title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: "The 7PM Project" returned on 3 January 2011, achieving 680,000 viewers after a generally low rating summer series. A week later, due to the 2010–2011 Queensland floods, rival networks extended their news coverage which pushed current affair shows "Today Tonight," which airs on the Seven Network, and "A Current Affair," which airs on the Nine Network, from their usual timeslot of 6.30 pm. This meant that the aforementioned shows directly competed with "The 7PM Project". The added competition from the higher rating current affairs programs pushed viewership of The Project down to a low of 496,000 on Friday with episodes across the week also down. "The 7PM Project" came in 36th for the week, averaging out 657,000.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: The show averaged just under 1.1 million viewers on 2 May 2011; the first (and only) time the show rose above a million in 2011.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: Despite averaging, on the whole, lower ratings than in 2010, the show stabilised to around 750,000–800,000 per night with episodes rarely achieving above 850,000 and below 600,000.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: In its first outing at 6.30, "The Project" scored 571,000; fourth in its slot and the third-highest rating show on TEN for that night.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: In its first Sunday edition, the show had 392,000 viewers, coming fourth in the timeslot; however it since rated consistently above 400,000. According to Network 10, the move of the show to 6 pm boosted their 6–7 pm hour by 22% in terms of viewers.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: On 16 April 2012, "The Project" began splitting its figures into half-hour intervals. This gave a better indication on how the show does over the 6 pm and 6.30 pm half hours. On this particular broadcast, "The Project" rated 649,000 from 6.30 to 7.00 pm, and 506,000 from 6.00 to 6.30 pm.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: "The Project" struggled since returning to screens in 2013 with episodes rarely achieving ratings above half a million and increasingly finding itself outside the national top 20 programs for the night.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: The show saw a rise in viewers during the Easter non-ratings period. On 1 April 2013, the program reached 582,000 viewers. The 1000th episode of the show, airing on 30 April 2013, reached only 493,000 viewers, however the show bounced back to its highest rating of 2013 the following night (Wednesday 1 May) with 610,000 viewers.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: By August, ratings had risen to an average of 700,000, hitting the one million mark on occasion, earning the show an overall viewer increase of over 4% when compared to 2012. Demographically, the biggest audience increase came from the 25–54 age group.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: "The Project" struggled in the ratings during the beginning of the year, with the first half of the show twice rating under 300,000. Despite the poor ratings during the earlier half of the year, the program's ratings grew as the year went on, including on 6 October 2014, when "The Project" had an exclusive guest interview, which led the show to rate over 1.1 million viewers, and attract the program's biggest ever audience in its history.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: "The Project" has improved in the ratings during the course of 2015, with the program consistently rating between 600,000 and 700,000 viewers Monday–Thursday. Special guest interviews and stories continue to at times make the program obtain close to one million viewers. Waleed Aly's occasional "Something we should talk about" segments, written with "The Project"'s managing editor, Tom Whitty, gathered a large amount of attention on news sites and social media, particularly through the program's Facebook page, where several videos attracted over one million views.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: On 24 July 2012, mild controversy was caused when actor Hugh Sheridan appeared on the show promoting his new show, "I Will Survive". During the interview, Sheridan called South Australian town Port Augusta "Port A-Gutta", which was seen as a mockery of Aboriginal slang by locals.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: On 24 June 2015, host Aly clashed with former terror suspect Zaky Mallah in a particularly heated exchange, which resulted in some viewers cheering, and some expressing their disappointment that Mallah had been given a platform at all.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: In March 2016, "The Project" used an edited image of Sudanese-Australian rapper Ror Akot to promote a story on South Sudanese gang violence in Melbourne. There was no evidence to suggest that Akot was in a gang or linked to violence and according to Akot, he believed that his image had been "destroyed".


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: On 27 May 2017, tennis great and Christian pastor Margaret Court appeared on the program after she wrote a letter saying she was "disappointed Qantas had become an active promoter for same sex marriage". She found it "hard to voice her opinion over the top of hosts Waleed Aly and panellist Meshel Laurie". She said it was "disrespectful" and "disgusting".


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: During August 2017, "The Project" satirical overdub of the same-sex marriage plebiscite television advertisement inflamed viewers on both sides of the debate by overdubbing a woman's response as "Was it a school play of "Brokeback Mountain"? That's a huge ask to expect anyone to top Heath Ledger's performance."


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: On 23 December 2019, during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, a clip was played showing a RFS volunteer saying, "That's not my Prime Minister" after being introduced to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The volunteer was hailed as a hero and hashtags such as ‘#NotmyPM’ and ‘#JacquiforPM’ became popular on Twitter. It was later revealed that the clip had only been partially played and showed that the volunteer was actually British rather than Australian. She said she had no problem with Scott Morrison and that she was referring to Boris Johnson. Waleed Aly later apologised for this error saying that the audio was very hard to hear but ultimately took full blame for this incident.


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: Retired AFL player Heritier Lumumba has alleged that "The Project" discredited his accounts of being a victim of racism during his time as a player. Lumumba also accused the program of victim blaming on his personal website. In 2021, the "Do Better" report was leaked to the Australian media. The report found the Collingwood Football Club guilty of systemic racism. This led to calls for "The Project", and hosts Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar, to apologise on-air. Helliar wrote an apology saying that "This report is heartbreaking. To @iamlumumba I am truly, unequivocally sorry. I should have believed you. I will do better." A few days later, the interview was no longer accessible on the program's Facebook account. A former executive producer at Channel 10 stated, "What "The Project" should do right now is show a bit of that clip, have Waleed and Pete sit there and talk about it and the lessons they've learned and what they'll do going forward."


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: In November 2017, Milo Yiannopoulos criticised the program after it cancelled an alleged scheduled interview with him while he was in Australia for his Troll Academy tour. He called Waleed Aly "an intellectual lightweight", "total coward" and "insubstantial". A spokesperson for Channel 10 said, ""The Project" and "Studio 10" did not cancel interviews with Milo Yiannopoulos. We never scheduled interviews with him."


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: In June 2018, actor Richard Dreyfuss criticised the show about how he was interviewed. In the interview, Dreyfuss was asked by panellist Lisa Wilkinson about his experience of the Me Too movement and an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour recently made against him. Dreyfuss later appeared on the rival Nine Network show "Today Extra" for several minutes reading a statement saying, "I was mugged the other night in Sydney, Australia. Not by a petty thief but by the host and hostesses of a talk show called "The Project"." He said that he and another guest, Kathleen Turner, were promised a "light and friendly chat" but soon changed to questions about the current state of Hollywood. A statement from Network 10 to news.com.au stated that Dreyfuss had not been misled and that an interview brief had been provided three days prior. Wilkinson released a statement saying that Dreyfuss had not been "ambushed" or "mugged" and warned that she had the email chain to prove it, further stating "As a journalist I make no apology for courteously asking an entirely legitimate question about a subject you had spoken of before and which has generated more headlines than anything you've done in the last 20 years."


title: The Project (Australian TV program)

text: Bickmore won a Logie Award in the category of Most Popular New Female Talent for her work on the show. Pickering was nominated for a Logie Award in the category of Most Popular New Male Talent for his work on the show.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than southeast of Moscow.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: In Soviet historiography, the rebellion was referred to as the Antonovschina ("Antonov's mutiny"), so named after Alexander Antonov, a former official of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who opposed the government of the Bolsheviks. It began in August 1920 with resistance to the forced confiscation of grain and developed into a guerrilla war against the Red Army, Cheka units and the Soviet Russian authorities. The bulk of the peasant army was destroyed in the summer of 1921, smaller groups continued until the following year. It is estimated that around 100,000 people were arrested and around 15,000 killed during the suppression of the uprising. The Red Army used chemical weapons to fight the peasants.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The movement was later portrayed by the Soviets as anarchical banditry, similar to other anti-Bolshevik movements that opposed them during this period.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: In 1904, Alexander Antonov was sentenced to twenty years in prison for blowing up a train, but received an amnesty from the Russian Provisional Government following the February Revolution and returned to his native Tambov, where he served in the local militia in Kirsanov. As the Provisional Government refused to discuss agrarian reform, he joined the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The peasants of Tambov largely supported the October Revolution, since Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Land legalized the expropriation of property. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks had problems in maintaining control of the governorate. Unlike in the cities, the Bolsheviks had hardly any supporters in the rural regions, where in the elections of 1917 the Socialist Revolutionary Party had won large majorities. In March 1918, the Bolshevik delegates in Tambov were even thrown out of the local soviets, following the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: Following the outbreak of the Russian Civil War, the newly-established Russian Soviet Republic adopted the policy of war communism, in which food for the cities was obtained by compulsory requisition from the villages, without financial compensation. This was met with the resistance of the peasant population, especially as the requisitions were often violent in nature. Likewise, the amount of grain to be requisitioned were not measured according to production. Instead, commissions gave a rough estimate based on pre-war production, so that devastation, crop failures, and population decline were not included. Before the revolution, the peasants in Tambov produced around one million tonnes of grain. Of these, one-third was exported. On the basis of these figures, which did not include the dislocations of the civil war in the countryside, a high target for the procurement of grain was set. The peasants often responded by reducing their acreage, as they no longer had the economic incentive to produce surpluses, which made the confiscations ordered from above hit them even harder.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: For the most part, the peasants had been indifferent to Bolshevik ideology, but they came to hate the Bolsheviks for their forced requisitions, which had put them at the limit of survival, and for the forced levies that had created numerous fugitives. In the summer of 1919, Antonov fled to the forest and formed a gang that murdered several Bolshevik activists. This is how the first anti-Bolshevik guerrilla movements arose, made up of Red Army deserters, Socialist-Revolutionaries and peasants who resisted the searches in the forests. Their first acts were assassinating unpopular state officials and raiding state farms. They killed more than 200 government grain collectors and over the next year their forces grew steadily, growing from an initial 150 to 6,000 by early summer 1920, but that would have to wait until after the defeat of Anton Denikin's White movement for there to be a real mass uprising. The other leaders of this force were Alexander Antonov's younger brother, , and the SR .


