title: Meet the Press

text: "Meet the Press" began on radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1945 as "American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press", a program to promote "The American Mercury", a magazine that Lawrence Spivak purchased in 1935. Before the program aired, Spivak asked journalist Martha Rountree, who had worked in radio and had been employed by Spivak as a roving editor for the magazine, to critique the plans for the new radio show. Based on her advice, Rountree created a new radio program that she called "The American Mercury", on October 5, 1945.


title: Meet the Press

text: On November 6, 1947, while still on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the television rights to the program were purchased by General Foods, which began to air the show on the NBC television network with the title shortened to simply "Meet the Press"; the radio version also adopted the new name. Although some sources credit Spivak with the program's creation, Rountree developed the idea on her own, and Spivak joined as co-producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had already debuted.


title: Meet the Press

text: "Meet the Press" was originally presented as a 30-minute press conference with a single guest and a panel of questioners. Its first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General, Democratic National Committee chairman and campaign manager to Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration. Creator Rountree served as its first host, the program's only female moderator to date. She stepped down on November 1, 1953, and was succeeded by Ned Brooks, who remained as moderator until his retirement on December 26, 1965. Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, moving up from his role as a permanent panelist. He retired on November 9, 1975, on a special one-hour edition that featured a sitting president as guest for the first time, in this case Gerald Ford. The next week, Bill Monroe, previously a weekly panelist like Spivak had been years before, took over as moderator and stayed until June 2, 1984.


title: Meet the Press

text: For the next seven and a half years, the program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley". Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb, as co-moderators, followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace (who would later go on to a much longer run as host of the rival program "Fox News Sunday") from 1987 to 1988. Garrick Utley, then hosting "Weekend Today", concurrently hosted "Meet the Press" from 1989 through December 1, 1991. All this occurred despite the increasing ratings of NBC News' other programs (and those of the network generally) during that period. The program originally aired at noon Eastern Time every Sunday, acting as an awkward lead-in program to the then-half-hour "NFL Live" pre-game show in the fall and early winter, before moving to a 9:00 a.m. slot by the early 1990s when "NFL Live" expanded to an hour.


title: Meet the Press

text: Network officials, concerned for the show's future, turned to Tim Russert, the network's bureau chief in Washington, D.C. He took over as moderator of "Meet the Press" on December 8, 1991, and remained with the program until his death on June 13, 2008, becoming the longest-serving moderator in the program's history.


title: Meet the Press

text: Under Russert, the program was expanded to one hour and became less of a televised press conference, focusing more on Russert's questions and comments; Russert also engaged in longer in-depth interviews and hosted panels of experts to discuss the topics featured in that week's broadcast. Russert signed off each edition by saying, "That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's "Meet the Press"."


title: Meet the Press

text: During the professional football season, Russert, a native of Buffalo, New York, and an avid fan of the Buffalo Bills, sometimes added, "Go Bills!," and occasionally would ask panelists, "How 'bout those Sabres?" if Buffalo's NHL hockey team was doing well. Spoofs of the show featured in a recurring sketch on "Saturday Night Live" often reflected his impromptu additions in support of the two professional sports franchises. By 2006, "Meet the Press" was the highest-rated program among the Sunday morning talk shows.


title: Meet the Press

text: On June 13, 2008, Russert died of a sudden coronary thrombosis (caused by a cholesterol plaque rupture). Former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw hosted a special edition of "Meet the Press" dedicated to the life of Russert on June 15, 2008, in which Russert's chair was left empty as a tribute.


title: Meet the Press

text: Mark Whitaker was named by NBC News as the division's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief and was given "executive oversight" of "Meet the Press".


title: Meet the Press

text: "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams acted as moderator of the first show following the tribute to Russert on June 15, 2008, with the same guests and subject matter that Russert was planning for when he died.


title: Meet the Press

text: Following Russert's death, Tom Brokaw was named the interim moderator through the 2008 general elections. Brokaw followed Russert's tradition by signing off with "We'll be back next Sunday because if it's Sunday, it's "Meet the Press"" (a sign-off that would continue to be used by his successors as moderator). In September of that year, the show was presented with limited commercial interruption.


title: Meet the Press

text: On August 10, 2008, David Gregory moderated the panel discussion during the second half-hour of the broadcast, while Brokaw anchored the first half-hour from the site of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The following week on August 17, 2008, he moderated the entire broadcast. On December 1, 2008, it was also reported that the December 7 broadcast would be Brokaw's last, with Gregory becoming the new permanent host the following Sunday.


title: Meet the Press

text: David Gregory began his tenure as moderator on December 14, 2008. Four days after Gregory's first regular broadcast, on December 18, 2008, NBC News political director Chuck Todd was named contributing editor of "Meet the Press". Throughout Gregory's tenure as moderator, "Meet the Press" experienced significant ratings declines. In the final three months of 2013, the program placed third among the Sunday morning talk shows in total viewership, behind CBS's "Face the Nation" and ABC's "This Week", for the first time since 1992. It also experienced the lowest ratings in the show's entire history among the key 25-to-54 age viewing demographic during this period. NBC management became uncertain as to the future direction of the program.


title: Meet the Press

text: A new set was introduced on May 2, 2010, featuring video screens and library-style bookshelves; Gregory would preview the guests to be featured during each week's broadcast using a large video screen. Different, modified intro music was also introduced, with the "Meet the Press" theme music in a shorter "modernized [style]...the beginning repeated with drum beats" (see "High-definition broadcasting" below for additional information).


title: Meet the Press

text: In response to declining viewership, rumors surfaced in August 2014 that Gregory would be replaced as the program's moderator. NBC News President Deborah Turness apparently had held discussions with Jon Stewart (then-host of Comedy Central's news comedy program "The Daily Show") to replace Gregory, which Stewart later confirmed in a "Rolling Stone" interview, saying, "My guess is they were casting as wide and as weird a net as they could. I'm sure part of them was thinking, 'Why don't we just make it a variety show?


title: Meet the Press

text: On August 14, 2014, Turness announced that Chuck Todd, NBC's chief White House correspondent, would take over the role of moderator on September 7, 2014. Because of Todd's Dodger fanhood, a Los Angeles Dodger poster became part of the physical format.


title: Meet the Press

text: On September 28, 2015, MSNBC premiered MTP Daily, a weekday spin-off also hosted by Todd. It formally replaced "The Ed Show" as MSNBC's early-evening program after a transitional period following its cancellation. MSNBC explained that the program is meant to "bring the insight and power of "Meet the Press" to our air every day of the week". By 2022, the show was airing in the 1 PM Eastern slot, and in May it was announced that the show would be moving from MSNBC to the free streaming platform NBC News NOW, and rechristened Meet the Press Now, starting June 6. The show also returned to an early evening slot of 4PM Eastern.


title: Meet the Press

text: In a December 2019 interview with "Rolling Stone", Todd discussed how disinformation overtook the media during the Trump administration. However, PressThink, a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, took Todd to task for failing to address the issue as it unfolded, in a very detailed discussion of Todd's remarks.


title: Meet the Press

text: The set utilized from March 17, 1996, to April 25, 2010, had been designed as an experimental set for high-definition broadcasting; several editions of the program (including the first broadcast of a regular series on a major television network in HD) had aired in the format in the 1990s over experimental HD station WHD-TV in Washington, D.C. Despite this, the program continued to be transmitted in NTSC over the NBC network itself. On May 2, 2010, "Meet the Press" became the last NBC News program to convert to high definition, and unveiled a new set consisting of large video screens mostly used to display Washington scenery, satellite interview subjects and moderator and subject talking points, along with graphics produced for the format.


title: Meet the Press

text: In January 2021, production of the program moved from WRC-TV facilities in Tenleytown to a ground floor studio in NBC's new Washington D.C. bureau on Capitol Hill. The move included a new set.


title: Meet the Press

text: In addition to its broadcasts on NBC, "Meet the Press" also airs on various other NBCUniversal-owned channels domestically and internationally, including MSNBC, CNBC in the United States and Canada, CNBC Europe in Europe and CNBC Asia in Asia. It is also broadcast in Australia on the Seven Network and in the Philippines on 9TV.


title: Meet the Press

text: "Meet the Press" is also available as an audio or video podcast, and is simulcast on radio stations by Westwood One (which also handles distribution of all other NBC-produced radio programming, including NBC News Radio).


