title: Be Here Now (album)

text: In August 1996, Oasis performed two concerts before crowds of 250,000 at Knebworth House, Hertfordshire; more than 2,500,000 fans had applied for tickets. The dates were to be the zenith of Oasis's popularity, and both the music press and the band realised it would not be possible for the band to equal the event. By this time, infighting had broken out in the band. On 23 August 1996, vocalist Liam Gallagher refused to sing for an "MTV Unplugged" performance at London's Royal Festival Hall, pleading a sore throat. He attended the concert and heckled Noel from the upper balcony. Four days later, Liam declined to participate in the first leg of an American tour, complaining that he needed to buy a house with his then-girlfriend Patsy Kensit. He rejoined the band a few days after for a key concert at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York, but intentionally sang off-key and spat beer and saliva during the performance.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Amongst much internal bickering, the tour continued to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Noel finally lost his patience with Liam and announced he was leaving the band. He said later: "If the truth be known, I didn't want to be there anyway. I wasn't prepared to be in the band if people were being like that to each other." Noel rejoined Oasis a few weeks later, but the band's management and handlers were worried. With an album's worth of songs already demoed, the Gallaghers felt that they should record as soon as possible. Their manager, Marcus Russell, said in 2007 that "in retrospect, we went in the studio too quickly. The smart move would have been to take the rest of the year off. But at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. If you're a band and you've got a dozen songs you think are great, why not go and do it."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: In 2006, Noel agreed that the band should have separated for a year or two instead of going into the studio. However, Morris later wrote: "It was a mistake on everyone's part, management very much included, that we didn’t record "Be Here Now" in the summer of 1996. It would have been a much different album: happy probably." He described the Mustique demos as "the last good recordings I did with Noel", and said his relationship soured following the Knebworth concert.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Recording began on 7 October 1996 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London. Morris described the first week as "fucking awful", and suggested to Noel that they abandon the session: "He just shrugged and said it would be all right. So on we went." Liam was under heavy tabloid focus at the time, and on 9 November 1996 was arrested and cautioned for cocaine possession at the "Q" Awards. A media frenzy ensued, and the band's management made the decision to move to a studio less readily accessible to paparazzi. "Sun" showbiz editor Dominic Mohan recalled: "We had quite a few Oasis contacts on the payroll. I don't know whether any were drug dealers, but there was always a few dodgy characters about."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Oasis's official photographer Jill Furmanovsky felt the media's focus, and was preyed upon by tabloid journalists living in the flat upstairs from her: "They thought I had the band hiding in my flat." In paranoia, Oasis cut themselves off from their wider circle. According to Johnny Hopkins, the publicist of Oasis's label Creation Records, "People were being edged out of the circle around Oasis. People who knew them before they were famous rather than because they were famous." Hopkins likened the situation to a medieval court, complete with kings, courtiers and jesters, and said: "Once you're in that situation you lose sight of reality."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: On 11 November 1996, Oasis relocated to the rural Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey. Though they reconvened with more energy, the early recordings were compromised by the drug intake of all involved. Morris recalled that "in the first week, someone tried to score an ounce of weed, but instead got an ounce of cocaine. Which kind of summed it up." Noel was not present during any of Liam's vocal track recordings. Morris thought that the new material was weak, but when he voiced his opinion to Noel he was cut down: "[So] I just carried on shovelling drugs up my nose." Morris had initially wanted to just transfer the Mustique demo recordings and overdub drums, vocals, and rhythm guitar, but the 8-track mixer he had employed required him to bounce tracks for overdubs, leaving him unable to remove the drum machine from the recordings.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Noel, wanting to make the album as dense and "colossal" feeling as possible, layered multiple guitar tracks on several songs. In many instances he dubbed ten channels with identical guitar parts, in an effort to create a sonic volume. Creation's owner Alan McGee visited the studio during the mixing stage; he said, "I used to go down to the studio, and there was so much cocaine getting done at that point ... Owen was out of control, and he was the one in charge of it. The music was just "fucking loud"." Morris responded: "Alan McGee was the head of the record company. Why didn’t he do something about the 'out of control' record producer"? Obviously, the one not in control was the head of the record company." He said that he and the band had been dealing with personal difficulties the day and night before McGee visited the studio.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: As with Oasis' previous two albums, the songs on "Be Here Now" are generally anthemic. The structures are traditional, and largely follow the typical verse – chorus – verse – chorus – middle eight – chorus format of guitar-based rock music. Reviewing for "Nude as the News", Jonathan Cohen noted that the album is "virtually interchangeable with 1994's "Definitely Maybe" or its blockbuster sequel, "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?"", while Noel had previously remarked that he would make three albums in this generic style. Yet the songs on "Be Here Now" differ in that they are longer than previous releases; an extended coda brings "D'You Know What I Mean?" to almost eight minutes, while "All Around the World" contains three key changes and lasts for a full nine minutes. When "D'You Know What I Mean?" was released as the album's first single, Noel Gallagher expected to be asked to reduce the length of the song by two minutes. However, nobody had the courage.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The tracks are more layered and intricate than before, and each contains multiple guitar overdubs. While Morris had previously stripped away layers of overdubs on the band's debut "Definitely Maybe", during the production of "Be Here Now" he "seemed to gleefully encourage" such excess; "My Big Mouth" has an estimated thirty tracks of guitar overdubbed onto the song. A "Rolling Stone" review described the guitar lines as composed of "elementary riffs."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: There was some experimentation: "D'You Know What I Mean?" contains a slowed down loop from N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton", while "Magic Pie" features psychedelically arranged vocal harmonies and a mellotron. According to Noel, "All I did was run my elbows across the keys and this mad jazz came out and everyone laughed." The album's production is dominated by top-end high frequency tones, and according to "Uncut"s Paul Lester, its use of treble is reminiscent of both late 1980s Creation Records bands such as My Bloody Valentine, and the Stooges' famously under-produced "Raw Power" (1973).


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The vocal melodies continue Noel's preference for "massed-rank sing-alongs", although Paul Du Noyer concedes that not all are of the "pub-trashing idiot kind" of previous releases. At the time of release, "Q"s Phil Sutcliffe summarised the lyrics of "Be Here Now" as a mixture of "hookline optimism, a swarm of Beatles and other '60s references, a gruff love song to Meg, and further tangled expressions of his inability/unwillingness to express profound emotions." David Fricke found the numerous Beatles references, including the line "The Fool on the Hill and I Feel Fine" from "D'You Know What I Mean?" and "Sing a song for me, one from "Let It Be"" on the title track as lazy songwriting from Noel. Reviewers have also found Beatles references in the music, on tracks such as "All Around the World", which has been compared to the sing-along qualities of "Hey Jude" and "All You Need Is Love".


