title: Jack Leiter

text: Jack Thomas Leiter (born April 21, 2000) is an American professional baseball pitcher in the Texas Rangers organization. He played college baseball for the Vanderbilt Commodores and was selected by the Rangers with the second overall pick of the 2021 MLB draft.


title: Jack Leiter

text: Raised in Summit, New Jersey, Leiter attended Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, where he played baseball and was teammates with Anthony Volpe. In July 2018, he played in the 2018 Under Armour All-America Baseball Game. In December, he played on the USA Baseball 18U National Team in Panama City during the 2018 COPABE Pan-American Championships, helping Team USA win a gold medal. As a senior at Delbarton in 2019, he was named the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of New Jersey. At the time of his selection, he was 6–0 with a 0.54 ERA while also batting .364. Leiter was considered a top prospect for the 2019 Major League Baseball draft, but due to his strong commitment to Vanderbilt University, was not selected until the 20th round by the New York Yankees. He did not sign and instead enrolled at Vanderbilt to play college baseball.


title: Jack Leiter

text: In his college debut on February 18, 2020, Leiter pitched five no-hit innings while striking out 12, leading Vanderbilt to a 3–0 victory over the University of South Alabama. He was named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Co-Freshman of the Week following the performance. Over 15 innings, Leiter went 2–0 with a 1.72 ERA before the college baseball season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a redshirt freshman in 2021, Leiter returned as a member of Vanderbilt's starting rotation. On March 20, 2021, he pitched a no-hitter in his SEC debut against South Carolina, compiling sixteen strikeouts. In his next start, he pitched seven no-hit innings against Missouri. He was named the SEC Newcomer of the Year alongside being selected a consensus first-team All-American. He helped lead Vanderbilt to the 2021 College World Series finals and was named to the All-Tournament team. Leiter ended the 2021 season having started 18 games, in which he compiled an 11–4 record, a 2.13 ERA, and 179 strikeouts over 110 innings. He was named the "Baseball America" 2021 Freshman of the Year.


title: Jack Leiter

text: Leiter was selected by the Texas Rangers with the second overall selection in the 2021 Major League Baseball draft. Leiter signed with Texas on July 28, 2021, receiving a $7.92 million signing bonus. Leiter attended an organization draftee orientation at the Rangers spring training complex after signing, but did not appear in a professional game in 2021, instead choosing to return to Vanderbilt to continue college course work.


title: Jack Leiter

text: Leiter opened the 2022 season with the Frisco RoughRiders of the Double-A Texas League. He made his professional debut on April 9, going three innings while allowing one run and striking out seven batters. He was selected to represent the Rangers at the 2022 All-Star Futures Game. Over 23 games (22 starts) with Frisco, Leiter went 3-10 with a 5.54 ERA, 56 walks, and 109 strikeouts over 92 innings.


title: Jack Leiter

text: Leiter's father, Al Leiter, pitched in MLB for 19 seasons. His uncle Mark Leiter also played in MLB, and his cousin, Mark Leiter Jr., currently plays professional baseball.


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me is New Zealand's largest online auction and classifieds website. Managed by Trade Me Ltd., the site was founded in 1999 by New Zealand entrepreneur Sam Morgan, who sold it to Fairfax in 2006 for NZ$700 million. Trade Me was publicly listed as a separate entity on 13 December 2011 under the ticker "TME". In May 2019, Trade Me was acquired by private equity firm Apax Partners for NZ$2.56 billion. Trade Me Ltd also operates several sister websites including FindSomeone and Holiday Houses.


title: Trade Me

text: , Trade Me's website was the fifth most visited in New Zealand and was ranked 2,711th globally according to Alexa Internet. In a country with a population of /1000000 round 1 million, the Trade Me site has, , 5 million active members. , an average of 690,000 people visit the site each day.


title: Trade Me

text: Participating traders primarily use New Zealand's banking system to settle payments, although Trade Me offers sellers the ability to accept credit card payments via Trade Me's own instant payment service, 'Ping' (formerly 'Pay Now'). Australian sellers must have a New Zealand bank account, while sellers from other countries are not allowed on the site without special approval.


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me shares many features with other online auction websites, such as eBay. Some of these features include "Buy Now" and "Auto bidding". Sellers may choose to block the large proportion of members not "authenticated" from bidding. Only "authenticated" members can ask sellers questions. Members can become "authenticated" by using a credit/debit card on-site or depositing some money in their Trade Me account.


title: Trade Me

text: Only one membership per private person is allowed. Membership is for life, is never deleted and will be only partially deactivated if a member "closes" their membership by giving three days notice in writing to Trade Me. Member profile, bidding history and "feedback received" pages are then hidden and can be reactivated by ex-members at a later date on request. All ex-members empty member "items for sale" pages and all the "feedback sent" posted on other members pages is not hidden.


title: Trade Me

text: Sam Morgan founded Trade Me in 1999, constructing the site while working full-time for Deloitte as a technology consultant. Within Deloitte, Morgan worked on Internet projects and supply-chain issues.


title: Trade Me

text: During this time he witnessed the successes of online businesses like eBay and Yahoo, as well as the disasters of the dot-com bubble.


title: Trade Me

text: Morgan, then 23 years old, decided to found the Trade Me site when, despite searching online, he could not find a secondhand heater for his flat in Wellington. The Trade & Exchange site had a heater for sale, but held back listings for a week before publishing them online, and by the time Morgan made contact with the heater's owner, the item in question had already sold.


title: Trade Me

text: "Some time later we were in a backpackers in Sydney and got evicted because it was overbooked. We went up to some backwater because it was the only accommodation we could find. Anyway, there was nothing to do, so that night I started drawing a data model. So it sort of started there really. Then when I came back to Wellington I literally sat on the couch and built the site on a laptop over a five- or six-week period."


title: Trade Me

text: The site went online in March 1999 after Morgan pulled together as much funding as he could. It gained 155 members in its first week on the Internet.


title: Trade Me

text: In its early stages Morgan humorously listed Trade Me for sale on eBay with a $1 million buy-now price. Though eBay withdrew Morgan's auction, the prank sparked some interest among New Zealanders who realized the potential of online trading.


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me developed slowly initially, because its founder had little funding to pay for the costs of hosting and of expanding the site. In addition, Trade Me initially offered a completely free service for both buyers and sellers, a strategy for expanding its member base at the cost of short-term revenue. With little money and time available to work on the site, Morgan made the critical decision to sell almost half of his new company to his former Deloitte colleagues, bringing him around $75,000.


title: Trade Me

text: By August 1999 membership had risen to 3500, and Morgan could dedicate most of his time and funding to the site. The early strategy for Trade Me involved simply increasing its user base and encouraging members to refer their friends to the site. Trade Me launched the Safe Trader escrow service about this time.


title: Trade Me

text: The running Kiwi in the Trade Me logo is named "Kevin" or "Kev" and his name can be seen by hovering over the site logo. Trade Me often change the logo and stylise Kevin to reflect major events in the calendar.


title: Trade Me

text: In its early years Trade Me continued to struggle, slowly increasing its user base, but facing financial challenges. The site initially used web banners, but falling prices for advertising made web-banner revenue insufficient to cover expenses. Trade Me then introduced fees for auction services: first for features such as bold titles; then in September 2000 it introduced "success fees". This action proved the turning point for Trade Me, saving the site from potential financial disaster. Much of the success to come was based around the 'Trade Me Manifesto', a series of ten values for keeping the site fast and the company technology focused.


title: Trade Me

text: eBay tried to enter the New Zealand market in 2001, but had little success. Trade Me has remained the major Internet-auction site in New Zealand, with both international and smaller national competitors gaining relatively little market penetration. Morgan commented on eBay's attempt to penetrate the New Zealand market in an interview:


title: Trade Me

text: Morgan took time off from the stress of running the booming Trade Me site in September 2001, and went to the United Kingdom to manage an IT team in London. When he returned to his role at Trade Me the site had become profitable, with a membership of 100,000 and growing. By April 2005, this number reached one million.


title: Trade Me

text: In August 2003, Trade Me went live with Trade Me Motors and Trade Me Property followed in 2005 along with Trade Me Jobs in 2006.


title: Trade Me

text: New Zealand's Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 rated Trade Me the fastest-growing NZ technology company in 2005.


title: Trade Me

text: On 6 March 2006, the Australian media company Fairfax acquired Trade Me in a deal worth NZ$700 million, with an additional NZ$50 million payable if the organisation met earnings targets over the next two years. (Those targets were met.) Sam Morgan and other executives remained with Trade Me.


title: Trade Me

text: Since the Fairfax purchase, Trade Me has continued to stand alone, with the former Fairfax NZ sites Jobstuff and Propertystuff being discontinued in favour of the Trade Me offerings.


title: Trade Me

text: In December 2012, Fairfax announced it was looking to sell off its stake in Trade Me in order to pay off debts. The sale was confirmed on 17 December. Its first profit report following the sale beat expectations, at NZ$37.4 million in the second half of 2012.


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me has increased its scope over time, and offers a wide range of listing possibilities. Customers can list the following items and positions on Trade Me:


title: Trade Me

text: As a fairly open marketplace which is recognised globally, Trade Me experiences the same problems (such as fraudsters), and users need to exercise vigilance. In 2007, Trade Me set up a dedicated Trust & Safety team who monitor the site seven days a week to keep its members safe.


title: Trade Me

text: "Members can report listings that may be in breach of the Terms and Conditions" via the "Community Watch" (CW) badge, sited at the bottom of every listing. Contact with staff can also be made via the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom of every page. Social media can also be used to contact Trade Me.


title: Trade Me

text: To minimise payment problems and reduce fraud, Trade Me restricted membership to residents of New Zealand and Australia in 2005. This affected around 20,000 international members. However, in September 2013 Trade Me announced that it had "opened up its borders" and now has "a few internationally based sellers trading on the site," but that "only international sellers who meet our requirements for selling from overseas are allowed to do so."