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The Communist Party of Indonesia (Indonesian: "Partai Komunis Indonesia", PKI) was a communist party in Indonesia during the mid-20th century. It was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world before its violent disbandment in 1965. The party had two million members in the 1955 elections, with 16 percent of the national vote and almost 30 percent of the vote in East Java. During most of the period immediately following independence until the eradication of the PKI in 1965, it was a legal party operating openly in the country.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The Indies Social Democratic Association (Dutch: "Indische Sociaal-Democratische Vereeniging", ISDV) was founded in 1914 by Dutch socialist Henk Sneevliet and another Indies socialist. The 85-member ISDV was a merger of the two Dutch socialist parties (the SDAP and the Socialist Party of the Netherlands), which would become the Communist Party of the Netherlands with Dutch East Indies leadership. The Dutch members of the ISDV introduced communist ideas to educated Indonesians looking for ways to oppose colonial rule.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The ISDV began a Dutch-language publication, "Het Vrije Woord" ("The Free Word", edited by Adolf Baars), in October 1915. It did not demand independence when the ISDV was formed. At this point, the association had about 100 members; only three were Indonesians, and it rapidly took a radically anti-capitalist direction. When Sneevliet moved ISDV's headquarters from Surabaya to Semarang, the ISDV began attracting many Indonesians from like-minded movements which had been growing throughout the Dutch Indies since 1900. The ISDV became increasingly incompatible with the SDAP leadership in the Netherlands, who distanced themselves from the association and began to equate them with Volksraad (People's Council). A reformist faction of the ISDV broke away and formed the Indies Social Democratic Party in 1917. The ISDV began "Soeara Merdeka" ("The Voice of Freedom"), its first Indonesian-language publication, that year.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Later on, ISDV saw the events of the October Revolution in Russia as an inspiration for a similar uprising in Indonesia. The organization gained momentum among Dutch settlers in the archipelago. Red Guards were formed, numbering 3,000 within three months. In late 1917, soldiers and sailors at the Surabaya naval base revolted and established soviets. Colonial authorities suppressed the Surabaya soviets and the ISDV, whose Dutch leaders (including Sneevliet) were deported to the Netherlands.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Around the same time, ISDV and communist sympathizers began infiltrating other political groups in the East Indies in a tactic known as the "block within" strategy. The most apparent effect was the infiltration committed on a nationalist-religious organization Sarekat Islam (Islamic Union) which advocated a pan-islam stance and freedom from colonial rule. Many members including Semaun and Darsono were succeessfully influenced by radical leftist ideas. As a result, communist thoughts and ISDV agents were successfully planted in the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia. After the involuntary departure of several Dutch cadres, combined with the infiltration operations, the membership shifted from majority-Dutch to majority-Indonesian.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: At its 23 May 1920 congress in Semarang, the ISDV changed its name into Perserikatan Komunis di Hindia (PKH; the Communist Union of the Indies). Semaun became party chairman, and Darsono the vice-chairman. Its highest committee members were predominantly Dutch. The PKH was the first Asian communist party to become part of the Communist International, and Sneevliet represented the party at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern in 1921.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: During this time, communist sympathizers were still considered part of Sarekat Islam itself. This posed a troubling dilemma in which communist members were considered cadres in an Islamist organization, two very opposing ideas. More and more Sarekat Islam members were becoming aware of communist infiltration tactics. In the period leading up to the Sarekat Islam's sixth congress in 1921, members decided to stop the infiltrations once and for all. Agus Salim, the organization's secretary, introduced a motion banning Sarekat Islam members from dual membership in other parties. The motion passed despite opposition from Tan Malaka and Semaun, forcing the communists to change tactics. The Dutch colonial authorities introduced more restrictions on political activity and Sarekat Islam decided to focus on religious matters, leaving the communists as the only active extremist organization.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In 1922, whilst Semaun was attending Far Eastern Labour Conference in Moscow, Tan Malaka tried to turn a strike by government pawnshop workers into a national strike by all Indonesian labor unions. The plot failed and Malaka was arrested, given a choice between internal or external exile; he chose the latter and left for the Soviet Union. In May, Semaun returned after seven months in the Soviet Union and began to organize the labor unions into a single organization. In September, the Union of Indonesian Labour Organizations (Persatuan Vakbonded Hindia) was formed.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: At the fifth Comintern congress in 1924, it was emphasized that "the top priority of communist parties is to gain control of trades unions"; there could be no successful revolution without this. The PKH began to concentrate on unions, decided to improve discipline, and demanded the establishment of a Soviet Republic of Indonesia. The party name was changed again that year, to Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI, Communist Party of Indonesia).


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In a May 1925 plenary session, the Comintern executive committee ordered the Indonesian communists to form an anti-imperialist coalition with non-communist, nationalist organizations; extremist elements led by Alimin and Musso called for a revolution to overthrow the Dutch colonial government. At a conference in Prambanan, Central Java, communist-controlled trade unions decided that the revolution would start with a strike by railroad workers which would then trigger a general strike; after that, the PKI would replace the colonial government.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The planned revolution would begin in Padang, but a government-security clampdown at the beginning of 1926 which ended the right to assembly and led to the arrest of PKI members forced the party to go deeper underground. Dissention among PKI leaders about the timing and course of the revolution resulted in poor planning. Tan Malaka, the Comintern's agent for Southeast Asia and Australia, did not agree with the plot (partly because he believed that the PKI had insufficient mass support). As a result of these divisions, the revolution was postponed in June 1926.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: However, a limited revolt in Batavia (as Jakarta was then known) began out on 12 November; similar revolts took place in Padang, Bantam and Surabaya. The Batavia revolt was crushed in a day or two, and the others were quashed in a few weeks.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: As a result of the failed revolution, 13,000 people were arrested, 4,500 imprisoned, 1,308 interned, and 823 exiled to the Boven-Digoel camp in the Digul region of Western New Guinea; several people died in captivity. Many non-communist political activists were also targeted by colonial authorities under the pretext of suppressing the communist rebellion, and the party was outlawed by the Dutch East Indies government in 1927. The PKI went underground, and Dutch (and, later, Japanese) surveillance ensured that it was never a disciplined or coherent organisation for the remainder of the pre-war period.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: During the initial period of illegality, with much of its leadership imprisoned, the PKI kept a somewhat lower profile. Although PKI leader Musso returned from his Moscow exile in 1935 to reorganize the underground (or "illegal") PKI, his stay in Indonesia was brief. The party now worked on a variety of fronts, such as Gerindo and trade unions. It began working amongst Indonesian students in the Netherlands within the nationalist organization Perhimpunan Indonesia, which the party would soon control.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The PKI re-emerged on the political scene after the 1945 surrender of Japan and actively participated in the Indonesian National Awakening; many armed units were under PKI control or influence. Although PKI militias played an important role in fighting the Dutch, President Sukarno was concerned that the party's growing influence would eventually threaten his position. Because the PKI's growth troubled the right-wing sectors of Indonesian society and some foreign powers (especially the vigorously anti-communist United States), its relationship with the other forces also fighting for independence was generally difficult.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The PKI and the Socialist Party (Partai Sosialis) formed a joint front, the People's Democratic Front, in February 1948. Although the front did not last, the Socialist Party later merged with the PKI; by this time, the Pesindo militias were under PKI control.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: On 11 August 1948, Musso returned to Jakarta after twelve years in the Soviet Union. The PKI politburo was reconstructed, and included D. N. Aidit, M. H. Lukman and Njoto. After signing the Renville Agreement in 1948, many of the republican armed units returned from zones of conflict; this gave the Indonesian republicans some confidence that they would be able to counter the PKI militarily. Guerrilla units and militias under PKI influence were ordered to disband. In Madiun, a group of PKI military which refused to disarm were countered in September of that year; the confrontations sparked a violent uprising, which provided a pretext to clamp down on the PKI. It was claimed by army sources that the PKI had announced the proclamation of a Soviet Republic of Indonesia on 18 September, with Musso as president and Amir Sjarifuddin as prime minister. At the same time, however, the PKI had denounced the uprising and appealed for calm. The uprising was suppressed by republican troops, and the party experienced another period of repression. On 30 September, Madiun was taken over by republican troops of the Siliwangi Division. Thousands of party members were killed, and 36,000 were imprisoned. Amongst the executed were several leaders, including Musso (who was killed on 31 October, allegedly while trying to escape from prison). Although Aidit and Lukman went into exile in China, the PKI was not banned and continued to function; its reconstruction began in 1949.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: During the 1950s, the party began publishing again; its main publications were "Harian Rakyat" and "Bintang Merah", as well as quarterly journal "PKI dan Perwakilan".


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In January 1951, during the meeting of the Central Committee, D. N. Aidit was chosen General Secretary. Under his leadership, the PKI began to implement the National Unity Front policy, a policy which was previously abandoned by Tan Ling Djie and other members of leadership, following the death of Musso and the failure of the Madiun affair. Under Aidit, the PKI grew rapidly—from 3,000-5,000 in 1950 to 165,000 in 1954 and 1.5 million in 1959. The PKI led a series of militant August 1951 strikes which were followed by clamp-downs in Medan and Jakarta, and the party leadership briefly went underground.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Also under Aidit, the PKI began to consider the possibility of cooperation with the Indonesian National Party (PNI) to overthrow the Masyumi-led cabinet of Mohammad Natsir. After the fall of the Natsir cabinet, the PKI attempted to form a loose association of parties (Consultative Body of Political Parties, BPP) established on the basis of a Common Program with the National Party (PNI), but also a number of other smaller parties, including the Indonesian Islamic Union Party and the Murba Party.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: However, the PNI refused to join, and the BPP eventually became largely inactive after the establishment of the Sukiman cabinet, which was the result of the Masyumi-PNI coalition. Despite this, the party continued to emphasize the BPP, and adopted it as its basis for cooperation with other parties. Around this time, the PKI committed itself to a nationalist position, supporting Indonesian president Sukarno's anti-colonialist and anti-Western policy. Its program from the time included a "truly independent foreign policy," freedom from the Round Table Conference agreement, a hastening of the return of West Irian to Indonesia, the lifting of the State of War and Siege and of limitations on freedom to strike, faster freeing of political prisoners, elections, nationalization of vital industries, industrialization, and a "just redistribution of land to the peasants, etc.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The PKI favoured Sukarno's plans for Guided Democracy before the 1955 election, and actively supported him.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The party finished fourth in the election, with 16 percent of the vote and nearly two million members. It won 39 seats (out of 257), and 80 out of 514 in the Constituent Assembly. Almost 30 percent of the votes in East Java were cast for the PKI.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Opposition to continued Dutch control of Irian Jaya was often raised by the party during the decade, and the PKI office in Jakarta experienced a grenade attack in July 1957. The party made advances in municipal elections that month, and in September the Islamist Masyumi Party demanded that the PKI be banned.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: On 3 December, trade unions largely under PKI control began seizing Dutch-owned companies. These seizures paved the way for the nationalization of foreign-owned businesses. The struggle against foreign capitalism gave the PKI an opportunity to profile itself as a national party.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: By the mid 1950s, the PKI had a reputation of being one of the least corrupt parties in Indonesia. Officials in the U.S. were becoming concerned that it might be difficult to defeat the PKI in elections, as they were well organized and spoke to the needs of the people. Said Richard Nixon, vice president at the time: "a democratic government was [probably] not the best kind for Indonesia."


