title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: One morning when Kunta is cutting wood to make a drum, he is ambushed by slatees (black slave traders), and is knocked unconscious and taken prisoner. He awakens to find himself gagged and blindfolded. The toubob humiliate Kunta and the other captives by stripping them naked, examining them in every orifice and burning them with hot irons. Kunta is then placed in the brig of a ship, naked and chained. After a nightmarish journey across the Atlantic on board the slave ship "Lord Ligonier", he is landed in Annapolis, Maryland. John Waller of Spotsylvania County, Virginia purchases Kunta at an auction and gives him the name Toby. However, Kunta is headstrong and tries to run away four times. When he is captured for the last time, slave hunters cut off part of his right foot to cripple him.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Kunta is then bought by his master's brother, Dr. William Waller. He becomes a gardener and eventually his master's buggy driver. Kunta also befriends a musician slave named Fiddler. In the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War, Kunta marries Bell, Waller's cook, and together they have a daughter, Kizzy. Kizzy's childhood as a slave is as happy as her parents can make it. She is close friends with John Waller's daughter "Missy" Anne, and she rarely experiences cruelty. Her life changes when she forges a traveling pass for her beau Noah, a field hand. When he is caught and confesses, she is sold away from her family at the age of sixteen.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Kizzy is bought by Tom Lea, a farmer and chicken fighter who rose from poor beginnings. He rapes and impregnates her, and she gives birth to George, who later becomes known as "Chicken George" when he becomes his father's cockfighting trainer. Chicken George is a philanderer known for expensive taste and alcohol, as much as for his iconic bowler hat and green scarf. He marries Matilda and they have six sons and two daughters, including Tom, who becomes a very good blacksmith. Tom marries Irene, a woman originally owned by the Holt family.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: When Tom Lea loses all his money in a cockfight, he sends George to England for several years to pay off the debt, and he sells most of the rest of the family to a slave trader. The trader moves the family to Alamance County, where they become the property of Andrew Murray. The Murrays have no previous experience with farming and are generally kind masters who treat the family well. When the American Civil War ends, however, the Murray slaves decide rather than sharecrop for their former masters, they will move from North Carolina to Henning, Tennessee, which is looking for new settlers.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: They eventually become a prosperous family. Tom's daughter Cynthia marries Will Palmer, a successful lumber businessman, and their daughter Bertha is the first in the family to go to college. There she meets Simon Haley, who becomes a professor of agriculture. Their son is Alex Haley, the author of the book.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Alex Haley grows up hearing stories from his grandmother about the family's history. They tell him of an ancestor named Kunta Kinte, who was landed in "'Naplis" and given the slave name Toby. The old African called a guitar a "ko", and a river the "Kamby Bolongo". While on a reporting trip to London, Haley sees the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum and thinks of his own family's oral traditions. Could he trace his own family lineage back to its origins in Africa?


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In the United States Census for Alamance County, North Carolina, he finds evidence of his ancestor Tom Murray, the blacksmith. He attempts to locate the likeliest origin of the African words passed down by Kunta Kinte. Dr. Jan Vansina explains that in the Mandinka tongue, "kora" is a type of stringed instrument, and "bolongo" is the word for "river". "Kamby Bolongo" could then refer to the Gambia River.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Alex Haley travels to the Gambia and learns of the existence of griots, oral historians who are trained from childhood to memorize and recite the history of a particular village. A good griot could speak for three days without repeating himself. He asks to hear the history of the Kinte clan, which lives in Juffure, and is taken to a griot named Kebba Kanji Fofana. The Kinte clan had originated in Old Mali, moved to Mauritania, and then settled in the Gambia. After about two hours of "so-and-so took as a wife so-and-so, and begat," Fofana reached Kunta Kinte:


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: After searching records of British troop movements in the 1760s, Haley finds "Colonel O'Hare's forces" were dispatched to Fort James on the Gambia River in 1767. In Lloyd's of London, he discovers a merchantman named the "Lord Ligonier" had sailed from the Gambia on July 5, 1767 bound for Annapolis. The "Lord Ligonier" had cleared customs in Annapolis on September 29, 1767, and the slaves were advertised for auction in the "Maryland Gazette" on October 1, 1767. He concludes his research by examining the deed books of Spotsylvania County after September 1767, locating a deed dated September 5, 1768, transferring 240 acres and a slave named Toby from John and Ann Waller to William Waller.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Published in October 1976 amid significant advance expectations, "Roots" was immediately successful, garnering a slew of positive reviews and debuting at number five of "The New York Times" Best Seller list (with "The Times" choosing to classify it as non-fiction). By mid-November, it rose to number one. The television adaptation of the book aired in January 1977, further fueling book sales. Within seven months of its release, "Roots" had sold over 15 million hard cover copies.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In total, "Roots" spent twenty-two weeks at the number one spot on "The Times"' list, including each of the first eighteen weeks of 1977, before falling to number three on May 8. It did not fall off of the list entirely until August 7. By then, the list had featured it for forty-six weeks. Together, the success of the novel and its 1977 television adaptation sparked an explosion of interest in the fields of genealogy and researching family histories.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977 for "Roots." The television miniseries garnered many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In the spring of 1977, Haley was charged with plagiarism in separate lawsuits by Harold Courlander and Margaret Walker Alexander. Courlander, an anthropologist, charged "Roots" was copied from his novel "The African" (1967). Walker claimed Haley had plagiarized from her Civil War-era novel "Jubilee" (1966). Legal proceedings in each case were concluded late in 1978. Courlander's suit was settled out of court for $650,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) and an acknowledgment from Haley certain passages within "Roots" were copied from "The African". The court dismissed Walker's case, which, in comparing the content of "Roots" with that of "Jubilee", found "no actionable similarities exist between the works".


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Haley called his novel "faction" and acknowledged most of the dialogue and incidents were fictional. However, he claimed to have traced his family lineage back to Kunta Kinte, an African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia. Haley also suggested his portrayal of life and figures among the slaves and masters in Virginia and North Carolina were based on facts which he had confirmed through historical documents. In the concluding chapter of "Roots", Alex Haley wrote:


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: However, some historians and genealogists suggested Haley did not rely on factual evidence as closely as he represented, claiming there are serious errors with Haley's family history and historical descriptions in the period preceding the Civil War.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In April 1977, the (London) "Sunday Times" published an article titled "Tangled Roots" by Mark Ottaway. It challenged the book's account of Kunta Kinte and Haley's African ancestry. Ottaway found that the only African confirmation of Haley's family history came from Kebba Kanga Fofana, a griot in Juffure. However, Fofana was not a genuine griot, and the head of the Gambian National Archives even wrote a letter to Alex Haley expressing doubts about Fofana's reliability. On repeated retellings of the story, Fofana changed key details Haley had relied on for his identification.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Donald R. Wright, a historian of the West African slave trade, found that elders and griots in The Gambia could not provide detailed information on people living before the mid-19th century, but everyone had heard of Kunta Kinte. Haley had told his story to so many people that his version of his family history had been assimilated into the oral traditions of The Gambia. Haley had created a case of circular reporting, in which people repeated his words back to him.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: "Roots" depicted Juffure as a village where people had heard rumors about white men by 1767, but had never met any. In reality, Juffure was two miles from James Island, a major trading outpost established by the Royal Africa Company in 1661. The King of Barra allowed the Company to establish a fort on the island, on the condition none of his subjects could be purchased without his permission. Haley admitted that he had picked the year 1767 as "the time the King's soldiers came" to match his American research.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Historian Gary B. Mills and genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills, who specialize in black American and southern history, followed Haley's trail in Census records, deed books, and wills. They concluded:


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Those same plantation records, wills, and censuses cited by Mr. Haley not only "fail to document" his story, but they "contradict" each and every pre-Civil War statement of Afro-American lineage in "Roots"!" (emphasis in the original)


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: The Waller family already owned the slave Toby in 1762, five years before the "Lord Ligonier" supposedly landed Kunta Kinte in Annapolis. Haley had only searched for references to Toby "after" 1767, succumbing to confirmation bias. Dr. Waller did not have a cook named Bell or his own plantation, as he was disabled and lived with his brother John. Toby also appears to have died before 1782, eight years before his daughter Kizzy was supposedly born. "Missy" Anne could not have been Kizzy's childhood playmate, as Ann Murray was a grown woman and already married in the relevant timeframe. In fact, there is no record of a Kizzy being owned by any of the Wallers.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: After the deed reference to Toby Waller, the next piece of documentary evidence Haley uncovered was the 1870 Census listing for Tom Murray's household. Therefore, there is a gap of over ninety years relying on the Haley family's oral history. The Millses investigated the oral history and found no corroborating evidence in the historical record.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Tom Lea was not born into a poor family; he came from a well-to-do planter family. The record does not show a Kizzy or her son George among Tom Lea's slaves. There are also no records of a mulatto George Lea married to a Matilda. Haley described George Lea as a skilled chicken trainer who was sent to England when Tom Lea ran into financial difficulty in the 1850s. However, Tom Lea died during the winter of 1844–45. Further, slavery itself was not legal within England and Wales and was unsupported under either statute or common law as was established in 1772. Further still, the British Slavery Abolition Act saw all remaining acts of slavery abolished within British and overseas territories by 1833 (largely with the exception of territories controlled by the East India Company).