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me's terms and conditions restrict membership to persons over eighteen years of age, as any user under the age of eighteen can not negotiate a legally binding contract. Prior to 2005 Trade Me did not restrict underage users, even allowing them to enter in their correct birthdates upon sign-up. In June 2005 "Fair Go", a television programme devoted to consumer affairs, approached Trade Me Limited regarding this issue and featured the matter on a broadcast episode. In response to this, Trade Me Limited sent all the users who registered their date of birth as under eighteen an e-mail asking them to check and update their details if incorrect. Trade Me no longer allows users to register if they enter a birth date indicating their age as under eighteen, but people under eighteen may simply represent themselves as older when they join.


title: Trade Me

text: In 2006, Trade Me laid a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the advertising of its largest property market competitor, Realestate.co.nz. According to the complaint, Realestate.co.nz, (run jointly by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) and Property Page Ltd) had misled consumers with their advertisements with their slogan: "the only place with every place". Trade Me stated that it had properties listed on the Trade Me website that Realestate.co.nz did not have. Trade Me also detailed other reasons why Realestate.co.nz had allegedly breached the ASA's code of ethics and comparative advertising. The ASA upheld parts of the complaint.


title: Trade Me

text: On 6 November 2008, Lixtor accused Trade Me of using bullying tactics. Trade Me said Lixtor was just trying to draw media attention.


title: Trade Me

text: On 20 November 2008, a community newspaper "The Aucklander" also reported that Trade Me's lawyers asked Lixtor to remove their "Terms and Conditions"


title: Trade Me

text: On 3 February 2009, in the wake of the emerging New Zealand copyright law Section 92a, New Zealand Creative Freedom Foundation published an article. It was stated that Lixtor vs. Trade Me case is a good example of how the new section 92a in the New Zealand copyright law could be "misused" if passed.


title: Trade Me

text: TradeMe is also facing more competition from new startups like MyMansion.co.nz who offer free real estate listings.


title: Trade Me

text: Various software developers have received legal threats after developing third-party software which interfaces with the Trade Me website.


title: Trade Me

text: On 19 August 2006 the "New Zealand Listener" published an article, "Bidding War" on one such developer. The developer, Ciaran Riddell, created a piece of software, AuctionBar, which used a technique known as screen scraping. The software allowed for more detailed searches for goods on sale as well as bids and updates via text-messaging and a tool known as a "sniper", which acted as an automated bidding tool.


title: Trade Me

text: Trade Me have since amended the "Terms and Conditions" of the Trade Me website which now specifies "You may not use a robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Website or information featured on it for any purpose" under s4.1(c).


title: Trade Me

text: On 7 May 2007, Trade Me released a Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget to run in the Windows Sidebar. This gadget, available on the Trade Me site, became the first sanctioned application to work with Trade Me. As the Vista Gadget requires an XML Feed, the gadget caused further discussion in the developer community about why TradeMe did not have an API. It also led to other creations by the developer community on top of Vista Gadget.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: 20 Feet from Stardom is a 2013 American documentary film directed by documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville and produced by Gil Friesen, a music industry executive whose curiosity to know more about the lives of background singers inspired the making of the film.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: The film follows the behind-the-scenes experiences of backup singers and stars Darlene Love, Judith Hill, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega, and Jo Lawry, among many others. On March 2, 2014, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th Academy Awards, 23 years after the similar documentary "In the Shadow of the Stars" (which focused on the members of an opera chorus instead of its stars) won the same award.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: Lisa Fischer said of backup singing: "I reject the notion that the job you excel at is somehow not enough to aspire to, that there has to be something more. I love supporting other artists." She added: "Some people will do anything to be famous. I just wanted to sing."


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: On January 17, 2013, the film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. At Sundance, the film was acquired by Radius-The Weinstein Company and was released nationwide on June 14, 2013. The film was also acquired for international distribution by Elle Driver / Wild Bunch. The film was screened at many film festivals in 2013 including, South by Southwest Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, Philadelphia Music Film Festival, RiverRun Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, among others.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: The film was a box office success, grossing $4,946,445 in the domestic box office and $898,560 internationally for a worldwide total of $5,845,005.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: "20 Feet from Stardom" received critical acclaim. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 99% approval rating with an average rating of 8/10 based on 128 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads "Rich, insightful, and occasionally heartbreaking, "20 Feet From Stardom" is an energetic tribute to the passion, talent, and hard work of backup singers." Metacritic gave the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 25 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: The "Ithaca Times" compared the film to the 2012 book "", which focused on uncredited studio musicians during the same era.


title: 20 Feet from Stardom

text: At the 86th Academy Awards, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. At the 19th Critics' Choice Awards, it also won the Best Documentary Film award. At the 2015 Grammy Awards, it won Best Music Film.


title: Nappy Roots

text: Nappy Roots is an American alternative Southern rap group. The group met in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1995 while attending Western Kentucky University. They are best known for their hit singles "Po' Folks", "Awnaw", "Roun' The Globe" and "Good Day". They were the best selling hip hop group of 2002. The group consists of Milledgeville, Georgia native Fish Scales and Kentucky natives Skinny DeVille, B. Stille and Ron Clutch.


title: Nappy Roots

text: In 2006, R. Prophet left the group, and in 2012 Big V aka Vito Banga also left. Both are pursuing solo careers.


title: Nappy Roots

text: The group formed when the members were students at Western Kentucky University. Nappy Roots' debut independent album "Country Fried Cess" was released in 1998, which led to the group being signed by Atlantic Records. Their first album on Atlantic was 2002's best selling hip-hop album, "Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz". The multi-platinum album featured the hit-singles "Headz Up", "Awnaw", and "Po' Folks". The "Awnaw (Remix)" featuring Marcos of P.O.D. appeared on "Madden 2003".


title: Nappy Roots

text: In their home state, Paul E. Patton, the governor of Kentucky, sanctioned September 16 as "Nappy Roots Day".


title: Nappy Roots

text: Their next and last album with Atlantic Records was "Wooden Leather", released in 2003, featuring the singles "Roun' the Globe", which was featured on "Madden 2004", and "Sick and Tired" (featuring Anthony Hamilton). This critically acclaimed, major label follow-up album featured production from Kanye West, David Banner and Lil Jon. Also in 2003, Nappy Roots were on the soundtrack to "Daredevil", with the song "Right Now", which featured Marcos Curiel of P.O.D. and was released on Windup Records. In 2004, three songs by Nappy Roots were included in the movie soundtrack to "The Ladykillers", released on Sony Music.


title: Nappy Roots

text: Since the release of "Wooden Leather" they have gone back to being independent artists, and have started their own label, N.R.E.G. (Nappy Roots Entertainment Group) with distribution through Fontana/Universal Music Group. On July 31, 2007, they released their first album as independent artists, "Innerstate Music", featuring singles "Good Day" and "Keep It Real". This was actually an internet album, similar to a modern-day mixtape. It was intended to be a precursor to their 2008 album, "The Humdinger", which was released on August 5, 2008.


title: Nappy Roots

text: In 2007 Nappy Roots was featured on the original version of the Tantric song titled "Fall Down". The song had originally been intended for Tantric's album "Tantric III", but due to the album being shelved, the song went unreleased. However, Tantric did re-record the song for their 2008 album "The End Begins". The version featuring Nappy Roots can only be found on YouTube.


title: Nappy Roots

text: The critically acclaimed album "The Humdinger" features guest appearances from Anthony Hamilton, Greg Nice, Greg Street and Slick & Rose, with production from Sol Messiah, James "Groove" Chambers, BIG AL 360, Joe Hop and more. The album entered the "Billboard" Rap Charts at No. 7 and R&B/Hip-Hop Albums at No. 13.


title: Nappy Roots

text: In 2009 the single "We're Gonna Make it" by Skinny and Scales was released through Nappy Roots Entertainment Group.


title: Nappy Roots

text: Nappy Roots kicked off 2010 with their highly anticipated new album, "The Pursuit of Nappyness", released on June 15, 2010. The album features songs by Phivestarr Productions, a production duo from Atlanta, Georgia.


title: Nappy Roots

text: In 2011, Nappy Roots teamed up with hip hop producers Organized Noize to create "Nappy Dot Org". The first single, "Congratulations", was made available online on July 13, 2011 by way of "XXL Magazine" and 2DopeBoyz. On October 11, 2011 Nappy Roots released "Nappy Dot Org", entirely produced by Organized Noize.


title: Nappy Roots

text: The "Nappy Roots Presents Sh!ts Beautiful" album/mixtape was released on June 27, 2012 through AllHipHop.


title: Nappy Roots

text: In 2018, the Cincinnati Bengals featured Nappy Roots song "Good Day" in their promotional video "Seize the DEY".


title: Evolution of birds

text: The evolution of birds began in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropod dinosaurs named Paraves. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. For more than a century, the small theropod dinosaur "Archaeopteryx lithographica" from the Late Jurassic period was considered to have been the earliest bird. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. According to the current consensus, Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, together are the sole living members of an unranked reptile clade, the Archosauria. Four distinct lineages of bird survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, giving rise to ostriches and relatives (Paleognathae), ducks and relatives (Anseriformes), ground-living fowl (Galliformes), and "modern birds" (Neoaves).


title: Evolution of birds

text: Phylogenetically, Aves is usually defined as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of a specific modern bird species (such as the house sparrow, "Passer domesticus"), and either "Archaeopteryx", or some prehistoric species closer to Neornithes (to avoid the problems caused by the unclear relationships of "Archaeopteryx" to other theropods). If the latter classification is used then the larger group is termed Avialae. Currently, the relationship between dinosaurs, "Archaeopteryx", and modern birds is still under debate.