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 19 August 1920, a revolt broke out in the small town of Khitrovo, where a military requisitioning detachment of the Red Army had appropriated everything they could and "beat up elderly men of seventy in full view of the public". In anticipation of an attack by the Red Army to enforce the procurement of grain, the farmers of the village armed themselves. Since only a few rifles were available, this was partly done with pitchforks and clubs. Other villages soon joined in the uprising against the Soviet authorities, and succeeded in repulsing the Red Army.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The peasants rebels, after their first success, attempted to capture Tambov, the capital of the governorate. There, however, they were scattered by Red machine guns barely ten kilometers from their target. It was here that Alexander Antonov, a radical Left Socialist-Revolutionary, led the movement into a guerilla war against the Reds. Before the uprising, Antonov and a few comrades had fought an underground insurrection against the Bolsheviks and had been sentenced to death. Since he was able to escape capture by the Soviet authorities, he was a kind of folk hero to the peasants. He demanded that the free trade and movement of goods should be allowed, that the grain requisitions should be ended and the Soviet administration and the Cheka dissolved. His troops carried out surprise raids on railway junctions, "kolkhoz" and the Soviet authorities. They were supported by the population and used the villages for cover and rest. Likewise, they often disguised themselves as Red Army soldiers to move about the countryside or to exaggerate the element of surprise.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The insurgent peasants organized themselves through the Union of Working Peasants (, STK), which functioned as the political organization of the insurgents and with which Antonov worked. Having their own political program gave them a strength and coherence that other peasant uprisings lacked. However, this movement was still based on the weariness of the population but without have a clear idea of how to replace the government. Instead, Antonov dreamed of marching on Moscow and ending Bolshevik rule.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: Antonov organized the farmers on the model of the Red Army in 18–20 regiments with their own political commissars, reconnaissance departments and communication departments. Likewise, he introduced a strict discipline. The farmers used the Red flag as their standard and thus claimed the central symbol of the revolution. They had 14,000 or 18,000 men, mostly consisting of deserters from the Red Army. Of these, five to seven thousand had firearms. By the end of the month, the rebels numbered six groups, each totaling 4,000 men with a dozen machine guns and several artillery pieces. As the Bolshevik authorities were busy with the Polish-Soviet War and Pyotr Wrangel's offensive in northern Tavria, they only had 3,000 unreliable troops in Tambov province. These soldiers had been drafted from the local villages and often had little motivation to fight members of their own class.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The rebels were able to control large parts of the region and managed to capture railway trains transporting requisitioned grain. The grain intended to supply Red Army units was instead re-distributed by Antonov's men to local farmers. The rebellion also spread to parts of other provinces: Voronezh, Saratov and Penza. This territory was populated by more than three million people, 90% farmers and artisans. The region was densely populated, with rich, forested land that offered many jobs, especially as the land had been appropriated in 1917 and the owners expelled. But the demands of the Bolshevik government and the Russian Civil War prevented them from profiting, which only encouraged the insurrection.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: In the areas controlled by the rebels, all Soviet institutions were abolished. Around 1,000 members of the Russian Communist Party were killed by the insurgents. By October 1920, the Bolsheviks had completely lost control of the rural territory of the governorate, dominating only the city Tambov itself and a number of smaller urban settlements. After numerous deserters from the Red Army joined it, the peasant army numbered over 50,000 fighters. The rebel militia proved highly effective and even infiltrated the Tambov Cheka.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: Towards the end of October, the head of the in the Tambov Governorate, , engaged in a series of battles with the rebels. According to his letters, he killed 3,000, wounded 300, and captured 1,000 along with copious amounts of weapons, ammunition, and supplies (such as a telephone and a field kitchen). His casualties were 90 dead and less than 200 wounded. However, he was blamed for the rebellion and removed. Some sources say the rebels numbered just 8,000 horsemen in November.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 5 November, two to six thousand rebels, mostly on horseback, attacked the railway station at Sampur in two coordinated groups, capturing an artillery cannon, some machine guns, and numerous revolvers and rifles. However, they failed in their attempt to sabotage the railway lines and quickly withdrew. At the time, Bolshevik reports said that two thousand partisans were still in the woods of Novokhopyorsk, near the station. The main source of information that the peasants had about what happened on other fronts were the red prisoners. In that month, there were barely 5,000 Bolsheviks in the region.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: At the height of his power, thanks to their strong popular support, between October 1920 and January 1921, the rebels mobilized 50,000 partisans. By February 1921, they were between 20,000 and 40,000-strong, with half of them acting as full-time combatants and the other half part-time. Around 6,000 were mounted, hindering the government troops, whose lack of mobility undermined their effectiveness.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: But they never formed an "organized guerrilla army". Because of this, most of their actions were impulsive assaults orchestrated by each band against the Bolshevik detachments in charge of requisitioning grain or repressing the villagers. This lack of coordination was, in addition to their poor weapons and training, ultimately decisive in their defeat.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: They were organized in two armies divided into a total of 21 regiments. Their use of guerrilla warfare was based on the old tactic of launching surprise attacks and fleeing immediately afterwards, thanks to their superior knowledge of the terrain and the mobility of their cavalry. Each village was in charge of equipping and maintaining a group of these combatants, which was easy since many were locals defending their own communities. That localism also played into their hands. On the contrary, being too closed in on themselves prevented them from seeking allies in other peasant movements or marching against the big cities, the control of which was what the Bolsheviks worried about because their source of support was the industrial proletariat.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: By the end of the year the blues had achieved one of the main objectives, the reds had stopped sending units to their territories to requisition grain. The officials in the south of Tambov were incapable of such action, as their resources were destined only to garrison the villages under their control. But the north was at peace, not being a large food-producing region, it never lived through the requisitions that had sparked the revolt. The lack of heavy weapons prevented the rebels from taking over the cities, which became havens for communists and government officials. During that December, reinforcements from the Cheka began to arrive, numbering 3,500 combatants in the area. Two months later its leader, Felix Dzerzhinski, would arrive to direct its operations.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: During this time garrison officers and local Bolshevik militants complained of their ever-increasing abandonment by Moscow, from where fewer and fewer supplies and reinforcements were sent to them. In fact the military circles of the Red command had decided to concentrate on a great campaign of pacification of Tambov: as soon as their troops flooded the province the movement would soon be finished. In addition, it was increasingly difficult to help them because their main communication links, the armored trains, were continuously attacked in the area. During the winter of 1920-1921, food reserves in many towns were exhausted, as in Kozlov and Morshank, towns located on the edge of the rebel zone and whose communist garrison saw most of its inhabitants leave or turn to the black market to survive.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 23 January 1921, 250 mounted cadets of the 6th Volche-Karachan regiment managed to defend the town of Borisoglebsk from a large rebel contingent. For the Bolsheviks, it was key to keep Borisoglebsk and Kirsanov in their hands, since it was their bastions in the middle of the fields controlled by the rebels. During that month, the Bolshevik authorities demobilized 4,000 locals who served in their garrisons because they were not trusted. They immediately joined the partisans.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: By this time, only half of the desired grain had been collected by the Bolshevik requisition squads. Antonov-Ovseyenko noticed from his own experience that every other farmer in Tambov was starving. To win over the population, Nikolai Bukharin was commissioned to draw up "non-coercive measures", in which he recommended that the required grain quotas be lowered. In response, on 2 February 1921, the Soviet leadership announced the end of the ""prodrazvyorstka"", and issued a special decree directed at peasants from the region implementing the ""prodnalog"" policy. The new policy was essentially a tax on grain and other foodstuffs. This was done before the 10th Congress of the Bolsheviks, when the measure was officially adopted. The announcement began circulating in the Tambov area on 9 February 1921.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 20 March, a general amnesty was also announced for anyone who surrendered. During the two weeks that the amnesty was in place, about 3000 rebels capitulated, but very few with weapons in hand. By then, Bolshevik power had disappeared almost entirely from the region despite having 32,500 foot soldiers and 8,000 cavalry plus machine guns and cannons in the area.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: By this time, the rebels were able to mobilize large field armies. On 11 April, Antonov gathered 5,000 partisans and launched a pincer attack on Rasskazovo (an hour prior he launched a diversionary attack on Nizhne-Spasskoe with a small force). The garrison consisted of a company of infantrymen, a unit of Bolshevik militants, a machine gun platoon, the Volga Infantry Brigade (which had arrived in January from Saratov), and the 2nd Cheka regiment, and it quickly collapsed. The rebels' goal was achieved: an artillery cannon with two or three hundred rounds, eleven machine guns, four hundred rifles, one hundred thousand ammunition, eighty telephones and 50 versts of cable. On 24 April, they gathered in the village of five to ten thousand fighters under the command of "Vaska Karas" (identified as ) and Vasili F. Selianski. Not everyone participated in the battle. They intended to take the town of Kirsanov, garrisoned by a Moscow infantry brigade led by cavalry commander V. I. Dmitrenko. A day later they launched two equally unsuccessful assaults, abandoning 22 machine guns, small arms and ammunition of the victors. Pursued by the enemy cavalry, the rebels had 2,000 dead in the following days according to estimates by the communist government.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: By January 1921, peasant revolts had spread to Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan and Siberia. But with the end of the Polish–Soviet War and the defeat of General Wrangel, the Red Army could divert its regular troops into the area. In May 1921, Mikhail Tukhachevsky was ordered by Lenin as military commander-in-chief to suppress the uprising in Tambov. Assigned to him were tanks, heavy artillery and 100,000 soldiers, mostly special units of the Cheka, with additional Red Army units. As many members as possible of the communist youth organization Komsomol were assigned to him because they were considered politically loyal. The Red Army used armoured trains and engaged in the summary execution of civilians. The rebels responded with assassination attempts on Tukhachevsky and Ovseyenko, and the kidnapping and shooting of family members of members of the Party and Red Army.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 6 May, Tukhachevsky announced his pacification campaign. That month a large army of between 50,000 and 100,000 Red soldiers reached the southern part of the oblast. The plan was to "flood the rebellion area with troops". They included regular forces, Chinese and Hungarian "internationalists" and detachments of the Cheka, the and the , although the decisive contingents were the numerous cadets and horsemen who arrived. They were supported by 70 heavy artillery pieces, hundreds of machine guns, 3 armored units, a plane, armored trains and chemical weapons left over from World War I stockpiles.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 31 May, seven armored vehicles commanded by General Ivan Fedko surprised 3,000 rebels in the village of Dve Sestritsy and dispersed them with heavy casualties. Two infantry brigades and one veteran cavalry brigade under General Grigori Kotovski were assigned to the Tambov sector. During the first two weeks of May, 15,000 Red Army officers concentrated in Tambov to prepare for the campaign. On the dawn of 1 June, Fedko with three vehicles armed with machine guns, Kotovski's horsemen and the brigade of Siberian cavalry of M. D. Kovalev launched a surprise attack against Antonov and the 3,000 partisans with whom he occupied . Although the rebels managed to repulse the armored vehicles with their rifles, they fled before Kovalyov's cavalry. On 6 June, the armored vehicles commanded by Fedko achieved another victory near Chernyshovo. Between 1 and 9 June, three Bolshevik forces led by Uborevich launched a coordinated attack with seven armored vehicles against the rebel stronghold, near the town of , and faced 2,000 rebels led by Antonov and Boguslavski in six battles, during which 800 partisans died. The region between Tambov and Kirsanov was pacified. These three forces intended to converge on Rzhaksa: Dmitrenko's cavalry brigade (2,000 men from the Sampur in the Tambov uyezd), Kotovski's cavalry brigade (1,000 soldiers from the Lomovis station in the Kirsanov uyezd) and the 14th cavalry brigade (1,000 cavalry up the Vorona River from Karai-Pushkino in Kirsanov's uyezd). Two weeks later rebel commander Aleksandr Boguslavski was killed in combat. The same fate befell Tokmakov, Karas and Selianski.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: On 12 June 1921, Tukhachevsky received premission from Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko to begin the use of chemical weapons against the remaining rebels. They ordered their troops to clear the forests with poison gas, stipulating that it "must be carefully calculated, so that the layer of gas penetrates the forests and kills everyone hiding there." Publications in local Communist newspapers openly glorified liquidations of "bandits" with the poison gas. Antonov's army was encircled and destroyed, leaving the rebellion practically defeated by the end of June. By the month of September, the rebels had been reduced to a thousand due to the massive arrival of red troops. By the end of that year, there were no more than 4,000 rebels left on the warpath. With almost all their leaders dead, the last parties took refuge in swamps and forests under constant persecution.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: It took until the middle of 1922 for the province to be pacified completely. The Antonov brothers and several of their last followers were killed in combat against a Red detachment on 24 June 1922 in the village of , where they hid their few personal possessions. The Cheka wanted to arrest them and set fire to the house where they took refuge. When they tried to flee, they were shot down. By then, their movement was reduced to only a few groups.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: As a result of the military operations against the rebels, around 6,000 of their fighters surrendered and were either shot or deported. The deportees were transferred from the local camps to special camps in the northern regions of Russia after the suppression of the uprising. These camps were otherwise reserved for officers of the White movement and captured insurgents from Kronstadt. In these camps there was a particularly high mortality of prisoners compared to the rest of the camp system. The devastation of the fighting and punitive measures, together with the Bolshevik agricultural policy, led to a famine in the areas of the insurgents. In addition to Tambov, large parts of Russia were affected in the following two years.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: Family members of the rebels were usually used as hostages, others were held at random and in some cases entire villages were interned. Between 50,000 and 100,000 villagers including some 1,000 children, were interned in dedicated concentration camps in July 1921. There they suffered severely from cholera and typhus epidemics. The death rate is estimated to be around 15–20% per month for the fall of 1921. Relatively few were released or executed, "barely" 15,000 were shot. However, mass executions of suspected villagers and prisoners were frequent in the villages.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: Some villages were burned to the ground. The properties confiscated from the arrested and exiled families were given to supporters or collaborators of the regime. The activities of the Cheka, the incorporation of thousands of locals into the Communist Party (with the benefits that it implied) and the concessions of the New Economic Policy helped the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1921 to defuse the situation, especially the end of grain requisitions.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The uprising made the Soviet leadership aware of its failure to manage relations with the peasants and is seen as one of the factors that prompted Lenin to initiate the New Economic Policy. The Russian sociologist and contemporary witness Pitirim Sorokin even concluded that the insurgents had forced the NEP by their actions. The new policy relied more on a natural tax on actual production instead of on compulsory collection of agricultural products. In the military field it is mentioned that the Soviet Army Commander Mikhail Frunze was impressed by the guerillas' resistance to regular forces. He therefore began studying guerrilla tactics as a commander in the Red Army. This is regarded as a precondition of the Soviet partisans' strategy in their World War II campaign against the Nazi invasion.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: The Union of Working Peasants () was a local political organization that emerged from the rebellion in 1920. The organization was led by the former Social-Revolutionary politician Aleksandr Antonov. The goal of the organization was the 'overthrow of the government of Communist-Bolsheviks'.