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Haley initially conceded that he may have been led astray by his African research, and admitted that he had thought of calling "Roots" a "historical novel". However, he stated that Ottaway's article was "unwarranted, unfair and unjust", and added that he had no reason to think that Fofana was unreliable. Haley also criticized his detractors' reliance on written records in their evaluations of his work, contending that such records were "sporadic" and frequently inaccurate with regard to such data as slave births and ownership transactions. Haley asserted that for black genealogy, "well-kept oral history is without question the best source".


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Ironically, the Millses discovered a better fit to the oral history in the written record than Haley himself had found. Dr. William Waller's father was "Colonel" William Waller, who owned a slave named Hopping George, a description consistent with a foot injury. Colonel Waller also owned a slave named Isbell, who may be the Bell in Haley family legend. Tom Lea's father lived in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and he may have purchased some of Haley's ancestors from the Wallers. When the Lea family moved to North Carolina, they presumably took their slaves with them. The Leas lived in close proximity to the Murrays and Holts, and there are three Kizzies associated with the Lea and Murray families in the post-Civil War records.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a friend of Haley's, but, years after Haley's death, Gates acknowledged doubts about the author's claims:


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex found the village whence his ancestors sprang. "Roots" is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Gates later hosted the TV series "African American Lives" and "Finding Your Roots", which used DNA testing to corroborate family histories and genealogies.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Haley wrote another novel, about his paternal grandmother Queen [Jackson] Haley, but died before he could finish it. It was published posthumously as "".


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Subsequent DNA testing of Alex Haley's nephew Chris Haley revealed that Alec Haley, Alex's paternal grandfather and Queen Haley's husband, was most likely descended from Scottish ancestors via William Harwell Baugh, an overseer of an Alabama slave plantation.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: Roots was a television miniseries airing over eight consecutive nights in January 1977. ABC network television executives chose to "dump" the series into a string of airings rather than space out the broadcasts because they were uncertain how the public would respond to the controversial, racially charged themes of the show. The series garnered enormous ratings and became an overnight sensation. Approximately 130 million Americans tuned in at some time during the eight broadcasts. The concluding episode on January 30, 1977, has been ranked as the third most watched telecast of all time by the Nielsen corporation.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: The cast of the miniseries included LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Leslie Uggams as Kizzy, and Ben Vereen as Chicken George. A fourteen-hour sequel, "", aired in 1979, featuring the leading black actors of the day.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In December 1988, ABC aired a two-hour made-for-TV movie: "". Based on characters from the book, it starred LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Avery Brooks as Cletus Moyer, Kate Mulgrew as Hattie Carraway, and Tim Russ as house slave Marcellus (all four actors later became prominent as leading actors in the "Star Trek" franchise).


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In May 2007, BBC America released "Roots" as an audiobook narrated by Avery Brooks. The release coincided with Vanguard Press's publication of a new paperback edition of the book, which had gone out of print in 2004, and with Warner Home Video's release of a 30th-anniversary DVD-boxed set of the mini-series.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: A Blu-ray edition of the original mini-series debuted on May 30, 2016, to coordinate with the release of the remake of the television series.


title: Roots: The Saga of an American Family

text: In November 2013, the History channel announced it was developing an eight-hour "Roots" miniseries with Mark Wolper, son of the original show's original producer David L. Wolper. This version aired May 30, 2016, and combined elements from both Haley's book and its 1977 adaptation. Directors include Mario Van Peebles, Thomas Carter and Phillip Noyce, Executive Producers include Will Packer and LeVar Burton, while cast members include Malachi Kirby as Kunte, Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Laurence Fishburne, Mekhi Phifer, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Derek Luke, Anika Noni Rose, and Chad L. Coleman.


title: Apple A12

text: The Apple A12 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. It first appeared in the iPhone XS and XS Max, iPhone XR, iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad Mini (5th generation), 8th generation iPad and Apple TV 4K (2nd generation). Apple states that the two high-performance cores are 15% faster and 50% more energy-efficient than the Apple A11's, and the four high-efficiency cores use 50% less power than the A11's. It is the first mass-market system on a chip to be built using the 7 nm process.


title: Apple A12

text: The Apple A12 SoC features an Apple-designed 64-bit ARMv8.3-A six-core CPU, with two high-performance cores called Vortex, running at 2.49 GHz, and four energy-efficient cores called Tempest. The Vortex cores are a 7-wide decode out-of-order superscalar design, while the Tempest cores are a 3-wide decode out-of-order superscalar design. Like the A11's Mistral cores, the Tempest cores are based on Apple's Swift cores from the Apple A6.


title: Apple A12

text: The A12 also integrates an Apple-designed four-core graphics processing unit (GPU) with 50% faster graphics performance than the A11. The A12 includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a "Next-generation Neural Engine." This neural network hardware has eight cores and can perform up to 5 trillion 8-bit operations per second. Unlike the A11's Neural Engine, third-party apps can access the A12's Neural Engine.


title: Apple A12

text: The A12 is manufactured by TSMC using a 7 nm FinFET process, the first to ship in a consumer product, containing 6.9 billion transistors. The die size of the A12 is 83.27 mm, 5% smaller than the A11. It is manufactured in a package on package (PoP) together with 4 GiB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone XS and XS Max and 3 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone XR, the iPad Air (2019), the 5th generation iPad mini, and the iPad (2020). The ARMv8.3 instruction set it supports brings a significant security improvement in the form of pointer authentication, which mitigates exploitation techniques such as those involving memory corruption, Jump-Oriented-Programming, and Return-Oriented-Programming.


title: Apple A12

text: The A12 has video codec encoding support for HEVC and H.264. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Nikole Sheri Hannah-Jones (born April 9, 1976) is an American investigative journalist, known for her coverage of civil rights in the United States. In April 2015, she became a staff writer for "The New York Times." In 2017 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and in 2020 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on the controversial "1619 Project". Hannah-Jones is the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at the Howard University School of Communications, where she also founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones was born in Waterloo, Iowa, to father Milton Hannah, who is African-American, and mother Cheryl A. Novotny, who is white and of Czech and English descent. Hannah-Jones is the second of three girls. She was raised Catholic.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones and her sister attended almost all-white schools as part of a voluntary program of desegregation busing. She attended Waterloo West High School, where she wrote for the high school newspaper and graduated in 1994.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: After high school, Hannah-Jones attended the University of Notre Dame where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and African-American studies in 1998.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: She graduated from the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media with a master's degree in 2003, where she was a Roy H. Park Fellow.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2003, Hannah-Jones began her career covering education, which included the predominantly African American Durham Public Schools, for the Raleigh "News & Observer," a position she held for three years.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2006, Hannah-Jones moved to Portland, Oregon, where she wrote for "The Oregonian" for six years. During this time her assignments included feature work, demographics, and then government and census beats.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2007, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1965 Watts riots, Hannah-Jones wrote about its impact on the community for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: From 2008 to 2009, Hannah-Jones received a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies which enabled her to travel to Cuba to study universal healthcare and Cuba's educational system under Raul Castro. However, the articles carefully censor any mention of poverty amongst Cuba's black community as well as the lack of civil rights, disproportionately low number of black cubans in positions of power or the fact that the Castro regime undermines Cuba's black population.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2011, she joined the nonprofit news organization "ProPublica," which is based in New York City, where she covered civil rights and continued research she started in Oregon on redlining and in-depth investigative reporting on the lack of enforcement of the Fair Housing Act for minorities. Hannah-Jones also spent time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" had little effect.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In January 2022, Hannah Jones and teacher Sheritta Stokes launched the 1619 Freedom School in Waterloo Iowa, inspired by the 1960s Freedom Schools of the civil-rights movement.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: The program is a five day a week, 2 hour literacy enrichment for the Waterloo school district for grade-school students.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones has written about topics such as racial segregation, desegregation and resegregation in American schools and housing discrimination, and has spoken about these issues on national public radio broadcasts.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: She writes to discover and expose the systemic and institutional racism that she says are perpetuated by official laws and acts.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Her work on racial inequalities has been particularly influential and is cited widely. Hannah-Jones reported on the school district where teenager Michael Brown had been shot, one of the "most segregated, impoverished districts in the entire state" of Missouri. Reviewer Laura Moser of "Slate magazine" praised her report on school resegregation, which showed how educational inequality may have been a factor in the death of Brown.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones was a 2017 Emerson Fellow at the New America Foundation, where she worked on a book on school segregation. The book, "The Problem We All Live With", is due out in June 2020 from Chris Jackson's One World imprint at Random House.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones is a 2017 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation fellowship. The award cited her "Chronicling the persistence of racial segregation in American society, particularly in education, and reshaping national conversations around education reform."