title: Evolution of birds

text: There is significant evidence that birds emerged within theropod dinosaurs, specifically, that birds are members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, among others. As more non-avian theropods that are closely related to birds are discovered, the formerly clear distinction between non-birds and birds becomes less so. This was noted in the 19th century, with Thomas Huxley writing:


title: Evolution of birds

text: We have had to stretch the definition of the class of birds so as to include birds with teeth and birds with paw-like fore limbs and long tails. There is no evidence that "Compsognathus" possessed feathers; but, if it did, it would be hard indeed to say whether it should be called a reptilian bird or an avian reptile."


title: Evolution of birds

text: Discoveries in northeast China (Liaoning Province) demonstrate that many small theropod dinosaurs did indeed have feathers, among them the compsognathid "Sinosauropteryx" and the microraptorian dromaeosaurid "Sinornithosaurus". This has contributed to this ambiguity of where to draw the line between birds and reptiles. "Cryptovolans", a dromaeosaurid found in 2002 (which may be a junior synonym of "Microraptor") was capable of powered flight, possessed a sternal keel and had ribs with uncinate processes. "Cryptovolans" seems to make a better "bird" than "Archaeopteryx" which lacks some of these modern bird features. Because some basal members of Dromaeosauridae, including "Microraptor", were capable of powered flight, some paleontologists have suggested that dromaeosaurids are actually derived from a flying ancestor, and that the larger members became secondarily flightless, mirroring the loss of flight in modern paleognaths like the ostrich. The discoveries of further basal dromaeosaurids potentially capable of powered flight, such as "Xiaotingia", has provided more evidence for the theory that flight was first developed in the bird line by early dromaeosaurids rather than later by Aves as was previously supposed.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Although ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaurs share the same hip structure as birds, birds actually originated from the saurischian (lizard-hipped) dinosaurs if the dinosaurian origin theory is correct. They thus arrived at their hip structure condition independently. In fact, a bird-like hip structure also developed a third time among a peculiar group of theropods, the Therizinosauridae.


title: Evolution of birds

text: An alternate theory to the dinosaurian origin of birds, espoused by a few scientists, notably Larry Martin and Alan Feduccia, states that birds (including maniraptoran "dinosaurs") evolved from early archosaurs like "Longisquama". This theory is contested by most other paleontologists and experts in feather development and evolution.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The basal bird "Archaeopteryx", from the Jurassic, is well known as one of the first "missing links" to be found in support of evolution in the late 19th century. Though it is not considered a direct ancestor of modern birds, it gives a fair representation of how flight evolved and how the very first bird might have looked. It may be predated by "Protoavis texensis", though the fragmentary nature of this fossil leaves it open to considerable doubt whether this was a bird ancestor. The skeleton of all early bird candidates is basically that of a small theropod dinosaur with long, clawed hands, though the exquisite preservation of the Solnhofen Plattenkalk shows "Archaeopteryx" was covered in feathers and had wings. While "Archaeopteryx" and its relatives may not have been very good fliers, they would at least have been competent gliders, setting the stage for the evolution of life on the wing.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The evolutionary trend among birds has been the reduction of anatomical elements to save weight. The first element to disappear was the bony tail, being reduced to a pygostyle and the tail function taken over by feathers. "Confuciusornis" is an example of their trend. While keeping the clawed fingers, perhaps for climbing, it had a pygostyle tail, though longer than in modern birds. A large group of birds, the Enantiornithes, evolved into ecological niches similar to those of modern birds and flourished throughout the Mesozoic. Though their wings resembled those of many modern bird groups, they retained the clawed wings and a snout with teeth rather than a beak in most forms. The loss of a long tail was followed by a rapid evolution of their legs which evolved to become highly versatile and adaptable tools that opened up new ecological niches.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The Cretaceous saw the rise of more modern birds with a more rigid ribcage with a carina and shoulders able to allow for a powerful upstroke, essential to sustained powered flight. Another improvement was the appearance of an alula, used to achieve better control of landing or flight at low speeds. They also had a more derived pygostyle, with a ploughshare-shaped end. An early example is "Yanornis". Many were coastal birds, strikingly resembling modern shorebirds, like "Ichthyornis", or ducks, like" Gansus". Some evolved as swimming hunters, like the Hesperornithiformes – a group of flightless divers resembling grebes and loons. While modern in most respects, most of these birds retained typical reptilian-like teeth and sharp claws on the manus.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The modern toothless birds evolved from the toothed ancestors in the Cretaceous. Meanwhile, the earlier primitive birds, particularly the Enantiornithes, continued to thrive and diversify alongside the pterosaurs through this geologic period until they became extinct due to the K–T extinction event. All but a few groups of the toothless Neornithes were also cut short. The surviving lineages of birds were the comparatively primitive Paleognathae (ostrich and its allies), the aquatic duck lineage, the terrestrial fowl, and the highly volant Neoaves.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Modern birds are classified in Neornithes, which are now known to have evolved into some basic lineages by the end of the Cretaceous (see "Vegavis"). The Neornithes are split into the paleognaths and neognaths.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The paleognaths include the tinamous (found only in Central and South America) and the ratites, which nowadays are found almost exclusively on the Southern Hemisphere. The ratites are large flightless birds, and include ostriches, rheas, cassowaries, kiwis and emus. A few scientists propose that the ratites represent an artificial grouping of birds which have independently lost the ability to fly in a number of unrelated lineages. In any case, the available data regarding their evolution is still very confusing, partly because there are no uncontroversial fossils from the Mesozoic. Phylogenetic analysis supports the assertion that the ratites are polyphyletic and do not represent a valid grouping of birds.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The basal divergence from the remaining Neognathes was that of the Galloanserae, the superorder containing the Anseriformes (ducks, geese and swans), and the Galliformes (chickens, turkeys, pheasants, and their allies). The presence of basal anseriform fossils in the Mesozoic and likely some galliform fossils implies the presence of paleognaths at the same time, in spite of the absence of fossil evidence.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The dates for the splits are a matter of considerable debate amongst scientists. It is agreed that the Neornithes evolved in the Cretaceous and that the split between the Galloanserae and the other neognaths – the Neoaves – occurred before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, but there are different opinions about whether the radiation of the remaining neognaths occurred before or after the extinction of the other dinosaurs. This disagreement is in part caused by a divergence in the evidence, with molecular dating suggesting a Cretaceous radiation, a small and equivocal neoavian fossil record from Cretaceous, and most living families turning up during the Paleogene. Attempts made to reconcile the molecular and fossil evidence have proved controversial.


title: Evolution of birds

text: One hypothesis as to how modern birds survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction when other dinosaur species did not could be related to their ability to adaptively radiate. Due to the fact that the avian ancestors of modern birds did not take up all of the niche space where other species did fill up their niche space, birds could have been able to produce a higher level of ecological diversity and innovation that helped them to faster adapt to different environments. These rates of evolution could in part be due to their small body sizes.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The authors of a May 2018 report in "Current Biology" think that the birds that survived the end-of-Cretaceous disaster were Neornithes, Neognathae (Galloanserae + Neoaves), not tree-living, and could not fly far, because of the worldwide destruction of forests and that it took a long time for the world's forests to return properly. Virtually the same conclusions were already reached before, in a 2016 book on avian evolution.


title: Evolution of birds

text: In August 2020 scientists reported that bird skull evolution decelerated compared with the evolution of their dinosaur predecessors after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, rather than accelerating as often believed to have caused the cranial shape diversity of modern birds.


title: Evolution of birds

text: The phylogenetic classification of birds is a contentious issue. Sibley & Ahlquist's "Phylogeny and Classification of Birds" (1990) is a landmark work on the classification of birds (although frequently debated and constantly revised). A preponderance of evidence suggests that most modern bird orders constitute good clades. However, scientists are not in agreement as to the precise relationships between the main clades. Evidence from modern bird anatomy, fossils and DNA have all been brought to bear on the problem but no strong consensus has emerged.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Structural characteristics and fossil records have historically provided enough data for systematists to form hypotheses regarding the phylogenetic relationships between birds. Imprecisions within these methods is the main factor for why a lack of exact knowledge with regards to the orders and families of birds exists. Expansions in the study of computer-generated DNA sequencing and computer generated phylogenetics has provided a more accurate method for classifying bird species - although DNA data studying can only go so far, and questions are still unanswered.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Evolution generally occurs at a scale far too slow to be witnessed by humans. However, bird species are currently going extinct at a far greater rate than any possible speciation or other generation of new species. The disappearance of a population, subspecies, or species represents the permanent loss of a range of genes.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Another concern with evolutionary implications is a suspected increase in hybridization. This may arise from human alteration of habitats enabling related allopatric species to overlap. Forest fragmentation can create extensive open areas, connecting previously isolated patches of open habitat. Populations that were isolated for sufficient time to diverge significantly, but not sufficient to be incapable of producing fertile offspring may now be interbreeding so broadly that the integrity of the original species may be compromised. For example, the many hybrid hummingbirds found in northwest South America may represent a threat to the conservation of the distinct species involved.


title: Evolution of birds

text: Several species of birds have been bred in captivity to create variations on wild species. In some birds this is limited to color variations, while others are bred for larger egg or meat production, for flightlessness or other characteristics.


title: Evolution of birds

text: In December 2019 the results of a joint study by Chicago's Field Museum and the University of Michigan into changes in the morphology of birds were published in "Ecology Letters". The study uses bodies of birds which died as a result of colliding with buildings in Chicago, Illinois, since 1978. The sample is made up of over 70,000 specimens from 52 species and span the period from 1978 to 2016. The study shows that the length of birds' lower leg bones (an indicator of body sizes) shortened by an average of 2.4% and their wings lengthened by 1.3%. The findings of the study suggest the morphological changes are the result of climate change, demonstrating an example of evolutionary change following Bergmann's rule.


