title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: The court is housed in Middlesex Guildhall—which it shares with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—in the City of Westminster.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 gave time for a suitable building to be found and fitted out before the Law Lords moved out of the Houses of Parliament, where they had previously used a series of rooms in the Palace of Westminster.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: After a lengthy survey of suitable sites, including Somerset House, the Government announced that the new court would be at the Middlesex Guildhall, in Parliament Square, Westminster. That decision was examined by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, and the grant of planning permission by Westminster City Council for refurbishment works was challenged in a judicial review by the conservation group Save Britain's Heritage. It was also reported that English Heritage had been put under great pressure to approve the alterations. Feilden + Mawson, supported by Foster & Partners, were the appointed architects, with Kier Group appointed as main contractor.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: The building had been used as the Middlesex Quarter Sessions House, and the headquarters of the Middlesex County Council. Following the abolition of the council in 1965, its former council chamber became a courtroom, which is now Court One, the principal courtroom. In 1972 the building became a Crown Court centre.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: The official badge of the Supreme Court was granted by the College of Arms in October 2008. It comprises both the Greek letter omega (representing finality) and the symbol of Libra (symbolising the scales of justice), in addition to the four floral emblems of the United Kingdom: a Tudor rose, representing England, conjoined with the leaves of a leek, representing Wales; a flax (or 'lint') blossom for Northern Ireland; and a thistle, representing Scotland.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: Two adapted versions of its official badge are used by the Supreme Court. One features the words "The Supreme Court" and the letter omega in black (in the official badge granted by the College of Arms, the interior of the Latin and Greek letters are gold and white, respectively), and displays a simplified version of the crown (also in black) and larger, stylised versions of the floral emblems; this modified version of the badge is featured on the new Supreme Court website, as well as in the forms that will be used by the Supreme Court. A further variant omits the crown entirely and is featured prominently throughout the building.


title: Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

text: Another emblem is formed from a more abstract set of depictions of the four floral emblems and is used in the carpets of the Middlesex Guildhall designed by Sir Peter Blake, creator of such works as the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Beauty Behind the Madness is the second studio album by Canadian singer the Weeknd, released on August 28, 2015, through XO and Republic Records. It features guest appearances from Labrinth, Ed Sheeran and Lana Del Rey. The album was executive produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo, and includes production from Kanye West, Stephan Moccio, Ben Billions, DannyBoyStyles, Max Martin, and Ali Payami, among others.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Five singles were released from "Beauty Behind the Madness", including two US "Billboard" Hot 100 number-ones: "The Hills" and "Can't Feel My Face". The album also includes the Academy Award-nominated track "Earned It", which served as the lead single from the soundtrack to "Fifty Shades of Grey". "Beauty Behind the Madness" received generally positive reviews from critics and debuted at number one in several countries. It marked the Weeknd's first number-one album in the United States, earning 412,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. It was the tenth best-selling album of 2015, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in 2016, "Beauty Behind the Madness" won Best Urban Contemporary Album and was nominated for Album of the Year.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Following the success of his first compilation album "Trilogy" (2012) and the release of his debut studio album "Kiss Land" (2013), the Weeknd spoke to MTV about the two projects; describing them as the first and second chapters of his life


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Shortly after "Kiss Land", the Weeknd began contributing to film soundtracks and other projects. He appeared on the to "" (2013) on the song "Devil May Cry" and as a featured artist on Sia and Diplo's single "Elastic Heart". On September 30, 2014, the Weeknd appeared on Ariana Grande's single "Love Me Harder" from her second studio album "My Everything". He then made an appearance on the soundtrack to "Fifty Shades of Grey" (2015) on the songs "Earned It" and "Where You Belong"; with the former track peaking at number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: On July 5, 2015, during an interview on Beats 1 Radio, Ed Sheeran revealed that he had worked with the Weeknd on the album and that Kanye West was also involved. The Weeknd formally announced his second album on July 9 by revealing the album's title and sharing its artwork.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: "Beauty Behind the Madness" has been described by critics as a noticeable shift from the Weeknd's alternative R&B background to a more mainstream pop-oriented sound; with some of his original elements still intact.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: In addition to its alt-R&B and pop sonics, "Beauty Behind the Madness" incorporates elements of disco, funk, soul, art rock, blues, and trap. Influences of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982) and "Bad" (1987) are also present throughout the album. Lyrical themes include romance, success, loneliness, self-loathing, and independence.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: On June 26, 2014, the Weeknd announced the King of the Fall Tour, which spanned North America in September and October of that year. Schoolboy Q and Jhené Aiko appeared as supporting acts. The tour was announced the day after the Weeknd released the single "Often" on SoundCloud.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: On July 4, 2015, the Weeknd headlined FVDED in the Park in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. On July 9, the Weeknd continued to promote the album by headlining summer music festivals, including Lollapalooza in Chicago, the Hard Summer Music Festival in Pomona, California, the Summer Set Music and Camping Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin, Philadelphia's Made in America Festival, Austin City Limits in Austin, and Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: The first single, "Often", was released on July 31, 2014. The song peaked at number 59 and number 69 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100, respectively.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: The album's second single, "The Hills", was released on May 27, 2015. The song peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: The album's third single, "Can't Feel My Face", was released on June 8, 2015, following the performance of the song by the Weeknd at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on the same day. The song peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: "In the Night" was released to contemporary hit radio on November 17, 2015, as the album's fourth single in the United States. The song peaked at number 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: "Acquainted" was released to urban contemporary radio on November 17, 2015, as the album's fifth and final single in the United States. It was also released to rhythmic contemporary on February 16, 2016. The song peaked at number 60 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: "Beauty Behind the Madness" was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 26 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.9 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Sheldon Pearce of "The A.V. Club" said, "It expertly and carefully closes the gap between the Weeknd's perception and his reality". Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" said, "He's aiming for harder truths, creating pop that also works as a commentary on choice and consequence". Mackenzie Herd of "Exclaim!" said, ""Beauty Behind the Madness" proves that the Weeknd can thrive in the mainstream, and while the lyrics aren't overtly profound, he's proven that he is more versatile than previously thought, which is perhaps of greater importance at this stage in his career". Kyle Anderson of "Entertainment Weekly" said, "Anyone looking for a collection of homages to the King of Pop will be disappointed. Those masterpieces ["Can't Feel My Face" and "In The Night"] are outliers, and they end up making "Madness" missteps all the more jarring... In the middle of those two poles lies a series of bass-heavy throb-and-moan blasts with the signature oddness (shape-shifting melodies, twitchy percussion) that makes the Weeknd a compelling artist". April Clare Welsh of "NME" said, "He may have softened his edge, upped the production and pulled in the stars, but the Weeknd remains an outsider". Andrew Ryce of "Pitchfork" said, "In the end, enjoying the Weeknd requires a certain suspension of disbelief, and that remains true on "Beauty Behind the Madness". You really have to buy into his bad-guy persona... For newcomers, there's a whole world to explore, and on "Beauty Behind the Madness" it's richer and smarter than ever".


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: Jon Dolan of "Rolling Stone" said, "If the sound has widened and even brightened in spots, the Weeknd still rocks a serious Eeyore vibe for much of "Beauty Behind the Madness"". Harley Brown of "Spin" said, ""Beauty Behind the Madness" is front-loaded with fresh directions for the Weeknd that achieve the impossible: make it sound like he's actually enjoying himself". Andy Kellman of AllMusic said, "The commercial strides are obvious. The creative advancements are less apparent, obstructed by some unappealing measures, but they're in there". Helen Brown of "The Daily Telegraph" said, "Real Life" builds up to a pitch of doomed drama from a corrosive slash of guitar as Tesfaye confides that even his "Mama called me destructive". But Ed Sheeran fails to rescue him on the tedious "Dark Times" and Lana Del Rey—who ought to be his perfect partner in pop-noir—adds nothing but a bored spritz of vocal perfume to the lethargic "Prisoner". Andy Gill of "The Independent" said, ""Beauty Behind the Madness" leaves one feeling just as estranged from Abel Tesfaye's depraved character as previous releases boasting less adhesive tunes". Kitty Empire of "The Observer" said, "The Weeknd's most conventional songs thus far are Sheeran's boringly retro "Dark Times", and "Shameless", a guitar ballad unredeemable even by its deranged guitar solo. Elsewhere, the step up is more convincing, if not always easy to listen to".


title: Beauty Behind the Madness

text: On August 31, 2015, "Billboard" estimated that "Beauty Behind the Madness" would sell approximately 300,000 copies during the first week of its release in the United States. The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 with 412,000 album-equivalent units; it sold 326,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting its streaming activity and track sales. It marked the Weeknd's first number-one album. It remained atop the chart for the next two weeks and was the first album to spend three weeks at number one consecutively since Taylor Swift's "1989". The album also remained in the top 10 on the "Billboard" 200 for a total of 21 consecutive weeks. According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, "Beauty Behind the Madness" was the tenth best-selling album of 2015 worldwide. As of August 2017, the album has earned 3.7 million equivalent album units in the United States, of which 1.23 million are in traditional album sales. The set has also generated 2.05 billion on-demand audio streams for its songs.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the career of Presley. In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips was the owner and operator of radio stations in Memphis; Florence, Alabama; and Lake Worth Beach, Florida. He was also an early investor in the Holiday Inn chain of hotels and an advocate for racial equality, helping to break down racial barriers in the music industry.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips was the youngest of eight children, born on a 200-acre farm near Florence, Alabama to Madge Ella ( Lovelace) and Charles Tucker Phillips. Sam's parents owned their farm, though it was mortgaged. As a child, he picked cotton in the fields with his parents alongside black laborers. The experience of hearing black laborers singing in the fields left a big impression on the young Phillips. Traveling through Memphis with his family in 1939 on the way to see a preacher in Dallas, he slipped off to look at Beale Street, at the time the heart of the city's music scene. "I just fell totally in love," he later recalled.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips attended the now defunct Coffee High School in Florence. He conducted the school band and had ambitions to be a criminal defense attorney. However, his father was bankrupt by the Great Depression and died in 1941, forcing Phillips to leave high school to look after his mother and aunt. To support the family he worked in a grocery store and then a funeral parlor.