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2019, Hannah-Jones launched a project to fundamentally change the way slavery in the United States was viewed, timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia. Hannah-Jones produced a series of articles for a special issue of "The New York Times Magazine" titled The 1619 Project. The ongoing initiative began August 14, 2019, and "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative." The project featured essays by a combination of staff writers and academics including Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse, Harvard-trained lawyer Bryan Stevenson, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond, and SUNY historian Anne Bailey. In the opening essay, Hannah-Jones wrote "No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed." The project also included poems, short fiction, and a photo essay. Originally conceived of as a special issue, it was soon turned into a full-fledged project, including a special broadsheet section in the newspaper, live events, and a multi-episode podcast series.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In 2020, Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on the 1619 Project. The award cited her "sweeping, provocative and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America's story, prompting public conversation about the nation's founding and evolution." Her paper was criticized by historians Gordon S. Wood and Leslie M. Harris, specifically for asserting that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery." The article was "clarified" in March 2020 to read "for some of the colonists". There was also debate around whether the project suggested the nation was founded in 1619 with the arrival of enslaved Africans rather than in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Speaking to New York Times opinion writer Bret Stephens, Hannah-Jones said the suggestion of considering 1619 as a jumping-off point for interpreting US history had always been so self-evidently metaphorical that it went without saying.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute named the 1619 Project as one of the 10 greatest works of journalism in the decade from 2010 to 2019. In 2022 the Hannah-Jones was nominated at the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction and was recognized with the Social Justice Impact Award.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In April 2021, the University of North Carolina announced Hannah-Jones would join the Hussman School of Journalism and Media in July 2021 as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. Following criticism, particularly from conservative groups who expressed disagreement with the 1619 Project and questioned Hannah-Jones's credentials, the University Board of Trustees, presented with the tenure committee's recommendation to approve her application for tenure, instead took no action. Unable to offer tenure without approval by its trustees, UNC announced they would instead offer a fixed five-year contract with an option for tenure review—terms to which Hannah-Jones agreed.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Outraged, more than 40 Hussman faculty members signed a statement criticizing the board's inaction, noting that the previous two Knight Chairs were given tenure and claiming that UNC "unfairly moves the goal posts" by not offering Hannah-Jones the same. The school's Black Caucus also condemned the terms of her contract, and students joined faculty in protests. Hannah-Jones stated, "It's pretty clear that my tenure was not taken up because of political opposition, because of discriminatory views against my viewpoint and, I believe, [because of] my race and my gender." In late June 2021, Hannah-Jones, via a letter from her lawyers, said she will not take a faculty position with the university unless it is offered as a tenured position. On June 30, 2021, the Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted in a closed session to include tenure in the position offer.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones refused the position at North Carolina and decided to accept a tenured position at Howard University instead, where she will be the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism.<ref name="guardian6/7/2021"></ref> Hannah-Jones said, "Once the news broke and I started to see the extent of the political interference, particularly the reporting on Walter Hussman, it became really clear to me that I just could not work at a school named after Walter Hussman. To be a person who has stood for what I stand for and have any integrity whatsoever, I just couldn't see how I could do that."


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Ta-Nehisi Coates will join Hannah-Jones at Howard as the Sterling Brown Chair in the English Department. Jones also brings $20 million to Howard to support her work there, $5 million each from the Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and an anonymous donor.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Five historians wrote to "The New York Times Magazine" to ask the creators of its 1619 Project to issue corrections, including for Hannah-Jones's assertions on the American Revolution and on Lincoln. The correction request was signed by Victoria Bynum of Texas State University, James M. McPherson and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University, James Oakes of the City University of New York, and Gordon S. Wood of Brown University. Historian Leslie M. Harris, who was consulted for the Project, wrote in "Politico" that she had warned that the idea that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery was inaccurate, and that the "Times" made avoidable mistakes.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In the May 2022 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason, reporter Phillip W. Magness criticized the 1619 Project as "Junk History." Magness contrasted the present work of Hannah-Jones with past work at historical understanding of slavery by prominent African-Americans such as Zora Neale Hurston. Magness stated:


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: A "Washington Free Beacon" reporter highlighted a tweet from Hannah-Jones from May 2016 in which she quoted someone using a racial slur. After being asked for comment, Hannah-Jones posted the reporter's inquiry, which contained his work phone number, on Twitter. In an interview with "Slate", Hannah-Jones said, "I didn't realize I was tweeting out his phone number, and when someone mentioned it, I should have deleted it. So absolutely. I did not intend to do that, and I wish that I hadn't."


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In June 2020, Jones apologized for retweeting a conspiracy theory claiming that fireworks were being set off by "government agents" to dampen the Black Lives Matter movement.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In October 2021, the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts rescinded a speaking invitation to Nikole Hannah-Jones for February 2022, claiming "the 'noise' associated with having Nikole as the speaker would take away from the overall experience."


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In a February 2022 tweet, Hannah-Jones stated that Europe is "not a continent by definition" alleging that there is "a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia" (a reference to the fact that Eurasia, the largest continental landmass in the world, is geologically a single continent rather than two separate continents). She referred to the alarm over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its people, who "appear white" as a racial "dog whistle". Several Twitter users rebuked and mocked Hannah-Jones for denying that Europe is a continent and for applying systemic racism to the invasion of Ukraine. Anthropologist Peter W. Wood called her comments "triumphant silliness" which came down to her desire "to find racism at the root of whatever happens". Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said it was "absurd" for Hannah-Jones to claim that Europe isn't a continent and also called her comments about Ukraine "pretty insensitive considering Ukrainians are dying". She later clarified that "We should care about Ukraine", but not because "it is European, or the people appear white, or they are 'civilized' and not 'impoverished'".


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: In early 2015, Nikole Hannah-Jones, along with Ron Nixon, Corey Johnson, and Topher Sanders, began dreaming of creating the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. This organization was launched in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2016, with the purpose of promoting investigative journalism, which is the least common type of reporting. Following in the footsteps of Ida B. Wells, this society encourages minority journalists to expose injustices perpetuated by the government and defend people who are susceptible to being taken advantage of. This organization was created with support from the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.


title: Nikole Hannah-Jones

text: Hannah-Jones lives in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn with her husband, Faraji Hannah-Jones (both shared their last names when they married November 1, 2003), and their daughter.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is best known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS "Titanic" in 1985, the battleship "Bismarck" in 1989, and the aircraft carrier in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's "PT-109" in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Despite his long successes in shipwrecks, Ballard considers his most important discovery to be that of hydrothermal vents. Ballard has also established the JASON Project and leads ocean exploration on the research vessel E/V "Nautilus".


title: Robert Ballard

text: Robert Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to a mother of German heritage and a father of British heritage. He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to watching (Ballard is dyslexic) the Disney adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1870 novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", living by the ocean in San Diego, and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe "Trieste".


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard began working for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job. At North American, he worked on North American's failed proposal to build the submersible "Alvin" for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1965, Ballard graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry and geology. While a student in Santa Barbara, California, he joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and also completed the US Army's ROTC program, giving him an Army officer's commission in Army Intelligence. His first graduate degree (MS, 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics where he trained porpoises and whales. Subsequently, he returned to Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard was working towards a PhD in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967 when he was called to active duty. Upon his request, he was transferred from the Army into the US Navy as an oceanographer. The Navy assigned him as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.


title: Robert Ballard

text: After leaving active duty and entering into the Naval Reserve in 1970, Ballard continued working at Woods Hole persuading organizations and people, mostly scientists, to fund and use "Alvin" for undersea research. Four years later he received a PhD in marine geology and geophysics at the University of Rhode Island.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard joined the United States Army in 1965 through the Army's Reserve Officers Training program. He was designated as an intelligence officer and initially received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. When called to active duty in 1967, he asked to fulfill his obligation in the United States Navy. His request was approved, and he was transferred to the Navy Reserve on the reserve active duty list. After completing his active duty obligation in 1970, he was returned to reserve status, where he remained for much of his military career, being called up only for mandatory training and special assignments. He retired from the Navy as a commander in 1995 after reaching the statutory service limit.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard's first dive in a submersible was in the "Ben Franklin" (PX-15) in 1969 off the coast of Florida during a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition. In summer 1970, he began a field mapping project of the Gulf of Maine for his doctoral dissertation. It used an air gun that sent sound waves underwater to determine the underlying structure of the ocean floor and the submersible "Alvin", which was used to find and recover a sample from the bedrock.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard was geologist diver in "Alvin" during Project FAMOUS, which explored the median rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1974.


title: Robert Ballard

text: During the summer of 1975, Ballard participated in a joint French-American expedition called Phere searching for hydrothermal vents over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but the expedition did not find any active vents.


title: Robert Ballard

text: On the Galapagos spreading center east of the islands a 1977 exploration by "Alvin" found deep-sea hydrothermal vents and surrounding biology communities based on chemosynthesis. Ballard was a participating diver.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The 1979 RISE project expedition on the East Pacific Rise west of Mexico at 21°N was aided by deep-towed still camera sleds that were able to take pictures of the ocean floor, making it easier to find hydrothermal vent locations. When "Alvin" inspected one of the sites the deep-tow located, the scientists observed black "smoke" billowing out of the vents, something not observed at the Galápagos Rift.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard and geophysicist Jean Francheteau went down in "Alvin" the day after the black smokers were first observed. They were able to take an accurate temperature reading of the active vent (the previous dive's thermometer had melted), and recorded a temperature of .


