use the power of sport to raise awareness and funds for UNICEF's work protecting children in danger around the world.


title: UNICEF

text: In addition to the general promotion of the charity at matches and events, the 2021 Rugby League World Cup Chief Executive has also stated that there will be an officially designated "UNICEF" game at some point during the Men's World Cup.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF Ambassadors are leaders in the entertainment industry, representing the fields of film, television, music, sports and beyond. They help raise awareness of the needs of children, and use their talent and status to fundraise, advocate, and educate on behalf of UNICEF.


title: UNICEF

text: The old UNICEF World Warehouse is a large facility in Denmark, which hosts UNICEF deliverable goods as well as co-hosts emergency goods for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Until 2012 the facility was a 25,000m warehouse at Marmormolen in Copenhagen. With construction of a 45,000m UN City that is to house all UN activities in Copenhagen under one roof, the warehouse service has been relocated to outer parts of the Freeport of Copenhagen. The facility houses the UNICEF Supply Division which manages strategic hubs in Dubai, Douala, and Colón.


title: UNICEF

text: The warehouse contains a variety of items, such as food supplements, water purification tablets, dietary and vitamin supplements, and the "School in a box" (pictured above).


title: UNICEF

text: The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre was established in 1988. It is based at the Ospedale degli Innocenti historic building in Florence, Italy.


title: UNICEF

text: The centre was created to strengthen UNICEF's research capability and to support its advocacy for children worldwide. It is the research arm of UNICEF, and is part of the Office of Research. The Office of Research has as its prime objectives to improve international understanding of issues relating to children's rights, to promote economic policies that advance the cause of children, and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 190 countries and territories.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF Innocenti develops its research agenda in consultation with other parts of UNICEF and with external stakeholders.


title: UNICEF

text: The program reaffirms the centre's academic freedom and the focus of IRC's research on knowledge gaps, emerging questions and sensitive issues which are relevant to the realization of children's rights, in developing and industrialized countries. It capitalizes on IRC's role as an interface between UNICEF field experience, international experts, research networks and policy makers and is designed to strengthen the centre's institutional collaboration with regional academic and policy institutions, pursuing the following goals:


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF's programmatic objectives include the promotion of safe abortions and education in family planning and in the use of contraception.


title: UNICEF

text: In a joint declaration of 2011, UNICEF argued the need to combat the spread of selective abortion, through plans that favored, inter alia, the use of safe abortion services and family planning programs in order to decrease the use of abortion.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2013, together with WHO, it published an integrated plan of guidelines for the prevention of infant mortality caused by pneumonia and diarrhea, including, among the recommended strategies for promoting the health of women and children, access to safe abortion.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF has adopted the ABC strategy ("abstinence, be faithful and consistent condom use") promoted in various international AIDS prevention interventions. The strategy was later updated as the "ABC to Z model", to include Delaying and Voluntary Counselling & Testing.


title: UNICEF

text: In 1996 the Vatican withdrew its symbolic contribution to UNICEF on the occasion of the publication by UNICEF of a manual on emergency operations for refugee populations which supported the spread of emergency contraceptive practices.


title: UNICEF

text: Despite this, on several occasions senior UNICEF officials have denied that the organization promoted abortion or family planning methods.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF also supports the adoption by states of laws that guarantee LGBT couples and their children the legal recognition of their status, as these rules would help ensure the best interests of children.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF has a policy preferring orphanages only be used as temporary accommodation for children when there is no alternative. UNICEF has historically opposed the creation of large-scale, permanent orphanages for children, preferring instead to find children places in their (extended) families and communities, wherever possible. This has led UNICEF to be skeptical of international adoption efforts as a solution to child care problems in developing countries; UNICEF has preferred to see children cared for in their birth countries rather than be adopted by foreign parents.


title: UNICEF

text: A 2013 article in "U.S. News & World Report" magazine asserted UNICEF's intervention that on giving large cash payments to developing countries can lead to a cessation of international adoptions until all of its recommendations are in place, and have even labelled UNICEF a "villain" for the extent of its negative impact on orphans.


