title: Untermensch

text: The "Untermensch" concept included Jews, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), and Slavic peoples such as Poles, Serbs and Russians. Slavs were regarded as "Untermenschen", barely fit for exploitation as slaves. Hitler and Goebbels compared them to the "rabbit family" or to "stolid animals" that were "idle" and "disorganized" and spread like a "wave of filth". However, some among the Slavs who happened to have Nordic racial features were deemed to have distant Germanic descent which meant partially "Aryan" origin, and if under 10 years old, they were to be Germanized (see: kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany).


title: Untermensch

text: The Nazis were utterly contemptuous of the Slavs, as even prior to World War II, Slavs – particularly the Poles – were deemed to be inferior to Germans and other Aryans. After Adolf Hitler gained political power in Germany, the concept of non-Aryan "sub-human slave-material" was developed and started to be used also towards other Slavic peoples. Poles and Serbs were at the bottom of the Slavic "racial hierarchy" established by the Nazis. Soon after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact expired, Russians also started to be seen as "subhumans". Similarly, Belarusians, Czechs, Slovaks, and Ukrainians were considered to be inferior. Nonetheless, there were Slavs such as Bosniaks, Bulgarians, and Croats who collaborated with Nazi Germany that were still being perceived as not racially "pure" enough to reach the status of Germanic peoples, yet they were eventually considered ethnically better than other Slavs, mostly due to theories about these nations having a minimal amount of Slavic genes and considerable admixtures of Germanic and Turkic blood.


title: Untermensch

text: In order to forge a strategic alliance with the Independent State of Croatia – a puppet state created after the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Nazis deviated from a strict interpretation of their racial ideology, and Croats were officially described as "more Germanic than Slav", a notion supported by Croatia's fascist (Ustashe) dictator Ante Pavelić who maintained that the "Croatians were descendants of the ancient Goths" and "had the Panslav idea forced upon them as something artificial". However the Nazis continued to classify Croats as a "subhuman" in spite of the alliance. Hitler also deemed the Bulgarians to be "Turkoman" in origin.


title: Untermensch

text: While the Nazis were inconsistent in the implementation of their policy – for instance, mostly implementing the Final Solution while also implementing Generalplan Ost – the democidal death toll was in the range of tens of millions of victims. It is related to the concept of "life unworthy of life", a more specific term which originally referred to the severely disabled who were involuntarily euthanised in Aktion T4, and was eventually applied to the extermination of the Jews. That policy of euthanasia started officially on 1 September 1939 when Hitler signed an edict to the effect, and carbon monoxide was first used to murder disabled patients. The same gas was used in the death camps such as Treblinka, although they used engine exhaust gases to achieve the same end. In directive No. 1306 by Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 24 October 1939, the term "Untermensch" is used in reference to Polish ethnicity and culture, as follows:


title: Untermensch

text: Biology classes in Nazi Germany schools taught about differences between the race of Nordic German ""Übermenschen"" and "ignoble" Jewish and Slavic "subhumans". The view that Slavs were subhuman was widespread among the German masses, and chiefly applied to the Poles. It continued to find support after the war.


title: Untermensch

text: During the war, Nazi propaganda instructed Wehrmacht officers to tell their soldiers to target people who it considered "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans" and it also stated that the war in the Soviet Union was being waged between the Germans and the Jewish, Gypsies and Slavic "Untermenschen".


title: Untermensch

text: During the Warsaw Uprising, Himmler ordered the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto because according to him it allowed the "living space" of 500,000 subhumans.


title: Untermensch

text: As a pragmatic way to solve military manpower shortages, the Nazis used soldiers from some Slavic countries, firstly from the Reich's allies Croatia and Slovakia as well as within occupied territories. The concept of the Slavs in particular being "Untermenschen" served the Nazis' political goals; it was used to justify their expansionist policy and especially their aggression against Poland and the Soviet Union in order to achieve "Lebensraum", particularly in Ukraine. Early plans of the German Reich (summarized as "Generalplan Ost") envisioned the ethnic cleansing and elimination of no fewer than 50 million people, who were not considered fit for Germanization, from territories it wanted to conquer in Europe; Ukraine's chernozem ("black earth") soil was considered a particularly desirable zone for colonization by the "Herrenvolk".


title: Linear A

text: Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 to 1450 BC to write the hypothesized Minoan language or languages. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It was succeeded by Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaeans to write an early form of Greek. It was discovered by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. No texts in Linear A have yet been deciphered.


title: Linear A

text: The term "linear" refers to the fact that the script was written using a stylus to cut "lines" into a tablet of clay, as opposed to cuneiform, which was written by using a stylus to press "wedges" into the clay.


title: Linear A

text: Linear A belongs to the group of scripts that evolved independently of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems. During the second millennium BC, there were four major branches: Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic. In the 1950s, Linear B was deciphered as Mycenaean Greek. Linear B shares many symbols with Linear A, and they may notate similar syllabic values, but neither those nor any other proposed readings lead to a language that scholars can read. The only part of the script that can be read with any certainty is the signs for numbers – which are, however, only known as numerical values; the words for those numbers remain unknown.


title: Linear A

text: Linear A has hundreds of signs, believed to represent syllabic, ideographic, and semantic values in a manner similar to Linear B. While many of those assumed to be syllabic signs are similar to ones in Linear B, approximately 80% of Linear A's logograms are unique; the difference in sound values between Linear A and Linear B signs ranges from 9% to 13%. It primarily appears in the left-to-right direction, but occasionally appears as a right-to-left or boustrophedon script.


title: Linear A

text: Numbers follow a decimal system: units are represented by vertical dashes, tens by horizontal dashes, hundreds by circles, and thousands by circles with rays. There are special symbols to indicate fractions and weights. Specific signs that coincide with numerals are regarded as fractions; these sign combinations are known as klasmatograms.


title: Linear A

text: Integers can be read and the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are quite straightforward, similarly to Roman numerals.


title: Linear A

text: There is a lack of scholarly agreement on fractions. proposed the following values, most of which had been previously proposed:


title: Linear A

text: Other fractions are composed by addition: the common 𐝕 JE and 𐝓 DD are and (), 𐝒 BB = , EF = , etc. (and indeed B looks like it might derive from KK ). propose that the hapax legomenon, glyph L 𐝈, is spurious.


title: Linear A

text: Several of these values are supported by Linear B. Although Linear B used a different numbering system, several of the Linear A fractions were adopted as fractional units of measurement. For example, Linear B 𐝓 DD and 𐝎 (presumably AA) are and of a "lana", while 𐝇 K is of the main unit for dry weight.


title: Linear A

text: Linear A has been unearthed chiefly on Crete, but also at other sites in Greece, as well as Turkey and Israel. The extant corpus, comprising some 1,427 specimens totalling 7,362 to 7,396 signs, if scaled to standard type, would fit easily on two sheets of paper. Linear A has been written on various media, such as stone offering tables and vessels, gold and silver hairpins, roundels, and ceramics. A number of the inscriptions, primarily on tables and vessels, contain a "libation formula" which has been much studied. A similar construct in Cretan Hieroglyphics, the "Archanes Formula", is the main proposed link to Linear A. The earliest inscriptions of Linear A come from Phaistos, in a layer dated at the end of the Middle Minoan II period: that is, no later than c. 1700 BC. Linear A texts have been found throughout the island of Crete and also on some Aegean islands (Kythera, Kea, Thera, Melos), in mainland Greece (Ayos Stephanos), on the west coast of Asia Minor (Miletus, Troy), and in the Levant (Tel Haror).


title: Linear A

text: The main discoveries of Linear A tablets, many fragmentary, have been at Hagia Triada, Zakros, and Khania on Crete:


title: Linear A

text: Until 1973, only one Linear A tablet had been found outside Crete (on Kea). Since then, other locations have yielded inscriptions.


title: Linear A

text: Most—if not all—inscriptions found outside Crete appear to have been made locally, as indicated by the composition of the substrate and other indications. Also, close analysis of the inscriptions found outside Crete indicates the use of a script that is somewhere between Linear A and Linear B, combining elements from both.


title: Linear A

text: A Linear A inscription was said to have been found in southeast Bulgaria. Another, somewhat more solid, find was at Tel Lachish. A Minoan graffito found at Tel Haror on a vessel fragment is either Linear A or Cretan hieroglyphs.


title: Linear A

text: The earliest attestation of Linear A begins around 1800 BC (Middle Minoan IB). It became prominent around 1625 BC (Middle Minoan IIIB) and went out of use around 1450 BC (Late Minoan I). It was contemporary with and possibly derived from Cretan hieroglyphs, and may be an ancestor of Linear B. The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the three overlapping but distinct writing systems on Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland, can be summarized as follows:


title: Linear A

text: Archaeologist Arthur Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs that were used during the same period.


title: Linear A

text: Several tablets inscribed in signs similar to Linear A were found in the Troad in northwestern Anatolia. While their status is disputed, they may be imports, as there is no evidence of Minoan presence in the Troad. Classification of these signs as a unique Trojan script (proposed by contemporary Russian linguist Nikolai Kazansky) is not accepted by other linguists.


title: Linear A

text: In 1945, E. Pugliese Carratelli first introduced the classification of Linear A and Linear B parallels. However, in 1961, W. C. Brice modified the Pugliese Carratelli system that was based on a wider range of Linear A sources, but Brice did not suggest Linear B equivalents to the Linear A signs. Louis Godart and Jean-Pierre Olivier introduced in the 1985 "Recueil des inscriptions en linéaire A (GORILA)", based on E.L Bennett's standard numeration of the signs of Linear B, introduced a joint numeration of the Linear A and B signs.