title: Sam Phillips

text: In 1942, Sam, 19, met Rebecca "Becky" Burns, 17, his future wife, while they were both working at WLAY radio station in Sheffield, Alabama. He was an announcer and she was still in high school and had a radio segment with her sister as 'The Kitchen Sisters' where they played music and sang. A January 18, 2013 article in the Alabama Chanin Journal honoring Becky quoted Sam as saying, "I fell in love with Becky's voice even before I met her." Becky described her first encounter with Sam to journalist Peter Guralnick: "He had just come in out of the rain. His hair was windblown and full of raindrops. He wore sandals and a smile unlike any I had ever seen. He sat down on the piano bench and began to talk to me. I told my family that night that I had met the man I wanted to marry." They wed in 1943 and went on to have two children in a marriage that ended in 1960. Becky Phillips died in 2012, aged 87.


title: Sam Phillips

text: In the 1940s, Phillips worked as a DJ and radio engineer for station WLAY (AM), in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. According to Phillips, the station's "open format" (of broadcasting music by white and black musicians alike) would later inspire his work in Memphis. Beginning in 1945, he worked for four years as an announcer and sound engineer for radio station WREC, in Memphis.


title: Sam Phillips

text: On January 3, 1950, Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis. He let amateurs record, which drew performers such as B.B. King, Junior Parker, and Howlin' Wolf, who made their first recordings there. Phillips then sold the recordings to larger labels.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips recorded what the music historian Peter Guralnick considered the first rock and roll record: "Rocket 88", by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, a band led by the 19-year-old Ike Turner, who also wrote the song. The recording was released in 1951 by Chess Records in Chicago. From 1950 to 1954 Phillips recorded music by James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gordon, Little Milton, Bobby Blue Bland, the Prisonaires and others.


title: Sam Phillips

text: The Memphis Recording Service also served as the studio for Phillips's own label, Sun Record Company, which he launched in 1952. Sun Records produced more rock-and-roll records than any other record label of its time during its 16-year run, producing 226 singles. Phillips recorded different styles of music, but he was interested in the blues: "The blues, it got people—black and white—to think about life, how difficult, yet also how good it can be. They would sing about it; they would pray about it; they would preach about it. This is how they relieved the burden of what existed day in and day out."


title: Sam Phillips

text: In addition to musical performances, Phillips recorded events such as weddings and funerals, selling the recordings.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips and Elvis Presley opened a new form of music. Phillips said of Presley: "Elvis cut a ballad, which was just excellent. I could tell you, both Elvis and Roy Orbison could tear a ballad to pieces. But I said to myself, 'You can't do that, Sam.' If I had released a ballad I don't think you would have heard of Elvis Presley."


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips stated of his goals, "everyone knew that I was just a struggling cat down here trying to develop new and different artists, and get some freedom in music, and tap some resources and people that weren't being tapped." He didn't care about mistakes; he cared about the feel.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips met Presley through the mediation of his longtime collaborator at the Memphis Recording Service, Marion Keisker, who was already a well-known Memphis radio personality. On 18 July 1953, the eighteen-year-old Presley dropped into the studio to record an acetate for his mother's birthday; Keisker thought she heard some talent in the young truck driver's voice, and so she turned on the tape recorder. Later, she played it for Phillips, who gradually, with Keisker's encouragement, warmed to the idea of recording Elvis.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Presley, who recorded his version of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right" at Phillips's studio, became highly successful, first in Memphis, then throughout the southern United States. He auditioned for Phillips in 1954, but it was not until he sang "That's All Right (Mama)" that Phillips was impressed. He brought the song to Dewey Phillips, a disc jockey at WHBQ 560, to play on his "Red, Hot & Blue" program. For the first six months, the flip side, "Blue Moon of Kentucky", Presley's upbeat version of a Bill Monroe bluegrass song, was slightly more popular than "That's All Right (Mama)". While still not known outside the South, Presley's singles and regional success became a drawing card for Sun Records, as singing hopefuls soon arrived from all over the region. Singers such as Sonny Burgess ("My Bucket's Got a Hole in It"), Charlie Rich, Junior Parker, and Billy Lee Riley recorded for Sun with some success, and others, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins, became stars.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips's pivotal role in the early days of rock and roll was exemplified by a celebrated jam session on December 4, 1956, with what became known as the Million Dollar Quartet. Jerry Lee Lewis was playing piano for a Carl Perkins recording session at Phillips's studio. When Elvis Presley walked in unexpectedly, Johnny Cash was called into the studio by Phillips, leading to an impromptu session featuring the four musicians. Phillips challenged the four to achieve gold record sales, offering a free Cadillac to the first, which Carl Perkins won. The contest is commemorated in a song by the Drive-By Truckers.


title: Sam Phillips

text: By the mid-1960s, Phillips rarely recorded. He built a satellite studio and opened radio stations, but the studio declined, and he sold Sun Records to Shelby Singleton in 1969. In 1977 Sam's sons, Knox and Jerry, were working with John Prine at the Phillips Recording Studio when Sam Phillips joined them to oversee recordings that were eventually included on the album "Pink Cadillac".


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips launched radio station WHER on October 29, 1955. Each of the young women who auditioned for the station assumed there would only be one female announcer position, as was the case with other stations at that time. Only a few days before the first broadcast did they learn of the all-female format. It was the first all-female radio station in the United States, as almost every position at the station was held by a woman.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Through shrewd investments, Phillips amassed a fortune. He was one of the first investors in Holiday Inn, a motel chain that was about to expand to a nationwide franchise; he became involved with the chain shortly after selling Elvis Presley's contract to RCA, for $35,000, which he multiplied many times over the years with Holiday Inn. He also created two subsidiary recording labels, Phillips International Records and Holiday Inn Records. He also owned the Sun Studio Café in Memphis. One location was in the Mall of Memphis.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips and his family founded Big River Broadcasting Corporation, which owns and operates several radio stations in the Florence, Alabama area, including WQLT-FM, WSBM, and WXFL. He also established radio station WLIZ in Lake Worth, Florida in 1959.


title: Sam Phillips

text: In 1986, Phillips was part of the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He was the first non-performer inducted. In 1987, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. He received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1991. In 1998, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, in October 2001 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2012 he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.


title: Sam Phillips

text: Phillips died of respiratory failure, aged 80, at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, on July 30, 2003, only one day before the original Sun Studio was designated a National Historic Landmark, and just over a month before the death of former Sun Records recording star Johnny Cash, on September 12, 2003. Phillips is interred in the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The Battle of 73 Easting was fought on 26 February 1991, during the Gulf War, between Coalition armored forces (US VII Corps and UK 1st Armoured Division) and Iraqi armored forces (Republican Guard and Tawakalna Division). It was named for a UTM north–south coordinate line (an "Easting", measured in kilometers and readable on GPS receivers) that was used as a phase line by Coalition forces to measure their progress through the desert. The battle was later described by Lt. John Mecca, a participant, as "the last great tank battle of the 20th century." This battle took place several hours after another, smaller, tank battle at Al Busayyah.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The main U.S. unit in the battle was the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2nd ACR), a 4,500 man reconnaissance and security element assigned to VII Corps. It consisted of three ground squadrons (1st, 2nd and 3rd), an aviation (attack helicopter) squadron (4th), and a support squadron. Each ground squadron was made up of three cavalry troops, a tank company, a self-propelled howitzer battery, and a headquarters troop. Each troop comprised 120 soldiers, 12–13 M3 Bradley fighting vehicles and nine M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks. Task Force 1-41 Infantry breached the berm on the borders between Saudi Arabia and Iraq which was the initial Iraqi defensive position and performed reconnaissance and counter reconnaissance missions prior to the 2nd ACR's actions. This generally includes destroying or repelling the Iraqis' reconnaissance elements and denying their commander any observation of friendly forces. The corps' main body consisted of the American 2nd Armored Division (Forward), 1st Armored Division (1st AD), 3rd Armored Division (3rd AD), 1st Infantry Division (1st ID), and the British 1st Armoured Division (1 AD).