title: UNICEF

text: One concern is that the child mortality rate has not decreased in some areas as rapidly as had been planned, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where in 2013 "the region still has the highest child mortality rate: 92 deaths per 1000 live births", and that "Globally, nearly half of under-five deaths are attributable to undernutrition."


title: UNICEF

text: In 2005, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of "The Lancet", editorialized that "over 60% of these deaths were and remain preventable" and that the coverage levels for these interventions are "appallingly low in the 42 countries that account for 90% of child deaths".


title: UNICEF

text: A $27 million UNICEF program in West Africa in 2001–2005 which was meant to decrease child deaths from disease has been deemed a failure, according to a study that found higher survival rates of children in some regions that weren't included in that program.


title: UNICEF

text: Critics argue that UNICEF's focus on rights rather than safety and survival is idealistic, and that by focusing on politicized children's rights instead of mere child survival, UNICEF has contributed indirectly to the child mortality crisis.


title: UNICEF

text: In 1995, in what was called "the worst scandal in its history", UNICEF disclosed that 24 employees in its Kenya office stole or squandered $10-million; this fraud consumed more than a fourth of the UNICEF's $37-million two-year budget for Kenya.


title: UNICEF

text: In Germany, in the late 2000s, UNICEF was accused of mismanagement, abuse and waste of funds. This has resulted in 5,000 of UNICEF regular donors abandoning their support from the charity, and politicians and public figures, including Angela Merkel, demanding explanations, and the chairwoman of UNICEF Germany resigning in 2008.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2012, UNICEF confirmed fraud in a Pakistan school rehabilitation project, where an estimated US$4 million was lost when funds were misappropriated.


title: UNICEF

text: Documents released by Edward Snowden in December 2013 showed that UNICEF was among the surveillance targets of British and American intelligence agencies.


title: UNICEF

text: Press reports in 2020 disclosed that women in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused foreign aid workers, including UNICEF workers, of sexually assaulting them. The World Health Organization described the alleged actions as reprehensible and a UNICEF spokesperson acknowledged that such sexual assault cases are underreported in the region. Prior to this, in 2018, UNICEF was hit by a wave of sexual misconduct accusations; in 2018, deputy director Justin Forsyth resigned from UNICEF following allegations that he behaved inappropriately toward female staff members.


title: UNICEF

text: UNICEF has also admitted to shortcomings in its humanitarian support of children who said that they were raped and sexually abused by French peacekeepers in Central African Republic.


title: UNICEF

text: Peter Newell, a convicted child sex offender, has worked closely with UNICEF: he managed a charity that received hundreds of thousand of pounds from the NSPCC, Barnardo's, Save the Children and UNICEF; and cowrote a manual on children's rights called "Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child for Unicef", which was published by UNICEF.


title: UNICEF

text: Andrew MacLeod, the former chief of operations at the UN's Emergency Co-ordination Center, had accused UNICEF of failure to take action to prevent abuses; he stated "There are tens of thousands of aid workers around the world with pedophile tendencies, but if you wear a UNICEF T-shirt, nobody will ask what you’re up to".