title: Linear A

text: The majority of signs in the Linear A script appear to have graphical equivalents in the Linear B syllabary. Comparison of the Hagia Triada tablets HT 95 and HT 86 shows that they contain identical lists of words and some kind of phonetic alteration. Scholars who approached Linear A with the phonetic values of Linear B produced a series of identical words. The Linear B–Linear A parallels: ku-ku-da-ra, pa-i-to, ku-mi-na, di-de-ro →di-de-ru, qa-qa-ro→qa-qa-ru, a-ra-na-ro→a-ra-na-re. Though identical, some of these words, such as ka-pa, are used in much different ways.


title: Linear A

text: It is difficult to evaluate a given analysis of Linear A as there is little point of reference for reading its inscriptions. The simplest approach to decipherment may be to presume that the values of Linear A match more or less the values given to the deciphered Linear B script, used for Mycenaean Greek.


title: Linear A

text: In 1957, Bulgarian scholar Vladimir I. Georgiev published his "Le déchiffrement des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A" ("The decipherment of Cretan inscriptions in Linear A") stating that Linear A contains Greek linguistic elements. Georgiev then published another work in 1963, titled "Les deux langues des inscriptions crétoises en linéaire A" ("The two languages of Cretan inscriptions in Linear A"), suggesting that the language of the Hagia Triada tablets was Greek but that the rest of the Linear A corpus was in Hittite-Luwian. In December 1963, Gregory Nagy of Harvard University developed a list of Linear A and Linear B terms based on the assumption "that signs of identical or similar shape in the two scripts will represent similar or identical phonetic values"; Nagy concluded that the language of Linear A bears "Greek-like" and Indo-European elements. Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B in 1952 suggests an old form of Greek: it is derived from Linear A. Therefore, we can assume that the signs related to the Linear A express the same value as the Linear B. In all Linear B values for related words give a large number of identical forms or identical root forms, but alternate with the final vowel, or almost identical forms among linear texts, mainly those of Hagia Triada.


title: Linear A

text: Extracting conclusions or arguments from a simple morphology can hardly be considered methodologically satisfactory. Yves Duhoux in the "Linear A as Greek" discussion at AEGEANET in March 1998:I would like to remind you of some basic facts related to the Greekness of Linear A's language: (1) The word for "total" is different in Linear A and in Linear B: LB "to - so(- de)"; LA > B "ku-ro." (2) The Linear B language is significantly less "prefixing" than Linear A. (3) Votive Linear A texts, where we are pretty sure to have variant forms of the same "word", show morphological (I mean: grammatical) features totally different from Linear B. The conclusion must be that even if one can find some casual resemblances between words in both languages (remember this MUST statistically happen: e.g. English and Persian use the same word "bad" to express the meaning of BAD, although it is proven that both words have no genetic relation at all), they are probably structurally different.


title: Linear A

text: Since the late 1950s, some scholars have suggested that the Linear A language could be an Anatolian language.


title: Linear A

text: Palmer (1958) put forward a theory, based on Linear B phonetic values, suggesting that Linear A language could be related closely to Luwian. The theory, however, failed to gain universal support for the following reasons:


title: Linear A

text: There are recent works focused on the Luwian connection, not in terms of the Minoan language being Anatolian, but rather in terms of possible borrowings from Luwian, including the origin of the writing system itself. It has been suggested that "Hittite and Luwian cognates often reappear in Linear A".


title: Linear A

text: In an article from 2001, Margalit Finkelberg, Professor of Classics emerita at Tel Aviv University, suggested a "high degree of correspondence between the phonological and morphological system of Minoan and that of Lycian" and proposed that "the language of Linear A is either the direct ancestor of Lycian or a closely related idiom."


title: Linear A

text: Cyrus H. Gordon, having earlier pointed out that some Linear A words had Semitic roots, first proposed in 1966–1969 that the texts contained Semitic vocabulary that was based on the lexical items such as "kull-", meaning 'all' (Akkadian "kalu, kullatu," Hebrew "kol"). Gordon uses morphological evidence to suggest that "u-" serves as a prefix in Linear A like Semitic copula "u-". However, Gordon's copula "u-" is based on an incomplete word, and even if some of Gordon's identifications were true, a complete case for a Semitic language has not yet been built.


title: Linear A

text: In 2001, the journal "Ugarit-Forschungen" published the article "The First Inscription in Punic—Vowel Differences in Linear A and B" by Jan Best, claiming to demonstrate how and why Linear A notates an archaic form of Phoenician. This was a continuation of attempts by Cyrus Gordon in finding connections between Minoan and West Semitic languages.


title: Linear A

text: Another recent interpretation, based on the frequencies of the syllabic signs and on complete palaeographic comparative studies, suggests that the Minoan Linear A language belongs to the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages. Studies by Hubert La Marle include a presentation of the morphology of the language, avoid the complete identification of phonetic values between Linear A and B, and also avoid comparing Linear A with Cretan hieroglyphs. La Marle uses the frequency counts to identify the type of syllables written in Linear A, and takes into account the problem of loanwords in the vocabulary.


title: Linear A

text: However, La Marle's interpretation of Linear A has been subject to some criticism; it was rejected by John Younger of the University of Kansas who showed that La Marle had invented at will erroneous and arbitrary new transcriptions, based on resemblances with many different script systems (as Phoenician, Hieroglyphic Egyptian, Hieroglyphic Hittite, Ethiopian, Cypro-Minoan, etc.), ignoring established evidence and internal analysis, while for some words La Marle proposes religious meanings inventing names of gods and rites. La Marle made a rebuttal in "An answer to John G. Younger's remarks on Linear A" in 2010.


title: Linear A

text: Italian scholar Giulio M. Facchetti attempted to link Linear A to the Tyrrhenian language family comprising Etruscan, Rhaetic, and Lemnian. This family is reasoned to be a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean substratum of the 2nd millennium BC, sometimes referred to as Pre-Greek. Facchetti proposed some possible similarities between the Etruscan language and ancient Lemnian, and other Aegean languages like Minoan.


title: Linear A

text: Michael Ventris, who (with John Chadwick) successfully deciphered Linear B, also believed in a link between Minoan and Etruscan. The same perspective is supported by S. Yatsemirsky in Russia and Raymond A. Brown.


title: Linear A

text: Monti put forward a Hurrian-Urartian hypothesis based on morphematic elements. An Indo-European hypothesis was proposed by Witczak and Zawiasa based on an analysis of the combinatory data, mostly in libation formulas. A decipherment based on Proto-Indo-European has also been proposed.


title: Linear A

text: Some researchers suggest that a few words or word elements may be recognized, without (yet) enabling any conclusion about relationship with other languages. In general, they use analogy with Linear B in order to propose phonetic values of the syllabic sounds. John Younger, in particular, thinks that place names usually appear in certain positions in the texts, and notes that the proposed phonetic values often correspond to known place names as given in Linear B texts (and sometimes to modern Greek names). For example, he proposes that three syllables, read as "KE-NI-SO", might be the indigenous form of Knossos. Likewise, in Linear A, "MA+RU" is suggested to mean "wool", and to correspond both to a Linear B pictogram with this meaning, and to the classical Greek word μαλλός with the same meaning (in that case a loan word from Minoan).


title: Linear A

text: The Linear A alphabet (U+10600–U+1077F) was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: Takuma Sakamoto is a hikikomori gamer who is mysteriously transported to the virtual world of his favourite MMORPG, "Cross Reverie", with the appearance of his own character in the game, the Demon Lord Diablo. The two young girls who summoned him, the pantherian Rem and the elf Shera, attempt to use a spell to make Takuma their servant, but due to his magic ring with the ability "Magic Reflection", the spell rebounds, and both end up with magic collars stuck on their necks, thus becoming his servants instead. With a serious case of social anxiety, Takuma decides to act like his character while interacting with others, and makes use of his high stats and vast knowledge of "Cross Reverie"s lore to survive in his new environment, traveling along with Rem and Shera to look for a way to remove their slave collars, while helping them with their own personal issues that led them to summon him in the first place.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: The light novels are written by Yukiya Murasaki and illustrated by Takahiro Tsurusaki. Kodansha published the first volume under their Ranobe Bunko imprint in December 2014. J-Novel Club announced on September 28, 2017, that they had licensed the series for the North American market.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: Naoto Fukuda launched a manga adaptation of the series on Kodansha's Niconico based manga service "Suiyōbi no Sirius" in June 2015. Seven Seas Entertainment announced their license to the manga on September 14, 2017.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: An anime television series adaptation was announced in January 2018. The series was directed by Yūta Murano and written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, with animation by studio Ajia-do Animation Works. Character designs for the series were provided by Shizue Kaneko. Yuki Nishioka was the chief animation director. Yuki Miyamoto provided monster designs and serves as action animation director. Backgrounds were provided by Kusanagi, while Natsuko Otsuka was the color key artist. Photography for the series was directed by Teppei Satō at Asahi Production Shiraishi Studio, and Satoshi Motoyama directed the sound at Half HP Studio. The series aired from July 5 to September 20, 2018, and was broadcast on AT-X, BS Fuji, Tokyo MX, and Sun TV. The series' opening theme, "DeCIDE", was performed by the unit SUMMONERS 2+, a group composed of voice actresses Azumi Waki, Yū Serizawa, Yumi Hara, Rumi Okubo, and Emiri Katō, while the ending theme, , was performed by Serizawa and produced by HoneyWorks. The first season ran for 12 episodes.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: Crunchyroll simulcast the series worldwide outside of Asia, while Funimation streamed a SimulDub of it in North America. Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the English dub was moved to Crunchyroll. In South and Southeast Asia, Medialink licensed the series.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: On April 8, 2020, it was announced that the series would receive a second season titled "How Not to Summon a Demon Lord Ω", co-animated by Tezuka Productions and Okuruto Noboru, and directed by Satoshi Kuwabara, with the rest of the staff and cast members reprising their roles. The second season aired on TBS and BS-TBS from April 9 to June 11, 2021. The second season's opening theme, "EVERYBODY! EVERYBODY!", and ending theme, "YOU YOU YOU," were performed by Serizawa with collaboration by DJ KOO & MOTSU. The second season ran for 10 episodes.