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The lyrics were elsewhere described as "[running] the gamut from insightful to insipid", although Du Noyer admitted that Noel is "[to go by his lyrics] something of a closet philosopher ... and often romantic to the point of big girl's blousedom." While the tracks "Don't Go Away" and "The Girl in the Dirty Shirt" were described as unabashedly sentimental, Du Noyer went on to observe that "there is compassion and sensitivity in these tracks that is not the work of oafs." Du Noyer conceded that Noel often tied himself up in "cosmic knots", but had "written words that sound simple and true, and are therefore poetic without trying to be." Lester read song titles such as "Stand by Me" and "Don't Go Away" as a series of demands, both to members of his private life and his public audience.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Du Noyer praised Liam's vocal contributions and described his "Northern punk whine" as "the most distinctive individual style of our time." Lester alluded to Liam as Noel's "mouthpiece", although he qualified that Liam is the "voice of every working-class boy with half a yen to break out and make it big."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The cover image was shot in April 1997 at Stocks House in Hertfordshire, the former home of Victor Lownes, head of the Playboy Clubs in the UK until 1981. It shows the band standing by the swimming pool outside the hotel, surrounded by various props. For the photo shoot, a white 1972 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow was lowered into the swimming pool and half submerged in the water.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Photographer Michael Spencer Johns said the original concept involved shooting each band member in various locations around the world, but when the cost proved prohibitive, the shoot was relocated to Stocks House. Spencer remarked that the shoot "degenerated into chaos", adding that "by 8 pm, everyone was in the bar, there were schoolkids all over the set, and the lighting crew couldn't start the generator. It was "Alice in Wonderland" meets "Apocalypse Now"." Critics have tried to read into the selection of the cover props, but Johns said Gallagher simply selected items from the BBC props store he thought would look good in the picture. Two props considered were an inflatable globe (intended as a homage to the sleeve of "Definitely Maybe") and the Rolls Royce, suggested by Arthurs.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Jones has said that the partially submerged Rolls Royce was in reference to Keith Moon's oft-fabled sinking of a Lincoln Continental into a hotel swimming pool in 1967. The release date in each region was commemorated on the calendar pictured on the sleeve; Harris said the dating "[encouraged] fans to believe that to buy a copy on the day it appeared was to participate in some kind of historical event." The album cover also spurred controversy from a legal viewpoint. In the case of "Creation Records Ltd v. News Group Newspapers Ltd", the court decided that the collection of objects brought together for the album cover was insufficient in creating an artwork that could be protected by copyright.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: When Alan McGee, Creation's publicist Johnny Hopkins, and marketing executive Emma Greengrass first heard "Be Here Now" at Noel Gallagher's house, each had their doubts about its artistic value, but kept their doubts to themselves. One Creation employee recalled "a lot of nodding of heads, a lot of slapping of backs." McGee later admitted to having strong misgivings at first: "I heard it in the studio and I remember saying 'We'll only sell seven million copies' ... I thought it was too confrontational." However, in an interview with the music press a few days later he predicted the album would sell twenty million copies. McGee's hyperbole alarmed both Oasis and their management company Ignition, and both immediately excluded him from involvement in the release campaign. Ignition's strategy from that point on centred on an effort to suppress all publicity, and withheld access to both music and information from anybody not directly involved with the album's release. Fearful of the dangers of over-hype and bootlegging, their aim was to present the record as a "regular, everyday collection of tunes." To this end they planned a modest marketing budget, to be spent on subdued promotional activities such as street posters and music press adverts, while avoiding mainstream instruments such as billboard and TV advertising. According to Greengrass "We want to keep it low key. We want to keep control of the whole mad thing."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: However, the extent that Ignition were willing to go to control access to the album generated more hype than could normally have been expected, and served to alienate members of both the print and broadcast media, as well as most Creation staff members. When "D'You Know What I Mean?" was planned as the first single, Ignition decided on a late release to radio so as to avoid too much advance exposure. However, three stations broke the embargo, and Ignition panicked. According to Greengrass: "we'd been in these bloody bunker meetings for six months or something, and our plot was blown. 'Shit, it's a nightmare'." BBC Radio 1 received a CD containing three songs ten days before the album's release, on condition that disc jockey Steve Lamacq talked over the tracks to prevent illegal copies being made by listeners. The day after Lamacq previewed the album on his show, he received a phone call from Ignition informing him that he would not be able to preview further tracks because he didn't speak enough over the songs. Lamacq said, "I had to go on the air the next night and say, 'Sorry, but we're not getting any more tracks.' It was just "absurd."" According to Creation's head of marketing John Andrews, "[The campaign] made people despise Oasis within Creation. You had this Oasis camp that was like 'I'm sorry, you're not allowed come into the office between the following hours. You're not allowed mention the word Oasis.' It was like a fascist state." One employee recalled an incident "when somebody came round to check our phones because they thought "The Sun" had tapped them."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: When Hopkins began to circulate cassette copies of the album to the music press a few weeks later, he required that each journalist sign a contract containing a clause requiring that the cassette recipient, according to "Select" journalist Mark Perry, "not discuss the album with anyone—including your partner at home. It basically said don't talk to your girlfriend about it when you're at home in bed." Reflecting in 1999, Greengrass admitted: "In retrospect a lot of the things we did were ridiculous. We sit in [Oasis] meetings today and we're like 'It's on the Internet. It's in Camden Market. Whatever'. I think we've learned our lesson." According to Perry: "It seemed, particularly once you heard the album, that this was cocaine grandeur of just the most ludicrous degree. I remember listening to "All Around the World" and laughing—actually quite pleasurably—because it seemed so ridiculous. You just thought: Christ, there is so much coke being done here."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: "Be Here Now" was released in the UK on 21 August 1997. The release date had been brought forward out of Ignition's fear that import copies of the album from the United States would arrive in Britain before the street date. Worrying that TV news cameras would interview queuing fans at a traditional midnight opening session, Ignition forced retailers to sign contracts pledging not to sell the record earlier than 8:00am. However, the cameras arrived regardless, just in time to record the initially slow trade. It was not until lunch time that sales picked up. By the end of the first day of release, "Be Here Now" sold over 424,000 units and by the end of business on Saturday that week sales had reached 663,389, making it based on first seven days sales, the fastest-selling album in British history. The album became their highest charting release in the US by debuting at number two on the "Billboard" 200 chart. However, its first week sales of 152,000—below expected sales of 400,000 copies—were considered a disappointment.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: "Be Here Now" was the biggest selling album of 1997 in the UK, with 1.47 million units sold that year. By the end of 1997, "Be Here Now" had sold eight million units worldwide. However, most sales came from the first two weeks of release, and once the album was released to UK radio stations the turnover tapered off. Buyers realised that the album was not another "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?", and by 1999, "Melody Maker" reported that it was the album most sold to second-hand record stores. It has been certified 7× Platinum in the UK and Platinum in the US, being Oasis' third and final Platinum album in the country. As of 2016, the album had sold over eight million copies worldwide. Four of the album's 12 tracks were released as singles: "D'You Know What I Mean?", "Stand By Me", "All Around the World" and "Don't Go Away". In 2016, following the album's reissue and the release of the documentary "", the album topped the UK Vinyl Albums Chart, 19 years after its original release.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Contemporaneous reviews of "Be Here Now" were, in John Harris's words, unanimous with "truly amazing praise". According to Harris, "To find an album that had attracted gushing notices in such profusion, one had to go back thirty years, to the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"." While "Q" described the album as "cocaine set to music", most early reviews praised the record's length, volume and ambition, including Charles Shaar Murray, who called it the "Oasis World Domination Album" in "Mojo". David Fricke of "Rolling Stone" complimented the song formula throughout the album, writing that it "pays off". However, as a whole, he felt the album was "music built for impact, not explanation". Dele Fadele of "Vox" describes it as "a veritable rock'n'roll monsoon of an album; a giant jigsaw puzzle, an elemental force, a monster that cannot and will not be contained."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Reviews in the British music press for "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" had been generally negative. When it went on to become, in the words of "Select" editor Alexis Petridis, "this huge kind of zeitgeist-defining record", the music press was "baffled". Petridis believed the initial glowing reviews of "Be Here Now" were a concession to public opinion. In America, reviews were equally positive. Reviewing for the "Chicago Sun-Times" on release, Jae-Ha Kim considered the album as good as its two predecessors, writing: "The 12 tracks on "Be Here Now" aren't as immediately accessible as Oasis' earlier hits "Wonderwall" or "Live Forever". But the pop songs are mesmerising in their intense delivery and clean execution." Elysa Gardner offered similar in the "Los Angeles Times", finding that with "Be Here Now", the band grew more ambitious and succeeded without losing ground, although Gardner noted the "taut pop craftsmanship" that distinguished the band's two predecessors was "less prominent".


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Nevertheless, the album did receive some mixed reviews on release. In "Entertainment Weekly", David Browne stated: "Much of the album is a messy, mucky keg o' sound that constantly threatens to spill over and drown Noel's innately melodic songs." He further criticised the overtly-cluttered mix and overlong songs. Nevertheless, he concluded: "They sound more ferocious and confident than ever, yet less intimate, more distanced." Similarly, Simon Williams called it "one of the daftest records ever made" in "NME". Likewise, Chris Norris criticised the lyrical content in "Spin" magazine, calling most of the lyrics on the record "meaningless". Ryan Schreiber of "Pitchfork" compared the record to its two predecessors favourably, finding that instead of "unforgettable three- to- four minute pop slices", there are now "six- to- ten minute long epics."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: Retrospectively, reception to "Be Here Now" has been more negative, with many calling it bloated and over-produced. Reviewing in 2002, Stephen Thompson of "The A.V. Club" felt that although there were good tracks present, naming "My Big Mouth", "Don't Go Away" and "Stand By Me", the majority suffered from "cumbersome overlength", feeling that the band's attempt to make a "grand, career-defining statement" backfired. In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Rob Sheffield described the record as "a concept album about how long all the songs were", comparing it to Elton John's "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" (1975). Although he offered praise to the title track and "It's Getting Better (Man!!)", he considered the album to be the work of a songwriter who has "turn[ed] his brain [in]to cocaine crispies". In a more positive review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic calls "Be Here Now" a "triumphant" record that "steamrolls over any criticism", praising Liam's vocal performances as his finest up to that point, as well as the songs as "intensely enjoyable" and "impossibly catchy". However, he felt that Noel's songwriting wasn't innovative compared to its predecessors. In 2020, Luke Holland of "The Guardian" described the album as a "flawed masterpiece."


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The album's 2016 reissue attracted a number of reviews, with most continuing to criticise the album's production and song lengths. Laura Snapes of "Pitchfork" calls "Be Here Now" "one of the most agonizing listening experiences in pop music", amplified by the "bloated and indulgent" remaster. Snapes further panned Noel's decision to only remix "D'You Know What I Mean?", concluding that there was no point in reissuing the album if its creators didn't care enough. She ultimately states, "this turgid collection is the ultimate expression of "Be Here Now": as bloated and indulgent as the record itself, the music a secondary concern to the product’s status". In "Drowned in Sound", Andrzej Lukowski felt that when compared to the band's earlier work, "Be Here Now" lacked "aspirational rock 'n' roll swagger" besides a few tracks. Lukowski also agreed that a complete remix of the album would have been beneficial, considering "D'You Know What I Mean?" needed it "the least". In "Clash" magazine, Clarke Geddes was more positive, agreeing that although the album was bloated and over-produced, it still offered highlights, naming "I Hope, I Think, I Know". He also positively appraised the bonus tracks in the box set, believing fans will be satisfied with the extra material.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: In the 2003 John Dower-directed documentary "", music critic Jon Savage pinpointed "Be Here Now" as the moment where the Britpop movement ended. Savage said that while the album "isn't the great disaster that everybody says", he noted that "[i]t was supposed to be the big, big triumphal record" of the period. "Q" expressed similar sentiments, writing, "So colossally did "Be Here Now" fall short of expectations that it killed Britpop and ushered in an era of more ambitious, less overblown music." "Irish Times" journalist Brian Boyd wrote: "Bloated and over-heated (much like the band themselves at the time), the album has all that dreadful braggadocio that is so characteristic of a cocaine user." Reflecting in 2007, Garry Mulholland said: "The fact that nothing could have lived up to the fevered expectations that surrounded its release doesn't change the facts. The third Oasis album is a loud, lumbering noise signifying nothing." When reviewing in 2016, Lukowski wrote that although Oasis as a "band" would continue, Oasis as a "legend" died with "Be Here Now". He further states that while other Britpop bands such as Pulp and Blur moved on from the genre, Oasis continued attempting to revisit the success of their first two albums, effectively becoming a "nostalgia act" after 1997.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The Gallagher brothers hold differing opinions about the album. In July 1997, Noel was describing the production as "bland" and some tracks as "fucking shit". He later said: "Just because you sell lots of records, it doesn't mean to say you're any good. Look at Phil Collins." In "Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop", he dismissed the album, and said that drugs and the band's indifference during recording led to the album having faults. In the same documentary, Liam defended the record, and said that "at that time we thought it was fucking great, and I still think it's great. It just wasn't "Morning Glory"." In 2006, Liam said of Noel, "If he didn't like the record that much, he shouldn't have put the fucking record out in the first place ... I don't know what's up with him but it's a top record, man, and I'm proud of it—it's just a little bit long." In 2018, the BBC included it in their list of "the acclaimed albums that nobody listens to any more." Noel has observed that many Oasis fans still hold the album in high regard, as do prominent musicians such as Marilyn Manson. In 2017, Liam ranked the album as his favourite release by Oasis.


