title: The Open Championship

text: The distribution of The Open is provided by a partnership between R&A Productions, European Tour Productions (both run by IMG) and CTV Outside Broadcasting. The broadcasters with onsite production are Sky (UK), NBC (USA), BBC (UK), and TV Asahi (Japan).


title: The Open Championship

text: Many non-British broadcasters referred to the Open as the "British" Open in their coverage until 2010, when The R&A introduced use of contractual terms in their media contracts, similar to the Masters, and now rights holders are obliged to refer to the tournament as "The Open". On 7 November 2018, the parent company of the U.S. rights holder, NBC, completed a takeover of the U.K. rights holder, Sky. This means the media rights in the two primary markets are owned by the same company, albeit produced separately by two different subsidiaries. There are over 170 cameras on site during the tournament, including cameras in the face of the Open's pot bunkers.


title: The Open Championship

text: The BBC first started to broadcast the Open in 1955, with Peter Alliss involved since 1961, and having the role of lead commentator since 1978. With the growth of pay television, and the increasing value of sporting rights, the BBC's golf portfolio began to reduce. The loss of the rights to the Scottish Open, and BMW PGA Championship in 2012 left the BBC's only golf coverage as the Open, and the final two days of the Masters (which it shared with Sky). With so little golf, the BBC was accused of neglecting investment in production and was criticised about its 'quality of coverage and innovation' compared to Sky, which held the rights to most golf events. The tournament is considered a Category B event under the Ofcom Code on Sports and Other Listed and Designated Events, which allows its rights to be held by a pay television broadcaster as long as sufficient secondary coverage is provided by a free-to-air broadcaster.


title: The Open Championship

text: Many were hoping that a deal similar to the Masters would be reached, where Sky had coverage of all four days, and the BBC also provided live weekend coverage, but Sky were not keen on this and won the full rights in 2015. Some were angered about the demise of golf on terrestrial television, and the impact that could have on the interest in golf in the U.K., whilst others were pleased about the perceived improved coverage that Sky would give. Despite Peter Alliss promising on air that the BBC would cover the 2016 event, the BBC reached a deal for Sky to take the coverage. The BBC still covers the tournament, showing highlights from 8pm–10pm on tournament days and radio coverage on Radio 5 Live. The deal with Sky required the broadcaster to restrict its advertisement breaks to 4 minutes every hour, similar to the Masters. Sky also offers complete coverage online through NOW to non-subscribers, which is £7.99 for one day, or £12.99 for a weeks access.


title: The Open Championship

text: ABC began broadcasting the Open in 1962, with taped highlights on Wide World of Sports. In the pre-digital age the coverage had to be converted from the U.K.'s PAL colour encoding system, to the U.S.'s NTSC, which meant picture quality could be impacted, especially in the early years. The coverage expanded over the years, and as is common in America, there was a different early round rights holder, which was ESPN until 2003 when TNT took over. Co-owned ESPN became responsible for ABC's sports coverage in 2006; it won the rights to cover all four days of the championship in 2010, and concurrently moved coverage to its channels. The Open became the first golf major to be covered exclusively on pay television in America, as ESPN left only highlights for its partner broadcast network.


title: The Open Championship

text: After losing the rights to the U.S. Open in 2015, NBC bid aggressively to win the rights to the Open, and become a broadcaster of a golf major again. NBC also had a track record of broadcasting European sporting events successfully in the morning U.S. time with the Premier League, Formula One, and "Breakfast at Wimbledon", and was able to place early round coverage on its subsidiary Golf Channel. NBC won the rights from 2017 to 2028. ESPN also sold them the rights for 2016.


title: The Open Championship

text: The 2019 edition of the Open Championship had a total of 49 hours of coverage in the United States, with 29 hours being on Thursday and Friday, and 20 hours being on Saturday and Sunday; the Golf Channel cable network had a total of 34 hours of coverage, with 29 hours on Thursday and Friday, and 5 hours on Saturday and Sunday. The NBC broadcast network had a total of 15 hours of coverage on the weekend, with 8 hours Saturday, and 7 hours Sunday. The 49 total hours of coverage on Golf Channel and NBC is down 30 minutes from 2018; the difference is that NBC's Sunday coverage is down 30 minutes, from 7.5 hours in 2018, to 7 hours in 2019.


title: The Open Championship

text: The Open provides limited coverage for free on its website including highlights, featured groups, featured holes, and radio coverage. The Open's local rights holders usually provide these feeds as part of their broadcast package.


title: The Open Championship

text: The Open produces a 'world feed' for use by international broadcasters if they require. The other large golf markets in a similar time zone as the U.K. are the rest of Europe (where Sky, the U.K. broadcast company often has a presence), and South Africa where it is covered by SuperSport.


title: The Open Championship

text: Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and increasingly China are markets with high media interest in golf and the Open, but the time zone means the prime coverage is shown in the early hours of the morning.


title: Matty Cash

text: Matthew Stuart Cash (born 7 August 1997) is a professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Aston Villa and the Poland national team.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash started his career at Wycombe Wanderers and later the FAB Academy before he signed his first professional contract with Nottingham Forest and established himself as a regular at right-back. He signed for Aston Villa in September 2020.


title: Matty Cash

text: Born in England, Cash has Polish grandparents on his mother's side. He received his Polish passport in October 2021, qualifying him to play for the Poland national team. He made his debut the following month, and represented the side at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash signed with Nottingham Forest in October 2014, after spending 16-months with the FAB Football Academy based at Bisham Abbey. Cash had joined FAB after Wycombe Wanderers released him, due to financial problems forcing their youth teams to be disbanded, aged fourteen. He experienced his first games in professional football on loan at League Two club Dagenham & Redbridge, having joined them on 4 March 2016 on a one-month loan deal. He scored his first goal for the Daggers in a 3–1 defeat to Hartlepool United on 12 March 2016.


title: Matty Cash

text: On 5 August 2016, Cash signed a three-year deal with Forest to keep him at the club until 2019. He made his first team debut a day later, starting in a 4–3 win over Burton Albion. Cash's early season form earned him praise, with former Forest defender Kenny Burns claiming that the midfielder's performances were putting those of some of the more experienced Forest players "to shame". However, on only his fifth appearance for Forest, Cash sustained a fracture to his tibia at the beginning of a 2–2 draw away to Aston Villa on 11 September 2016 which was expected to keep him out for three months.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash made his return from injury on 25 November as a 79th-minute substitute in a 5–2 defeat of Barnsley at Oakwell. Three days later Cash was linked with a £5 million transfer to Premier League side Chelsea, although Forest owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi subsequently took to social media to deny that the midfielder would be sold in the January transfer window. On 4 January 2017, Cash was the subject of a £6 million bid from Bundesliga side RB Leipzig. Having remained at Forest upon the closure of the January transfer window, Cash signed a new contract on 3 March 2017 to extend his current deal with the club until 2021.


title: Matty Cash

text: Having changed squad number from 41 to 14, ankle ligament damage sustained during a pre-season friendly match with Girona deprived Cash of starting the first match of the 2017–18 season, with the injury reported to sideline the player for "around three months". He scored his first goal for Forest in a 5–2 win at Queens Park Rangers on 24 February 2018.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash scored the opening goal for Nottingham Forest in the 2019–20 season, in a 2–1 defeat against West Bromwich Albion. During the season, Forest manager Sabri Lamouchi began to utilise Cash as a right-back, after injuries to Tendayi Darikwa and later Carl Jenkinson. He made the right-back slot his own, and his impressive performances led to the Poland national team reportedly monitoring his progress ahead of a potential call-up. He signed a three and a half year contract extension with Forest in November 2019.


title: Matty Cash

text: In January 2020, a number of clubs including Milan, Everton and West Ham were interested in signing Cash. However, Cash said that he wished to stay at Forest until the end of the season in the hope that he could help the team to secure promotion to the Premier League. He cited Aston Villa's Jack Grealish as an influence behind this decision.


title: Matty Cash

text: On 3 September 2020, Aston Villa announced the signing of Cash on a five-year contract for a reported £14 million, rising to £16 million. Cash made his debut for the club on 21 September 2020, in a 1–0 home victory against Sheffield United.


title: Matty Cash

text: On 18 September 2021, Cash scored his first goal for Aston Villa in a 3–0 Premier League victory over Everton. On 26 February 2022, Cash scored a long-range effort in an away victory over Brighton & Hove Albion which was nominated for Premier League Goal of the Month. He received a yellow card for his celebration of the goal, in which Cash lifted his shirt to reveal a message of support for Poland teammate Tomasz Kędziora and his family, who were in Kyiv during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cash was voted Villa's player of the month for March 2022. On 4 April 2022, Cash signed a five-year contract extension with Aston Villa, amidst reported interest from Atlético Madrid.


title: Matty Cash

text: On 12 May 2022, at Aston Villa's End of Season awards, Cash was voted Villa's Player of the Season for the 2021–22 season.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash is of Polish descent through his mother. In September 2021, Cash applied for a Polish passport. His application for citizenship was signed on 26 October 2021 at the Masovian Voivodeship government building in Warsaw. On 1 November, Cash received his first call-up to the Poland national football team for their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification matches against Andorra and Hungary. He made his first appearance in a 4–1 away victory against Andorra on 12 November. On 11 June 2022, Cash scored his first international goal in a 2–2 away UEFA Nations League draw against Netherlands.


