title: Francis Galton

texts:
 of human characteristics are useful for two reasons. First, he states that measuring physical characteristics is useful in order to ensure, on a more domestic level, that children are developing properly. A useful example he gives for the practicality of these domestic measurements is regularly checking a child's eyesight, in order to correct any deficiencies early on. The second use for the data from his anthropometric laboratory is for statistical studies. He comments on the usefulness of the collected data to compare attributes across occupations, residences, races, etc. The exhibit at the health exhibition allowed <mask> to collect a large amount of raw data from which to conduct further comparative studies.He had 9,337 respondents, each measured in 17 categories, creating a rather comprehensive statistical database. After the conclusion of the International Health Exhibition, Galton used these data to confirm in humans his theory of linear regression, posed after studying sweet peas. The accumulation of this human data allowed him to observe the correlation between forearm length and height, head width and head breadth, and head length and height. With these observations he was able to write Co-relations and their Measurements, chiefly from Anthropometric Data. In this publication, <mask> defined what co-relation as a phenomenon that occurs when "the variation of the one [variable] is accompanied on the average by more or less variation of the other, and in the same direction." Innovations in statistics and psychological theory

Historiometry
The method used in Hereditary Genius has been described as the first example of historiometry. To bolster these results, and to attempt to make a


title: Francis Galton

type: original

texts:
 distinction between 'nature' and 'nurture' (he was the first to apply this phrase to the topic), he devised a questionnaire that he sent out to 190 Fellows of the Royal Society.He tabulated characteristics of their families, such as birth order and the occupation and race of their parents. He attempted to discover whether their interest in science was 'innate' or due to the encouragements of others. The studies were published as a book, English men of science: their nature and nurture, in 1874. In the end, it promoted the nature versus nurture question, though it did not settle it, and provided some fascinating data on the sociology of scientists of the time. The lexical hypothesis
Sir <mask> was the first scientist to recognise what is now known as the lexical hypothesis. This is the idea that the most salient and socially relevant personality differences in people's lives will eventually become encoded into language. The hypothesis further suggests that by sampling language, it is possible to derive a comprehensive taxonomy of human personality traits.The questionnaire
<mask>'s inquiries into the mind involved detailed recording of people's subjective accounts of whether and how their minds dealt with phenomena such as mental imagery. To better elicit this information, he pioneered the use of the questionnaire. In one study, he asked his fellow members of the Royal Society of London to describe mental images that they experienced. In another, he collected in-depth surveys from eminent scientists for a work examining the effects of nature and nurture on the propensity toward scientific thinking. Variance and standard deviation
Core to any statistical analysis is the concept that measurements

masks: Francis Galton


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 vary: they have both a central tendency, or mean, and a spread around this central value, or variance. In the late 1860s, <mask> conceived of a measure to quantify normal variation: the standard deviation. <mask> was a keen observer.In 1906, visiting a livestock fair, he stumbled upon an intriguing contest. An ox was on display, and the villagers were invited to guess the animal's weight after it was slaughtered and dressed. Nearly 800 participated, and <mask> was able to study their individual entries after the event. Galton stated that "the middlemost estimate expresses the vox populi, every other estimate being condemned as too low or too high by a majority of the voters", and reported this value (the median, in terminology he himself had introduced, but chose not to use on this occasion) as 1,207 pounds. To his surprise, this was within 0.8% of the weight measured by the judges. Soon afterwards, in response to an enquiry, he reported the mean of the guesses as 1,197 pounds, but did not comment on its improved accuracy. Recent archival research has found some slips in transmitting Galton's calculations to the original article in Nature: the median was actually 1,208 pounds, and the dressed weight of the ox 1,197 pounds, so the mean estimate had zero error.James Surowiecki uses this weight-judging competition as his opening example: had he known the true result, his conclusion on the wisdom of the crowd would no doubt have been more strongly expressed. The same year, <mask> suggested in a letter to the journal Nature a better method of cutting a round cake by avoiding making radial incisions. Experimental derivation of the normal distribution