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: A coup attempt was made by pro-U.S. forces in the military and the political right wing in February 1958. The rebels, based in Sumatra and Sulawesi, proclaimed a Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia) on 15 February. The revolutionary government immediately began arresting thousands of PKI members in areas under their control, and the party supported Sukarno's efforts to quell the rebellion (including the introduction of martial law). The rebellion was eventually defeated.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In August 1959 there was an attempt on behalf of the military to prevent the PKI's party congress. The congress was held as scheduled, however, and was addressed by Sukarno. In 1960, Sukarno introduced "Nasakom": an abbreviation of "nasionalisme" (nationalism), "agama" (religion) and "komunisme" (communism). The PKI's role as a junior partner in the Sukarno policy was institutionalized; the PKI welcomed Nasakom, seeing it as a multi-class united front.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Although the PKI supported Sukarno, it retained its political autonomy; in March 1960, the party denounced the president's undemocratic handling of the budget. On 8 July of that year, "Harian Rakyat" carried an article critical of the government. The PKI leadership was arrested by the army, but was later released in accordance with Sukarno's orders. When an independent Malaysia was conceived, it was rejected by the PKI and the Malayan Communist Party.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: With growing popular support and a membership of about three million by 1965, the PKI was the strongest communist party outside China and the republics of the Soviet Union. The party had a firm base in mass organizations such as the Central All-Indonesian Workers Organization (Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia), People's Youth (Pemuda Rakjat), the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia), the Peasants Front of Indonesia (Barisan Tani Indonesia), the Institute of People's Culture (Lembaga Kebudajaan Rakjat) and the Association of Indonesian Scholars (Himpunan Sardjana Indonesia). At its peak, the total membership of the party and its front organizations was claimed to be one-fifth of the Indonesian population.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In March 1962, the PKI joined the government; party leaders Aidit and Njoto were appointed advisory ministers. The following month, the PKI held its party congress. In 1963, the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines discussed territorial disputes and the possibility of a Maphilindo confederation (an idea introduced by Philippine president Diosdado Macapagal. The PKI rejected Maphilindo; party militants entered Malaysian Borneo, fighting the British, Malaysian, Australian, and New Zealand forces there. Although some groups reached the Malay Peninsula, planning to join the struggle there, most were captured on arrival. Most PKI combat units were active in the border regions of Borneo.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In January 1964, the PKI began confiscating British property owned by British companies in Indonesia. During the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated party membership at about two million (3.8 percent of Indonesia's working-age population).


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Sukarno's balancing act with the PKI, the military, nationalist factions, and Islamic groups was threatened by the party's rise. The growing influence of the PKI concerned the United States and other anti-communist Western powers. The political and economic situation had become more volatile; annual inflation reached over 600 percent, and living conditions for Indonesians worsened.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: In December 1964, Chairul Saleh of the Murba Party (formed by former PKI leader Tan Malaka) claimed that the PKI was preparing a coup. The PKI demanded a ban on the Murba Party, which was imposed by Sukarno in early 1965. In the context of "Konfrontasi" with Malaysia, the PKI called for arming the people. Large sectors of the army were opposed to this, and Sukarno remained officially noncommittal. In July, about 2,000 PKI members began military training near Halim Air Force Base; the concept of arming the people had won support among the Air Force and the Navy. On 8 September, PKI demonstrators began a two-day siege of the U.S. consulate in Surabaya. Aidit addressed a PKI rally on 14 September, urging members to be alert for things to come. On 30 September, Pemuda Rakyat and Gerwani (both PKI-associated organizations) held a mass rally in Jakarta to protest the inflation crisis.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: During the night of 30 September and 1 October 1965, six of Indonesia's top army generals were killed and their bodies thrown down a well. The generals' killers announced the following morning that a new Revolutionary Council had seized power, calling themselves the "30 September Movement" ("G30S"). With much of the army's top leadership dead or missing, General Suharto took control of the army and put down the abortive coup by 2 October. The army quickly blamed the coup attempt on the PKI, and began an Indonesia-wide anti-Communist propaganda campaign. Evidence linking the PKI to the generals' assassinations is inconclusive, leading to speculation that their involvement was very limited or that Suharto organised the events (in whole or in part) and scapegoated the communists. In the ensuing violent anti-communist purge, an estimated 500,000 communists (real and suspected) were killed and the PKI effectively eliminated. General Suharto outmaneuvered Sukarno politically and was appointed president in 1968, consolidating his influence on the military and government.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: On 2 October, the Halim base was recaptured by the army. Although "Harian Rakyat" carried an article in support of the G30S coup, the official PKI line at the time was that the attempted coup was an internal affair within the armed forces. On 6 October, Sukarno's cabinet held its first meeting since 30 September; the PKI minister Njoto was in attendance. A resolution denouncing G30S was passed, and Njoto was arrested immediately after the meeting.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: A mass demonstration was held in Jakarta two days later demanding a ban on the PKI, and the party's main office was burned down. On 13 October, Ansor Youth Movement (the youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama) held anti-PKI rallies across Java. Five days later, Ansor killed about a hundred PKI members.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Between 100,000 and two million Indonesians were killed in the mass killings that followed. The victims included non-Communists who were slain because of mistaken identity or guilt by association. Although a lack of information makes it impossible to pinpoint an exact casualty figure, many scholars today suggest that the figure is at least 500,000. According to a CIA study of the events in Indonesia, "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century".


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The United States played a significant role in the killings, supplying economic, technical and military aid to the Indonesian military when the killings began and providing "kill lists" (via the U.S. embassy in Jakarta) with the names of thousands of suspected high-ranking members of the PKI. A tribunal held in the Hague in 2016 concluded the massacres were crimes against humanity, and the U.S. backed the Indonesian military "knowing well that they were embarked upon a programme of mass killings". Declassified U.S. diplomatic cables released in 2017 corroborate this. According to UCLA historian Geoffrey B. Robinson, the Indonesian army's campaign of mass killings would not have occurred without the support of the U.S. and other powerful Western governments. Documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, director of "The Act of Killing" and "The Look of Silence", said:


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: We know that U.S. embassy officials were compiling lists of thousands of names of public figures in Indonesia and handing these to the army and saying, 'Kill everybody on these lists and check off the names as you go, and give the lists back to us when you’re done'.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Communists, red sympathizers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of communists after interrogation in remote jails. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night into the homes of communists, killing entire families and burying their bodies in shallow graves.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java, that Moslem bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages. The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Although the motive for the killings seemed political, some scholars argue that the events were caused by panic and political uncertainty. Part of the anti-Communist force responsible for the massacres consisted of members of the criminal underworld who were given permission to engage in acts of violence.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Among the worst-affected areas was the island of Bali, where the PKI had grown rapidly before the crackdown. On 11 November, clashes erupted between the PKI and the Indonesian National Party which ended in the massacre of suspected PKI members and sympathizers. Although much of the anti-PKI violence in the rest of the country was perpetrated by Islamic political organizations, some of the killings in Bali were performed by Hindus. Bali was the only place in the country where local soldiers intervened to lessen the slaughter.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: On 22 November, Aidit was captured and killed. The military announced that Aceh had been cleared of communists in December, and special military courts were set up to try jailed PKI members. The party was banned by Suharto on 12 March, and the pro-PKI Central All-Indonesian Workers Organization was banned in April. Some of the events were fictionalized in the 1982 film, "The Year of Living Dangerously".


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: After initial sporadic resistance, the PKI was paralyzed after the 1965-1966 killings. The party's leadership was crippled at all levels, leaving many of its former supporters and sympathizers disillusioned, leaderless and disorganized. The remnants of the party politburo issued a September 1966 statement of self-criticism, criticizing the party's previous cooperation with the Sukarno regime. After Aidit and Njoto were killed, Sudisman (the fourth-ranking PKI leader before October 1963) took over the party's leadership. He attempted to rebuild the party on a base of interlocking groups of three members, but made little progress before he was captured in December 1966 and sentenced to death in 1967.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Some PKI members took refuge in an isolated region south of Blitar in East Java after the crackdown on the party. Among the leaders in Blitar were the Politburo member Rewang, the party theorist Oloan Hutapea and the East Java leader Ruslan Widjajasastra. Blitar was an underdeveloped area where the PKI had strong peasant support, and the military was unaware that the PKI had consolidated there. The PKI leaders were joined by Lieutenant Colonel Pratomo, the former commander of the Pandeglang military district in West Java, who helped provide military training for the local communists. Violence erupted in Blitar in March 1968, as local peasants attacked leaders and members of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in retaliation for the role it had played in anti-communist persecution; about 60 NU members were killed. According to Australian political scientist Harold Crouch, it was unlikely that the killings of NU members in Blitar had been ordered by the PKI leaders. The military became aware of the PKI enclave and crushed it by mid-1968.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: Some party members were outside Indonesia at the time of the 30 September events; a sizeable delegation had traveled to the People's Republic of China to participate in the anniversary celebration of the Chinese Revolution. Others had left Indonesia to study in Eastern Europe, particularly Albania. Although the party apparatus continued to function in exile, it was largely isolated from political developments in Indonesia. In Java, some villages that were known refuges for members (or suspected sympathizers) were identified by authorities and closely watched for a long time.


title: Communist Party of Indonesia

text: , former PKI members remained blacklisted from many occupations (including government jobs). During his presidency, Abdurrahman Wahid invited PKI exiles to return to Indonesia in 1999 and proposed the removal of restrictions on the open discussion of communist ideology. In arguing for the removal of the ban, Wahid cited Indonesia's original 1945 constitution (which did not prohibit, or specifically mention, communism). Wahid's proposal was vigorously opposed by some sectors of Indonesian society, especially conservative Islamic groups. In an April 2000 protest, the Indonesian Islamic Front rallied ten thousand people in Jakarta against Wahid's proposal. The army did not immediately reject the proposal, promising a "comprehensive and meticulous study" of the idea.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, until 1970 billed as The First Edition, were an American rock band. The band's style was difficult to singularly classify, as it incorporated elements of country, rock and psychedelic pop. Its stalwart members were Kenny Rogers (lead vocals and bass guitar), Mickey Jones (drums and percussion) and Terry Williams (guitar and vocals). The band formed in 1967, with folk musician Mike Settle (guitar and backing vocals) and the operatically-trained Thelma Camacho (lead vocals) completing the lineup.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: As the counterculture of the 1960s was developing, the First Edition signed with Reprise Records in 1967 and had their first big hit in early 1968 with the psychedelic single "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" (US No. 5). After other chart hits, "But You Know I Love You" (US No. 19) and "Tell It All Brother" (US No. 17), the group, newly billed as "Kenny Rogers and the First Edition", once again hit the top ten, this time in 1969 with the topical "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" (US No. 6, UK No.2).