title: Matty Cash

text: Cash is the son of former professional footballer Stuart Cash. His brother Adam coaches football at school-level. Cash grew up in Iver working in a branch of the department store Daniel prior to joining the Nottingham Forest academy.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin and Hobbes is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", "Calvin and Hobbes" has enjoyed broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical interest.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: "Calvin and Hobbes" follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and adventurous six-year-old boy; and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Set in the contemporary suburban United States of the 1980s and 90s, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates, especially his neighbor Susie Derkins. Hobbes' dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy. Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or contemporary events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and philosophical quandaries.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: At the height of its popularity, "Calvin and Hobbes" was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. In 2010, reruns of the strip appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the "Calvin and Hobbes" books had been sold worldwide.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: "Calvin and Hobbes" was conceived when Bill Watterson, while working in an advertising job he detested, began devoting his spare time to developing a newspaper comic for potential syndication. He explored various strip ideas but all were rejected by the syndicates. United Feature Syndicate finally responded positively to one strip called "The Doghouse", which featured a side character (the main character's little brother) who had a stuffed tiger. United identified these characters as the strongest and encouraged Watterson to develop them as the centre of their own strip. Though United Feature ultimately rejected the new strip as lacking in marketing potential, Universal Press Syndicate took it up.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The first "Calvin and Hobbes" strip was published on November 18, 1985 in 35 newspapers. The strip quickly became popular. Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers and proved to have international appeal with translation and wide circulation outside the United States.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Although "Calvin and Hobbes" underwent continual artistic development and creative innovation over the period of syndication, the earliest strips demonstrated a remarkable consistency with the latest. Watterson introduced all the major characters within the first three weeks and made no changes to the central cast over the strip's 10-year history.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: By April 5, 1987, Watterson was featured in an article in the "Los Angeles Times". "Calvin and Hobbes" earned Watterson the Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year category, first in 1986 and again in 1988. He was nominated another time in 1992. The Society awarded him the Humor Comic Strip Award for 1988. "Calvin and Hobbes" has also won several more awards.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: As his creation grew in popularity, there was strong interest from the syndicate to merchandise the characters and expand into other forms of media. Watterson’s contract with the syndicate allowed the characters to be licensed without the creators’ consent as was standard at the time. Nevertheless, Watterson had leverage by threatening to simply walk away from the comic strip.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: This dynamic played out in a long and emotionally draining battle between Watterson and his syndicate editors. By 1991, Watterson had achieved his goal of securing a new contract that granted him legal control over his creation and all future licensing arrangements.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Having achieved his objective of creative control, Watterson's desire for privacy subsequently reasserted itself and he ceased all media interviews, relocated to New Mexico, and largely disappeared from public engagements, refusing to attend the ceremonies of any of the cartooning awards he won. The pressures of the battle over merchandising led to Watterson taking an extended break from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, a move that was virtually unprecedented in the world of syndicated cartoonists.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: During Watterson's first sabbatical from the strip, Universal Press Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old "Calvin and Hobbes" strips. Few editors approved of the move, but the strip was so popular that they had no choice but to continue to run it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its fans away. Watterson returned to the strip in 1992 with plans to produce his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page. This made him only the second cartoonist since Garry Trudeau to have sufficient popularity to demand more space and control over the presentation of his work.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson took a second sabbatical from April 3 through December 31, 1994. His return came with an announcement that "Calvin and Hobbes" would be concluding at the end of 1995. Stating his belief that he had achieved everything that he wanted to within the medium, he announced his intention to work on future projects at a slower pace with fewer artistic compromises.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995 depicting Calvin and Hobbes sledding down a snowy hill after a fresh snowfall with Calvin exclaiming “Let's go exploring!" .


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Speaking to NPR in 2005, animation critic Charles Solomon opined that the final strip "left behind a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Syndicated comics were typically published six times a week in black and white, with a Sunday supplement version in a larger, full color format. This larger format version of the strip was constrained by mandatory layout requirements that made it possible for newspaper editors to format the strip for different page sizes and layouts.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson grew increasingly frustrated by the shrinking of the available space for comics in the newspapers and the mandatory panel divisions that restricted his ability to produce better artwork and more creative storytelling. He lamented that without space for anything more than simple dialogue or sparse artwork, comics as an art form were becoming dilute, bland, and unoriginal.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson longed for the artistic freedom allotted to classic strips such as "Little Nemo" and "Krazy Kat", and in 1989 he gave a sample of what could be accomplished with such liberty in the opening pages of the Sunday strip compilation, "The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book—"an 8-page previously unpublished Calvin story fully illustrated in watercolor. The same book contained an afterword from the artist himself, reflecting on a time when comic strips were allocated a whole page of the newspaper and every comic was like a "color poster".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Within two years, Watterson was ultimately successful in negotiating a deal that provided him more space and creative freedom. Following his 1991 sabbatical, Universal Press announced that Watterson had decided to sell his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page. Many editors and even a few cartoonists including Bil Keane ("The Family Circus") and Bruce Beattie ("Snafu") criticized him for what they perceived as arrogance and an unwillingness to abide by the normal practices of the cartoon business. Others, including Bill Amend ("Foxtrot"), Johnny Hart ("BC", "Wizard of Id") and Barbara Brandon ("Where I'm Coming From") supported him. The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors even formally requested that Universal reconsider the changes. Watterson's own comments on the matter was that "editors will have to judge for themselves whether or not Calvin and Hobbes deserves the extra space. If they don't think the strip carries its own weight, they don't have to run it." Ultimately only 15 newspapers cancelled the strip in response to the layout changes.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Bill Watterson took two sabbaticals from the daily requirements of producing the strip. The first took place from May 5, 1991, to February 1, 1992, and the second from April 3 through December 31, 1994. These sabbaticals were included in the new contract Watterson managed to negotiate with Universal Features in 1990. The sabbaticals were proposed by the syndicate themselves, who, fearing Watterson's complete burnout, endeavored to get another five years of work from their star artist.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson remains only the third cartoonist with sufficient popularity and stature to receive a sabbatical from their syndicate, the first two being Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury") in 1983 and Gary Larson ("The Far Side") in 1989. Typically cartoonists are expected to produce sufficient strips to cover any period they may wish to take off. Watterson's lengthy sabbaticals received some mild criticism from his fellow cartoonists including Greg Evans ("Luann"); and Charles Schulz ("Peanuts"), one of Watterson's major artistic influences, even called it a "puzzle". Some cartoonists resented the idea that Watterson worked harder than others, while others supported it. At least one newspaper editor noted that the strip was the most popular in the country and stated he "earned it".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Despite the popularity of "Calvin and Hobbes", the strip remains notable for the almost complete lack of official product merchandising. Watterson held that comic strips should stand on their own as an art form and although he did not start out completely opposed to merchandising in all forms (or even for all comic strips), he did reject an early syndication deal that involved incorporating a more marketable, licensed character into his strip. In spite of being an unproven cartoonist, and having been flown all the way to New York to discuss the proposal, Watterson reflexively resented the idea of "cartooning by committee" and turned it down.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: When "Calvin and Hobbes" was accepted by Universal Syndicate, and began to grow in popularity, Watterson found himself at odds with the syndicate, which urged him to begin merchandising the characters and touring the country to promote the first collections of comic strips. Watterson refused, believing that the integrity of the strip and its artist would be undermined by commercialization, which he saw as a major negative influence in the world of cartoon art, and that licensing his character would only violate the spirit of his work. He gave an example of this in discussing his opposition to a Hobbes plush toy: that if the essence of Hobbes' nature in the strip is that it remain unresolved whether he is a real tiger or a stuffed toy, then creating a real stuffed toy would only destroy the magic. However, having initially signed away control over merchandising in his initial contract with the syndicate, Watterson commenced a lengthy and emotionally draining battle with Universal to gain control over his work. Ultimately Universal did not approve any products against Watterson's wishes, understanding that, unlike other comic strips, it would be near impossible to separate the creator from the strip if Watterson chose to walk away.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: One estimate places the value of licensing revenue forgone by Watterson at $300–$400 million. Almost no legitimate "Calvin and Hobbes" merchandise exists. Exceptions produced during the strip's original run include two 16-month calendars (1988–89 and 1989–90), a t-shirt for the Smithsonian Exhibit, "Great American Comics: 100 Years of Cartoon Art" (1990) and the textbook "Teaching with" Calvin and Hobbes, which has been described as "perhaps the most difficult piece of official "Calvin and Hobbes" memorabilia to find." In 2010, Watterson did allow his characters to be included in a series of United States Postal Service stamps honoring five classic American comics. Licensed prints of "Calvin and Hobbes" were made available and have also been included in various academic works.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The strip's immense popularity has led to the appearance of various counterfeit items such as window decals and T-shirts that often feature crude humor, binge drinking and other themes that are not found in Watterson's work. Images from one strip in which Calvin and Hobbes dance to loud music at night were commonly used for copyright violations. After threat of a lawsuit alleging infringement of copyright and trademark, some sticker makers replaced Calvin with a different boy, while other makers made no changes. Watterson wryly commented, "I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo," but later added, "long after the strip is forgotten, [they] are my ticket to immortality".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson has expressed admiration for animation as an artform. In a 1989 interview in "The Comics Journal" he described the appeal of being able to do things with a moving image that cannot be done by a simple drawing: the distortion, the exaggeration and the control over the length of time an event is viewed. However, although the visual possibilities of animation appealed to Watterson, the idea of finding a voice for Calvin made him uncomfortable, as did the idea of working with a team of animators. Ultimately, "Calvin and Hobbes" was never made into an animated series. Watterson later stated in "The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" that he liked the fact that his strip was a "low-tech, one-man operation," and that he took great pride in the fact that he drew every line and wrote every word on his own. Calls from major Hollywood figures interested in an adaptation of his work, including Jim Henson, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, were never returned and in a 2013 interview Watterson stated that he had "zero interest" in an animated adaptation as there was really no upside for him in doing so.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The strip borrows several elements and themes from three major influences: Walt Kelly's "Pogo", George Herriman's "Krazy Kat" and Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts". Schulz and Kelly particularly influenced Watterson's outlook on comics during his formative years.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Notable elements of Watterson's artistic style are his characters' diverse and often exaggerated expressions (particularly those of Calvin), elaborate and bizarre backgrounds for Calvin's flights of imagination, expressions of motion and frequent visual jokes and metaphors. In the later years of the strip, with more panel space available for his use, Watterson experimented more freely with different panel layouts, art styles, stories without dialogue and greater use of white space. He also experimented with his tools, once inking a strip with a stick from his yard in order to achieve a particular look. He also makes a point of not showing certain things explicitly: the "Noodle Incident" and the children's book "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie" are left to the reader's imagination, where Watterson was sure they would be "more outrageous" than he could portray.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson's technique started with minimalist pencil sketches drawn with a light pencil (though the larger Sunday strips often required more elaborate work) on a piece of Bristol board, with his brand of choice being Strathmore because he felt it held the drawings better on the page as opposed to the cheaper brands (Watterson said he initially used any cheap pad of Bristol board his local supply store had but switched to Strathmore after he found himself growing more and more displeased with the results). He would then use a small sable brush and India ink to fill in the rest of the drawing, saying that he did not want to simply trace over his penciling and thus make the inking more spontaneous. He lettered dialogue with a Rapidograph fountain pen, and he used a crowquill pen for odds and ends. Mistakes were covered with various forms of correction fluid, including the type used on typewriters. Watterson was careful in his use of color, often spending a great deal of time in choosing the right colors to employ for the weekly Sunday strip; his technique was to cut the color tabs the syndicate sent him into individual squares, lay out the colors, and then paint a watercolor approximation of the strip on tracing paper over the Bristol board and then mark the strip accordingly before sending it on. When "Calvin and Hobbes" began there were 64 colors available for the Sunday strips. For the later Sunday strips Watterson had 125 colors as well as the ability to fade the colors into each other.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin, named after the 16th-century theologian John Calvin, is a six-year-old boy with spiky blond hair and a distinctive red-and-black striped shirt, black pants and sneakers. Despite his poor grades in school, Calvin demonstrates his intelligence through a sophisticated vocabulary, philosophical mind and creative/artistic talent. Watterson described Calvin as having "not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth", a "little too intelligent for his age", lacking in restraint and not yet having the experience to "know the things that you shouldn't do." The comic strip largely revolves around Calvin's inner world and his largely antagonistic experiences with those outside of it (fellow students, authority figures and his parents).