Studying variation, <mask> invented the Galton

masks: Galton Galton Galton Galton Galton


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 board, a pachinko-like device also known as the bean machine, as a tool for demonstrating the law of error and the normal distribution. Bivariate normal distribution
He also discovered the properties of the bivariate normal distribution and its relationship to correlation and regression analysis. Correlation and regression

In 1846, the French physicist Auguste Bravais (1811–1863) first developed what would become the correlation coefficient. After examining forearm and height measurements, <mask> independently rediscovered the concept of correlation in 1888 and demonstrated its application in the study of heredity, anthropology, and psychology. Galton's later statistical study of the probability of extinction of surnames led to the concept of Galton–Watson stochastic processes.<mask> invented the use of the regression line and for the choice of r (for reversion or regression) to represent the correlation coefficient. In the 1870s and 1880s he was a pioneer in the use of normal theory to fit histograms and ogives to actual tabulated data, much of which he collected himself: for instance large samples of sibling and parental height. Consideration of the results from these empirical studies led to his further insights into evolution, natural selection, and regression to the mean. Regression toward the mean
Galton was the first to describe and explain the common phenomenon of regression toward the mean, which he first observed in his experiments on the size of the seeds of successive generations of sweet peas. The conditions under which regression toward the mean occurs depend on the way the term is mathematically defined. Galton first observed the phenomenon in the context of simple linear

masks: Galton Galton


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 regression of data points. Galton developed the following model: pellets fall through a quincunx or "bean machine" forming a normal distribution centered directly under their entrance point.These pellets could then be released down into a second gallery (corresponding to a second measurement occasion). Galton then asked the reverse question "from where did these pellets come?" Theories of perception
Galton went beyond measurement and summary to attempt to explain the phenomena he observed. Among such developments, he proposed an early theory of ranges of sound and hearing, and collected large quantities of anthropometric data from the public through his popular and long-running Anthropometric Laboratory, which he established in 1884, and where he studied over 9,000 people. It was not until 1985 that these data were analysed in their entirety. He made a beauty map of Britain, based on a secret grading of the local women on a scale from attractive to repulsive. The lowest point was in Aberdeen.Differential psychology

<mask>'s study of human abilities ultimately led to the foundation of differential psychology and the formulation of the first mental tests. He was interested in measuring humans in every way possible. This included measuring their ability to make sensory discrimination which he assumed was linked to intellectual prowess. Galton suggested that individual differences in general ability are reflected in performance on relatively simple sensory capacities and in speed of reaction to a stimulus, variables that could be objectively measured by tests of sensory discrimination and reaction
time. He also measured how quickly people reacted which he later linked to internal wiring which


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 ultimately limited intelligence ability. Throughout his research Galton assumed that people who reacted faster were more intelligent than others. Composite photography
Galton also devised a technique called "composite portraiture" (produced by superimposing multiple photographic portraits of individuals' faces registered on their eyes) to create an average face (see averageness).In the 1990s, a hundred years after his discovery, much psychological research has examined the attractiveness of these faces, an aspect that <mask> had remarked on in his original lecture. Others, including Sigmund Freud in his work on dreams, picked up <mask>'s suggestion that these composites might represent a useful metaphor for an Ideal type or a concept of a "natural kind" (see Eleanor Rosch)—such as Jewish men, criminals, patients with tuberculosis, etc.—onto the same photographic plate, thereby yielding a blended whole, or "composite", that he hoped could generalise the facial appearance of his subject into an "average" or "central type". (See also entry Modern physiognomy under Physiognomy). This work began in the 1880s while the Jewish scholar Joseph Jacobs studied anthropology and statistics with <mask>. Jacobs asked Galton to create a composite photograph of a Jewish type. One of Jacobs' first publications that used Galton's composite imagery was "The Jewish Type, and Galton's Composite Photographs," Photographic News, 29, (24 April 1885): 268–269. Galton hoped his technique would aid medical diagnosis, and even criminology through the identification of typical criminal faces.However, his technique did not prove useful and fell into disuse, although after much work on it including by photographers Lewis

