title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: General Eisenhower approved "Market Garden". On September 10 he gave supply priority to the 21st Army Group and decided to divert the U.S. First Army to the north of the Ardennes to stage limited attacks to draw German defenders south, away from the target sites.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The operation was launched on 17 September. At first, it went well. The U.S. 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions took their objectives at Eindhoven, Veghel and Nijmegen. However, the 82nd failed to capture its main objectives, the Nijmegen bridges, and instead its commander focused on the Groesbeek Heights. Although their landings outside Arnhem were on target, the British 1st Airborne Division landing zones were some distance from Arnhem bridge and only on the north side of the river. Problems arose when the British 1st Airborne Division lost vital equipment—jeeps and heavy anti-tank guns—when gliders crashed. There had also been a severe underestimation of German strength in the area. To make matters worse, poor weather prevented aerial reinforcements and drastically reduced resupply. German resistance to the forces driving to Arnhem was highly effective, and a copy of the Allied battle plan had been captured.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: In the end, "Market Garden" was unsuccessful. Arnhem bridge was not held and the British paratroops suffered tremendous casualties—approximately 77% by 25 September. The failure of the 82nd to capture the Nijmegen bridges in a coup de main meant that the British ground forces meant to relieve the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem were delayed for 36 hours, as the Guards Armoured Division, despite arriving in Nijmegen ahead of schedule, was forced to pour its forces to capture the bridges, instead of simply moving across, as had been planned. The allies managed to hold on to the salient in early October by repelling a German counter offensive.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The logistics situation was becoming critical, so opening the Port of Antwerp was now a high priority. On 12 September 1944, the Canadian First Army was given the task of clearing the Scheldt of German forces. The 1st Army comprised the II Canadian Corps, which included the Polish 1st Armoured Division, the British 49th and 52nd Divisions and the British I Corps.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The task involved four main operations: The first was to clear the area north of Antwerp and secure access to South Beveland. The second was to clear the Breskens pocket north of the Leopold Canal (Operation Switchback). The third—Operation Vitality—was the capture of South Beveland. The final phase was the capture of Walcheren Island, which had been fortified into a powerful German stronghold.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: On 21 September 1944, the advance began. The 4th Canadian Armoured Division, moving north toward the south shore of the Scheldt around the Dutch town of Breskens, were the first Allied troops to face the formidable obstacle of the double line of the Leopold and Dérivation de la Lys Canals. The canals were crossed and a bridgehead established, but fierce counter-attacks by the Germans forced them to withdraw with heavy casualties. The 1st Polish Armoured Division had greater success, moving northeast to the coast, occupying Terneuzen and clearing the south bank of the Scheldt eastward to Antwerp. It was by then clear, however, that any further advances would be at tremendous cost.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division began its advance north from Antwerp on 2 October. Heavy casualties ensued, including the almost total destruction of the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade's Black Watch Battalion on 13 October. However, on 16 October Woensdrecht was taken, following an immense artillery barrage which forced the Germans back. This cut South Beveland and Walcheren off from the mainland and achieved the objective of the first operation.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Montgomery issued a directive that made the opening of the Scheldt estuary the top priority. To the east, the British Second Army attacked westward to clear the Netherlands south of the Meuse ("Maas"). This helped secure the Scheldt region from counter-attack.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: In Operation Switchback, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division mounted a two-pronged attack, with the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade crossing the Leopold Canal and the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade launching an amphibious assault from the coastal side of the pocket. Despite fierce resistance from the Germans, the 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade crossed the Leopold Canal and the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade moved southwards, opening a supply route into the pocket.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: "Operation Vitality"—the third major phase of the Battle of the Scheldt—began on 24 October. The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division began its advance toward South Beveland, but was slowed by mines, mud and strong enemy defences. The British 52nd Division made an amphibious attack to get in behind the Germans' Beveland Canal defensive positions. Thus, this formidable defence was outflanked, and the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade began a frontal attack in assault boats. The engineers were able to bridge the canal on the main road. With the canal line gone, the German defence crumbled and South Beveland was cleared. The third phase of the Battle of the Scheldt was now complete.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The final phase, Operation Infatuate was the attack on the heavily fortified island of Walcheren at the mouth of the West Scheldt. The island's dykes were breached by attacks from RAF Bomber Command on 3, 7, and 11 October. This flooded the central part of the island, forcing the German defenders onto the high ground and allowing the use of amphibious vehicles. Units of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division attacked the causeway on 31 October, and after a grim struggle, established a precarious foothold. They were relieved by a battalion of the British 52nd Division. In conjunction with the waterborne attacks, the 52nd continued the advance.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The amphibious landings began on 1 November with units of the British 155th Infantry Brigade landing on a beach in the south-eastern area of Vlissingen. During the next few days, they engaged in heavy street fighting against the German defenders. Also on 1 November, after a heavy naval bombardment by the British Royal Navy, troops of 4th Commando Brigade, (with units of 10th Inter Allied Commando, consisting mainly of Belgian and Norwegian troops), supported by specialised armoured vehicles of the British 79th Armoured Division were landed on both sides of the gap in the sea dyke. Heavy fighting ensued. A smaller force moved south-eastward, toward Vlissingen, while the main force went northeast to clear the northern half of Walcheren to link up with the Canadians who had established a bridgehead on the eastern part of the island. Fierce resistance was again offered by German troops defending the area, and fighting continued until 7 November. However, the action ended on 8 November after a force of amphibious vehicles entered Middelburg, the capital of Walcheren.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Meanwhile, Operation Pheasant was launched in on October 20 which was intended as a major operation to clear German troops from the Province of North Brabant in conjunction with the battle of the Scheldt. The offensive after some resistance liberated most of region; the cities of Tilburg, s-Hertogenbosch, Willemstad and Roosendaal were liberated by British forces. Bergen Op Zoom was taken by the Canadians and the Polish 1st Armoured Division led by General Maczek liberated the city of Breda. As a result, the German positions which had defended the region along its canals and rivers had been broken. The operation was also a success in that civilian casualties were relatively light.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Meanwhile, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division had pushed eastwards past Bergen-op-Zoom to Sint Philipsland where it sank several German vessels in Zijpe harbour. With the approaches to Antwerp free, the fourth phase of the Battle of the Scheldt was complete; on 28 November, the first convoy entered the port.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Montgomery's 21st Army Group were tasked with clearing the west bank of the Rhine downstream from the Krefeld area. The approach was for the Canadian 1st Army—strengthened by XXX Corps—to advance south-eastward between the Rhine and Meuse ("Maas") rivers while the U.S. Ninth Army advanced north eastwards from the Roer. The two armies would meet in the Geldern area. The British Second Army stayed west of the Maas, apart from two divisions that reinforced the Anglo-Canadian advance, but the German High Command were initially convinced that they were the principal threat and deployed their reserves in anticipation of an assault from Venlo.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The two operations were delayed by the 'Battle of the Bulge' but they were rescheduled for 8 February 1945. Although the Anglo-Canadian attack (Operation Veritable) started on time, the US assault (Operation Grenade) was delayed by the threat and then the danger of flooding by water released from the Roer dams. This delay allowed the Germans to concentrate their defence on the Anglo-Canadian assaults, but they were unable to do much more than to slow it down in localised areas. When the Americans were able to advance, some two weeks later, there were few reserves left to face them and they made rapid progress until they encountered the German rearguard near the Rhine.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The two prongs met at Geldern, then pushed towards Rees, finally expelling German forces on 21 March.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The US First Army advanced rapidly through northern France and Belgium during late August and early September, with its main goal being to reach the Rhine before the Germans could establish defensive positions there. During the Battle of the Mons Pocket the Allies encircled approximately 70,000 Germans near Mons in Belgium, and took around 25,000 prisoners.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The U.S. First Army was focused on capturing the city of Aachen, which had to be dealt with before advancing to assault the Siegfried Line itself. Initially, the city of Aachen was to be bypassed and cut off in an attempt by the Allies to imitate the "Blitzkrieg" tactics the Germans had so effectively used (see below). However, the city was the first to be assaulted on German soil and so had huge historical and cultural significance for the German people. Adolf Hitler personally ordered that the garrison there be reinforced and the city held. This forced the Allied commanders to re-think their strategy.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Some historians, including Stephen E. Ambrose, have suggested that the siege of Aachen was a mistake. The battle stalled the eastward advance by the Allies and caused approximately 5,000 Allied casualties. The fighting was, by all accounts, brutal street-to-street, house-to-house style urban combat and tied up the available resources of the advancing Allied armies. Ambrose has suggested that a more effective strategy would have been to isolate the garrison at Aachen and continue the move east into the heart of Germany. In theory, this would have eliminated the ability of the German garrison to operate as a fighting force by cutting off their supply lines. This might have forced them to surrender or to move out of the city in an attempt to re-establish their supply lines. In the case of the latter, a confrontation in a more neutral setting would probably have resulted in fewer military and civilian casualties.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: In late August, the U.S. Third Army started to run low on fuel. This situation was caused by the rapid Allied advance through France, and compounded by the shift of logistical priority to the northern forces to secure Antwerp. By 1 September 1944, with the last of its fuel, the Third Army managed one final push to capture key bridges over the Meuse River at Verdun and Commercy. Five days after that, however, the critical supply situation effectively caused the Third Army to grind to a halt, allowing previously routed German forces to regroup and the reinforcement of their strongholds in the area.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Soon after, the Third Army came up against Metz, part of the Maginot Line and one of the most heavily fortified cities in Western Europe. The city could not be bypassed, as several of its forts had guns directed at Moselle crossing sites and the main roads in the area. It could also be used as a stronghold to organize a German counter-attack to the Third Army's rear. In the following Battle of Metz, the Third Army, while victorious, took heavy casualties.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Following Metz, the Third Army continued eastwards to the Saar River and soon began their assault on the Siegfried Line.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Hürtgen Forest was seen as a possible location for incursions into the American flank, and the river dams in the area were a threat to the Allied advance downstream, so an assault to clear the area was started on 19 September 1944. German defence was more stubborn than expected and the terrain was highly favourable to defence, largely negating the American advantages of numbers and quality of troops. The battle—expected to last a few weeks—continued until February 1945 and cost 33,000 casualties (from all causes).