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: From Calvin's point of view, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger much larger than Calvin and full of independent attitudes and ideas. When the scene includes any other human, they see merely a stuffed animal, usually seated at an off-kilter angle and blankly staring into space. The true nature of the character is never resolved, instead as Watterson describes, a 'grown-up' version of reality is juxtaposed against Calvin's, with the reader left to "decide which is truer". Hobbes is based on a cat Watterson owned, a grey tabby named Sprite. Sprite inspired the length of Hobbes' body as well as his personality. Although Hobbes' humor stems from acting like a human, Watterson maintained Sprite's feline attitude.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Hobbes is named after 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who held what Watterson describes as "a dim view of human nature." He typically exhibits a greater understanding of consequences than Calvin, but rarely intervenes in Calvin's activities beyond a few oblique warnings. He often likes to sneak up and pounce on Calvin, especially at the front door when Calvin is returning home from school. The friendship between the two characters provides the core dynamic of the strip.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin's mother and father are typical middle-class parents who are relatively down to earth and whose sensible attitudes serve as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior. Calvin's father is a patent attorney (like Watterson's own father), while his mother is a stay-at-home mom. Both parents are unnamed throughout the entire strip, as Watterson insists, "As far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson recounts that some fans are angered by the sometimes sardonic way that Calvin's parents respond to him. In response, Watterson defends what Calvin's parents do, remarking that in the case of parenting a kid like Calvin, "I think they do a better job than I would." Calvin's father is overly concerned with "character building" activities in a number of strips, either in the things he makes Calvin do or in the austere eccentricities of his own lifestyle.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Susie Derkins, who first appears early in the strip and is the only important character with both a first and last name, lives on Calvin's street and is one of his classmates. Her last name apparently derives from the pet beagle owned by Watterson's wife's family.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Susie is studious and polite (though she can be aggressive if sufficiently provoked), and she likes to play house or host tea parties with her stuffed animals. She also plays imaginary games with Calvin in which she acts as a high-powered lawyer or politician and wants Calvin to pretend to be her househusband. Though both of them are typically loath to admit it, Calvin and Susie exhibit many common traits and inclinations. For example, the reader occasionally sees Susie with a stuffed rabbit named "Mr. Bun." Much like Calvin, Susie has a mischievous (and sometimes aggressive) streak as well, which the reader witnesses whenever she subverts Calvin's attempts to cheat on school tests by feeding him incorrect answers, or whenever she fights back after Calvin attacks her with snowballs or water balloons.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Hobbes often openly expresses romantic feelings for Susie, to Calvin's disgust. In contrast, Calvin started a club (of which he and Hobbes are the only members) that he calls G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS) and, while holding "meetings" in Calvin's tree house or in the "box of secrecy" in Calvin's room, they usually come up with some plot against Susie. In one instance, Calvin steals one of Susie's dolls and holds it for ransom, only to have Susie retaliate by nabbing Hobbes. Watterson admits that Calvin and Susie have a nascent crush on each other and that Susie is a reference to the type of woman whom Watterson himself found attractive and eventually married.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin also interacts with a handful of secondary characters. Several of these, including Rosalyn, his babysitter; Miss Wormwood, his teacher; and Moe, the school bully, recur regularly through the duration of the strip.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson used the strip to poke fun at the art world, principally through Calvin's unconventional creations of snowmen but also through other expressions of childhood art. When Miss Wormwood complains that he is wasting class time drawing impossible things (a "Stegosaurus" in a rocket ship, for example), Calvin proclaims himself "on the cutting edge of the "avant-garde"." He begins exploring the medium of snow when a warm day melts his snowman. His next sculpture "speaks to the horror of our own mortality, inviting the viewer to contemplate the evanescence of life." In later strips, Calvin's creative instincts diversify to include sidewalk drawings (or, as he terms them, examples of "suburban postmodernism").


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson also lampooned the academic world. In one example, Calvin carefully crafts an "artist's statement", claiming that such essays convey more messages than artworks themselves ever do (Hobbes blandly notes, "You misspelled "Weltanschauung""). He indulges in what Watterson calls "pop psychobabble" to justify his destructive rampages and shift blame to his parents, citing "toxic codependency." In one instance, he pens a book report based on the theory that the purpose of academic writing is to "inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity," entitled "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes". Displaying his creation to Hobbes, he remarks, "Academia, here I come!" Watterson explains that he adapted this jargon (and similar examples from several other strips) from an actual book of art criticism.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Overall, Watterson's satirical essays serve to attack both sides, criticizing both the commercial mainstream and the artists who are supposed to be "outside" it. The strip on Sunday, June 21, 1992, criticized the naming of The Big Bang theory as not evocative of the wonders behind it and coined the term "Horrendous Space Kablooie", an alternative that achieved some informal popularity among scientists and was often shortened to "the HSK." The term has also been referred to in newspapers, books and university courses.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: There are many recurring gags in the strip, some in reality and others in Calvin's imagination. These are as follows:


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin imagines himself as many great creatures and other people, including dinosaurs, elephants, jungle-farers and superheroes. Three of his alter egos are well-defined and recurrent:


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin also has several adventures involving corrugated cardboard boxes, which he adapts for many imaginative and elaborate uses. In one strip, when Calvin shows off his Transmogrifier, a device that transforms its user into any desired creature or item, Hobbes remarks, "It's amazing what they do with corrugated cardboard these days." Calvin is able to change the function of the boxes by rewriting the label and flipping the box onto another side. In this way, a box can be used not only for its conventional purposes (a storage container for water balloons, for example), but also as a flying time machine, a duplicator, a transmogrifier or, with the attachment of a few wires and a colander, a "Cerebral Enhance-o-tron."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In the real world, Calvin's antics with his box have had varying effects. When he transmogrified into a tiger, he still appeared as a regular human child to his parents. However, in a story where he made several duplicates of himself, his parents are seen interacting with what does seem like multiple Calvins, including in a strip where two of him are seen in the same panel as his father. It is ultimately unknown what his parents do or do not see, as Calvin tries to hide most of his creations (or conceal their effects) so as not to traumatize them.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In addition, Calvin uses a cardboard box as a sidewalk kiosk to sell things. Often, Calvin offers merchandise no one would want, such as "suicide drink", "a swift kick in the butt" for one dollar or a "frank appraisal of your looks" for fifty cents. In one strip, he sells "happiness" for ten cents, hitting the customer in the face with a water balloon and explaining that he meant his own happiness. In another strip, he sold "insurance", firing a slingshot at those who refused to buy it. In some strips, he tried to sell "great ideas" and, in one earlier strip, he attempted to sell the family car to obtain money for a grenade launcher. In yet another strip, he sells "life" for five cents, where the customer receives nothing in return, which, in Calvin's opinion, is life.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The box has also functioned as an alternate secret meeting place for G.R.O.S.S., as the "Box of Secrecy".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvinball is an improvisational sport/game introduced in a 1990 storyline that involved Calvin's negative experience of joining the school baseball team. Calvinball is a nomic or self-modifying game, a contest of wits, skill and creativity rather than stamina or athletic skill. The game is portrayed as a rebellion against conventional team sports and became a staple of the final 5 years of the comic. The only consistent rules of the game are that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice and that each participant must wear a mask.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: When asked how to play, Watterson stated: "It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go." In most appearances of the game, a comical array of conventional and non-conventional sporting equipment is involved, including a croquet set, a badminton set, assorted flags, bags, signs, a hobby horse, water buckets and balloons, with humorous allusions to unseen elements such as "time-fracture wickets". Scoring is portrayed as arbitrary and nonsensical ("Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy") and the lack of fixed rules leads to lengthy argument between the participants as to who scored, where the boundaries are, and when the game is finished. Usually, the contest results in Calvin being outsmarted by Hobbes. The game has been described in one academic work not as a new game based on fragments of an older one, but as the "constant connecting and disconnecting of parts, the constant evasion of rules or guidelines based on collective creativity."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin often creates horrendous/dark humor scenes with his snowmen and other snow sculptures. He uses the snowman for social commentary, revenge or pure enjoyment. Examples include Snowman Calvin being yelled at by Snowman Dad to shovel the snow; one snowman eating snow cones scooped out of a second snowman, who is lying on the ground with an ice-cream scoop in his back; a "snowman house of horror"; and snowmen representing people he hates. "The ones I "really" hate are small, so they'll melt faster," he says. There was even an occasion on which Calvin accidentally brought a snowman to life and it made itself and a small army into "deranged mutant killer monster snow goons."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin's snow art is often used as a commentary on art in general. For example, Calvin has complained more than once about the lack of originality in other people's snow art and compared it with his own grotesque snow sculptures. In one of these instances, Calvin and Hobbes claim to be the sole guardians of high culture; in another, Hobbes admires Calvin's willingness to put artistic integrity above marketability, causing Calvin to reconsider and make an ordinary snowman.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Calvin and Hobbes frequently ride downhill in a wagon or sled (depending on the season), as a device to add some physical comedy to the strip and because, according to Watterson, "it's a lot more interesting ... than talking heads." While the ride is sometimes the focus of the strip, it also frequently serves as a counterpoint or visual metaphor while Calvin ponders the meaning of life, death, God, philosophy or a variety of other weighty subjects. Many of their rides end in spectacular crashes which leave them battered, beaten up and broken, a fact which convinces Hobbes to sometimes hop off before a ride even begins. In the final strip, Calvin and Hobbes depart on their sled to go exploring. This theme is similar (perhaps even an homage) to scenes in Walt Kelly's "Pogo". Calvin and Hobbes’ sled has been described as the most famous sled in American arts since “Citizen Kane.”


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: G.R.O.S.S. (which stands for Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS or "otherwise it doesn't spell anything") is a club in which Calvin and Hobbes are the only members. The club was founded in the garage of their house, but to clear space for its activities, Calvin and (purportedly) Hobbes push Calvin's parents' car, causing it to roll into a ditch (but not suffer damage); the incident prompts the duo to change the club's location to Calvin's treehouse. They hold meetings that involve finding ways to annoy and discomfort Susie Derkins, a girl and enemy of their club. Notable actions include planting a fake secret tape near her in attempt to draw her in to a trap, trapping her in a closet at their house and creating elaborate water balloon traps. Calvin gave himself and Hobbes important positions in the club, Calvin being "Dictator-for-Life" and Hobbes being "President-and-First-Tiger". They go into Calvin's treehouse for their club meetings and often get into fights during them. The password to get into the treehouse is intentionally long and difficult, which has on at least one occasion ruined Calvin's plans. As Hobbes is able to climb the tree without the rope, he is usually the one who comes up with the password, which often involves heaping praise upon tigers. An example of this can be seen in the comic strip where Calvin, rushing to get into the treehouse to throw things at a passing Susie Derkins, insults Hobbes, who is in the treehouse and thus has to let down the rope. Hobbes forces Calvin to say the password for insulting him. By the time Susie arrives, in time to hear Calvin saying some of the password, causing him to stumble, Calvin is on ""Verse Seven:" Tigers are perfect!/The E-pit-o-me/of good looks and grace/and quiet..uh..um..dignity". The opportunity to pelt Susie with something having passed, Calvin threatens to turn Hobbes into a rug.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: There are 18 "Calvin and Hobbes" books, published from 1987 to 1997. These include 11 collections, which form a complete archive of the newspaper strips, except for a single daily strip from November 28, 1985. (The collections "do" contain a strip for this date, but it is not the same strip that appeared in some newspapers.) Treasuries usually combine the two preceding collections with bonus material and include color reprints of Sunday comics.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson included some new material in the treasuries. In "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes", which includes cartoons from the collections "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Something Under the Bed Is Drooling", the back cover features a scene of a giant Calvin rampaging through a town. The scene is based on Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and Calvin is holding the Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop, an iconic candy and ice cream shop overlooking the town's namesake falls. Several of the treasuries incorporate additional poetry; "The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes" book features a set of poems, ranging from just a few lines to an entire page, that cover topics such as Calvin's mother's "hindsight" and exploring the woods. In "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes", Watterson presents a long poem explaining a night's battle against a monster from Calvin's perspective. "The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes" includes a story based on Calvin's use of the Transmogrifier to finish his reading homework.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: A complete collection of "Calvin and Hobbes" strips, in three hardcover volumes totaling 1440 pages, was released on October 4, 2005, by Andrews McMeel Publishing. It includes color prints of the art used on paperback covers, the treasuries' extra illustrated stories and poems and a new introduction by Bill Watterson in which he talks about his inspirations and his story leading up to the publication of the strip. The alternate 1985 strip is still omitted, and three other strips (January 7 and November 24, 1987, and November 25, 1988) have altered dialogue. A four-volume paperback version was released November 13, 2012.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: To celebrate the release (which coincided with the strip's 20th anniversary and the tenth anniversary of its absence from newspapers), Bill Watterson answered 15 questions submitted by readers.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Early books were printed in smaller format in black and white. These were later reproduced in twos in color in the "Treasuries" ("Essential", "Authoritative" and "Indispensable"), except for the contents of "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons". Those Sunday strips were not reprinted in color until the "Complete" collection was finally published in 2005.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Watterson claims he named the books the ""Essential", "Authoritative" and "Indispensable"" because, as he says in "The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book", the books are "obviously none of these things."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Reviewing "Calvin and Hobbes" in 1990, "Entertainment Weekly" Ken Tucker gave the strip an A+ rating, writing "Watterson summons up the pain and confusion of childhood as much as he does its innocence and fun."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In 1993, paleontologist and paleoartist Gregory S. Paul praised Bill Watterson for the scientific accuracy of the dinosaurs appearing in "Calvin and Hobbes".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In her 1994 book "When Toys Come Alive", Lois Rostow Kuznets theorizes that Hobbes serves both as a figure of Calvin's childish fantasy life and as an outlet for the expression of libidinous desires more associated with adults. Kuznets also analyzes Calvin's other fantasies, suggesting that they are a second tier of fantasies utilized in places like school where transitional objects such as Hobbes would not be socially acceptable.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Political scientist James Q. Wilson, in a paean to "Calvin and Hobbes" upon Watterson's decision to end the strip in 1995, characterized it as "our only popular explication of the moral philosophy of Aristotle."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Alisa White Coleman analyzed the strip's underlying messages concerning ethics and values in "'Calvin and Hobbes': A Critique of Society's Values," published in the "Journal of Mass Media Ethics" in 2000.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: A collection of original Sunday strips was exhibited at Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in 2001. Watterson himself selected the strips and provided his own commentary for the exhibition catalog, which was later published by Andrews McMeel as "Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985–1995".


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Since the discontinuation of "Calvin and Hobbes", individual strips have been licensed for reprint in schoolbooks, including the Christian homeschooling book "The Fallacy Detective" in 2002, and the university-level philosophy reader "Open Questions: Readings for Critical Thinking and Writing" in 2005; in the latter, the ethical views of Watterson and his characters Calvin and Hobbes are discussed in relation to the views of professional philosophers. Since 2009, Twitter users have indicated that "Calvin and Hobbes" strips have appeared in textbooks for subjects in the sciences, social sciences, mathematics, philosophy and foreign language.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In a 2009 evaluation of the entire body of "Calvin and Hobbes" strips using grounded theory methodology, Christijan D. Draper found that: "Overall, "Calvin and Hobbes" suggests that meaningful time use is a key attribute of a life well lived," and that "the strip suggests one way to assess the meaning associated with time use is through preemptive retrospection by which a person looks at current experiences through the lens of an anticipated future..."