masks:
Galton
Galton
Francis Galton


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 Hine and John L. Lovell and Arthur Batut. Fingerprints
In a Royal Institution paper in 1888 and three books (Finger Prints, 1892; Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints, 1893; and Fingerprint Directories, 1895), Galton estimated the probability of two persons having the same fingerprint and studied the heritability and racial differences in fingerprints. He wrote about the technique (inadvertently sparking a controversy between Herschel and Faulds that was to last until 1917), identifying common pattern in fingerprints and devising a classification system that survives to this day. The method of identifying criminals by their fingerprints had been introduced in the 1860s by Sir William James Herschel in India, and their potential use in forensic work was first proposed by Dr Henry Faulds in 1880. Galton was introduced to the field by his half-cousin Charles Darwin, who was a friend of Faulds's, and he went on to create the first scientific footing for the study (which assisted its acceptance by the courts) although Galton did not ever give credit that the original idea was not his. Galton pointed out that there were specific types of fingerprint patterns. He described and classified them into eight broad categories: 1: plain arch, 2: tented arch, 3: simple loop, 4: central pocket loop, 5: double loop, 6: lateral pocket loop, 7: plain whorl, and 8: accidental.Final years

In an effort to reach a wider audience, <mask> worked on a novel entitled Kantsaywhere from May until December 1910. The novel described a utopia organised by a eugenic religion, designed to breed fitter and smarter humans. His unpublished notebooks show that this was an expansion of material he had been composing since at


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 least 1901. He offered it to Methuen for publication, but they showed little enthusiasm. <mask> wrote to his niece that it should be either "smothered or superseded". His niece appears to have burnt most of the novel, offended by the love scenes, but large fragments survived, and it was published online by University College, London. Galton is buried in the family tomb in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, in the village of Claverdon, Warwickshire.Personal life and character
In January 1853, <mask> met Louisa Jane Butler (1822–1897) at his neighbour's home and they were married on 1 August 1853. The union of 43 years proved childless. It has been written of Galton that "On his own estimation he was a supremely intelligent man." Later in life, Galton proposed a connection between genius and insanity based on his own experience:

Awards and influence
Over the course of his career Galton received many awards, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1910). He received in 1853 the Founder's Medal, the highest award of the Royal Geographical Society, for his explorations and map-making of southwest Africa. He was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club in 1855 and made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1860. His autobiography also lists:

 Silver Medal, French Geographical Society (1854)
 Gold Medal of the Royal Society (1886)
 Officier de l'Instruction Publique, France (1891)
 D.C.L.Oxford (1894)
 Sc.D. (Honorary), Cambridge (1895)
 Huxley Medal, Anthropological Institute (1901)
 Elected Hon. Fellow Trinity College, Cambridge (1902)
 Darwin Medal, Royal Society (1902)
 Linnean Society of London's Darwin–Wallace Medal (1908)

<mask> was knighted in 1909. His statistical heir Karl

masks: Galton Galton Galton


title: Francis Galton

texts:
 Pearson, first holder of the Galton Chair of Eugenics at University College, London (now Galton Chair of Genetics), wrote a three-volume biography of <mask>, in four parts, after his death. The flowering plant genus Galtonia was named after Galton. University College London has in the twenty-first century been involved in a historical inquiry into its role as the institutional birthplace of eugenics. Galton established a laboratory at UCL in 1904.Some students and staff have called on the university to rename its Galton lecture theatre. "Galton's seductive promise was of a bold new world filled only with beautiful, intelligent, productive people. The scientists in its thrall claimed this could be achieved by controlling reproduction, policing borders to prevent certain types of immigrants, and locking away "undesirables", including disabled people." Published works

See also
 A Large Attendance in the Antechamber, a play about Galton
 Darwin–Wedgwood family
 Efficacy of prayer
 Eugenics in the United States
 Historiometry
 Racial hygiene
 British people

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links

 <mask>'s Complete Works at Galton.org (including all his published books, all his published scientific papers, and popular periodical and newspaper writing, as well as other previously unpublished work and biographical material). Biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
 History and Mathematics
 Human Memory – University of Amsterdam website with test based on the work of Galton
  from Index Funds Advisors IFA.com
Catalogue of the Galton papers held at UCL Archives
Galton's novel Kantsaywhere