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: For the next six years, the First Edition enjoyed worldwide success. By the mid-1970s, frontman Kenny Rogers had embarked on a solo music career, becoming one of the top-selling country artists of all time.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition were mostly made up of former members of the New Christy Minstrels who felt creatively stifled. The exception was Mickey Jones, who had been part of Bob Dylan's backing group on his first electric world tour. In 1967, with the help of Terry Williams' mother, who worked for producer and executive Jimmy Bowen, they signed with Reprise and recorded their first single together, "I Found a Reason", which had minor sales. Like much of the work by the original lineup, this was a distinctly contemporary composition with an intensely performed Mike Settle vocal. Settle had first come up with the idea of forming the band as his work took on the characteristics of rock. Over the previous seven years, Settle had been writing decidedly more folk-oriented songs, most notably the oft-covered "Sing Hallelujah".


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: It was their follow-up (sung by Rogers), the psychedelic single "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", that earned them their first brush with fame. The single, with an arrangement by their producer, Mike Post, had Glen Campbell playing the backward guitar intro and Mike Deasy providing various psychedelic sounds. It became a hit early in 1968, climbing to No. 5 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Terry Williams played the solo that later led Jimi Hendrix to tell Rogers that it was his favorite record. The group's next three single releases failed commercially, as did their second album. The 1968 release "But You Know I Love You" (composed by Settle) possessed a distinctive brass-tinged country-folk sound, broadening their fan base. In the group's rendition on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" that aired on 8 December 1968, the audience was unwittingly fooled into applauding too soon, right after the false ending but well before the real ending. The record peaked at No. 19 on the Hot 100 just under a year after "Just Dropped In" was at its "Billboard" summit.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: According to Mickey Jones' book "That Would Be Me", Thelma was fired from the group in late 1968 (soon after the release of "But You Know I Love You" and the aforementioned "Smothers Brothers" television appearance, but before the record would chart on the Hot 100), after missing too many gigs and rehearsals. For her part Thelma did not see it the same way. She has stated that while she always loved being with them in the studio, the road was too hard on her from a health and personal standpoint. Slowly growing apart from the others, Camacho began to feel restricted by the band in a number of ways. All agreed that the situation could not continue, and she was replaced by her roommate, Mary Arnold, an Iowa-born singer who beat out newcomer Karen Carpenter for the job. Thelma appears on the first three LPs plus half of the fourth album. Arnold made her debut on "Reuben James".


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: By the end of the decade Rogers had long brown hair, an earring, and pink sunglasses. Known affectionately in retrospect as "Hippie Kenny", Rogers had a notably smoother vocal style at the time. During mid-1969 the band scored another Top Ten hit with Mel Tillis' "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town". The song was the global hit and established the First Edition's longevity in the business. Mickey's drumming was part of the hook. At Rogers' shows the song was often clapped along to, or joked around with, but it was meant seriously at the time. Telling the graphic story of a crippled veteran was admirably daring at the height of America's involvement with the war in Vietnam. The song lyrics were originally meant to address the Korean War, albeit in such a vague way that it could have referred to Korea, Vietnam, or even the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The song was picked up by some of the more attuned disc jockeys, and there was suddenly great demand to release the final track recorded for, and included on, the "First Edition '69" album. In order to release "Ruby" at the same time as the "But You Know I Love You" soundalike "Once Again She's All Alone", the group renamed themselves "Kenny Rogers and the First Edition". When "Ruby" became the hit, the name stuck. Terry later said that this made him feel like one of Gladys Knight's Pips. This, their third major hit single, like the previous two featured Kenny Rogers on lead, along with the band name change, these factors cemented Kenny's fate as a global household name.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: "Ruby" made them stars, and during the next two years, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition had five hits. A man Rogers at first took to be a rude fan first pitched "Reuben James" to Rogers at a golf match. The man, who turned out to be a song pitcher for American songwriter Alex Harvey, followed him around the greens singing the song until Rogers listened. Rogers loved the song's look at a black man raising a white boy and agreed to record it. "Reuben James" turned out to be another daring record; though not as big a hit as "Ruby", it made a big impact on the First Edition's now sizable fan base. "Reuben James" came out at the end of 1969, by which time Mike Settle had been gone for several months, in an effort to save his ultimately doomed marriage. During his absence he was replaced by Kin Vassy. Vassy's style was a little more edgy than Settle's, allowing the band to explore different areas. It was now that Kenny and Terry, by default, became the leaders of the band. Kenny was in charge of the records, and Terry would take control of their stage presentation. The group continued to record country, rock, and folk by fairly equal measures, blurring the lines among the genres. Along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, their records in the late 1960s brought country music to the city and rock and roll to the country. Even if Jones had not also discovered Don Henley, the First Edition should get credit for being pioneers of a more modern blend of rockabilly called country rock.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: The First Edition reached what was arguably the peak of their fame with "Something's Burning", a No. 11 hit in early 1970. A blatantly sexual song, it was slightly hindered chart-wise by the controversy surrounding it. Regardless, Kenny's soft voice on verses and rock shouting on the chorus earned the group much acclaim. "Burning" opened with a sample of an actual heartbeat played backward to replicate the song's rhythmic beat.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Meanwhile, Terry Williams had begun to record some solo singles. A number of folk rock songs met with little success. He later switched to a more teen-oriented bubblegum sound that their manager Ken Kragen felt would appeal to his fans. Williams' "I'm Gonna Sing You A Sad Song Susie" was part of the First Edition's next LP "Tell It All Brother". The title track (also written by Harvey), which dealt with love and brotherhood, was a national top 20 hit and topped WRKO's August 13, 1970 top 30 survey for one week. It was the first of many songs Kenny would sing (e.g., his solo "Coward of the County") that had elements of sadism under a gentle surface. Released a month or so after the Kent State shootings, the song drew a standing ovation the night it debuted live.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: In addition to the band's continuing frequent appearances on television, songs by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition were featured in two 1970 films. First up was the never released on record "If Nobody Loved" for the camp political comedy "Flap". A few months later they recorded "Someone Who Cares" and "A Poem I Wrote For Your Hair" to appear in the soundtrack for the romantic film "Fools" starring Jason Robards, Jr., and Katharine Ross. The "Fools" (soundtrack) was released in 1971.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: At the end of 1970, the First Edition had their seventh Top 40 hit with the Vassy-penned "Heed the Call". Another song about the need for brotherhood, it was seen as an uptempo counterpart to the balladry of "Tell It All Brother." The next single, "Someone Who Cares", was taken from the "Fools" movie soundtrack. Though scoring high on the easy listening charts, "Someone Who Cares" failed to reach the pop top fifty. This ushered in a period during which the First Edition attempted to retool its image. Keyboard player John Hobbs was briefly in the lineup, but, though he played on future recordings, was not in the group long enough to appear on any album covers or publicity photos. His brief tenure was captured in the PBS television special "Tell It All." The special provided an unusually in-depth look at the group, all of whom were at ease speaking in front of the camera. In mid-1971 the First Edition released a gospel single called "Take My Hand", which barely scraped into the bottom of the charts.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: After the success of a pilot shot in late 1970, the fall of 1971 saw Kenny Rogers and the First Edition become hosts of their own television series "Rollin' on the River". Later to be shortened to "Rollin", this was a variety show that was taped in Canada (taking advantage of recently imposed Canadian content requirements) which geared itself toward rock, blues, and folk performers and groups. Unlike the more Las Vegas-styled "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour", "Rollin" was focused on harder-edged guests like Ike and Tina Turner, veterans like Bo Diddley, veteran Canadian based artists such as Ronnie Hawkins, and up and coming performers such as Jim Croce. The show also gave the First Edition a chance to do the comedy Kenny and Terry had long made a part of their act. Though it got good ratings, "Rollin" did have one ill side effect: the First Edition were now seen as television personalities instead of recording stars. Terry Williams' signature song, "What Am I Gonna Do", was to become the group's next single in late 1971. It was the first First Edition 45 not to chart since 1968.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Recorded over six months in 1971, and released in March 1972, "The Ballad of Calico" was written by future star Michael Murphey and the First Edition's musical director and arranger Larry Cansler. Cansler replaced Hobbs on stage during this period, but despite his large creative role here, and on "Rollin' on the River," he was not promoted on either as a member of the group. The album was a country rock opera about a late 19th-century mining town, but unlike most like-minded projects of the era, all of the songs were based on fact. The sleeve and booklet of this two-LP set had genuine and period-styled photos depicting the era, with all of the lyrics presented in hand-written script. The music was critically well received, with all of the group (outside of Mickey) taking at least one lead. The song chosen for a single was "School Teacher," an acoustic rhythm and blues song with a lead by Kin. In retrospect it's easy to understand the probable reasons the artistically valid "School Teacher" didn't get past No. 91. Putting out a First Edition single where Rogers was not prominent had already shown itself to be a gamble, plus lyrics written to reflect the sexist views of the 19th century sounded odd outside of the LP's concept. "The Ballad Of Calico" has since picked up a large cult following, but back in 1972 it was all but ignored. Frustrated by the falling sales (the album hardly sold at all), Vassy began to let a drinking habit get out of control. According to Mickey Jones' book "That Would Be Me," Vassy was fired several months after the "Calico's" release following a drunken backstage confrontation with Terry Williams.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: By early 1972, Gene Lorenzo replaced Larry Cansler on stage and was made a full First Edition member. Jimmy Hassell joined the group about six months later to replace Vassy. Lorenzo was a keyboard and piano virtuoso. Hassell was a hard rock singer similar to Vassy, and physically resembled a friend of Terry's, actor Gary Busey. Both fit in well, without marring the public impression of the original members. Around the time the new members hopped on board, Rogers formed his own label, Jolly Rogers (distributed by MGM, Rogers retained the name when he started his own publishing company as a solo artist) and the group left Reprise.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Their first Jolly Rogers release was a late 1972 country LP called "Backroads." The third single from the album, a version of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again" reached the lower regions of the country charts in mid-1973. Then came a soundtrack from "Rollin'." Now in its second year, an album of live versions of the "Calico" songs and hits like "Ruby," "Reuben James" and "Just Dropped In" could have sold quite well, bringing proven hits to the Jolly Rogers label at the same time. Instead, they delivered a set of cover songs, of which Kenny's remake of "The Long and Winding Road" and Gene and Terry's reworking of Bach's "Joy" were most notable. The album did not check the group's declining sales, and the TV show was soon canceled. The group increasingly played on the county fair circuit.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: It was decided that a new image far away from their TV persona was required. "Monumental" tried to give them just this. Combining a wide variety of styles, it ranged from a Rogers-written rocker about prostitute "Morgana Jones" (later rerecorded by Rogers for his album "The Gambler" in 1978) to the nostalgic "42nd Street." The later compared the New York of 1973 to the Broadway of the 1930s. As he would continue to do in his solo career, Rogers cloaked some mature subject matter with a gentle delivery. The Dr. John-inspired medley of Alex Harvey compositions "The Hoodooin' of Miss Fannie Deberry" (also re-recorded by Rogers for "The Gambler") and "The Ritual", was the LP's centerpiece. Though in tune with other music of the day, "Monumental" was one of their biggest sales failures in the United States, but in New Zealand it went gold. Following on the local success of "Rollin'" and the understated ballad "Lady, Play Your Symphony," Kenny's rocking nursery rhyme "Lena Lookie" went to number six, and the group embarked on three New Zealand tours over the next two years. A documentary of their first trip, in late 1973, was aired as a 1975 TV special, "Rollin Through New Zealand".