title: Tambov Rebellion

text: In December 1920, the Union of Working Peasants released a manifesto, stating their intention to overthrow the Bolshevik government and their aims in doing so:


title: Han Xin

text: Han Xin (; 231/230–196 BC) was a Chinese military general and politician who served Liu Bang during the Chu–Han Contention and contributed greatly to the founding of the Han dynasty. Han Xin was named as one of the "Three Heroes of the early Han dynasty" (), along with Zhang Liang and Xiao He.


title: Han Xin

text: Han Xin is best remembered as a brilliant military leader for the strategies and tactics he employed in warfare, some of which became the origins of certain Chinese idioms, he was undefeated in battle and for his accomplishments he was considered the "God of War". In recognition of Han Xin's contributions, Liu Bang conferred the titles of "King of Qi" on him in 203 BC and "King of Chu" in the following year. However, Liu Bang feared Han Xin's growing influence and gradually reduced his authority, demoting him to "Marquis of Huaiyin" in late 202 BC. In 196 BC, Han Xin was accused of participating in a rebellion and lured into a trap and executed on Empress Lü Zhi's orders.


title: Han Xin

text: Born in Huaiyin (modern-day Jiangsu Province), Han Xin lived a childhood in destitution, as his father died early. He was despised by those around him, as he often relied on others for his meals. He had a keen interest in military strategy and spent his time studying military treatises and practicing sword techniques.


title: Han Xin

text: Once when he was suffering from hunger, he met an old woman living off by washing clothes for people who provided him food. He promised to repay her for her kindness after he had made great achievements in life, but he was rebuffed by the . On another occasion, a hooligan saw Han Xin carrying a sword and challenged him to either kill him or crawl between his legs. Han Xin knew that he would become a criminal if he killed him, so instead of responding to the taunts, he crawled between the hooligan's legs and was laughed at.


title: Han Xin

text: Several years later, after becoming the King of Chu, Han Xin returned to his hometown, found the woman who fed him and rewarded her with 1,000 taels of gold. Han Xin also found the hooligan and instead of taking revenge, he appointed the hooligan as a "zhongwei" (中尉; equivalent to a present-day lieutenant). He said, "This man is a hero. Do you think I could not have killed him when he humiliated me? I would not become famous even if I killed him then. Hence, I endured the humiliation to preserve my life to achieve great things in the future."


title: Han Xin

text: In 209 BC, Han Xin joined Xiang Liang's rebel army when rebellions erupted throughout China to overthrow the Qin dynasty. Han Xin continued serving Xiang Yu (Xiang Liang's nephew) after Xiang Liang was killed in action at the Battle of Dingtao. He was not placed in high regard and worked as a sentry and prepared meals. He constantly proposed strategies to Xiang Yu but was ignored. In 206 BC, Han Xin deserted Xiang Yu's army and went to join Liu Bang.


title: Han Xin

text: Han Xin was loyal to Liu Bang in many scenarios; his advisor proposed many suggestions to him to be independent from Liu Bang, but he rejected the proposal and raised sword on his neck to stop further acts of persuasion. One envoy was sent by Xiang Yu to convince him to ally with Chu to defeat Liu Bang, but he rejected the proposal, mainly because he was loyal to Liu Bang and wanted to bring peace to the people of China. His vision was far better than Liu Bang's and the rest of the kings during the warring state and Qin empire periods.


title: Han Xin

text: Initially, after joining Liu Bang's army, Han Xin was not given any important roles. Once, he violated military law and was due to be punished by execution. When it was his turn to be beheaded, Han Xin saw Xiahou Ying (one of Liu Bang's trusted generals) and said, "I thought the king wanted to rule an empire. Why is he killing valiant men then?" Xiahou Ying was surprised and spared Han Xin's life and recommended him to Liu Bang. Liu Bang was not impressed with Han Xin and put him in charge of food supplies. During that time, Han Xin met Xiao He (one of Liu Bang's chief advisors), who recognised his talent.