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The job of the 2nd ACR was to cross the border and advance east as a forward scouting element, led by cavalry scouts in lightly armored M3A1 Bradleys with highly advanced thermals to detect enemy positions. Following closely behind were M1A1 Abrams tanks covering them from the rear, ready to move forward and engage the enemy. Originally advancing ahead of the 3rd Armored Division until late on 25 February, they shifted to the east and ahead of the advancing 1st Infantry Division as it moved north from its initial objectives. The regiment's mission was to strip away enemy security forces, clear the way of significant defenses and locate the Republican Guard's defensive positions so they could be engaged by the full weight of the armored forces and artillery of the 1st Infantry Division.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: On the night of 23/24 February, in accordance with General Norman Schwarzkopf's plan for the ground assault called "Operation Desert Sabre", VII Corps raced east from Saudi Arabia into Iraq in a wide, sweeping maneuver later described by Schwarzkopf as a "Hail Mary." The Corps had two goals: to cut off Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, and to destroy five elite Republican Guard divisions near the Iraq–Kuwait border that might attack the Arab and Marine units moving into Kuwait to the south. Initial Iraqi resistance was light and scattered after the breach, and the 2nd ACR fought only minor engagements until 25 February.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The primary battle was conducted by 2nd ACR's three squadrons of about 4,000 soldiers, along with the 1st Infantry Division's two leading brigades (2nd Armored Division (FWD)), which attacked and destroyed the Iraqi 18th Mechanized Brigade and 37th Armored Brigade of the Tawakalna Division, each consisting of between 2,500 and 3,000 personnel.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: 2nd ACR was to advance east, locate and engage the enemy, determine his dispositions, and then allow the mechanized brigades of 1st ID to pass through to finish destroying the Iraqis. 2nd ACR's limit of advance changed during the operation. VII Corps Fragmentary Plan Seven, issued during the night of 25–26 February, made 60 Easting 2nd ACR's initial limit of advance. After 2nd ACR made contact with the Republican Guard's security zone, Corps changed the limit to 70 Easting. Along that line, 1st ID would pass through 2nd ACR and push on to objectives further east. VII Corps commander Lieutenant General Frederick M. Franks Jr. ordered 2nd ACR commander Colonel Don Holder to locate the enemy but avoid becoming decisively engaged.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: 2nd ACR's three armored cavalry squadrons deployed in line, with Second Squadron in the north, Third Squadron in the center, and First Squadron in the south. Fourth Squadron (the combat aviation squadron) flew reconnaissance and attack missions chiefly in the northern and central zones. Weather restricted flight operations severely, however, and kept Fourth Squadron grounded for about half of the daylight hours. Unusually for a corps covering force, 2nd ACR lacked a reserve tank or mechanized infantry battalion.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Moving through the Republican Guards' security area on the morning of the 26th undetected, 2nd ACR encountered the Tawakalna Division and 12th Iraqi Armored Division in a line facing them with Tawakalna in the north and 12th AD in the center and south. All Iraqi units occupied well-constructed defensive emplacements and had prepared alternate positions which enabled them to reorient to the west to face VII Corps's attack. 12th AD's assignment to the Republican Guard was not known at the time of the engagement.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Despite extensive aerial and artillery bombardment by U.S. forces, most Iraqi units defending along 70 Easting remained effective. 2nd ACR employed artillery fire from the supporting 210th Field Artillery Brigade, C Battery 4th 27th FA MLRS, air strikes, and attack helicopters (both Apaches of 2-1 Aviation and Cobras of Fourth Squadron) against the Republican Guard units as the armored cavalry squadrons moved east through the security zone. Sandstorms slowed this movement throughout the day, restricting visibility to as little as .


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: During the period of 23 February 1991 the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, with its attached operational control, attacked into Southern Iraq in the lead of VII Corps with such audacity that the Dragoon Battle Group quickly overwhelmed superior enemy forces, demoralizing them and taking hundreds of enemy prisoners. The 2nd and 3rd Squadrons of the regiment destroyed two brigades of the Iraqi Republican Guards Tawakalna Division. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd ACR alone contributed 55 Iraqi tanks destroyed, 45 other armored vehicles, an equal number of trucks, hundreds of Iraqi infantry KIA, and 865 Iraqi soldiers taken prisoner.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: As part of the First Infantry Division (Mechanized) and VII Corps main effort, Task Force 3-37th Armor breached the Iraqi defense on 24 February 1991, clearing four passage lanes and expanding the gap under direct enemy fire. The Task Force then attacked 300 kilometers across southern Iraq into northern Kuwait, severing Iraqi lines of communication, and then drove north once again into Iraq to assist in the seizure of the City of Safwan, Iraq, and the securing of the Safwan Airfield for the Coalition Forces–Iraqi cease-fire negotiations. During the operation, over 50 enemy combat vehicles were destroyed and over 1,700 prisoners were captured.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: 2d ACR began the 26th of February on the VII Corps Objective SMASH still oriented to the northeast. In the early morning hours, Lt. Colonel Scott Marcy's Third Squadron fought companies of the Iraqi 50th Armored Brigade, which had moved into the regiment's southern area to confirm reports that allied units were in the vicinity.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: At 0522 the regiment received Corps Frag Plan Seven, which adjusted its zone and objective and directed all Corps units to move east to attack units of the Republican Guard. The order adjusted the boundary between 2ACR and the 1st UK Armoured Division to the south and the early movements of the day involved re-orienting the regiment's squadrons and coordinating with 1st UK Armored Division along the new boundary, the 80 Northing.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The aviation squadron led by Lt. Colonel Don Olson established a screen along the 50 Easting by 7 a.m., and by 8 a.m. the armored cavalry squadrons had moved into their new zones. Third Squadron, operating in the center, destroyed a T-72 tank before 8 a.m., establishing the first ground contact with the Iraqi Republican Guard's Tawakalna Division. All three squadrons were in contact with security forces by 9 a.m. but a violent sandstorm blew into the area and movement to the regiment's limit of advance, the 60 Easting, took until 11 a.m.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Air cavalry operations ceased just after 9 a.m. and would not resume until afternoon. Lt. Colonel Tony Isaac's First Squadron meanwhile encountered scattered enemy positions in the south and by noon had reported destroying 23 T-55 tanks, 25 armored personnel carriers, six artillery pieces and numerous trucks. Lt. Colonel Mike Kobbe's Second Squadron troops all reported resistance from small Tawakalna Division security outposts while Third Squadron destroyed similar outposts in the Regimental center. Lt. Gen. Franks visited the regiment's main command post just before 1 p.m. There, the regimental executive officer, Lt. Colonel Roger Jones, and the S2, Major Steve Campbell, briefed him on the situation and informed him that sensors were reporting movement of tracked vehicles to the north out of the regiment's zone.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: By 3 p.m. Third Armored Division had reached the 50 Easting and begun to move abreast of the regiment to the north. First Infantry Division's movement to join the fight was taking longer than expected, however. Lt. General Franks therefore directed the Second Armored Cavalry to continue its attack as far as the 70 Easting and to make contact with the Republican Guard's main defenses and prevent their movement. At the same time, he ordered the regiment to avoid becoming decisively engaged (meaning to refrain from committing all its maneuver forces and thereby losing freedom of action).