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: As their domestic popularity continued to decline, Terry wanted to focus on the hard rockers that had done so well for them overseas. Kenny disagreed, wanting a more conservative agenda. Kenny admitted in his book "Making It with Music," that he perhaps should not have complained about MGM's poor distribution on a radio show, but despite their mounting problems, New Zealand continued to consider the First Edition as superstars. The problem was that they had to go halfway around the world to benefit from their success, and travel expenses ate a big chunk out of their profits. As a thank you they put together an album called "I'm Not Making My Music for Money" especially for their New Zealand fans. An LP of this title was to have come out in the US but MGM rejected it. The US LP was basically going to be the same but with two new cuts replacing the two songs reused from "Monumental." Despite the retreads, the album did show continued development. A mix of new songs and remakes (possibly done because some songs were not available in New Zealand), "Love Woman" was now a hard rock jam featuring Jimmy on lead. This arrangement was borrowed from the band's stage performances of Bill Haley's "Rockin' Through the Rye". The ballads "Dirty Work" and "Daddy Was a Traveling Man" were a return to the more adult style of Terry's early work. "Making Music for Money" (another song remade for "The Gambler") is a song about art vs. commerce that Jimmy Buffett later covered. It was the band's ironic last single. It charted well, but again only in New Zealand.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: A last-ditch effort to jumpstart their domestic careers was done in late 1974 when they filmed a television movie called "The Dream Makers". A drama about the music biz, they played the group Catweazel. It was a small role with only Kenny and Mickey speaking any major lines. Despite the film giving them a chance to perform recent songs, the exposure did not halt their decline. Kenny had become short on money by 1974, and was in debt when he decided to hawk guitar lesson records on a commercial.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Wanting to give a solo career a shot, Terry left in the late spring of 1975. Kenny was upset but agreed to it, succeeding in getting Kin to come back so they could fill their pending engagements. Though he was hired to stay permanently, the reunion with Vassy did not go well and he ended up playing only one night. This more or less marked the point where the First Edition agreed to split. Mickey, realizing that it was time to move on, was the first to decide to leave in order to pursue his other dream, which was acting. Though the group would finish their pending obligations, Kenny began recording as a solo act that fall. The First Edition played their last scheduled shows in the fall of 1975 at Harrah's in Reno. Without Mickey Jones there were a few First Edition gigs in early 1976, done as a favor to Kenny who had not yet formed his solo band. Kenny later said that writing the song "Sweet Music Man" made him cut his hair and let it go gray, plus get rid of the earring. The song may have played a part in his future middle of the road image, but the change did not happen until almost a year after it was written. Mary Arnold often sang "Sweet Music Man" on the First Edition's post Terry Williams gigs and Kenny also tried the lead out a few times. This was to become one of Rogers' most covered compositions, and he himself had a No. 9 country hit with it in the fall of 1977. Though unrecorded, "Sweet Music Man" marked the end of the First Edition as a creative entity.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Considering the band's then low profile, Kenny Rogers had an uncertain future when he signed a solo deal to United Artists in 1975. Searching for a new image, he soon developed a more middle-of-the-road, gravel-voiced style. For the rest of the decade and beyond he had hit after hit. "Lucille" was the first of no less than a combined 25 number 1 country and pop singles after he left the group. During his time with UA (later taken over by Liberty) he topped the country and pop album charts for a grand total of 90 weeks and sold more records than anyone in country music. In 1983 his status as one of the world's top stars (of any musical genre) was confirmed when RCA Records signed him for an advance sum of US$20 million, for six albums. Kenny Rogers continued to tour, including classic material by the First Edition in his performances, before retiring in 2017. In April 2013, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Rogers died on March 20, 2020.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Thelma Camacho did a few solo records in the 1960s and 1970s and one LP in 1980. She moved to Europe in the 1980s and lost contact with the rest of the group until 2010. Thelma also recorded in Europe under the name Tess Ivie (the latter being her husband's last name). Today, she lives in California and runs a jewelry store.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Mary Arnold married singer Roger Miller, after the two were introduced by Rogers, and now looks after his estate. She had performed with him for many years, and in 2009 was inducted into the Iowa Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Kin Vassy died of lung cancer on June 23, 1994. He scored two top 40 hit singles as a country singer, but his solo career never really took off. He often worked with Kenny in the 1980s and his trademark scream enlivens hits like "Blaze Of Glory". In 1980 he released the single "Makes Me Wonder (If I Ever Said Goodbye)"; Kenny Rogers sang the backing vocals. The song was not a hit, but the following year Kenny recorded his own version of the song for his popular "Share Your Love" album, produced by Lionel Richie; Vassy sang the back up on Kenny's version. He also worked with Frank Zappa and Elvis Presley. Two years after he died, Martina McBride had a No. 28 hit on the U.S. country survey with the Vassy penned "Phones Are Ringing (All Over Town)".


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Gene Lorenzo performed for some years with country star Lee Greenwood, then some more years with Kathy Mattea. When Greenwood fired his band in 1987, Kenny asked Gene if he would like to join his stage band "Bloodline" until he found a new group. Lorenzo stayed for roughly six months. He is still listed as a working musician.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Terry Williams had one easy listening hit in 1980 called "Blame It On The Night," but it was on a small label. He worked extensively with Kenny in the 1980s and managed Kenny's successful Lion Share recording studios. Today Terry is mostly retired, on a farm in the Southeast. He now composes and sings Christian music.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Kin and Terry fronted a new First Edition in 1993–94. They continued on a few months after Vassy's death, but the circumstances were now too downbeat and they disbanded several months later. It was to be an attempt at relaunching the group as a contemporary country band who also played their hits. Terry's younger brother Ress played the drums.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Having continued to write and perform, Mike Settle opened for the First Edition on their 1973 trek to New Zealand. He would go on to write several songs for the group's solo records over the years. By the 1980s, Mike had a lower profile in the music industry, and later became a journalist. Now basically retired, his songs ("But You Know I Love You" in particular) continue to be covered by new artists.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Jimmy Hassell worked for Anne Murray for a while and after Mary married Roger Miller he worked with them as well. He released one self-titled solo LP in 1976 which was reissued with one new song in 1978, and also wrote commercial jingles. His biggest success as a solo artist came in 1977 when he produced the award-winning production show "Sassy Class" at the Stardust hotel. He died on January 6, 2004.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Mickey Jones became the most visible member next to Kenny. Focused more on acting, he was in many films and television shows over the years, including films such as "Sling Blade" and "The Fighting Temptations". He also had a role in Tim Allen's "Home Improvement" for two seasons. He died on February 7, 2018.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: John Hobbs stayed in touch with the group and worked with Kenny, Terry, and Kin on Rogers' early 1980s solo work as well as other projects at Lion Share. He has remained an active session musician and arranger.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: The groups' long time arranger Larry Cansler had a successful career in the studios in Los Angeles scoring many movies (including "The Gambler" series), variety shows, ("the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour") and many national commercials. He now lives in Arizona and continues to compose for symphony orchestras.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: In 1980, a compilation of some of the First Edition's greatest hits and album cuts, titled "Shine On", was issued in the United Kingdom; it sold fairly well but was overshadowed by "The Kenny Rogers Singles Album", a Kenny Rogers solo greatest hits collection that, in addition to his solo hits, featured reworkings of the group's best known songs.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Currently there are many compilations of their work in print on various labels, some miscredited to Kenny alone with picture not of the period.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: "Live Vegas '72" is the first new First Edition music to be released since 1974. The recording was a Kin Vassy era performance of an unknown date. Jimmy is oddly credited and there are other basic mistakes on the cover.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: On April 10, 2010, Kenny, Mike, Mickey, Terry, Mary, and Gene reunited as part of the "Kenny Rogers: The First 50 Years" TV special. This was filmed at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. They were joined by Wynonna Judd on a rendition of "Just Dropped In".