title: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

text: The light novels had over 1 million copies in print SO of March 2018. The anime has since been ranked the 7th most viewed of 2019 by Crunchyroll.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1. Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959; these seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. The Mercury Seven created a new profession in the United States, and established the image of the American astronaut for decades to come.


title: Mercury Seven

text: All of the Mercury Seven eventually flew in space. They piloted the six spaceflights of the Mercury program that had an astronaut on board from May 1961 to May 1963, and members of the group flew on all of the NASA human spaceflight programs of the 20th centuryMercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Shepard became the first American to enter space in 1961, and later walked on the Moon on Apollo 14 in 1971. Grissom flew the first manned Gemini mission in 1965, but died in 1967 in the Apollo 1 fire; the others all survived past retirement from service. Schirra flew Apollo 7 in 1968, the first crewed Apollo mission, in Grissom's place. Slayton, grounded with an atrial fibrillation, ultimately flew on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975. The first American in orbit in 1962, Glenn flew on the in 1998 to become, at age 77, the oldest person to fly in space at the time. He was the last living member of the Mercury Seven when he died in 2016 at age 95.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. The Soviets followed up with Sputnik 2, which carried Laika, a Soviet space dog. American intelligence analysts assessed that the Soviets planned to put a man into orbit, which caused the United States Air Force (USAF) and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to strengthen their efforts to achieve that goal.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The USAF launched a spaceflight project called Man in Space Soonest (MISS), for which it obtained approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and requested $133 million in funding. MISS encountered technical challenges, which in turn caused funding difficulties. This generated conflict with the two agencies that should have been supporting it, NACA and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The core of the problem was the USAF's inability to articulate a clear military purpose for MISS.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Meanwhile, in response to the Sputnik crisis, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, decided to create a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which would absorb NACA and be responsible for the overall direction of the American space program. In September 1958, the USAF agreed to transfer responsibility for MISS to NASA, which was established on October 1, 1958. On November 5, the Space Task Group (STG) was established at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with Robert R. Gilruth as its director. On November 26, 1958, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his deputy, Hugh Dryden, adopted a suggestion by Abe Silverstein, the director of Space Flight Development at STG, that the human spaceflight project be called Project Mercury. The name was publicly announced by Glennan on December 17, 1958, the 55th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight. The objective of Project Mercury was to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to the Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The STG had to decide on a name for the people who would fly into space. A brainstorming session was held on December 1, 1958. By analogy with "aeronaut" (air traveler), someone came up with the term "astronaut", which meant "star traveler", although Project Mercury's ambitions were far more limited. They thought that they had coined a new word, but the term had been used in science fiction since the 1920s. A three-man panel consisting of Charles J. Donlan, Warren J. North and Allen O. Gamble drew up a civil service job specification for astronauts. The panel proposed that astronauts be in civil service grades 12 to 15, depending on qualifications and experience, with an annual salary of $8,330 to $12,770 (equivalent to $ to $ in ). It described the duties of an astronaut:


title: Mercury Seven

text: Although the panel considered that many people might possess the required skills – aircraft pilots, submariners, deep sea divers and mountain climbers were all considered likely prospects – it decided that they could be best met by military test pilots. Accepting only military test pilots would simplify the selection process, and would also satisfy security requirements, as the role would almost certainly involve the handling of classified information. The decision to restrict selection to military test pilots was taken by Glennan, Dryden and Gilruth in the last week of December 1958, but the irony of using military test pilots in a civilian program was not overlooked, and in view of the President's express preference for a space program outside the military, Glennan thought it best to run the decision past Eisenhower. A meeting was arranged with the President, who was convinced by the arguments.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The height limit was a function of the design of the Mercury spacecraft, which could not accommodate someone taller. It was still uncertain as to whether piloting in the conventional sense would ever be possible in a spacecraft, but from the beginning the spacecraft design provided for some degree of manual control.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The first step in the selection process was to obtain the service records of test pilot school graduates from the United States Department of Defense. All services agreed to cooperate fully, and handed over their records. There were 508 military test pilots in total, of whom 225 were Air Force, 225 Navy, 23 Marine Corps and 35 Army. Donlan, North, Gamble and psychologist Robert B. Voas then went through the records in January 1959, and identified 110 pilots – five Marines, 47 from the Navy, and 58 from the Air Force – who met the rest of the minimum standards. The 110 were then split into three groups, with the most promising in the first group.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Sixty-nine candidates were brought to the Pentagon in Washington, DC, in two groups. The first group of 35 assembled there on February 2, 1959. The Navy and Marine Corps officers were welcomed by the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arleigh Burke, while the Air Force officers were addressed by the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General Thomas D. White. Both pledged their support to the space program, and promised that the careers of volunteers would not be adversely affected. NASA officials then briefed the candidates on Project Mercury. The officials conceded that it would be a hazardous undertaking, but emphasized that it was of great national importance.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The candidates were given three briefings by NASA officials. The first was about NASA and Project Mercury; the second concerned the role of the pilot in the project; and the third was about the proposed astronaut training syllabus. In the afternoon candidates had short individual meetings with the NASA selection committee. It was emphasized that participation was entirely voluntary, that candidates were free to decline, and that there would be no career repercussions if they did so. Several candidates declined at this point.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The rest reported to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, the following day for further screening. Voas gave them a series of standardized tests: the Miller Analogies Test to measure IQ; the Minnesota Engineering Analogies Test to measure engineering aptitude; and the Doppelt Mathematical Reasoning Test to measure mathematical aptitude. Donlan, North and Gamble conducted interviews in which they asked technical questions, and queried candidates about their motivations for applying to the program. Candidates were evaluated by two USAF psychiatrists, George E. Ruff and Edwin Z. Levy. A USAF flight surgeon, William S. Augerson, went over the candidates' medical records. Some were found to be over the height limit, and were eliminated at this juncture.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The process was repeated with a second group of 34 candidates a week later. Of the 69, six were found to be over the height limit, 15 were eliminated for other reasons, and 16 declined. This left NASA with 32 candidates: 15 from the Navy, 15 from the Air Force and two from the Marine Corps. Since this was more than expected, NASA decided not to bother with the remaining 41 candidates, as 32 candidates seemed a more than adequate number from which to select 12 astronauts as planned. The degree of interest also indicated that far fewer would drop out during training than anticipated, which would result in training astronauts who would not be required to fly Project Mercury missions. It was therefore decided to cut the number of astronauts selected to just six.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Then came a grueling series of physical and psychological tests at the Lovelace Clinic and the Wright Aerospace Medical Laboratory from January to March, under the direction of Albert H. Schwichtenberg, a retired USAF brigadier general. The tests included spending hours on treadmills and tilt tables, submerging their feet in ice water, three doses of castor oil, and five enemas. Only one candidate, Jim Lovell, was eliminated on medical grounds at this stage, a diagnosis that was later found to be in error; thirteen others were recommended with reservations. Gilruth found himself unable to select only six from the remaining eighteen, and ultimately seven were chosen.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Despite their rejection from the first group of astronauts, many of the 25 finalists who were passed over still had successful military careers. Three eventually became astronauts: Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell, who were selected with the next group in 1962; and Edward Givens, who was selected with the fifth group in 1966. Others achieved high rank: Lawrence Heyworth Jr. became a rear admiral, Robert B. Baldwin and William P. Lawrence became vice admirals, and Thomas B. Hayward became an admiral. He commanded the Seventh Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, and was Chief of Naval Operations. Three of the finalists later died in aircraft accidents: Halvor M. Ekeren, Jr., on April 8, 1959, Jack B. Mayo on January 11, 1961, and Hal R. Crandall on July 24, 1963. Finalist Robert G. Bell died in the May 16, 1965 explosion of multiple aircraft at Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The seven original American astronauts were Navy Lieutenant Scott Carpenter, Air Force Captain Gordon Cooper, Marine Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, Air Force Captain Gus Grissom, Navy Lieutenant Commander Wally Schirra, Navy Lieutenant Commander Alan Shepard, and Air Force Captain Deke Slayton.


title: Mercury Seven

text: All were male and white. Women were not yet accepted into the military test pilot schools, and the first African American to graduate from the USAF Experimental Test Pilot School, John L. Whitehead Jr., did so only in January 1958, and was not one of the finalists. Yet the Mercury Seven were similar beyond what was a simple result of the selection criteria. Four were their fathers' namesakes. All were the eldest or only sons in their families. All were born in the United States, and were raised in small towns. All were married with children, and all were Protestants.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Their ages at the time of selection ranged from 32 (Cooper) to 37 (Glenn). Shepard was the tallest, at the maximum height of ; Grissom, the shortest at . Weight was not a firm criterion like height, as losing weight was always possible, but the Mercury spacecraft set a limit of . Cooper was the lightest, at , while Glenn was at the maximum weight of , and Schirra was slightly overweight at , and had to lose weight to be accepted. Both had to watch their weight carefully while they were in the space program. IQs ranged from 135 to 147.