title: Robert Ballard

text: While Ballard had been interested in the sea since an early age, his work at Woods Hole and his scuba diving experiences off Massachusetts spurred his interest in shipwrecks and their exploration. His work in the Navy had involved assisting in the development of small, unmanned submersibles that could be tethered to and controlled from a surface ship, and were outfitted with lighting, cameras, and manipulator arms. As early as 1973, he saw this as way of searching for the wreck of the "Titanic". In 1977, he led his first expedition, which was unsuccessful.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In summer 1985, Ballard was aboard the French research ship "Le Suroît", which was using the side scan sonar "SAR" to search for the "Titanic" wreck. When the French ship was recalled, he transferred onto a ship from Woods Hole, the R/V "Knorr". Unbeknownst to some, this trip was financed by the U.S. Navy for secret reconnaissance of the wreckage of two Navy nuclear powered attack submarines, the USS "Scorpion" and the USS "Thresher", which sank in the 1960s, and not for the "Titanic". Back in 1982, he approached the Navy about his new deep sea underwater robot craft, the "Argo", and his search for the "Titanic". The Navy was not interested in financing it. However, they were interested in finding out what happened to their missing submarines and ultimately concluded that "Argo" was their best chance to do so. The Navy agreed it would finance his "Titanic" search only if he first searched for and investigated the two sunken submarines, and found out the state of their nuclear reactors after being submerged for such a long time, and whether their radioactivity was impacting the environment. He was placed on temporary active duty in the Navy, in charge of finding and investigating the wrecks. After the two missions were completed, time and funding permitting, he was free to use resources to hunt for the "Titanic".


title: Robert Ballard

text: After their missions for the Navy, "Knorr" arrived on site on August 22, 1985, and deployed "Argo". When they searched for the two submarines, Ballard and his team discovered that they had imploded from the immense pressure at depth. It littered thousands of pieces of debris all over the ocean floor. Following the large trail of debris led them directly to both and made it significantly easier for them to locate them than if they were to search for the hulls directly. He already knew that the "Titanic" imploded from pressure as well, much the same way the two submarines did, and concluded that it too must have also left a scattered debris trail. Using that lesson, they had "Argo" sweep back and forth across the ocean floor looking for the "Titanic's" debris trail. They took shifts monitoring the video feed from "Argo" as it searched the ocean floor two miles below.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In the early morning hours of September 1, 1985, observers noted anomalies on the otherwise smooth ocean floor. At first, it was pockmarks, like small craters from impacts. Eventually, debris was sighted as the rest of the team was awakened. Finally, a boiler was sighted, and soon after that, the hull was found.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard's team made a general search of the "Titanic's" exterior, noting its condition. Most significantly, they confirmed that it had split in two, and that the stern was in far worse shape than the bow. They did not have much time to explore, as others were waiting to take "Knorr" on other scientific pursuits, but his fame was now assured. He originally planned to keep the exact location a secret to prevent anyone from claiming prizes from it. He considered the site a cemetery, and refused to desecrate it by removing artifacts.


title: Robert Ballard

text: On July 12, 1986, Ballard and his team returned on board "Atlantis II" to make the first detailed study of the wreck. This time, he brought "Alvin". It was accompanied by "Jason Junior", a small remotely operated vehicle that could fit through small openings to see into the ship's interior. Although the first dive (taking over two hours) encountered technical problems, subsequent ones were far more successful, and produced a detailed photographic record of the wreck's condition.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1988, Ballard published a book, "Discovery Of The Titanic: Exploring The Greatest Of All Lost Ships", and he later recounted the specifics of the expedition for National Geographic in a video.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The vast majority of the relics retrieved by various groups, not including Ballard, from RMS "Titanic" were owned by Premier Exhibitions which filed for bankruptcy in 2016. In late August 2018, the groups vying for ownership of the 5,500 relics included one by museums in England and Northern Ireland with assistance from film maker James Cameron and some financial support from National Geographic. Ballard told the news media that he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast and in Greenwich. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by a United States district court judge.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard undertook an even more daunting task when he and his team searched off the coast of France for the German Battleship "Bismarck" in 1989, using an ocean-crawling robot. The 15,000 foot deep water in which it sank is 4,000 feet deeper than that where the "Titanic" sank. He attempted to determine whether it had been sunk by the British or was scuttled by its own crew. Three weeks after the expedition however, personal tragedy struck him when his 21-year-old son, Todd, who had aided him in the search, was killed in a car accident.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard later published a book about the quest, "The Discovery of the Bismarck" (1990) The discovery was also documented for National Geographic in a 1989 James Cameron video "Search for the Battleship Bismarck" which indicated that the ship had been damaged by torpedoes and shells from British ships. The actual cause of the sinking, however, was sabotage of the underwater valves by the onboard crew, according to Ballard, who said, "we found a hull that appears whole and relatively undamaged by the descent and impact". Film maker Cameron, however, said that his crew's examination of the wreckage indicated that the Bismarck would have sunk eventually even if it had not been scuttled.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1993, Ballard investigated the wreck of RMS "Lusitania" off the Irish coast. It had been struck by a torpedo, whose explosion was followed by a second, much larger one. The wreck had been depth charged by the Royal Navy several years after the sinking, and had also been damaged by other explorers, making a forensic analysis difficult. He found no evidence of boiler explosion and he speculated the ignition of coal dust inside the ship caused a "massive, uncontrollable [second] explosion".


title: Robert Ballard

text: Others have questioned this hypothesis, some suggesting that the ship had been sabotaged by the British. Ballard found no evidence to support this claim. Some experts have indicated that it was, in fact, boiler explosions that caused the ship to sink so quickly, in a mere 18 minutes.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard published a book about the discovery, "Exploring the Lusitania: Probing the Mysteries of the Sinking that Changed History", also titled "Robert Ballard's Lusitania" in some markets, with co-author Spencer Dunmore ().


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1992, Ballard and his team visited the sites of many wrecks of World War II in the Pacific. Doing so, he discovered the wreck of the IJN "Kirishima". His book "Lost Ships of Guadalcanal" locates and photographs many of the vessels sunk at Ironbottom Sound, the strait between Guadalcanal Island and the Floridas in the Solomon Islands.


title: Robert Ballard

text: On May 19, 1998 Ballard found the wreck of "Yorktown", sunk at the Battle of Midway. Found 3 miles (5 km) beneath the surface, it was photographed.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 2002, the National Geographic Society and Ballard fielded a ship with remote vehicles to the Solomon Islands. They succeeded in finding a torpedo tube and the forward section from the shipwreck of John F. Kennedy's "PT-109" which was rammed in 1943 by the Japanese destroyer "Amagiri" off Ghizo Island. The visit also brought to light the identity of islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who had received little recognition for finding the shipwrecked crew after searching for days in their dugout canoe. A TV special and a book were produced, and Ballard spoke at the John F. Kennedy Library in 2005.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In the 1990s Ballard founded the Institute for Exploration, which specializes in deep-sea archaeology and deep-sea geology. It joined forces in 1999 with the Mystic Aquarium located in Mystic, Connecticut. They are a part of the non-profit Sea Research Foundation, Inc.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 2003, Ballard started the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography, a research program at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1976, Willard Bascom suggested that the deep, anoxic waters of the Black Sea might have preserved ships from antiquity because typical wood-devouring organisms could not survive there. At a depth of 150 m, it contains insufficient oxygen to support most familiar biological life forms.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Originally a land-locked fresh water lake, the Black Sea was flooded with salt water from the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene. The influx of salt water essentially smothered the fresh water below it because a lack of internal motion and mixing meant that no fresh oxygen reached the deep waters, creating a meromictic body of water. The anoxic environment, which is hostile to many biological organisms that destroy wood in the oxygenated waters, provides an excellent testing site for deep water archaeological survey.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, and drowned river valleys in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The team discovered three ancient wrecks to the west of the town of Sinop at depths of 100 m. Wreck A and Wreck C probably date to the late Roman period (2nd–4th century A.D.), while Wreck B probably dates to the Byzantine period (5th to 7th century A.D.).