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The value of the battle has been disputed. Modern historians argue that the outcome was not worth the foreseeable losses, and in any case, the American tactics played into German hands.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: Operation Queen was a combined Allied air-ground offensive against the German forces at the Siegfried Line, which was conducted mainly by the combined effort of the U.S. Ninth and First Armies. The principal goal of the operation was to advance to the Roer River and to establish several bridgeheads over it, for a subsequent thrust into Germany to the Rhine River. Parts of this operation also included further fighting in the Hurtgen Forest. The offensive commenced on 16 November with one of the heaviest tactical air bombardments by the western Allies of the war. Although the German forces were heavily outnumbered, the Allied advance was very slow. After four weeks of intensive fighting, the Allies reached the Roer, but were not able to establish any bridgeheads over it. Fighting in the Hurtgen Forest also bogged down. The exhaustive fighting during "Queen" caused the Allied troops to suffer heavy casualties, and eventually the Germans launched their own counteroffensive—Operation "Wacht am Rhein"—on 16 December, which would lead to the Battle of the Bulge.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The Germans had been preparing a massive counter-attack in the West since the Allied breakout from Normandy. The plan called "Wacht am Rhein" ("Watch on the Rhine") was to attack through the Ardennes and swing North to Antwerp, splitting the American and British armies. The attack started on 16 December in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Defending the Ardennes were troops of the U.S. First Army. After initial German successes in bad weather, which gave them cover from the Allied air forces, the Allies launched a counterattack to clear them from the Ardennes. The Germans were eventually pushed back to their starting points by 25 January 1945.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The Germans launched a second, smaller offensive ("Nordwind") into Alsace on 1 January 1945. Aiming to recapture Strasbourg, they attacked the 6th Army Group at multiple points. Because Allied lines had become severely stretched in response to the crisis in the Ardennes, holding and throwing back the "Nordwind" offensive was a costly affair that lasted almost four weeks. Allied counter-attacks restored the front line to the area of the German border and collapsed the Colmar Pocket.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The pincer movement of the Canadian First Army, advancing from the Nijmegen area in Operation Veritable, and the U.S. Ninth Army, crossing the Roer in Operation Grenade, was planned to start on 8 February 1945, but it was delayed by two weeks when the Germans flooded the Roer valley by destroying the floodgates of two dams on the upper Roer (Rur Dam and Urft Dam). During the two weeks that the little river was flooded, Hitler did not allow Rundstedt to withdraw German forces behind the Rhine, arguing that it would only delay the inevitable fight. Hitler ordered him to fight where his forces stood.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: By the time the water had subsided and the U.S. Ninth Army was able to cross the Roer on 23 February, other Allied forces were also close to the Rhine's west bank. The German divisions that had remained on the west bank of the Rhine were cut to pieces, and 280,000 men were taken prisoner. The stubborn German resistance had been costly; their total losses reached an estimated 400,000 men.


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: The Allies crossed the Rhine at four points. One crossing was an opportunity taken by U.S. forces when the Germans failed to blow up the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen; another was a hasty assault; and two crossings were planned:


title: Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine

text: After crossing the Rhine, the Allies rapidly advanced into Germany's heartland. The end of World War II in Europe followed soon after with the surrender of Germany on May 7.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Dame Gracie Fields (born Grace Stansfield; 9 January 189827 September 1979) was an English actress, singer, comedian and star of cinema and music hall who was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and was considered the highest paid film star in the world in 1937. She was known affectionately as "Our Gracie" and "the Lancashire Lass" and for never losing her strong, native Lancashire accent. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and an Officer of the Venerable Order of St John (OStJ) in 1938, and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1979.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields was born Grace Stansfield, a daughter of Frederick Stansfield (1874–1956) and his wife Sarah Jane 'Jenny' Stansfield née Bamford (1879–1953), over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother, Sarah Bamford, in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire. Her great-grandfather, William Stansfield (b.1805), of Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, was a descendant of the Stansfield family of Stansfield, Yorkshire.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields made her first stage appearance as a child, in 1905, joining children's repertory theatre groups such as "Haley's Garden of Girls" and the "Nine Dainty Dots". Her two sisters, Edith Fields and Betty Fields, and brother, Tommy Fields, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910, and she soon gave up her job in the local cotton mill, where she was a half-timer, spending half a week in the mill and the other half at school. Early newspaper clippings show her appearing locally in venues such as Todmorden (December 1913), Milnrow (February 1914), and Burnley (July 1914) with an appearance at The Palace in Blackpool in April 1914. The Burnley newspaper described her as “The Girl with the Double Voice”.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields met the comedian and impresario Archie Pitt and they began working together. Pitt gave Fields champagne on her 18th birthday, and wrote in an autograph book to her that he would make her a star. Pitt began to manage her career and they began a relationship; they married in 1923 at Clapham Register Office. Their first revue was called "Yes I Think So" in 1915, and the two continued to tour Britain together until 1924. That year they appeared in the revue "Mr Tower of London", with other shows following in subsequent years, such as "By Request", "It's A Bargain" and "The Show's The Thing".


title: Gracie Fields

text: Pitt was the brother of Bert Aza, founder of the Aza Agency, which was responsible for many entertainers of the day including the actor and comedian Stanley Holloway, who was introduced to Aza by Fields. Fields and Holloway first worked together on her film "Sing As We Go" in 1934 and the two remained close friends for the rest of their lives.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields came to major public notice in "Mr Tower of London", a show staged in London's West End. Her career accelerated from this point, with dramatic performances and the beginning of a recording career on His Master's Voice (HMV). She was one of the most successful recording artists at the label, her first record, "My Blue Heaven" sold 500,000 copies in 1928. In 1933, HMV produced the four millionth Fields record, which was pressed by the singer herself on camera.


title: Gracie Fields

text: At one point, Fields was playing three shows a night in the West End. She appeared in the Pitt production "SOS" with Gerald Du Maurier, a play staged at the St James's Theatre.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields' most famous song, "Sally", which became her theme, was written for her first film, "Sally in Our Alley" (1931), a major box office hit. She went on to make a number of films, initially in Britain and later in the United States (when she was paid a record fee of £200,000 for four films). Regardless, she never enjoyed performing without a live audience, and found the process of film-making boring. She tried to opt out of filming, before director Monty Banks persuaded her otherwise, landing her a lucrative Hollywood deal. Fields demanded that the four pictures be filmed in Britain and not Hollywood.


title: Gracie Fields

text: The final few lines of the song "Sally", which Fields sang at every performance from 1931 onwards, were written by her husband's mistress, Annie Lipman. Fields claimed in later life that she wanted to "Drown blasted Sally with Walter with the aspidistra on top!", a reference to two other of her well-known songs, "Walter, Walter", and "The Biggest Aspidistra In The World".


title: Gracie Fields

text: The famous opera star Luisa Tetrazzini heard her singing an aria and asked her to sing in grand opera. Fields decided to stay "where I knew I belonged."


title: Gracie Fields

text: In the 1930s, her popularity was at its peak, and she was given many honours: she became an Officer of the Venerable Order of St John (OStJ) for her charity work, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to entertainment in the 1938 New Year Honours, and was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Rochdale in 1937.


title: Gracie Fields

text: She donated her house in The Bishops Avenue, north London – which she had not much cared for, and shared with her husband Pitt and his mistress – to an orphanage after the marriage broke down. In 1939, she became seriously ill with cervical cancer. The public sent over 250,000 goodwill messages and she retired to her villa on Capri. After she recovered, she recorded a special 78rpm record simply called "Gracie's Thanks", in which she thanks the public for the many cards and letters she received while in hospital.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields also helped Rochdale Association Football Club in the 1930s, when they were struggling to pay fees and buy sports equipment.


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1933, she set up the Gracie Fields Children's Home and Orphanage at Peacehaven, Sussex, for children of those in the theatre profession who could not look after their children. She kept this until 1967, when the home was no longer needed. This was near her own home in Peacehaven, and Fields often visited, with the children all calling her 'Aunty Grace'.


title: Gracie Fields

text: World War II was declared while she was recovering in Capri, and Fields – still very ill after her cancer surgery – threw herself into her work and signed up for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) headed by her old film producer, Basil Dean. Fields travelled to France to entertain the troops in the midst of air-raids, performing on the backs of open lorries and in war-torn areas. During the war, she also paid for all servicemen and women to travel free on public transport within the boundaries of Rochdale.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Following her divorce from Archie Pitt, she married Italian-born film director Monty Banks in March 1940. However, because Banks remained an Italian citizen and would have been interned in the United Kingdom after Italy declared war in 1940, she went with him to North America, possibly at the suggestion of Winston Churchill who told her to "Make American Dollars, not British Pounds", which she did, in aid of the Navy League and the Spitfire Fund. She and Banks moved to their home in Santa Monica, California. Fields occasionally returned to Britain, performing in factories and army camps around the country. After their initial argument, Parliament offered her an official apology.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Although she continued to spend much of her time entertaining troops and otherwise supporting the war effort outside Britain, this led to a decline in her popularity at home. She performed many times for Allied troops, travelling as far as New Guinea, where she received an enthusiastic response from Australian personnel. In late 1945, she toured the South Pacific Islands.


title: Gracie Fields

text: After the war, Fields continued her career less actively. She began performing in Britain again in 1948, headlining the London Palladium over Ella Fitzgerald who was also on the bill. The BBC gave her her own radio show in 1947, dubbed "Our Gracie's Working Party", in which 12 towns were visited by Fields. It featured a live show of music and entertainment broadcast weekly, compered by Fields, who also performed, with local talents also on the bill. The tour commenced in Gracie's hometown of Rochdale. Like many BBC shows at the time, this show transferred to Radio Luxembourg in 1950, sponsored by Wisk soap powder. Billy Ternent and his Orchestra accompanied her.