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Jamey Heit's "Imagination and Meaning in Calvin and Hobbes", a critical and academic analysis of the strip, was published in 2012.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: "Calvin and Hobbes" strips were again exhibited at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University in 2014, in an exhibition entitled "Exploring Calvin and Hobbes". An exhibition catalog by the same title, which also contained an interview with Watterson conducted by Jenny Robb, the curator of the museum, was published by Andrews McMeel in 2015.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: Years after its original newspaper run, "Calvin and Hobbes" has continued to exert influence in entertainment, art and fandom.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In television, Calvin and Hobbes have been satirically depicted in stop motion animation in the 2006 "Robot Chicken" episode "Lust for Puppets," and in traditional animation in the 2009 "Family Guy" episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven." In the 2013 "Community" episode "Paranormal Parentage," the characters Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) and Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) dress as Calvin and Hobbes, respectively, for Halloween.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: British artists, merchandisers, booksellers, and philosophers were interviewed for a 2009 BBC Radio 4 half-hour programme about the abiding popularity of the comic strip, narrated by Phill Jupitus.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The first book-length study of the strip, "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip" by Nevin Martell, was first published in 2009; an expanded edition was published in 2010. The book chronicles Martell's quest to tell the story of "Calvin and Hobbes" and Watterson through research and interviews with people connected to the cartoonist and his work. The director of the later documentary "Dear Mr. Watterson" referenced "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes" in discussing the production of the movie, and Martell appears in the film.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The American documentary film "Dear Mr. Watterson", released in 2013, explores the impact and legacy of "Calvin and Hobbes" through interviews with authors, curators, historians, and numerous professional cartoonists.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The enduring significance of "Calvin and Hobbes" to international cartooning was recognized by the jury of the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2014 by the awarding of its Grand Prix to Watterson, only the fourth American to ever receive the honor (after Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, and Art Spiegelman).


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: From 2016 to 2021, author Berkeley Breathed included "Calvin and Hobbes" in various "Bloom County" cartoons. He launched the first cartoon on April Fool's Day 2016 and jokingly issued a statement suggesting that he had acquired "Calvin and Hobbes" from Bill Watterson, who was "out of the Arizona facility, continent and looking forward to some well-earned financial security." While bearing Watterson's signature and drawing style as well as featuring characters from both "Calvin and Hobbes" and Breathed's "Bloom County", it is unclear whether Watterson had any input into these cartoons or not.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: "Calvin and Hobbes" remains the most viewed comic on GoComics, which cycles through old strips with an approximately 30-year delay.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: A number of artists and cartoonists have created unofficial works portraying Calvin as a teenager/adult; the concept has also inspired writers.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: In 2011, a comic strip appeared by cartoonists Dan and Tom Heyerman called "Hobbes and Bacon". The strip depicts Calvin as an adult, married to Susie Derkins with a young daughter named after philosopher Francis Bacon, to whom Calvin gives Hobbes. Though consisting of only four strips originally, "Hobbes and Bacon" received considerable attention when it appeared and was continued by other cartoonists and artists.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: A novel titled "Calvin" by CLA Young Adult Book Award–winning author Martine Leavitt was published in 2015. The story tells of seventeen-year-old Calvin—who was born on the day that "Calvin and Hobbes" ended, and who has now been diagnosed with schizophrenia—and his hallucination of Hobbes, his childhood stuffed tiger. With his friend Susie, who might also be a hallucination, Calvin sets off to find Bill Watterson in the hope that the cartoonist can provide aid for Calvin's condition.


title: Calvin and Hobbes

text: The titular character of the comic strip "Frazz" has been noted for his similar appearance and personality to a grown-up Calvin. Creator Jef Mallett has stated that although Watterson is an inspiration to him, the similarities are unintentional.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Gerard Adams (; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he followed the policy of abstentionism as a Member of Parliament (MP) of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams first became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s, and had been an established figure in Northern Irish activism for more than a decade before his 1983 election to Parliament. In 1984, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by several gunmen from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), including John Gregg. From the late 1980s onwards, he was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, entering into talks initially with Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and then subsequently with the Irish and British governments. In 1986, he convinced Sinn Féin to change its traditional policy of abstentionism towards the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland. In 1998, it also took seats in the power-sharing (D'Hondt method) Northern Ireland Assembly. In 2005, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) stated that its armed campaign was over and that it was exclusively committed to peaceful politics.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In 2014, Adams was held for four days by the Police Service of Northern Ireland for questioning in connection with the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville. He was released without charge and a file was sent to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, which later stated there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Adams announced in November 2017 that he would step down as leader of Sinn Féin in 2018, and that he would not stand for re-election to his seat in Dáil Éireann in 2020. He was succeeded by Mary Lou McDonald at a special "ardfheis" (party conference) on 10 February 2018.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams was born in the Ballymurphy district of Belfast on 6 October 1948. His parents, Anne (née Hannaway) and Gerry Adams Sr., came from republican backgrounds. His grandfather, also named Gerry Adams, was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) during the Irish War of Independence. Two of his uncles, Dominic and Patrick Adams, had been interned by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. In J. Bowyer Bell's book "The Secret Army", Bell states that Dominic was a senior figure in the IRA of the mid-1940s. Gerry Adams Sr. joined the IRA at age 16. In 1942, he participated in an IRA ambush on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) patrol but was himself shot, arrested and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. Adams's maternal great-grandfather, Michael Hannaway, was also a member of the IRB during its bombing campaign in England in the 1860s and 1870s. Michael's son, Billy, was election agent for Éamon de Valera at the 1918 Irish general election in West Belfast.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams attended St Finian's Primary School on Falls Road, where he was taught by La Salle brothers. Having passed the eleven-plus exam in 1960, he attended St Mary's Christian Brothers Grammar School. He left St Mary's with six O-levels and became a bartender. He was increasingly involved in the Irish republican movement, joining Sinn Féin and Fianna Éireann in 1964, after being radicalised by the Divis Street riots during that year's general election campaign.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign developed in Northern Ireland. Adams was an active supporter and joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967. However, the civil rights movement was met with violence from loyalist counter-demonstrations and the RUC. In August 1969, the Northern Ireland riots resulted in violence in Belfast, Derry and elsewhere. British troops were called in at the request of the Government of Northern Ireland.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams was active in rioting at this time and later became involved in the republican movement. In August 1971, internment was reintroduced to Northern Ireland under the Special Powers Act 1922. Adams was captured by British soldiers in March 1972 and in a "Belfast Telegraph" report on Adams' capture he was said to be "one of the most wanted men in Belfast". Adams was interned on , but on the Provisional IRA's insistence was released in June to take part in secret, but abortive talks in London. The IRA negotiated a short-lived truce with the British government and an IRA delegation met with British Home Secretary William Whitelaw at Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. The delegation included Adams, Martin McGuinness, Sean Mac Stiofain (IRA Chief of Staff), Daithi O'Conaill, Seamus Twomey, Ivor Bell and Dublin solicitor Myles Shevlin. Adams was re-arrested in July 1973 and interned at the Maze prison. After taking part in an IRA-organised escape attempt, he was sentenced to a period of imprisonment. During this time, he wrote articles in the paper "An Phoblacht" under the by-line "Brownie", where he criticised the strategy and policy of Sinn Féin president Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee, the IRA's officer commanding in Belfast. He was also highly critical of a decision taken by McKee to assassinate members of the rival Official IRA, who had been on ceasefire since 1972. In 2020, the UK Supreme Court quashed Adams' convictions for attempting to escape on Christmas Eve in 1973 and again in July 1974.