title: Robert Ballard

text: To the east of Sinop, the team discovered a remarkably well-preserved wreck at a 320 m depth, in the Black Sea's deep anoxic waters. The vessel's entire hull and cargo are intact, buried in sediments. Its deck structures are also intact, including a mast rising some 11 m into the water column. Radiocarbon dating of wood from the wreck provides a date of 410–520 A.D. It has been named "Sinop D" by the Ballard team.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 2000, the team conducted an expedition that focused on the exploration of the sea bed about 15–30 km west of Sinop, and an additional deep-water survey east and north of the peninsula. Their project had several goals. They sought to discover whether human habitation sites could be identified on the ancient submerged landscape, they examined the sea-bed for shipwrecks (where they found Sinop A-D), to test the hypothesis that the anoxic waters below 200 m would protect shipwrecks from the expected biological attacks on organic components, and to seek data about an ancient trade route between Sinop and the Crimea indicated by terrestrial archaeological remains.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Although Sinop served as a primary trade center in the Black Sea, the wrecks were located west of the trade route predicted by the prevalence of Sinopian ceramics on the Crimean peninsula. On wrecks A-C, mounds of distinctive carrot-shaped shipping jars, called amphorae, were found. They were of a style associated with Sinop and retained much of their original stacking pattern on the sea floor. The jars may have carried a variety of archetypal Black Sea products such as olive oil, honey, wine or fish sauce but the contents are presently unknown because no artifacts were recovered from any of these wreck sites in 2000.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The wreck found provided the team with vast information about both the technological changes and trade that occurred in the Black Sea during a period of political, social and economic transition through their study of the ship's construction techniques. Studies show that in Sinop during the Byzantine era, they had developed long-distance trading as early as 4500 BC. Sea-trading on the Black Sea was most intense during the period of late antiquity, between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD. The examination of the four shipwrecks found by Ballard and his team provide the direct evidence for Black Sea maritime trade so well attested by the distribution of ceramics on land.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The video images of Shipwreck A that were taken show a wall of shipping jars standing about 2 m above the seabed. The amphorae highest on the mound had fallen over without displacing those still standing in the rows beneath them, and it is likely that the ship settled upright on the sea-bed, gradually being both buried in and filled with sediment as exposed wood was devoured by the larva or the shipworm.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Shipwreck B also consisted of a large pile of amphorae but several types are visible, as are multiple timbers protruding from within the mound and on it. In addition to the Sinop-styles jars, several amphorae similar to examples excavated on the Yassiada Byzantine shipwreck and dating from the 5th to late 6th century AD are present.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Two discrete and mostly buried piles of carrot-shaped shipping jars comprise shipwreck C. The team's visit to the site was short and was intended primarily to test survey methodology for deep-water procedures.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Shipwreck D provided the team with an unprecedented opportunity to document hull construction during a time of transition. When observing the sonar signature of Shipwreck D, a long, slender upright feature on the seabed, transformed itself into a wooden mast. Elements rarely present on shallower shipwreck sites are beautifully preserved 200 m below the surface. Disappointingly for ship scholars and historians of technology, there are few indications of how the planks of Sinop D are held together. There are no mortise and tenon fastenings, and no sewing. Shipwreck D may be one of the earliest lateen-rigged ships to be studied by archaeologists. The angle of the mast and the lack of fittings on it suggest that a lateen sail is the most likely configuration for such a small vessel.


title: Robert Ballard

text: The Institute for Exploration Black Sea expeditions relied on remote sensing with side-scan sonar in shallow and deep water to identify potential archaeological sites examined by ROVs. The hypothesis that the anoxic waters of the Black Sea would allow extraordinary organic preservation is borne out by the discovery of Sinop D, the 1,500-year-old shipwreck with excellent preservation of features above the sediment layer.


title: Robert Ballard

text: According to a report in "New Scientist" magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC. Ballard's research has contributed to the debate over the Black Sea deluge theory.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 2004, Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography, and currently serves as Director of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography, at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. He was the first speaker to give the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island in 2002.


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard served as the technical consultant on the science fiction series "seaQuest DSV" during its first season from September 1993 until May 1994. During the closing credits, he would speak about the scientific elements that were present in any given episode and place them in a contemporary context. Although he exited the series in the second season, he was referenced in the third season, with the "Ballard Institute" being named after him.


title: Robert Ballard

text: In 1989, Ballard founded the JASON Project, a distance education program designed to excite and engage middle school students in science and technology. He began the JASON Project in response to the thousands of letters he received from students following his discovery of the wreck of the "Titanic".


title: Robert Ballard

text: Ballard has three sons, Todd Allan (1968-1989), Doug, and Ben (b. 1994). Ballard married Marjorie Jacobsen in 1966 and divorced in 1990. He remarried in 1991. Robert Ballard has a daughter with Barbara Earle named Emily who was born in 1997.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick Papers) was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with "Sketches by Boz" published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in "The Atlantic" writes, “'Literature' is not a big enough category for "Pickwick". It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.” Published in 19 issues over 20 months, the success of "The Pickwick Papers" popularised serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Seymour's widow claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's, but Dickens strenuously denied any specific input in his preface to the 1867 edition: "Mr Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the book."


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Dickens was working as a Parliamentary reporter and a roving journalist at the age of 24, and he had published a collection of sketches on London life as "Sketches by Boz". Publisher Chapman & Hall was projecting a series of "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour. There was to be a club, the members of which were to be sent on hunting and fishing expeditions into the country. Their guns were to go off by accident, and fishhooks were to get caught in their hats and trousers, and these and other misadventures were to be depicted in Seymour's comic plates. They asked Dickens to supply the description necessary to explain the plates and to connect them into a sort of picture novel that was fashionable at the time. He protested that he knew nothing of sport, but still accepted the commission.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Only in a few instances did Dickens adjust his narrative to plates that had been prepared for him. Typically, he led the way with an instalment of his story, and the artist was compelled to illustrate what Dickens had already written. The story thus became the prime source of interest and the illustrations merely of secondary importance. Seymour provided the illustrations for the first two instalments before his suicide. Robert William Buss illustrated the third instalment, but Dickens did not like his work, so the remaining instalments were illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), who illustrated most of Dickens's subsequent novels. The instalments were first published in book form in 1837.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: "The Pickwick Papers" is a sequence of loosely related adventures written for serialization in a periodical. The action is given as occurring 1827–28, though critics have noted some seeming anachronisms. For example, Dickens satirized the case of George Norton suing Lord Melbourne in 1836.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: The novel's protagonist Samuel Pickwick, Esquire is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club. He suggests that he and three other "Pickwickians" should make journeys to places remote from London and report on their findings to the other members of the club. Their travels throughout the English countryside by coach provide the chief subject matter of the novel. A romantic misunderstanding with his landlady, the widow Mrs Bardell, results in one of the most famous legal cases in English literature, "Bardell v. Pickwick", leading to them both being incarcerated in the Fleet Prison for debt.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Pickwick learns that the only way he can relieve the suffering of Mrs Bardell is by paying her costs in the action against himself, thus at the same time releasing himself from the prison.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Pickwick, Sam Weller, and his father Tony briefly reappeared in 1840 in the magazine "Master Humphrey's Clock". Master Humphrey's Clock is the name of a literary club founded by Mr Humphrey, whose members read out stories to the others. Pickwick is a member, and there is a mirror club in the kitchen, Mr. Weller's Watch, run by Sam Weller.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: In 1985 BBC released a 12-part 350-minute miniseries starring Nigel Stock, Alan Parnaby, Clive Swift and Patrick Malahide.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: In 1977, BBC Radio 4 released a dramatization by Barry Campbell and Constance Cox with Freddie Jones as Mr. Pickwick. In 1997, BBC Radio 4 released a dramatization by Martyn Read with Clive Francis as Mr. Pickwick.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: There was an early attempt at a theatrical adaptation with songs by W.T. Moncrieff and entitled "Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians", in 1837. This was followed in 1871 by John Hollingshead's stage play "Bardell versus Pickwick". The first successful musical was "Pickwick" (sometimes "Pickwick, A Dramatic Cantata") by Sir Francis Burnand and Edward Solomon and premiered at the Comedy Theatre on 7 February 1889.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: "Pickwick" by Cyril Ornadel, Wolf Mankowitz, and Leslie Bricusse was a musical version which premiered in Manchester in 1963 before transferring to the West End. It originally starred Harry Secombe (later cast as "Mr Bumble" in the film version of "Oliver!") in the title role and Roy Castle as "Sam Weller". Although it was a major success in London, running for 694 performances, "Pickwick" failed in the United States when it opened on Broadway in 1965. In 1969, the BBC filmed the musical as the TV movie "Pickwick" with Secombe and Castle reprising their stage roles. Both the stage and TV versions featured the song "If I Ruled the World", which became a hit for Secombe and other singers such as Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis Jr.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Part of "The Pickwick Papers" were featured in "Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories", a 60-minute animation made by Emerald City Films (1987). These included "The Ghost in the Wardrobe", "The Mail Coach Ghosts", and "The Goblin and the Gravedigger".


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Stephen Jarvis's novel "Death and Mr Pickwick" (2014) is in part a literary thriller, examining in forensic detail the question of whether the idea, character and physiognomy of Samuel Pickwick originated with Dickens, or with the original illustrator and instigator of the project, Robert Seymour. The conclusion of the narrator is that the accepted version of events given by Dickens and the publisher Edward Chapman is untrue.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: The novel was published in 19 issues over 20 months; the last was double-length and cost two shillings. In mourning for his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth, Dickens missed a deadline and consequently, there was no number issued in May 1837. Numbers were typically issued on the last day of its given month:


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Dickens drew on places that he knew from his childhood. He located the duel between Mr. Winkle and Dr. Slammer at Fort Pitt, Chatham, close to Ordnance Terrace where he had lived as a boy between 1817 and 1821.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: The popularity of "The Pickwick Papers" spawned many imitations and sequels in print as well as actual clubs and societies inspired by the club in the novel. One example is the still in operation Pickwick Bicycle Club in London, which was established in 1870, the same year as Charles Dickens's death. Another, the Dickens Pickwick Club, was founded in 1976 by Cedric Dickens, the author's great-grandson. Other clubs, groups, and societies operating under the name "The Pickwick Club" have existed since the original publication of the story.