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: The album was reissued in several limited-edition formats, including silver-coloured double heavyweight vinyl, a double picture disc and cassette, on 19August 2022 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The reissue was promoted with new lyric videos for "D'You Know What I Mean? (NG's 2016 Rethink)" and "Stand by Me".


title: Be Here Now (album)

text: As part of a promotional campaign entitled Chasing the Sun, the album was re-released on 14 October 2016. The three-disc deluxe edition includes remastered versions of the album and seven B-sides from the album's three UK singles. Bonus content includes demos, the Mustique sessions, live tracks, and a 2016 remix of "D'You Know What I Mean?" Noel Gallagher was supposed to remix the entire album but later decided against it.


title: Supercontinent

text: In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", which leaves room for interpretation and is easier to apply to Precambrian times. To separate supercontinents from other groupings, a limit has been proposed in which a continent must include at least about 75% of the continental crust then in existence in order to qualify as a supercontinent.


title: Supercontinent

text: Supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past (see table). According to modern definitions, a supercontinent does not exist today; the closest in existence to a supercontinent is the current Afro-Eurasian landmass, which covers approx. 57% of Earth's total land area. The last time the continental landmasses were near to one another was 336 to 175 million years ago as the supercontinent, Pangaea. The positions of continents have been accurately determined back to the early Jurassic, shortly before the breakup of Pangaea. The earlier continent Gondwana is not considered a supercontinent under the first definition since the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia and Siberia were separate at the time.


title: Supercontinent

text: The following table names reconstructed ancient supercontinents, using Bradley's 2011 looser definition, with an approximate timescale of millions of years ago (Ma).


title: Supercontinent

text: There are two contrasting models for supercontinent evolution through geological time. The first model theorizes that at least two separate supercontinents existed comprising Vaalbara (from ~3636 to ) and Kenorland (from ~2720 to ). The Neoarchean supercontinent consisted of Superia and Sclavia. These parts of Neoarchean age broke off at ~2480 and and portions of them later collided to form Nuna (Northern Europe North America) (). Nuna continued to develop during the Mesoproterozoic, primarily by lateral accretion of juvenile arcs, and in Nuna collided with other land masses, forming Rodinia. Between ~825 and Rodinia broke apart. However, before completely breaking up, some fragments of Rodinia had already come together to form Gondwana (also known as Gondwanaland) by . Pangaea formed by through the collision of Gondwana, Laurasia (Laurentia and Baltica), and Siberia.


title: Supercontinent

text: The second model (Kenorland-Arctica) is based on both palaeomagnetic and geological evidence and proposes that the continental crust comprised a single supercontinent from until break-up during the Ediacaran Period after . The reconstruction is derived from the observation that palaeomagnetic poles converge to quasi-static positions for long intervals between ~2.72–2.115, 1.35–1.13, and with only small peripheral modifications to the reconstruction. During the intervening periods, the poles conform to a unified apparent polar wander path. Although it contrasts the first model, the first phase (Protopangea) essentially incorporates Vaalbara and Kenorland of the first model. The explanation for the prolonged duration of the Protopangea-Paleopangea supercontinent appears to be that lid tectonics (comparable to the tectonics operating on Mars and Venus) prevailed during Precambrian times. According to this theory, plate tectonics as seen on the contemporary Earth became dominant only during the latter part of geological times. This approach was widely criticized by many researchers as it uses incorrect application of paleomagnetic data.


title: Supercontinent

text: The Phanerozoic supercontinent Pangaea began to break up and is still doing so today. Because Pangaea is the most recent of Earth's supercontinents, it is the most well-known and understood. Contributing to Pangaea's popularity in the classroom is the fact that its reconstruction is almost as simple as fitting the present continents bordering the Atlantic-type oceans like puzzle pieces.


title: Supercontinent

text: A supercontinent cycle is the break-up of one supercontinent and the development of another, which takes place on a global scale. Supercontinent cycles are not the same as the Wilson cycle, which is the opening and closing of an individual oceanic basin. The Wilson cycle rarely synchronizes with the timing of a supercontinent cycle. However, supercontinent cycles and Wilson cycles were both involved in the creation of Pangaea and Rodinia.


title: Supercontinent

text: Secular trends such as carbonatites, granulites, eclogites, and greenstone belt deformation events are all possible indicators of Precambrian supercontinent cyclicity, although the Protopangea-Paleopangea solution implies that Phanerozoic style of supercontinent cycles did not operate during these times. Also, there are instances where these secular trends have a weak, uneven, or absent imprint on the supercontinent cycle; secular methods for supercontinent reconstruction will produce results that have only one explanation, and each explanation for a trend must fit in with the rest.


title: Supercontinent

text: The causes of supercontinent assembly and dispersal are thought to be driven by convection processes in Earth's mantle. Approximately 660 km into the mantle, a discontinuity occurs, affecting the surface crust through processes involving plumes and "superplumes" (aka large low-shear-velocity provinces). When a slab of the subducted crust is denser than the surrounding mantle, it sinks to discontinuity. Once the slabs build up, they will sink through to the lower mantle in what is known as a "slab avalanche". This displacement at the discontinuity will cause the lower mantle to compensate and rise elsewhere. The rising mantle can form a plume or superplume.


title: Supercontinent

text: Besides having compositional effects on the upper mantle by replenishing the large-ion lithophile elements, volcanism affects plate movement. The plates will be moved towards a geoidal low perhaps where the slab avalanche occurred and pushed away from the geoidal high that can be caused by the plumes or superplumes. This causes the continents to push together to form supercontinents and was evidently the process that operated to cause the early continental crust to aggregate into Protopangea. Dispersal of supercontinents is caused by the accumulation of heat underneath the crust due to the rising of very large convection cells or plumes, and a massive heat release resulted in the final break-up of Paleopangea. Accretion occurs over geoidal lows that can be caused by avalanche slabs or the downgoing limbs of convection cells. Evidence of the accretion and dispersion of supercontinents is seen in the geological rock record.


title: Supercontinent

text: The influence of known volcanic eruptions does not compare to that of flood basalts. The timing of flood basalts has corresponded with a large-scale continental break-up. However, due to a lack of data on the time required to produce flood basalts, the climatic impact is difficult to quantify. The timing of a single lava flow is also undetermined. These are important factors on how flood basalts influenced paleoclimate.


title: Supercontinent

text: Global paleogeography and plate interactions as far back as Pangaea are relatively well understood today. However, the evidence becomes more sparse further back in geologic history. Marine magnetic anomalies, passive margin match-ups, geologic interpretation of orogenic belts, paleomagnetism, paleobiogeography of fossils, and distribution of climatically sensitive strata are all methods to obtain evidence for continent locality and indicators of the environment throughout time.


title: Supercontinent

text: Phanerozoic (541 Ma to present) and Precambrian ( to ) had primarily passive margins and detrital zircons (and orogenic granites), whereas the tenure of Pangaea contained few. Matching edges of continents are where passive margins form. The edges of these continents may rift. At this point, seafloor spreading becomes the driving force. Passive margins are therefore born during the break-up of supercontinents and die during supercontinent assembly. Pangaea's supercontinent cycle is a good example of the efficiency of using the presence or lack of, these entities to record the development, tenure, and break-up of supercontinents. There is a sharp decrease in passive margins between 500 and during the timing of Pangaea's assembly. The tenure of Pangaea is marked by a low number of passive margins during 336 to and its break-up is indicated accurately by an increase in passive margins.


title: Supercontinent

text: Orogenic belts can form during the assembly of continents and supercontinents. The orogenic belts present on continental blocks are classified into three different categories and have implications for interpreting geologic bodies. Intercratonic orogenic belts are characteristic of ocean basin closure. Clear indicators of intracratonic activity contain ophiolites and other oceanic materials that are present in the suture zone. Intracratonic orogenic belts occur as thrust belts and do not contain any oceanic material. However, the absence of ophiolites is not strong evidence for intracratonic belts, because the oceanic material can be squeezed out and eroded away in an intracratonic environment. The third kind of orogenic belt is a confined orogenic belt which is the closure of small basins. The assembly of a supercontinent would have to show intracratonic orogenic belts. However, interpretation of orogenic belts can be difficult.


title: Supercontinent

text: The collision of Gondwana and Laurasia occurred in the late Palaeozoic. By this collision, the Variscan mountain range was created, along the equator. This 6000-km-long mountain range is usually referred to in two parts: the Hercynian mountain range of the late Carboniferous makes up the eastern part, and the western part is called the Appalachians, uplifted in the early Permian. (The existence of a flat elevated plateau-like the Tibetan Plateau is under much debate.) The locality of the Variscan range made it influential to both the northern and southern hemispheres. The elevation of the Appalachians would greatly influence global atmospheric circulation.