title: Han Xin

text: In 206 BC, Liu Bang was granted the title of "King of Han" by Xiang Yu after the latter divided the former Qin Empire into the Eighteen Kingdoms, and was relocated to the remote Bashu region (in present-day Sichuan). Some of Liu Bang's men became discontented after spending months in Bashu (in present-day Sichuan) and deserted. Meanwhile, Han Xin was expecting Xiao He to recommend him to Liu Bang, but he had not received news for a long time so he became disappointed and left as well. When Xiao He heard that Han Xin had left, he immediately rushed to find Han and bring him back, and did not manage to inform Liu Bang in time. Xiao He eventually caught up with Han Xin and managed to persuade Han to go back with him. This event gave rise to the saying, "Xiao He chases Han Xin under the moonlight" (). In the meantime, Liu Bang had a nervous breakdown after hearing a rumour that Xiao He had also deserted him. While he was relieved when he saw Xiao He returning with Han Xin, he angrily asked Xiao, "Of all those who deserted, why did you only choose to go after Han Xin?" Xiao He then strongly recommended Han Xin to Liu Bang, saying that Han's talent was unmatched. Liu Bang accepted Xiao He's suggestion and held a special ceremony to appoint Han Xin as a general.


title: Han Xin

text: After his appointment, Han Xin analysed the situation for Liu Bang and devised a plan for Liu to conquer Xiang Yu's Western Chu kingdom. In late 206 BC, Liu Bang's forces left Hanzhong and prepared to attack the Three Qins in Guanzhong. Han Xin ordered some soldiers to pretend to repair the gallery roads linking Guanzhong and Hanzhong, while sending another army to secretly pass through Chencang and make a surprise attack on Zhang Han. Zhang Han was caught off guard and the Han forces emerged victorious, proceeding to take over Sima Xin and Dong Yi's kingdoms. The strategy employed by Han Xin, known as "mingxiu zhandao, andu Chencang" (明修棧道, 暗度陳倉; lit. "appearing to repair the gallery roads while making secret advances through Chencang"), became one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems.


title: Han Xin

text: After the conquest of the Three Qins, Liu Bang allowed Han Xin to lead an army to attack Zhang Han's remnant forces in Feiqiu, while he personally led an army to attack Chu's capital of Pengcheng (present-day Xuzhou, Jiangsu), capturing it in 205 BC. Xiang Yu turned back from his campaign in the Qi kingdom to retake Pengcheng and defeated Liu Bang by surprise in the Battle of Pengcheng. Liu Bang retreated to Xingyang after his defeat. Xiao He was placed in charge of Guanzhong and he sent Han to lead reinforcements to help Liu Bang. Han Xin defeated Chu forces in the Battle of Jingsuo and drove them east of Xingyang.


title: Han Xin

text: In late 205 BC, Liu Bang put Han Xin in command of an army and sent him to conquer the rival kingdoms in northern China. Han Xin's first target was Western Wei, ruled by Wei Bao, who defected to Xiang Yu's side after initially surrendering to Liu Bang. Han Xin tricked Wei forces into cornering themselves at the border and made a surprise attack on Anyi (present-day Xia County, Shanxi) with another force, scoring victory and capturing Wei Bao in battle. Shortly later, Han Xin proceeded to conquer the Dai kingdom and captured Dai's chancellor, Xia Shuo.


title: Han Xin

text: Han Xin's army advanced further to attack the Zhao kingdom. He scored another tactical victory against the 200,000 strong Zhao army with a smaller force in the Battle of Jingxing. After his victory, Han Xin sent a messenger to Zang Tu (King of Yan) asking for his surrender, and Zang Tu agreed to submit to Liu Bang.


title: Han Xin

text: In late 204 BC, Liu Bang ordered Han Xin to lead an army to attack the Qi kingdom. However, Liu Bang later sent Li Yiji to persuade Tian Guang (King of Qi) to surrender, without informing Han Xin. Upon hearing this, Kuai Che ("Tong" was the name given to him by Han historians (primarily Sima Qian in the "Records of the Grand Historian" and Ban Gu in the "Book of Han") after Emperor Wu of Han ascended the throne, as Emperor's Wu's personal name is also "Che") advised Han Xin to proceed with the invasion because if Li Yiji succeeded in persuading Qi to surrender, his contributions would outshine Han Xin's. Hence, Han Xin ordered an assault on Lixia and went on to capture Qi's capital of Linzi. Tian Guang already had the intention of surrendering but the attacks angered him and he felt betrayed by Li Yiji and had Li executed. In the meantime, Xiang Yu sent Long Ju to lead an army to reinforce Tian Guang. Han Xin achieved another decisive victory against the combined forces of Qi and Chu at the Battle of Wei River. Han Xin later sent a messenger to Liu Bang, requesting that Liu appoint him as the acting King of Qi. At that time, Liu Bang was trapped in Xingyang by Xiang Yu and Han Xin's request angered him, because he was expecting Han to come to his aid. However, Zhang Liang and Chen Ping cautioned Liu Bang against rejecting the request, because Han Xin may become discontented and would rebel, putting them in a dangerous situation. Liu Bang reluctantly agreed to Han Xin's request.


title: Han Xin

text: Meanwhile, Xiang Yu sent Wu She to persuade Han Xin to declare independence from Liu Bang and form an alliance with him, in hope of losing an opponent on the northern front. Kuai Che also strongly urged Han Xin to rebel against Liu Bang, warning him that Liu was starting to distrust him because he wielded too much power. However, Han Xin refused to renounce his loyalty to Liu Bang.


title: Han Xin

text: In 203 BC, Liu Bang came to an armistice with Xiang Yu, known as the Treaty of Hong Canal, which divided China into west and east under their respective domains. Shortly after, Liu Bang renounced the treaty and led an attack on Xiang Yu's forces, which were retreating east. Liu Bang sent messengers to request assistance from Han Xin and Peng Yue in forming a three-pronged attack on Western Chu, but Han Xin and Peng Yue did not mobilise their troops, and Liu Bang was defeated by Xiang Yu in the Battle of Guling.


title: Han Xin

text: Liu Bang retreated back to his territory and strengthened his defences, while sending messengers to Han Xin and Peng Yue again, promising to grant them land and titles if they helped him defeat Xiang Yu. Han Xin and Peng Yue brought their armies to meet Liu Bang in late 203 BC, and Han suggested using a strategy of "ambush on ten sides" () to weaken Xiang Yu's forces before making a final assault. The plan succeeded, and by 202 BC Xiang Yu was trapped in Gaixia and surrounded by Han forces on all sides. He attempted to break out of the encirclement and eventually arrived at the bank of the Wu River, where he made a last stand before committing suicide.


title: Han Xin

text: After Xiang Yu's death, China was unified under Liu Bang's rule, and Liu granted Han Xin the title of "King of Chu" in recognition of his contributions. Months later, Liu Bang was proclaimed "Emperor" and became known as "Emperor Gaozu of Han".


title: Han Xin

text: When Xiang Yu died in 202 BC, Zhongli Mo (one of Xiang Yu's generals) came to Han Xin and requested refuge. On account of their past friendship, Han Xin protected Zhongli Mo and let him stay with him. When Emperor Gaozu heard that Zhongli Mo was hiding in Han Xin's territory, he ordered Han to arrest Zhongli Mo, but Han Xin refused.


title: Han Xin

text: A year later, Gaozu heard rumours that Han Xin was plotting a rebellion. By this time, Zhang Liang had already retreated from political affairs, so Chen Ping was Gaozu's most trusted advisor. After discussion, they came to the conclusion that Gaozu could not best Han Xin in battle, so it would be most ideal to strike Han Xin when he was unprepared. Chen Ping proposed to lure Han Xin into meeting, on a pretext of Liu Bang touring the Yunmeng Marshes (present-day Jianghan Plains, Hubei Province). He sent this message out to all warlords across the land. When Han Xin heard that Gaozu was heading towards the land of Chu, his first instinct was to rebel, but he decided he had committed no crime and stayed put. At this time, someone told Han Xin that if he were to present Zhongli Mo's head to Gaozu, than he would be happy and spare him. Han Xin then met Zhongli Mo to decide their next course of action, and brought up this idea. Zhongli Mo then promptly slit his own throat, but not before claiming Han Xin would follow soon after. Han Xin brought Zhongli Mo's severed head to Gaozu and explained his innocence, but Gaozu ordered Han to be arrested. Han Xin exclaimed, "It is true when people say: The hunting dog becomes food as well after it is used to hunt game; a good bow is discarded when there are no birds left for shooting; an advisor dies after he helps his lord conquer a rival kingdom. Now that the empire is in place, I no longer serve any purpose!" Liu Bang's only response was: "Someone claimed you had rebelled", and proceeded to cuff Han Xin and bring him back to Luoyang. Although Gaozu pardoned Han Xin and released him later, he still demoted Han from "King of Chu" to "Marquis of Huaiyin".


title: Han Xin

text: After his demotion, Han Xin knew that Gaozu was beginning to distrust him and had become wary of his talent. Hence, Han Xin claimed to be ill and stayed at home most of the time to reduce Gaozu's suspicions. Around 197 BC, Chen Xi (Marquis of Yangxia) met Han Xin before leaving for Julu, where Han Xin promptly pulled him aside, dismissing all nearby servants. He promised to aid Chen Xi from inside the capital if Chen Xi were to start an uprising against the Han Dynasty. Not long after, Chen Xi rebelled and Gaozu personally led an army to suppress the rebellion, while Han Xin claimed sickness and stayed behind.


title: Han Xin

text: While Gaozu was away, one of Han Xin's household servants offended him, so Han Xin locked him up as punishment. The servant's young brother gave news of Han Xin's desire to rebel to Empress Lü Zhi, who then plotted with Xiao He to lure Han Xin into a trap. They pretended Gaozu had returned from suppressing the rebellion and that there would be a feast to commemorate the success. Xiao He managed to persuade Han Xin into coming to Changle Palace, where the Empress lived, and he was bound and executed as soon as he stepped through the doors. Han Xin's clan was exterminated on the Empress's orders as well. Upon return from his campaign, Gaozu expressed both relief and regret when he learnt of Han Xin's death. He asked the Empress for Han Xin's last words, which were, "I regret not listening to Kuai Che's advice, and now I have been deceived by such vile people. This is the heaven's will!"