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: In 1837, Charles Dickens wrote to William Howison about the Edinburgh Pickwick Club. Dickens approved of the use of the name and the celebration of the characters and spirit of the novel. He wrote:


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Other known clubs include one meeting as early as December 1836 in the East of London and another meeting at the Sun Tavern in Long-acre in London. Dickens wrote to the secretary of the latter club in 1838 about attending a meeting:


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: In many Pickwick Clubs, members can take on the names of the characters in the novel. The website for the Pickwick Bicycle Club states "Our rules state that 'Each Member shall adopt the sobriquet allocated by the Management Committee, being the name of some male character in the Pickwick Papers, and be addressed as such at all meetings of the Club'."


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Imitations/plagiarisms published at the same time as Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" include G. W. M. Reynolds's "Pickwick Abroad; or, The Tour in France".


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: A French translation by Eugénie Niboyet appeared in 1838 in a two-volume edition. It was entitled "Le Club des Pickwistes, roman comique". Later French translations have used titles such as "Aventures de Monsieur Pickwick".


title: The Pickwick Papers

text: Benito Pérez Galdós published "Aventuras de Pickwick", a Spanish translation of the "Pickwick Papers", in 1868. Although Pérez Galdós was not born until after the publication of Dickens' first novel, he is sometimes described as the Spanish equivalent of Dickens.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Nightmare Alley is a novel by William Lindsay Gresham published in 1946. It is a study of the lowest depths of showbiz and its sleazy inhabitantsthe dark, shadowy world of a second-rate carnival filled with hustlers, scheming grifters, and Machiavellian femmes fatales.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Gresham attributed the origin of "Nightmare Alley" to conversations he had with a former carnival worker while they were both serving as volunteers with the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Gresham wrote the novel, his first, while working as an editor for a "true crime," pulp magazine in New York City during the 1940s. He outlined the plot and wrote the first six chapters over a period of two years, then finished the book in four months. Each chapter is represented by a different Tarot card.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Stanton Carlisle watches the geek show at a Ten-in-One where he has recently begun working. He later asks the carnival's talker Clem Hoately where geeks come from. Clem explains that geeks are "made": a sideshow owner finds an alcoholic bum and offers him a temporary job with a steady supply of liquor. Initially, the bum is only asked to pretend to be a geek, using a razor blade to slice chickens' necks and then faking the drinking of the blood. After a few weeks, the owner threatens to end the job and replace the bum with a "real" geek, and the fear of sobering up terrifies the bum into actually biting the chickens. Thus, a geek is made.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Stan performs sleight of hand tricks in the sideshow but studies under the carnival's mentalist Zeena to learn a refined "code" act, where performers memorize verbal cues that allow them to appear psychic by accurately answering written audience questions. Stan also begins to pick up Zeena's talent for cold reading. He eventually leaves the carnival with the beautiful and naïve electric girl Molly Cahill to perform a team code act.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Their act becomes very successful, but Stan grows bored and transforms himself into Reverend Carlisle, an upstanding spiritualist preacher offering séance sessions with the help of his medium. Stan gains a devoted following, but the stress of leading a false life leads him to seek the help of a psychologist named Lilith Ritter, who seduces and then begins controlling him. Stan pleads constantly for them to go away together, and Lilith eventually agrees, suggesting the Rev. Carlisle swindle a rich man for the getaway money. They settle on Ezra Grindle, a ruthless auto tycoon with a skeptical interest in the occult. Stan manages to convince Grindle of his powers, and the businessman becomes a devoted spiritualist.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Stan keeps Grindle hooked by promising to reunite him with his deceased college sweetheart Dorrie, who died in a botched back-alley abortion Grindle convinced her to seek. A reluctant Molly plays "Dorrie" in a series of sessions but eventually breaks character, destroying the illusion. In a rage Stan punches Molly and Grindle and flees the scene. At Lilith's suggestion he decides to go into hiding with Grindle's money but later discovers that Lilith has stolen a majority of it by replacing the five-hundred-dollar bills with singles. When he confronts her, she tells him that he is deluded and attempts to have him committed to a mental institution, and he narrowly escapes. He flees and resorts to performing as a mentalist at increasingly shoddy venues, trying to evade the men he falsely believes Grindle is sending after him. During this time, Molly takes up with a gambler reminiscent of her father, and gives birth to a son. Eventually Stan becomes a hobo, staying afloat by giving Tarot readings and selling horoscopes, but ends up murdering a police officer who attacks him while he sells his merchandise. A final reconnection with Zeena provides him an opportunity to again make living in the carnival, but he breaks completely and descends into alcoholism and depression when he discovers through a newspaper article that Lilith has wed Grindle.


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: His life in shambles, a drunk Stan finds a carnival owner and asks to join the sideshow as a palm reader. The owner gives Stan some whiskey but refuses his proposal, saying the show is full. But as Stan begins to stumble out, the owner changes his tune and invites Stan back in with a job offer: "Of course, it's only temporary – just until we get a real geek."


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: In a 2010 review, the Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic Michael Dirda proclaimed, "I was utterly unprepared for its raw, Dostoevskian power... It's not often that a novel leaves a weathered and jaded reviewer like myself utterly flattened, but this one did...it's more than just a steamy noir classic. As a portrait of the human condition, "Nightmare Alley" is a creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece."


title: Nightmare Alley (novel)

text: Author and creative writing professor Dwight V. Swain described the conclusion of "Nightmare Alley" as an exemplar of a novel with an unhappy ending that was nonetheless a "fitting ending," where the protagonist brought misfortune on himself.


title: What's Happening!!

text: What's Happening!! is an American sitcom television series that aired on ABC from August 5, 1976, until April 28, 1979, premiering as a summer series. Due to other shows being cancelled across the network, and good ratings and reviews from the critics, "What's Happening!!" returned as a weekly series from November 1976 until its April 1979 conclusion; ratings were modest. "What's Happening!!" was loosely based on the Eric Monte-penned film "Cooley High". From 1985 until 1988, a sequel series titled "What's Happening Now!!" aired in first-run syndication, with most of the major cast members reprising their roles.


title: What's Happening!!

text: "What's Happening!!" was Bud Yorkin's second series after he ended his partnership with Norman Lear and Tandem Productions. The show was produced by TOY Productions, which was formed by Yorkin, Saul Turteltaub, and Bernie Orenstein after the split.


title: What's Happening!!

text: "What's Happening!!" follows the lives of three working-class African-American teens living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. The show stars Ernest Thomas as Roger "Raj" Thomas, Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry as Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs. Co-starring are Danielle Spencer as Roger's younger sister Dee; Mabel King as Roger and Dee's mother Mabel; and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson, a waitress at "Rob's Place", the neighborhood restaurant where the boys are regular patrons. Recurring characters include Rob (Earl Billings), owner of Rob's Place; and Mrs. Collins (Fritzi Burr), a sarcastic history teacher, and the sponsor of the school newspaper.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Roger "Raj" Thomas (Ernest Thomas), the show's protagonist, is a teenager living in Watts with his divorced mother Mabel and his younger sister Dee. Raj is an intelligent, well-mannered young man who sports large black horn-rimmed glasses and aspires to be a writer. Many episodes involve Raj taking steps to pursue his dream, from saving up for a screenwriting course or a typewriter to trying to impress a TV producer. Eventually, he graduates from high school, moves out, and goes to college. Raj is known for his slender build, high-pitched laugh, and his bizarre style of dancing. For example, one move involves repeatedly placing his chin upon his fist, like "The Thinker," to the beat of the music. He sometimes tries to impress older women by talking in a baritone voice. Raj also mumbles when there is something that he does not wish to say, but knows he must, especially if it is bad news.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Dwayne Clemens Nelson (Haywood Nelson) is the youngest member of the trio. Dwayne has an unassuming, good-natured demeanor, and suffers from debilitating shyness and acute fear of the dark. Dwayne's plotlines often deal with his problems with girls, bullies, and his uncertain future. Dwayne is known for his greeting, "Hey, "hey", hey!" and his saying "nuh-"uh!"" when he denies or refuses something. Dwayne is the only character who appears in every episode of "What's Happening!!"


title: What's Happening!!