title: Supercontinent

text: Continents affect the climate of the planet drastically, with supercontinents having a larger, more prevalent influence. Continents modify global wind patterns, control ocean current paths, and have a higher albedo than the oceans. Winds are redirected by mountains, and albedo differences cause shifts in onshore winds. Higher elevation in continental interiors produces a cooler, drier climate, the phenomenon of continentality. This is seen today in Eurasia, and rock record shows evidence of continentality in the middle of Pangaea.


title: Supercontinent

text: The term glacial-epoch refers to a long episode of glaciation on Earth over millions of years. Glaciers have major implications on the climate, particularly through sea level change. Changes in the position and elevation of the continents, the paleolatitude and ocean circulation affect the glacial epochs. There is an association between the rifting and breakup of continents and supercontinents and glacial-epochs. According to the first model for Precambrian supercontinents described above the breakup of Kenorland and Rodinia was associated with the Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic glacial-epochs, respectively. In contrast, the second solution described above shows that these glaciations correlated with periods of low continental velocity and it is concluded that a fall in tectonic and corresponding volcanic activity was responsible for these intervals of global frigidity. During the accumulation of supercontinents with times of regional uplift, glacial-epochs seem to be rare with little supporting evidence. However, the lack of evidence does not allow for the conclusion that glacial-epochs are not associated with the collisional assembly of supercontinents. This could just represent a preservation bias.


title: Supercontinent

text: During the late Ordovician (~458.4 Ma), the particular configuration of Gondwana may have allowed for glaciation and high CO levels to occur at the same time. However, some geologists disagree and think that there was a temperature increase at this time. This increase may have been strongly influenced by the movement of Gondwana across the South Pole, which may have prevented lengthy snow accumulation. Although late Ordovician temperatures at the South Pole may have reached freezing, there were no ice sheets during the early Silurian through the late Mississippian Agreement can be met with the theory that continental snow can occur when the edge of a continent is near the pole. Therefore, Gondwana, although located tangent to the South Pole, may have experienced glaciation along its coast.


title: Supercontinent

text: Though precipitation rates during monsoonal circulations are difficult to predict, there is evidence for a large orographic barrier within the interior of Pangaea during the late Paleozoic The possibility of the SW-NE trending Appalachian-Hercynian Mountains makes the region's monsoonal circulations potentially relatable to present-day monsoonal circulations surrounding the Tibetan Plateau, which is known to positively influence the magnitude of monsoonal periods within Eurasia. It is therefore somewhat expected that lower topography in other regions of the supercontinent during the Jurassic would negatively influence precipitation variations. The breakup of supercontinents may have affected local precipitation. When any supercontinent breaks up, there will be an increase in precipitation runoff over the surface of the continental landmasses, increasing silicate weathering and the consumption of CO.


title: Supercontinent

text: Even though during the Archaean solar radiation was reduced by 30 percent and the Cambrian-Precambrian boundary by six percent, the Earth has only experienced three ice ages throughout the Precambrian. Erroneous conclusions are more likely to be made when models are limited to one climatic configuration (which is usually present-day).


title: Supercontinent

text: Cold winters in continental interiors are due to rate ratios of radiative cooling (greater) and heat transport from continental rims. To raise winter temperatures within continental interiors, the rate of heat transport must increase to become greater than the rate of radiative cooling. Through climate models, alterations in atmospheric CO content and ocean heat transport are not comparatively effective.


title: Supercontinent

text: CO models suggest that values were low in the late Cenozoic and Carboniferous-Permian glaciations. Although early Paleozoic values are much larger (more than ten percent higher than that of today). This may be due to high seafloor spreading rates after the breakup of Precambrian supercontinents and the lack of land plants as a carbon sink.


title: Supercontinent

text: During the late Permian, it is expected that seasonal Pangaean temperatures varied drastically. Subtropic summer temperatures were warmer than that of today by as much as 6–10 degrees and mid-latitudes in the winter were less than −30 degrees Celsius. These seasonal changes within the supercontinent were influenced by the large size of Pangaea. And, just like today, coastal regions experienced much less variation.


title: Supercontinent

text: During the Jurassic, summer temperatures did not rise above zero degrees Celsius along the northern rim of Laurasia, which was the northernmost part of Pangaea (the southernmost portion of Pangaea was Gondwana). Ice-rafted dropstones sourced from Russia are indicators of this northern boundary. The Jurassic is thought to have been approximately 10 degrees Celsius warmer along 90 degrees East paleolongitude compared to the present temperature of today's central Eurasia.


title: Supercontinent

text: Many studies of the Milankovitch cycles during supercontinent time periods have focused on the Mid-Cretaceous. Present amplitudes of Milankovitch cycles over present-day Eurasia may be mirrored in both the southern and northern hemispheres of the supercontinent Pangaea. Climate modeling shows that summer fluctuations varied 14–16 degrees Celsius on Pangaea, which is similar or slightly higher than summer temperatures of Eurasia during the Pleistocene. The largest-amplitude Milankovitch cycles are expected to have been at mid-to high-latitudes during the Triassic and Jurassic.


title: Supercontinent

text: Granites and detrital zircons have notably similar and episodic appearances in the rock record. Their fluctuations correlate with Precambrian supercontinent cycles. The U–Pb zircon dates from orogenic granites are among the most reliable aging determinants. Some issues exist with relying on granite sourced zircons, such as a lack of evenly globally sourced data and the loss of granite zircons by sedimentary coverage or plutonic consumption. Where granite zircons are less adequate, detrital zircons from sandstones appear and make up for the gaps. These detrital zircons are taken from the sands of major modern rivers and their drainage basins. Oceanic magnetic anomalies and paleomagnetic data are the primary resources used for reconstructing continent and supercontinent locations back to roughly 150 Ma.


title: Supercontinent

text: Plate tectonics and the chemical composition of the atmosphere (specifically greenhouse gases) are the two most prevailing factors present within the geologic time scale. Continental drift influences both cold and warm climatic episodes. Atmospheric circulation and climate are strongly influenced by the location and formation of continents and mega continents. Therefore, continental drift influences mean global temperature.


title: Supercontinent

text: Oxygen levels of the Archaean Eon were negligible and today they are roughly 21 percent. It is thought that the Earth's oxygen content has risen in stages: six or seven steps that are timed very closely to the development of Earth's supercontinents.


title: Supercontinent

text: The process of Earth's increase in atmospheric oxygen content is theorized to have started with the continent-continent collision of huge landmasses forming supercontinents, and therefore possibly supercontinent mountain ranges (super mountains). These super mountains would have eroded, and the mass amounts of nutrients, including iron and phosphorus, would have washed into oceans, just as we see happening today. The oceans would then be rich in nutrients essential to photosynthetic organisms, which would then be able to respire mass amounts of oxygen. There is an apparent direct relationship between orogeny and the atmospheric oxygen content. There is also evidence for increased sedimentation concurrent with the timing of these mass oxygenation events, meaning that the organic carbon and pyrite at these times were more likely to be buried beneath sediment and therefore unable to react with the free oxygen. This sustained the atmospheric oxygen increases.


title: Supercontinent

text: During this time, there was an increase in molybdenum isotope fractionation. It was temporary but supports the increase in atmospheric oxygen because molybdenum isotopes require free oxygen to fractionate. Between 2.45 and the second period of oxygenation occurred, it has been called the 'great oxygenation event.' Many pieces of evidence support the existence of this event, including red beds appearance (meaning that Fe was being produced and became an important component in soils). The third oxygenation stage approximately is indicated by the disappearance of iron formations. Neodymium isotopic studies suggest that iron formations are usually from continental sources, meaning that dissolved Fe and Fe had to be transported during continental erosion. A rise in atmospheric oxygen prevents Fe transport, so the lack of iron formations may have been due to an increase in oxygen. The fourth oxygenation event, roughly is based on modeled rates of sulfur isotopes from marine carbonate-associated sulfates. An increase (near doubled concentration) of sulfur isotopes, which is suggested by these models, would require an increase in the oxygen content of the deep oceans. Between 650 and there were three increases in ocean oxygen levels, this period is the fifth oxygenation stage. One of the reasons indicating this period to be an oxygenation event is the increase in redox-sensitive molybdenum in black shales. The sixth event occurred between 360 and and was identified by models suggesting shifts in the balance of S in sulfates and C in carbonates, which were strongly influenced by an increase in atmospheric oxygen.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: Songs from the Big Chair is the second studio album by English pop rock band Tears for Fears, released on 25 February 1985 by Phonogram Records. The album peaked at number two in the UK and at number one in the US, becoming a multi-platinum seller and the band's most successful studio album to date. "Songs from the Big Chair" spawned the commercially successful singles "Mothers Talk", "Shout", "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", "Head over Heels", and "I Believe".


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: Originally, the album was to be titled "The Working Hour", but Roland Orzabal fought to change it to "Songs from the Big Chair", which was derived from the 1976 television film "Sybil" about a woman with multiple personality disorder who only feels safe when she is sitting in her analyst's "big chair". The title of the album reflects the band's view of being targeted by a hostile English music press at the time.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: In an interview for the 2006 deluxe version booklet, Curt Smith noted that "We were very introverted on "The Hurting"; it was a very dark album. We found the need to be more outgoing on "The Big Chair"".


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: The band started to generate new material around the beginning of 1984. The first song written for the album was "Head over Heels", which the band played live during a tour undertaken between the two studio albums.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: While a mostly-instrumental track called "The Big Chair" (which includes dialogue samples from the film) was released as the B-side of "Shout" in 1984, it was not included on the album (but was available on its "special limited edition" cassette version, released in the UK in 1985).