title: Han Xin

text: In another section of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, The Hereditary House of Chancellor Xiao, the events of the Chu-Han Contention are told from Xiao He's point of view, and puts a different narrative on the death of Han Xin. In this autobiography, Liu Bang was immediately notified of Han Xin's rebellion and execution, rather than waiting until after his return.


title: Han Xin

text: Throughout history, historians and scholars alike have debated over the plausibility of Han Xin's rebellion. Although the Records of the Grand Historian have it written in black and white, many believe that Han Xin was loyal until his death. They believe that Lü Zhi and Xiao He framed Han Xin of treason, under the knowledge of Liu Bang, because Han Xin's reputation amongst the military was too high, and combined with his talents, became a threat to the throne. Although historians have always looked to Sima Qian's records for facts, some believe it is possible that as a citizen of the Han Dynasty, he could not go against the government acknowledged version of events. A Tang Dynasty poet, Xu Hun, once wrote a poem titled "The Shrine of Han Xin", in which it states that it is unlikely for Han Xin to stay loyal when he held military power, yet rebel when he had not a single soldier.


title: Han Xin

text: In legend, Gaozu once promised Han Xin that if he "faced Heaven and stood firm on Earth" (頂天立地於漢土; i.e. remained loyal) to the Han Dynasty, he would not have Han Xin killed by any weapon used by soldiers (). Hence, when Han Xin was executed, he was hung in midair within a great bell and was pierced to death with swords made from wood or bamboo. As such, when he died, Han Xin was neither "facing Heaven" (because his body was covered by the bell) nor "standing firm on Earth" (because he was suspended inside the bell), and was not killed by any weapon used by soldiers (soldiers do not use wooden or bamboo swords).


title: Han Xin

text: While Han Xin was under house arrest, he did a mass organization of military books together with Zhang Liang. They put together one hundred and eighty-two books, removed certain parts and chose the reliable bits, and came out with thirty-five books. Han Xin himself also wrote three essays regarding military strategy.


title: Han Xin

text: His descendants are said to have fled to the area of modern Guangdong and Guangxi and changed their name to Wéi (韋).


title: Oprichnik

text: Oprichnik (, , "man aside"; plural "Oprichniki") was the designation given to a member of the Oprichnina, a bodyguard corps


title: Oprichnik

text: Some scholars believe that Ivan's second wife, the Circassian Maria Temryukovna, first had the idea of forming the organization. This theory comes from Heinrich von Staden, a German oprichnik. Maria Temryukovna's brother also became a leading oprichnik.


title: Oprichnik

text: I swear to be true to the Lord, Grand Prince, and his realm, to the young Grand Princes, and to the Grand Princess, and not to maintain silence about any evil that I may know or have heard or may hear which is being contemplated against the Tsar, his realms, the young princes or the Tsaritsa. I swear also not to eat or drink with the zemshchina, and not to have anything in common with them. On this I kiss the cross.


title: Oprichnik

text: Modern theories suggest that the motivating purpose for the organization and existence of the Oprichniki was to oppress people or groups opposed to the Tsar. Known to ride black horses and led by Ivan himself, the group was known to terrorize civilian populations. Sometimes called the "cromeshnina" (selected) because they were a hand-picked body, the Oprichniki dressed in black garb, similar to a monastic habit, and carried attached to their saddles a severed dog's head (to sniff out treason and enemies of the Tsar), or an actual wolf's head and a broom (to sweep them away). The wolf's head was also symbolic of the hounds of hell tearing at the heels of the Tsar's enemies. The logistics of acquiring the canine heads was quite gruesome. Due to the lack of taxidermy, the severed and drained heads would only remain frozen for the winter months of the year. To maintain their image, the Oprichnik required a constant supply of fresh heads. Ivan himself carried a fearsome canine head made of iron with jaws that would open and snap shut as his horse galloped.


title: Oprichnik

text: The Oprichniki were ordered to execute anyone disloyal to Ivan and used various methods of torture to do so, including quartering, death by boiling, impalement, and roasting victims tied to poles over an open fire.


title: Oprichnik

text: When Ivan declared himself the "Hand of God", he selected 300 of the Oprichniki to be his personal "brotherhood" and live in his castle at Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda near Vladimir. At 4 a.m., these select Oprichniki attended a sermon given by Ivan, then performed the day's ritual executions. The Oprichniki sought to lead an externally ascetic lifestyle, like the monks they emulated, but it was punctuated by acts of cruelty and debauchery. Ivan sang while his Oprichniki ate, eating only when they had finished. At 9 p.m. he went to bed, listening to stories told by three blind men.


title: Oprichnik

text: In the Novgorod incident, the Oprichniks killed an estimated 1500 "big people" (nobles), although the actual number of victims is unknown. By 1572, the Oprichnik had become a destabilizing force and were disbanded by Ivan, especially as he blamed them for the lack of response to the Tartar sack of Moscow in 1571. Thereafter it became a capital offense to say or discuss "Oprichnina".


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an annual series of military tattoos performed by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and international military bands, and artistic performance teams on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle in the capital of Scotland. The event is held each August as one of the Edinburgh Festivals.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The term "tattoo" derives from a 17th-century Dutch phrase "doe den tap toe" ("turn off the tap") a signal to tavern owners each night, played by a regiment's Corps of Drums, to turn off the taps of their ale kegs so that the soldiers would retire to their billeted lodgings at a reasonable hour. With the establishment of modern barracks and full military bands later in the 18th century, the term "tattoo" was used to describe the last duty call of the day, as well as a ceremonial form of evening entertainment performed by military musicians.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The first public military tattoo in Edinburgh was entitled "Something About a Soldier" and took place in 1949 at the Ross Bandstand in the Princes Street Gardens. The first official Edinburgh Military Tattoo, with eight items in the programme, was held in 1950. It drew some 6,000 spectators seated in simple bench and scaffold structures around the north, south, and east sides of the Edinburgh Castle esplanade. In 2018, the stands were able to accommodate a nightly audience of 8,800, allowing 220,000 to watch the multiple live performances.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Since the 1970s, on average, just over 220,000 people see the Tattoo live on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle each year (8,800 each evening). Before the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 editions due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Tattoo had sold out for 22 consecutive seasons beginning in 1998. According to a submission by the Tattoo to the Scottish Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 2020 ticket sales indicated that 30% of the audience were from Scotland and 32% from the rest of the United Kingdom. The remaining 38% were international visitors from 69 countries.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The temporary grandstands on the castle esplanade, used in 2018, had a capacity of 8,800. New £16 million spectator stands and corporate hospitality boxes came into use in 2011. The new temporary stands reduced the time taken to erect and dismantle them from the original two months to one month, allowing the esplanade to host events at other times of the year.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The Tattoo performance takes place every weekday evening and twice on Saturdays throughout August and has never been cancelled due to inclement weather. However, in 2020 and 2021 the performances were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2010 the event became the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo after HM Queen Elizabeth awarded the Royal title in celebration of its six decades of existence. Since 2012, each performance has included a fireworks display. From 2005 to 2015, a "son et lumière" element projected on to the facade of the Castle. In 2016, the projection technology on the castle was upgraded to utilize modern projection mapping technology. In 2018, laser technology was used for the first time.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Since 2004, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo has also held free abridged performances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens, entitled "Taste of the Tattoo", and as of 2008 also in George Square in Glasgow. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo has also toured overseas, visiting New Zealand in 2000 as part of the Tattoo's 50th anniversary celebrations. It visited Australia in 2005 and returned to the Sydney Football Stadium in February 2010 as part of the Tattoo's 60th anniversary celebrations. In February 2016 the Tattoo sold 240,000 tickets when it was staged in Wellington, New Zealand and Melbourne Australia. The performance was held at ANZ Stadium, Sydney in October 2019. There were also plans to take the show to China in 2020, with performances in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic these plans have been suspended.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: , Anne, Princess Royal is the patron of the event, with the main corporate sponsor being Edinburgh Airport.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: In 2018 the Tattoo was planned to be televised to 40 countries allowing an estimated 100–300 million people see the event on television worldwide. In Britain the BBC broadcasts the event annually, with commentary in 2009 and 2010 provided by BBC Radio Scotland presenter Iain Anderson. Bill Paterson has provided commentary since 2011; before 2009 Tom Fleming commentated, not missing a year between 1966 and 2008. In Australia the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) traditionally telecasts the Tattoo on the evening of New Year's Eve, although in a break with tradition, the 2006 Tattoo was broadcast a day earlier on 30 December, the 2007 Tattoo was broadcast even earlier on Christmas Eve, and the 2009 Tattoo was broadcast two days after New Year's Eve on 2 January 2010. These changes were made so the ABC could expand its news coverage of local New Year celebrations.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: The Tattoo is run for charitable causes and in 2017 it was estimated that over the years has given £10 million to the arts, military and civilian charities and organisations, such as the Army Benevolent Fund. The event also generates up to £100 million in revenue for Edinburgh's economy annually, according to estimates by the Tattoo itself.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Launched in 2002, the official magazine of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, "Salute", is distributed free to sponsors, friends of the Tattoo, and visiting performers.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Each performance begins with a fanfare, usually composed for that year's show. The Massed Pipes and Drums then perform, marching through the gatehouse of the castle and performing a traditional pipe band set. Then, the show's featured acts perform individually.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Each service is usually represented by bands from the British Armed Forces, along with drill and display teams as well. On special occasions, the Tattoo will feature bands from more than one service at the same time. In both 2002 and 2012, bands from all three services were featured to mark Elizabeth II's Golden and Diamond Jubilees. In 2003, the music of Westlife was featured at the event.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: From 1950 until 1994, the show mainly featured acts from military organizations. However, the show began to diversify and feature civilian acts beginning in 1995. While this was initially met with resistance from some fans, the inclusion of civilian acts has become more and more present in the show over time. One of the most popular acts featured at the Tattoo is the Top Secret Drum Corps from Basel, which has performed in the 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2022 Tattoos. By 2018 performers from 48 countries had appeared in the tattoo since its inception.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Since 2014, a house pipe band was introduced to allow individual pipers and drummers from not only Scotland but across many parts of the world to play in the Tattoo. Known as the Pipers' Trail, they join in with the massed pipes and drums each year and are the first pipe band with no military connections to play in the Tattoo.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: A stage band made up of volunteer musicians from around the world was assembled for the 2019 program. The 2022 programme included Banda Monumental de Mexico, the United States Army Field Band in its debut Tattoo performance, the Highland Divas, the New Zealand Army Band and the United States Air Force Honor Guard Drill team.