title: Mercury Seven

text: All seven had attended post-secondary institutions in the 1940s. Of the five astronauts who had completed undergraduate degrees before being selected, two (Shepard and Schirra) were graduates of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1944 and 1945, respectively. Following a decade of intermittent studies, Cooper completed his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 1956. Grissom earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1950, and a second bachelor's degree, in aeromechanics, from the AFIT in 1956. Slayton graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1949. Average flying hours were 3,500, of which 1,700 was in jets. Most were fighter pilots except Carpenter, who flew multi-engine patrol planes for most of his career.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Glenn and Carpenter did not meet all of their schools' degree requirements; Glenn had not completed his senior year in residence or his final proficiency exam, and Carpenter had not finished his final course in heat transfer. Both were admitted on the basis of professional equivalency, and were ultimately awarded their bachelor's degrees after their 1962 space flights—Glenn in engineering from Muskingum College and Carpenter in aeronautical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Despite the extensive physical examinations, Slayton had an undiagnosed atrial fibrillation, which resulted in his grounding two months prior to what would have been his first space flight, and the second orbital mission.


title: Mercury Seven

text: NASA introduced the astronauts in Washington, DC, on April 9, 1959. Although the agency viewed Project Mercury's purpose as an experiment to determine whether humans could survive space travel, the seven men immediately became national heroes and were compared by "Time" magazine to "Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, and the Wright brothers." Two hundred reporters overflowed the room used for the announcement and alarmed the astronauts, who were unused to such a large audience.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Because they wore civilian clothes, the audience did not see them as military test pilots but "mature, middle-class Americans, average in height and visage, family men all". To the astronauts' surprise, the reporters asked questions about their personal lives instead of their war records or flight experience, or details about Project Mercury. After Glenn responded by speaking eloquently "on God, country, and family", the others followed his example, and were applauded by the reporters.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Test pilots accepted that their jobs were dangerous; during Glenn's three years serving as one for the Navy, 12 had died. When asked about how their families thought about their taking on such a dangerous job, most of the seven were surprised, as they had never considered this before. Glenn replied that he "didn't think that any of us could really go on with something like this if we didn't have pretty good backing at home. My wife's attitude towards this has been the same as it has been all along through my flying. If it is what I want to do, she is behind it, and the kids are too, one hundred percent." Carpenter received even more applause when he noted that he was at sea when NASA had phoned to inform him that he had been chosen, and his wife Rene had accepted on his behalf. His selection had also tested the Navy's commitment to Project Mercury when the skipper of his ship, the , refused to release him, and Burke had to personally intervene.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Cooper's wife Trudy had left him in January 1959 after he had an affair with another officer's wife, and had moved to San Diego. During the selection interviews, he had been asked about his domestic relationship, and had lied, saying that he and Trudy had a good, stable marriage. Aware that NASA wanted to project an image of its astronauts as loving family men, and that his story would not stand up to scrutiny, he drove down to San Diego to see Trudy at the first opportunity. Lured by the prospect of a great adventure for herself and her daughters, she agreed to go along with the charade and pretend that they were a happily married couple.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The Mercury spacecraft was less finished than the astronauts' previous vehicles. After watching an Atlas rocket explode during launch on May 18, 1959, they publicly joked "I'm glad they got that out of the way"typical gallows humor that test pilots used to cope with dangerbut privately calculated that one of the seven would die during Project Mercury. The astronauts participated in the project's design and planning, dividing the work between them. Carpenter had training in airborne electronics and celestial navigation, so he assumed responsibility for the spacecraft's communications and navigation systems. Grissom had a degree in mechanical engineering, so he became responsible for the attitude control systems. Glenn had experience flying many types of aircraft, so he oversaw the cockpit layout. Schirra drew responsibility for the life support systems and the pressure suits. Drawing on his experience as a Naval officer, Shepard looked after the tracking network and liaised with the Navy on recovery operations. Cooper and Slayton were Air Force officers with engineering backgrounds, so they dealt with the Redstone Arsenal and Convair, who built the Redstone and Atlas boosters used by Project Mercury. The astronauts affected the design of the Mercury spacecraft in significant ways, insisting that a window be installed, and pressing for a greater degree of astronaut autonomy in flying the spacecraft.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The astronauts remained on active duty as military officers, and were paid according to their rank. To supplement their travel, they were provided a $9 "per diem" () for day trips, and a $12 "per diem" () for overnight trips, which did not cover the cost of hotels and restaurant meals. As a result, astronauts avoided spending money while traveling, as they were personally responsible for costs over their allotted "per diem". An important component of their income was monthly flight pay, which ranged from $190 to $245 (equivalent to $ to $ in ).


title: Mercury Seven

text: The astronauts traveled to frequent meetings around the country on commercial flights, which forced them to earn their flight pay on weekends. Grissom and Slayton regularly drove to Langley Air Force Base, and attempted to fly the required four hours a month, but had to compete for T-33 aircraft with colonels and generals. Cooper traveled to McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in Tennessee, where a friend let him fly higher-performance F-104B jets. This came up when Cooper had lunch with William Hines, a reporter for "The Washington Star", and was duly reported in the paper. Cooper then discussed the issue with Congressman James G. Fulton. The matter was taken up by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. Within weeks the astronauts were given priority access to USAF T-33s, F-102s and F-106s at Langley. In 1962, NASA acquired a fleet of T-38s for their use.


title: Mercury Seven

text: After General Motors executive Ed Cole presented Shepard with a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette, Jim Rathmann, a race car driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1960 and who was a Chevrolet dealer in Melbourne, Florida, convinced Cole to turn this into an ongoing marketing campaign. Henceforth, astronauts were able to lease new Corvettes for a dollar a year. All of the Mercury Seven but Glenn took up the offer. Cooper, Grissom and Shepard were soon racing their Corvettes around Cape Canaveral, with the military and local police ignoring their exploits. From a marketing perspective, it was very successful, and helped the highly priced Corvette become established as a desirable brand.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The Mercury astronauts established the style and appearance of astronauts. "I soon learned", Gene Kranz later recalled, "if you saw someone wearing a short-sleeved Ban-Lon shirt and aviator sunglasses, you were looking at an astronaut." While busy with the intense training for their flights, they also drank and partied. Some had affairs with the female groupies that flocked around them. NASA actively sought to protect the astronauts and the agency from negative publicity and maintain an image of "clean-cut, all-American boy[s]." The seven Mercury astronauts agreed to share equally any proceeds from interviews regardless of who flew first.


title: Mercury Seven

text: They were forbidden from being compensated for radio or television appearances, or endorsing commercial products, but were allowed to sell their personal stories. In August 1959, they hired an agent, C. Leo DeOrsey, and he negotiated an exclusive contract with "Life" magazine on behalf of the astronauts for $500,000 () in exchange for exclusive access to their private lives, homes, and families. The money was used as life insurance. Between August, 1959, and May 15, 1963, they each received $71,428.71 (). Their official spokesman from 1959 to 1963 was NASA's public affairs officer, USAF Lieutenant Colonel John "Shorty" Powers, who as a result became known in the press as the "eighth astronaut".


title: Mercury Seven

text: As additional groups of astronauts were selected in the 1960s, the Mercury Seven remained in control of management decisions. The Astronaut Office, which was headed by Shepard, was one of three divisions in the Directorate of Flight Crew Operations, which was headed by Slayton. Since twenty-six of the first thirty astronauts were military personnel, the Astronaut Office had a military character, although few of the astronauts wore their uniforms even as much as once a year. There was a bi-weekly military-style pilots' meeting at which activities planned for the upcoming two weeks would be discussed. A "captain's mast" was held afterwards to adjudicate disputes.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Shepard ran the Astronaut Office on a "rank has its privileges" basis. The Mercury and 1962 astronauts had their own allocated parking spaces outside Building 4 at Johnson Space Center, while astronauts from later groups had to compete for the remaining spaces allotted to astronauts. While Shepard prohibited junior astronauts from receiving gifts and consulting or teaching part-time, he remained vice president and part owner of the Baytown National Bank in Houston, and devoted much of his time to it.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Training was always ungraded; the Mercury astronauts had nothing to gain and much to lose from being objectively compared to the newer classes, as it could threaten their privileged status, managerial control, and priority for flight assignments. The astronaut's attendance at their training events was voluntary. The character of the Astronaut Office would only change after Mercury astronauts retired in the 1970s, and control passed to George Abbey.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The Mercury Seven wrote first-hand accounts of their selection and preparation for the Mercury missions in the 1962 book "We Seven". In 1979 Tom Wolfe published a less sanitized version of their story in "The Right Stuff". Wolfe's book was the basis for the 1983 film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman, and the 2020 TV series of the same name.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Together with Betty Grissom, Gus Grissom's widow, in 1984 the Mercury astronauts founded the Mercury Seven Foundation, which raises money to provide college scholarships to science and engineering students. It was renamed the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in 1995. Shepard was elected its first president and chairman, positions which he held until October 1997, when he was succeeded by Jim Lovell.


title: Mercury Seven

text: Glenn became the first American in orbit in 1962. Later in life, he flew on the , (1998) to become the oldest person to fly in space at the time, aged 77. He was the last living member of the Mercury Seven when he died in 2016 at the age of 95.


title: Mercury Seven

text: The Mercury 7 group won the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' Iven C. Kincheloe Award in 1963. President John F. Kennedy presented the astronaut group the 1962 Collier Trophy at the White House "for pioneering manned space flight in the United States". The Mercury 7 monument at Launch Complex 14, where the four Mercury-Atlas launches took place, was dedicated on November 10, 1964. A time capsule containing reports, photographs and a movie is buried beneath the monument, to be opened in 2464.