title: UNICEF

text: In December 2020 UNICEF made funding available to feed children in the UK for the first time as part of its Food Power for Generation COVID initiative. UNICEF pledged £25,000 to School Food Matters, a south London charity, to help feed children over the Christmas holidays. A partnership of Devon charities had also been given £24,000 to help feed 120 families over the winter of 2020. UNICEF said it was helping children in the UK because of an increase in food poverty in Britain, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It estimates there are children going hungry in a fifth of households. Anna Kettley, from UNICEF said "We are one of the richest countries in the world and we should not have to be relying on food banks or food aid." Labour MP Zarah Sultana in the House of Commons said, "For the first time ever, UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children, is having to feed working-class kids in the UK but while children go hungry, a wealthy few enjoy obscene riches." In response, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Tory MP and Leader of the House of Commons said, "I think it is a real scandal that UNICEF should be playing politics in this way when it is meant to be looking after people in the poorest, the most deprived, countries of the world where people are starving, where there are famines and where there are civil wars, and they make cheap political points of this kind, giving, I think, 25,000 to one council. It is a political stunt of the lowest order. UNICEF should be ashamed of itself." Chris Forster, from Transforming Plymouth Together, one of the Devon charities to benefit from UNICEF donations, said, "We had one family as part of the deliveries last week literally in tears with gratitude because their cupboard was bare." Scottish National Party MP, Tommy Sheppard said, "It is astonishing that these comments are coming from the same government that had to be publicly shamed into following Scotland's lead and providing free school meals for children over the holidays." LBC reported that the UN humanitarian aid agency are providing over £700,000 to feed hungry children in the UK.


title: UNICEF

text: In 2021, UNICEF published a report called "Digital Age Assurance Tools and Children’s Rights Online across the Globe". The paper, focusing on human rights and digital tools, generated controversy after misleading claims and headlines about the report were spread online, originating from a story by the conservative Center for Family and Human Rights. The fact-checking website Snopes rated the claim that the "report said pornography is not always harmful to children and blocking children from watching pornography online violates their rights" as false. UNICEF pulled down the report, citing misrepresentation of one of its portions.


title: Virtual reality

text: Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), education (such as medical or military training) and business (such as virtual meetings). Other distinct types of VR-style technology include augmented reality and mixed reality, sometimes referred to as extended reality or XR, although definitions are currently changing due to the nascence of the industry.


title: Virtual reality

text: Currently, standard virtual reality systems use either virtual reality headsets or multi-projected environments to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that simulate a user's physical presence in a virtual environment. A person using virtual reality equipment is able to look around the artificial world, move around in it, and interact with virtual features or items. The effect is commonly created by VR headsets consisting of a head-mounted display with a small screen in front of the eyes, but can also be created through specially designed rooms with multiple large screens. Virtual reality typically incorporates auditory and video feedback, but may also allow other types of sensory and force feedback through haptic technology.


title: Virtual reality

text: "Virtual" has had the meaning of "being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact" since the mid-1400s. The term "virtual" has been used in the computer sense of "not physically existing but made to appear by software" since 1959.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1938, French avant-garde playwright Antonin Artaud described the illusory nature of characters and objects in the theatre as in a collection of essays, "Le Théâtre et son double". The English translation of this book, published in 1958 as "The Theater and its Double", is the earliest published use of the term "virtual reality". The term "artificial reality", coined by Myron Krueger, has been in use since the 1970s. The term "virtual reality" was first used in a science fiction context in "The Judas Mandala", a 1982 novel by Damien Broderick.


title: Virtual reality

text: Widespread adoption of the term "virtual reality" in the popular media is attributed to Jaron Lanier, who in the late 1980s designed some of the first business-grade virtual reality hardware under his firm VPL Research, and the 1992 film "Lawnmower Man", which features use of virtual reality systems.


title: Virtual reality

text: One method by which virtual reality can be realized is simulation-based virtual reality. Driving simulators, for example, give the driver on board the impression of actually driving an actual vehicle by predicting vehicular motion caused by driver input and feeding back corresponding visual, motion and audio cues to the driver.


title: Virtual reality

text: With avatar image-based virtual reality, people can join the virtual environment in the form of real video as well as an avatar. One can participate in the 3D distributed virtual environment as form of either a conventional avatar or a real video. Users can select their own type of participation based on the system capability.


title: Virtual reality

text: In projector-based virtual reality, modeling of the real environment plays a vital role in various virtual reality applications, such as robot navigation, construction modeling, and airplane simulation. Image-based virtual reality systems have been gaining popularity in computer graphics and computer vision communities. In generating realistic models, it is essential to accurately register acquired 3D data; usually, a camera is used for modeling small objects at a short distance.