title: Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

text: Following the retirement of Brigadier David Allfrey in 2020, the role of Chief Executive and Producer was split into two positions. The current two leaders of the Tattoo are:


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Project X is a 1987 science fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt. The plot revolves around a USAF Airman (Broderick) and a graduate student (Hunt) who are assigned to care for chimpanzees used in a secret Air Force project.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: University of Wisconsin graduate student Teri MacDonald (Helen Hunt) has trained a chimpanzee named Virgil (Willie) to use sign language. When her National Science Foundation research grant is not renewed, she is forced to sell Virgil. He is taken to an Air Force base in Lockridge, Florida, to be used in a top-secret research project involving flight simulation, though she's told that he's been sent to the Houston Zoo.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Airman Jimmy Garrett (Matthew Broderick) is assigned to the same chimpanzee project. Virgil and Jimmy quickly bond, and Jimmy discovers that Virgil has been taught sign language. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, once the chimpanzees reach a certain level in operating the flight simulator, they will be exposed to a lethal pulse of radiation to determine how long a pilot may survive after a nuclear exchange in carrying out a second-strike.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: When Jimmy becomes aware of the chimpanzees' fate, he contacts Teri, who comes to the base. Teri tells Jimmy that she will inform the NSF of the deception, but Jimmy explains that she does not have enough time because Virgil is scheduled to die soon.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Jimmy challenges Dr. Carroll (William Sadler) and others about the project's value by noting that the hypothetical pilot, knowing the implications of the second-strike scenario, would know that he is dying, and would, therefore, be affected by that knowledge. However, the chimpanzees would not be as aware; thus, the project is flawed. Enraged, Dr. Carroll promises Jimmy that his military career is finished.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Meanwhile, in the vivarium, some of the chimpanzees have unlocked their cages and have stacked crates and boxes to attempt an escape through a skylight. Jimmy, Teri, Dr. Carroll and the authorities walk in the vivarium to see the chimpanzees loose. Virgil is at the top of the stack and attempts to break the skylight with a crowbar. Teri sees Virgil up top and convinces him to come down. Dr. Carroll attempts to control the chimpanzees with an electric prod, but Goliath the chimpanzee proves too powerful, prompting Dr. Carroll and the authorities to flee. Many chimpanzees escape the vivarium and cause havoc throughout the base, while Goliath and two other chimpanzees Winston and Spike reach the flight chamber. Inside, Goliath and the two chimpanzees wreck the simulator and short the reactor’s control panel, causing the radiation reactor to go up. Jimmy, Teri and Virgil arrive and see the chimpanzees continue to wreck the flight chamber. Jimmy gets Winston and Spike out and barely escapes, however, Goliath’s refusal to leave despite Jimmy’s pleas traps him in the flight chamber just as the reactor’s control panel short-circuits and generates a radiation blast. A fire extinguisher left by the chimps jams the reactor on its way down, posing a risk of a possible meltdown. Jimmy and Virgil convince Goliath to yank out the jammed fire extinguisher and succeeds, but Goliath later dies from radiation exposure.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Jimmy and Teri steal a military plane to help the chimpanzees escape, but military police stop them. While the police are holding them, Virgil pilots the plane, and the chimps fly away. They eventually crash in the nearby Everglades and evade a search. Just as the search is being abandoned, Jimmy and Teri see Virgil hiding in the bush with his chimpanzee girlfriend Ginger. Teri signs to Virgil that he and the others are now "free", and the chimpanzees disappear into the Everglades.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Lawrence Lasker began pre-production of the film at Warner Bros. Pictures with John Badham directing, but switched to 20th Century Fox after Warner Bros insisted on using small actors in chimpanzee suits instead of real chimpanzees. The film was shot in Los Angeles and at Camarillo Airport and at Van Nuys Airport.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: The movie received generally positive reviews from critics. , it holds a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 20 reviews with an average rating of 6.1/10.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: In his review for "The New York Times", Walter Goodman described the film as a "young folks' story, a sweet-natured boy-and-his-chimp tale (even the bad guys aren't all that bad - that's very arguable), with a dose of Animal Liberation to give the impression that something of current significance is going on."


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: On 5 February 1989, it was the first film ever shown on Sky Movies in the United Kingdom and Ireland.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: TV personality Bob Barker and the United Activists for Animal Rights accused the film's producers of animal cruelty. The American Humane Association, which consulted during production, filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit, arguing that the animal cruelty claims were based on hearsay. In 1994, over Barker's objections, his insurance company settled the lawsuit for $300,000.


title: Project X (1987 film)

text: Virgil was portrayed by "Willie", who now resides at Primarily Primates wildlife refuge. Willie was sent there along with Harry, who played his "girlfriend". They were retired from the entertainment industry and live with other males in a tightly knit group at the refuge in Bexar County, Texas.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The Martians are described as octopus-like creatures: the "body" consisting of a disembodied head nearly across, having two eyes; a V-shaped, beak-like mouth; and two branches each of eight 'almost whip-like' tentacles, grouped around the mouth, referred to as the 'hands'. They reproduce asexually, by "budding" off from a parent. Internally, the Martians consist of a brain, lungs, heart, and blood vessels; they have no organs for digestion, and therefore sustain themselves on Earth by mechanically transfusing blood via pipettes from other animals, notably humans. The ear, a single tympanic membrane located on the back of the head, is believed "useless" in Earth's denser atmosphere. The Martians' arrival on Earth is aboard large, cylindrical spacecraft launched from some kind of immense cannon on Mars. Their chief weapon of war is the 'Heat-Ray', a directed-energy weapon capable of incinerating any organism it strikes. This is mounted on an articulated arm attached to the front of the tall tripod, called a 'fighting-machine' in Wells' novel, which travels across the landscape destroying humans and their habitat. A secondary weapon, the "Black Smoke," is a toxic gas released from canisters launched at a distance from Bazooka-like tubes, referred to in the novel as a "gun," which kills humans and animals alike; it is rendered harmless by Martian high-pressure steam jets and water. Mention is also made of a Martian aircraft, but it is hardly seen, except to possibly spread the deadly Black Smoke from above over a wider area.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Evidence of a second race of Martian appear in the dominant race's cylindrical transport vessels, presumably for use as their food supply while in transit; but they are all killed before the Martians reach Earth. These secondary Martians are bipedal, nearly tall, and have "round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets"; however, their fragile physical structure, made up of weak skeletons and muscles, would have been broken by Earth's heavier gravitational pull. It is possible that these creatures are not native Martians, but similar to the Selenites described in Wells's other interplanetary work, "The First Men in the Moon".


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Based on their physical features, the Martians might be the descendants of a species similar to human beings, that evolution has reduced to only a large brain and head and two groupings of eight tentacles (hands). They are described as sluggish under terrestrial gravity, heavier than on Mars. It is reported that several Martians attempt to "stand" on their tentacles, implying that they are capable of locomotion in this manner while in Mars' lighter gravity, but not on Earth.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Communication between the Martians is never made evident, but the narrator, as he sees Martians working together without audible means, concludes that they use telepathy. He makes mention of a "queer hooting" sound, but attributes it to the exhalation of air prior to fatally transfusing blood from their human victims. Some evidence of audible communication is associated with the Martian Fighting-Machine, which are described emitting siren-like calls, and the repeated "Ulla, ulla" call (similar to a distress signal) that echoes throughout London after the mass death from bacterial infection of the Martians.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Despite their advancement, the Martians' technology lacks the wheel, and it is implied they are ignorant of disease and decomposition. It is theorized that their advanced technology eliminated whatever indigenous diseases were present on Mars, and so they no longer remembered their effects. Ultimately, their lack of knowledge or preparation against any bacteria indigenous to Earth, causes their destruction here (though the epilogue states they may have successfully invaded Venus) by what Wells described as "putrefactive bacteria," which digests organic materials upon death.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Most adaptations of H.G. Wells' novel incorporate Martians as the invading race. A few draw upon their description from the original novel such as the infamous radio adaptation, as well as musical version, and Pendragon film adaptations.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Most versions of the Martians differ from Wells' version. Despite a lack of verbal language in the novel (with the exception of the battle cry, "Ulla"), for example, many versions give them one nevertheless.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In one of the first sequels, 1898's unauthorized "Edison's Conquest of Mars", a good deal of text is spent describing the Martians. In illustrations and descriptions, they are made to resemble bug-eyed, 15-foot-tall human figures, and have a vocal speech. Around 7500 BC they visited Earth, and constructed the Pyramids of Giza and Great Sphinx of Giza as a memorial to their leader. When a plague forced them to return to Mars, they brought with them a number of humans from the Fertile Crescent (transported to Egypt), whose descendants continued to serve as slaves to the Martians until they were wiped out in the aftermath of the Martian invasion of Earth, due to Martian fears of humans. At the same time as "The War of the Worlds", the Martians were said to be involved in a war against the giant inhabitants of Ceres. The Martian leadership is described as:


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Also in "Edison's Conquest of Mars", a number of Martians were said to have managed to return to Mars after their compatriots died out, by building another space cylinder and launching it from Bergen County, New Jersey. The blast of the launch is said to be large enough to have destroyed the remains of New York City that the Martians had left alone.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In with the early "Superman" mythos, Lex Luthor helps the Martians, although he eventually betrays them. "Scarlet Traces" reverses this, with a Martian survivor helping the British prepare for a counter-invasion of Mars.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the Marvel comic book Killraven: "Warrior of the Worlds", the Martians return to Earth in the year 2001 in an alternate, post apocalypse version of the Marvel universe. Killraven, alongside other heroes such as Spider-Man fight the Martians and their human slaves.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The Martians would later have a small appearance in 2010's "The Avengers" volume 4. When Kang's interference of the timestream shatters it, random events of history occur in present-day New York City, including the arrival of Killraven and the Martians, piloting their Tripod walking machines. They are defeated by Thor.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The Martians later appeared in 2015 in "All-New Invaders" #11-15. The story was collected under the title ""The Martians are Coming"".