text: Frederick (Freddy) "Rerun" Stubbs (Fred Berry) is a bumbling, comedic young man with a friendly personality, commonly seen wearing a red beret and various suspenders. He is often teased by his friends for being overweight and unintelligent. He is nicknamed "Rerun" because, due to his failing grades in school, "every summer he has to go to school to rerun the stuff he did all winter." However, Rerun is an energetic and talented dancer who enters a dance contest and "The Gong Show", auditions for a dance troupe, and tries to get on a TV commercial. In the third season, Rerun shares an apartment with Raj and works as a page for ABC.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Dee Thomas (Danielle Spencer) is Raj's younger sibling. In the show's first season she is irksome and rude, and says things that are well beyond her years. She is shrewd and obsessed with making money, usually by blackmailing her brother and his friends a quarter at a time. As the series progressed and Dee grew older, her caustic personality mellowed into a sly sense of sarcasm, which included continuous insults of Rerun based on his weight and his stupidity, and she became more likable and clashed less with Raj. After Raj moved into an apartment in the third season, Dee remained in the Thomas house with Shirley moving in to help out. Her trademark phrase is "Ooooohh, I'm tellin' Mama!" or "Ooooohh, you're gonna get it!" when she witnesses or hears about a wrongdoing, especially by her brother. Her favorite food is peanut butter. Her birthday is September 17.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Mabel Thomas (Mabel King) is Raj's and Dee's divorced mother. She is typically the voice of wisdom and authority, and a parental figure for Dwayne and Rerun, who approach her for advice as well. Mabel's ex-husband Bill (Thalmus Rasulala) drifts in and out of her life during the first season, but appeared in the second season when he got remarried to his steady girlfriend in the Thomas household. Her role became less important in later episodes and eventually she disappeared from the show altogether, although her character was never written out and was still referred to. Her trademark phrase is "This is true," when agreeing with a statement someone made. Reportedly, King left the show due to a disagreement over the direction the series was going.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Shirley Wilson (Shirley Hemphill) is a waitress at the neighborhood soda shop Rob's Place, where the main cast are regular patrons. She is a brash person who likes to take shots at the boys and often clashes with Rerun as they are both overweight. Some episodes turn the spotlight briefly on Shirley and her joys and sorrows. Shirley moves into the Thomas residence in the last season to be a guardian to Dee after Raj moves out and Mrs. Thomas leaves to tend to a sick relative.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Bill Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) is Mabel's ex-husband and the father of Roger and Dee. He abandoned his family when Dee was one month old, and became a shady character. When he first appears, he tries to con Mabel out of money. However, in later episodes he is depicted in a more positive light. After his on-screen marriage to Lee Henderson (Lee Chamberlin), Bill was never seen again on the show, although he continued to be mentioned off-screen. On the follow-up series "What's Happening Now!!", Rasulala guest-starred in the second-season premiere episode, "Nadine's Surprise". In that episode, it was explained that Bill and Roger had been estranged since he had remarried, and Roger's wife Nadine plans a surprise reunion for Bill and Roger to make amends.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Gene "Rabbit" Walker (Ray Vitte) is a political-science major at the University of Southern California, and a track team member. He appears in two first-season episodes as a boarder at the Thomas home, renting Dee's bedroom. In his first appearance, he is referred to and credited as "Dean." Gene took a liking to Dee, giving her the nickname "Small Portion." In another episode, his character is mentioned as being away, so Mrs. Thomas offers his room to Dee's ex-con pen pal.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Detective "Big Earl" Barnett (John Welsh) is a police detective who lives in the apartment building where Raj and Rerun move into in the third season. He is involved in undercover and stakeout operations that sometimes require him to wear ridiculous disguises.


title: What's Happening!!

text: "Little Earl" Barnett (David Hollander) is Big Earl's son. He has a crush on Dee, who is about five years his senior. This is indicated by Little Earl addressing Dee with different terms of endearment. Although Dee politely returns Little Earl's greetings, she remains oblivious to his crush on her.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Rob (Earl Billings) is the owner of Rob's Place, and Shirley's boss. A small business owner trying to make his business survive, Rob is known for serving low-quality, poor-tasting fast food (often made up of the previous day's left overs, or "kitchen accidents" such as a "meatloaf milkshake") to save money and make ends meet. Nevertheless, he has a steady business of high school age customers, who use the restaurant as an after-school hangout.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Terry "Snake" Simpson (Leland Smith) is a star college basketball player whom Roger tutors in the third season. He eventually became a friend of Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Mrs. W. Collins (Fritzi Burr) is the boys' high-school teacher. She admires Roger, and wishes the best for him as a promising student (although the two once clashed over material to print in the school newspaper), but she is frequently frustrated with Rerun whom she has had as a student many, many times due to his constant failures.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Marvin (Bryan O'Dell) is the boys' high-school classmate. He is a reporter for the school paper, always looking for a new story, and is sometimes seen at Rob's Place.


title: What's Happening!!

text: Leon (Henry Robinson III) is a martial arts enthusiast, with a Bruce Lee style haircut, and made two appearances: as Rob's customer in "Shirley's a Mother," and as a bully who bets on Rerun's disco-dance abilities in "Disco Dollar Disaster".


title: What's Happening!!

text: Diane Harris (Debbi Morgan) is another classmate of Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun. In the first two seasons, she was frequently seen in the classroom or at Rob's Place, and at a birthday party for Roger. (In the pilot episode, she was referred to as Diane Stewart.)


title: What's Happening!!

text: During the second season, using the show's first season success as leverage, Fred Berry demanded a higher salary and better studio accommodations for the actors. The accommodations issue eventually led to a full-fledged walkout by Berry and Thomas during the second-season episode "If I'm Elected" (leaving Haywood Nelson to carry the entire episode, with Shirley Hemphill stepping to the forefront, along with Bryan O'Dell and Debbi Morgan in featured speaking parts). Producer Bud Yorkin, in turn, suspended the pair, forcing them to sign $25,000 promissory notes to return to the show, and guard against further walkouts. The dispute was quickly settled, and both returned the following episode.


title: What's Happening!!

text: In addition, Mabel King had a much-reduced role in the series during the second season, largely due to creative differences with the producers (she wanted the Roger and Dee characters to have married parents, rather than divorced). Her character, Mama, was not written out of the show, but rather limited to brief appearances on set (where she would say she was "leaving for work" or "going to the store"), or mentioned in passing by other characters as being "at work."


title: What's Happening!!

text: The show changed significantly in the third season, with Raj and Rerun graduating high school (Rerun after seven years), with the two moving into their own apartment near the University of Southern California. Mabel King finally left the show (her character moving to Phoenix, Arizona to tend to a sick relative), and Shirley moved into the Thomas household as a boarder and Dee's guardian. Also, several new recurring characters were introduced. The first was a basketball player whom Roger tutored, nicknamed "The Snake," (played by Leland Smith). The other characters were white detective "Big Earl" Barnett (played by John Welsh) and his son "Little Earl" Barnett (played by David Hollander), who were neighbors in the apartment building where Roger and Rerun lived.


title: What's Happening!!

text: What became the role of "Little Earl" was initially created to be filled by ten-year-old Gary Coleman at the suggestion of ABC President Fred Silverman. Silverman was a huge proponent of Coleman, and feeling that breakout stardom was around the corner for the young talent, wanted him added to the show. When Silverman left ABC in 1978 to head rival network NBC, he had Diff'rent Strokes created for Coleman, which ran for eight years, and was highly rated.


title: What's Happening!!

text: During the third season (1978–79), Berry again threatened to strike (not appearing in the third-season episode "Dee, the Cheerleader."). Thomas joined Berry in the strike threat, which led to a heated meeting with the executive producers, culminating with Berry making accusations of racism. In light of the seriousness of the accusation, and now unmotivated (and unwilling) to accommodate the stars, the producers opted to cancel the moderately-successful series.


title: What's Happening!!

text: "What's Happening!!" aired its last episode on April 28, 1979. A year later, Hemphill starred in her own sitcom, "One In A Million", which premiered in January, 1980, and ended on July 23, 1980, after being on ABC for a few months.


title: What's Happening!!

text: The show was a modest success in its network run, despite some serious production problems, and repeats of the show's 65 episodes did reasonably well in syndication. In some markets, the show was perceived to appeal to both children and adults in a similar way to "The Brady Bunch" and "Happy Days". The show was often aired in transitional hours where stations would change their after-school programming lineup from cartoons to evening sitcoms in the 1980s. In a few markets the show actually had higher ratings in syndication than during the network run. With this success in mind, a revival of the show was produced entitled "What's Happening Now!!" It ran from 1985 to 1988 in first-run syndication.


title: What's Happening!!

text: On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library including What's Happening!! On September 2, 2014, they re-released the first two seasons on DVD.


title: What's Happening!!

text: On April 21, 2015, Mill Creek released a budget-priced complete series set, a 6-disc set featuring all 65 episodes.


title: What's Happening!!

text: The show was syndicated on many local channels (with all 66 episodes of sequel series "What's Happening Now!!" joining the syndication package in the fall of 1988 to total 131 episodes) and continued in an on-again, off-again manner until 2009.


title: Karan Soni

text: Karan Soni (born January 8, 1989) is an Indian-American actor and comedian. Often appearing in comedic roles, he came to prominence for playing in the films "Deadpool" (2016) and its sequel "Deadpool 2" (2018).


title: Karan Soni

text: Born in New Delhi, Soni moved to the United States to study business at the University of Southern California before pursuing an acting career. He made his feature film debut in "Safety Not Guaranteed" (2012), which was followed by lead appearances on the series "Betas" (2013) and "Other Space" (2015). Soni gained further attention after being cast in the film "Deadpool" (2016) as Dopinder, a role he reprised for its 2018 sequel. Soni has also appeared in the films "Ghostbusters" (2016), "Office Christmas Party" (2016), and "Pokémon Detective Pikachu" (2019). On television, he has appeared as a series regular on "Blunt Talk" (2015–2016) and "Miracle Workers" (2019–present).