title: Tainted Love

text: "Tainted Love" is a song composed by Ed Cobb, formerly of American group the Four Preps, which was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. It attained worldwide fame after being covered and reworked by British synthpop duo Soft Cell in 1981 and has since been covered by numerous groups and artists.


title: Tainted Love

text: American artist Gloria Jones made the first recording of "Tainted Love" in 1964; the song was written and produced by Ed Cobb and arranged by Lincoln Mayorga. It was the B-side of her 1965 single "My Bad Boy's Comin' Home", which was a commercial flop, failing to chart in either the US or the UK. According to Nick Talevski, before Jones recorded the song, Cobb had offered it to the Standells, whom he managed and produced, but they rejected it. The Standells say that the song was never offered to them, and that they were not signed to Cobb's company Greengrass Productions until 1966, some two years after Jones's recording.


title: Tainted Love

text: In 1973, British club DJ Richard Searling purchased a copy of the almost decade-old single while on a trip to the United States. The track's Motown-influenced sound (featuring a fast tempo, horns, electric rhythm guitar and female backing vocals) fit in perfectly with the music favoured by those involved in the UK's Northern soul club scene of the early 1970s, and Searling popularised the song at the Northern soul club Va Va's in Bolton, and later, at Wigan Casino.


title: Tainted Love

text: Owing to the new-found underground popularity of the song, Jones re-recorded "Tainted Love" in 1976 and released it as a single, but it also failed to chart. This version was released on her album "Vixen" and was produced by her boyfriend Marc Bolan.


title: Tainted Love

text: English vocal-and-synth duo Soft Cell became aware of the song through its status as a UK "Northern soul" hit. In 2010, DJ Ian "Frank" Dewhirst claimed he was the first person to play the song for Marc Almond, the vocalist for Soft Cell. Some time after, Soft Cell began performing the song in their live setlist, choosing it instead of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' "The Night" (a song they would go on to record in 2003). Eventually, a Phonogram Records A&R manager Roger Ames opted the band to record the single at a London-based Advision Studios, with producer Mike Thorne. There, Soft Cell's version was recorded in a day and a half with Almond's first vocal take being used on the record. Thorne commented that he was surprised by the choice as he had not been impressed by Jones's 1976 version on hearing it, but was impressed by the new arrangement and Almond's sinister vocal: "You could smell the coke on that second, Northern Soul version, it was really so over-ramped and so frantic. It was good for the dance floor, but I didn't like the record...when Soft Cell performed the song I heard a very novel sound and a very nice voice, so off we went."


title: Tainted Love

text: The Soft Cell recording features a slower tempo than Jones's version and is in the key of G rather than the original C to match Marc Almond's lower voice. Synthesizers and rhythm machines replace the original's guitars, bass, drums, and horns.


title: Tainted Love

text: Phonogram Records chose to release "Tainted Love" in 1981 as Soft Cell's second single (their first was "Memorabilia", which did not chart). The label's representatives implied that this single would be Soft Cell's final release on Some Bizzare if it did not sell. The 12" single version (extended dance version) was a medley, transitioning to a cover of the Supremes' "Where Did Our Love Go" halfway through the song, which gives a progressive dimension to this version.


title: Tainted Love

text: Thanks to a memorable performance on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" chart show, "Tainted Love" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, and was known as the best-selling single of 1981 in the UK, until the Official Charts Company recalculated the data in 2021 (giving the title to "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League). "Tainted Love" had 1.05 million sales in the UK in 1981, with that total increasing to 1.35 million copies as of August 2017.


title: Tainted Love

text: Buoyed by the then-dominant new wave sound of the time, "Tainted Love" became a major hit in the US during the Second British Invasion, with the song spending a then-record breaking 43 weeks on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. On the US chart dated January 16, 1982, the song entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 90. It appeared to peak at number 64 and fell to number 100 on February 27. After spending a second week at number 100, it started climbing again. It took 19 weeks to crack the "American Top 40" and reached number 8 during the summer of 1982.


title: Tainted Love

text: A video was recorded specially for Soft Cell's video album "Non-Stop Exotic Video Show", featuring David Ball as a cricketer meeting Marc Almond in a toga on what seems to be Mount Olympus.


title: Tainted Love

text: Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love" ranked number 5 on VH1's "100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 1980s". It was also heavily sampled on Rihanna's 2006 single "SOS" and the Veronicas's 2007 single "Hook Me Up". In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's fourth favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.


title: Tainted Love

text: A re-recorded version of the song was issued in 1991, seven years after Soft Cell's dissolution in 1984, as a tie-in to the compilation album "Memorabilia – The Singles" (which reached number 8 in the UK albums chart in June 1991). "Tainted Love '91" was a follow-up to "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye '91", which was another re-recorded/remixed version of an earlier single from the Soft Cell/Marc Almond compilation. "Tainted Love '91" became another Top 40 hit from the collection and peaked at number 5 in the UK charts, making it Soft Cell's sixth Top 10 hit (as records with re-recorded vocals were seen as a new hit by the chart compilers of the time)


title: Tainted Love

text: The video for the version, directed by Peter Christopherson, features a man pacing at night and dancing with starry apparitions, while Almond sings amongst the stars. Christopherson's band Coil had covered "Tainted Love" in 1985, with a music video that included a cameo appearance by Almond.


title: Tainted Love

text: American rock band Marilyn Manson covered "Tainted Love" with an arrangement based on Soft Cell's version. It was released in November 2001 as a single from the "Not Another Teen Movie" soundtrack. The accompanying music video featured cast members Chyler Leigh, Mia Kirshner, Chris Evans and Jaime Pressly. It was later included as a bonus track on international editions of the band's following album, "The Golden Age of Grotesque". The eponymous vocalist said that he was not "really thinking about '80s nostalgia" during the recording, while recognizing it as a main concept behind the soundtrack.


title: Tainted Love

text: "Tainted Love" topped the charts in Portugal and peaked within the top ten of the charts in the United Kingdom. It also peaked within the top ten of the charts throughout the rest of Europe, including Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Norway. It was nominated for the "Kerrang!" Award for Best Single in 2002, and won the "Kerrang!" Award for Best Video. It was also nominated for Best Video at the 2002 "Q" Awards.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Macey Estrella-Kadlec (née Evans; born March 24, 1990) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Lacey Evans.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Originally introduced to wrestling while serving as a military police officer in the Marines, Evans trained and began her career on the independent circuit. She started working for WWE in their NXT developmental territory in 2016, and participated in their inaugural Mae Young Classic. After feuding with Kairi Sane in NXT, Evans debuted on "Raw" in January 2019, entering a feud with Becky Lynch that culminated in a mixed tag team match in the main event of Extreme Rules.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Estrella-Kadlec was born Macey Evans in Georgia on March 24, 1990. According to ESPN, she was "raised in a home torn by depression, drug and alcohol abuse" and had to live in tents at times while growing up due to her parents' legal problems. Her father, who had entertained thoughts of becoming a wrestler but never acted on them, died of a drug overdose before she got her WWE tryout.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Estrella-Kadlec is a veteran of the Marines, serving as a military police officer with the Special Reaction Team. She enlisted at age 19 and served for five years, earning a bachelor's degree and starting a construction business while on active duty. She was introduced to professional wrestling while in the Marines through a Staff Sergeant who promoted independent shows on the side. On the second show of which she attended, the Staff Sergeant booked her to wrestle him.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Estrella-Kadlec trained under Tom Caiazzo at the American Premier Wrestling training facility in Statesboro, Georgia. She made her debut for the promotion in 2014, later winning the company's World Heavyweight Championship.


title: Lacey Evans

text: On April 12, 2016, Estrella-Kadlec signed a WWE contract. On October 20, at a house show, she made her wrestling debut as Macey Estrella, in a battle royal, which was ultimately won by Ember Moon. Three months later, in her first appearance on "NXT", Evans teamed with Sarah Bridges in a tag team match which they lost to the team of Billie Kay and Peyton Royce. In 2017, Estrella was given the ring name Lacey Evans, which is coincidentally, her sister's maiden name. She was used mostly as a jobber to various competitors. In July, Evans participated in the inaugural Mae Young Classic, defeating Taynara Conti in the first round, but losing to Toni Storm in the second round.


title: Lacey Evans

text: On the January 17, 2018 episode of "NXT", Evans established herself as a heel, as she complained to NXT general manager William Regal for allowing "the lowest forms of societal trash" like Nikki Cross, Ember Moon, and Kairi Sane to compete in the women's division. In April, Evans was placed in her first feud with Sane, as the two exchanged victories and attacked each other throughout the next few weeks. Eventually, Evans lost to Sane on the June 6 episode of "NXT" to end their feud. Throughout the rest of the year, Evans started a winning streak, defeating the likes of Dakota Kai and Candice LeRae. In December, she competed in a fatal four-way match to determine the number one contender for the NXT Women's Championship, however, the match was won by Bianca Belair.


title: Lacey Evans

text: On the December 17, 2018 episode of "Raw", Evans was advertised as one of six NXT wrestlers about to move to the main roster. She lost to Natalya in a dark match on the January 7, 2019 tapings of "Main Event", and made her official main roster debut at the Royal Rumble on January 27. She entered the women's Royal Rumble match at number 1 and lasted over 29 minutes, eliminating The IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce), before she was eliminated by Charlotte Flair. After that, Evans repeatedly appeared on "Raw", "SmackDown", and pay-per-views to interrupt various segments and matches by walking out on stage, waving to the crowd, and leaving.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Shortly after WrestleMania 35, Evans was drafted to the Raw brand as part of the 2019 WWE Superstar Shake-up, and placed in her first feud on the main roster as she continuously attacked Raw and SmackDown Women's Champion Becky Lynch. This led to a title match between the two for the Raw Women's Championship on May 19, at Money in the Bank, where Evans lost to Lynch via submission. A few minutes later, Evans helped Flair win the SmackDown Women's Championship from Lynch as she hit her with her finisher, the Women's Right, and allowed her to take advantage of the attack. Throughout mid-2019, Evans continued to feud with Lynch and chase her for the Raw Women's Championship. On June 23, at Stomping Grounds, she lost again to Lynch, and in the main event, was Baron Corbin's choice for a special referee for the WWE Universal Championship match, due to Seth Rollins dating Lynch. On July 14, at Extreme Rules, Evans and Corbin challenged Lynch and Rollins for their respective titles in a Last Chance Extreme Rules match, where they failed to win the match after Rollins pinned Corbin, thus ending her feud with Lynch.