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the 1953 film adaptation, the Martians are short, brown creatures having three-fingered hands with suction cups at the end of long arms and a cyclopean eye divided into three sections: one red, one green, and one blue. The bottom-half of the creature is never fully shown; but blueprints show three legs having each a single suction-cup toe, similar to those on their fingers; other art shows two legs. No description of the alien's internal structure is given; but they are revealed to have blood, and their anemic blood cells are viewed by scientists under a microscope. As in other versions of the story, the Martians succumb to terrestrial bacteria. The aliens appear to have no use for human beings, unlike the original book's Martians who also used them as a blood supply.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the Asylum film "H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds", also known as "Invasion", the Martians resemble a short, green, disc-like head with four long tentacles acting as legs. Their feet have mouths having the ability to spit a deadly, corrosive acid. Inside these mouths are three tongues that closely resemble the Martians' fingers on the 1953 film version. On the DVD's Behind the Scenes feature, actor Jake Busey describes the aliens as looking like "floating pool chairs". It would appear that these Martians also have a need for human blood, and tend to appear mostly at night (possibly because sunlight on Mars is weaker than that on Earth). The cause of their deaths is uncertain, but it is presumably a virus. The main character, George Herbert, injects an alien with a rabies vaccine, with hope that ""life fighting life"" can stop them when guns and bombs have failed. At the end of the film, the aliens curiously stand paralysed when infected. Survivors confirm that they were infected by an airborne virus. They are not given the name "Martian" in the film, but are only named "aliens" once in the film, and a few times as "demons" by a Pastor. Their machines have six legs and resemble a crab, similar to the 'handling-machine' of the original novel.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the sequel "", the antagonists are the "squid-walkers", a cybernetic race of tripods controlled by a single entity inside their mothership. Inside the mothership, humans are kept alive and their blood is filtered, homogenised, and fed to the aliens. They are killed by infected blood injected into the mothership's core, telepathically shutting down the Tripods.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the film "H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds", the Martians are large, bullish creatures, keeping the two large eyes and tentacles described in the book; but do not seem to possess the beak-like mouth. They meet the same fate as the originals, having caught Earthly diseases. Their fighting-machines are extremely tall, with very long silver legs and numerous appendages, and emit a similar sound to the "Ulla" Wells described. The aliens crash to Earth in cylinders, which more closely resemble a meteorite (a similar aspect was used in the 1953 film adaptation), and spread their red weed during the invasion. They feed on human blood, extracted from the human prisoners via a Handling-machine. For these reasons, a character names them "vampires."


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In "Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds", in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Professor Challenger battle the aliens, it is hinted that the Martians may have accelerated their evolution using selective breeding and eugenics, and that their original body type may have resembled the form of the tripods. It is also made clear that the aliens are not Martians, but originate from a more distant planet flooded with water, which puts the long legs of the Tripods into motion.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In "Rainbow Mars" they also appear as one of the many races from inhabiting Mars; killed not by bacteria but by the higher gravity of Earth, which caused organ ruptures and internal bleeding. They are mentioned as having launched two invasions of Earth, one in the early 20th century and the second in the 1950s (to correspond with the novel and 1953 movie).


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The novel series known as "The Tripods" features a race of extraterrestrials invading Earth by means of gigantic, three-legged machines compatible with Wells' description of "a great body of machinery on a tripod stand"; but these are not used as war-machines, and the extraterrestrials commanding them do not use humans as prey.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Not all of the antagonistic invaders are from Mars. Because science has revealed that the red planet is devoid of intelligent life, the concept of using Martians is sometimes dropped from some adaptations as it is no longer deemed realistic.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: One of the earliest known to take a new spin on the invaders was in a pilot presentation made by George Pal for an unrealized "War of the Worlds" TV series. Though Pal's 1953 film is established as a basis for the look of the invaders and their technology (their war machines bearing no clear dissimilarities), there is no seeming intended continuation. These invaders, depicted only in production art, only differ in certain detail as they appear leaner and their cyclopean eye sporting apparently only a single color. The most notable difference is that these aliens are not stated to be Martians. In part of the series' set-up, humanity sends ships to pursue the defeated invaders. Instead of chasing them to Mars, they are tracked down to the distant Alpha Centauri. It is then revealed that these aliens are not even the main villains, but rather an underling race to a greater force that is not revealed in the presentation.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The actual "War of the Worlds" TV series that was made, a sequel to the 1953 film, goes into more detail with its invaders. When the show begins, there is no mention of Mars (with the exception of one episode in which characters are confusing them with the Martians of the radio broadcast). Though some minor details are given away to indicate that their home planet was not Mars, it is not confirmed on-screen until midway through the season that they originate from a world named Mor-Tax. With their beautiful planet becoming uninhabitable from a dying star, they invade Earth with plans to take it over to preserve the traits that it shares with their old world. Their society is highly collective with the only sense of division in the form of their ternary caste system: a high-ranking and seemingly infallible ruling class (itself divided between the supreme leadership of a Council and their Advocacy to the lower classes), a military force in the middle, and scientists relegated to the bottom. They have the ability to "possess" human bodies through a process of cell-phase matching, which allows them to carry out their guerrilla war with Humanity undetected. They are incredibly intelligent, able to communicate in seconds over light-years of space, create effective booby traps, and even adapt seemingly normal human objects for their own purposes. However, their intelligence lends itself to their one true weakness: their hubris, as it is established that they often claim victory before it is accomplished, do not admit to their mistakes, and with the exception of the Advocacy, those who fail are executed.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: Virtually nothing is known about the alien invaders in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film adaptation of "War of the Worlds". On the DVD's 'Behind the Scenes' feature, Spielberg says Physiologically, these creatures have greenish/grey-colored skin, and are tripodal. Each limb ends with three fingers (resembling those from Byron Haskin's 1953 film version), and they also have two small limbs, also with three fingers, on their chest (similar to a theropod, or to the "Xenomorph" queen). The biological needs of this race are largely unknown. They somehow "ride lightning" in small transport pods during a storm to reach their buried Tripods (a plot device that Spielberg might have adapted from a Super Friends episode entitled "Invasion of the Brain Creatures"). They require human blood; but only as part of their xenoforming project. Throughout the film, their tripods spill blood that is presumably connected to the invaders' needs (indeed, in the script David Koepp refers to it as "lifeblood", though it is described as rose-colored, rather than the film's orange). In the climactic scene of the film, a downed tripod opens a hatch that belches the liquid before one of the sickly creatures crawls forth. The death of these invaders is evident as they seemingly dehydrate upon their death; but this occurs only in the end, and thus may be a result of their exposure to bacteria. These aliens do have a language, uttered amongst themselves at some point, and there is logographic writing seen on their tripods.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In "Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds", Professor Challenger theorizes to Sherlock Holmes that the Martians came from another, wetter planet due to their seeming familiarity with the ocean while battling the "Thunder Child"; their small lungs (which would have been inadequate in Mars' atmosphere); and the fact that no construction was evident on Mars before the 1894 opposition. Their apparent struggle to move in Earth's gravity is given as a mixture of caution and embellishment in the accounts of Wells, "the known atheist and radical". Challenger further speculates that they came from another solar system in the galaxy.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In the "Scarlet Traces" comic, it is eventually revealed that the Martians came from a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt; they then settled on Mars, driving the native species into extinction before launching similar wars against the races of Mercury, Venus, the Moon, and finally Earth. (A similar concept appears in Diane Duane's A Wizard of Mars.)


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II", also has the Martians being as foreign to the existing Martian civilization as they are to Earth, and evacuate the planet to conquer Earth after losing a war against the forces of John Carter and Gullivar Jones. It is said that the material they use to build their machines is secreted by the creatures themselves. By the year 2009, the Martians are believed by a post-Big Brother society to have been fiction.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In "To Mars and Providence" (the H. P. Lovecraft-inspired entry in "", written by Don Webb) it is stated that the Martians are an extrasolar race with similarities to both the Elder Things and Great Race of Yith. Edward Guimont argued that the actual Lovecraft drew inspiration for his Cthulhu from Wells' Martians.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: The octopus-like aliens of the 1978 game "Space Invaders" were inspired by Wells' Martians, as game designer Tomohiro Nishikado was a fan of the novel.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: One of the earliest names of the race was the Mor-Taxans, from the 1980s TV show. In Larry Niven's "Rainbow Mars" they are called "Softfingers", and in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II", the native Martians of the "Barsoom" books refer to them as "molluscs", "mollusc invaders", or "leeches", while Hawley Griffin contemptuously refers to them as "afterbirths".