title: Virtual reality

text: Desktop-based virtual reality involves displaying a 3D virtual world on a regular desktop display without use of any specialized VR positional tracking equipment. Many modern first-person video games can be used as an example, using various triggers, responsive characters, and other such interactive devices to make the user feel as though they are in a virtual world. A common criticism of this form of immersion is that there is no sense of peripheral vision, limiting the user's ability to know what is happening around them.


title: Virtual reality

text: A head-mounted display (HMD) more fully immerses the user in a virtual world. A virtual reality headset typically includes two small high resolution OLED or LCD monitors which provide separate images for each eye for stereoscopic graphics rendering a 3D virtual world, a binaural audio system, positional and rotational real-time head tracking for six degrees of movement. Options include motion controls with haptic feedback for physically interacting within the virtual world in an intuitive way with little to no abstraction and an omnidirectional treadmill for more freedom of physical movement allowing the user to perform locomotive motion in any direction.


title: Virtual reality

text: Augmented reality (AR) is a type of virtual reality technology that blends what the user sees in their real surroundings with digital content generated by computer software. The additional software-generated images with the virtual scene typically enhance how the real surroundings look in some way. AR systems layer virtual information over a camera live feed into a headset or smartglasses or through a mobile device giving the user the ability to view three-dimensional images.


title: Virtual reality

text: Mixed reality (MR) is the merging of the real world and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time.


title: Virtual reality

text: Simulated reality is a hypothetical virtual reality as truly immersive as the actual reality, enabling an advanced lifelike experience or even virtual eternity.


title: Virtual reality

text: The development of perspective in Renaissance European art and the stereoscope were both precursors to virtual reality. The first references to the more modern concept of virtual reality came from science fiction.


title: Virtual reality

text: Morton Heilig wrote in the 1950s of an "Experience Theatre" that could encompass all the senses in an effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama in 1962, along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch). Predating digital computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device. Heilig also developed what he referred to as the "Telesphere Mask" (patented in 1960). The patent application described the device as "a telescopic television apparatus for individual use... The spectator is given a complete sensation of reality, i.e. moving three dimensional images which may be in colour, with 100% peripheral vision, binaural sound, scents and air breezes."


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1968, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his students including Bob Sproull, created what was widely considered to be the first head-mounted display system for use in immersive simulation applications, called The Sword of Damocles. It was primitive both in terms of user interface and visual realism, and the HMD to be worn by the user was so heavy that it had to be suspended from the ceiling, which gave the device a formidable appearance and inspired its name. Technically, the device was an augmented reality device due to optical passthrough. The graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wire-frame model rooms.


title: Virtual reality

text: The virtual reality industry mainly provided VR devices for medical, flight simulation, automobile industry design, and military training purposes from 1970 to 1990.


title: Virtual reality

text: David Em became the first artist to produce navigable virtual worlds at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1977 to 1984. The Aspen Movie Map, a crude virtual tour in which users could wander the streets of Aspen in one of the three modes (summer, winter, and polygons), was created at MIT in 1978.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1979, Eric Howlett developed the Large Expanse, Extra Perspective (LEEP) optical system. The combined system created a stereoscopic image with a field of view wide enough to create a convincing sense of space. The users of the system have been impressed by the sensation of depth (field of view) in the scene and the corresponding realism. The original LEEP system was redesigned for NASA's Ames Research Center in 1985 for their first virtual reality installation, the VIEW (Virtual Interactive Environment Workstation) by Scott Fisher. The LEEP system provides the basis for most of the modern virtual reality headsets.


title: Virtual reality

text: By the late 1980s, the term "virtual reality" was popularized by Jaron Lanier, one of the modern pioneers of the field. Lanier had founded the company VPL Research in 1985. VPL Research has developed several VR devices like the DataGlove, the EyePhone, and the AudioSphere. VPL licensed the DataGlove technology to Mattel, which used it to make the Power Glove, an early affordable VR device.