title: Lacey Evans

text: As part of the 2019 Draft in October, Evans was drafted to the SmackDown brand. On October 31, at Crown Jewel, Evans and Natalya became the first female wrestlers to wrestle in Saudi Arabia, where Evans lost. The two women embraced afterwards, breaking kayfabe to absorb their historical moment. On November 24, at Survivor Series, Evans then went on to compete in the first ever 15 woman elimination tag match representing Team SmackDown, where for the first time ever, the NXT women's locker room would also compete in the match. Evans was able to eliminate Charlotte Flair (Raw) by pin, after Asuka turned on her team and shot poison mist into Flair's eyes, allowing Evans to take advantage of the situation and hitting her with the "Woman's Right". Shortly after, she was eliminated by Natalya (Raw) via roll up, however, Team NXT ultimately won the match when Rhea Ripley pinned Sasha Banks (SmackDown), making her the final woman standing. On the November 29 episode of "SmackDown", Evans took exception to Banks and Bayley insulting the SmackDown roster, particularly the women, for losing to Team NXT at Survivor Series. After exchanging insults, Evans hit Banks with the "Woman's Right" and left the ring, thus turning face for the first time since early 2017. On January 27, 2020, at the Royal Rumble, Evans unsuccessfully challenged Bayley for the SmackDown Women's Title.


title: Lacey Evans

text: On April 5 (taped March 25/26), at WrestleMania 36, Evans was part of a five-way elimination match for the SmackDown Women's Champion. Evans lost the match after being pinned by Bayley after interference from Banks. On the April 24 episode of "SmackDown", Evans competed against Banks in a qualifying match for the opportunity to be in the Women's Money in the Bank match. Evans won the match after hitting Banks with the "Women's Right" (while clutching a fan with a picture of her daughter on it in her hand) and pinning her. On May 10, at Money in the Bank, Evans was unsuccessful in the namesake match, as she was pulled down a ladder by Asuka, who went on to win. On the July 10 episode of "SmackDown", Evans attacked Naomi, after she lost a karaoke contest to her, thus turning heel once again. As part of the 2020 Draft in October, Evans was drafted to the Raw brand.


title: Lacey Evans

text: On the January 4, 2021 episode of "Raw", Evans started a storyline with Ric Flair when, during a match against Women's Tag Team Champions Charlotte Flair and Asuka, Evans flirted with Flair. During the following weeks, Flair managed Evans, usually distracting his daughter Charlotte, including a participation in the Women's Royal Rumble. On February 15, Evans' real-life pregnancy was announced and incorporated into a storyline on that night's episode of "Raw", in which Flair is implied to be the father. Evans was scheduled to face Asuka for the Raw Women's Championship at Elimination Chamber but the match was cancelled due to her pregnancy; the storyline with Flair was cancelled as a result. She was reportedly planned to win the title at the event.


title: Lacey Evans

text: After over one year of inactivity due to her pregnancy, on the April 8, 2022 episode of "SmackDown", Evans returned to the show as a face in a vignette talking about her life, but she was drafted to Raw as a heel character. Weeks later, she was moved to SmackDown again. On the June 10 episode of "SmackDown", Evans made her in-ring return, turning again into a face character, defeating Xia Li to qualify for the Women's Money in the Bank ladder match. At the event, she was unsuccessful in winning the match. On the following episode of "SmackDown", Evans turned heel when she berated the fans and attacked her tag team partner Aliyah.


title: Lacey Evans

text: Estrella-Kadlec made her video game debut in the "Rising Stars" DLC for "WWE 2K19", and as a regular playable character in "WWE 2K20" and "WWE 2K22".


title: Lacey Evans

text: Estrella-Kadlec has been married to her husband Alfonso, since January 13, 2010. The couple have two daughters and reside in Parris Island, South Carolina.


title: Mirage

text: A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French "(se) mirer", from the Latin "mirari", meaning "to look at, to wonder at".


title: Mirage

text: Mirages can be categorized as "inferior" (meaning lower), "superior" (meaning higher) and "Fata Morgana", one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically stacked images, which form one rapidly-changing mirage.


title: Mirage

text: In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer's location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water.


title: Mirage

text: In an inferior mirage, the mirage image appears below the real object. The real object in an inferior mirage is the (blue) sky or any distant (therefore bluish) object in that same direction. The mirage causes the observer to see a bright and bluish patch on the ground.


title: Mirage

text: Light rays coming from a particular distant object all travel through nearly the same layers of air, and all are refracted at about the same angle. Therefore, rays coming from the top of the object will arrive lower than those from the bottom. The image is usually upside-down, enhancing the illusion that the sky image seen in the distance is a specular reflection on a puddle of water or oil acting as a mirror.


title: Mirage

text: Inferior images are not stable. Since warmer air rises while cooler air (being denser) sinks, the layers will mix, causing turbulence. The image will be distorted accordingly; it may vibrate or be extended vertically (towering) or horizontally (stooping). A combination of vibration and extension are also possible. If several temperature layers are present, several mirages may mix, perhaps causing double images. In any case, mirages are usually not larger than about half a degree high (roughly the angular diameter of the Sun and Moon) and are from objects between dozens of meters and a few kilometers away.


title: Mirage

text: "Heat haze", also called "heat shimmer", refers to the inferior mirage observed when viewing objects through a mass of heated air. Common instances when heat haze occurs include images of objects viewed across asphalt concrete (also known as tarmac) roads and over masonry rooftops on hot days, above and behind fire (as in burning candles, patio heaters, and campfires), and through exhaust gases from jet engines. When appearing on roads due to the hot asphalt, it is often referred to as a "highway mirage". It also occurs in deserts; in that case, it is referred to as a "desert mirage". Both tarmac and sand can become very hot when exposed to the sun, easily being more than higher than the air above, enough to make conditions suitable to cause the mirage.


title: Mirage

text: Convection causes the temperature of the air to vary, and the variation between the hot air at the surface of the road and the denser cool air above it causes a gradient in the refractive index of the air. This produces a blurred shimmering effect, which hinders the ability to resolve the image and increases when the image is magnified through a telescope or telephoto lens.


title: Mirage

text: Light from the sky at a shallow angle to the road is refracted by the index gradient, making it appear as if the sky is reflected by the road's surface. The mind interprets this as a pool of liquid (usually water, but possibly others, such as oil) on the road, as some types of liquid also reflect the sky. The illusion fades as the observer approaches the miraged object.


title: Mirage

text: A superior mirage is one in which the mirage image appears to be located above the real object. A superior mirage occurs when the air below the line of sight is colder than the air above it. This unusual arrangement is called a temperature inversion, since warm air above cold air is the opposite of the normal temperature gradient of the atmosphere during the daytime. Passing through the temperature inversion, the light rays are bent down, and so the image appears above the true object, hence the name "superior". Superior mirages tend to be more stable than inferior mirages, as cold air has no tendency to move up and warm air has no tendency to move down.


title: Mirage

text: Superior mirages are quite common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice that have a uniform low temperature. Superior mirages also occur at more moderate latitudes, although in those cases they are weaker and tend to be less smooth and stable. For example, a distant shoreline may appear to "tower" and look higher (and, thus, perhaps closer) than it really is. Because of the turbulence, there appear to be dancing spikes and towers. This type of mirage is also called the Fata Morgana or "hafgerðingar" in the Icelandic language.


title: Mirage

text: A superior mirage can be right-side up or upside-down, depending on the distance of the true object and the temperature gradient. Often the image appears as a distorted mixture of up and down parts.


title: Mirage

text: Since Earth is round, if the downward bending curvature of light rays is about the same as the curvature of Earth, light rays can travel large distances, including from beyond the horizon. This was observed and documented in 1596, when a ship in search of the Northeast passage became stuck in the ice at Novaya Zemlya, above the Arctic Circle. The Sun appeared to rise two weeks earlier than expected; the real Sun had still been below the horizon, but its light rays followed the curvature of Earth. This effect is often called a Novaya Zemlya mirage. For every that light rays travel parallel to Earth's surface, the Sun will appear 1° higher on the horizon. The inversion layer must have just the right temperature gradient over the whole distance to make this possible.


title: Mirage

text: In the same way, ships that are so far away that they should not be visible above the geometric horizon may appear on or even above the horizon as superior mirages. This may explain some stories about flying ships or coastal cities in the sky, as described by some polar explorers. These are examples of so-called Arctic mirages, or "hillingar" in Icelandic.


title: Mirage

text: If the vertical temperature gradient is + per (where the positive sign means the temperature increases at higher altitudes) then horizontal light rays will just follow the curvature of Earth, and the horizon will appear flat. If the gradient is less (as it almost always is) the rays are not bent enough and get lost in space, which is the normal situation of a spherical, convex "horizon".


title: Mirage

text: In some situations, distant objects can be elevated or lowered, stretched or shortened with no mirage involved.