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1951, Fields took part in the cabaret which closed the Festival of Britain celebrations. She proved popular once more, though never regaining the status she enjoyed in the 1930s. She continued recording, but made no more films, moving more towards light classical music as popular tastes changed, often adopting a religious theme. She continued into the new medium of LP records, and recorded new versions of her old favourite songs, as well as contemporary tracks, to 'liven things up a bit'.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Her husband, Monty Banks, died on 8 January 1950 of a heart attack, while travelling on the Orient Express. On 18 February 1952 in Capri, Fields married Boris Alperovici (d.1983), a Romanian radio repairman. She claimed that he was the love of her life, and that she couldn't wait to propose to him. She proposed on Christmas Day in front of friends and family. They married at the Church of St Stefano on Capri in a quiet ceremony, before honeymooning in Rome.


title: Gracie Fields

text: She lived on her beloved Isle of Capri for the remainder of her life, at her home "La Canzone Del Mare", a swimming and restaurant complex which Fields' home overlooked. It was favoured by many Hollywood stars during the 1950s, with regular guests including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo and Noël Coward.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields began to work less, but still toured the UK under the management of Harold Fielding (manager of top artists of the day such as Tommy Steele and Max Bygraves). Her UK tours proved popular, and in the mid-1960s she gave farewell tours in Australia, Canada and America; the last performance was recorded and released years later.


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1956, Fields was the first actress to portray Miss Marple in a US Television (Goodyear Playhouse) production of Agatha Christie's "A Murder is Announced". The production featured Jessica Tandy and Roger Moore, and predates the Margaret Rutherford films by five years. She also starred in Television productions of "A Tale of Two Cities" (DuPont Show of the Month, 1958), "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals" (United States Steel Hour)– for which she won a Sylvania Award (1956) and received an EMMY Award nomination for Best Single Performance by an Actress (1957) – and "Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris" (Studio One), which was remade years later with Angela Lansbury as Mrs Harris, a charwoman in search of a fur coat (or a Christian Dior gown in Lansbury's case).


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1957, her single "Around the World" peaked at No.8 in the UK Singles Chart, with her recording of "Little Donkey" reaching No.20 in November 1959. The sheet music for the song was the UK's best-seller for seven weeks.


title: Gracie Fields

text: She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" on 20 March 1960, when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields regularly performed in TV appearances, being the first entertainer to perform on Val Parnell's "Sunday Night at the London Palladium". Fields had two Christmas TV specials in 1960 and 1961, singing her old favourites and new songs in front of a studio audience. 1971 saw "A Gift For Gracie", another TV special presented by Fields and Bruce Forsyth. This followed on from her popularity on "Stars on Sunday", a religious programme on Britain's ITV, in which well-known performers sang hymns or read extracts from the Bible. Fields was the most requested artist on the show.


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1968, Fields headlined a two-week Christmas stint at the West Riding of Yorkshire's prestigious Batley Variety Club. "I was born over a fish and chip shop – I never thought I'd be singing in one!" claimed Fields during the performance recorded by the BBC.


title: Gracie Fields

text: In 1978, she opened the Gracie Fields Theatre, near Oulder Hill Leadership Academy in her native Rochdale, performing a concert there recorded by the BBC to open the show. Fields appeared in ten Royal Variety Performances from 1928 onwards, her last being in 1978 at the age of 80, when she appeared as a surprise guest in the finale and sang her theme song, "Sally".


title: Gracie Fields

text: Her final TV appearance came in January 1979 when she appeared in a special octogenarian edition of "The Merv Griffin Show" in America, in which she sang the song she popularised in America, "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World". Fields was notified by her confidant John Taylor, while she was in America, that she had received the Queen's invitation to become a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (in the 1979 New Years Honours List), to which she replied: "Yes I'll accept, yes I can kneel – but I might need help getting back up, and yes I'll attend – as long as they don't call Boris 'Buttons'." Seven months before her death in 1979, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields' health declined in July 1979, when she contracted pneumonia after performing an open-air concert on the Royal Yacht which was docked in Capri's harbour. After a spell in hospital, she seemed to be recovering, but died on 27 September 1979. The press reported she died holding her husband's hand, but in reality he was at their Anacapri home at the time, while Gracie was home with the housekeeper, Irena. She is buried in Capri's Protestant Cemetery, in a white marble tomb. Her coffin was carried by staff from her restaurant.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1938 New Years Honours. In February 1979, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire seven months before her death at her home on Capri, aged 81.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Fields was the mystery guest on the 1 May 1955 edition of "What's My Line?" After Bennett Cerf asked about one of her songs, Dorothy Kilgallen correctly guessed it was her. Fields was granted the Freedom of Rochdale. The local theatre in Rochdale, the Gracie Fields Theatre, was opened by her in 1978.


title: Gracie Fields

text: Following her death, she was referenced in the 1987 film "Wish You Were Here", the 1996 film "Intimate Relations", and the 2006 film "The History Boys".


title: Gracie Fields

text: In early 1985, an episode of the BBC television series "Halls of Fame," which presented a nostalgic look at various famous regional theatres, included a medley of Fields' songs at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, sung by Marti Webb. At the 1985 Royal Variety Performance, Su Pollard performed "Sally" in tribute to her. The following year's Performance also featured a section with a medley of Fields' songs, again sung by Webb.


title: Gracie Fields

text: On 3 October 2009, the final train to run on the Oldham Loop before it closed to be converted to a tramway, a Class 156, was named in her honour. In September 2016, a statue of Fields was unveiled outside Rochdale Town Hall, which was the first statue of a woman to be erected for over a century in Lancashire.


title: Gracie Fields

text: "Gracie!" was a 2009 biopic TV film on her life, with Jane Horrocks playing Fields and Tom Hollander her husband Monty Banks. It covers her career before the Second World War and the decline in her popularity during the war.


title: Gracie Fields

text: For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten stars in Britain at the box office via an annual poll in the "Motion Picture Herald".


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflection or genuflexion is the act of bending a knee to the ground, as distinguished from kneeling which more strictly involves both knees. From early times, it has been a gesture of deep respect for a superior. Today, the gesture is common in the Christian religious practices of the Anglican Church, Lutheran Church, Catholic Church, and Western Rite Orthodox Church. The Latin word , from which the English word is derived, originally meant kneeling with both knees rather than the rapid dropping to one knee and immediately rising that became customary in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. It is often referred to as "going down on one knee" or "bowing the knee". In Western culture, one genuflects on the left knee to a human dignitary, whether ecclesiastical or civil, while, in Christian churches and chapels, one genuflects on the right knee when the Sacrament is not exposed but in a tabernacle or veiled (conversely, one kneels with both knees if the Sacrament is exposed).


title: Genuflection

text: In 328 BC, Alexander the Great introduced into his court-etiquette some form of genuflection already in use in Persia, a modification to the tradition of Proskynesis. In the Byzantine Empire even senators were required to genuflect to the emperor. In medieval Europe, one demonstrated respect for a king or noble by going down on the left knee, often remaining there until told to rise. It is traditionally often performed in western cultures by a man making a proposal of marriage. This is done on the left knee.


title: Genuflection

text: The custom of genuflecting, as a sign of respect and even of service, arose out of the honor given to medieval kings. In modern times, when the folded flag of a fallen veteran is offered to the family, the presenting officer will go down on his left knee, if the recipient is seated.


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflection, typically on one knee, still plays a part in the Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Western Rite Orthodox traditions, among other churches; it is different from kneeling in prayer, which is more widespread.


title: Genuflection

text: Those for whom the gesture is difficult, such as the aged or those in poor physical condition, are not expected to perform it.


title: Genuflection

text: Except for those people, genuflection is still today mandatory in some situations, such as (in the Catholic Church) when passing in front of the Blessed Sacrament, or during the Consecration in the Mass.


title: Genuflection

text: In the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures, the verb "to kneel" occurs more than thirty times, both in the Old and in The New Testament.


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflection is a sign of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament. Its purpose is to allow the worshipper to engage his whole person in acknowledging the presence of and to honor Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is customary to genuflect whenever one comes into or leaves the presence of the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the Tabernacle. "This venerable practice of genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament, whether enclosed in the tabernacle or publicly exposed, as a sign of adoration, ...requires that it be performed in a recollected way. In order that the heart may bow before God in profound reverence, the genuflection must be neither hurried nor careless." A common-sense exception applies to a sacristan or custodian for whom it would be impractical to constantly be genuflecting in the course of their duties.