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Colonel Holder issued a Fragmentary Order at 3:20 to comply with the Corps Commander's directive and by 3:45 Second Squadron's E and G Troops were in contact with well-organized defenses of the Tawakalna Division. At the same time the Third and First squadrons in the center and south moved to clear their zones, encountering T-72s in Third Squadron's north and T-62 and T-55 tanks of the Iraqi 12th Armored Division further south.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Fourth Squadron's air scouts rejoined the operation as the weather cleared around 3 p.m. Air scouts identified enemy defenses to the front of Second and Third Squadrons and attack helicopters struck several of the security outposts.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: By 16:10, further south near the east–west UTM coordinate line 00 Northing, 2nd ACR's E- ("Eagle") Troop received fire from an Iraqi dismounted outpost, a dug-in Iraqi ZSU-23-4 and several occupied buildings in an Iraqi village. The American scouts returned fire with their tanks and Bradleys, silenced the Iraqi guns, took prisoners, and continued east. They advanced three more kilometers east to the 70 Easting line. More enemy fire came in and was immediately returned.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The Battle of 73 Easting refers narrowly to the violent armored combat action that took place in the final hours of 2nd ACR's covering force operation in the zone of Second Squadron and in the northern third of the Third Squadron zone. In the battle, four of the 2nd ACR's armored cavalry troops, Troops E, G, and I with Troop K contributing to I Troop's fight (totaling about 36 M1A1 tanks), defeated two enemy brigades, the Tawakalna Division's 18th Brigade and, later in the day, the 9th Armored Brigade.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The defending Iraqi forces, elements of Tawakalna's 18th Mechanized Brigade and the 12th Armored Division's 9th Armored Brigade, had arrived in their positions on the evening of 24 February and had oriented to the west to protect the main supply route, the IPSA pipeline Road, just to their rear. The Iraqi resistance that 2ACR met on the previous day had been from the 50th Armored Brigade whose mission had been to cover the preparation of that defense.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The Battle was part of the larger operation and, as it went on, the Third and First Squadron troops in the southern part of the zone continued to fight through the security area of the Republican Guard and fix enemy units of the 12th Armored Division. First Squadron, the regiment's southernmost squadron cleared its zone of remnants of the 50th Armored Brigade before making contact with the 37th Brigade of the 12th Iraqi Armored Division, fighting to the south of the Tawakalna Division. Scout and attack helicopters of Fourth Squadron and 2-1 Aviation Battalion (AH-64 Apache) supported the fight as weather allowed.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The regiment moved from the 60 Easting with eight of its nine cavalry troops generally abreast of each other. (Lt. Colonel Kobbe had pulled his Troop F out of the Second Squadron's leading echelon when his zone narrowed.) The operation escalated into a full-out battle as E Troop (call sign "Eagle") maneuvered to the 70 Easting around 3:45 p.m. Heavy combat then spread to the south as I Troop of the Third Squadron closed the gap between the two squadrons and joined the fight. G Troop's attack to the north of Captain H. R. McMaster's E Troop made contact with defending units farther east and combat there became intense around 16:45  Fighting continued into darkness as the Iraqi division commander reinforced the 18th Brigade with his 9th Armored Brigade in the G Troop zone.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: At 16:10  Eagle Troop received fire from an Iraqi infantry position in a cluster of buildings at UTM PU 6801. Eagle Troop Abrams and Bradleys returned fire, silenced the Iraqi guns, took prisoners, and continued east with the two tank platoons leading. The 9 M1A1 tanks of Eagle Troop destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and 30 trucks in 23 minutes with no American losses.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: At about 16:20 Eagle crested a low rise and surprised an Iraqi tank company set up in a reverse slope defence on the 70 Easting. Captain McMaster, leading the attack, immediately engaged that position, destroying the first of the eight enemy tanks to his front. His two tank platoons finished the rest.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Three kilometers to the east McMaster could see T-72s in prepared positions. Continuing his attack past the 70 limit of advance, he fought his way through an infantry defensive position and on to high ground along the 74 Easting. There he encountered and destroyed another enemy tank unit of eighteen T-72s. In that action the Iraqis stood their ground and attempted to maneuver against the troop. This was the first determined defense the regiment had encountered in its three days of operations. Still, the Iraqi troops had been surprised because of the inclement weather and were quickly destroyed by the better trained and better equipped American troops.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: After defeating that force, McMaster sent a scout platoon of two Bradleys north to regain contact with Troop G. In doing that the scout platoon encountered another Iraqi tank position of thirteen T-72s. The lightly armored Bradleys, each equipped only with a 25-mm cannon and two TOW missiles, are intended for reconnaissance, not direct engagement with armored tanks. Despite a misfire, and having to reload the launchers in the face of the enemy, the two Bradleys destroyed 5 tanks before help arrived.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Other 2nd ACR Troops I (call sign "Iron"), K ("Killer"), and G ("Ghost") joined the fight minutes later. Iron Troop of Third Squadron had halted around the 67 Easting to control the limit of advance with its tank cannon. As the troop moved north to secure its northern boundary around 16:45, it came under fire from the same group of buildings E Troop had fought through an hour earlier.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Captain Dan Miller, commanding I Troop, silenced the resistance with return fire and then attacked to the 70 Easting. There he confronted T-72s in defensive positions south of those that E Troop had just destroyed. With initial support from Captain Mac Haszard's K Troop, Miller's tanks destroyed sixteen enemy tanks on that position and then attacked through it. Just beyond the defenses, I Troop observed another formation of enemy tanks moving in its direction and attacked it with tank and TOW fire. During that engagement, TOW missile fire from a K Troop Bradley struck and destroyed an I Troop Bradley, wounding all three crewmen. Before returning to positions along the 70 Easting, I Troop located the defending battalion's command post and destroyed its command bunker and security forces.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: By 16:40, Captain Joe Sartiano's G Troop had gained a position on a ridge overlooking a wadi at and parallel to the 73 Easting, north of E Troop. As the regiment's northernmost unit, G Troop secured an open flank until the 3rd Armored Division's cavalry squadron arrived to occupy its own positions along the 70 Easting.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Sartiano's men engaged Iraqi 18th Brigade tanks that initially were in defensive positions. Very quickly, however, G Troop found itself facing counterattacks by tank units of the Tawakalna Division and the Iraqi 12th Armored Division. Additionally, other Iraqi units attempted to retreat to the north along the wadi, which led them directly into G Troop's position.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: By 18:30, the first of several waves of Iraqi T-72 and T-55 tanks advanced into the wadi. Fierce fighting ensued as wave after wave of tanks and infantry charged the troop. Combat became so intense at times that only massed artillery and mortar fires, attack helicopters and Air Force close air support prevented the enemy from closing with G Troop. At one point a Military Intelligence (MI) Platoon from the 2nd ACR's 502nd MI Company had to suspend its signal intelligence operation and return the fire of Iraqi soldiers who exited a burning BMP-1 and continued to attack.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: During the fierce six-hour battle, the G Troop fire support team called in 720 howitzer and MLRS rounds, while using its own mortars continually to turn back attackers at close range. By 21:00, G Troop had expended nearly half of its TOW missiles and was becoming short of 25mm and 120mm cannon ammunition. To remedy the emergency, Lt Colonel Kobbe sent his tank company, Captain Bruce Tyler's Company H ("Hawk"), to relieve the troop. By then, G Troop had destroyed "at least two companies of Iraqi armor. Hundreds of Iraqi infantrymen and their lightly armored transporters lay scattered on the wadi floor."


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: G Troop lost one M3 Bradley to Iraqi IFV fire and one soldier, Sergeant Nels A. Moller, the gunner of the Bradley, was killed. The Bradley's TOW launcher was inoperative, and the 25mm Bushmaster Cannon had jammed. While the crew was attempting to get the cannon back in action, an Iraqi BMP-1, thought to have been disabled by a tank shell, punched through the Bradley's armor, fired and hit the vehicle's turret with 73 mm cannon fire. Moller died instantly and the remainder of the crew evacuated the damaged vehicle.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Artillery fire and air strikes played a large role in the battle, especially in the far north. In direct support of 2nd ACR, Colonel Garrett Bourne's 210th FA Brigade fired missions out to the 78 Easting. Close air support missions struck targets in greater depth, preventing some Iraqi units from closing with G Troop or escaping the battle area. Attack helicopters flew in support of air scouts at key intervals during the day and the 2-1 Aviation Battalion's Apache helicopters, led by Lt. Colonel John Ward, destroyed two batteries of enemy artillery and struck march units along the IPSA Pipeline Road at 16:30, just as the battle began in earnest.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: In total, the Regimental Fire Support Officer reported employing 1,382 rounds of 155mm howitzer ammunition (high explosive, dual-purpose improved munitions and rocket assisted HE projectiles) and 147 MLRS rockets on 26 February. The 210th FA Brigade Commander estimated that his two FA battalions and single MLRS, C Battery 4th 27th FA, destroyed 17 tanks, seven APCs, six artillery pieces and around 70 other vehicles. The number of vehicles damaged by artillery was greater. The number of enemy infantry casualties caused by indirect fire proved impossible to determine but almost certainly exceeded the thirty infantrymen claimed.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Sporadic fire continued throughout the night but no major engagements occurred after 22:00. The regiment used artillery fire and some close air support between the end of active fighting and the arrival of the 1st Infantry Division at the line of contact.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Based on the intelligence gained during the battle, Colonel Holder advised the Corps Commander that the 1st Infantry Division should pass through the southern units of the regiment. Committing the division in that area would keep it clear of the chaotic post-battle conditions to the north and, more importantly, would steer the main attack around now-known positions of the Republican Guard divisions.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Lt. General Franks accepted that recommendation and, beginning around 02:00, two brigades of the 1st Infantry Division passed through the regiment's positions along the 70 Easting. When the division had completed passage of all its combat units around 6 a.m., the Second Cavalry Regiment became part of VII Corps' reserve.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The 2nd and 3rd Squadrons of the 2nd ACR destroyed two brigades of the Iraqi Republican Guards Tawakalna Division in the Battle of 73 Easting. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd ACR alone contributed 55 Iraqi tanks destroyed, 45 other armored vehicles, an equal number of trucks, hundreds of Iraqi infantry KIA, and 865 Iraqi soldiers taken prisoner. The 2nd Cavalry Regiment also captured 2,000 prisoners, destroyed 159 enemy tanks, and 260 other vehicles. The regiment's losses include 6 dragoons killed, and 19 wounded. The 2nd Cavalry Regiment would travel over 155 miles during combat operations.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: On 26 February the U.S. 3rd Armored Division faced the highly touted Republican Guard "Tawakalna" Division, the Iraqi 52nd Armored Division and elements of the 17th and the 10th Armored Divisions. The division engaged in full scale tank battles for the first time since World War II, and as one of the division's veterans states "There was more than enough action for everyone".