title: Margaret Leighton

text: Margaret Leighton, CBE (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English actress, active on stage and television, and in film. Her film appearances included (her first credited debut feature) in Anatole de Grunwald's "The Winslow Boy" (1948). For "The Go-Between" (1971), she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Margaret Leighton

text: Leighton began her career on stage in 1938, before joining the Old Vic and making her Broadway debut in 1946. A four-time Tony Award nominee, she twice won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play: for the original Broadway productions of "Separate Tables" (1957) and "The Night of the Iguana" (1962). She also won an Emmy Award for a 1970 television version of "Hamlet".


title: Margaret Leighton

text: Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut as Dorothy in "Laugh with Me" (1938), which also was performed that year for BBC Television. She became a star of the Old Vic. Her Broadway debut was as the Queen in "Henry IV" (1946), starring Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson during a visit of the Old Vic to the U.S., and the company performed a total of five plays from its repertoire before returning to London.


title: Margaret Leighton

text: After appearing in two British films, including the starring role of Flora MacDonald opposite David Niven in "Bonnie Prince Charlie" (1948) and in the popular "The Winslow Boy" (also 1948), the actress appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" (1949) and the crime/mystery "Calling Bulldog Drummond" (1951). In the U.S., she portrayed the wife of a presidential candidate in "The Best Man" (1964).


title: Margaret Leighton

text: Leighton won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in "Separate Tables" (1956); she won another Tony in that category for "The Night of the Iguana" (1962), playing Hannah Jelkes (a role played by Deborah Kerr in the film version) opposite Bette Davis's Maxine Faulk. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for "Much Ado About Nothing" (1959) and for "Tchin-Tchin" (1962). Her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" (1967).


title: Margaret Leighton

text: She had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Ben Casey" and "Burke's Law". She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama for "Hamlet" (1970) and she was nominated for an Emmy in 1966 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for four episodes of "Dr. Kildare". Her final TV performance was in the first season of "" where she played Queen Arra in the episode "."


title: Margaret Leighton

text: For her film role as Mrs Maudsley in "The Go-Between" (1971), Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the role. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in "Carrington V.C." (1954).


title: Margaret Leighton

text: Leighton was married three times, to publisher Max Reinhardt from 1947 to 1955, to actor Laurence Harvey from 1957 to 1961, and to actor Michael Wilding from 1964 until her death. She had no children by any of the marriages.


title: Margaret Leighton

text: She was appointed a CBE in 1974. Leighton died of multiple sclerosis in 1976, aged 53, in Chichester, Sussex.


title: Danzig (album)

text: Danzig is the debut studio album by American heavy metal band Danzig, released in August 1988. The album was the first release on producer Rick Rubin's new label Def American Recordings. Def American's successor, American Recordings, reissued the album in the United States and United Kingdom in 1998. It remains the band's best-selling album having been certified gold in the U.S. in 1994, and has since been certified platinum. Danzig promoted the album with a successful world tour in 1988–1989.


title: Danzig (album)

text: "Danzig" was recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios and Chung King Metal, and mixed at Smoke Tree and Village. These sessions took place between September 1987 and April 1988.


title: Danzig (album)

text: The song "Mother", retitled as "Mother '93" and with live audience overdubs, became a hit on radio and MTV in 1993–94 after a new video-single with live footage was created to mark its inclusion on "Thrall-Demonsweatlive". The song was also later included on various hard rock and heavy metal music compilations, and featured in the video game series "Guitar Hero". It also appeared on the soundtrack to the 2013 film "The Hangover Part III".


title: Danzig (album)

text: Glenn Danzig originally wrote the songs "Twist of Cain" and "Possession" for his previous band, Samhain. Lyrically, "Twist of Cain" is inspired by the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Guitarist John Christ described the recording of "Twist of Cain": "We started writing that song even before [drummer] Biscuits joined the band. At first we started recording it in G, then at the last minute we decided that A was better. We kept the drum tracks as they were and re-recorded the guitars, bass and vocals. Not many people know this, but James Hetfield (of Metallica) came down and recorded some backing vocals on that track." Hetfield also recorded backing vocals on "Possession"; however, due to contractual reasons, he could not be credited in the album insert. A backwards piano track is used during the intro to "Possession".


title: Danzig (album)

text: John Christ has described "She Rides" as "Our first sex song...it's such a stripped-down song, just a couple of guitar tracks and almost no bass. "She Rides" probably has the best vocal performance on the album, though. There are also some really weird background noises and moaning sounds on it." Generally the song refers to mythology on Lilith. References to "she rides/from the daylight in chains" reflect traditional methods for binding demons. The song also appears to take inspiration from the poetry of Christopher Brennan, in particular part xiii of the "Lilith" sequence of The Forest of Night: "She is the night: all horror is of her..."


title: Danzig (album)

text: While the album's liner notes expressly state "All songs written by Glenn Danzig", the song "The Hunter" was written by Booker T. & the M.G.'s and Carl Wells. Originally recorded by Albert King, the Danzig version of the song only features slightly modified lyrics.


title: Danzig (album)

text: Folk musician Bonnie 'Prince' Billy recorded a cover version of "Am I Demon" for his 2007 EP "Ask Forgiveness".


title: Danzig (album)

text: Original LP, CD, and cassette versions of the album cover had no identifying text whatsoever, only a white skull on a black background. The skull, also used on the Samhain albums "Initium" and "November-Coming-Fire", was taken from the cover of the Marvel comic book "The Saga of Crystar", "Crystal Warrior" (issue 8). It was drawn by artist Michael Golden, who is not credited.


title: Danzig (album)

text: Later pressings of the compact disc added the Danzig band name logo in the lower right. While 1990–1998 pressings of the CD had the Parental Advisory label in the form of a sticker on the cellophane wrap, pressings since 1998 have the label printed on the artwork. "Danzig" is one of few albums labeled as "explicit" despite the virtual absence of profanity, save for one use of "whore". Glenn Danzig commented on this use of the advisory label: "That's because of its content. We're making people think. You're not allowed to make people think in the United States. You're not allowed to have them question the government or authority."


title: Danzig (album)

text: In 2017, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Danzig" as 23rd on their list of 'The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time'.


title: Danzig (album)

text: Music videos were released for the songs "Twist of Cain", "Am I Demon", "Mother" and "She Rides". Upon its release the music video for "Mother" was banned by MTV for containing controversial imagery. All four music videos later appeared on the "Danzig" home video.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: of Light Yagami/Kira and L, in a world afflicted with cyber-terrorism, a chain of unexplained deaths suggests that Death Notes are being used once more. Interpol assigns L's biological successor, Ryuzaki, to the newly established "Death Note Task Force", led by Detective Tsukuru Mishima. They quickly secure a notebook during a killing spree in Shibuya, after its owner, Sakura Aoi, is killed. Upon touching Aoi's notebook, the Task Force meets and questions its original owner - a Shinigami named Beppo - who reveals that there are six Death Notes currently in the human world; this is the maximum number that can exist there at any one time. The Task Force resolves to find the remaining five Death Notes.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Similarly, Aoi's killer - cyber-terrorist Yuki Shien - vows to acquire all the notebooks, believing he is on a mission from Light via his Shinigami, Ryuk. Inciting global panic with a virus featuring a video of Light as Kira, Shien then makes contact with Light's girlfriend and former ally, Misa Amane. After restoring her memories of Death Notes and gifting her with his, Shien asks Misa to disclose information which he believes will reveal where Light is hiding; she refuses, having watched Light seemingly die ten years ago. Undaunted, Shien uses his exceptional hacking abilities to locate three Death Notes, killing their owners in the process. He then impersonates Kira via another virus, threatening a killing spree unless L's successor reveals his name and face. In response, Ryuzaki spreads a CGI video of the original L, inviting Kira to a website intended to trick him into revealing his location. Anticipating this, Shien escapes before killing one of the original Kira investigators - Touta Matsuda. Fearing that the investigation is compromised, the Japanese government dissolves the Death Note Task Force.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Refusing to give up, Mishima finds a hidden message in Ryuzaki's video: "I own the last Death Note". Enraged, Mishima confronts Ryuzaki in his home and discovers the latter's unconventional relationship with his Shinigami, Arma. However, Ryuzaki reveals that his Death Note is blank, having promised L before his death that he would never use one. Upon leaving, Mishima is arrested on suspicion of compromising the investigation. A year prior, Mishima was tasked with locating Hikari Yagami, Light's secret successor who was placed in the care of prosecutor Teru Mikami. However, both Yagami and Mikami subsequently vanished, leading the police to suspect Mishima of conspiring with Kira. After Mishima is interrogated, Ryuzaki frees him so that he can access the Task Force's Death Note and confront the new Kira. Agreeing to meet Ryuzaki at the National Arts Centre, Shien again asks Misa for her help, which she reluctantly gives.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: After three Task Force members return to the case, they head with Ryuzaki to meet Shien, who has been lured with the promise that Ryuzaki will reveal his face and the team's Death Notes. Mishima remains at headquarters to instruct them - however, contact is cut by a jamming signal made by Shien. Forced to reveal their faces, Three Task Force members are killed by Misa, who has acquired "Shinigami Eyes" (Which display a person's real name and lifespan above their head). Misa then gives Shien the information he needs but warns him that Light is dead; his name did not appear when she looked at her picture of him. Finally, Misa kills herself.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Realizing that the Kira who gave him his task is an impostor, Shien arrives at the secret location and sacrifices half of his life span to obtain Shinigami Eyes - deciding to kill the impostor and take his place as Neo Kira. Shien is then shocked to be confronted by Mishima and Ryuzaki; the latter suspects' Neo Kira wrote his name much earlier and specified a time of death. Ryuzaki then reveals that he believes Mishima is Neo Kira - and upon touching Shien's Death Note, Mishima remembers everything. Having witnessed Teru Mikami turn insane and murder Hikari Yagami, Mishima killed Mikami and replaced Yagami as Neo Kira. Mishima later gave up ownership of his notebook and instructed Ryuk to give it to Shien, confident that the cyber-terrorist would find the remaining Death Notes. With this new information, Shien attempts to kill Mishima, but the police arrive with orders to kill all three of them. Shien is gunned down after giving Mishima the Death Notes, allowing him and Ryuzaki to escape through an abandoned subway. They are then confronted by the last remaining Task Force member, who is killed by Arma when she attempts to shoot Mishima - at the cost of her own life, much to Ryuzaki's despair as he and Mishima are caught by the police.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Mishima and Ryuzaki's execution order is annulled by Interpol and Mishima is taken into custody. Ryuk then explains why the six Death Notes were dropped down to earth - the dying Shinigami King, intrigued by Light Yagami, has promised to give his throne to the Shinigami who finds the next Kira. When Mishima points out that all six Death Notes have been secured, Ryuk suggests that human greed will result in their use once again, and leaves. Shortly after being led to his cell, Mishima is greeted by Ryuzaki, who informs him that the vehicle containing the notebooks was attacked by terrorists, resulting in four notebooks being destroyed and the other two missings. Revealing that today is his appointed date of death, Ryuzaki suggests trading places with Mishima, as he believes that the latter is the only one who can retrieve the missing Death Notes. Accepting his new role, Mishima reveals his real name - Ryo Nakagami - and leaves Ryuzaki to die peacefully in the cell.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Takeshi Obata, one of the original creators of "Death Note", designed the new CGI Shinigami character Arma specifically for the film.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: The film opened on 342 screens and sold 342,309 tickets, earning 458,645,800 yen () during its opening weekend., beating Your Name to Top Japan's Box Office. It was the 19th highest-grossing film of 2016 in Japan and also the 10th highest-grossing Japanese film of the year in the country (tied with "A Silent Voice"), with (). Overseas, the film grossed $489,872, bringing its worldwide total to .