, demonstrated by


title: Mel Trotter

texts:
<mask> (May 16, 1870–September 11, 1940) was a former alcoholic who founded and directed the Grand Rapids, Michigan City Rescue Mission for more than forty years and became a leader in American fundamentalism during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Early life
<mask> was one of seven children born in Orangeville, Illinois to a bartender who drank "as much as he served." In 1887, the family moved to Freeport, Illinois where Trotter became a barber and was shortly thereafter gambling and drinking heavily. Four years later in Pearl City, Iowa, Trotter married Lottie Fisher, who was horrified to discover that her husband was an alcoholic. Trotter later said, "I loathed the life I was living. I tried my level best, but it wasn’t in me." Trotter lost his job in Pearl City, and he and his wife moved to a more rural area in an attempt to help him stay sober.He lost another job and they both moved to Davenport, Iowa, where <mask> tried his hand at selling insurance, a job he lost the day after his son was born. Trotter began leaving home for weeks at a time, and when he returned after one period of drunkenness, he discovered his two-year-old dead. Believing that he bore the responsibility for the child's death, he considered suicide. He stood beside the coffin and swore that he would never touch liquor again. Two hours later he was staggering drunk. Hopping a train, he landed in Chicago in January 1897 where he sold his shoes to buy another drink. Drunk, broke, and shoeless in the snow, Trotter was nudged inside the Pacific Garden Mission, where he was converted after hearing the testimony of its director, Harry Monroe.Trotter got a barbering job and

masks:
Melvin Ernest Trotter
Mel Trotter
Mel


title: Mel Trotter

texts:
 spent every night at the mission. He could play the guitar and sing, and he and Monroe represented the Mission at its supporting churches. Ministry
In 1900, Grand Rapids businessmen decided to establish a rescue mission in the city's ramshackle red-light district, and Monroe suggested <mask>—who had never even led a mission meeting—as the director. Conversions occurred at the mission almost immediately when it opened under Trotter's direction, and Trotter found he could preach and also manage the toughs who tried to disrupt the proceedings. On one occasion he had the crowd sing “More About Jesus” while he tossed the hooligans into the street. Trotter won Herb Sillaway, another drunken barber, to Christ, and Sillaway then got drunk six times in four weeks and tried to drown himself. Trotter found him in jail in wet clothes and said nothing, just stood in front of him and wept.Sillaway said, "My God, man, I believe you love me." Trotter replied, "Yes, Herb, I love you like I love my own soul." Sillaway eventually became Trotter's assistant. In 1905, Trotter was ordained by the Presbyterian Church, although even the ordination committee admitted that the ordination (and to some degree, Trotter's theology) was unorthodox. Within a few years, Trotter had the largest rescue mission in the United States, and in 1906, the organization purchased the local burlesque house in order to provide more space for its varied ministries. The Mission Sunday School soon had an attendance of three to five hundred children, who were often fed and clothed as well as evangelized. By 1913, the mission held twenty-three meetings a week, and the building was in constant use


title: Mel Trotter

texts:
 colloquial speech in his sermons. ("Lots of people go bugs on religion, but nobody ever went crazy on Christianity.") In 1935, Bob Jones College conferred an honorary doctorate on him.In 1937, he appeared with Harry A. Ironside in England. In 1939, <mask> suffered a severe heart attack in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and died at his summer cottage near Holland, Michigan in 1940. Ironside was the presiding minister at his funeral. He was buried at the Graceland Mausoleum in Grand Rapids. His papers are at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College. At his funeral in 1940, many of <mask>'s friends described what made him a unique personality. One recalled that he would pray with an alcoholic, "then stand him on his feet and say, 'Now go home and get the wife and kiddies and come down to the Mission tonight.'Then as they parted, he would slip a dollar bill or a silver dollar in the poor drunkard's hand. I heard one of those men say, as he stood outside the Mission door, after such a parting, 'I will die before I spend this dollar for booze.'" The mission he founded, Mel Trotter Ministries, is still operating today. References

Bibliography

Leona Hertel, Man with a Mission:  <mask> and His Legacy for the Rescue Mission Movement (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2000). <mask><mask>, These Forty Years (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1939). Fred C. Zarfas, <mask>: A Biography (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1950). Short biography at MelTrotter.org