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: After over 300 kilometers movement to contact the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Armored Division engaged enemy forces in prepared defensive positions, engaging the enemy with direct fire, massive artillery and Army aviation. The 2nd Brigade, 3rd Armored Division destroyed the first lines of defense and an attempted armored counterattack.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division engaged enemy forces in a large bunker complex with direct and indirect fires. 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division's battle formation sliced through successive enemy defensive belts, destroying armored vehicles with marching fires and capturing hundreds of prisoners.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Action continued after nightfall, and by 1840 hours, the ground and air elements of the 3rd AD could report over 20 tanks, 14 APCs, several trucks and some artillery pieces destroyed. That same evening, the 4th Battalion, 32d Armor lost the division's first casualties in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle to 25mm cannon fire – with two soldiers killed and three wounded. During the night, both darkness and sandstorms hampered soldiers' visibility, but thermal sighting systems on board the M1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradleys allowed gunners to knock out Iraqi targets.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The U.S. 1st Armored Division and the 3rd Armored Division had destroyed over 76 Iraqi tanks and 84 infantry fighting vehicles by the end of the battle.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Task Force 1-41 Infantry served at the Battle of 73 Easting with the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) along with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. They were responsible for destroying the Iraqi 18th Mechanized and 9th Armored Brigades of the Republican Guard Tawakalna Mechanized Infantry Division and the Iraqi 26th Infantry Division. The Tawakalna Republican Guard Division was Iraq's most powerful division which included approximately 14,000 soldiers, 220 T-72 tanks, 284 infantry fighting vehicles, 126 artillery pieces, and 18 MLRS. In moving to and through the Battle of 73 Easting, 2nd ACR and the 1st Infantry division's lead brigades, which included Task Force 1-41, destroyed 160 tanks, 180 personnel carriers, 12 artillery pieces and more than 80 wheeled vehicles, along with several anti-aircraft artillery systems during the battle.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: By 22:30, the battle at 2nd ACR's front, at 74 Easting, was ending with most of the engaged Iraqi elements burning or destroyed as the 1st Infantry Division began its forward passage of lines. The 1st Infantry Division passed through the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's line in total darkness and continued to advance on Objective Norfolk, an area encompassing the intersection of the IPSA Pipeline Road, several desert trails, and a large Iraqi supply depot. Now, instead of three armored cavalry squadrons, the Iraqi 18th and 37th Armored Brigades faced six heavy battalions of American tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and another six battalions of 155 mm field artillery. At approximately 23:30, yet another encounter took place: Lt Colonel Taylor Jones's 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor, of Task Force 1-41 Infantry ran into an Iraqi tank battalion equipped with T-55s. As before, the Iraqis did not run or surrender, but manned their vehicles and weapons to face the advancing Americans. Initially, many American units advanced past Iraqi tanks and crews, who were in shelters or had not yet turned on their engines and so did not appear to be threats in the American crew's thermal sights.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: A slightly disoriented Bradley platoon, attempting to follow the M1 tanks, moved across the front of these Iraqi positions, illuminated by burning vehicles behind them. The Iraqis took advantage of this excellent target and opened fire from three directions. The initial volley hit a Bradley, killing three American soldiers. An American tank company trailing the lead units observed the Iraqi fire and joined the melee, quickly destroying three T-55s before they could get off another shot. At the same time, several small antitank rockets hit the Bradley platoon. From the perspective of the tank gunners looking through the thermal sights of the approaching M1 tanks, these flashes appeared to be T-55 tanks shooting at them. The American gunners, convinced they were fighting against a determined enemy, opened fire and hit three more Bradleys. The brigade commander, Colonel David Weisman, decided to pull the battalions back, consolidate, and use his artillery to destroy the aggressive Iraqi infantry.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The forces involved in the battle were the American 1st Infantry Division, the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division (fwd) (Hell on Wheels) and the Iraqi 18th Mechanized and 9th Armored Brigades of the Republican Guard Tawakalna Mechanized Infantry Division along with elements from eleven other Iraqi divisions including the Iraqi 26th, 48th, 31st, and 25th Infantry Divisions. The Iraqi 52nd Armored Division was also present. The British fielded their 1st Armoured Division.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: Task Force 1-41 Infantry was the spearhead of the American assault into Objective Norfolk. The Iraqis halted the 1st Infantry Division's initial push into their sector only temporarily. By 00:30, 27 February, the two attacking brigades of the 1st Infantry Division were positioned along the 75 Easting, 2,000 meters east of 73 Easting. In what has since been dubbed the Battle of Norfolk, they crossed the remaining ten kilometers to their objective, Objective Norfolk, over the next three hours. Elements of approximately 11 Iraqi divisions were engaged and destroyed. By dawn, the 1st Infantry Division had taken Objective Norfolk and the fight shifted away from the 73 Easting area to 1st Armored Division's attack to the north, started at 20:00 on 26 February, and the 3rd Armored Division attack just to the south of the 1st Division.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The British 1st Armoured division was responsible for protecting the right flank of VII Corps. It was assumed by the corps' planners the Iraqi 52nd Armored Division counterattacked VII Corps once their penetration into Iraqi defenses was discovered. The British 1st Armoured Division had two brigades which participated in Operation Desert Storm, the 4th and 7th Brigades. They both rotated responsibilities as the lead brigade. The 1st Armoured was equipped with the Challenger main battle tank. With a 120mm rifled main gun, thermal optics, and Chobham armor, its only rival in theatre was the American M1A1 Abrams tank. British infantry rode into battle on the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle. It had reasonable armor protection and a 30-mm gun. Modified versions of the vehicle included mortar carriers, Milan antitank systems, and command and control vehicles; and the British possessed a variety of excellent light armored vehicles built on their Scorpion chassis. British artillery was primarily American made M-109s (155mm), M110s (203mm), and MLRS systems which were compatible with American systems. Their air support consisted of Gazelle helicopters, used for reconnaissance, and the Lynx helicopter. The British had their full contingent of engineer, logistics, and medical units.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: This division was commanded by forty-seven-year-old Maj. General Rupert Smith. He was a member of the British Parachute Regiment and he was an expert on Soviet armor and tank tactics. His division had two brigades at its disposal. The 4th Brigade, reinforced with extra engineers and artillery, was used for breakout operations and to clear the ground at the breach. The armor-heavy 7th Brigade was used for tank-on-tank engagements.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: On 25 February 1991 the 1st Armoured Division smashed into the western flank of the Iraqi 48th Infantry Division which was commanded by Brig. General Saheb Mohammed Alaw. That night the 48th Infantry Division was destroyed and General Alaw was captured by the British. That same night the British cleared two lines of enemy positions during close combat engagements. The British also destroyed several Iraqi companies of T-55 tanks. That same night other elements of the division were engaging the Iraqi 31st Infantry Division.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: On 26 February 1991 British artillery units unleashed an hour long artillery strike on Iraqi positions. It was the greatest British artillery display since World War II. That same night the British 7th Brigade fought a night tank battle against an Iraqi tank battalion from the Iraqi 52nd Armored Division. After ninety minutes of battle over 50 Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers were destroyed. That same night the British 4th Brigade destroyed a headquarters and artillery site belonging to the 807th Brigade of the Iraqi 48th Infantry Division. British infantry units cleared Iraqi defensive positions which were occupied by the Iraqi 803rd Infantry Brigade. After 48 hours of combat, the British 1st Armoured Division assisted in destroying or isolating four Iraqi infantry divisions (the 26th, 48th, 31st, and 25th) and had defeated the Iraqi 52nd Armored Division in several sharp engagements. By midnight there was no more organized Iraqi resistance between the 1st Armoured Division and the Persian Gulf. On this day, a British Army Challenger 1 scored the longest tank-to-tank 'kill' in military history, when it destroyed an Iraqi T-55 at a range of 4.7 km (2.9 miles) with an APDS round.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: On 27 February 1991 the British 1st Armoured Division secured the final objectives on the Basra Highway north of Multa Ridge. The British 1st Armoured Division had traveled 217 miles in 97 hours. The 1st Armoured Division had captured or destroyed about 200 tanks and a very large number of armoured personnel carriers, trucks, reconnaissance vehicles, etc.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The Battle of 73 Easting and the movement to contact south of the battle brought the regiment's covering force mission for VII Corps to its conclusion. During the operation the regiment covered the advance of three different U.S. divisions in turn, moved 120 miles in eighty-two hours and fought elements of five Iraqi Divisions. The violent battle at 73 Easting fixed the southern forces of the Iraqi Republican Guard Corps and permitted the Corps Commander to launch First Infantry Division into the depths of the Iraqi defenses and on into Kuwait.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The 2nd ACR, which advanced between the Iraqi 12th Armored Division and the Tawakalna Division, was the only American ground unit to find itself significantly outnumbered and out-gunned. Yet, the 2nd ACR was very efficient. The 2nd Squadron, 2nd ACR alone contributed 55 Iraqi tanks destroyed, 45 other armored vehicles, an equal number of trucks, hundreds of Iraqi infantry KIA, and 865 Iraqi soldiers taken prisoner.


title: Battle of 73 Easting

text: The Battle of 73 Easting has been recognized as the 6th largest tank battle in American history. It is considered the 3rd largest battle of the Gulf War, however, it has received more recognition than any of the other Gulf War battles; mostly due to the fact it has received more media coverage due to the multiple publications written about this specific battle and the multiple interviews given over the years by retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who participated as operations officer of 2nd Squadron 2nd ACR.


title: Yen Press

text: Yen Press, LLC is an American manga and graphic novel publisher co-owned by Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group. It published "Yen Plus", a monthly comic anthology, between 2008 and 2013. In addition to translated material, Yen Press has published original series, most notably a manga adaptation of James Patterson's "Maximum Ride" and Svetlana Chmakova's "Nightschool".


title: Yen Press

text: Yen Press was founded in 2006 by former Borders Group buyer Kurt Hassler and DC Comics VP Rich Johnson. In July 2007, it was announced that Yen Press was to absorb ICEkunion, a Korean publisher that had been publishing manhwa in the United States. While the manga titles bearing ICEkunion's label would be continued to be sold in stores, subsequent printings would bear the Yen Press logo. Hassler assured fans, "We plan to pick up all the existing [ICEkunion] titles...We're going to continue everything, so fans shouldn't worry. None of these series are going to fall into a void."


title: Yen Press

text: The first issue of Yen Press's comic magazine "Yen Plus" was published on July 29, 2008. The magazine became online-only in 2010 and was discontinued altogether in 2013.


title: Yen Press

text: In 2009, Yen Press announced that it had acquired the rights to Kiyohiko Azuma's manga "Yotsuba&!" and "Azumanga Daioh" from their former licensee, A.D. Vision. In September 2009, Yen Press reissued the first five volumes of "Yotsuba&!", in addition to publishing the sixth volume; "Azumanga Daioh" was reissued with a new translation in December 2009.


title: Yen Press

text: On April 11, 2016, it was announced that Yen Press would function as a joint venture between Hachette Book Group and major Japanese publisher Kadokawa Dwango, with Kadokawa owning 51% of the company.


title: Yen Press

text: In 2017, Yen Press launched JY, an imprint for publishing graphic novels aimed towards middle grade readers.