title: Mirage

text: A "Fata Morgana" (the name comes from the Italian translation of Morgan le Fay, the fairy, shapeshifting half-sister of King Arthur) is a very complex superior mirage. It appears with alternations of compressed and stretched areas, erect images, and inverted images. A Fata Morgana is also a fast-changing mirage.


title: Mirage

text: Fata Morgana mirages are most common in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice with a uniform low temperature, but they can be observed almost anywhere. In polar regions, a Fata Morgana may be observed on cold days; in desert areas and over oceans and lakes, a Fata Morgana may be observed on hot days. For a Fata Morgana, temperature inversion has to be strong enough that light rays' curvatures within the inversion are stronger than the curvature of Earth.


title: Mirage

text: The rays will bend and form arcs. An observer needs to be within an atmospheric duct to be able to see a Fata Morgana.


title: Mirage

text: Fata Morgana mirages may be observed from any altitude within Earth's atmosphere, including from mountaintops or airplanes.


title: Mirage

text: Distortions of image and bending of light can produce spectacular effects. In his book "Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck"", Ludovic Kennedy describes an incident that allegedly took place below the Denmark Strait during 1941, following the sinking of the "Hood". The "Bismarck", while pursued by the British cruisers "Norfolk" and "Suffolk", passed out of sight into a sea mist. Within a matter of seconds, the ship re-appeared steaming toward the British ships at high speed. In alarm the cruisers separated, anticipating an imminent attack, and observers from both ships watched in astonishment as the German battleship fluttered, grew indistinct and faded away. Radar watch during these events indicated that the "Bismarck" had in fact made no changes of course.


title: Mirage

text: The conditions for producing a mirage can occur at night as well as during the day. Under some circumstances mirages of astronomical objects and mirages of lights from moving vehicles, aircraft, ships, buildings, etc. can be observed at night.


title: Mirage

text: A mirage of an astronomical object is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce distorted or multiple images of an astronomical object. Mirages can be observed for such astronomical objects as the Sun, the Moon, the planets, bright stars, and very bright comets. The most commonly observed are sunset and sunrise mirages.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of government.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: White Hall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the street located on the site on which many of the current administrative buildings of the present-day British government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east (the construction of Victoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from the Thames)—a total of about . It was about from Westminster Abbey.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: By the 13th century, the Palace of Westminster had become the centre of government in England, and had been the main London residence of the king since 1049. The surrounding area became a popular and expensive location. Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, bought a nearby property as his London residence soon after 1240, calling it York Place.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: King Edward I stayed at York Place on several occasions while work was carried out at Westminster, and enlarged it to accommodate his entourage. York Place was rebuilt during the 15th century and was expanded so much by Cardinal Wolsey that it was rivalled by only Lambeth Palace as the greatest house in London, the King's London palaces included. Consequently, when King Henry VIII removed the cardinal from power in 1530, he acquired York Place to replace Westminster (the royal residential, or 'privy', area of which had been gutted by fire in 1512) as his main London residence, inspecting its possessions in the company of Anne Boleyn. The name Whitehall was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: King Henry VIII hired the Flemish artist Anton van den Wyngaerde to redesign York Place, and he extended it during his lifetime. Inspired by Richmond Palace, he included sporting facilities, with a bowling green, indoor real tennis court, a pit for cock fighting (on the site of the Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall) and a tiltyard for jousting (now the site of Horse Guards Parade). It is estimated that more than £30,000 (several million at present-day value) were spent during the 1540s, half as much again as the construction of the entire Bridewell Palace. Henry VIII married two of his wives at the palace—Anne Boleyn in 1533 and Jane Seymour in 1536, and died there in January 1547.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: In 1611, the palace hosted the first known performance of William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". In February 1613 it was the venue for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: James VI and I made significant changes to the buildings, notably the construction in 1622 of a new Banqueting House built to a design by Inigo Jones to replace a series of previous banqueting houses dating from the time of Elizabeth I. Its decoration was finished in 1634 with the completion of a ceiling by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, commissioned by Charles I (who was to be executed in front of the building in 1649). By 1650 Whitehall Palace was the largest complex of secular buildings in England, with more than 1,500 rooms. Its layout was irregular, and its constituent parts were of many different sizes and in several different architectural styles, making it look more like a small town than a single building. The irregularity of the buildings was increased by the penchant of courtiers to build onto their assigned lodgings, either at their own expense or that of the King's. Sir Stephen Fox, Charles II's Clerk of the Green Cloth, obtained permission from the Office of Works in the 1660s to build additions to the three rooms he was assigned. By the time he was finished he had constructed a grand mansion with coach house, stables, and a view over the Thames, all within the palace network.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: Charles II commissioned minor works. Like his father, he died at the palace—but from a stroke. James II ordered various changes by Sir Christopher Wren, including a chapel finished in 1687, rebuilding of the queen's apartments (c. 1688), and the queen's private lodgings (1689). The Catholic chapel of James II, constructed during a period of fierce anti-Catholicism in England, attracted much criticism and also awe when it was completed in December 1686. The ceiling was adorned with 8,132 pieces of gold leaf, and at the east end of the nave an enormous marble altarpiece (40 ft. high x 25 ft. wide) designed by Wren and carved by Grinling Gibbons dominated the room.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: By 1691 the palace had become the largest and most complex in Europe. On 10 April a fire broke out in the much-renovated apartment previously used by the Duchess of Portsmouth, damaging the older palace structures, though apparently not the state apartments. This actually gave a greater cohesiveness to the remaining complex. At the end of 1694 Mary II died in Kensington Palace of smallpox, and on the following 24 January lay in state at Whitehall; William and Mary had avoided Whitehall in favour of their palace at Kensington.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: A second fire on 4 January 1698 destroyed most of the remaining residential and government buildings. It was started inadvertently by a servant in an upper room who had hung wet linen around a burning charcoal brazier to dry. The linen caught fire and the flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, raging for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish it. The following day, the wind picked up and re-ignited the fire farther north. Christopher Wren, then the King's Surveyor of Works, was ordered expressly by William III to focus manpower on saving the architectural jewel of the complex, the Banqueting House. Wren ordered bricklayers to block-up the main window on the building's south side to block the flames from entering. Around 20 buildings were destroyed to create a firebreak, but this did little to inhibit the westward spread of the flames.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: John Evelyn noted succinctly on 5 January: "Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left." Beside the Banqueting House, some buildings survived in Scotland Yard and some facing the park, along with the so-called Holbein Gate, eventually demolished in 1769.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: During the fire many works of art were destroyed, probably including Michelangelo's "Cupid", a famous sculpture bought as part of the Gonzaga collections in the seventeenth century. Also lost were Hans Holbein the Younger's iconic mural "Portrait of Henry VIII" and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's marble portrait bust of King Charles I.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: The Banqueting House is the only integral building of the complex now standing, although it has been somewhat modified. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, often incorporated into new buildings in the Whitehall government complex. These include a tower and other parts of the former covered tennis courts from the time of Henry VIII, built into the Old Treasury and Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: Beginning in 1938, the east side of the site was redeveloped with the building now housing the Ministry of Defence (MOD), now known as MOD Main Building. An undercroft from Wolsey's Great Chamber, now known as Henry VIII's Wine Cellar, a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some long and wide, was found to interfere not just with the plan for the new building but also with the proposed route for Horse Guards Avenue. Following a request from Queen Mary in 1938 and a promise in Parliament, provision was made for the preservation of the cellar. Accordingly, it was encased in steel and concrete and relocated to the west and nearly deeper in 1949, when building was resumed at the site after the Second World War. This was carried out without any significant damage to the structure and it now rests within the basement of the building.


title: Palace of Whitehall

text: A number of marble carvings from the former chapel at Whitehall (which was built for James II) are present in St. Andrew's Church, Burnham-on-Sea, in Somerset, to where they were moved in 1820 after having originally been removed to Westminster Abbey in 1706.


title: Betamax

text: Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year.


title: Betamax

text: Betamax is widely considered to be obsolete, having lost the videotape format war which saw its closest rival, VHS, dominate most markets.


title: Betamax

text: Despite this, Betamax recorders continued to be manufactured and sold until August 2002, when Sony announced that they were discontinuing production of all remaining Betamax models. Sony continued to sell Betamax cassettes until March 2016.


title: Betamax

text: The first Betamax device introduced in the United States was the LV-1901 console, which included a color monitor, and appeared in stores in early November 1975. The cassettes contain videotape in a design similar to that of the earlier, professional , U-matic format.


title: Betamax

text: Like the rival videotape format VHS (introduced in Japan by JVC in September 1976 and in the United States by RCA in August 1977), Betamax has no guard band and uses azimuth recording to reduce crosstalk. According to Sony's history webpages, the name had a double meaning: "beta" is the Japanese word used to describe the way in which signals are recorded on the tape; and the shape of the lowercase Greek letter beta (β) resembles the course of the tape through the transport. The suffix "-max", from the word "maximum", was added to suggest greatness. In 1977, Sony issued the first long-play Betamax VCR, the SL-8200. This VCR had two recording speeds: normal, and the newer half speed. This provided two hours of recording on


title: Betamax

text: the L-500 Beta videocassette. The SL-8200 was to compete against the VHS VCRs, which allowed up to 4, and later 6 and 8, hours of recording on one cassette.


title: Betamax

text: Initially, Sony was able to tout several Betamax-only features, such as BetaScan—a high-speed picture search in either direction—and BetaSkipScan, a technique that allowed the operator to see where they were on the tape by pressing the FF key (or REW, if in that mode): the transport would switch into the BetaScan mode until the key was released. This feature is discussed in more detail on Peep Search. Sony believed that the M-Load transports used by VHS machines made copying these trick modes impossible. BetaSkipScan (Peep Search) is now available on miniature M-load formats, but even Sony was unable to fully replicate this on VHS. BetaScan was originally called "Videola" until the company that made the Moviola threatened legal action.