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: The album was recorded at The Wool Hall in 1984. Conceptually and musically, it was a development of the band's previous studio album "The Hurting" (1983), re-introducing guitars to their electronic sound and an overall lighter approach than before. Early songs written for the album included "Head over Heels" and "The Working Hour". "Mothers Talk" was released months before the album as a single. These songs, as well as "We Are Broken", were all performed on Tears for Fears 1983 tour. The song "Shout" became a central work during the recording of the album, and the band and producer Chris Hughes spent months working on that track alone.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: The songwriting uses many different styles and influences, particularly progressive rock as a cited main influence on the album. "I Believe" was influenced by the songwriting of Robert Wyatt. "Broken", featuring a straightforward rock sound, was a reworking of an earlier song and a live version is repeated at the end of "Head over Heels", while the largely instrumental "Listen" has been described as a symphonic piece.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: Near the end of the completion of the album Roland Orzabal played two simple chords on his acoustic guitar that was the foundation of the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Initially not very interested to work on it, Orzabal was convinced to write a song based on those two chords and eventually added the chorus line. The most straightforward song on the album, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was completed in about a week and the last track recorded for the album.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: "Songs from the Big Chair" was released on 25 February 1985 with a black and white photograph of Orzabal and Smith on the record cover.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and spawned five commercially successful singles: "Mothers Talk" (UK #14), "Shout" (UK #4), "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (UK #2), "Head over Heels" (UK #12), and "I Believe" (UK #23).


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: The radio-friendly "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" marked the band's breakthrough in the United States; both this single and its follow-up, "Shout", reached number one in the US. "Songs From the Big Chair" also reached number one on the "Billboard" 200 and sold five million copies in the US alone. In the UK, the album spent 79 consecutive weeks on the album chart, remaining on the chart for eighteen months until September 1986.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: To mark the album's 30th anniversary, Universal Music released the album in five different formats on 10 November 2014.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: "Songs from the Big Chair" received generally positive reviews. Barry McIlheney of "Melody Maker" wrote that "none of you should really be too surprised that Tears for Fears have made such an "excellent" album", calling it "an album that fully justifies the rather sneering, told-you-so looks adopted by Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal on the sleeve", before concluding, "An awful lot of people will, of course, go on and on about overcoats, The Lotus Eaters and an alleged lack of depth. And an awful lot of people will have to eat an awful lot of words." In "Sounds" Johnny Waller gave the album four and a half stars out of five and said that compared with their debut, "Tears for Fears have lovingly crafted a new masterpiece with softer, smoky vocals, more tempting melodies and less abrasive rhythms". He called the record "glorious pop" and that "within accepted confines, Tears for Fears are stretching and growing, expanding both their imagination and their horizons". Ian Cranna of "Smash Hits" described the album as "looser, more exploratory" than the band's previous work and praised its "unflinching lyrical honesty". "Rolling Stone" reviewer Don Shewey found Tears for Fears reminiscent of various other acts, noting traces of "U2's social conscience, the Bunnymen's echoing guitars and XTC's contorted pop wit" in the album's music, but commented that Chris Hughes' "sparkling" production "nudges "Songs from the Big Chair" slightly ahead of the pack".


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic in his review for "The Village Voice", observing some substantial lyrics, particularly on "The Working Hour", and musical elements such as an "uncommon command of guitar and piano, Baker Street sax, synthesizers more jagged than is deemed mete by the arbiters of dance-pop accessibility". However, he felt these are all beneath a prevailing "portentous" mood suggesting "a depth and drama English lads have been falling short on since the dawn of progressive rock". In "NME" Danny Kelly called "Songs from the Big Chair" "a calculated and brilliant peak, a quintessence of polished pop putty ... perfect at its shimmering surface, worthless to its craven core". He described it as a descendant of 10cc's "The Original Soundtrack" (1975) and Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973) – "a product of obsessional care and attention to (often unnecessary) detail".


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stanton Swihart wrote that "Songs from the Big Chair" "heralded a dramatic maturation in the band's music, away from the synth-pop brand with which it was (unjustly) seared following the debut, and towards a complex, enveloping pop sophistication", deeming it "one of the finest statements of the decade." Mark Elliott of "Record Collector" said that the album found Tears for Fears "making it big, coating their consistently interesting material in a high-gloss commercial sheen that captured the mid-80s zeitgeist perfectly", while "Q" highlighted its "sound of spotlit, spacious sophistication plus anthemic choruses you'd bet your house on." Writing for "Stylus Magazine" in 2006, Andrew Unterberger concluded that "even today, when all rock musicians seem to be able to do is be "emotional" and "honest", the brutality and power of "Songs from the Big Chair"s catharsis is still quite shocking". "Songs from the Big Chair" was included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". "Slant Magazine" ranked the record at number 95 on its list of the best albums of the 1980s.


title: Songs from the Big Chair

text: In February 2020, the album was the focus of an episode of the BBC's "Classic Albums" documentary series. The episode included new interviews with key personnel including Orzabal, Smith, Ian Stanley, producer Chris Hughes, engineer Dave Bascombe, and A&R man David Bates. Additional interviewees included Oleta Adams and John Grant.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( ; born September 30, 1975) is an American author and journalist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at "The Atlantic", where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates has worked for "The Village Voice", "Washington City Paper", and "Time". He has contributed to "The New York Times Magazine", "The Washington Post", "The Washington Monthly", "", and other publications.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: He has published three non-fiction books: "The Beautiful Struggle", "Between the World and Me", and "". "Between the World and Me" won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. He has also written a "Black Panther" series and a "Captain America" series for Marvel Comics. His first novel, "The Water Dancer", was published in 2019.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, William Paul Coates (known by his middle name), was a Vietnam War veteran, former Black Panther, publisher, and librarian. His mother, Cheryl Lynn Coates (née Waters), was a teacher. Coates' father founded and ran Black Classic Press, a publishing company specializing in African-American titles. The Press grew out of a grassroots organization, the George Jackson Prison Movement (GJPM), which initially operated a Black bookstore called the Black Book. Later Black Classic Press was established with a table-top printing press in the basement of the Coates family home.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' father had seven children, five boys and two girls, by four women. Coates' father's first wife had three children, Coates' mother had two boys, and the other two women each had a child. The children were raised together in a close-knit family; most lived with their mothers and at times lived with their father. Coates has said that he lived with his father for the entirety of his upbringing, and that, in his family, the important overarching focus was on rearing children with values based on family, respect for elders and being a contribution to your community, an approach to family that was common in the community where he grew up. Coates grew up in the Mondawmin neighborhood of Baltimore during the crack epidemic.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' interest in literature was instilled at an early age when his mother, in response to bad behavior, would require him to write essays. His father's work with the Black Classic Press was a huge influence. Coates has said that he read many of the books his father published.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' first journalism job was as a reporter at "The Washington City Paper"; his editor was David Carr. From 2000 to 2007, Coates worked as a journalist with various publications, including "Philadelphia Weekly", "The Village Voice", and "Time". His first article for "The Atlantic", "This Is How We Lost to the White Man", about Bill Cosby and conservatism, started a new, more successful and stable phase of his career. The article led to an appointment with a regular column for "The Atlantic", a blog that was popular, influential, and had a high level of community engagement.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates became a senior editor at "The Atlantic", for which he wrote feature articles as well as maintaining his blog. Topics covered by the blog included politics, history, race, culture as well as sports, and music. His writings on race, such as his September 2012 "The Atlantic" cover piece "Fear of a Black President" and his June 2014 feature "The Case for Reparations", have been especially praised, and won his blog a place on the Best Blogs of 2011 list by "Time" magazine and the 2012 Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism from The Sidney Hillman Foundation. His blog has been praised for its engaging comments section, which Coates curates and moderates heavily so that "the jerks are invited to leave [and] the grown-ups to stay and chime in."


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates has worked as a guest columnist for "The New York Times", having turned down an offer from them to become a regular columnist. He has written for "The Washington Post", the "Washington Monthly", and "O" magazine.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates left his position as a national correspondent for "The Atlantic" in July 2018 after a decade with the magazine. In a memo to the staff, the editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, said: "The last few years for him have been years of significant changes. He's told me that he would like to take some time to reflect on these changes, and to figure out the best path forward, both as a person and as a writer."


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: In 2008, Coates published "The Beautiful Struggle", a memoir about coming of age in West Baltimore and its effect on him. In the book, he discusses the influence of his father W. Paul Coates, a former Black Panther; the prevailing street crime of the era and its effects on his older brother; his own troubled experience attending Baltimore-area schools; and his eventual graduation and enrollment in Howard University. The lack of interpersonal skills and the complexity of Coates's father figure in the book sheds light on a world of absentee fathers. As Rich Benjamin states in a September 2016 article in "The Guardian", "Fatherhood is a vexed topic, particularly so for an author such as Coates" and continues with ""The Beautiful Struggle" makes an enduring genre cliche—the father-son relationship—unexpected and new, as well as offering a vital insight into Coates's coming of age as a man and thinker."