title: Virtual reality

text: Atari, Inc. founded a research lab for virtual reality in 1982, but the lab was closed after two years due to the Atari Shock (video game crash of 1983). However, its hired employees, such as Tom Zimmerman, Scott Fisher, Jaron Lanier, Michael Naimark, and Brenda Laurel, kept their research and development on VR-related technologies.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1988, the Cyberspace Project at Autodesk was the first to implement VR on a low-cost personal computer. The project leader Eric Gullichsen left in 1990 to found Sense8 Corporation and develop the WorldToolKit virtual reality SDK, which offered the first real time graphics with Texture mapping on a PC, and was widely used throughout industry and academia.


title: Virtual reality

text: The 1990s saw the first widespread commercial releases of consumer headsets. In 1992, for instance, "Computer Gaming World" predicted "affordable VR by 1994".


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1991, Sega announced the Sega VR headset for the Mega Drive home console. It used LCD screens in the visor, stereo headphones, and inertial sensors that allowed the system to track and react to the movements of the user's head. In the same year, Virtuality launched and went on to become the first mass-produced, networked, multiplayer VR entertainment system that was released in many countries, including a dedicated VR arcade at Embarcadero Center. Costing up to $73,000 per multi-pod Virtuality system, they featured headsets and exoskeleton gloves that gave one of the first "immersive" VR experiences.


title: Virtual reality

text: That same year, Carolina Cruz-Neira, Daniel J. Sandin and Thomas A. DeFanti from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory created the first cubic immersive room, the Cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE). Developed as Cruz-Neira's PhD thesis, it involved a multi-projected environment, similar to the holodeck, allowing people to see their own bodies in relation to others in the room. Antonio Medina, a MIT graduate and NASA scientist, designed a virtual reality system to "drive" Mars rovers from Earth in apparent real time despite the substantial delay of Mars-Earth-Mars signals.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1992, Nicole Stenger created "Angels", the first real-time interactive immersive movie where the interaction was facilitated with a dataglove and high-resolution goggles. That same year, Louis Rosenberg created the virtual fixtures system at the U.S. Air Force's Armstrong Labs using a full upper-body exoskeleton, enabling a physically realistic mixed reality in 3D. The system enabled the overlay of physically real 3D virtual objects registered with a user's direct view of the real world, producing the first true augmented reality experience enabling sight, sound, and touch.


title: Virtual reality

text: By July 1994, Sega had released the VR-1 motion simulator ride attraction in Joypolis indoor theme parks, as well as the "Dennou Senki Net Merc" arcade game. Both used an advanced head-mounted display dubbed the "Mega Visor Display" developed in conjunction with Virtuality; it was able to track head movement in a 360-degree stereoscopic 3D environment, and in its "Net Merc" incarnation was powered by the Sega Model 1 arcade system board. Apple released QuickTime VR, which, despite using the term "VR", was unable to represent virtual reality, and instead displayed 360-degree interactive panoramas.


title: Virtual reality

text: Nintendo's Virtual Boy console was released in 1995. A group in Seattle created public demonstrations of a "CAVE-like" 270 degree immersive projection room called the Virtual Environment Theater, produced by entrepreneurs Chet Dagit and Bob Jacobson. Forte released the VFX1, a PC-powered virtual reality headset that same year.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 1999, entrepreneur Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab with an initial focus on the development of VR hardware. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of "The Rig", which was realized in prototype form as a clunky steel contraption with several computer monitors that users could wear on their shoulders. The concept was later adapted into the personal computer-based, 3D virtual world program "Second Life".