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: Upon release, the film received a mixed reception from fans and critics alike, with praise aimed at the attempted unique and modernized take on the Death Note mythos and the performances of the cast, especially Erika Toda as Misa Amane and Nakamura Shido as Ryuk, while criticism was aimed at the rushed plot, rehashing of the original themes and elements of the previous films and the lack of the cerebral tone from the previous works.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 40% approval rating based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10.


title: Death Note: Light Up the New World

text: A three-part miniseries entitled "" was announced as a part of the Death Note live-action film series. It bridges the 10-year gap between the previous films and the 2016 film.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine Productions, Inc. is an American first-party video game developer of Xbox Game Studios based in San Francisco, California. Founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer shortly after his departure from LucasArts, Double Fine's first two games – "Psychonauts" and "Brütal Legend" – underperformed publishers' expectations despite critical praise. The future of the company was assured when Schafer turned to several in-house prototypes built during a two-week period known as "Amnesia Fortnight" to expand as smaller titles, all of which were licensed through publishers and met with commercial success. Schafer has since repeated these Amnesia Fortnights, using fan-voting mechanics, to help select and build smaller titles. Double Fine is also credited with driving interest in crowdfunding in video games, having been able to raise more than for the development of "Broken Age", at the time one of the largest projects funded by Kickstarter, and more than US$3 million for the development of "Psychonauts 2."


title: Double Fine

text: The company continued to build on its independent developer status and has promoted efforts to help other, smaller independent developers through its clout, including becoming a video game publisher for these titles. Double Fine has also been able to acquire rights to remaster some of the earlier LucasArts adventure games, including "Grim Fandango", "Day of the Tentacle", and "Full Throttle". The Double Fine website is also host to seven webcomics, which are created by members of Double Fine's art team and are collectively referred to as the Double Fine Comics. Microsoft purchased the studio in June 2019.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine was founded by former LucasArts developer Tim Schafer, together with some colleagues from LucasArts, in July 2000. In the years prior, LucasArts had started to shift development away from adventure games into more action-oriented ones as part of the general trend in the gaming industry. Schafer, who had just finished producing the adventure game "Grim Fandango", a title met with critical praise but was a commercial disappointment, saw others leaving LucasArts and was unsure of his own position there. He was approached by colleagues suggesting they launch their own studio to develop their own titles. Schafer departed LucasArts in January 2000, co-founding Double Fine later that year.


title: Double Fine

text: Schafer started Double Fine with programmers David Dixon and Jonathan Menzies in what was once a clog shop in San Francisco. After several months of working on the demo for what would become "Psychonauts", a mixture of personnel from the "Grim Fandango" development team and other new employees were slowly added to begin production.


title: Double Fine

text: After the implementation of Amnesia Fortnights in 2011 as a means to find new titles to publish, the company is split into a number of teams with about 15 people each. Each team has the capabilities of fully developing a small game on its own, but for their larger titles, like "Psychonauts 2", the company temporarily merges two or more of these teams, and with the option of unmerging the teams once the project is finished.


title: Double Fine

text: The company remains situated in San Francisco. The name "Double Fine" is a play on a sign on the Golden Gate Bridge that used to display "double fine zone" to warn motorists that fines on that stretch of road were double normal rates. Double Fine's logo and mascot is called the Two-Headed Baby, frequently abbreviated 2HB, an abbreviation also used for Moai, an integrated development environment.


title: Double Fine

text: On June 9, 2019, during Microsoft's press conference at E3 2019, it was announced that Double Fine had been acquired by the company and was becoming part of Xbox Game Studios. According to Schafer, through the acquisition, Double Fine will be able to retain its independent nature but will not have to struggle with finding publishers for its games, a problem it has had in its past. Schafer spoke to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass, a games subscription service for Microsoft Windows and Xbox users, as one favorable aspect of the acquisition. Schafer felt many of Double Fine's games, particularly "Psychonauts" and its sequel, do not have an aesthetic that people would necessarily pay the full price for, but the subscription approach of Game Pass lowers that barrier and will potentially get more people to try the game. Thus, Schafer felt that being acquired by Microsoft would allow the studio to continue to develop experimental games and allow these projects greater exposure. A month ahead of the release of "Psychonauts 2", in July 2021, Schafer stated he was happy with Microsoft's handling of Double Fine; he called the acquisition a "limited integration" with Double Fine retaining all control on the creative elements while leaving the financial issues up to Microsoft to manage, and left the studio able to focus their creative skills on finishing the game without feeling any budgetary crunch.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine's first completed project was "Psychonauts", a multi-platform platform game following Raz (named after Double Fine's animator Razmig Mavlian), a psychically-gifted boy who breaks into a summer camp for psychic children to try to become part of an elite group of psychic heroes called Psychonauts. Critically praised, it was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Despite its acclaim, however, it did not sell well initially.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine's second project was "Brütal Legend", a hybrid real time strategy, action-adventure game following a heavy metal roadie named Eddie Riggs, whose name is derived from both Eddie the Head, the Iron Maiden mascot, and Derek Riggs, the artist who created the mascot. The story follows Eddie as he is transported to a fantasy world in which demons have enslaved humanity. Tim Schafer has credited the inspiration for the game to the lore, fantasy themes, and epic Norse mythology of heavy metal music found in both its lyrical content and its album art. "Brütal Legend" was published by Electronic Arts and was released in North America on October 13, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and later for Microsoft Windows.


title: Double Fine

text: During the development of "Brütal Legend", a publishing issue arose. Activision, having acquired the rights to the title through its merger with Vivendi Games, decided to drop it and forced Schafer to locate another publisher. During this period, in approximately 2007, Schafer attempted to boost the company's morale by engaging the team in an "Amnesia Fortnight". For a two-week period, the employees were split into four groups, told to forget their current work on "Brütal Legend" (hence the "Amnesia"), and tasked to develop a game prototype for review by the other groups. The four ideas were successfully made into playable prototypes. The four prototypes produced were "Custodians Of The Clock", "Happy Song", "Love Puzzle", and "Tiny Personal Ninja".


title: Double Fine

text: The process was repeated later near the end of "Brütal Legend", providing an additional two prototypes. The prototypes produced were "Costume Quest" and "Stacking".


title: Double Fine

text: Schafer credits the concept of the Amnesia Fortnights to film director Wong Kar-Wai. During the long, three-year filming of "Ashes of Time", Wong had taken some of his actors and film crew to Hong Kong to shoot footage for fun, ultimately resulting in the films "Chungking Express" and "Fallen Angels". Schafer noted these were some of the director's more famous films. Schafer eventually signed a publishing deal with Electronic Arts for "Brütal Legend."


title: Double Fine

text: These Amnesia Fortnight periods proved fortuitous, as Schafer considers these to have kept the company viable. Upon completion of "Brütal Legend", Double Fine started work on its sequel but was told to stop development shortly after as Electronic Arts decided against publishing it. With no other publishing deals lined up at the time, Schafer turned back to the eight game ideas developed from Amnesia Fortnight, believing they could be developed further into short, complete games. Schafer also looked at the success of smaller focused games like "Geometry Wars" on the various download services, realizing the potential market for similar titles. Schafer and his team selected the best four, and began shopping the games to various publishers, and successfully worked publishing details with these. Two of these games, "Costume Quest" and "Stacking", were picked up by THQ and released digitally on the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network storefronts. Both games were considered successful and THQ expressed interest in helping Double Fine produce similar titles. "Iron Brigade" was prototyped between 2008 and 2009 as "Custodians Of The Clock", and was originally released as "Trenched" before the title was changed due to trademark issues. It was developed as an Xbox Live Arcade game in association with Microsoft Game Studios, and similarly received positive praise from journalists. A fourth game, "", expanded from the "Happy Song" prototype, was published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in association with the Sesame Workshop for the Xbox 360 using the Kinect controller. Though it initially was not a licensed title, Schafer and his team found it to be an ideal fit for their first licensed-property game. The four unused ideas may be used for a game in the future, according to Schafer, but believes some of them may be unsellable to a publisher.