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' second book, "Between the World and Me", was published in July 2015. The title is drawn from a Richard Wright poem of the same name about a black man discovering the site of a lynching and becoming incapacitated with fear, creating a barrier between himself and the world. Coates said that one of the origins of the book was the death of a college friend, Prince Carmen Jones Jr., who was shot by police in a case of mistaken identity. One of the themes of the book was what physically affected African-American lives, such as their bodies being enslaved, violence that came from slavery, and various forms of institutional racism. The book won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The book was ranked 7th on "The Guardian"'s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: In 2016, Coates was the writer of the sixth volume of Marvel Comics' "Black Panther" series, which teamed him with artist Brian Stelfreeze. Issue #1 went on sale April 6, 2016, and sold an estimated 253,259 physical copies, the best-selling comic for the month of April 2016. He also wrote a spinoff of "Black Panther" — "Black Panther and the Crew" — that ran for six issues before it was canceled. In 2018, Coates announced he would be writing a ninth volume of the "Captain America" series, which would team him with artists Leinil Yu and Alex Ross.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' collection of previously published essays on the Obama Era, "", was announced by Random House, with a release date of October 3, 2017. Coates added essays written especially for the book bridging the gaps between the previously-published essays, as well as an introduction and an epilogue. The book's title is a quote from 19th-century African-American congressman Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina, who asked why white Southerners hated African Americans after all the good they had done during the Reconstruction Era. Coates sees parallels between that earlier period and the Obama presidency.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' first novel and work of fiction, "The Water Dancer", was published in 2019, and is a surrealist story set in the time of slavery, concerning a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who possesses photographic memory, but who cannot remember his mother, and is able to transport people over far distances by using a power known as "conduction" which can fold the Earth like fabric and allows him to travel across large areas via waterways. The novel is also an Oprah's Book Club selection.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates was the 2012–2014 MLK visiting scholar for writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as its journalist-in-residence in late 2014. In 2017, Coates joined the faculty of New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute as a Distinguished Writer in Residence. In 2021, Coates joined the Howard University faculty as writer-in-residence in the College of Arts and Sciences and holds the Sterling Brown chair in the English Department.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: As of 2019, Coates was working on "America in the King Years", which is a television project with David Simon, Taylor Branch, and James McBride. The project is about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books "America in the King Years" written by Branch, specifically "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968". The project will be produced by Oprah Winfrey and air on HBO.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates is set to adapt Rachel Aviv's 2014 "The New Yorker" article "Wrong Answer" into a full-length feature film of the same title, starring Michael B. Jordan with direction by Ryan Coogler.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: In February 2021, it was reported that Coates had been hired to write the script of a new "Superman" feature film from DC Films and Warner Bros. Pictures, with J. J. Abrams producing.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: In an interview with Ezra Klein, Coates outlined his analysis that the extent of white identity expression in the United States serves as a critical factor in threat perceptions of certain European Americans and their response to political paradigm shifts related to African Americans, such as the presidency of Barack Obama.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates' first name, Ta-Nehisi, is derived from an Ancient Egyptian language name for Nubia. Nubia is a region along the Nile river in present-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates lived in Paris for a residency. In 2009, he lived in Harlem with his wife, Kenyatta Matthews, and son, Samori Maceo-Paul Coates. His son's name is a reference to three people: Samori Ture, a Mandé chief who fought French colonialism, black Cuban revolutionary Antonio Maceo Grajales, and Coates' father, who was known by his middle name of Paul. Coates met his wife when they were both students at Howard University. He is an atheist and a feminist. With his family, Coates moved to Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, New York, in 2001. They purchased a brownstone in Prospect Lefferts Gardens in 2016. In 2016, he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Oregon State University.


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: In December 2017, Coates, who had a following of more than 1.25 million Twitter users, deactivated his Twitter account after a disagreement with philosopher and activist Cornel West over West's editorial in "The Guardian", titled "Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle".


title: Ta-Nehisi Coates

text: Coates caused some controversy in 2021 for his writing of "Captain America", volume 9 #28, in which he depicted the Nazi super-villain Red Skull espousing the writings of the Canadian conservative clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson. Peterson stated that his work was used out of context in order to portray him negatively, describing it as an "attack" on himself.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution ( ) is an "opera buffa" in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy "The Barber of Seville" (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title "Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione") took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Rossini's "Barber of Seville" has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro," composed 30 years earlier in 1786, is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy. The first Beaumarchais play was originally conceived as an opéra comique, but was rejected as such by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was premiered in 1775 by the Comédie-Française at the Théâtre des Tuileries in Paris.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Other operas based on the first play were composed by Giovanni Paisiello (in 1782), by Nicolas Isouard in 1796, and then by Francesco Morlacchi in 1816. Though the work of Paisiello triumphed for a time, only Rossini's version has stood the test of time and continues to be a mainstay of operatic repertoire. On 11 November 1868, two days before Rossini's death, the composer (1842–1877) premiered an opera based on the same libretto as Rossini's work, bearing a dedication to Rossini. The premiere was not a failure, but critics condemned the "audacity" of the young composer and the work is now forgotten.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Rossini was well known for being remarkably productive, completing an average of two operas per year for 19 years, and in some years writing as many as four. Musicologists believe that, true to form, the music for "Il barbiere di Siviglia" was composed in just under three weeks, although the famous overture was actually recycled from two earlier Rossini operas, "Aureliano in Palmira" and "Elizabeth, Queen of England" and thus contains none of the thematic material in "Il barbiere di Siviglia" itself.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Luigi Zamboni, for whom Rossini wrote the role of Figaro, had urged Rossini and Francesco Sforza-Cesarini, the cash-strapped impresario of the Teatro Argentina, to engage his sister-in-law, Elisabetta Gafforini, as Rosina. However, her fee was too high and in the end they settled on Geltrude Righetti. The premiere of Rossini's opera at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on 20 February 1816 was a disaster: the audience hissed and jeered throughout, and several on-stage accidents occurred. Furthermore, many of the audience were supporters of one of Rossini's rivals, the veteran Giovanni Paisiello, who played on mob mentality to provoke the rest of the audience to dislike the opera. Paisiello had already composed "The Barber of Seville" and took Rossini's new version to be an affront to his version. In particular, Paisiello and his followers were opposed to the use of basso buffo, which is common in comic opera. The second performance, however, was successful. The original French play, "Le Barbier de Séville", had a similar story: poorly received at first, only to become a favorite within a week.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The opera was first performed in England on 10 March 1818 at the King's Theatre in London in Italian, soon followed on 13 October at the Covent Garden Theatre by an English version translated by John Fawcett and Daniel Terry. It was first performed in America on 3 May 1819 in English (probably the Covent Garden version) at the Park Theatre in New York. It was given in French at the Théâtre d'Orléans in New Orleans on 4 March 1823, and became the first opera ever to be performed in Italian in New York, when Manuel Garcia (who played Almaviva) and his Italian troupe opened their first season there with "Il barbiere" on 29 November 1825 at the Park Theatre. The cast of eight had three other members of his family, including the 17-year-old Maria-Felicia, later known as Maria Malibran.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The role of Rosina was originally written for a contralto. According to music critic Richard Osborne, writing in "The New Grove Dictionary of Opera", "it is important to record the degree to which singers have sometimes distorted Rossini's intentions. The most serious distortion has been the upward transposition of the role of Rosina, turning her from a lustrous alto into a pert soprano." However, it has also been noted that Rossini, who frequently altered his music for specific singers, wrote a new aria for the second act for Joséphine Fodor-Mainvielle, a soprano who had sung Rosina in the 1818 London premiere, and sang the new aria c. 1820 at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, where it was published.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The singing lesson in act 2 has often been turned into "a show-stopping cabaret". Adelina Patti was known to include Luigi Arditi's "Il bacio", the Bolero from Verdi's "I vespri siciliani", the Shadow Song from Meyerbeer's "Dinorah", and Henry Bishop's "Home! Sweet Home!". Nellie Melba followed suit, accompanying herself on the piano in the final song. Pauline Viardot began the practice of inserting Alexander Alyabyev's "Nightingale". In a recording of a La Scala performance in 1956, Maria Callas sang a shortened version "Contro un cor", transposed up a tone, in E.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Once after Patti had sung a particularly florid rendition of the opera's legitimate aria, "Una voce poco fa", Rossini is reported to have asked her: "Very nice, my dear, and who wrote the piece you have just performed?"


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The piece is a staple of the operatic repertoire Because of a scarcity of true contraltos, the role of Rosina has most frequently been sung by a coloratura mezzo-soprano (with or without pitch alterations, depending on the singer), and has in the past, and occasionally in more recent times, been sung by coloratura sopranos such as Marcella Sembrich, Maria Callas, Roberta Peters, Gianna D'Angelo, Victoria de los Ángeles, Beverly Sills, Lily Pons, Diana Damrau, Edita Gruberová, Kathleen Battle and Luciana Serra. Famous recent mezzo-soprano Rosinas include Marilyn Horne, Teresa Berganza, Frederica von Stade, Lucia Valentini Terrani, Susanne Marsee, Cecilia Bartoli, Joyce DiDonato, Jennifer Larmore, Elīna Garanča, Isabel Leonard and Vesselina Kasarova. Famous contralto Rosinas include Ewa Podleś who made her stage debut in that role.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: In a public square outside Bartolo's house a band of musicians and a poor student named Lindoro are serenading, to no avail, the window of Rosina ("Ecco, ridente in cielo"; "There, laughing in the sky"). Lindoro, who is really the young Count Almaviva in disguise, hopes to make the beautiful Rosina love him for himself – not his money. Almaviva pays off the musicians who then depart, leaving him to brood alone. Rosina is the young ward of the grumpy, elderly Bartolo and she is allowed very little freedom because Bartolo plans to marry her once she is of age and thus appropriate her considerable dowry.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Figaro approaches singing (Aria: "Largo al factotum della città"; "Make way for the factotum of the city"). Since Figaro used to be a servant of the Count, the Count asks him for assistance in helping him meet Rosina, offering him money should he be successful in arranging this (duet: "All'idea di quel metallo"; "At the idea of that metal"). Figaro advises the Count to disguise himself as a drunken soldier, ordered to be billeted with Bartolo, so as to gain entrance to the house. For this suggestion, Figaro is richly rewarded.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: The scene begins with Rosina's cavatina, "Una voce poco fa" ("A voice a little while ago"). (This aria was originally written in the key of E major, but it is sometimes transposed a semitone up into F major for coloratura sopranos to perform, giving them the chance to sing extra, almost traditional, cadenzas, sometimes reaching high Ds or even Fs.)