title: Gerry Adams

text: During the 1981 hunger strike, which saw the emergence of his party as a political force, Adams played an important policy-making role. In 1983, he was elected president of Sinn Féin and became the first Sinn Féin MP elected to the British House of Commons since Phil Clarke and Tom Mitchell in the mid-1950s. Following his election as MP for Belfast West, the British government lifted a ban on his travelling to Great Britain. In line with Sinn Féin policy, he refused to take his seat in the House of Commons.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 14 March 1984 in central Belfast, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt when several Ulster Defence Association (UDA) gunmen fired about 20 shots into the car in which he was travelling. He was hit in the neck, shoulder and arm. He was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove three bullets. John Gregg and his team were apprehended almost immediately by a British Army patrol that opened fire on them before ramming their car. The attack had been known in advance by security forces due to a tip-off from informants within the UDA; Adams and his co-passengers had survived in part because RUC officers, acting on the informants' information, had replaced much of the ammunition in the UDA's Rathcoole weapons dump with low-velocity bullets. Some, including Adams himself, still have unanswered questions about the RUC’s actions prior to the shooting. Even in the unlikely circumstance the gunmen didn’t notice the ammunition had been swapped out, they’d still be spraying live rounds at Adams until someone or something was able to stop them. As RUC officers, if their goal was safety, seizing the illegal weapons cache, warning the target, or just using their policing powers to prevent the attack from getting to the “shots fired” stage were all potential solutions. Swapping in low-velocity bullets? That’s bollix! An Ulster Defence Regiment NCO subsequently received the Queen's Gallantry Medal for chasing and arresting an assailant.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams has stated repeatedly that he has never been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). However, journalists such as Ed Moloney, Peter Taylor and Mark Urban, and historian Richard English have all named Adams as part of the IRA leadership since the 1970s. Additionally, former IRA members Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes both independently stated that they served under Adams in the IRA, although Adams has continued to deny all such allegations.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Moloney and Taylor state Adams became the IRA's Chief of Staff following the arrest of Seamus Twomey in early December 1977, remaining in the position until 18 February 1978 when he, along with twenty other republican suspects, was arrested following the La Mon restaurant bombing. He was charged with IRA membership and remanded to Crumlin Road Gaol. He was released seven months later when the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland Robert Lowry ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the prosecution. Moloney and English state Adams had been a member of the IRA Army Council since 1977, remaining a member until 2005 according to Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 30 April 2014, Adams was arrested by detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Serious Crime Branch, under the Terrorism Act 2000, in connection with the murder of Jean McConville in 1972. He had previously voluntarily arranged to be interviewed by police regarding the matter, and maintained he had no involvement. Fellow Sinn Féin politician Alex Maskey claimed that the timing of the arrest, "three weeks into an election", was evidence of a "political agenda [...] a negative agenda" by the PSNI. Jean McConville's family had campaigned for the arrest of Adams over the murder. Jean McConville's son Michael said that his family did not think the arrest of Adams would ever happen, but were "quite glad" that the arrest took place. Adams was released without charge after four days in custody and it was decided to send a file to the Public Prosecution Service, which would decide if criminal charges should be brought.


title: Gerry Adams

text: At a press conference after his release, Adams also criticised the timing of his arrest, while reiterating Sinn Féin's support for the PSNI and saying: "The IRA is gone. It is finished". Adams has denied that he had any involvement in the murder or was ever a member of the IRA, and has said the allegations against him came from "enemies of the peace process". On 29 September 2015 the Public Prosecution Service announced Adams would not face charges, due to insufficient evidence, as had been expected ever since a BBC report dated 6 May 2014 (2 days after the BBC reported his release), which was widely repeated elsewhere.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In 1978, Adams became joint vice-president of Sinn Féin and a key figure in directing a challenge to the Sinn Féin leadership of President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and joint vice-president Dáithí Ó Conaill. The 1975 IRA-British truce is often viewed as the event that began the challenge to the original Provisional Sinn Féin leadership, which was dominated by southerners like Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill.


title: Gerry Adams

text: One of the reasons that the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin were founded, in December 1969 and January 1970, respectively, was that people like Ó Brádaigh, Ó Conaill and McKee opposed participation in constitutional politics. The other reason was the failure of the Cathal Goulding leadership to provide for the defence of Irish nationalist areas during the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. When, at the December 1969 IRA convention and the January 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, the delegates voted to participate in the Dublin (Leinster House), Belfast (Stormont) and London (Westminster) parliaments, the organisations split. Adams, who had joined the republican movement in the early 1960s, sided with the Provisionals.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In the Maze prison in the mid-1970s, writing under the pseudonym "Brownie" in "Republican News", Adams called for increased political activity among republicans, especially at local level. The call resonated with younger Northern people, many of whom had been active in the Provisional IRA but few of whom had been active in Sinn Féin. In 1977, Adams and Danny Morrison drafted the address of Jimmy Drumm at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown. The address was viewed as watershed in that Drumm acknowledged that the war would be a long one and that success depended on political activity that would complement the IRA's armed campaign. For some, this wedding of politics and armed struggle culminated in Danny Morrison's statement at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in which he asked "Who here really believes we can win the war through the ballot box? But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other, we take power in Ireland?" For others, however, the call to link political activity with armed struggle had already been defined in Sinn Féin policy and in the presidential addresses of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, but this had not resonated with young Northerners.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Even after the election of Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a part of the mass mobilisation associated with the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike by republican prisoners in the H blocks of the Maze Prison (known as Long Kesh by republicans), Adams was cautious that the level of political involvement by Sinn Féin could lead to electoral embarrassment. Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, called an election for June 1981. At an Ard Chomhairle meeting, Adams recommended that they contest only four constituencies which were in border counties. Instead, H-Block/Armagh candidates contested nine constituencies and elected two TDs. This, along with the election of Sands, was a precursor to an electoral breakthrough in elections in 1982 to the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly. Adams, Danny Morrison, Martin McGuinness, Jim McAllister and Owen Carron were elected as abstentionists. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) had announced before the election that it would not take any seats and so its 14 elected representatives also abstained from participating in the Assembly and it was a failure. The 1982 election was followed by the 1983 Westminster election, in which Sinn Féin's vote increased and Adams was elected, as an abstentionist, as MP for Belfast West. It was in 1983 that Ruairí Ó Brádaigh resigned as President of Sinn Féin and was succeeded by Adams.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Many republicans had long claimed that the only legitimate Irish state was the Irish Republic declared in the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic. In their view, the legitimate government was the IRA Army Council, which had been vested with the authority of that Republic in 1938 (prior to the Second World War) by the last remaining anti-Treaty deputies of the Second Dáil. In his 2005 speech to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in Dublin, Adams explicitly rejected this view. "But we refuse to criminalise those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives. ... Sinn Féin is accused of recognising the Army Council of the IRA as the legitimate government of this island. That is not the case. [We] do not believe that the Army Council is the government of Ireland. Such a government will only exist when all the people of this island elect it. Does Sinn Féin accept the institutions of this state as the legitimate institutions of this state? Of course we do."


title: Gerry Adams

text: As a result of this non-recognition, Sinn Féin had abstained from taking any of the seats they won in the British or Irish parliaments. At its 1986 Ard Fheis, Sinn Féin delegates passed a resolution to amend the rules and constitution that would allow its members to sit in the Dublin parliament. At this, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh led a small walkout, just as he and Sean Mac Stiofain had done sixteen years earlier with the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin. This minority, which rejected dropping the policy of abstentionism, now distinguishes itself from Sinn Féin by using the name Republican Sinn Féin (or Sinn Féin Poblachtach), and maintains that they are the true Sinn Féin.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams' leadership of Sinn Féin was supported by a Northern-based cadre that included people like Danny Morrison and Martin McGuinness. Over time, Adams and others pointed to republican electoral successes in the early and mid-1980s, when hunger strikers Bobby Sands and Kieran Doherty were elected to the British House of Commons and Dáil Éireann respectively, and they advocated that Sinn Féin become increasingly political and base its influence on electoral politics rather than paramilitarism. The electoral effects of this strategy were shown later by the election of Adams and McGuinness to the House of Commons.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams's prominence as an Irish republican leader was increased by the 1988–94 British broadcasting voice restrictions, which were imposed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to "starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend". Thatcher was moved to act after BBC interviews of Martin McGuinness and Adams had been the focus of a row over an edition of "After Dark", a proposed Channel 4 discussion programme which in the event was never made. While the ban covered 11 Irish political parties and paramilitary organisations, in practice it mostly affected Sinn Féin, the most prominent of these bodies.


title: Gerry Adams

text: A similar ban, known as Section 31, had been law in the Republic of Ireland since the 1970s. However, media outlets soon found ways around the bans. In the UK, this was initially by the use of subtitles, but later and more often by an actor reading words accompanied by video footage of the banned person speaking. Actors who voiced Adams included Stephen Rea and Paul Loughran. This loophole could not be used in the Republic, as word-for-word broadcasts were not allowed. Instead, the banned speaker's words were summarised by the newsreader, over video of them speaking.


title: Gerry Adams

text: These bans were lampooned in cartoons and satirical TV shows, such as "Spitting Image", and in "The Day Today", and were criticised by freedom of speech organisations and media personalities, including BBC Director General John Birt and BBC foreign editor John Simpson. The Republic's ban was allowed to lapse in January 1994, and the British ban was lifted by Prime Minister John Major in September 1994.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Sinn Féin continued its policy of refusing to sit in the Westminster Parliament after Adams won the Belfast West constituency. He lost his seat to Joe Hendron of the SDLP in the 1992 general election, regaining it at the following 1997 election. Under Adams, Sinn Féin moved away from being a political voice of the Provisional IRA to becoming a professionally organised political party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.


title: Gerry Adams

text: SDLP leader John Hume identified the possibility that a negotiated settlement might be possible and began secret talks with Adams in 1988. These discussions led to unofficial contacts with the British Northern Ireland Office under the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke, and with the government of the Republic under Charles Haughey – although both governments maintained in public that they would not negotiate with terrorists. These talks provided the groundwork for what was later to be the Belfast Agreement, preceded by the milestone Downing Street Declaration and the Joint Framework Document.


title: Gerry Adams

text: These negotiations led to the IRA ceasefire in August 1994. Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, who had replaced Haughey and who had played a key role in the Hume/Adams dialogue through his Special Advisor Martin Mansergh, regarded the ceasefire as permanent. However, the slow pace of developments contributed in part to the (wider) political difficulties of the British government of John Major. His consequent reliance on Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) votes in the House of Commons led to him agreeing with the UUP demand to exclude Sinn Féin from talks until the IRA had decommissioned its weapons. Sinn Féin's exclusion led the IRA to end its ceasefire and resume its campaign.