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: The First Edition semi-reunited with Rogers several times in 2014-2015 when he was elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame. These were brief press conferences and performances only.


title: Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

text: Numerous releases with miscellaneous Rollin' footage have come out in Europe and Australia. They are of dubious legality and were all were quickly pulled from the market.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn is a fictional character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. Depicted as emperor of the fictional realm Outworld, he is one of the franchise's primary villains. Feared for his immense strength, which he complements with a large hammer, and knowledge of black magic, Shao Kahn seeks conquest of all the realms, including Earth. He serves as the final boss of "Mortal Kombat II" (1993), "Mortal Kombat 3" (1995) and its updates, and the 2011 reboot, as well as the action-adventure spin-off "" (2005). An amalgam of Shao Kahn and DC Comics villain Darkseid also appears as the final boss of "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" (2009) under the name Dark Kahn.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn is one of the most celebrated villains in video games. While noted as a difficult boss, he has received praise for his design, in-game abilities, and mannerisms, particularly his mocking and taunting of players. The character has appeared in various media outside of the games, including as the main villain of the film "" (1997).


title: Shao Kahn

text: Prior to the events of the game series, Shao Kahn was a warlord protecting Outworld and an advisor to the realm's ruler, Onaga. Eventually, Shao Kahn poisoned Onaga, claiming his throne and his armies. Kahn continued to add lesser realms to Outworld, including Edenia; forcing Queen Sindel and Princess Kitana to become his wife and personal assassin respectively. Sindel killed herself to escape the emperor, but he kept her soul in Outworld. One of the backward dialogues in "Deception"s Konquest Mode suggests that Shao Kahn is a god-like being like Lucifer and the thunder god Raiden.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn first appears in "Mortal Kombat II" as the game's final boss and main villain. After the crooked tournament Grandmaster Shang Tsung and his warriors lose to Earthrealm in "Mortal Kombat", Kahn invokes a tournament rematch clause which will allow him to take Earthrealm immediately if he wins. Though he lures Earthrealm's warriors to Outworld to kill them, he is defeated by the Shaolin Monk Liu Kang, who halts his plans.


title: Shao Kahn

text: "Mortal Kombat 3" features Shao Kahn as the final boss once more. The game's story sees Shang Tsung resurrect Queen Sindel in Earthrealm, allowing Kahn to reclaim her by invading Earth; ignoring the Mortal Kombat tournament's rules. The Emperor strips billions of people's souls to empower himself and merges Earthrealm with Outworld. He also sends extermination squads to kill Raiden's chosen few who were protected from this fate. Eventually, Liu Kang defeats the Kahn a second time, forcing him and his Outworld armies to retreat; restoring Earth and Edenia to normal.


title: Shao Kahn

text: After being absent from "Mortal Kombat 4", Shao Kahn has a brief cameo in "". The Emperor, weakened from battle with Edenia and abandoned by many of his soldiers, is killed by the titular Alliance of Shang Tsung and the sorcerer Quan Chi. Shao Kahn also makes a playable appearance in the GameCube version of "", where it is revealed that the Deadly Alliance killed a decoy of the emperor as the real Shao Kahn had set out to reclaim his empire from the resurrected dragon king Onaga.


title: Shao Kahn

text: In "", Shao Kahn returned as a playable character. In the game's story, he reclaimed his title as ruler of Outworld following Onaga's defeat. He later forms an uneasy alliance with Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Onaga to defeat the elemental Blaze so they can seize his godlike powers.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn and Darkseid are the key villains in the 2008 crossover game "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe", though both are playable characters. In the game's plot, a defeated Shao Kahn meets with his secret ally, Quan Chi. They are confronted by Raiden, who knocks him into Quan Chi’s portal. This event, along with a parallel one between Superman and Darkseid in the DC Universe, results in the creation of Dark Kahn, who serves as the main antagonist of the game. After Dark Kahn is defeated, Shao Kahn ends up in Darkseid's throne room, where he discovers he has lost his powers before being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. However, his powers soon came back and he was able to free himself along with everyone else in the Phantom Zone; who pledged their allegiance to him in return.


title: Shao Kahn

text: In the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot, which retells the continuity of the first three games, Shao Kahn is once again the main villain and final boss of the game's arcade ladder and story mode. Shao Kahn kills Raiden after acquiring Blaze's powers, but Raiden is able to send prophetic messages to his past self. As Shao Kahn invades Earthrealm, Raiden chooses not to intervene until the Elder Gods, enraged by the former's violation of the Mortal Kombat tournament's rules, empower Raiden and allow him to kill the emperor.


title: Shao Kahn

text: While this averts the timeline leading to "Armageddon" and restores Earthrealm, "Mortal Kombat X" reveals that Kitana's clone, Mileena, succeeds Shao Kahn in ruling Outworld before she is overthrown by Shao Kahn's former general, Kotal Kahn.


title: Shao Kahn

text: In "Mortal Kombat 11", a past version of Shao Kahn is brought to the present timeline by Kronika, the keeper of time. Upon arriving, he is outraged to learn of his death and that Kotal Kahn became Outworld's ruler. He agrees to work for Kronika after learning that she is planning to rewind the timeline and wipe Raiden from existence. He attempts to take his throne back from Kotal and rebuild Outworld's forces, but he is defeated by Kitana, who becomes the new ruler of Outworld and Kotal's successor. In the DLC storyline expansion "Aftermath", Shao Kahn and Sindel are reunited after a time-travelling Fujin and Shang Tsung revive her to help fight Kronika. Intending to take Kronika's Crown of Souls for themselves, the tyrants defeat Kitana and Liu Kang and assault Kronika's keep. However, they are betrayed by Shang Tsung, who absorbs their souls. In his non-canonical arcade ending, Shao Kahn merges all timelines into a Singularity, and becomes the undefeated Mortal Kombat champion for centuries.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Kahn's attire for "Mortal Kombat II" was developed by Mark Runion. Kahn started out unmasked and with large gnashing teeth similar to Baraka, since everyone from Outworld was originally supposed to be of Baraka's race. The idea of all inhabitants of Outworld being Tarkatan was later dropped. It was originally stated that Shao Kahn is a demonic character, and his monstrous visage from the official comic books, as well as "" lends credibility to that. In Mortal Kombat 9, he appears to simply be a large human, although his face is never seen. His face has only appeared in "Shaolin Monks" and "Mortal Kombat 11"; with the latter revealing an inhuman, but not monstrous, face.


title: Shao Kahn

text: In "MKII", Kahn was digitally resized to a taller height to make him tower over the playable characters, and was played by actor and bodybuilder Brian Glynn. In many official depictions of Shao Kahn made by Midway, he is shown wearing a cape, though he never wore one in his original digitized appearances. "Mortal Kombat: Deception" was the first time in which he wore the cape in-game. "Mortal Kombat" sound designer Dan Forden explained that the reason for Kahn not wearing the cape in earlier games, in addition to Kabal not being able to wear a trenchcoat in "Mortal Kombat 3", was that loose flowing clothing took up memory.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn originated as an unplayable boss character in "MKII". He is fought as a boss (in most cases, the final boss) in most of his appearances, but became a player character for the first time in the home ports of "MK3" as an unlockable character. He would also be playable in the home ports of "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3", "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", the GameCube and PlayStation Portable versions of "Mortal Kombat: Deception", "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" and "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe". Shao Kahn also appears as a playable character in "Mortal Kombat 11" via DLC. In "Mortal Kombat" (2011), Shao Kahn is once again a non-playable boss. He is also the final boss in the beat 'em up spin-off, "Shaolin Monks".


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn's special moves consist mainly of powerful shoulder barges, magical projectiles, and attacks with his signature giant maul, the "Wrath Hammer". In some of his appearances as a boss, blocking Kahn's attacks will stun the player. Since his debut, his signature tactic has been taunting players before, during, and after rounds with such statements as "Bow to me!", "Feel the power of Shao Kahn!" and "It's official, you suck!"


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn makes his first appearance in "MK" comic books during the "Battlewave" miniseries by Malibu Comics, though he already was present in the first, "Blood & Thunder". Shao Kahn remained mostly faithful to his game counterpart, being the Emperor of Outworld and attempting to take Earthrealm for himself. In "Battlewave", Shao Kahn would arrange a different plan to open the portals. He kidnaps Sonya Blade and, by means of hypnosis and brainwashing, convinces her to marry him; the marriage would weaken the barriers between realms enough to allow Shao Kahn to seize Earth easily (and make Sonya the queen of both realms and his wife). During these two series, he never appears wielding his trademark helmet (instead, he is always shown with his visible face and design taken from the official "Mortal Kombat II" comic by John Tobias), only in the comic "Kitana & Mileena" (in which he loves Kitana).