title: Yen Press

text: On April 15, 2022, Yen Press, in collaboration with REDICE Studio and RIVERSE, launched Ize Press, an imprint for publishing Korean webtoons and novels, with their first titles being, "7Fates: Chakho", "Dark Moon", and "The Star Seekers" all written and illustrated by HYBE in collaboration with BTS, Enhypen, and Tomorrow X Together respectively. Other titles included were "Tomb Raider King", "The World After the Fall", "The Boxer", "My Gently Raised Beasts", "The Remarried Empress", and "Villains Are Destined to Die".


title: Yen Press

text: At Anime NYC 2022, J-Novel Club announced its partnership with Yen Press in order to print their titles.


title: Yen Press

text: † - Digital distribution rights only due to being a Square Enix title. Viz Media has the rights for series' paperback releases.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is the United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction (not sovereignty) of the United States. The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at above sea level. It is administered by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, specifically the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). It is named in honor of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Briton Robert F. Scott, who led separate teams that raced to become the first to the pole in the early 1900s.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The original Amundsen–Scott Station was built by Navy Seabees for the federal government of the United States during November 1956, as part of its commitment to the scientific goals of the International Geophysical Year, an effort lasting from January 1957 through June 1958 to study, among other things, the geophysics of the polar regions of Earth.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Before November 1956, there was no permanent artificial structure at the pole, and practically no human presence in the interior of Antarctica. The few scientific stations in Antarctica were near its coast. The station has been continuously occupied since it was built and has been rebuilt, expanded, and upgraded several times.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The station is the only inhabited place on the surface of the Earth from which the Sun is continuously visible for six months; it is then continuously dark for the next six months, with approximately two days of averaged dark and light, twilight, namely the equinoxes. These are, in observational terms, called one extremely long "day" and one equally long "night". During the six-month "day", the angle of elevation of the Sun above the horizon varies incrementally. The Sun reaches a rising position throughout the September equinox, and then it is apparent highest at the December solstice which is summer solstice for the south, setting on the March equinox.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the six-month polar night, air temperatures can drop below and blizzards are more frequent. Between these storms, and regardless of the weather for wavelengths unaffected by drifting snow, the roughly months of ample darkness and dry atmosphere make the station an excellent site for astronomical observations.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The number of scientific researchers and members of the support staff housed at the Amundsen–Scott Station has always varied seasonally, with a peak population of around 200 in the summer operational season from October to February. In recent years the wintertime population has been around 50 people.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The station was constructed by U.S. Navy Seabees led by LTJG Richard Bowers, the eight-man Advance Party being transported by the VX-6 Air Squadron in two R4Ds on November 20, 1956. The U.S. Eighteenth Air Force's C-124 Globemaster IIs airdropped most of the equipment and building material. The buildings were constructed from prefabricated four-by-eight-foot modular panels. Exterior surfaces were thick, with an aluminum interior surface, and a plywood exterior surface, sandwiching fiberglass. Skylights were the only windows in flat uniform roof levels, while buildings were connected by a burlap and chicken wire covered tunnel system. The last of the construction crew departed on January 4, 1957. The first wintering-over party consisted of eight IGY scientists led by Paul Siple and eight Navy support men led by LTJG John Tuck. Key components of the camp included an astronomical observatory, a Rawin Tower, a weather balloon inflation shelter, and a 1000-foot snow tunnel with pits for a seismometer and magnetometer. The lowest average temperatures recorded by the group were in the -90s °F, though as Siple points out, "even at -60° I had seen men spitting blood because the capillaries of the bronchial tract frosted".


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On January 3, 1958, Sir Edmund Hillary's team from New Zealand, part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, reached the station over land from Scott Base, followed shortly by Sir Vivian Fuchs' British scientific component.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The buildings of Old Pole were assembled from prefabricated components delivered to the South Pole by air and airdropped. They were originally built on the surface, with covered wood-framed walkways connecting the buildings. Although snow accumulation in open areas at the South Pole is approximately per year, wind-blown snow accumulates much more quickly in the vicinity of raised structures. By 1960, three years after the construction of the station, it had already been buried by of snow.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The station was abandoned in 1975 and became deeply buried, with the pressure causing the mostly wooden roof to cave in. The station was demolished in December 2010, after an equipment operator fell through the structure doing snow stability testing for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The area was being vetted for use as a campground for NGO guests.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The station was moved in 1975 to the newly constructed Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome wide by high, with steel archways. One served as the entry to the dome and it had a transverse arch that contained modular buildings for the station's maintenance, fuel bladders, power plant, snow melter, equipment and vehicles. Individual buildings within the dome contained the dorms, galley, recreational center, post office and labs for monitoring the upper and lower atmosphere and numerous other complex projects in astronomy and astrophysics. The station also included the Skylab, a box-shaped tower slightly taller than the dome. Skylab was connected to the Dome by a tunnel. The Skylab housed atmospheric sensor equipment and later a music room.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the 1970–1974 summers, the Seabees constructing the dome were housed in Korean War era Jamesway huts. A hut consists of a wooden frame with a raised platform covered by canvas tarp. A double-doored vestibule was at each end. Although heated, the heat was not sufficient to keep them habitable during the winter. After several burned during the 1976–1977 summer, the construction camp was abandoned and later removed.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: However, in the 1981–1982 season, extra civilian seasonal personnel were housed in a group of Jamesways known as the "summer camp". Initially consisting of only two huts, the camp grew to 11 huts housing about 10 people each, plus two recreational huts with bathroom and gym facilities. In addition, a number of science and berthing structures, such as the hypertats and elevated dormitory, were added in the 1990s, particularly for astronomy and astrophysics.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the period in which the dome served as the main station, many changes to United States South Pole operation took place. From the 1990s on, astrophysical research conducted at the South Pole took advantage of its favorable atmospheric conditions and began to produce important scientific results. Such experiments include the Python, Viper, and DASI telescopes, as well as the South Pole Telescope. The DASI telescope has since been decommissioned and its mount used for the Keck Array. The AMANDA / IceCube experiment makes use of the two-mile (3 km)-thick ice sheet to detect neutrinos which have passed through the earth. An observatory building, the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory (MAPO), was dedicated in 1995. The importance of these projects changed the priorities in station operation, increasing the status of scientific cargo and personnel.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The 1998–1999 summer season was the last year that VXE-6 with its Lockheed LC-130s serviced the U.S. Antarctic Program. Beginning in 1999–2000, the New York Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing took responsibility for the daily cargo and passenger flights between McMurdo Station and the South Pole during the summer.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the winter of 1988 a loud crack was heard in the dome. Upon investigation it was discovered that the foundation base ring beams were broken due to being overstressed.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The dome was dismantled in late 2009. It was crated and given to the Seabees. They have it in storage at Port Hueneme, California. The center oculus is suspended in a display at the Seabee Museum there.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In 1992, the design of a new station began for an building with two floor levels that cost US$150 million. Construction began in 1999, adjacent to the Dome. The facility was officially dedicated on January 12, 2008, with a ceremony that included the de-commissioning of the old Dome station. The ceremony was attended by a number of dignitaries flown in specifically for the day, including National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement, scientist Susan Solomon and other government officials. The entirety of building materials to complete the build of the new South Pole Station were flown in from McMurdo Station by the LC-130 Hercules aircraft and the 139th Airlift Squadron Stratton Air National Guard Base, Scotia, New York. Each plane brought of cargo each flight with the total weight of the building material being .