People from Stephenson County, Illinois
1870 births
1940 deaths
People from Grand Rapids, Michigan
Christian fundamentalists
American Presbyterian ministers
American evangelists
Wheaton

masks:
Trotter
Trotter
Mel Trotter
Melvin E
. Trotter
Mel Trotter


title: Rachel Corrie

texts: <mask> (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American activist and diarist. A member of the pro-Palestinian group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored bulldozer in a southern Gaza Strip combat zone during the height of the second Palestinian intifada under contested circumstances. She had gone to Gaza as part of her college senior-year independent-study proposal to connect her home town and Rafah as sister cities. While there, she had joined other ISM activists in efforts to prevent the Israeli army's demolition of Palestinian houses. According to the Israeli authorities the demolitions were carried out to eliminate weapons-smuggling tunnels. According to human rights groups the demolitions were used as collective punishment. The exact nature of her death and the culpability of the bulldozer operator are disputed, with fellow ISM protestors saying that the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran over Corrie, and Israeli eyewitnesses saying that it was an accident since the bulldozer operator could not see her.The Israeli army conducted an investigation, which concluded that the death was an accident, and that the driver of the bulldozer could not see <mask> due to limited visibility from his cab. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch  as well as B'Tselem and Yesh Din criticized the military investigation. In 2005, <mask>'s parents filed a civil lawsuit against the state of Israel. The lawsuit charged Israel with not conducting a full and credible investigation into the case and with responsibility for her death, contending that she had either been

masks:
Rachel Aliene Corrie
Corrie
Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 intentionally killed or that the soldiers had acted with reckless neglect. They sued for a symbolic one US dollar in damages. An Israeli court rejected their suit in August 2012 and upheld the results of the 2003 military investigation, ruling that the Israeli government was not responsible for <mask>'s death. The ruling was met with criticism by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,  and by activists.An appeal against this ruling was heard on May 21, 2014. On February 14, 2015, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected the appeal. Early life
<mask> was born on April 10, 1979, and raised in Olympia, Washington, United States. She was the youngest of three children of <mask>, an insurance executive, and <mask>. Cindy describes their family as "average Americans—politically liberal, economically conservative, middle class". After graduating from Capital High School, <mask> went on to attend The Evergreen State College, also in Olympia, where she took a number of arts courses. She took a year off from her studies to work as a volunteer in the Washington State Conservation Corps.According to the ISM, she spent three years making weekly visits to mental patients. While at Evergreen State College she became a "committed peace activist" arranging peace events through a local pro-ISM group called "Olympians for Peace and Solidarity". She later joined the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) organisation in order to protest the policies of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In her senior year, she "proposed an independent-study program in which she would travel to Gaza, join the ISM team, and initiate a

masks:
Corrie
Corrie
Craig Corrie
Cindy Corrie
Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 'sister city' project between Olympia and Rafah". Before leaving, she also organized a pen-pal program between children in Olympia and Rafah. Activities in the Palestinian territories

While in Rafah, <mask> stood in front of armored bulldozers, in an alleged attempt to impede house demolitions which were being carried out. Demolitions were a common tactic employed along the security road near the border between Israel and Egypt at Rafah to uncover explosive devices and destroy tunnels used by terrorists to smuggle weapons from Egypt to Gaza.These military operations were criticized as "collective punishment" by some human rights groups. Israel authorities said that demolitions were necessary because "Palestinian gunmen used the structures as cover to shoot at their troops patrolling in the area, or to conceal arms-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border." <mask> was a member of a group of about eight activists from outside of the Palestinian territories who tried to prevent the Israeli army's activities by acting as human shields. On <mask>'s first night there, she and two other ISM members set up camp inside Block J, which the ISM described as "a densely populated neighborhood along the Pink Line and frequent target of gunfire from an Israeli watchtower". By situating themselves visibly between the Palestinians and the Israeli snipers manning the watchtowers they hoped to discourage shooting by displaying banners stating that they were "internationals". When Israeli soldiers fired warning shots, <mask> and her colleagues dismantled their tent and left the area. Qishta, a Palestinian who worked as an interpreter, noted: "Late January and