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn appears in the first two theatrically-released "Mortal Kombat" films. In the 1995 first movie he is referred to simply as "The Emperor" and makes a brief appearance at the end, as a special effect and voiced by Frank Welker. Kahn (his name, incorrectly hyphenated in the closing credits of "Annihilation", is additionally misspelled as "Shoa-Kahn" on the DVD release's fight scenes menu), played by Brian Thompson, is the antagonist in the 1997 sequel, "". In the film, he fights Raiden, Johnny Cage and Liu Kang. He kills Johnny Cage in the film's opening scene, murders his own allies Rain and Jade, and then Raiden is killed by Kahn prior to his fight with Liu Kang. Kahn and Raiden are portrayed as brothers, with Shinnok as their father, though neither of them share any relation in the games (though the later "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" states that the two are brothers in Raiden's biography). The only subplot taken directly from the games' storyline was his past relationship with Kitana and Sindel; a segment in the film featured Kitana, imprisoned in Kahn's fortress, mentioning the destruction of her family and Sindel's subsequent suicide under his rule.


title: Shao Kahn

text: He was played by Jeffrey D. Harris and Ted Nordblum in the 1995-1996 stage show "". A Shao Kahn action figure was released in 1996 by Toy Island in the "Mortal Kombat Trilogy" series. He was also one of the characters featured in the collectible card game "Mortal Kombat Kard Game".


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn was played by Jeffrey Meek (who also played Raiden) in the TV series "". Despite having lost much of his physical stature from the games and movies, the character has a much more threatening disposition, serving as the mediator of the Mortal Kombat matches. Meek played opposite himself in the series finale, where Kahn battles Raiden in a void seemingly between the realms. With Kung Lao dead, Shao Kahn forces Raiden into submission and commences full military assault on Earthrealm. The series was discontinued following this event.


title: Shao Kahn

text: He also makes several appearances in the cartoon series "", voiced by John Vernon, in his usual role of Outworld's emperor and the leader of the enemy forces.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Aleks Paunovic portrayed an unmasked (human) Shao Kahn for the web series "" two-part episode "Kitana & Mileena", dealing with his early rule over the conquered Edenia and an alternate version of his relationship to Sindel, Kitana and Mileena.


title: Shao Kahn

text: Shao Kahn was nominated in Nintendo Power Awards '94 and '95 in the category "Worst Villain" (actually meaning the best villain) of the year, coming second place in 1995. GamesRadar praised Shao Kahn's role as an antagonist, putting him in their 2013 list of the best villains in video game history at number 24, and including him among the 12 most unfair gaming bosses in 2014. "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition" listed Shao Kahn as 41st in their list of "top 50 video game villains". "Complex" ranked Shao Kahn from "Mortal Kombat II" as the "coolest" boss in fighting game history in 2012, stating that "in the history of fighting games, no boss has ever been cooler or more exciting to lose against." The "GamesRadar" staff described Shao Kahn as the best villain in video games, stating that "There are plenty of bad guys in the Mortal Kombat games, but the Emperor of Outworld, Shao Kahn, takes the wickedness cake."


title: Shao Kahn

text: In UGO's 2012 list of the top "Mortal Kombat" characters, Shao Kahn placed sixteenth. In their retrospection listing of "MK" characters, UGO stated most favorite thing about him was the fact that "his speaking voice is the voice of the announcer heard throughout the series." "Complex" placed him seventh on her 2013 list of most brutal fighters in "Mortal Kombat", adding that "he was brutal not only in his strength but his cunning, too."


title: Shao Kahn

text: In 2010, "Game Informer" featured him on their list of gaming's "crappiest" fathers, commenting he "is more like an abusive, drunken stepfather than a crappy biological father [and is] also a terrible husband." The character's incarnation in the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" has been criticized for how hard it is to defeat him to the point of frustrating gamers; that same year, CraveOnline included him on the list of top five "bosses you want to kill but can't". The fight against Shao Kahn in "Mortal Kombat 3" was also noted for its difficulty; in 2013, "Complex" ranked it as the 23rd hardest boss battle in video games.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: The Tudors of Penmynydd () were a noble and aristocratic family, connected with the village of Penmynydd in Anglesey, North Wales, who were very influential in Welsh (and later English) politics. From this family arose Owen Tudor and thereby the Welsh Tudor dynasty, that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. The Tudor dynasty came to an end in the 17th century.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: The family descended from one of the sons of Ednyfed Fychan (died in 1246), the Welsh warrior who became seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, serving Llywelyn the Great and later his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. He claimed descent from Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Rhos and 'protector' of Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd, a founder of one of the so-called Fifteen Tribes of Wales.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: From Ednyfed's many sons would come a 'ministerial aristocracy' in northern Wales. He left the manors of Trecastell, Penmynydd and Erddreiniogin, Anglesey to those of his sons born to his second marriage to Gwenllian, daughter of king Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth; among these sons was Goronwy (died 1268), founder of the line of the Tudors of Penmynyth.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: Goronwy served as seneschal of the last Gwynedd king, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. One of his sons, Tudur Hen (died 1311) would eventually submit to Edward I of England, and founded a Carmelite House of the White Friars in Bangor. In the next generation, Goronwy ap Tudur Hen (died 1331), likewise a patron of White Friars, was the father of Hywel ap Goronwy, Archdeacon of Anglesey, and of Sir Tudur ap Goronwy (died about 1367). They held Trecastell, along with a share of Penmynydd and Erddreiniog in Anglesey, plus lands in Cardiganshire.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: The sons of Sir Tudur, eldest brother Goronwy ap Tudur, Forester of Snowdon and Constable of Beaumaris Castle, and his younger brothers Rhys ap Tudur and Gwilym ap Tudur, were among the personal retinue of Richard II of England. However, following that king's overthrow, Rhys, Gwilym and another brother, Maredudd ap Tudur, gave their allegiance to the rebel Owain Glyndŵr, a nephew of one of their father's wives and descendant of the earlier native Welsh princes. Rhys was executed in 1412 at Chester, and following Glyndŵr's demise much of the family's lands were taken by the English crown. The majority were then regranted to another branch of Ednyfed Fychan's lineage, the Griffiths of Penrhyn, whose head, Gwilym ap Griffith, had married Goronwy's daughter, Morfydd.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: The family is best known due to the descendants of a younger son. Owain Tudur (anglicised to "Owen Tudor"), the son of rebel Maredudd ap Tudor, would become a courtier, and secretly married Catherine of Valois, widowed Queen Consort of the Lancastrian King Henry V. Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois had two sons, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond (d. 1456), and Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford and Earl of Pembroke (d. 1495). Edmund Tudor was betrothed and married to Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509) daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, a scion of the House of Lancaster. Edmund and Margaret had a sole son, Henry Tudor, born 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle in Wales. He was born posthumously, Edmund Tudor having died 1 or 3 November 1456. Henry Tudor grew up in south Wales and, following the downfall of the Lancastrian cause, in exile in Brittany. Henry's mother Margaret forged an alliance of dispossessed Lancastrians and discontented Yorkists, most notably Elizabeth Woodville, widow of King Edward IV, in support of her son, who landed in South Wales, gathered further troops through Wales and the Midlands and ultimately defeated Richard III at Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, Henry proclaiming himself Henry VII, King of England, on the battlefield.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: After the battle, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of King Edward IV, granddaughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and the eldest surviving heir of the House of York and sister of the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York. Henry and Elizabeth would have a long and happy marriage, having two sons who survived infancy, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who died in 1502 at the age of fifteen, and Henry, perhaps the most famed of Tudor monarchs. Henry VII and Elizabeth also had daughters, Margaret, queen consort of Scotland, and Mary, wife of Louis XII of France. Queen Elizabeth of York died in 1503 after giving birth to their last child Katherine, who did not survive. Henry VII died in 1509; his son Henry took the throne as King Henry VIII.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: Henry VIII eventually married his brother Arthur's widow Catherine of Aragon; they had only one surviving child, the future Mary I. After nearly twenty five years of marriage, Henry, with much trouble and causing much unrest, had his marriage to Catherine annulled, claiming the marriage as unlawful due to her being the widow of his brother, and splitting with the Roman Catholic Church in the process. This action brought about the birth of the English Reformation, and the eventual beginning of the Church of England. Henry then married his pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn on 28 May 1533. Anne gave birth to a daughter, the future Elizabeth I the following 7 September. On 19 May 1536, Henry had Anne executed for treason and adultery. Henry then married Jane Seymour on 30 May 1536, and she gave birth to a son, Edward, on 12 October 1537, but Jane died of a postpartum infection on 24 October. Henry VIII married three subsequent women: Anne of Cleves in January 1540, a marriage which was annulled soon after, Catherine Howard in July 1540, who would be executed for adultery, then Katherine Parr in July 1543. She would survive Henry and go on to raise Elizabeth before her death in 1548.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: After Henry VIII's death, his son assumed the throne as Edward VI, with his uncle Edward Seymour as Lord Protector. Edward died on 6 July 1553. Before his death, he had specified his succession, naming as his heir the teenage Lady Jane Grey. A granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, she had recently wed the son of Edward's chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. She was thus given precedence over Edward's half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, both declared illegitimate by their father's Second Act of Succession but readmitted to the succession by his will, which also bypassed the descendants of Henry's older sister, Margaret, in favor of those of her younger sister, Jane's grandmother Mary. Jane was proclaimed queen immediately following Edward's death, but Northumberland could not maintain her position against a groundswell of support for the dead king's half-sister as rightful heir, and Mary I was in turn proclaimed queen nine days later. She would be remembered as Bloody Mary for her ruthless persecution of Protestants during her reign. Mary married her cousin Philip II of Spain, but she died without issue in November 1558. The throne then went to Elizabeth I, Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, who would reign for forty five years. Elizabeth never married and had no issue, so the Tudor dynasty died with her in 1603. In total, five Tudor monarchs ruled England for 118 years, but issues around the Royal succession (including marriage, divorce, and the succession rights of women) became major political themes during the Tudor era. Elizabeth would be succeeded by her cousin, James VI of Scotland, who was doubly great-grandson of the excluded sister of Henry VIII, Margaret. Through him, the later English monarchs would carry Tudor blood.