title: Karan Soni

text: Soni is from New Delhi, where he attended an international school. He came to the United States at 18 years old to study at the University of Southern California.


title: Karan Soni

text: Soni made his film debut in Yusuf Sumer's 2010 comedy film "Kaka Nirvana", alongside Rachel Quinn. In 2013, Soni was cast in the Amazon Studios original series "Betas". The series was cancelled after one season. In 2014, Soni appeared in commercials for AT&T along with Jim Conroy.


title: Karan Soni

text: In 2015, Soni appeared in "Other Space," a series created by Paul Feig for Yahoo! Screen, as Captain Stewart Lipinski. Yahoo! Screen would be shut down later in the year, preventing the series from being renewed for a second season, while the first season would later be picked up by DUST in 2020. Later in 2015, he appeared in episodes of "Melissa & Joey", "The Goldbergs" and "100 Things to Do Before High School" and began starring in "Blunt Talk", opposite Patrick Stewart, as Martin. The series was renewed for a second season, which premiered in 2016, but on December 20, was cancelled after two seasons.


title: Karan Soni

text: In 2016, Soni appeared in "Deadpool" as a taxi driver named Dopinder and in "Ghostbusters" as a delivery man named Benny. He reprised Dopinder in 2018's "Deadpool 2" and also appeared in another May blockbuster film, the following year's "Pokémon Detective Pikachu". In both "Deadpool" films and "Pokémon Detective Pikachu", he starred opposite Ryan Reynolds.


title: Karan Soni

text: Soni is gay. He is in a relationship with writer and director Roshan Sethi, with whom he developed the movie "7 Days".


title: Rob Huebel

text: Robert Anderson Huebel (born June 4, 1969) is an American actor, comedian and writer best known for his sketch comedy work on the MTV series "Human Giant" and for his role of Dr. Owen Maestro on the Adult Swim series "Childrens Hospital". He also appeared as Russell on the FX/FXX series "The League" and as Len Novak on the Amazon Prime Video series "Transparent". In December 2022, Entertainment Weekly called Huebel "the premier d-bag character actor of his generation".


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Louisa and Jared Huebel. He attended Annandale High School in Annandale, Virginia, before attending Clemson University, where he studied marketing in hopes of working in advertising. He later moved to New York and began studying improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel first began improvising when he was 27 by taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City.


title: Rob Huebel

text: His early work was as a sketch actor on shows such as "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Upright Citizens Brigade". He was nominated for an Emmy award for his work as a producer for Michael Moore's Bravo series "The Awful Truth". He worked as a segment producer on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel was a panelist on the VH1 series "Best Week Ever", part of the NetZero "Candidate Zero" campaign during the 2004 election. He also appeared on the HBO television series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Fox's "Arrested Development".


title: Rob Huebel

text: The comedy partner of Rob Riggle, the duo have worked with the improvisational comedy troupe Respecto Montalban and at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Huebel and Riggle performed a comedy bit in the documentary "Super High Me". Among their best known work at UCB was their long-running two-man show "Kung-Fu Grip", which was eventually showcased at the 2004 HBO Comedy Arts Festival. Huebel was in the movie "", as Sam Brown with Corddry, Scheer, and Riggle.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel and fellow comedians Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer are writers, actors, and executive producers in the MTV sketch comedy show "Human Giant". Some of Huebel's characters from the show include Samir from "The Shutterbugs" and T.C. Everwood from "Clell Tickle". He guest starred in the "30 Rock" episode "MILF Island", and also as Holly's boyfriend A.J. in three episodes of "The Office". He played the role of Tevin in the 2009 comedy "I Love You, Man". He also co-starred with Rob Corddry in "Childrens Hospital".


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel continues to regularly perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. He co-hosts the live sketch show "Crash Test" with Paul Scheer twice a month, as well as hosting "The Shit Show", in which he gathers comedian friends and other well-known performers to present the worst scenes in films, television and commercials that they have ever done.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel has written and starred in various filmed sketches for the HBO sketch comedy program "Funny or Die Presents". In November 2010, he performed stand-up on "The Benson Interruption" on Comedy Central.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel appeared in the films "The Other Guys" (2010), "Life as We Know It", "Little Fockers", "Despicable Me", and "The Descendants". In February 2011, he was cast as a lead in the Fox sitcom pilot "Family Album" and in May he guest starred on ABC's sitcom "Modern Family "as Glen Whipple in the episode "The One That Got Away". He also appeared in a recurring role on Amazon Studios's "Transparent", playing Len Novak.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel appears frequently on the comedy podcast "Comedy Bang! Bang!" along with starring in his own podcast series on the Earwolf network, "Mike Detective". He later appeared in "Horrible Bosses 2" (2014) and "Barely Lethal" (2015).


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel has starred as "Inconsiderate Cell-Phone Man" in several PSAs of this title, which are shown in movie theaters to discourage patrons from making calls during the picture.


title: Rob Huebel

text: Huebel is married to Holly Hannula. Their daughter, Holden, was born in 2016. She was born premature at 26 weeks and spent the first 117 days of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo () is one of the 17,508 islands that comprise the Republic of Indonesia. The island is particularly notable as the habitat of the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard on Earth, which is named after the island. Komodo Island has a surface area of 390 square kilometres and a human population of over two thousand. The people of the island are descendants of former convicts who were exiled to the island and who have mixed with Bugis from Sulawesi. The people are primarily adherents of Islam but there are also Christian and Hindu congregations.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo is part of the Lesser Sunda chain of islands and forms part of the Komodo National Park. In addition, the island is a popular destination for diving. Administratively, it is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo is part of the Lesser Sunda chain of islands and forms part of the Komodo National Park. It lies between the substantially larger neighboring islands Sumbawa to the west and Flores to the east. The island's surface area covers 390 square kilometres. Komodo Island is home to the Komodo Dragon, the largest lizard on earth.


title: Komodo (island)

text: The earliest stories (among Westerners) of a dragon-like animal existing in the region circulated widely and attracted considerable attention. But no Westerner visited the island to check the story until official interest was sparked in the early 1910s by stories from Dutch sailors based in Flores in East Nusa Tenggara about a mysterious creature. The creature was allegedly a dragon which inhabited a small island in the Lesser Sunda Islands (the main island of which is Flores).


title: Komodo (island)

text: The Dutch sailors reported that the creature measured up to seven metres (twenty-three feet) in length with a large body and mouth which constantly breathed fire. It burnt them and so they could not continue the investigation. It was believed then that the odd creature could fly. Hearing the reports, Lieutenant Steyn van Hensbroek, an official of the Dutch Colonial Administration in Flores, planned a trip to Komodo Island to continue the search himself. He armed himself, and accompanied by a team of soldiers, he landed on the island. After a few days, Hensbroek managed to kill one of the lizards to investigate.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Van Hensbroek took the dragon to headquarters where measurements were taken. It was approximately 2.1 metres (6.9 feet) long, with a shape very similar to that of a lizard. More samples were then photographed by Peter A. Ouwens, the Director of the Zoological Museum and Botanical Gardens in Bogor, Java. The records that Ouwens made are the first reliable documentation of details about what is now called the Komodo dragon (or Komodo monitor).


title: Komodo (island)

text: Ouwens was keen to obtain additional samples. He recruited hunters who killed two dragons measuring 3.1 metres and 3.35 metres as well as capturing two pups, each measuring less than one metre. Ouwens carried out studies on the samples and concluded that the Komodo dragon was not a flame-thrower but was a type of monitor lizard. Research results were published in 1912. Ouwens named the giant lizard "Varanus komodoensis". Realizing the significance of the dragons on Komodo Island as an endangered species, the Dutch government issued a regulation on the protection of the lizards on Komodo Island in 1915.


title: Komodo (island)

text: In 1926, W. Douglas Burden, F.J. Defoisse, and Emmett Reid Dunn collected specimens for the American Museum of Natural History. Burden's chapter "The Komodo Dragon", in "Look to the Wilderness", describes the expedition, the dragon's habitat and its behavior.


title: Komodo (island)

text: The Komodo dragon became something of a living legend. In the decades since the Komodo was discovered, various scientific expeditions from a range of countries have carried out field research on the dragons on Komodo Island.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo has a human population of over two thousand, spread out over the island and in the main Komodo village. The native population of Komodo, the Komodo people, has been extinct since the 1980s. The present day people of the island are descendants of former convicts who were exiled to Komodo and who have mixed with Bugis from Sulawesi. The population is primarily adherents of Islam but there are also Christian and Hindu congregations.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo is part of the Lesser Sundas deciduous forests ecoregion. The island is also a popular destination for diving and it has been included into the controversial New7Wonders of Nature list since November 11, 2011.


title: Komodo (island)

text: The Komodo dragon, the world's largest living lizard, takes its name from the island. A type of monitor lizard, it inhabits Komodo Island and some of the smaller surrounding islands, as well as part of western Flores. Javan deer also inhabit the island, though they are not native. Other animals include water buffalo, banded pigs, civets, cockatoo and macaques.


title: Komodo (island)

text: Komodo contains a beach with "pink" sand, one of only seven in the world. The sand appears pink because it is a mixture of white sand combined with red sand, formed from pieces of Foraminifera.