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament, the consecrated Eucharist, especially when arriving or leaving its presence, is a practice in the Anglican Communion, the Latin Rite Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Western Rite Orthodox Church. It is a comparatively modern replacement for the profound bow of head and body that remains the supreme act of liturgical reverence in the East. Since in many Anglican, Roman Catholic and Western Orthodox Churches the Blessed Sacrament is normally present behind the altar, genuflection is usual when arriving or passing in front of the altar at the communion rail. When genuflecting, making the sign of the cross is optional.


title: Genuflection

text: Only during the later Middle Ages, centuries after it had become customary to genuflect to persons in authority such as bishops, was genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament introduced. The practice gradually spread and became viewed as obligatory only from the end of the fifteenth century, receiving formal recognition in 1502. The raising of the consecrated Host and Chalice after the Consecration in order to show them to the people was for long unaccompanied by obligatory genuflections.


title: Genuflection

text: The requirement that genuflection take place on both knees before the Blessed Sacrament when it is unveiled as at Expositions (but not when it is lying on the corporal during Mass) was altered in 1973 with introduction of the following rule: "Genuflection in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed for public adoration, is on one knee." "Since a genuflection is, per se, an act of adoration, the general liturgical norms no longer make any distinction between the mode of adoring Christ reserved in the tabernacle or exposed upon the altar. The simple single genuflection on one knee may be used in all cases." However, in some countries the episcopal conference has chosen to retain the double genuflection to the Blessed Sacrament, which is performed by kneeling briefly on both knees and reverently bowing the head with hands joined.


title: Genuflection

text: In the Episcopal Church, genuflection is an act of personal piety and is not required by the prayer book. In some parishes it is a customary gesture of reverence for Christ's real presence in the consecrated Eucharistic elements of bread and wine, particularly in parishes with an Anglo-Catholic tradition.


title: Genuflection

text: Generally, if the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the church, it is customary to acknowledge the Lord's presence with a brief act of worship on entering or leaving the building – normally, a genuflection in the direction of the place of reservation.


title: Genuflection

text: The General Instruction of the Roman Missal lays down the following rules for genuflections during Mass:


title: Genuflection

text: During Mass, three genuflections are made by the priest celebrant: namely, after the showing of the host, after the showing of the chalice, and before Communion. Certain specific features to be observed in a concelebrated Mass are noted in their proper place "(cf. nos. 210-251)".


title: Genuflection

text: If, however, the tabernacle with the Most Blessed Sacrament is present in the sanctuary, the priest, the deacon, and the other ministers genuflect when they approach the altar and when they depart from the sanctuary, but not during the celebration of Mass itself.


title: Genuflection

text: Otherwise all who pass before the Most Blessed Sacrament genuflect, unless they are moving in procession.


title: Genuflection

text: In the Byzantine Rite, most widely observed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, genuflection plays a smaller role and prostration, known as "proskynesis", is much more common. During the holy mystery of reconciliation, however, following confession of sins, the penitent is to genuflect with head bowed before the Gospel Book or an icon of Christ as the confessor - either a bishop or a presbyter - formally declares God's forgiveness.


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflection or kneeling is prescribed at various points of the Roman Rite liturgy, such as after the mention of Jesus' death on the cross in the readings of the Passion during Holy Week.


title: Genuflection

text: A genuflection is made at the mention of the Incarnation in the words "et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est" ("and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man") in the Creed on the solemnities of Christmas and the Annunciation.


title: Genuflection

text: It is common practice that during the recital of the Angelus prayer, for the lines "And the Word was made flesh/And dwelt among us", those reciting the prayer bow or genuflect.


title: Genuflection

text: In the Tridentine Mass this genuflection is made on any day on which the Creed is recited at Mass, as well as at several other points:


title: Genuflection

text: In the Maronite Catholic Church, there is an evocative ceremony of genuflection on the feast of Pentecost. The congregation genuflects first on the left knee to God the Father, then on the right knee to God the Son, and finally on both knees to God the Holy Spirit.


title: Genuflection

text: From the custom of genuflecting to kings and other nobles arose the custom by which lay people or clergy of lesser rank genuflect to a prelate and kiss his episcopal ring, as a sign of acceptance of the bishop's apostolic authority as representing Christ in the local church, and originally their social position as lords. Abbots and other senior monastics often received genuflection from their monks and often others.


title: Genuflection

text: Genuflecting before "greater prelates" (i.e. Bishops in their own dioceses, Metropolitans in their province, Papal Legates in the territory assigned to them, and Cardinals either outside of Rome or in the church assigned to them in Rome) is treated as obligatory in editions of the "Caeremoniale Episcoporum" earlier than that of 1985; during liturgical functions according to these prescriptions, clergy genuflect when passing before such prelates, but an officiating priest and any more junior prelates, canons, etc. substitute a bow of the head and shoulders for the genuflection.


title: Genuflection

text: The present Catholic liturgical books exclude genuflecting to a bishop during the liturgy: "A genuflection, made by bending the right knee to the ground, signifies adoration, and therefore it is reserved for the Most Blessed Sacrament, as well as for the Holy Cross from the solemn adoration during the liturgical celebration on Good Friday until the beginning of the Easter Vigil." But outside of the liturgy some continue to genuflect or kneel to kiss a bishop's ring.


title: Genuflection

text: Though it is frequently asserted that genuflections are to be made on the left knee when made to merely human authorities, there is no such prescription in any liturgical book.


title: Rachna Banerjee

text: Rachna Banerjee (born Jhumjhum Rakesh Banerjee; 2 October 1974) also known as Rachana, is an Indian actress, entrepreneur and television presenter. She is known for her works in Bengali and Odia film industries and has also appeared in several Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films. Being crowned the 1994 Miss Kolkata, she has also won five beauty contests in India including Miss Beautiful Smile at the Miss India contest.


title: Rachna Banerjee

text: Banerjee was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and was her parents' only child. Her father was Upamanyu Banerjee. Her original name was Jhumjhum Banerjee, and was changed to Rachana by Sukhen Das, the director of her debut film Daan Pratidaan (1993).


title: Rachna Banerjee

text: Banerjee won the Miss Calcutta contest in 1994 when she was still in her second year of graduation course from South City College. She entered several beauty pageants before starting her acting career and was often declared 'Miss Beautiful Smile'. In 1994 she missed out of the Miss India contest grand finale where Madhu Sapre was crowned the title. Banerjee's breakthrough role was with director Sukhen Das who changed her name to Rachana (which Das found in 'Rabindra Rachanabali').. Her biggest success in film career comes when she played the female lead opposite Siddhant Mahapatra in about 40 movies.she appeared against Amitabh Bachchan in the movie Sooryavansham one of the cult movies of its era. She has appeared in 35 Bengali films with her favorite actor Prosenjit Chatterjee.


title: Rachna Banerjee

text: non-fiction TV show, "Didi No. 1", which is aired on Zee Bangla on weekdays. On 5 April 2013 a fire broke out in the studio of "Didi No. 1" at Tollygunge, and she fainted following a panic attack and was rushed to a city hospital (Aurobindo Seva Sadan) immediately.


title: Alf Landon

text: Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential election, and was defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt.


title: Alf Landon

text: Born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, Landon spent most of his childhood in Marietta, Ohio, before moving to Kansas. After graduating from the University of Kansas, he became an independent oil producer in Lawrence, Kansas. His business made him a millionaire, and he became a leader of the liberal Republicans in Kansas. Landon won election as Governor of Kansas in 1932 and sought to reduce taxes and balance the budget in the midst of the Great Depression. He supported many components of the New Deal but criticized some aspects that he found inefficient.


title: Alf Landon

text: The 1936 Republican National Convention selected Landon as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. He proved to be an ineffective campaigner and carried just two states in the election. After the election, he left office as governor and never sought public office again. Later in life, he supported the Marshall Plan and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs. He gave the first in a series of lectures, now known as the Landon Lecture Series, at Kansas State University. Landon lived to the age of 100 and died in Topeka, Kansas, in 1987. His daughter, Nancy Kassebaum, represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon was born in 1887 in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, the son of Anne Mossman and John Manuel Landon. Landon grew up in Marietta, Ohio. He moved with his family to Kansas at age 17 and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1908. Landon first pursued a career in banking, but in 1912 he became an independent petroleum producer in Independence, Kansas. During World War I, he joined the Army and was selected for assignment as an officer. He was commissioned in the Chemical Corps and attained the rank of captain. He was preparing to depart for France when the Armistice ended the war, so he was discharged and returned to Kansas.


title: Alf Landon

text: By 1929, his career in the oil industry had made him a millionaire, and he was instrumental in the establishment of the Kansas-Oklahoma division of the United States Oil and Gas Association, then known as the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, a petroleum lobbying organization.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party in 1912, and by 1922, was private secretary to the governor of Kansas. He later became known as the leader of the liberal Republicans in the state. He was elected chairman of the Republican state central committee in 1928 and directed the successful Republican presidential and gubernatorial campaigns in Kansas in that year.


title: Alf Landon

text: In 1930, however, incumbent Republican Kansas governor Clyde M. Reed failed to gain renomination, as he was defeated by challenger Frank Haucke, who would later go on to lose the general election to Harry H. Woodring. The election left the Kansas Republican Party damaged and divided. Landon decided to run in 1932 as a candidate who would reunite the Kansas GOP, and he won the nomination.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon was elected Governor of Kansas in the general election, where he defeated both the incumbent Democrat Woodring and independent challenger John R. Brinkley in a closely contested race. He was re-elected governor in 1934, over Democrat Omar B. Ketchum (whose campaign was directed by Clyde Short); Gov. Frank Merriam of California and Landon were the only Republican governors in the nation to be re-elected that year. As governor, Landon gained a reputation for reducing taxes and balancing the budget. Landon is often described as a fiscal conservative who nevertheless believed that government must also address certain social issues. He supported parts of the New Deal and labor unions.