title: Tudors of Penmynydd

text: Following Glyndŵr's rebellion, the family's few remaining Penmynydd lands continued to be held by a line descended from the senior brother, Goronwy ap Tudur, who died 23 March 1382 leaving a minor son, Tudur, and a daughter Morfydd, wife of Gwilym ap Griffith of Penrhyn. Gwilym acted as guardian for his young brother-in-law, and following the latter's death, the lands passed into his own hands. After Morfydd's death, Gwilym had remarried to an English wife and would adjust the inheritance to pass most of his family properties to her sons. However, he also had a son by Morfydd, Tudur ap Gwilym, whose descendants would hold Penmynydd and retain a special status as recognized kin of the Tudor monarchs. His son, Owain, would take the surname Tudor. He had three sons, William, John and Richard Owen ap Tudor Fychan, the last eventually being the heir to the family in Penmynydd; he later appears as Richard Owen Theodor (or Theodore). He was followed at Penmynydd by a son and grandson both named Richard, one of whom would serve as Sheriff of Anglesey in 1565 and 1573. The third Richard was succeeded by his brother David Owen Theodor (died 1624), whose own son Richard served as Sheriff of Anglesey in 1623. He was father of another Richard Owen Theodor, the fifth, born 27 May 1611, who became Sheriff in 1657 and died in 1665. His son, the last Richard Owen Theodor (1645-1669), died without issue. This last Richard's immediate heiress was his sister Margaret Owen Theodor, wife of Coningsby Williams of Glan-y-gor, and after her childless death Penmynydd passed through her aunt, Mary Owen Theodor, wife of Rowland Bulkeley of Porthamel, to their son Francis, whose dissolute ways forced him to sell the inheritance to a Bulkeley cousin.


title: Pasoori

text: "Pasoori" () is a Punjabi and Urdu-language single by Pakistani singers Ali Sethi and debutant Shae Gill. It was released on 6 February 2022 as the sixth song of season 14 (episode two) of "Coke Studio Pakistan" and was subsequently released on YouTube on 7 February 2022. "Pasoori" is the first "Coke Studio" song and the first Pakistani song to feature on Spotify's "Viral 50 - Global" chart. It was featured in episode 4 of the Disney+ miniseries "Ms. Marvel", and in August 2022, it became the third song in the 14-year history of "Coke Studio" to reach 300 million views on YouTube. On 14 October 2022, with 410 million views on YouTube, "Pasoori" became the most-watched "Coke Studio" music video of all time. According to data released by Spotify in December 2022, "Pasoori" was the most-streamed Pakistani song globally as well as the most-streamed song in Pakistan in 2022. It was also the most-searched song in the world in 2022, as per Google Trends' "Year in Search 2022" report.


title: Pasoori

text: Music producer Abdullah Siddiqui noted that the song is a mix of various cultural influences: "you get to listen to a little bit of the classical tune of a "rubab" along with a modern reggaetón beat." Shae Gill was discovered by composer Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan through Instagram where she regularly posted cover versions of various songs. In an interview, Gill stated: "Coke Studio producer Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (Xulfi) found my Instagram page and checked out my singing. He liked my songs and later contacted me via direct message, saying, 'I want you to sing for Coke Studio"."' The rest is history."


title: Pasoori

text: In addition to the lead vocalists and musicians, the music video of the song also features Pakistani social activist and Bharatanatyam exponent Sheema Kirmani. In a text message to Sethi, Kirmani shared that while conceptualizing her dance movements for the song, she "did not want to go along the line of literal depiction of words, but [instead] felt that the movements should be abstract but suggestive of the emotions contained within the song and music."


title: Pasoori

text: Sethi shared in an interview that the inspiration for the song came to him as he was driving from Faisalabad to Lahore and noticed a quote in Punjabi on the back of a jingle truck that said ""aag lavaan teri majbooriyan nu"" ( and compulsions). He mentions that he was struck by these words: "I felt that this was such an amazing expression of the Punjabi language. This should be part of a song somehow." He describes that the words inspired him to brainstorm further to come up with lyrics that would go well with that expression and add weight to the song, and that is when he came up with ""aan jaan di pasoori nu"" (). Sethi has mentioned that he "wanted to write a song that felt classical but also relevant to contemporary life."


title: Pasoori

text: Sethi revealed that "Pasoori" took around one year to develop and that his goal was to infuse "the Turkic, Indic, Arab, Persian, and...the global placeless, ubiquitous 'beats' vibe that is also our inheritance." He noted that the folk and classical musical traditions the song draws from — including Sufi and qawwali — have centuries-long origins and therefore could not be classified as either Indian or Pakistani. Sethi has also shared that he sent the initial tune for the song on a voice note to composer Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, and that the lyrics of the song were not finalized until about 12 hours before the recording.


title: Pasoori

text: "Pasoori" revolves around themes of separation and heartbreak, but also self-acceptance, self-expression, letting go of one's worries, and the transformative power of art. Sethi contends that the word "pasoori" is deliberately ambiguous and difficult to translate and that the song is about "the bittersweet-ness of unrequited love, the Wabi-Sabi in art or the strange joy one sometimes finds in melancholy, Pasoori is all this. It speaks of anguish, art, music and passion, and how all of these can be uplifting, transformative even."


title: Pasoori

text: "Pasoori" was conceptualized as a fusion of pop and folk music. Sethi has stated that the song blends "raga" and reggaeton — a sound which he describes as "ragaton" — and notes that it was designed to feel warm and familiar, asserting that "it makes one feel good." Sethi shared that with "Pasoori," he wanted to create a song "that represents our culture but does dialog with the world" to show that "it is possible to be local and also be global...to be completely rooted and to be completely open and free."


title: Pasoori

text: According to a "Coke Studio" press release, Sethi began writing and composing "Pasoori" at a time when Pakistani artists were barred from working across the border in India, which led to a sense of frustration and anguish. Consistent with his musical style of challenging norms and voicing dissent, Sethi stated that his objective with "Pasoori" was to make a statement on the "free movement of ideas and melodies through a song," turning angst into art, and celebrating artistic self-expression in a world where "borders and boundaries of all sorts have become more rigid." Sethi stated: "I might not have been able to travel to India, but I knew my music could." The YouTube description of the song reads: "Let's transcend boundaries and bridge distances through compassion, love, and identity." In its description of the song, "The New Yorker" stated: ""'Pasoori"' is ostensibly about star-crossed lovers, but it’s also an apt metaphor for the relationship between two countries in perpetual conflict whose histories and cultural touchstones are entwined."


title: Pasoori

text: Song producer Abdullah Siddiqui described "Pasoori" as belonging to "a groundbreaking new hybrid genre" and as "one of the most modern tracks" of "Coke Studio" Season 14. The song features musical instruments ranging from electronic drums and synths to acoustic guitars and the "bağlama" and mandolin.


title: Pasoori

text: On August 18, 2022, "Coke Studio" released an African fusion remix of "Pasoori" featuring Sethi singing a modified version of the song along with Nigerian musician Reekado Banks and Egyptian EDM Trap artist Marwan Moussa. On December 8, 2022, Sethi released an acoustic version of "Pasoori" feauturing guitar work by Noah Georgeson and trumpets by Los Angeles-based musician, Jordan Katz.


title: Pasoori

text: In an interview with "The Harvard Crimson", when asked to reflect on the viral popularity of the song, Sethi stated: "It's like some of the Punjabi limericks I learned as a kid, which were half-nonsensical, but kind of magical...They were built on themselves, and became these fabulous myths with the head of one thing and the tail of another. I think that's kind of what Pasoori is, a magical being…and there's something about the structure of it that dazzles and asks for recitation."


title: Pasoori

text: "Pasoori" became the fastest in "Coke Studio" Season 14 to garner one million views on YouTube and amassed 10 million views on YouTube within 10 days of its release. It went on to become the first "Coke Studio" song and the first Pakistani song to feature on Spotify's "Viral 50 - Global" chart. "Pasoori" also ranked at number one on Spotify India's "Viral 50" chart on 7 March 2022. On 26 April 2022, it debuted at number 161 on Spotify's Global Chart, making it the first Pakistani song to enter the streaming platform's global charts, and peaked at 109th weekly and 89th daily positions. On 4 May 2022, it climbed to the top of Spotify's "Viral 50 - Global" chart. On 7 May 2022, 90 days after its release, "Pasoori" hit 100 million views on YouTube, making it one of the most-viewed Pakistani videos on the video sharing platform. On 1 August 2022, the song reached 300 million views on YouTube, making it the third song in the 14-year history of "Coke Studio" to do so. With 464 million views on YouTube as of 15 December 2022, "Pasoori" is currently the most watched "Coke Studio" music video of all time. As per data released by Spotify in December 2022, "Pasoori" was the most-streamed Pakistani song globally as well as the most-streamed song in Pakistan in 2022.


title: Pasoori

text: "Pasoori" received praise for its "joyful sounds," "earworm tune," "catchy melody, lyrics...and impeccable performances by the artists," and for "the balance between modern and old school sounds." The vocal chemistry between Sethi and Gill was also met with positive feedback, with Gill's "smoky voice" being praised for pairing well with "Sethi's rich tenor." The song trended heavily on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, inspiring numerous user-generated reels, dance challenges, covers, mashups, spin-offs, and fan artwork.