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Knowing the Count only as Lindoro, Rosina writes to him. As she is leaving the room, Bartolo enters with the music teacher Basilio. Bartolo is suspicious of the Count, and Basilio advises that he be put out of the way by creating false rumours about him (this aria, "La calunnia è un venticello" – "Calumny is a little breeze" – is almost always sung a tone lower than the original D major).


title: The Barber of Seville

text: When the two have gone, Rosina and Figaro enter. Figaro asks Rosina to write a few encouraging words to Lindoro, which she has actually already written. (Duet: "Dunque io son...tu non m'inganni?"; "Then I'm the one...you're not fooling me?"). Although surprised by Bartolo, Rosina manages to fool him, but he remains suspicious. (Aria: "A un dottor della mia sorte"; "To a doctor of my class").


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Count Almaviva, disguised as a soldier and pretending to be drunk, enters the house and demands to be quartered there. In fear of the drunken man, Berta the housekeeper rushes to Bartolo for protection. Bartolo tells the "soldier" that he (Bartolo) has an official exemption which excuses him from the requirement to quarter soldiers in his home. Almaviva pretends to be too drunk and belligerent to understand, and dares Bartolo to brawl. While Bartolo searches his cluttered desk for the official document which would prove his exemption, Almaviva whispers to Rosina that he is Lindoro in disguise, and passes a love-letter to her. Bartolo suspiciously demands to know what is in the piece of paper in Rosina's hands, but she fools him by handing over her laundry list. Bartolo and the Count argue loudly. Basilio enters; then Figaro, who warns that the noise of the argument is rousing the whole neighborhood. Finally, the noise attracts the attention of the Officer of the Watch and his troops, who crowd into the room. Bartolo demands that the Officer arrest the "drunken soldier". The Officer starts to do so, but Almaviva quietly reveals his true identity to the Officer, and he (the Officer) backs off. Bartolo and Basilio are astonished and mystified; Figaro laughs quietly at them. (Finale: "Fredda ed immobile, come una statua"; "Cold and still, just like a statue"). The confusion intensifies and causes everyone to suffer headaches and auditory hallucinations ("Mi par d'esser con la testa in un'orrida fucina; dell'incudini sonore l'importuno strepitar"; "My head seems to be in a fiery forge: the sound of the anvils deafens the ear").


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Count Almaviva again appears at the doctor's house, this time disguised as Don Alonso, a priest and singing tutor who is substituting for the supposedly ailing Basilio. To gain Bartolo's trust, Don Alonso tells him he has intercepted a note from Lindoro to Rosina, and says that Lindoro is a servant of Count Almaviva who has dishonorable intentions towards Rosina. While Almaviva pretends to give Rosina her singing lesson ("Contro un cor"; "Against a heart"), Figaro arrives to shave Bartolo. Not wanting to leave Rosina alone with the singing teacher, Bartolo insists Figaro shave him right there in the music room. Basilio suddenly appears for his scheduled music lesson, but he is bribed by a full purse from Almaviva and persuaded to leave again, with much discussion of how ill he looks. (Quintet: "Don Basilio! – Cosa veggo!"; "Don Basilio! – What do I see?"). Bartolo overhears the lovers conspiring, and angrily drives everybody away.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: Bartolo orders Basilio to have the notary ready to marry him to Rosina that evening. Basilio leaves and Rosina arrives. Bartolo shows Rosina the letter she wrote to "Lindoro" and persuades her that this is proof that Lindoro is merely a flunky of Almaviva and is toying with her at Almaviva's behest. Rosina believes the story and agrees to marry Bartolo.


title: The Barber of Seville

text: During an instrumental interlude, the music creates a thunder storm to indicate the passage of time. Almaviva and Figaro climb up a ladder to the balcony and enter Rosina's room through a window. Rosina accuses Almaviva, whom she believes to be Lindoro, of betraying her. Almaviva reveals his identity and the two reconcile. While Almaviva and Rosina are enraptured by one another, Figaro keeps urging them to leave. Two people are heard approaching the front door. They are Basilio and the notary. The Count, Rosina, and Figaro attempt to leave by way of the ladder, but discover it has been removed. Using bribes and threats, Almaviva coerces the notary into marrying him to Rosina, with Basilio and Figaro as the legally required witnesses. Bartolo barges in, accompanied by the Officer and the men of the watch, but too late; the marriage is already complete. The befuddled Bartolo is pacified by being allowed to retain Rosina's dowry. The opera concludes with an anthem to love ("Amor e fede eterna, si vegga in noi regnar!"; "May love and faith eternally be seen to reign in us").


title: Oryx

text: Oryx is a genus consisting of four large antelope species called oryxes. Their pelage is pale with contrasting dark markings in the face and on the legs, and their long horns are almost straight. The exception is the scimitar oryx, which lacks dark markings on the legs, only has faint dark markings on the head, has an ochre neck, and has horns that are clearly decurved.


title: Oryx

text: The Arabian oryx was only saved from extinction through a captive-breeding program and reintroduction to the wild. The scimitar oryx, which is now listed as extinct in the wild, also relies on a captive-breeding program for its survival.


title: Oryx

text: The term "oryx" comes from the Greek word ὄρυξ, "óryx", for a type of antelope. The Greek plural form is "óryges", although "oryxes" has been established in English. Herodotus mentions a type of gazelle in Libya called ὄρυς, "orus", probably related to the verb ὀρύσσω, "orussō", or ὀρύττω, "oruttō", meaning "to dig". White oryxes are known to dig holes in the sand.


title: Oryx

text: The Arabian oryx ("Oryx leucoryx", Arabic: المها), became extinct in the wild in 1972 in the Arabian Peninsula. It was reintroduced in 1982 in Oman, but poaching has reduced its numbers there. One of the largest populations of Arabian oryxes exists on Sir Bani Yas Island in the United Arab Emirates. Additional populations have been reintroduced in Qatar, Bahrain, Palestine, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. As of 2011, the total wild population is over 1,000, and 6,000–7,000 are being held in captivity. In 2011, the IUCN downgraded its threat category from extinct in the wild to vulnerable, the first species to have changed back in this way.


title: Oryx

text: The scimitar oryx, also called the scimitar-horned oryx ("Oryx dammah"), of North Africa, is now listed as possibly extinct in the wild. Unconfirmed surviving populations have been reported in central Niger and Chad, and a semiwild population currently inhabiting a fenced nature reserve in Tunisia is being expanded for reintroduction to the wild in that country. Several thousand are held in captivity around the world.


title: Oryx

text: The East African oryx ("Oryx beisa") inhabits eastern Africa and the closely related gemsbok ("Oryx gazella") inhabits southern Africa. The gemsbok is monotypic and the East African oryx has two subspecies; the common beisa oryx ("O. b. beisa") and the fringe-eared oryx ("O. b. callotis"). In the past, both were considered subspecies of the gemsbok. The East African oryx is an endangered species, whereas the gemsbok is not.


title: Oryx

text: Gemsbok were introduced in New Mexico by the Department of Game and Fish in the late 1960s and early 1970s as an experiment in offering a unique hunting opportunity to New Mexico residents. Between 1969 and 1973, 93 oryx were released onto White Sands Missile Range. White Sands Missile Range, located between the cities of Albuquerque, NM and El Paso, TX, is a 3,200 square mile US Army facility which also hosts White Sands National Park. The first atomic bomb was test detonated at Trinity Site near the northern boundary of the range. The gemsbok released onto the range quickly began to reproduce. Researchers believed that the population would never grow beyond 500 to 600 and would remain within the Tularosa Basin. However, the animals proved to be extremely opportunistic, and quickly spread into the San Andres Mountains to the north and west of Tularosa Basin. At one time, numbers of Oryx in New Mexico were estimated to be around 6,000 (original release numbers were less than 100). Today, numbers have been held around the 2,000 mark through managed hunting efforts. The success of the oryx in New Mexico is due in part to the abundance of food. In Africa, they eat grasses, forbs, and melons. Here, they feed on desert grasses, yucca, buffalo gourds, and mesquite bean pods. They are especially adapted to desert life and can go a long time without drinking water. This area also lacks a way to control the population. Lions and other natural predators cull the population in Africa, with only 10% of calves reaching one year of age. In New Mexico, predators like coyotes and mountain lions are not effective at controlling numbers, allowing the oryx to reproduce without restriction.


title: Oryx

text: All oryx species prefer near-desert conditions and can survive without water for long periods. They live in herds of up to 600 animals. Newborn calves are able to run with the herd immediately after birth. Both males and females possess permanent horns. The horns are narrow and straight except in the scimitar oryx, where they curve backwards like a scimitar. The horns can be lethal: oryxes has been known to kill lions with them, and they are thus sometimes called sabre antelopes (not to be confused with the sable antelope). The horns also make the animals a prized game trophy, which has led to the near-extinction of the two northern species.


title: Oryx

text: Between 1969 and 1977, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish in the US intentionally released 95 gemsbok into its state's White Sands Missile Range and that population is now estimated between 3,000 and 6,000 animals. Within the state of New Mexico, oryxes are classified as "big game" and can be hunted.


title: Oryx

text: The oryx is the national animal of Namibia, the State of Qatar, and the company Qatar Airways has an oryx as its logo.


title: Oryx

text: The main boss of the MMO game "Realm of the Mad God" is Oryx the Mad God, named after the creator of the original sprite sheets, Oryx. His four direct subordinates also bear the names of four South African species of oryx.


title: Oryx

text: Oryxes appear briefly, along with many other species of animal, in the Talk Talk music video "It's My Life".