title: Double Fine

text: The development groups for these games were headed by the former leads from "Brütal Legend": lead animator Tasha Harris for "Costume Quest", lead art director Lee Petty for "Stacking", lead designer Brad Muir for "Iron Brigade", and lead programmer Nathan Martz for "Once Upon a Monster". This was to not only put these teams under people who had been in the industry for a long time, but as a means to help promote these leads. The remaining staff were split among the four teams, with some later swapping to make sure each team has appropriate resources when needed, such as artists and programmers. Double Fine did not have to lay off any of the staff during this time, and instead were able to hire Ron Gilbert, Schafer's former collaborator at LucasArts, to work on the new titles, as well as a future title that Gilbert has envisioned. Schafer stated that though they could likely make another large game akin to "Psychonauts" or "Brütal Legend", they would likely keep the smaller teams to continue to work on these smaller titles, due to the gained experience shared by the company.


title: Double Fine

text: In 2011, the prototyping process was repeated in Double Fine's last private amnesia fortnight. The prototypes produced during this period were "Middle Manager Of Justice", a superhero simulation game, "Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp", a camp-building game based on "Psychonauts", and "Brazen", a Monster Hunter-style four-player online co-op game.


title: Double Fine

text: In November 2012, Double Fine, along with Humble Bundle, announced "Amnesia Fortnight 2012", a charity drive based on the previous Amnesia Fortnight. During this, those that paid a minimum of had the opportunity to vote on 23 concept ideas. After the completion of the voting period, Double Fine developed the top five voted ideas into game prototypes that were available for those that purchased the bundle. The prototypes were (in order of receiving the most votes): "Hack 'n' Slash", a "The Legend of Zelda"-inspired action-adventure, where players need to hack to solve puzzles, led by senior programmer Brandon Dillon, "Spacebase DF-9", a sim game set in space, led by designer-programmer JP LeBreton, "The White Birch", an ambient platform game (inspired by "Ico" and "Journey"), led by art director Andy Wood, "Autonomous", a retro-futuristic sandbox robot game, led by art director Lee Petty, and "Black Lake", a fairytale exploration game led by senior artist Levi Ryken. In addition, the purchaser received the initial prototypes of "Costume Quest", "Happy Song" (what would become "Once Upon a Monster"), and "Brazen", a Monster Hunter-style four-player online co-op homage to Ray Harryhausen, which was led by Brad Muir, who was also project lead of "Iron Brigade". The development of the prototypes was documented by 2 Player Productions.


title: Double Fine

text: The Indie Fund announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 that they provided funding for two titles from Double Fine. The first game created with Indie Fund backing was revealed on October 15, 2013 to be "Spacebase DF-9", a fleshed out commercial version of one of the "Amnesia Fortnight 2012" prototypes. The game was released as an alpha version on Steam Early Access, and was developed with user feedback received during the early access release period. Unfortunately, development was canceled at version "Alpha 6e" with the next patch released as the finished game. This release did include source code that was released to the community. Largely due to backlash from the abrupt end of development, "Spacebase DF-9" has more negative user reviews on the Steam store than positive. The other game partially funded with Indie Fund backing was revealed on December 10, 2013 to be "Hack 'n' Slash", another full commercial version of an "Amnesia Fortnight 2012" prototype. "Hack 'n' Slash" was released through Steam Early Access in the first half of 2014.


title: Double Fine

text: An additional prototype from the 2012 Amnesia Fortnight, "Autonomous", was released as an expanded full free release for the Leap Motion controller on November 18, 2013.


title: Double Fine

text: In February 2014, Double Fine, and the Humble Bundle group began another charity drive titled "Amnesia Fortnight 2014". During this drive, those that paid a minimum of had the opportunity to vote on 29 concept ideas. In addition, those that paid more than the average will get to vote on a concept idea for a prototype led by Pendleton Ward, the creator of "Adventure Time". After the completion of the voting period, Double Fine developed the top voted ideas into game prototypes that were available for those that purchased the bundle. As with "Amnesia Fortnight 2012", 2 Player Productions filmed the production of the prototype, which was available to people who purchased the bundle, as well as on a Blu-ray, along with the prototypes on a DVD, for those who paid a minimum of . The four pitches that were made into prototypes for "Amnesia Fortnight 2014" were "Dear Leader", an emergent narrative game led by Anna Kipnis, "Little Pink Best Buds", a game about little pink creatures who want to be your friend led by Pendleton Ward, "Mnemonic", a surreal, first-person noir adventure led by Derek Brand, and "Steed", a game set in a storybook land full of inept heroes led by John Bernhelm. One idea, "Bad Golf 2", was not selected as a prototype, but a group of Double Fine fans have started working on developing the title themselves, with the blessing of its conceptor, Patrick Hackett and permission of Double Fine.


title: Double Fine

text: In April 2017, a third charitable public Amnesia Fortnight was jointly held by Double Fine and Humble Bundle. For "Amnesia Fortnight 2017", two prototypes were chosen from the 25 prototype videos by means of the top public votes. These were "The Gods Must Be Hungry" and "Darwin's Dinner". A multi-player virtual reality party game prototype, "I Have No Idea What I'm Doing", was chosen by Tim Schafer. Another, the four-player competitive game, "Kiln", was chosen by the Double Fine team members that were working on Amnesia Fortnight. This was done to give the team a bit of control, rather than have all of the choices be as a result of online voting. In addition, three fan pitches for prototypes were included in "Amnesia Fortnight 2017". All three fan pitches, "Pongball", "The Lost Dev Team", and "Amnesia Adventure", were developed into prototypes. The top pick, "Pongball", was included in the "Amnesia Fortnight 2017" prototype downloads, and the fans were mentored by Double Fine developers.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine has received financial investment from Steven Dengler's investment company Dracogen. The investment started as a result of a Twitter conversation between Dengler and Schafer in March 2011, where Schafer commented that the cost of bringing Double Fine's games to personal computers would be high. Dengler asked Schafer for a monetary value, though at the time Schafer believed Dengler was joking around and offered a value of around . As more formal conversations ensued, however, the company worked with Dengler to set an amount, signing an initial deal to bring "Psychonauts" to the macOS and to bring "Costume Quest" and "Stacking" to Microsoft Windows.


title: Double Fine

text: Following this initial agreement, a subsequent deal was made with Dracogen for three iOS mobile games, the first of which is "Middle Manager of Justice". The game itself is based on another idea from the Amnesia Fortnights, a simulation game with RPG elements that involves managing teams of superheroes and then fighting as those heroes in battles. Dengler's children helped to provide some of the drawings of superheroes for the game. "Middle Manager of Justice" was released for iOS in December 2012, and the Android version was released on August 14, 2013.


title: Double Fine

text: Dropchord, a motion-based rhythm puzzle game for macOS, Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android, was as well financed by Dracogen. It was a launch title for the Leap Motion Airspace app store when the Leap Motion controller was released on July 22, 2013.


title: Double Fine

text: As of 2012, Dengler has invested about one million dollars into Double Fine, which Schafer said has "paid off for both sides". Schafer has said that Dengler's funding has allowed the company to realize the ability of self-publishing, and believes they would be able to self-publish a triple-A title with Dracogen's financial assistance.


title: Double Fine

text: In February 2012, Double Fine and 2 Player Productions announced a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter, initially codenamed "Double Fine Adventure". It aimed to create a new adventure game featuring art by Double Fine's in-house artist Nathan Stapley. The Kickstarter effort was started because the adventure genre has been perceived as niche and commercially risky. The project aimed to collect for the game's development and for the filming of the game's development by 2 Player to be released alongside the game. The project reached its funding goal in under nine hours of the month-long drive. Within 24 hours, "Double Fine Adventure" had raised more than a million dollars, becoming the most funded and most backed project ever on Kickstarter until it was surpassed by the Pebble watch in April 2012. The game was developed with Moai, and was released in two parts, Act 1 in early 2014 and Act 2 in April 2015. The game was ultimately named "Broken Age".


title: Double Fine

text: On May 30, 2013, Double Fine started their second crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter. The game, "Massive Chalice", is a strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux, directed by Brad Muir.


title: Double Fine

text: Although Double Fine has experienced success through crowdfunding, the company has not renounced working with publishers. Their crowdfunding success has, however, granted them enough independence to be more selective about the publishers they work with and the types of publishing deals they are willing to accept. Talking to gaming news site Polygon, Schafer explained: "We've changed our relationship with publishers. They used to be our sole source of income. Now that we've been self-publishing, we can kind of pick and choose who we work with and work with publishers that have similar goals that we have...[who] have the same kind of mission and believe in the same kind of things we believe in."


title: Double Fine

text: In February 2012, the casual video game, "Double Fine Happy Action Theater", was published for the Xbox 360 Kinect through the Xbox Live Arcade by Microsoft Game Studios. The title is less a game and more an interactive toy, in which the Kinect is used to create augmented video on the players' screen, putting the players into scenarios such as walking through lava or playing in a giant ball pit. "Happy Action Theater" was the first game to be directed by Tim Schafer since "Brütal Legend" in 2009, and came about during "Once Upon a Monster", finding that his young daughter had difficulty with the Kinect precision and aimed to make a game that required far less precision but was still enjoyable. Its sequel, "Kinect Party", featuring even more augmented reality scenarios, was published by Microsoft Game Studios in December 2012.


title: Double Fine

text: On February 22, 2012, Double Fine filed a trademark for the name "The Cave", later confirming that this was not related to the Double Fine Adventure project. In May 2012, it was revealed that "The Cave" was the title of an adventure and platform game developed by Ron Gilbert during his tenure at Double Fine. It was published by Sega in January 2013. Gilbert subsequently left the company on amiable terms to pursue other game development opportunities.


title: Double Fine

text: At PAX Prime 2013, it was revealed that Double Fine had a game in development that would be released as free downloadable content for "The Playroom", the augmented reality mini-game compilation that utilizes the PlayStation Camera on PlayStation 4. Titled "My Alien Buddy", it built on their experience on augmented reality that they gained while making "Double Fine Happy Action Theater" and "Kinect Party" for Microsoft. The alien buddy is a deformable toy with which the player can interact. "My Alien Buddy" was released on December 24, 2013.


title: Double Fine

text: On November 21, 2014, Double Fine announced that due to a publishing deal falling through, that it was forced to cancel an unannounced project and let 12 staff go.


title: Double Fine

text: As part of a deal with Nordic Games, who gained the publishing rights to "Costume Quest" and "Stacking" and the distribution rights to "Psychonauts" from the takeover of THQ after their bankruptcy, Double Fine took over all publishing rights, while Nordic Games retained and restarted distributing retail copies of all three titles for Microsoft Windows and macOS in early 2014.