title: Gerry Adams

text: After the 1997 United Kingdom general election, the new Labour government had a majority in the House of Commons and was not reliant on unionist votes. The subsequent dropping of the insistence led to another IRA ceasefire, as part of the negotiations strategy, which saw teams from the British and Irish governments, the UUP, the SDLP, Sinn Féin, and representatives of loyalist paramilitary organisations, under the chairmanship of former United States Senator George Mitchell, produce the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Under the Agreement, structures were created reflecting the Irish and British identities of the people of Ireland, creating a British-Irish Council and a Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution, which claimed sovereignty over all of Ireland, were reworded, and a power-sharing Executive Committee was provided for. As part of their deal, Sinn Féin agreed to abandon its abstentionist policy regarding a "six-county parliament", as a result taking seats in the new Stormont-based Assembly and running the education and health and social services ministries in the power-sharing government.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 15 August 1998, four months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Omagh bombing by the Real IRA, killed 29 people and injured 220, from many communities. Adams said in reaction to the bombing "I am totally horrified by this action. I condemn it without any equivocation whatsoever." Prior to this, Adams had not used the word "condemn" in relation to IRA or their splinter groups' actions.


title: Gerry Adams

text: When Sinn Féin came to nominate its two ministers to the Northern Ireland Executive, for tactical reasons the party, like the SDLP and the DUP, chose not to include its leader among its ministers. When later the SDLP chose a new leader, it selected one of its ministers, Mark Durkan, who then opted to remain in the committee.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams was re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 8 March 2007, and on 26 March 2007, he met with DUP leader Ian Paisley face-to-face for the first time. These talks led to the St Andrews Agreement, which brought about the return of the power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In January 2009, Adams attended the United States presidential inauguration of Barack Obama as a guest of US Congressman Richard Neal.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 6 May 2010, Adams was re-elected as MP for West Belfast, garnering 71.1% of the vote. In 2010, Adams announced that he would be seeking election as a TD (member of Irish Parliament) for the constituency of Louth at the 2011 Irish general election. He subsequently resigned his West Belfast Assembly seat on 7 December 2010.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Following the announcement of the 2011 Irish general election, Adams resigned his seat at the House of Commons. He was elected to the Dáil, topping the Louth constituency poll with 15,072 (21.7%) first preference votes. He succeeded Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin as Sinn Féin parliamentary leader in Dáil Éireann. In December 2013, Adams was a member of the Guard of Honour at Nelson Mandela's funeral.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 19 May 2015, while on an official royal trip to Ireland, Prince Charles shook Adams' hand in what was described as a highly symbolic gesture of reconciliation. The meeting, described as "historic", took place in Galway.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In September 2017, Adams said he would allow his name to go forward for a one-year term as president of Sinn Féin at the November ardfheis, at which point Sinn Féin would begin a "planned process of generational change, including [Adams'] own future intentions". This resulted in speculation in the Irish and British media that Adams was preparing to stand down as party leader, and that he might run for President of Ireland in the next election. At the ardfheis on 18 November, Adams was re-elected for another year as party president, but announced that he would step down at some point in 2018, and would not seek re-election as TD for Louth.


title: Gerry Adams

text: Adams' presidency of Sinn Féin ended on 10 February 2018, with his stepping down, and the election of Mary Lou McDonald as the party's new president.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 13 July 2018, a home-made bomb was thrown at Adams' home in West Belfast, damaging a car parked in his driveway. Adams escaped injury and claimed that his two grandchildren were standing in the driveway only 10 minutes before the blast. Another bomb was set off that same evening at the nearby home of former IRA member and Sinn Féin official Bobby Storey. In a press conference the following day, Adams said he thought the attacks were linked to the riots in Derry, and asked that those responsible "come and sit down" and "give us the rationale for this action".


title: Gerry Adams

text: In 1971, Adams married Collette McArdle. They have a son named Gearoid (born 1973), who has played Gaelic football for Antrim GAA senior men's team and became its assistant manager in 2012.


title: Gerry Adams

text: In October 2013, Adams' brother Liam was found guilty of 10 offences, including rape and gross indecency committed against his own daughter. When the allegations of abuse were first made public in a 2009 UTV programme, Gerry Adams subsequently alleged that his own father had subjected family members to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. On 27 November 2013, Liam was jailed for 16 years. He died of pancreatic cancer, aged 63, while in Maghaberry Prison, in February 2019.


title: Gerry Adams

text: On 1 May 2016, Adams sparked controversy by tweeting, "Watching "Django Unchained"-A Ballymurphy Nigger!" The tweet was criticised and subsequently deleted, with Adams apologising for the use of "nigger" the next day at Sinn Féin's Connolly House headquarters in Belfast. The tweet was widely reported in Irish, British, and American media. Adams said, "I stand over the context and main point of my tweet, which were the parallels between people in struggle. Like African Americans, Irish nationalists were denied basic rights. I have long been inspired by Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, who stood up for themselves and for justice." On 4 May, he said, "The whole thing was to make a political point. If I had left that word out, would the tweet have gotten any attention? ... I was paralleling the experiences of the Irish, not just in recent times but through the penal days when the Irish were sold as slaves, through the Cromwellian period." He was criticised for perpetrating what has been called the "Irish slaves myth", by equating the indentured servitude of the Irish with the chattel slavery of African Americans.


title: Gyroscope

text: A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος "gŷros", "round" and σκοπέω "skopéō", "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotation (spin axis) is free to assume any orientation by itself. When rotating, the orientation of this axis is unaffected by tilting or rotation of the mounting, according to the conservation of angular momentum.


title: Gyroscope

text: Gyroscopes based on other operating principles also exist, such as the microchip-packaged MEMS gyroscopes found in electronic devices (sometimes called gyrometers), solid-state ring lasers, fibre optic gyroscopes, and the extremely sensitive quantum gyroscope.


title: Gyroscope

text: Applications of gyroscopes include inertial navigation systems, such as in the Hubble Space Telescope, or inside the steel hull of a submerged submarine. Due to their precision, gyroscopes are also used in gyrotheodolites to maintain direction in tunnel mining. Gyroscopes can be used to construct gyrocompasses, which complement or replace magnetic compasses (in ships, aircraft and spacecraft, vehicles in general), to assist in stability (bicycles, motorcycles, and ships) or be used as part of an inertial guidance system.


title: Gyroscope

text: A gyroscope is an instrument, consisting of a wheel mounted into two or three gimbals providing pivoted supports, for allowing the wheel to rotate about a single axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow a wheel mounted on the innermost gimbal to have an orientation remaining independent of the orientation, in space, of its support.


title: Gyroscope

text: In the case of a gyroscope with two gimbals, the outer gimbal, which is the gyroscope frame, is mounted so as to pivot about an axis in its own plane determined by the support. This outer gimbal possesses one degree of rotational freedom and its axis possesses none. The second gimbal, inner gimbal, is mounted in the gyroscope frame (outer gimbal) so as to pivot about an axis in its own plane that is always perpendicular to the pivotal axis of the gyroscope frame (outer gimbal). This inner gimbal has two degrees of rotational freedom.


title: Gyroscope

text: The axle of the spinning wheel (the rotor) defines the spin axis. The rotor is constrained to spin about an axis, which is always perpendicular to the axis of the inner gimbal. So the rotor possesses three degrees of rotational freedom and its axis possesses two.


title: Gyroscope

text: The behavior of a gyroscope can be most easily appreciated by consideration of the front wheel of a bicycle. If the wheel is leaned away from the vertical so that the top of the wheel moves to the left, the forward rim of the wheel also turns to the left. In other words, rotation on one axis of the turning wheel produces rotation of the third axis.


title: Gyroscope

text: A gyroscope flywheel will roll or resist about the output axis depending upon whether the output gimbals are of a free or fixed configuration. An example of some free-output-gimbal devices is the attitude control gyroscopes used to sense or measure the pitch, roll and yaw attitude angles in a spacecraft or aircraft.


title: Gyroscope

text: The centre of gravity of the rotor can be in a fixed position. The rotor simultaneously spins about one axis and is capable of oscillating about the two other axes, and it is free to turn in any direction about the fixed point (except for its inherent resistance caused by rotor spin). Some gyroscopes have mechanical equivalents substituted for one or more of the elements. For example, the spinning rotor may be suspended in a fluid, instead of being mounted in gimbals. A control moment gyroscope (CMG) is an example of a fixed-output-gimbal device that is used on spacecraft to hold or maintain a desired attitude angle or pointing direction using the gyroscopic resistance force.


title: Gyroscope

text: In some special cases, the outer gimbal (or its equivalent) may be omitted so that the rotor has only two degrees of freedom. In other cases, the centre of gravity of the rotor may be offset from the axis of oscillation, and thus the centre of gravity of the rotor and the centre of suspension of the rotor may not coincide.


title: Gyroscope

text: Essentially, a gyroscope is a top combined with a pair of gimbals. Tops were invented in many different civilizations, including classical Greece, Rome, and China. Most of these were not utilized as instruments.


title: Gyroscope

text: The first known apparatus similar to a gyroscope (the "Whirling Speculum" or "Serson's Speculum") was invented by John Serson in 1743. It was used as a level, to locate the horizon in foggy or misty conditions.