title: Alf Landon

text: During the 1932 presidential campaign, a degree of animosity developed between Landon and then U.S. President Herbert Hoover. Osro Cobb of Arkansas, a friend of both men, tried to bring about a reconciliation, as he explains in his memoirs:


title: Alf Landon

text: For reasons I never understood, some friction developed between President Hoover and my friend, Governor Landon, who had a summer place in Evergreen, Colorado ... I was in and out of Colorado during the summers and visited frequently with Governor Landon. I was eager to get him and the President together in hopes of bringing about a reconciliation that would benefit them personally and the Republican Party. All of us were at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs for a meeting, which I saw as an opportunity to get them together ... for dinner, but whatever undercurrent existed remained, and they continued to be cool toward each other. President Hoover was one of the great Americans of this century. He was competent, compassionate, and a man of unequaled qualifications. The country paid an awful price when he was sacrificed by political caprice.


title: Alf Landon

text: During his gubernatorial years, Landon attempted to address the needs of his Depression-battered state while still advancing the Republican Party. After his speech at the Cleveland convention in 1936, Landon stated, "My chief concern in this crisis is to see the Republican Party name its strongest possible candidate and a man that would be a good president." During the election year, Landon called for a "special session of the Legislature to enact measures to bring Kansas within the requirements of the federal social security program."


title: Alf Landon

text: In 1936, Landon sought the Republican presidential nomination opposing the re-election of Roosevelt. At the 1936 Republican National Convention, Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Landon won the nomination on the first ballot; the convention selected Chicago newspaper publisher (and Roosevelt's future Secretary of the Navy) Frank Knox as his running mate.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who rarely traveled. Most of the attacks on Roosevelt and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners rather than Landon himself. In the two months after his nomination he made no campaign appearances. As columnist Westbrook Pegler lampooned, "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas ... The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and accepted much of the New Deal but objected that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. Late in the campaign, Landon accused Roosevelt of corruption – that is, of acquiring so much power that he was subverting the Constitution. Landon said:


title: Alf Landon

text: The President spoke truly when he boasted ... 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people ... and ... enslavement for the public.' These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse ... National economic planning—the term used by this Administration to describe its policy—violates the basic ideals of the American system ... The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand.


title: Alf Landon

text: The 1936 presidential election was extraordinarily lopsided. Although Landon accrued nearly seventeen million votes and obtained the endorsement of track star Jesse Owens, he lost the popular vote by more than 10 million votes. He lost his home state of Kansas and carried only Maine and Vermont for a total of eight electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. On the same day, Republicans lost control of the Kansas governorship, as Democrat Walter A. Huxman was elected as his successor as governor. FDR's win was the most lopsided electoral victory since the 1820 election. The overwhelming Roosevelt victory prompted Democratic National Committee chair James Farley to jokingly update the political maxim "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" to "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont".


title: Alf Landon

text: Following his defeat, Landon finished out his term as Governor of Kansas and returned to the oil industry. Landon did not seek elected office again.


title: Alf Landon

text: The Republicans' defeats in 1932 and 1936 plunged their party into a period of bitter intra-party strife. Landon played an important role in ending this internal bickering in 1938 by helping to prepare a new group of leaders for the presidential campaign of 1940, and in trying to bring about a compromise between the isolationist and internationalist viewpoints in foreign policy. Landon declined a position in Franklin Roosevelt's Cabinet because he made his acceptance contingent upon the President's renunciation of a third term.


title: Alf Landon

text: After war broke out in Europe in 1939, Landon fought against isolationists such as America First Committee who supported the Neutrality Act; he feared it would mislead Nazi Germany into thinking the United States was unwilling to fight. In 1941, however, he joined isolationists in arguing against lend-lease, although he did urge that United Kingdom be given $5 billion outright instead.


title: Alf Landon

text: After the war, he backed the Marshall Plan, while opposing high domestic spending. After the communist revolution in China, he was one of the first to advocate recognition of Mao Zedong's communist government, and its admission to the United Nations, when this was still a very unpopular position among the leadership and followers of both major parties.


title: Alf Landon

text: In 1961, Landon urged the United States to join the European Common Market. In November 1962, when he was asked to describe his political philosophy, Landon said: "I would say practical progressive, which means that the Republican party or any political party has got to recognize the problems of a growing and complex industrial civilization. And I don't think the Republican party is really wide awake to that." Later in the 1960s, Landon backed President Lyndon Johnson on Medicare and other Great Society programs.


title: Alf Landon

text: On December 13, 1966, Landon gave his first "Landon Lecture" at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Landon's lecture, titled "New Challenges in International Relations" was the first in a series of public issues lectures that continues to this day and has featured numerous world leaders and political figures, including seven U.S. presidents (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush).


title: Alf Landon

text: President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy attended Landon's hundredth birthday party at his home in Topeka. President Reagan described Landon as "the living soul of Kansas" and remarked, "You don't know what a joy it is for a fella like me to go to a birthday party for someone who can, in all honesty, call me a kid." Landon, standing with the use of a walking stick, told the President and well-wishers at the party, "It's a great day in my life. And it's a great day in the lives of all of us to have had the privilege that we have today of meeting with the President of the United States and Mrs. Reagan." White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker married Landon's daughter Nancy nine years later.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon died in Topeka on October 12, 1987, at 5:25 p.m., thirty-three days after celebrating his hundredth birthday, and is interred at Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka. At the time of his death, he was survived by his second wife, Theo Cobb.


title: Alf Landon

text: Landon's daughter, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, was a United States Senator from Kansas. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978, she was re-elected in 1984 and 1990. Her second husband was her former Senate colleague Howard Henry Baker, Jr., of Tennessee (1925–2014). His nephew was actor Hal Landon Jr.


title: Driving licence in India

text: In India, a driving licence is an official document that authorises its holder to operate various types of motor vehicles on highways and some other roads to which the public has access. In various Indian states, they are administered by the Regional Transport Authorities/Offices (RTA/RTO). A driving licence is required in India by any person driving a vehicle on any highway or other road defined in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. This act sets limits on the minimum age for vehicle operation ranging from 16 to 20, depending on specific circumstances.


title: Driving licence in India

text: A modern photo of the driving licence can also serve many of the purposes of an identity card in non-driving contexts such as proof of identity (e.g. when opening a bank account) or age (e.g. when applying for a mobile connection).


title: Driving licence in India

text: Applications for a provisional driving licence can be made from the age of 16. Valid for driving a moped or gearless motorcycle from aged 16, and a car or any motor vehicle other than a transport vehicle who are aged 18 or older. The common "All India Permit" allows the licensee to drive throughout the country. For driving commercial/transport vehicles, one should obtain endorsement (and a minimum age of 20 years, in some states) in the driving licence to effect under s.3(1) of The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Until a driving test (which consists of three sections: verbal or written test (depending on the state), road sign test followed by a supervised driving examination) has been passed a driver may hold only a provisional licence and be subject to certain conditions.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Anyone applying for a driving licence for the first time has to apply for a learner licence (LLR) as a prerequisite. If you have a learner’s permit, you are only permitted to drive while under a licensed driver’s supervision.


title: Driving licence in India

text: After passing a driving test, the provisional licence may be surrendered in exchange for a full Indian licence for the relevant kind of vehicle. Full car licences allow use of mopeds, motorcycles and cars.


title: Driving licence in India

text: A licence is valid until the age of 40, if applied before 30 years of age. Between 30 to 50 years of age, it is valid for 10 years. From 50 to 55 years of age, it is valid until the holder's 60th birthday. Above 55 years of age, it is valid for 5 years under the "Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019". The driving licence is required to be renewed after the expiry of its validity. It previously had 20 years of validity.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Tests on basic driving rules are conducted at the RTOs when an individual applies for a provisional licence. The theoretical test in India consists of basic road sign questions, which are the same for car and motorcycle tests:


title: Driving licence in India

text: The theory test is completed on the computer, and both must be passed in order to pass the theory test.


title: Driving licence in India

text: In order to drive a Vehicle carrying hazardous goods, the driver must have an additional Hazzard Goods Endorsement in addition to a Transport class licence or LMV class on their licence.


title: Driving licence in India

text: To drive a motor vehicle in hilly terrain or a ghat section the driver needs a Hill Driver Endorsement.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Most of the legislation regarding licensing is in the "Rules of the Road Regulation" and the "Motor Vehicles Act, 1988".


title: Driving licence in India

text: India uses cumulative points systems, broadly similar but different in detail in different countries, for offenders.


title: Driving licence in India

text: An Indian driving licence may be endorsed by the courts for various offences, not only for those committed whilst driving or in charge of a vehicle. If the individual committing the offence does not hold a valid driving licence the driver is subject to be penalised or face imprisonment of up to 3 months.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Violation of traffic signals, triple driving on motorcycle, using vehicles without registration or in unsafe condition may endorse and attract 3 negative points in each case.