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: George Alec Effinger's "" in the shared world anthology "", has Edgar Rice Burroughs' inhabitants of Barsoom, Burroughs' vision of Mars, refer to Wells' Martians as "sarmaks", which name has become somewhat popular and appears in the Wold Newton universe and in articles in "ERBZine", the official Burroughs fanzine.


title: Martian (The War of the Worlds)

text: In Ian McDonald's short story "The Queen of Night's Aria", a sequel to "The War of the Worlds" published in the 2013 George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois anthology "Old Mars", the Wells Martians are named the Uliri.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: The Convair Kingfish reconnaissance aircraft design was the ultimate result of a series of proposals designed at Convair as a replacement for the Lockheed U-2. Kingfish competed with the Lockheed A-12 for the Project Oxcart mission, and lost to that design in 1959.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: Before the U-2 became operational in June 1956, CIA officials had estimated that improvements in Soviet air defences meant it would only be able to fly safely over the Soviet Union for between 18 months and two years. After overflights began and the Soviets demonstrated the ability to track and attempt to intercept the U-2, this estimate was adjusted downward. In August 1956, Richard Bissell reduced it to six months.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: To extend the useful life of the U-2, the CIA implemented Project Rainbow, which added various countermeasures to confuse Soviet radars and make interception more difficult. There were two anti-radar methods. First, a diffusing coating for the fuselage; second, a series of wires strung along the fuselage and the wing edges intended to cancel radar reflections from the airframe by transmitting a similar return but out-of-phase. Several Rainbow-equipped flights were made, but the Soviets were able to track the aircraft. The weight of the equipment lowered the aircraft's maximum cruise altitude, making it more vulnerable to interception. Rainbow was cancelled in 1958.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: As early as 1956 Bissell had already started looking for an entirely new aircraft to replace the U-2, with an emphasis on reducing the radar cross-section (RCS) as much as possible. High-altitude flight would still be useful to avoid interception by aircraft, but did little to help against missiles. By reducing the RCS, the radars guiding the missiles would have less time to track the aircraft, complicating the attack.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: In August 1957 these studies turned to examining supersonic designs, as it was realized that supersonic aircraft were very difficult to track on radars of that era. This was due to an effect known as the blip-to-scan ratio, which refers to the "blip" generated by an aircraft on the radar display. In order to filter out random noise from the display, radar operators would turn down the amplification of the radar signal so that fleeting returns would not be bright enough to see. Returns from real targets, like an aircraft, would become visible as multiple radar pulses all drawn onto the same location on the screen, and produced a single, brighter spot. If the aircraft was moving at very high speeds, the returns would be spread out on the display. Like random noise, these returns would become invisible.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: By 1957 so many ideas had been submitted that Bissell arranged for the formation of a new advisory committee to study the concepts, led by Edwin H. Land under the designation Project Gusto. The committee first met in November to arrange for submissions. At their next meeting, on 23 July 1958, several submissions were studied.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: Kelly Johnson of Lockheed presented the Archangel I design, which could cruise at Mach 3 for extended periods to take advantage of blip/scan spoofing, although it was not designed for reduced RCS. Convair proposed a parasite aircraft that was launched in the air from a larger version of their B-58 Hustler that was then being studied, the B-58B. The Navy introduced a submarine-launched inflatable rubber vehicle that would be lifted to altitude by a balloon, boosted to speed by rockets, and then cruise using ramjets. Johnson was asked to provide a second opinion on the Navy design, and the committee arranged to meet again shortly.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: At the next meeting, in September 1958, the designs had been further refined. Johnson reported on the Navy concept and demonstrated that it would require a balloon a mile wide for launching. The submission was then dropped. Boeing presented a new design for a liquid hydrogen powered inflatable design. Lockheed presented several designs; the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan looked like a scaled-up F-104 Starfighter powered by wingtip-mounted hydrogen-burning engines, the G2A was a subsonic design with a low radar cross-section, and the A-2 was a delta wing design using ramjets powered by zip fuel. Convair entered their parasite design, slightly upgraded and intended to fly at Mach 4.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: Convair's parasite design was derived from the Super Hustler concept that Convair had proposed to the Air Force. The original version had been a two-part design, the rear portion being an unmanned booster powered by a pair of ramjets, and the front portion a manned aircraft with a single ramjet. The Super Hustler could either be launched from under a B-58B Hustler bomber or from a ground trailer using a booster. For the air launch, the Super Hustler would be carried to a speed of Mach 2 at , and released. All three ramjets would fire for "boost", after which the rear portion would fall away. The unmanned booster could also be used as a weapon, if armed.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: For Project Gusto, the concept had been simplified and reduced to a single aircraft. Code-named "FISH" or First Invisible Super Hustler, the aircraft was based on a lifting body design that bears some resemblance to the ASSET spacecraft of a few years later. It differed in having the nose taper down to a flat horizontal line instead of the rounded delta of the ASSET, and the fuselage was not as large at the rear. Two vertical control surfaces were placed on either side of the fuselage at the rear, and a small delta wing covered about the rear third of the aircraft. It was to be powered by two Marquardt RJ-59 ramjets during the cruise phase, providing a cruise speed of Mach 4 at , climbing to as it burned off fuel. To endure the intense heat generated by aerodynamic heating at these speeds, the leading edges of the nose and wings were built of a new "pyroceram" ceramic material, while the rest of the fuselage was made of a honeycomb structure stainless steel similar to the material for the proposed XB-70 Valkyrie. After completing its mission, the aircraft would return to friendly airspace, slow, and then open intakes for two small jet engines for the return flight at subsonic speeds.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: Lockheed's entry had also changed during the research phase. Their original submission was the Archangel II (A-2), another ramjet-powered design, but one that was ground-launched using large jet engines.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: The committee did not find either entry particularly interesting, and when the B-58B was cancelled by the Air Force in 1959, the entire FISH concept was put in jeopardy. There was some design work on converting the existing A-model Hustlers as FISH carriers, but the aircraft appeared to have limited capabilities for launching the FISH, and the Air Force was unwilling to part with any of their bombers. The committee asked both companies to return with another round of entries powered by the Pratt & Whitney J58 turbo-ramjet.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: After cancellation of the B-58B in mid-1959, Convair turned to a completely new design, similar to their earlier entry in name only. The new "Kingfish" design had much in common with the Convair F-106 Delta Dart, using a classic delta wing layout like most of Convair's products. It differed in having two of the J58 engines buried in the rear fuselage, and twin vertical surfaces at the rear. The intakes and exhausts were arranged to reduce radar cross section, and the entire aircraft had the same sort of angular appearance as the later Lockheed F-117. The leading edges of the wings and intakes continued to use pyroceram, while other portions used a variety of materials selected for low radar reflection, including fiberglass. The new engines reduced the cruise speed to Mach 3.2, compared to Mach 4.2 for the FISH, but range was increased to about 3,400 nm (6,300 km).


title: Convair Kingfish

text: In July 1959, Lockheed and Convair presented preliminary designs and RCS estimates to the review panel. Lockheed's was designated the A-12, and was a variation of their A-11 design. President Eisenhower was briefed on 20 July and he approved moving ahead with a final decision. On 20 August, the companies presented their final designs for Kingfish and the A-12. Lockheed's design was estimated to have longer range, higher altitude and lower cost. Johnson expressed skepticism of Convair's claimed RCS, and complained that they had given up performance to achieve it: "Convair have promised reduced radar cross section on an airplane the size of A-12. They are doing this, in my view, with total disregard for aerodynamics, inlet and afterburner performance."


title: Convair Kingfish

text: On 28 August 1959, Johnson was notified that the A-12 had been selected. The decision was based not only on aircraft performance but also on contractor performance. During the U-2 project, Lockheed had proven its ability to design advanced aircraft in secret, on-time, and under-budget. In contrast, Convair had massive cost overruns with the B-58 and no secure R&D facility similar to the Skunk Works. Lockheed promised to lower the RCS in a modified version of the A-11 known as the A-12, and that sealed the deal. The A-12 entered service with the CIA in the 1960s, and was slightly modified to become the Air Force's SR-71.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: Some small-scale work on the Kingfish continued even after the choice of the A-12, in case the A-12 ran into problems. This did not occur, and the Kingfish funds soon dried up.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: The CIA continued studies into even higher performance aircraft, and studied replacing the A-12 under Project Isinglass. Isinglass focused on a new design blending features of the General Dynamics F-111 and Kingfish. The new design aimed to produce a reconnaissance aircraft capable of reaching up to Mach 5 at an altitude of . The CIA decided that the extra performance would not be enough to protect it from missile systems already capable of attacking the A-12, and nothing came of the project.


title: Convair Kingfish

text: The concept of spoofing radars through their blip/scan was ultimately ineffective. Among other issues, it was discovered that the engine exhaust produced significant reflections. Lockheed proposed adding cesium to the jet fuel to generate a cloud of ions that would help mask them. In addition, since the spoofing relied on deficiencies in the radar display systems, upgrading them could render the entire concept moot. In the end, the A-12 was considered vulnerable and was only flown over secondary foes like Vietnam. The failure of the A-12's attempts to avoid radar was demonstrated when the Vietnamese proved able to track the A-12 with some ease, firing on several of them and causing minor damage on one occasion in 1967.


title: The China Probrem

text: "The China Probrem" is the eighth episode in the twelfth season of the American animated television series "South Park". The 175th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 8, 2008. It was the mid-season premiere for season 12, and was dedicated to Isaac Hayes, the voice actor of Chef, who died on August 10 of that year. The episode was rated TV-MA-LSV for strong language, sexual content, and violence in the United States.