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The new station included a modular design, to accommodate rises in population, and an adjustable elevation to prevent it from being buried in snow. Since roughly of snow accumulates every year without ever thawing, the building's designers included rounded corners and edges around the structure to help reduce snow drifts. The building faces into the wind with a sloping lower portion of wall. The angled wall increases the wind speed as it flows under the buildings, and passes above the snow-pack, causing the snow to be scoured away. This prevents the building from being quickly buried. Wind tunnel tests show that scouring will continue to occur until the snow level reaches the second floor.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Because snow gradually settles over time under its own weight, the foundations of the building were designed to accommodate substantial differential settling over any one wing in any one line or any one column. If differential settling continues, the supported structure will need to be jacked up and re-leveled. The facility was designed with the primary support columns outboard of the exterior walls so that the entire building can be jacked up a full floor level. During this process, a new section of column will be added over the existing columns then the jacks pull the building up to the higher elevation.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the summer the station population is typically around 150. Most personnel leave by the middle of February, leaving a few dozen (39 in 2021) "winter-overs", mostly support staff plus a few scientists, who keep the station functional through the months of Antarctic night. The winter personnel are isolated between mid-February and late October. Wintering-over presents notorious dangers and stresses, as the station population is almost totally isolated. The station is completely self-sufficient during the winter, and powered by three generators running on JP-8 jet fuel. An annual tradition is a back-to-back-to-back viewing of "The Thing from Another World" (1951), "The Thing" (1982), and "The Thing" (2011) after the last flight has left for the winter.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Research at the station includes glaciology, geophysics, meteorology, upper atmosphere physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and biomedical studies. In recent years, most of the winter scientists have worked for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory or for low-frequency astronomy experiments such as the South Pole Telescope and BICEP2. The low temperature and low moisture content of the polar air, combined with the altitude of over , causes the air to be far more transparent on some frequencies than is typical elsewhere, and the months of darkness permit sensitive equipment to run constantly.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: There is a small greenhouse at the station. The variety of vegetables and herbs in the greenhouse, which range from fresh eggplant to jalapeños, are all produced hydroponically, using only water and nutrients and no soil. The greenhouse is the only source of fresh fruit and vegetables during the winter.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The station has a runway for aircraft , long. Between October and February, there are several flights per day of U.S. Air Force ski-equipped Lockheed LC-130 Hercules aircraft from the New York Air National Guard, 109 AW, 139AS Stratton Air National Guard via McMurdo Station to supply the station. Resupply missions are collectively termed Operation Deep Freeze.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: There is a snow road over the ice sheet from McMurdo, the McMurdo-South Pole highway, which is 995 miles (1601 km) long.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Data access to the station is provided by NASA's TDRS-4, 5, and 6 satellites, the DOD DSCS-3 satellite, and the commercial Iridium satellite constellation. For the 2007–2008 season, the TDRS relay (named South Pole TDRSS Relay or SPTR) was upgraded to support a data return rate of 50 Mbit/s, which comprises over 90% of the data return capability. The TDRS-1 satellite formerly provided services to the station, but it failed in October 2009 and was subsequently decommissioned. Marisat and LES9 were also formerly used. In July 2016, the GOES-3 satellite was decommissioned due to it nearing the end of its supply of propellant and was replaced by the use of the DSCS-3 satellite, a military communications satellite. DSCS-3 can provide a 30 MB/s data rate compared to GOES-3's 1.5 MB/s. DSCS-3 and TDRS-4, 5, and 6 are used together to provide the main communications capability for the station. These satellites provide the data uplink for the station's scientific data as well as provide broadband internet and telecommunications access. Only during the main satellite events is the station's telephone system able to dial out. The commercial Iridium satellite is used when the TDRS and DSCS satellites are all out of range to give the station limited communications capability during those times. During those times, telephone calls may only be made on several Iridium satellite telephone sets owned by the station. The station's IT system also has a limited data uplink over the Iridium network, which allows emails less than 100 KB to be sent and received at all times and small critical data files to be transmitted. This uplink works by bonding the data stream over 12 voice channels.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Non-commercial and non-military communication has been provided by amateur ham radio using primarily HF SSB links today but Morse code and other modes have been used, partly in experiments and mainly in bolstering esprit de corp and hobby-type uses. The USA sector has the amateur radio call sign prefix run of KC4 and AT; whereas soviet/Russian stations are known to use 4K1 and others. The popularity of the hobby during the 1950-80s era saw many ham exchanges between South Polar ham stations and enthusiastic ham operators contacting there from world-wide locations. Over the years, ham radio has established needed emergency communication to Polar base personnel as well as recreational uses.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Typical of inland Antarctica, Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station experiences an ice cap climate ("EF") with BWk precipitation patterns. The peak season of summer lasts from December to mid February.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In 1991, Michael Palin visited the base on the eighth and final episode of his BBC Television documentary, "Pole to Pole".


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On January 10, 1995, NASA, PBS, and NSF collaborated for the first live television broadcast from the South Pole, titled "Spaceship South Pole". During this interactive broadcast, students from several schools in the United States asked the scientists at the station questions about their work and conditions at the pole.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In 1999, CBS News correspondent Jerry Bowen reported on camera in a talkback with anchors from the Saturday edition of "CBS This Morning".


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In 1999, the winter-over physician, Jerri Nielsen, found that she had breast cancer. She had to rely on self-administered chemotherapy, using supplies from a daring July cargo drop, then was picked up in an equally dangerous mid-October landing.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On May 11, 2000, astrophysicist Rodney Marks became ill while walking between the remote observatory and the base. He became increasingly sick over 36 hours, three times returning increasingly distressed to the station's doctor. Advice was sought by satellite, but Marks died on May 12, 2000, with his condition undiagnosed. The National Science Foundation issued a statement that Rodney Marks had "apparently died of natural causes, but the specific cause of death had yet to be determined". The exact cause of Marks' death could not be determined until his body was removed from Amundsen–Scott Station and flown off Antarctica for an autopsy. Marks' death was due to methanol poisoning, and the case received media attention as the "first South Pole murder", although there is no evidence that Marks died as the result of the act of another person.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On 26 April 2001, Kenn Borek Air used a DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft to rescue Dr. Ronald Shemenski from Amundsen–Scott. This was the first ever rescue from the South Pole during polar winter. To achieve the range necessary for this flight, the Twin Otter was equipped with a special ferry tank.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In January 2007, the station was visited by a group of high-level Russian officials, including FSB chiefs Nikolai Patrushev and Vladimir Pronichev. The expedition, led by polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, started from Chile on two Mi-8 helicopters and landed at the South Pole.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On September 6, 2007, The National Geographic Channel's television show "Man Made" aired an episode on the construction of their new facility.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On November 9, 2007, edition of NBC's "Today", show co-anchor Ann Curry made a satellite telephone call which was broadcast live from the South Pole.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On July 11, 2011, the winter-over communications technician fell ill and was diagnosed with appendicitis. An emergency open appendectomy was performed by the station doctors with several winter-overs assisting during the surgery.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The 2011 BBC TV programme "Frozen Planet" discusses the base and shows footage of the inside and outside of the elevated station in the "Last Frontier Episode".


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: During the 2011 winter-over season, station manager Renee-Nicole Douceur experienced a stroke on August 27, resulting in loss of vision and cognitive function. Because the Amundsen–Scott base lacks diagnostic medical equipment such as an MRI or CT scan machine, station doctors were unable to fully evaluate the damage done by the stroke or the chance of recurrence. Physicians on site recommended a medevac flight as soon as possible for Douceur, but offsite doctors hired by Raytheon Polar Services (the company contracted to run the base) and the National Science Foundation disagreed with the severity of the situation. The National Science Foundation, which is the final authority on all flights and assumes all financial responsibility for the flights, denied the request for medevac, saying the weather was still too hazardous. Plans were made to evacuate Douceur on the first flight available. Douceur and her niece, believing Douceur's condition to be grave and believing an earlier medevac flight possible, contacted Senator Jeanne Shaheen for assistance; as the NSF continued to state Douceur's condition did not qualify for a medevac attempt and conditions at the base would not permit an earlier flight, Douceur and her supporters brought the situation to media attention. Douceur was evacuated, along with a doctor and an escort, on an October 17 cargo flight. This was the first flight available when the weather window opened up on October 16. This first flight is usually solely for supply and refueling of the station, and does not customarily accept passengers, as the plane's cabin is unpressurized. The evacuation was successful, and Douceur arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, at 10:55 p.m. She ultimately made a full recovery.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In March 2014, BICEP2 announced that they had detected B-modes from gravitational waves generated in the early universe, supporting the inflation theory of cosmology. Later analysis showed that BICEP only saw polarized dust signal in the galaxy and not primordial B-modes.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: On 20 June 2016, there was another medical evacuation of two personnel around midwinter day, again involving Kenn Borek Air and DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In December 2016, Buzz Aldrin was visiting the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica, as part of a tourist group, when he fell ill and was evacuated, first to McMurdo Station and from there to Christchurch, New Zealand, where he was reported to be in stable condition. Aldrin's visit at age 86 makes him the oldest person to ever reach the South Pole.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: In the summer of 2016–17, Anthony Bourdain filmed part of an episode of his television show "" at the station.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Science and life at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station is documented in Dr. John Bird's award-winning book, "One Day, One Night: Portraits of the South Pole" which chronicles the South Pole Foucault Pendulum, the 300 Club, the first midwinter medevac, and science at the Pole including climate change and cosmology.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson's book "Antarctica" features a fictionalized account of the culture at Amundsen–Scott and McMurdo, set in the near future.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The 2009 film "Whiteout" is mainly set at the Amundsen–Scott base, although the building layouts are completely different.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The turn-based strategy game "Civilization VI", in its expansion "", included the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station as a Wonder.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The anime OVA "" features a large city in Antarctica called Scott City under a Geodesic dome not unlike the 1975 dome as the location of a major peace conference between the human space colonies controlled by Zeon and the Earth Federation.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The 2019 film "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" features the station prominently and includes scenes of its construction at the closing credits, although the actual station depicted in the film is Halley VI British Antarctic Research Station.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The South Pole sees the Sun rise and set only once a year. Due to atmospheric refraction, these do not occur exactly on the September equinox and the March equinox, respectively: the Sun is above the horizon for four days longer at each equinox. The place has no solar time; there is no daily maximum or minimum solar height above the horizon. The station uses New Zealand time (UTC+12 during standard time and UTC+13 during daylight saving time) since all flights to McMurdo station depart from Christchurch and, therefore, all official travel from the pole goes through New Zealand.


title: Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

text: The zone identifier in the IANA time zone database was the deprecated Antarctica/South_Pole. It now uses the Pacific/Auckland timezone.


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: Rudolf Schenker (born 31 August 1948) is a German guitarist and founder of the hard rock band Scorpions. He is the rhythm guitarist, primary songwriter and longest-serving original member of the band. He is also the CEO/owner-manager of the Scorpions Musik-Produktions-und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (Scorpions music production and publishing company) and owner/founder of the Scorpio-Sound-Studios in Lower Saxony.


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: Since founding Scorpions in 1965, Schenker has become one of the major driving forces in the band's songwriting and musical direction. He has been Scorpions' most consistent member, appearing on every album and every tour. His younger brother Michael Schenker was a member of the Scorpions in the band's early days, before joining UFO.


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: Schenker was awarded the City of Hanover Plaque as well as the Cross of Merit First Class of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit in 2000.