title: Driving licence in India

text: In the case of two-wheelers, helmet laws are mandatory for the main rider and the pillion rider. Offences such as for drink or drug driving are recorded on the licence and the offender is prosecuted and imprisoned.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Twelve points on the licence makes the driver liable to cancellation/suspension of driving licence for one year; accumulation of twelve points for the second consecutive time would lead to suspension of driving licence for five years.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Drivers are legally obliged to carry a valid driving licence while driving. Under s.130 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988; a police officer or any other official authorised by the government can ask for vehicle-related documents, and the driver should produce them within 15 days at the police station (or the concerned department).


title: Driving licence in India

text: The law permits officials to seize a licence, and issue a temporary one for a specified time. The law also allows the state government to set fines or prison terms for minor traffic violations, and specifies who has the rights to enforce these rules.


title: Driving licence in India

text: Every driving licence has a maximum number of "endorsements" allowed. If the driver does not follow the traffic rules or causes any fault, then a penalty fine is issued and an endorsement put on the licence. An excessive number of endorsements may lead to cancellation.


title: Oregon Country

text: Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been created by the Treaty of 1818, consisted of the land north of 42°N latitude, south of 54°40′N latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains down to the Pacific Ocean and east to the Continental Divide. Article III of the 1818 treaty gave joint control to both nations for ten years, allowed land to be claimed, and guaranteed free navigation to all mercantile trade. However, both countries disputed the terms of the international treaty. Oregon Country was the American name while the British used Columbia District for the region.


title: Oregon Country

text: British and French Canadian fur traders had entered Oregon Country prior to 1810 before the arrival of American settlers from the mid-1830s onwards, which led to the foundation of the Provisional Government of Oregon. Its coastal areas north from the Columbia River were frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the maritime fur trade, with many vessels between the 1790s and 1810s coming from Boston. The Hudson's Bay Company, whose Columbia Department comprised most of the Oregon Country and north into New Caledonia and beyond 54°40′N, with operations reaching tributaries of the Yukon River, managed and represented British interests in the region.


title: Oregon Country

text: After the dispute became an election issue in the US presidential elections of 1844, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to settle the problem with the Oregon Treaty in 1846. It established the British-American boundary at the 49th parallel (except Vancouver Island). With the end of joint occupancy, the region south of the 49th parallel became Oregon Territory in the United States while the northern portion became part of the British colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The area which once encompassed Oregon Country now lies within the present-day borders of the Canadian province of British Columbia and all of the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as parts of Montana and Wyoming.


title: Oregon Country

text: The earliest evidence of the name "Oregon" has Spanish origins. The term comes from the historical chronicle (1598) which was written by the New Spaniard Rodrigo Motezuma and which made reference to the Columbia River when the Spanish explorers penetrated into the North American territory that became part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name "Oregon". There are also two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name "Oregano", which grows in the southern part of the region. It is most probable that the American territory was named by the Spaniards, as there are some populations in Spain such as "Arroyo del Oregón", which is in the province of Ciudad Real, also considering that the individualization in Spanish language with the mutation of the letter "g" instead of "j".


title: Oregon Country

text: Another theory is that French Canadian fur company employees called the Columbia River "hurricane river" , because of the strong winds of the Columbia Gorge. George R. Stewart argues in a 1944 article in "American Speech" that the name came from an engraver's error in a French map published in the early 18th century, on which the "Ouisiconsink" (Wisconsin River) was spelled "Ouaricon-sint", broken on two lines with the -sint below, so that there appeared to be a river flowing to the west named "Ouaricon". This theory was endorsed in "Oregon Geographic Names" as "the most plausible explanation".


title: Oregon Country

text: George Vancouver explored Puget Sound in 1792. Vancouver claimed it for Great Britain on 4 June 1792, naming it for one of his officers, Lieutenant Peter Puget. Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to cross North America by land north of New Spain, arriving at Bella Coola on what is now the central coast of British Columbia in 1793. From 1805 to 1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the territory for the United States on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.


title: Oregon Country

text: David Thompson, working for the Montreal-based North West Company, explored much of the region beginning in 1807, with his friend and colleague Simon Fraser, following the Fraser River to its mouth in 1808, attempting to ascertain whether it was the Columbia, as had been theorized about its northern reaches through New Caledonia, where it was known by its Dakleh name as the "Tacoutche Tesse". Thompson was the first European to voyage down the entire length of Columbia River. Along the way, his party camped at the junction with the Snake River on 9 July 1811. He erected a pole and a notice claiming the country for the United Kingdom and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a trading post on the site. Later in 1811, on the same expedition, he finished his survey of the entire Columbia, arriving at a partially constructed Fort Astoria two months after the departure of John Jacob Astor's ill-fated "Tonquin".


title: Oregon Country

text: The Oregon Country was originally claimed by Great Britain, France, Russia, and Spain; the Spanish claim was later taken up by the United States. The extent of the region being claimed was vague at first, evolving over decades into the specific borders specified in the U.S.-British treaty of 1818. The United States based its claim in part on Robert Gray's entry of the Columbia River in 1792 and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Great Britain based its claim in part on British overland explorations of the Columbia River by David Thompson and on prior discovery and exploration along the coast. Spain's claim was based on the Inter caetera and Treaty of Tordesillas of 1493–94, as well as explorations of the Pacific coast in the late 18th century. Russia based its claim on its explorations and trading activities in the region and asserted its ownership of the region north of the 51st parallel by the Ukase of 1821, which was quickly challenged by the other powers and withdrawn to 54°40′N by separate treaties with the U.S. and Britain in 1824 and 1825 respectively.


title: Oregon Country

text: Spain gave up its claims of exclusivity via the Nootka Conventions of the 1790s. In the Nootka Conventions, which followed the Nootka Crisis, Spain granted Britain rights to the Pacific Northwest, although it did not establish a northern boundary for Spanish California, nor did it extinguish Spanish rights to the Pacific Northwest. Spain later relinquished any remaining claims to territory north of the 42nd parallel to the United States as part of the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. In the 1820s, Russia gave up its claims south of 54°40′ and east of the 141st meridian in separate treaties with the United States and Britain.


title: Oregon Country

text: Meanwhile, the United States and Britain negotiated the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which extended the boundary between their territories west along the 49th parallel to the Rocky Mountains. The two countries agreed to "joint occupancy" of the land west of the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1843, settlers established their own government, called the Provisional Government of Oregon. A legislative committee drafted a code of laws known as the Organic Law. It included the creation of an executive committee of three, a judiciary, militia, land laws, and four counties. There was vagueness and confusion over the nature of the 1843 Organic Law, in particular whether it was constitutional or statutory. In 1844, a new legislative committee decided to consider it statutory. The 1845 Organic Law made additional changes, including allowing the participation of British subjects in the government. Although the Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled the boundaries of U.S. jurisdiction, the provisional government continued to function until 1849, when the first governor of Oregon Territory arrived. A faction of Oregon politicians hoped to continue Oregon's political evolution into an independent nation, but the pressure to join the United States prevailed by 1848, four months after the Mexican–American War.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1805, the American Lewis and Clark Expedition marked the first official American exploration of the area, creating the first temporary settlement of Euro-Americans in the area near the mouth of the Columbia River at Fort Clatsop. Two years later in 1807, David Thompson of the Montreal-based North West Company penetrated the Oregon Country from the north, via Athabasca Pass, near the headwaters of the Columbia River. From there he navigated nearly the full length of the river through to the Pacific Ocean.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1810, John Jacob Astor commissioned and began the construction of the American Pacific Fur Company fur-trading post at Fort Astoria, just from the site of Lewis and Clark's former Fort Clatsop, completing construction of the first permanent Euro-American settlement in the area in 1811. This settlement later served as the nucleus of present day Astoria, Oregon. During the period of the construction of Fort Astoria, Thompson traveled down the Columbia River, noting the partially constructed American Fort Astoria only two months after the departure of the supply ship "Tonquin".


title: Oregon Country

text: Along the way, Thompson had set foot on and claimed for the British Crown, the lands in the vicinity of the future Fort Nez Percés site at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers. This claim initiated a very brief era of competition between American and British fur traders. During the War of 1812, Fort Astoria was captured by the British and sold to the North West Company. Under British control, Fort Astoria was renamed Fort George.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1821 when the North West Company was merged with the Hudson's Bay Company, the British Parliament moved to impose the laws of Upper Canada upon British subjects in Columbia District and Rupert's Land, and issued the authority to enforce those laws to the Hudson's Bay Company. Chief Factor John McLoughlin was appointed manager of the district's operations in 1824. He moved the regional company headquarters to Fort Vancouver (modern Vancouver, Washington) in 1824. Fort Vancouver became the centre of a thriving colony of mixed origin, including Scottish Canadians and Scots, English, French Canadians, Hawaiians, Algonkians, and Iroquois, as well as the offspring of company employees who had intermarried with various local native populations.


title: Oregon Country

text: Astor continued to compete for Oregon Country furs through his American Fur Company operations in the Rockies. In the 1820s, a few American explorers and traders visited this land beyond the Rocky Mountains. Long after the Lewis and Clark Expedition and also after the consolidation of the fur trade in the region by the Canadian fur companies, American mountain men such as Jedediah Smith and Jim Beckwourth came roaming into and across the Rocky Mountains, following Indian trails through the Rockies to California and Oregon. They sought beaver pelts and other furs, which were obtained by trapping. These were difficult to obtain in the Oregon Country because of the Hudson's Bay Company policy of creating a "fur desert": deliberate over-hunting of the area's frontiers, so that American trades would find nothing there. The mountain men, like the Metis employees of the Canadian fur companies, adopted Indian ways, and many of them married Native American women.