title: Oryx

text: In the video game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege", a playable defending operator nicknamed Oryx was introduced in Year 5 Season 1. His ability is called "Remah Dash," where he can charge to break holes in walls and knock down enemies.


title: Oryx

text: Oryx is also the main antagonist’s name in the video game "", a god who seeks vengeance on the player, known as a Guardian, after they killed his son Crota. He is killed by the player in the raid “King’s Fall”. He is portrayed as “Oryx, the Taken King”.


title: Major (United States)

text: In the United States Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, major is a field-grade military officer rank above the rank of captain and below the rank of lieutenant colonel. It is equivalent to the naval rank of lieutenant commander in the other uniformed services. Although lieutenant commanders are considered junior officers by their respective services (Navy and Coast Guard), the rank of major is that of a senior officer in the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the United States Air Force.


title: Major (United States)

text: The pay grade for the rank of major is O-4. The insignia for the rank consists of a golden oak leaf, with slight stylized differences between the Army/Air Force version and the Marine Corps version. Promotion to major is governed by the Department of Defense policies derived from the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980.


title: Major (United States)

text: A major in the U.S. Army typically serves as a battalion executive officer (XO) or as the battalion operations officer (S3). Majors can also serve as Company Commanding Officers, a major can also serve as a primary staff officer for a regiment, brigade or task force in the areas concerning personnel, logistics, intelligence, and operations. A major will also be a staff officer / action officer on higher staffs and headquarters. In addition, majors command augmented companies in Combat Service and Service Support units. U.S. Army majors also command Special operations companies, such as U.S. Army Special Forces companies, Civil Affairs companies, Military Information Support Operations companies, and certain types of separate, numbered vice lettered, Military Intelligence companies.


title: Major (United States)

text: Selected majors in the United States Army attend the 10-month Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, with a greater number attending satellite schools administered by Fort Leavenworth at Fort Belvoir, Fort Lee, Virginia, Redstone Arsenal, and Fort Gordon. 960 graduated from the Leavenworth course in 2009 (the largest class in Army history).


title: Major (United States)

text: The Continental Army mostly followed the organization and rank structure of the British Army. A regiment consisted of 8 companies with three officers (a captain, a lieutenant and ensign) and about 60 enlisted men each. The field grade officers of a regiment were the colonel, the lieutenant colonel and a major. The major was the regiment's third in command and, at least in theory, would command one of the regiment's two battalions if the regiment were divided for tactical purposes.


title: Major (United States)

text: During the American Civil War the Union Army continued to use the existing titles of rank and rank insignia established for the US Army. After the Southern states seceded and became the Confederate States of America, the Confederate Army retained the same titles of rank as its Union counterpart, but developed a new system of rank identification and insignia for its officers.


title: Major (United States)

text: While Union officers continued to wear their rank insignia on their shoulder straps, Confederate officers wore their rank insignia on the collar (one, two, or three horizontal gold bars for lieutenants and captains; one, two, or three gold stars for field grade officers; and three gold stars surrounded by a wreath for all general officers), as well as rows of gold lace forming an Austrian knot pattern on each sleeve. The number of rows of gold lace increased with the rank of the officer.


title: Major (United States)

text: In the late 1800s the US Army changed from the traditional 10 company regiment to one of 12 companies organized into three four-company battalions, each commanded by a major. Prior to World War II, battalion commanders became lieutenant colonels. The basic regimental organization remained standard until after the Korean War when regiments with organic battalions were no longer used as tactical units. Battalions attached to brigades replaced the regiment. Battalions commanded by lieutenant colonels became the US Army's basic tactical unit. As a result, there were only a limited number of command positions for majors although Medical, Special Forces and Aviation companies are usually commanded by majors.


title: Major (United States)

text: A major in the Air Force typically has duties as a senior staff officer at the squadron and wing level. In flying squadrons majors are generally flight commanders or assistant directors of operations. In the mission support and maintenance groups majors may occasionally be squadron commanders. In the medical corps, a major may be the head of a clinic or flight.


title: Major (United States)

text: A major in the Space Force typically has duties as a senior staff officer at the squadron and delta levels.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Anthony Salvatore Casso (May 21, 1942 – December 15, 2020), nicknamed "Gaspipe", was an American mobster and underboss of the Lucchese crime family. During his career in organized crime, Casso was regarded as a "homicidal maniac" in the Italian-American Mafia. He is suspected of having committed dozens of murders, and had confessed to involvement in between 15 and 36 murders. Government witness Anthony Accetturo, the former caporegime of The Jersey Crew, once said of Casso, "all he wanted to do is kill, kill, get what you can, even if you didn't earn it". In interviews, and on the witness stand, Casso confessed involvement in the murders of Frank DeCicco, Roy DeMeo, and Vladimir Reznikov. Casso also admitted to several attempts to murder Gambino family boss John Gotti.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Following his arrest in 1993, Casso became one of the highest-ranking members of the Mafia to turn informant. After taking a plea agreement, he was placed in the witness protection program, however, in 1998, it was rescinded and Casso was dropped from the program after several infractions. Later that year, a federal judge sentenced him to 455 years in prison for racketeering, extortion, and murder.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Casso was born on May 21, 1942, in South Brooklyn, in New York City, the youngest of the three children to Michael and Margaret Casso (née Cucceullo). Casso's grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Campania, Italy in the 1890s. His godfather was Salvatore Callinbrano, a made man and "caporegime" in the Genovese crime family, which maintained a powerful influence on the Brooklyn docks. Casso dropped out of school at 16 and got a job with his father as a longshoreman. In his youth, he became a crack shot, firing pistols at targets on a rooftop which he and his friends used as a shooting range. Casso also made money shooting predatory hawks for pigeon keepers.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Casso married fellow South Brooklyn native Lillian Delduca on May 4, 1968. They had a daughter and son.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Prior to his marriage to Lillian, Casso had a serious relationship with fellow South Brooklyn native Rosemarie Billotti, whose parents hoped he would marry. Without Lillian's knowledge, for decades after their wedding, Casso secretly kept Billotti as his mistress and set her up in a house in Mount Olive, New Jersey.


title: Anthony Casso

text: During his marriage, Casso also committed many other infidelities. In an interview with biographer Philip Carlo, Casso recalled, Most all men in my life, everyone I know, had girlfriends. It goes with the territory. Women are drawn to us, the power, the money, and we're drawn to them. But only in passing. Some guys treated their mistresses better than their wife, but that's a fuckin' outrage. No class. Only a "cafone" does that. I never loved any woman but Lillian. She and my family always came first.


title: Anthony Casso

text: In reality, following his arrest inside the house in Mount Olive by the FBI in 1993, Lillian Casso, "was incensed, and felt betrayed - violated - used", when she learned that her husband had secretly continued his relationship with Rosemarie Billotti. Even though she eventually agreed to visit her husband in Federal prison, for the rest of her life, Lillian Casso, according to Philip Carlo, "could not understand how Anthony could be so deceitful, duplicitous, - such a two faced pig."


title: Anthony Casso

text: Casso was a violent youth, and member of the infamous 1950s gang, the South Brooklyn Boys. In 1958, he was arrested after a "rumble" against Irish-American gangsters. Casso later told Carlo that his father visited him at the police station and tried in vain to scare his son straight. He soon caught the eye of Christopher "Christie Tick" Furnari, the "capo" of the "19th Hole Crew" in the Lucchese family. Casso started his career in the Mafia as a loan shark. As a protégé of Furnari, he was also involved in gambling and drug dealing. He was arrested for attempted murder in 1961, but was acquitted when the alleged victim refused to identify him.


title: Anthony Casso

text: In 1974, at age 32, he became a made man, or full member, of the Lucchese family. Casso was assigned to Vincent Foceri's crew that operated from 116th Street in Manhattan and from Fourteenth Avenue in Brooklyn. Shortly after becoming made, Casso became close to another rising star in the family, Victor Amuso, and began a partnership that would last for two decades. They committed scores of crimes, including drug trafficking, burglary and the murders of informants.


title: Anthony Casso

text: Casso later began reporting to Christopher Furnari, alias "Christie Tick", the caporegime of "the 19th Hole Crew".


title: Anthony Casso

text: Within Furnari's "19th Hole Crew" both Casso and Amuso led a burglary ring known as "The Bypass Gang", which included expert locksmiths, safe crackers, and experts in security alarm systems. The Bypass Gang is still suspected of committing burglaries in banks and jewelry stores throughout New York City and Long Island. Authorities estimated the Bypass gang stole more than $100 million from safety deposit boxes and vaults during the 1970s and 1980s.


title: Anthony Casso

text: When Furnari was promoted to the Lucchese family's "consigliere", he asked Casso to take over the 19th Hole Crew. However, Casso declined, suggesting that Amuso be promoted instead. Casso remained Amuso's aide.


title: Anthony Casso

text: In December 1985, Casso was approached by "caporegime" Frank DeCicco regarding a planned coup in the Gambino crime family. Gambino captain John Gotti, whose crew had worked with Casso in multiple drug deals, and other captains, were planning to kill crime boss, Paul Castellano. Gotti and DeCicco were looking for support among the other Four Families affected by the Mafia Commission Trial. According to Sammy Gravano, another of Gotti's co-conspirators, DeCicco returned from the meeting saying that Casso had offered the conspirators his unconditional support. According to Casso, DeCicco alleged during their meeting that Castellano's carelessness in allowing his own house to be bugged was reason enough to kill him. Casso later told Carlo, however, that he tried to talk DeCicco out of killing a boss without first asking for The Commission's permission. Otherwise, he said, killing Castellano would be a cardinal violation of the rules and all the participants would have to be murdered by the other Four Families. Castellano's murder went ahead anyway on December 16, 1985. Casso would later denounce Gotti's actions to Carlo as "the beginning of the end of "our thing"."