title: Betamax

text: Sanyo marketed its own Betamax-compatible recorders under the Betacord brand (also casually referred to as "Beta"). In addition to Sony and Sanyo, Beta-format video recorders were manufactured and sold by Toshiba, Pioneer, Murphy, Aiwa, and NEC. Zenith Electronics and WEGA contracted with Sony to produce VCRs for their product lines. The department stores Sears (in the United States and Canada) and Quelle (in Germany) sold Beta-format VCRs under their house brands, as did the RadioShack chain of electronic stores.


title: Betamax

text: Sony also offered a range of industrial Betamax products, a Beta I-only format for industrial and institutional users. These were aimed at the same market as U-Matic equipment, but were cheaper and smaller. The arrival of Betacam reduced the demand for both industrial Beta and U-Matic equipment.


title: Betamax

text: For the professional and broadcast video industry, Sony derived Betacam from Betamax. Released in 1982, Betacam became the most widely used videotape format in ENG (electronic news gathering), replacing the wide U-matic tape format. Betacam and Betamax are similar in some ways- early versions of Betacam used the same video cassette shape, used the same oxide tape formulation with the same coercivity, and recorded linear audio tracks in the same location of the tape. However, in the key area of video recording, Betacam and Betamax use completely different on-tape formats.


title: Betamax

text: Betamax also had a significant part to play in the music recording industry, when Sony introduced its PCM (pulse-code modulation) digital recording system as an encoding box/PCM adaptor that connected to a Betamax recorder. The Sony PCM-F1 adaptor was sold with a companion Betamax VCR SL-2000 as a portable digital audio recording system. Many recording engineers used this system in the 1980s and 1990s to make their first digital master recordings.


title: Betamax

text: One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit "Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios" (1984, the "Betamax case"), with the U.S. Supreme Court determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses. This precedent was later invoked in "MGM v. Grokster" (2005), where the high court agreed that the same "substantial noninfringing uses" standard applies to authors and vendors of peer-to-peer file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct").


title: Betamax

text: In June 1983, Sony introduced high fidelity audio to videotape as Beta Hi-Fi. For NTSC, Beta HiFi worked by placing a pair of FM carriers between the chroma (C) and luminance (Y) carriers, a process known as frequency multiplexing. Each head had a specific pair of carriers; in total, four individual channels were employed. Head A recorded its hi-fi carriers at 1.38(L) and 1.68(R) MHz, and the B head employed 1.53 and 1.83 MHz. The result was audio with an 80 dB dynamic range, with less than 0.005% wow and flutter.


title: Betamax

text: Prior to the introduction of Beta Hi-Fi, Sony shifted the Y carrier up by 400 kHz to make room for the four FM carriers that would be needed for Beta Hi-Fi. All Beta machines incorporated this change, plus the ability to hunt for a lower frequency pre-AFM Y carrier. Sony incorporated an "antihunt" circuit, to stop the machine hunting for a Y carrier that wasn't there.


title: Betamax

text: Some Sony NTSC models were marketed as "Hi-Fi Ready" (with an SL-HFR prefix to the model's number instead of the usual SL or SL-HF). These Betamax decks looked like a regular Betamax model, except for a special 28-pin connector on the rear. If the user desired a Beta Hi-Fi model but lacked the funds at the time, he could purchase an "SL-HFRxx" and at a later date purchase the separate Hi-Fi Processor. Sony offered two outboard Beta Hi-Fi processors, the HFP-100 and HFP-200. They were identical except that the HFP-200 was capable of multi-channel TV sound, with the word "stereocast" printed after the Beta Hi-Fi logo. This was possible because unlike a VHS Hi-Fi deck, an NTSC Betamax didn't need an extra pair of heads. The HFP-x00 would generate the needed carriers which would be recorded by the attached deck, and during playback, the AFM carriers would be passed to the HFP-x00. They also had a small "fine tracking" control on the rear panel for difficult tapes.


title: Betamax

text: For PAL, however, the bandwidth between the chroma and luminance carriers was not sufficient to allow additional FM carriers, so depth multiplexing was employed, wherein the audio track would be recorded in the same way that the video track was. The lower-frequency audio track was written first by a dedicated head, and the video track recorded on top by the video head. The head disk had an extra pair of audio-only heads with a different azimuth, positioned slightly ahead of the regular video heads, for this purpose.


title: Betamax

text: Sony was confident that VHS could not achieve the same audio performance feat as Beta Hi-Fi. However, to the chagrin of Sony, JVC did develop a VHS hi-fi system on the principle of depth multiplexing approximately a year after the first Beta Hi-Fi VCR, the SL-5200 was introduced by Sony. Despite initial praise as providing "CD sound quality", both Beta Hi-Fi and VHS HiFi suffered from "carrier buzz", where high-frequency information bled into the audio carriers, creating momentary "buzzing" and other audio flaws. Both systems also used companding noise-reduction systems, which could create "pumping" artifacts under some conditions. Both formats also suffered from interchange problems, where tapes made on one machine did not always play back well on other machines. When this happened and if the artifacts became too distracting, users were forced to revert to the old linear soundtrack.


title: Betamax

text: In early 1985, Sony would introduce a new feature, Hi-Band or SuperBeta, by again shifting the Y carrier—this time by 800 kHz. This improved the bandwidth available to the Y sideband and increased the horizontal resolution from 240 to 290 lines on a regular-grade Betamax cassette. Since over-the-antenna and cable signals were only 300–330 lines resolution, SuperBeta could make a nearly identical copy of live television. However, the chroma resolution still remained relatively poor, limited to just under 0.4 MHz or approximately 30 lines resolution, whereas live broadcast chrominance resolution was over 100 lines. The heads were also narrowed to 29 μm to reduce crosstalk, with a narrower head gap to play back the higher carrier frequency at 5.6 MHz. Later, some models would feature further improvement, in the form of Beta-Is, a high band version of the Beta-I recording mode. There were some incompatibilities between the older Beta decks and SuperBeta, but most could play back a high band tape without major problems. SuperBeta decks had a switch to disable the SuperBeta mode for compatibility purposes. (SuperBeta was only marginally supported outside of Sony, as many licensees had already discontinued their Betamax line.)


title: Betamax

text: In 1988, Sony would again push the envelope with ED-Beta, or "Extended Definition" Betamax, capable of up to 500 lines of luma resolution, comparable to then-future DVD quality. In order to store the ~6.5 MHz-wide luma signal, with the peak frequency at 9.3 MHz, Sony used a metal formulation tape borrowed from the Betacam SP format (branded "ED-Metal") and incorporated some improvements to the transport to reduce mechanically induced aberrations in the picture. ED-Beta also featured a luminance carrier deviation of 2.5 MHz, as opposed to the 1.2 MHz used in SuperBeta, improving contrast with reduced luminance noise. Chroma resolution remained unchanged, which made artifacts like color fringing more pronounced. To cancel chroma signal crosstalk, the chroma portion of the signal was delayed by one or two scan lines during playback, smearing the color even more. The chroma delay could be disabled on higher end VCRs by turning on EDIT mode to "reduce editing faults" when dubbing a tape.


title: Betamax

text: Sony introduced two ED decks and a camcorder in the late 1980s. The top end EDV-9500 (EDV-9300 in Canada) deck was a very capable editing deck, rivaling much more expensive U-Matic set-ups for its accuracy and features, but did not have commercial success due to lack of timecode and other pro features. Sony did market ED-Beta to "semiprofessional" users, or "prosumers". As for the EDC-55 "ED CAM" camcorder, the major complaint concerned its low light sensitivity due to the use of two CCDs instead of the typical single-CCD imaging device. ED-Beta machines only recorded in βII and βIII modes, with the ability to play back βI and βIs.


title: Betamax

text: Two-piece portable video systems (those featuring a portable VCR such as Sony's "BetaPak") and a separate camera) soon became available for amateur and low-end video production. To better compete with Super 8 mm film there was the need for a less cumbersome all-in-one solution, and Sony's was "Betamovie", the first consumer camcorder.


title: Betamax

text: Betamovie used standard-size Betamax cassettes. However, the changes required to miniaturise the mechanism forced the use of non-standard record signal timing. As a result, while the final on-tape recording is – by design – in standard Betamax format and playable on a regular Beta deck, the camcorder itself is record-only, and cannot be used to review or play back footage. (This also effectively restricted Betamovie to those who also owned or had access to the Beta VCRs needed to view recordings).


title: Betamax

text: VHS manufacturers found a different solution to drum miniaturization using standard video signals instead, permitting footage to be reviewed on the camcorder itself, and output to another VCR for editing. This was a huge advantage, as even owners of Beta VCRs could use a VHS camcorder to copy and edit footage to their Beta deck- something not possible with Betamovie.


title: Betamax

text: VHS gained another advantage with VHS-C, which used a miniaturized cassette to make a camcorder smaller and lighter than any Betamovie. Sony could not duplicate the functionality of VHS-C camcorders, and seeing the rapid loss of market share, eventually introduced the Video8 format. Their hope was that Video8 could replace both Beta and VHS for all uses.


title: Betamax

text: On November 10, 2015, Sony announced that it would no longer be producing Betamax video cassettes. Production and sales ended March 2016 after almost 41 years of continuous production. Third-party manufacturers continue to make new cassettes. While these cassettes are designed for use with the Betacam format, the cassettes are interchangeable with traditional Betamax systems.