title: Oregon Country

text: Reports of Oregon Country eventually circulated in the eastern United States. Some churches decided to send missionaries to convert the Indians. Jason Lee, a Methodist minister from New York, was the first Oregon missionary. He built a mission school for Indians in the Willamette Valley in 1834. American settlers began to arrive from the east via the Oregon Trail starting in the early 1840s and came in increasing numbers each subsequent year. Increased tension led to the Oregon boundary dispute. Both sides realized that settlers would ultimately decide who controlled the region. The Hudson's Bay Company, which had previously discouraged settlement as it conflicted with the lucrative fur trade, belatedly reversed their position. In 1841, on orders from Sir George Simpson, James Sinclair guided more than 100 settlers from the Red River Colony to settle on HBC farms near Fort Vancouver. The Sinclair expedition crossed the Rockies into the Columbia Valley, near present-day Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia, then traveled southwest down the Kootenai River and Columbia River following the southern portion of the well-established York Factory Express trade route.


title: Oregon Country

text: The Canadian effort proved to be too little, too late. In what was dubbed "The Great Migration of 1843" or the "Wagon Train of 1843", an estimated 700 to 1,000 American emigrants came to Oregon, decisively tipping the balance.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1843, settlers in the Willamette Valley established a provisional government at Champoeg. Political pressure in the United States urged the occupation of all the Oregon Country. Expansionists in the American South wanted to annex Texas, while their counterparts in the northeast wanted to annex the Oregon Country. It was seen as significant that the expansions be parallel, as the relative proximity to other states and territories made it appear likely that Texas would be pro-slavery and Oregon against slavery.


title: Oregon Country

text: In the 1844 U.S. Presidential election, the Democrats had called for expansion into both areas. After his election as president, however, James K. Polk supported the 49th parallel as a northern limit for U.S. annexation in Oregon Country. It was Polk's uncompromising support for expansion into Texas and relative silence on the Oregon boundary dispute that led to the phrase "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the northern border of the region and often erroneously attributed to Polk's campaign. The goal of the slogan was to rally Southern expansionists (some of whom wanted to annex only Texas in an effort to tip the balance of slave/free states and territories in favor of slavery) to support the effort to annex Oregon Country, appealing to the popular belief in manifest destiny. The British government, meanwhile, sought control of all territory north of the Columbia River.


title: Oregon Country

text: Despite the posturing, neither country really wanted to fight what would have been the third war in 70 years against the other. The two countries eventually came to a peaceful agreement in the 1846 Oregon Treaty that divided the territory west of the Continental Divide along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait; with all of Vancouver Island remaining under British control. This border today divides British Columbia from neighboring Washington, Idaho, and Montana.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1843 the HBC shifted its Columbia Department headquarters from Fort Vancouver to Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. The plan to move to more northern locations dated back to the 1820s. George Simpson was the main force behind the move north; John McLoughlin became the main hindrance. McLoughlin had devoted his life's work to the Columbia business, and his personal interests were increasingly linked to the growing settlements in the Willamette Valley. He fought Simpson's proposals to move north in vain. By the time Simpson made the final decision in 1842 to move the headquarters to Vancouver Island, he had had many reasons for doing so. There was a dramatic decline in the fur trade across North America. In contrast the HBC was seeing increasing profits with coastal exports of salmon and lumber to Pacific markets such as Hawaii. Coal deposits on Vancouver Island had been discovered, and steamships such as the "Beaver" had shown the growing value of coal, economically and strategically. A general HBC shift toward Pacific shipping and away from the interior of the continent made Victoria Harbour much more suitable than Fort Vancouver's location on the Columbia River. The Columbia Bar at the river's mouth was dangerous and routinely meant weeks or months of waiting for ships to cross. The largest ships could not enter the river at all. The growing numbers of American settlers along the lower Columbia gave Simpson reason to question the long term security of Fort Vancouver. He worried, rightfully so, that the final border resolution would not follow the Columbia River. By 1842, he thought it more likely that the United States would at least demand Puget Sound, and the British government would accept a border as far north as the 49th parallel, excluding Vancouver Island. Despite McLoughlin's stalling, the HBC had begun the process of shifting away from Fort Vancouver and toward Vancouver Island and the northern coast in the 1830s. The increasing number of American settlers arriving in the Willamette Valley after 1840 served to make the need more pressing.


title: Oregon Country

text: In 1848, the U.S. portion of the Oregon Country was formally organized as the Oregon Territory. In 1849, Vancouver Island became a British Crown colony—the Colony of Vancouver Island—with the mainland being organized into the Colony of British Columbia in 1858. Shortly after the establishment of Oregon Territory, there was an effort to split off the region north of the Columbia River. As a result of the Monticello Convention, Congress approved the creation of Washington Territory in early 1853. President Millard Fillmore approved the new territory on 2 March 1853.


title: Oregon Country

text: Alexander Ross, an early Scottish Canadian fur trader, describes the lower Columbia River area of the Oregon Country (known to him as the Columbia District):


title: Currensy

text: Shante Scott Franklin (born April 4, 1981), better known by his stage name Currensy (often stylized as Curren$y), is an American rapper. In 2011, he founded the label Jet Life Recordings.


title: Currensy

text: In 2002, Currensy was signed to Master P's No Limit Records and was a late addition to the 504 Boyz. The song "Get Back" by 504 Boyz, produced by Donald XL Robertson, was featured on the 2003 film "Malibu's Most Wanted" soundtrack. Currensy appeared on 5 songs in Master P's "Good Side, Bad Side" album. Even though he was signed with No Limit, he represented C-Murder's TRU label. Currensy has several songs with C-Murder, and was featured on the late Soulja Slim's album, "Years Later" (2002).


title: Currensy

text: In 2004, Currensy signed with Cash Money Records and Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment. He was featured on Lil Wayne's mixtape "Dedication 2", "The Suffix" and several unreleased songs while with Young Money. He released a mixtape entitled "Welcome Back" in 2004. He was featured in Lil Wayne's "Grown Man" on "Tha Carter II". While still at Young Money, Currensy created Fly Society with skateboarder Terry Kennedy, first as a clothing company, then expanding to release music. He released the song, "Where da Cash At" as the lead single for his Young Money debut, "Music To Fly To", in 2006. In 2007, another mixtape was released entitled "Life at 30,000 Feet". He remained with Young Money until late 2007. In 2008, Currensy released "Independence Day," his first project after leaving Young Money and the first of seven mixtapes to be released that year while he struck out as an independent artist.


title: Currensy

text: Currensy signed with Amalgam Digital to release his debut album, "This Ain't No Mixtape", in 2009. This album was entirely produced by Monsta Beatz. Currensy was also selected to XXL magazine's annual "Freshman Class" list, and released his second album, "Jet Files", through Amalgam Digital that same year. Amalgam Digital released physical copies of This Ain't No Mixtape and Jet Files on May 31, 2010.


title: Currensy

text: Currensy's third album, "Pilot Talk", was released on July 13, 2010. The album featured guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, Big K.R.I.T. and Mos Def, amongst others, with most of the songs produced by Ski Beatz. Prior to the album's release, there was news of "Pilot Talk" being released under a newly relaunched Roc-A-Fella Records. However, Currensy stated in interviews with both XXL and Complex Magazine that the album would be released under Damon Dash's DD172 record label division, BluRoc Records and distributed through Def Jam Recordings. Currensy made numerous appearances on labelmate Ski Beatz' debut studio album, "24 Hour Karate School", which was released on September 21, 2010.


title: Currensy

text: Currensy's fourth album, "Pilot Talk II", was released on November 22, 2010, which featured Fiend and Raekwon, among others, with many of the songs produced by Ski Beatz. 2010 also saw the release of mixtape Smokee Robinson with DJ Don Cannon.


title: Currensy

text: On February 1, 2011, it was announced that Currensy signed a label deal with Warner Bros. Records for his imprint, Jet Life Recordings. "Covert Coup" was his first project on his Jet Life Recordings imprint under Warner Bros. Released for free via Currensy's official website on April 20, the album contains ten songs completely produced by The Alchemist. He released a mixtape, "Weekend at Burnie's" on June 28, 2011, featuring his Jet-Life anthem "#JetsGo", which was produced by Rahki. The rest of the mixtape was produced by frequent collaborator Monsta Beatz. In 2011, Currensy and his Jet Life crew released the album "Jet World Order", under Jets International / iHipHop. Every track on this album features Young Roddy and Trademark da Skydiver. Frequent collaborators of Currensy are also featured on this album, including Smoke DZA, The Cool Kids' Mikey Rocks, Cornerboy P, Fiend, Street Wiz, and Nesby Phips. Currensy himself appears on three tracks.


title: Currensy

text: On November 10, 2011, Currensy announced through Twitter the release of a new album. "Muscle Car Chronicles", a two-disc set, was released on February 14, 2012. Currensy also planned on releasing "Pilot Talk III" in 2013, and mentioned the possibility of it being a free album. In February 2012, Currensy released the EP "Here...", and a few days later released another EP "#The1st28" with Styles P.


title: Currensy

text: On April 21, 2012, the track listing for "The Stoned Immaculate" was released. In July 2012, Currensy released the EP featuring all production by Harry Fraud, "Cigarette Boats". On October 31, 2012, he released the mixtape "Priest Andretti".


title: Currensy

text: He will release a new tape with Wiz Khalifa, titled "Live in Concert". In November 2012 Currensy gave an update on his and Wiz Khalifa's mixtape "Live in Concert" saying its release is being held up by sample issues. In January 2013, Currensy said that due to these same legal issues, the mixtape would likely become a retail album. It was released as an iTunes only EP on April 20, 2013.