title: Virtual reality

text: The 2000s were a period of relative public and investment indifference to commercially available VR technologies.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2001, SAS Cube (SAS3) became the first PC-based cubic room, developed by Z-A Production (Maurice Benayoun, David Nahon), Barco, and Clarté. It was installed in Laval, France. The SAS library gave birth to Virtools VRPack. In 2007, Google introduced Street View, a service that shows panoramic views of an increasing number of worldwide positions such as roads, indoor buildings and rural areas. It also features a stereoscopic 3D mode, introduced in 2010.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2010, Palmer Luckey designed the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. This prototype, built on a shell of another virtual reality headset, was only capable of rotational tracking. However, it boasted a 90-degree field of vision that was previously unseen in the consumer market at the time. Luckey eliminated distortion issues arising from the type of lens used to create the wide field of vision using software that pre-distorted the rendered image in real-time. This initial design would later serve as a basis from which the later designs came. In 2012, the Rift is presented for the first time at the E3 video game trade show by Carmack. In 2014, Facebook purchased Oculus VR for what at the time was stated as $2 billion but later revealed that the more accurate figure was $3 billion. This purchase occurred after the first development kits ordered through Oculus' 2012 Kickstarter had shipped in 2013 but before the shipping of their second development kits in 2014. ZeniMax, Carmack's former employer, sued Oculus and Facebook for taking company secrets to Facebook; the verdict was in favour of ZeniMax, settled out of court later.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2013, Valve discovered and freely shared the breakthrough of low-persistence displays which make lag-free and smear-free display of VR content possible. This was adopted by Oculus and was used in all their future headsets. In early 2014, Valve showed off their SteamSight prototype, the precursor to both consumer headsets released in 2016. It shared major features with the consumer headsets including separate 1K displays per eye, low persistence, positional tracking over a large area, and fresnel lenses. HTC and Valve announced the virtual reality headset HTC Vive and controllers in 2015. The set included tracking technology called Lighthouse, which utilized wall-mounted "base stations" for positional tracking using infrared light.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2014, Sony announced Project Morpheus (its code name for the PlayStation VR), a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 video game console. In 2015, Google announced Cardboard, a do-it-yourself stereoscopic viewer: the user places their smartphone in the cardboard holder, which they wear on their head. Michael Naimark was appointed Google's first-ever 'resident artist' in their new VR division. The Kickstarter campaign for Gloveone, a pair of gloves providing motion tracking and haptic feedback, was successfully funded, with over $150,000 in contributions. Also in 2015, Razer unveiled its open source project OSVR.


title: Virtual reality

text: By 2016, there were at least 230 companies developing VR-related products. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Sony and Samsung all had dedicated AR and VR groups. Dynamic binaural audio was common to most headsets released that year. However, haptic interfaces were not well developed, and most hardware packages incorporated button-operated handsets for touch-based interactivity. Visually, displays were still of a low-enough resolution and frame rate that images were still identifiable as virtual.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2016, HTC shipped its first units of the HTC Vive SteamVR headset. This marked the first major commercial release of sensor-based tracking, allowing for free movement of users within a defined space. A patent filed by Sony in 2017 showed they were developing a similar location tracking technology to the Vive for PlayStation VR, with the potential for the development of a wireless headset.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2019, Oculus released the Oculus Rift S and a standalone headset, the Oculus Quest. These headsets utilized inside-out tracking compared to external outside-in tracking seen in previous generations of headsets.


title: Virtual reality

text: Later in 2019, Valve released the Valve Index. Notable features include a 130° field of view, off-ear headphones for immersion and comfort, open-handed controllers which allow for individual finger tracking, front facing cameras, and a front expansion slot meant for extensibility.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2020, Oculus released the Oculus Quest 2. Some new features include a sharper screen, reduced price, and increased performance. Facebook now requires user to log in with a Facebook account in order to use the new headset. In 2021 the Oculus Quest 2 accounted for 80% of all VR headsets sold.


title: Virtual reality

text: In 2021, EASA approves the first Virtual Reality (VR) based Flight Simulation Training Device. The device, for rotorcraft pilots, enhances safety by opening up the possibility of practicing risky maneuvers in a virtual environment. This addresses a key risk area in rotorcraft operations, where statistics show that around 20% of accidents occur during training flights.