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine announced in March 2014 that it would begin publishing indie games under the moniker Double Fine Presents. Using that program, Double Fine makes its publishing capabilities and offices available for other independent developers to help them finish their work by funding, publishing, and promoting it. The idea came about during the "Amnesia Fortnight 2014", where local San Francisco independent developers were working alongside Double Fine in their studios during the two-week period, with the intent to help give them exposure through the production process as it was filmed by 2 Player Productions. The idea of Double Fine providing more long-term assistance to these indies arose during this event, forming the basis for this program. According to Double Fine's COO Justin Bailey, the goal of this approach is to "help indies build their own community and empower them with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed on their own", providing them assistance "customized to what indies need without also creating a certain codependence" that other publishing means require.


title: Double Fine

text: The first such game created in this fashion is "Escape Goat 2", the sequel to "Escape Goat", by MagicalTimeBean. This included a humorous video introducing both the game and Double Fine's program, which was filmed during the week of the 2014 Game Developers Conference in March 2014. For the second title, "Last Life" by Rocket Science Amusements, Double Fine helped to prepare and present a Kickstarter campaign to help funding the final development of the title. The third title announced under this program was "Mountain" by David OReilly, a procedural terrarium that provides an ambient, minimalist, zen-like experience full of secrets and mysteries. In August 2014, Double Fine announced that a fourth game would be released under the program, the multiplayer beat 'em up "Gang Beasts" by Boneloaf, which launched into Steam Early Access on August 29, 2014. The latest addition to the Double Fine Presents program is "GNOG" by KO_OP, a puzzle-adventure released in 2016.


title: Double Fine

text: Following Microsoft's acquisition of Double Fine in June 2019, the fate of the Double Fine Presents publishing label was unclear. Schafer stated in September 2019 that the fate of Double Fine Presents is unclear, but that while they will likely end up stop publishing, they will still likely engage with the community through the Day of the Devs events to support other independent developers. "Ooblets" changed to a self-publishing model following Double Fine's acquisition, while another, "Knights and Bikes", remained under the label. "Gang Beasts" also turned to self-publishing by June 2020, as it described that Double Fine's publishing was "winding down".


title: Double Fine

text: Double Fine and iam8bit host an annual free festival, "", in San Francisco with food, drink, and playable demos of unreleased indie games since 2012.


title: Comrade in America

text: Comrade in America (abbreviated as CIA) is a 2017 Indian Malayalam-language adventure film directed by Amal Neerad, starring Dulquer Salmaan and Karthika Muralidharan in the lead roles. The music is composed by Gopi Sundar, and Renadive handles the cinematography. The film released on 5 May, also the birth date of Karl Marx. The film revolves around the travel of Aji (Dulquer Salmaan), a communist from Kerala who travels to the United States illegally via Latin America and Mexican border to get to his girlfriend Sarah (Karthika Muralidharan) in time before she is forced to marry another person.


title: Comrade in America

text: Aji Mathew is a youngster from Pala and is a strong communist. He comes from a Kerala Congress Party family, where his rich father, Mathew, is a prominent leader in the party. Aji falls in love with Sarah, an American citizen who came to Kerala for her college studies. After getting to know one other, Sarah asks Aji to leave India and move to the US with her. Aji refuses the request, as his motherland has given him everything and he cannot live in a totally capitalistic country. Within weeks, he receives news from his comrade Hari that Sara's parents have taken her back to the United States and that she intends to marry another man. Aji desperately wants to meet with her, even if they cannot be married.


title: Comrade in America

text: He finds out that there is no way that he can get a visa within the period of the marriage and so decides to illegally enter to the United States through Mexico as suggested by his cousin Cyril, who is in America. Aji first goes to Nicaragua, where a visa is not needed. There, he meets Arul, a Sri Lankan Tamil taxi driver. Together, they decide to go to America. Then both travel to Reynosa in Mexico, where they find a guide to lead them across the borders safely.


title: Comrade in America

text: Aji meets others in their group, who are also trying to cross over illegally. He becomes friends with Pallavi, a Malayalee in their group. The group is cheated by their guide who robs them and escapes after the first day. Instead of dropping the plan, Akai, a Chinese man among them, says that he has a GPS and can find the route to the US. Through the journey, they encounter an armed gang but they are defeated by the group with Aji's initiation for offence. Arul, after encountering an accident, decides to drop the plan and return to Nicaragua.


title: Comrade in America

text: As the journey continues, they are found by surveillance drones. Aji, along with Pallavi, Akai and Laden (a Pakistani immigrant) escape. The American police capture other illegal immigrants and are shown the dead body of Arul, asking if they know him. Aji and Laden are captured by the police after trying to cross the border to the US. As they are transported, the police vehicle gets into an accident, and both of them manage to escape. Pallavi then leaves Aji to proceed ahead.


title: Comrade in America

text: Aji finds his cousin Cyril, who tells him that he met with Sarah, who told him that she has already rejected Aji, and has agreed to marry the other man. He says she might have called Aji initially to self-validate her position with him before marrying another person. Aji, along with Cyril, goes to meet Sarah on her wedding day as his father had insisted, and Aji conveys to her that it was good that they separated, and the experience that his journey gave him was one of the most memorable in his life.


title: Comrade in America

text: Later, when Aji is about to leave, Cyril says "Our first love should never ever become successful!. If it does, then our life will end there" and asks Aji to stay back, as his he might be permanently banned from re-entering the US, and also says that if Aji wants to stay, he can make arrangements. Aji denies his offer and jokes to him that he has now found an alternative for a side dish for consuming alcoholic beverages and says that his homeland calls him.


title: Comrade in America

text: On the plane, he meets Pallavi. She explains that she got arrested along with Akai, and both of them are getting deported back to India and China respectively. Pallavi and Aji then embark on their journey together back to India.


title: Comrade in America

text: In a post-credits scene, it explains that Aji's political opinions were not a success either since Kora Sir, the local Kerala Congress leader, won the election and so did Donald Trump in the US.


title: Comrade in America

text: All the songs are composed by Gopi Sundar and are released online through the composer's own YouTube channel titled Gopi Sundar Music Company.


title: Comrade in America

text: "Comrade in America" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Writing for "Times of India", Sanjith Sidhardhan said that "The film is an entertaining affair, which has humour, drama, great visuals, a good soundtrack and most of all, a splendid performance by Dulquer." Anu James of "International Business Times" gave 3.5 stars out of five and wrote that "Comrade in America is an entertaining flick with Dulquer's impressive performance, few one-liners, beautiful picturisation, catchy music and after all with Amal Neerad touch. It is not just a movie to hail communism, and degrade others; communism just exists in the background that becomes the life for Aji, unlike what we have seen in Oru Mexican Aparatha or Sakhavu." Prem Udayabhanu of "Malayala Manorama" writes "Dulquer Salmaan is ushered in with the aura of a mass appearance and that sets the tempo of narrative, which also hinges on a beautiful father-son portrayal, though they are opposite poles in the political spectrum."


title: Comrade in America

text: Elizabeth Thomas, in her review for "Deccan Chronicle", gave 3.5 stars out of five and wrote that "CIA is, in many ways, a fresh attempt by Amal Neerad. It is different from his usual making style. The script by Shibin Francis takes a fresh plot, which makes the story interesting. Aji’s journey is told in a different tone and set in a new landscape, which is unfamiliar to the Malayali audience. Aji’s mass entry and his power-packed and quick-witted dialogues lift the mood of the movie."


title: Carl Schurz

text: Carl Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He immigrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the new Republican Party. After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War, he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil service reform. Schurz represented Missouri in the United States Senate and was the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior.


title: Carl Schurz

text: Born in the Kingdom of Prussia's Rhine Province, Schurz fought for democratic reforms in the German revolutions of 1848–1849 as a member of the academic fraternity association Deutsche Burschenschaft. After Prussia suppressed the revolution Schurz fled to France. When police forced him to leave France he migrated to London. Like many other "Forty-Eighters", he then immigrated to the United States, settling in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1852. After being admitted to the Wisconsin bar, he established a legal practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also became a strong advocate for the anti-slavery movement and joined the newly organized Republican Party, unsuccessfully running for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin. After briefly representing the United States as Minister (ambassador) to Spain, Schurz served as a general in the American Civil War, fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg and other major battles.


title: Carl Schurz

text: After the war, Schurz established a newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and won election to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first German-born American elected to that body. Breaking with Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, Schurz helped establish the Liberal Republican Party. The party advocated civil service reform, sound money, low tariffs, low taxes, an end to railroad grants, and opposed Grant's efforts to protect African-American civil rights in the Southern United States during Reconstruction. Schurz chaired the 1872 Liberal Republican convention, which nominated a ticket that unsuccessfully challenged President Grant in the 1872 presidential election. Schurz lost his own 1874 re-election bid and resumed his career as a newspaper editor. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1878.