title: Currensy

text: On February 3, 2013, Currensy released his latest mixtape "New Jet City" with guest appearances from Wiz Khalifa, French Montana, Jadakiss, Juvenile, Juicy J, Trinidad James and Rick Ross among others.


title: Currensy

text: Currensy announced a new mixtape, "The Drive In Theatre", in January 2014. He followed up on January 26, 2014, with the release of a new single, "Godfather 4" featuring Action Bronson. On February 4, 2014, Currensy took to Twitter to announce a release date for "The Drive In Theatre", it was released on February 14, 2014.


title: Currensy

text: On January 17, 2013, Currensy announced on Twitter that he and Ski Beatz began the process of making "Pilot Talk III". The album has been in development ever since, with Currensy, in various interviews, naming possible guest appearances from Lil Boosie, Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Ab-Soul, French Montana, Action Bronson, Jadakiss, Styles P, and Riff Raff, with a majority of the production handled by Ski Beatz, along with some production from Cool & Dre. On January 19, 2015, Currensy posted the album's possible artwork on his Instagram account, created by David Barnett, who was also responsible for the artwork of the first two Pilot Talk albums. On March 1, 2015, DJ Skee released the first single "Alert" featuring Styles P and produced by Ski Beatz. On March 15, 2015, Currensy announced that he'll be releasing "Pilot Talk III" exclusively on a $100 USB drive, "bundled with a Jet Life shirt and "Pilot Talk 3" look book" with accompanying music videos. However, he also hinted at the album may be up for streaming. The bundle was available for pre-order on the Jet Life website, which also confirmed that it will not be released on iTunes. It was set for release on April 4, 2015. He released 12 mixtapes in 2016.


title: Currensy

text: In March 2012, news surfaced of legal action being taken against Damon Dash by Currensy. In the lawsuit, the rapper claimed that he never legally signed to Dash's DD172 label, and the record executive released the pair of albums ("Pilot Talk I" and "Pilot Talk II") as well as "Muscle Car Chronicles" without authorization. Currensy demanded that Dash immediately stop releasing his music for profit, and pay $1.5 million in damages. On October 6, 2015, Currensy was awarded $3 million in settlement stemming from the 2012 lawsuit against Dash for releasing material of his music without his consent.


title: Sh-Boom

text: "Sh-Boom" (sometimes referred to as "Life Could Be a Dream") is an early doo-wop song by the R&B vocal group The Chords. It was written by James Keyes, Claude Feaster, Carl Feaster, Floyd F. McRae, and William Edwards, members of The Chords, and published in 1954. It is sometimes considered the first doo-wop or rock 'n' roll record to reach the top ten on the pop charts (as opposed to the R&B charts), as it was a top-10 hit that year for both the Chords (who first recorded the song) and The Crew-Cuts. In 2004, it was ranked No. 215 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time".


title: Sh-Boom

text: The song was first recorded on Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cat Records by the Chords on March 15, 1954, and would be their only hit song. The group reportedly auditioned the song for famed record producer Bobby Robinson while he was sick in bed, but he rejected them, stating the song "wasn't commercial enough". When the Chords recorded their debut single for Cat Records, a cover of Patti Page's "Cross Over the Bridge", the label reluctantly allowed them to record "Sh-Boom" for the B-side with Sam "The Man" Taylor on saxophone. "Sh-Boom" would eventually overshadow "Cross Over the Bridge", reaching No. 2 on the "Billboard" R&B charts and peaking at No. 9 on the pop charts. It was later released by Cat as an A-side, coupled with another Chords original, "Little Maiden".


title: Sh-Boom

text: A more traditional version was made by a Canadian group, the Crew-Cuts (with the David Carroll Orchestra), for Mercury Records and was No. 1 on the "Billboard" charts for nine weeks during August and September 1954. The single first entered the charts on July 30, 1954, and stayed for 20 weeks. The Crew-Cuts performed the song on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" on December 12, 1954. On the "Cash Box" magazine best-selling record charts, where both versions were combined, the song reached No. 1.


title: Sh-Boom

text: Stan Freberg recorded a combined spoof of "Sh-Boom" and Marlon Brando because he felt that they both mumbled, in 1954. It reached No. 14 in the US and 15 in the UK. The Billy Williams Quartet released a version in 1954 on Coral Records that reached No. 21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, with orchestra directed by Jack Pleis. A recording by Ken Mackintosh and His Orchestra (vocalists: the Mackpies) was made in London on April 7, 1954. It was released by EMI on the His Master's Voice label as catalog number B 10698.


title: Sh-Boom

text: The record for most recordings of "Sh-Boom" by a single group probably belongs to the Harvard Din & Tonics, a co-ed "a cappella" singing group that has featured the song on 12 of their 13 albums. Their 1979 Crew-Cuts-style arrangement was so popular that the group began performing "Sh-Boom" as their signature song at all their concerts, bringing all their alumni onstage to perform it across the United States and through 10 world tours.


title: Sh-Boom

text: The British Doo-Wop revivalists, Darts, recorded "Sh-Boom" in the late 1970s, this time at a slower tempo. It was released as the B-side of the band's last charting single, reaching No. 48 in the UK charts in 1980.


title: Sh-Boom

text: The reggae crooner Alton Ellis recorded a cover entitled "She Boom" for Studio One some time in the 1970s; the EP has been pressed at various times by various distributors.


title: Sh-Boom

text: In the 1980s a parody of the song entitled "Dubuque" was featured in the Dubuque ham TV commercial, a midwestern-based meat packing company.


title: Sh-Boom

text: German rock-and-roll band Spider Murphy Gang adapted the song into a Bavarian version, "Leben is wiar a Traum", which they released as a single in 1985.


title: Sh-Boom

text: The Fleetwoods released a cover version of the song. Canadian children's entertainers Sharon, Lois & Bram covered the song on their 1995 album release titled "Let's Dance!". Watkin Tudor Jones covered the song on his 2001 album, "Memoirs Of A Clone." British doo-wop act the Overtones covered the song on their 2010 album "Good Ol' Fashioned Love". The song was covered in 1955 by Enoch Light And His Light Brigade Orchestra, released in the UK on His Master's Voice, and appears on their album "Little Things Mean A Lot" from Jasmine Records.


title: Sh-Boom

text: Alternative recordings based on the Crew Cuts' recording were heard in the TV series "Happy Days" (1974–84) and in the film "Clue" (1985). The original Chords' recording was featured in "The Super" (1991), "The Sum of Us" (1994), "Cry-Baby" featuring Johnny Depp (1990), "Two of Us" (2000), "Road House" (1989), and the mini-series "Lipstick on Your Collar" (1993). The song can also be heard at the end credits of the film "A Simple Wish" (1997). The Trevor Horn Orchestra covered the song for the "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003) soundtrack. Pixar's "Cars" used a long recording of the original song (2006), and Disney California Adventure prominently incorporated it into the nightly neon lighting ceremony in the new Cars Land. The song is briefly featured in a Nexgard Chewables for Dogs commercial. The song was featured in a scene in Dolphin Tale (2011).


title: Sh-Boom

text: A remixed version of the Crew Cuts cover by Junkie XL is featured during the end credits of the video game "Destroy All Humans!". New York television personality Clay Cole wrote about the early years of rock 'n' roll and live television in his memoirs, "Sh-Boom! The Explosion of Rock 'n' Roll (1953–1968)", published by Morgan James Books. "Sh-Boom" was parodied by Stan Freberg. Another parody, as a singing Lucky Strike cigarette commercial by the Sportsmen Quartet, appeared on the October 31, 1954, Jack Benny radio show. Comic Ronnie Golden wrote a parody, "Shoe Bomb," on the subject of the British terrorist Richard Reid. The Crew Cuts version of the song appeared in the video game "Mafia II" (2010).


title: Sh-Boom

text: The Chords’ version is also featured in HBO’s Lovecraft Country (2020) and in the 2022 psychological thriller film Don't Worry Darling at the poolside scene and in the end credits.


title: Sh-Boom

text: The song was in a meme that went viral, which showed footage of a CGI gorilla swimming underwater in a Donkey Kong Country commercial from 2003. It was also put to video of a chimpanzee being held by its hands and being swung around.


title: Chozen Toguchi

text: Chozen Toguchi is a fictional character who appears as the central antagonist in the motion picture "The Karate Kid Part II" (1986), and a hero (beginning with Season 3) of the series "Cobra Kai" (2021). He is portrayed by Yuji Okumoto, whose performance, particularly in "Cobra Kai", has received widespread acclaim.


title: Chozen Toguchi

text: Chozen Toguchi grew up in Tomi Village, in Okinawa Prefecture, and was raised by his Uncle Sato as his father died when he was young. He and Kumiko were also childhood friends who used to play together. He also studied Karate under Uncle Sato, who was himself a student of Mr. Miyagi's father.


title: Chozen Toguchi

text: As a child, Chozen would cheat during his Uncle Sato's Karate lessons. As a teenager, Chozen was quick-tempered, had difficulties with Kumiko, and was Daniel's rival ("The Karate Kid Part II"). After his defeat, he was suicidal, but Sato and Kumiko helped him to recover and find purpose.


title: Chozen Toguchi

text: As an adult, Chozen became the Sensei for Miyagi-Do karate in Okinawa (which he inherited after Sato died), and is on friendly terms with Kumiko. He also did not marry, and does not have children. As of Season 5 of "Cobra Kai", he is staying at the home of Daniel LaRusso in Los Angeles.