title: Gyroscope

text: The first instrument used more like an actual gyroscope was made by Johann Bohnenberger of Germany, who first wrote about it in 1817. At first he called it the "Machine". Bohnenberger's machine was based on a rotating massive sphere. In 1832, American Walter R. Johnson developed a similar device that was based on a rotating disc. The French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, working at the École Polytechnique in Paris, recommended the machine for use as a teaching aid, and thus it came to the attention of Léon Foucault.


title: Gyroscope

text: It was Foucault who gave the device its modern name, in an experiment to see (Greek "skopeein", to see) the Earth's rotation (Greek "gyros", circle or rotation), which was visible in the 8 to 10 minutes before friction slowed the spinning rotor.


title: Gyroscope

text: In the 1860s, the advent of electric motors made it possible for a gyroscope to spin indefinitely; this led to the first prototype heading indicators, and a rather more complicated device, the gyrocompass. The first functional gyrocompass was patented in 1904 by German inventor Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe. American Elmer Sperry followed with his own design later that year, and other nations soon realized the military importance of the invention—in an age in which naval prowess was the most significant measure of military power—and created their own gyroscope industries. The Sperry Gyroscope Company quickly expanded to provide aircraft and naval stabilizers as well, and other gyroscope developers followed suit.


title: Gyroscope

text: In 1917, the Chandler Company of Indianapolis created the "Chandler gyroscope", a toy gyroscope with a pull string and pedestal. Chandler continued to produce the toy until the company was purchased by TEDCO Inc. in 1982. The chandler toy is still produced by TEDCO today.


title: Gyroscope

text: In the first several decades of the 20th century, other inventors attempted (unsuccessfully) to use gyroscopes as the basis for early black box navigational systems by creating a stable platform from which accurate acceleration measurements could be performed (in order to bypass the need for star sightings to calculate position). Similar principles were later employed in the development of inertial navigation systems for ballistic missiles.


title: Gyroscope

text: During World War II, the gyroscope became the prime component for aircraft and anti-aircraft gun sights. After the war, the race to miniaturize gyroscopes for guided missiles and weapons navigation systems resulted in the development and manufacturing of so-called midget gyroscopes that weighed less than and had a diameter of approximately . Some of these miniaturized gyroscopes could reach a speed of 24,000 revolutions per minute in less than 10 seconds.


title: Gyroscope

text: Gyroscopes continue to be an engineering challenge. For example, the axle bearings have to be extremely accurate. A small amount of friction is deliberately introduced to the bearings, since otherwise an accuracy of better than formula_1 of an inch (2.5 nm) would be required.


title: Gyroscope

text: Three-axis MEMS-based gyroscopes are also being used in portable electronic devices such as tablets, smartphones, and smartwatches. This adds to the 3-axis acceleration sensing ability available on previous generations of devices. Together these sensors provide 6 component motion sensing; accelerometers for X,Y, and Z movement, and gyroscopes for measuring the extent and rate of rotation in space (roll, pitch and yaw). Some devices additionally incorporate a magnetometer to provide absolute angular measurements relative to the Earth's magnetic field. Newer MEMS-based inertial measurement units incorporate up to all nine axes of sensing in a single integrated circuit package, providing inexpensive and widely available motion sensing.


title: Gyroscope

text: All spinning objects have gyroscopic properties. The main properties that an object can experience in any gyroscopic motion are rigidity in space and precession.


title: Gyroscope

text: Rigidity in space describes the principle that a gyroscope remains in the fixed position on the plane in which it is spinning, unaffected by the Earth's rotation. For example, a bike wheel. Early forms of gyroscope (not then known by the name) were used to demonstrate the principle.


title: Gyroscope

text: A simple case of precession, also known as steady precession, can be described by the following relation to Moment:


title: Gyroscope

text: where formula_3 represents precession, formula_4 is represented by spin, formula_5 is the nutation angle, and formula_6 represents inertia along its respective axis. This relation is only valid with the Moment along the Y and Z axises are equal to 0.


title: Gyroscope

text: The equation can be further reduced noting that the angular velocity along the z-axis is equal to the sum of the Precession and the Spin: formula_7, Where formula_8 represents the angular velocity along the z axis.


title: Gyroscope

text: Gyroscopic precession is torque induced. Described as the rate of change of the angular momentum and angular velocity that was produced by the same applied torque. This physical phenomenon results in the seemingly impossible dynamic occurrences. For example, a spinning top. This gyroscopic process is taken advantage of in many aerospace circumstances, such as airplanes and helicopters to help guide them into a desired orientation.


title: Gyroscope

text: A Steadicam rig was employed during the filming of "Return of the Jedi", in conjunction with two gyroscopes for extra stabilization, to film the background plates for the speeder bike chase. Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown operated the shot, walking through a redwood forest, running the camera at one frame per second. When projected at 24 frames per second, it gave the impression of flying through the air at perilous speeds.


title: Gyroscope

text: The heading indicator or directional gyro has an axis of rotation that is set horizontally, pointing north. Unlike a magnetic compass, it does not seek north. When being used in an airplane, for example, it will slowly drift away from north and will need to be reoriented periodically, using a magnetic compass as a reference.


title: Gyroscope

text: Unlike a directional gyro or heading indicator, a gyrocompass seeks north. It detects the rotation of the Earth about its axis and seeks the "true" north, rather than the "magnetic" north. Gyrocompasses usually have built-in damping to prevent overshoot when re-calibrating from sudden movement.


title: Gyroscope

text: By determining an object's acceleration and integrating over time, the velocity of the object can be calculated. Integrating again, position can be determined. The simplest accelerometer is a weight that is free to move horizontally, which is attached to a spring and a device to measure the tension in the spring. This can be improved by introducing a counteracting force to push the weight back and to measure the force needed to prevent the weight from moving. A more complicated design consists of a gyroscope with a weight on one of the axes. The device will react to the force generated by the weight when it is accelerated, by integrating that force to produce a velocity.


title: Gyroscope

text: A gyrostat consists of a massive flywheel concealed in a solid casing. Its behaviour on a table, or with various modes of suspension or support, serves to illustrate the curious reversal of the ordinary laws of static equilibrium due to the gyrostatic behaviour of the interior invisible flywheel when rotated rapidly. The first gyrostat was designed by Lord Kelvin to illustrate the more complicated state of motion of a spinning body when free to wander about on a horizontal plane, like a top spun on the pavement, or a bicycle on the road. Kelvin also made use of gyrostats to develop mechanical theories of the elasticity of matter and of the ether. In modern continuum mechanics there is a variety of these models, based on ideas of Lord Kelvin. They represent a specific type of Cosserat theories (suggested for the first time by Eugène Cosserat and François Cosserat), which can be used for description of artificially made smart materials as well as of other complex media. One of them, so-called Kelvin's medium, has the same equations as magnetic insulators near the state of magnetic saturation in the approximation of quasimagnetostatics.


title: Gyroscope

text: In modern times, the gyrostat concept is used in the design of attitude control systems for orbiting spacecraft and satellites. For instance, the Mir space station had three pairs of internally mounted flywheels known as "gyrodynes" or "control moment gyros".


title: Gyroscope

text: In physics, there are several systems whose dynamical equations resemble the equations of motion of a gyrostat. Examples include a solid body with a cavity filled with an inviscid, incompressible, homogeneous liquid, the static equilibrium configuration of a stressed elastic rod in elastica theory, the polarization dynamics of a light pulse propagating through a nonlinear medium, the Lorenz system in chaos theory, and the motion of an ion in a Penning trap mass spectrometer.


title: Gyroscope

text: A microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscope is a miniaturized gyroscope found in electronic devices. It takes the idea of the Foucault pendulum and uses a vibrating element. This kind of gyroscope was first used in military applications but has since been adopted for increasing commercial use.


title: Gyroscope

text: The hemispherical resonator gyroscope (HRG), also called a wine-glass gyroscope or mushroom gyro, makes use of a thin solid-state hemispherical shell, anchored by a thick stem. This shell is driven to a flexural resonance by electrostatic forces generated by electrodes which are deposited directly onto separate fused-quartz structures that surround the shell. Gyroscopic effect is obtained from the inertial property of the flexural standing waves.


title: Gyroscope

text: A vibrating structure gyroscope (VSG), also called a Coriolis vibratory gyroscope (CVG), uses a resonator made of different metallic alloys. It takes a position between the low-accuracy, low-cost MEMS gyroscope and the higher-accuracy and higher-cost fiber optic gyroscope. Accuracy parameters are increased by using low-intrinsic damping materials, resonator vacuumization, and digital electronics to reduce temperature dependent drift and instability of control signals.


title: Gyroscope

text: A dynamically tuned gyroscope (DTG) is a rotor suspended by a universal joint with flexure pivots. The flexure spring stiffness is independent of spin rate. However, the dynamic inertia (from the gyroscopic reaction effect) from the gimbal provides negative spring stiffness proportional to the square of the spin speed (Howe and Savet, 1964; Lawrence, 1998). Therefore, at a particular speed, called the tuning speed, the two moments cancel each other, freeing the rotor from torque, a necessary condition for an ideal gyroscope.


title: Gyroscope

text: A ring laser gyroscope relies on the Sagnac effect to measure rotation by measuring the shifting interference pattern of a beam split into two separate beams which travel around the ring in opposite directions.