title: Carl Schurz

text: After Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election, he appointed Schurz as his Secretary of the Interior. Schurz sought to make civil service based on merit rather than political and party connections and helped prevent the transfer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the War Department. Schurz moved to New York City after Hayes left office in 1881 and briefly served as the editor of the "New York Evening Post" and "The Nation" and later became the editorial writer for "Harper's Weekly". He remained active in politics and led the "Mugwump" movement, which opposed nominating James G. Blaine in the 1884 presidential election. Schurz opposed William Jennings Bryan's bimetallism in the 1896 presidential election but supported Bryan's anti-imperialist campaign in the 1900 presidential election. Schurz died in New York City in 1906.


title: Carl Schurz

text: Carl Christian Schurz was born on March 2, 1829, in Liblar (now part of Erftstadt), in Rhenish Prussia, the son of Marianne (née Jussen), a public speaker and journalist, and Christian Schurz, a schoolteacher. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and learned piano under private instructors. Financial problems in his family obligated him to leave school a year early, without graduating. Later he graduated from the gymnasium by passing a special examination and then entered the University of Bonn.


title: Carl Schurz

text: At Bonn, he developed a friendship with one of his professors, Gottfried Kinkel. He joined the nationalistic Studentenverbindung Burschenschaft Franconia at Bonn, which at the time included among its members Friedrich von Spielhagen, Johannes Overbeck, Julius Schmidt, Carl Otto Weber, Ludwig Meyer and Adolf Strodtmann. In response to the early events of the revolutions of 1848, Schurz and Kinkel founded the "Bonner Zeitung", a paper advocating democratic reforms. At first Kinkel was the editor and Schurz a regular contributor.


title: Carl Schurz

text: These roles were reversed when Kinkel left for Berlin to become a member of the Prussian Constitutional Convention. When the Frankfurt rump parliament called for people to take up arms in defense of the new German constitution, Schurz, Kinkel, and others from the University of Bonn community did so. During this struggle, Schurz became acquainted with Franz Sigel, Alexander Schimmelfennig, Fritz Anneke, Friedrich Beust, Ludwig Blenker and others, many of whom he would meet again in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.


title: Carl Schurz

text: During the 1849 military campaign in Palatinate and Baden, he joined the revolutionary army, fighting in several battles against the Prussian Army. Schurz was adjunct officer of the commander of the artillery, Fritz Anneke, who was accompanied on the campaign by his wife, Mathilde Franziska Anneke. The Annekes would later move to the U.S., where each became Republican Party supporters. Anneke's brother, Emil Anneke, was a founder of the Republican party in Michigan. Fritz Anneke achieved the rank of colonel and became the commanding officer of the 34th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War; Mathilde Anneke contributed to both the abolitionist and suffrage movements of the United States.


title: Carl Schurz

text: When the revolutionary army was defeated at the fortress of Rastatt in 1849, Schurz was inside. Knowing that the Prussians intended to kill their prisoners, Schurz managed to escape and travelled to Zürich. In 1850, he returned secretly to Prussia, rescued Kinkel from prison at Spandau and helped him to escape to Edinburgh, Scotland. Schurz then went to Paris, but the police forced him to leave France on the eve of the coup d'état of 1851, and he migrated to London. Remaining there until August 1852, he made his living by teaching the German language.


title: Carl Schurz

text: While in London, Schurz married fellow revolutionary Johannes Ronge's sister-in-law, Margarethe Meyer, in July 1852 and then, like many other Forty-Eighters, immigrated to the United States. Living initially in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Schurzes moved to Watertown, Wisconsin, where Carl nurtured his interests in politics and Margarethe began her seminal work in early childhood education.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In Wisconsin, Schurz soon became immersed in the anti-slavery movement and in politics, joining the Republican Party. In 1857, he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for lieutenant governor. In the Illinois campaign of the next year between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, he took part as a speaker on behalf of Lincoln—mostly in German—which raised Lincoln's popularity among German-American voters. In 1858, Schurz was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began to practice law in Milwaukee. Beginning 1859, his law partner was Halbert E. Paine. With Paine's encouragement, Schurz took more of an interest in politics and public speaking than in law. In the state campaign of 1859, Schurz made a speech attacking the Fugitive Slave Law, arguing for states' rights. In Faneuil Hall, Boston, on April 18, 1859, he delivered an oration on "True Americanism", which, coming from an alien, was intended to clear the Republican party of the charge of "nativism". Wisconsin Germans unsuccessfully urged his nomination for governor in 1859. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, Schurz was spokesman of the delegation from Wisconsin, which voted for William H. Seward. Despite this, Schurz was on the committee which brought Lincoln the news of his nomination.


title: Carl Schurz

text: After Lincoln's election and in spite of Seward's objection, Lincoln sent Schurz as minister to Spain in 1861, in part because of Schurz's European record as a revolutionary. While there Schurz succeeded in quietly dissuading Spain from supporting the South.


title: Carl Schurz

text: During the American Civil War, Schurz served with distinction as a general in the Union Army. Persuading Lincoln to grant him a commission in the Union army, Schurz was commissioned brigadier general of Union volunteers in April 1862. In June, he took command of a division, first under John C. Frémont, and then in Franz Sigel's corps, with which he took part in the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. He was promoted to major general in 1863 and was assigned to lead a division in the XI Corps at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, both under General Oliver O. Howard. A bitter controversy began between Schurz and Howard over the strategy employed at Chancellorsville, resulting in the routing of the XI Corps by the Confederate corps led by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Two months later, the XI Corps again broke during the first day of Gettysburg. Containing several German-American units, the XI Corps performance during both battles was heavily criticized by the press, fueling anti-immigrant sentiments.


title: Carl Schurz

text: Following Gettysburg, Schurz's division was deployed to Tennessee and participated in the Battle of Chattanooga. There he served with the future Senator Joseph B. Foraker, John Patterson Rea, and Luther Morris Buchwalter, brother to Morris Lyon Buchwalter. Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) was a Congressional observer during the Chattanooga Campaign. Later, he was put in command of a Corps of Instruction at Nashville. He briefly returned to active service, where in the last months of the war he was with Sherman's army in North Carolina as chief of staff of Henry Slocum's Army of Georgia. He resigned from the army after the war ended in April 1865.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson sent Schurz through the South to study conditions. They then quarreled because Schurz supported General Slocum's order forbidding the organization of militia in Mississippi. Schurz delivered a report to the U.S. Senate documenting conditions in the South which concluded that Reconstruction had succeeded in restoring the basic functioning of government but failed in restoring the loyalty of the people and protecting the rights of the newly legally emancipated who were still considered the slaves of society. It called for a national commitment to maintaining control over the South until free labor was secure, arguing that without national action, Black Codes and violence including numerous extrajudicial killings documented by Schurz were likely to continue. The report was ignored by the President, but it helped fuel the movement pushing for a larger congressional role in Reconstruction and holding Southern states to higher standards.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In 1866, Schurz moved to Detroit, where he was chief editor of the "Detroit Post". The following year, he moved to St. Louis, becoming editor and joint proprietor with Emil Preetorius of the German-language "Westliche Post" (Western Post), where he hired Joseph Pulitzer as a cub reporter. In the winter of 1867–1868, he traveled in Germany; his account of his interview with Otto von Bismarck is one of the most interesting chapters of his "Reminiscences". He spoke against "repudiation" of war debts and for "honest money"—code for going back on the gold standard—during the Presidential campaign of 1868.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In 1868, he was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri, becoming the first German American in that body. He earned a reputation for his speeches, which advocated fiscal responsibility, anti-imperialism, and integrity in government. During this period, he broke with the Grant administration, starting the Liberal Republican movement in Missouri, which in 1870 elected B. Gratz Brown governor.


title: Carl Schurz

text: After William P. Fessenden's death, Schurz became a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs where Schurz opposed Grant's Southern policy as well as his bid to annex Santo Domingo. Schurz was identified with the committee's investigation of arms sales to and cartridge manufacture for the French army by the United States government during the Franco-Prussian War.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In 1869, he became the first U.S. Senator to offer a Civil Service Reform bill to Congress. During Reconstruction, Schurz was opposed to federal military enforcement and protection of African American civil rights, and held nineteenth century ideas of European superiority and fears of miscegenation.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In 1870, Schurz helped form the Liberal Republican Party, which opposed President Ulysses S. Grant's annexation of Santo Domingo and his use of the military to destroy the Ku Klux Klan in the South under the Enforcement Acts.


title: Carl Schurz

text: In 1872, he presided over the Liberal Republican Party convention, which nominated Horace Greeley for President. Schurz's own choice was Charles Francis Adams or Lyman Trumbull, and the convention did not represent Schurz's views on the tariff. Schurz campaigned for Greeley anyway. Especially in this campaign, and throughout his career as a Senator and afterwards, he was a target for the pen of "Harper's Weekly" artist Thomas Nast, usually in an unfavorable way. The election was a debacle for the Greeley supporters. Grant won by a landslide, and Greeley died shortly after the election.


title: Carl Schurz

text: Schurz lost the 1874 Senatorial election to Democratic Party challenger and former Confederate Francis Cockrell. After leaving office, he worked as an editor for various newspapers. In 1875, he assisted in the successful campaign of Rutherford B. Hayes to regain the office of Governor of Ohio. In 1877, Schurz was appointed United States Secretary of the Interior by Hayes, who had been by then been elected President of the United States. Although Schurz honestly attempted to reduce the effects of racism toward Native Americans and was partially successful at cleaning up corruption, his recommended actions towards American Indians "in light of late twentieth-century developments" were repressive. Indians were forced to move into low-quality reservation lands that were unsuitable for tribal economic and cultural advancement. Promises made to Indian chiefs at White House meetings with President Rutherford B. Hayes and Schurz were often broken.