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: In an interview on "World Wide Live" video, Schenker mentioned that his goal is grounded in compositional skill more than technical skill. While most Scorpions' guitar solos are performed by lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, there are some notable exceptions in which Schenker plays the solos instead of rhythm guitar, such as "Wind of Change", "Always Somewhere", "Still Loving You", "Send Me an Angel", "Lady Starlight", "Big City Nights", "As Soon as the Good Times Roll", "When the Smoke Is Going Down", "Animal Magnetism", "Through My Eyes", "SLY" and "Rock 'N' Roll Band".


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: Schenker is known for his energetic riffing and wild live performances, which often includes swinging his guitar over his head and throwing the guitar up and catching it.


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: He also sang lead vocals on four Scorpions songs: "They Need a Million", "Drifting Sun", "Hey You" and "Love is the Answer".


title: Rudolf Schenker

text: While Schenker began playing with a Fender Stratocaster, he is primarily known for playing Gibson Flying Vs. On the "Acoustica" DVD, he is seen playing an acoustic Flying V made especially for him by Dommenget. He now uses Dean acoustic V models. Some of Schenker's main live guitars in recent years have been Dommenget — the same maker that produced Klaus Meine's live guitar and many guitars for Matthias Jabs. Schenker's signature models are "Gibson Rudolf Schenker Flying V", the Dommenget "Ferrari" V, PGG "Scorpions Golden Jubilee" Flying V, PGG "Veetle" Flying V and the "Scorpions" V. In the past, he primarily used Marshall amps, using their JMP, JCM800 2203, and JCM800 2205 heads. Currently, he uses ENGL amps, endorsing the E 650 Ritchie Blackmore signature heads.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular volcanic rock that differs from pumice in having larger vesicles, thicker vesicle walls, and being dark colored and denser.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice is created when super-heated, highly pressurized rock is violently ejected from a volcano. The unusual foamy configuration of pumice happens because of simultaneous rapid cooling and rapid depressurization. The depressurization creates bubbles by lowering the solubility of gases (including water and CO) that are dissolved in the lava, causing the gases to rapidly exsolve (like the bubbles of CO that appear when a carbonated drink is opened). The simultaneous cooling and depressurization freeze the bubbles in a matrix. Eruptions under water are rapidly cooled and the large volume of pumice created can be a shipping hazard for cargo ships.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice is composed of highly microvesicular glass pyroclastic with very thin, translucent bubble walls of extrusive igneous rock. It is commonly but not exclusively of silicic or felsic to intermediate in composition (e.g., rhyolitic, dacitic, andesite, pantellerite, phonolite, trachyte), but basaltic and other compositions are known. Pumice is commonly pale in color, ranging from white, cream, blue or grey, to green-brown or black. It forms when volcanic gases exsolving from viscous magma form bubbles that remain within the viscous magma as it cools to glass. Pumice is a common product of explosive eruptions (plinian and ignimbrite-forming) and commonly forms zones in upper parts of silicic lavas. Pumice has a porosity of 64–85% by volume and it floats on water, possibly for years, until it eventually becomes waterlogged and sinks.


title: Pumice

text: Scoria differs from pumice in being denser. With larger vesicles and thicker vesicle walls, scoria sinks rapidly. The difference is the result of the lower viscosity of the magma that forms scoria. When larger amounts of gas are present, the result is a finer-grained variety of pumice known as pumicite. Pumicite consists of particles less than 4mm in size. Pumice is considered a volcanic glass because it has no crystal structure. Pumice varies in density according to the thickness of the solid material between the bubbles; many samples float in water. After the explosion of Krakatoa, rafts of pumice drifted through the Indian Ocean for up to 20 years, with tree trunks floating among them. In fact, pumice rafts disperse and support several marine species. In 1979, 1984 and 2006, underwater volcanic eruptions near Tonga created large pumice rafts that floated hundreds of kilometres to Fiji.


title: Pumice

text: There are two main forms of vesicles. Most pumice contains tubular microvesicles that can impart a silky or fibrous fabric. The elongation of the microvesicles occurs due to ductile elongation in the volcanic conduit or, in the case of pumiceous lavas, during flow. The other form of vesicles are subspherical to spherical and result from high vapor pressure during an eruption. Reticulite is a type of basaltic pumice formed in very high lava fountains. It has an extremely low density and is composed of a network of volcanic glass formed when the vesicles have almost completely coalesced.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice is an igneous rock with a foamy appearance. The name is derived from the Latin word "pumex" (meaning "pumice") which is related to the Latin word "spuma" meaning "foam". In former times, pumice was called "Spuma Maris", meaning "froth of the sea" in Latin because the frothy material was thought to be hardened sea foam. Around 80 B.C., it was called "lapis spongiae" in Latin for its vesicular properties. Many Greek scholars decided there were different sources of pumice, one of which was in the sea coral category.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice can be found all around the globe deriving from continental volcanic occurrences and submarine volcanic occurrences. Floating stones can also be distributed by ocean currents. As described earlier pumice is produced by the eruption of explosive volcanoes under certain conditions, therefore, natural sources occur in volcanically active regions. Pumice is mined and transported from these regions. In 2011, Italy and Turkey led pumice mining production at 4 and 3 million tonnes respectively; other large producers at or exceeding a million tonnes were Greece, Iran, Chile, and Syria. Total world pumice production in 2011 was estimated at 17 million tonnes.


title: Pumice

text: There are large reserves of pumice in Asian countries including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan, Syria, Iran, and eastern Russia. Considerable amounts of pumice can be found at the Kamchatka Peninsula on the eastern flank of Russia. This area contains 19 active volcanoes and it lies in close proximity with the Pacific volcanic belt. Asia is also the site of the second-most dangerous volcanic eruption in the 20th century, Mount Pinatubo, which erupted on June 12, 1991 in the Philippines. Ash and pumice lapilli were distributed over a mile around the volcano. These ejections filled trenches that once reached 660 feet deep. So much magma was displaced from the vent that the volcano became a depression on the surface of the Earth. Another well-known volcano that produces pumice is Krakatoa. An eruption in 1883 ejected so much pumice that kilometers of sea were covered in floating pumice and in some areas rose 1.5 meters above sea level.


title: Pumice

text: Europe is the largest producer of pumice with deposits in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, and Germany. Italy is the largest producer of pumice because of its numerous eruptive volcanoes. On the Aeolian Islands of Italy, the island of Lipari is entirely made up of volcanic rock, including pumice. Large amounts of igneous rock on Lipari are due to the numerous extended periods of volcanic activity from the Late Pleistocene (Tyrrhenian) to the Holocene.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice can be found all across North America including on the Caribbean Islands. In the United States, pumice is mined in Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Kansas. U.S. production of pumice and pumicite in 2011 was estimated at 380,000 tonnes, valued at $7.7 million with approximately 46% coming from Nevada and Oregon. Idaho is also known as a large producer of pumice because of the quality and brightness of the rock found in local reserves. One of the most famous volcanoes was Mount Mazama that erupted 7,700 years ago in Oregon and deposited 300 feet of pumice and ash around the vent. The large amount of magma that was erupted caused the structure to collapse, forming a caldera now known as Crater Lake.


title: Pumice

text: Chile is one of the leading producers of pumice in the world. The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle are two coalesced volcanoes in the Andes mountains that ejected ash and pumice across Chile and Argentina. A recent eruption in 2011 wreaked havoc on the region by covering all surfaces and lakes in ash and pumice.


title: Pumice

text: The Havre Seamount volcano produced the largest-known deep ocean volcanic eruption on Earth. The volcano erupted in July 2012 but remained unnoticed until enormous pieces of pumice were seen to be floating on the Pacific Ocean. Blankets of rock reached a thickness of 5 meters. Most of this floating pumice is deposited on the North-West coast of New Zealand and the Polynesia islands.


title: Pumice

text: The mining of pumice is an environmentally friendly process compared with other mining methods because the igneous rock is deposited on the surface of the earth in loose aggregate form. The material is mined by open-pit methods. Soils are removed by machinery in order to obtain more pure quality pumice. Scalping screens are used to filter impure surficial pumice of organic soils and unwanted rocks. Blasting is not necessary because the material is unconsolidated, therefore only simple machinery is used such as bulldozers and power shovels. Different sizes of pumice are needed for specific uses therefore crushers are used to achieve desired grades ranging from lump, coarse, intermediate, fine, and extra fine.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice is a very lightweight, porous and abrasive material and it has been used for centuries in the construction and beauty industry as well as in early medicine. It is also used as an abrasive, especially in polishes, pencil erasers, and the production of stone-washed jeans. Pumice was also used in the early book-making industry to prepare parchment paper and leather bindings. There is high demand for pumice, particularly for water filtration, chemical spill containment, cement manufacturing, horticulture and increasingly for the pet industry. The mining of pumice in environmentally sensitive areas has been under more scrutiny after such an operation was stopped in the U.S. state of Oregon, at Rock Mesa in the southern part of the Three Sisters Wilderness.


title: Pumice

text: Pumice has been used in the medicinal industry for more than 2000 years. Ancient Chinese medicine used ground pumice along with ground mica and fossilized bones added to teas to calm the spirit. This tea was used to treat dizziness, nausea, insomnia, and anxiety disorders. Ingestion of these pulverized rocks was able to soften nodules and was later used with other herbal ingredients to treat gallbladder cancer and urinary difficulties. In western medicine, beginning in the early 18th century, pumice was ground into a sugar consistency and with other ingredients was used to treat ulcers mostly on the skin and cornea. Concoctions such as these were also used to help wounds scar in a healthier manner. In approximately 1680 it was noted by an English naturalist that pumice powder was used to promote sneezing.