masks: Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 February was a very crazy time.There were house demolitions taking place all over the border strip and the activists had no time to do anything else." Qishta also stated of the ISM activists: "They were not only brave; they were crazy." The safety of the protestors was frequently jeopardized by these confrontations— a British participant was wounded by shrapnel while retrieving the body of a Palestinian man killed by a sniper, and an Irish ISM activist had a close encounter with an armored bulldozer. Palestinian militants expressed concern that the "internationals" staying in tents between the Israeli watchtowers and the residential neighborhoods would get caught in crossfire, while other residents were concerned that the activists might be spies. To overcome this suspicion <mask> learned a few words of Arabic and participated in a mock trial denouncing the "crimes of the Bush Administration". While the ISM members were eventually provided with food and housing, a letter was circulated in Rafah that cast suspicion on them. "Who are they?Why are they here? Who asked them to come here?" On the morning of <mask>'s death they planned to counteract the letter's effects. According to one of them, "We all had a feeling that our role was too passive. We talked about how to engage the Israeli military." Water well protecting efforts
According to a January 2003 article by Gordon Murray, a fellow ISM activist, in the last month of her life <mask> "spent a lot of time at the Canada Well helping protect Rafah municipal workers" who were trying to repair damage to the well done by Israeli bulldozers. Canada Well was built in 1999 with CIDA funding.It, along with El

masks: Corrie Corrie Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 Iskan Well, had supplied more than 50% of Rafah's water before the damage. The city had been under "strict rationing (only a few hours of running water on alternate days)" since. Murray writes that ISM activists were maintaining a presence there since "Israeli snipers and tanks routinely shot at civilian workers trying to repair the wells." In one of her reports, <mask> wrote that despite her group's having received permission from the Israeli District Command Office and the fact that they were carrying "banners and megaphones the activists and workers were fired upon several times over a period of about one hour. One of the bullets came within two metres of three internationals and a municipal water worker close enough to spray bits of debris in their faces as it landed at their feet." Controversy over protest against the Iraq War
While in Gaza, <mask> took part in a demonstration as part of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion of Iraq. She was photographed burning a makeshift U.S. flag.After her death the ISM released a statement quoting <mask>'s parents on the widely circulated picture of the incident:

In the words of <mask>'s parents: "The act, while we may disagree with it, must be put into context. <mask> was partaking in a demonstration in Gaza opposing the War on Iraq. She was working with children who drew two pictures, one of the American flag, and one of the Israeli flag, for burning. <mask> said that she could not bring herself to burn the picture of the Israeli flag with the Star of David on it, but under such circumstances, in protest over a drive towards war and her government's foreign policy that was responsible

masks: Corrie Corrie Corrie Rachel Rachel Rachel


title: Rachel Corrie

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 for much of the devastation that she was witness to in Gaza, she felt it OK to burn the picture of her own flag. We have seen photographs of memorials held in Gaza after <mask>'s death in which Palestinian children and adults honor our daughter by carrying a mock coffin draped with the American flag. We have been told that our flag has never been treated so respectfully in Gaza in recent years. We believe <mask> brought a different face of the United States to the Palestinian people, a face of compassion.It is this image of <mask> with the American flag that we hope will be remembered most. <mask>'s emails from Gaza to her mother
<mask> sent a series of emails to her mother while she was in Gaza, four of which were later published by The Guardian. In January 2008, Norton published a book titled Let Me Stand Alone by <mask>, which included the e-mails along with some of her other writings. Yale Professor David Bromwich said that <mask> left "letters of great interest". The play My Name is <mask> and the cantata The Skies are Weeping were based on <mask>'s letters. Death and subsequent controversy

On March 16, 2003, the IDF was engaged in an operation involving the demolition of Palestinian houses in Rafah. <mask> was part of a group of three British and four American ISM activists attempting to disrupt the IDF operation.<mask> placed herself in the path of a Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer in the area and was run over by the bulldozer and fatally injured. After she was injured she was taken by a Red Crescent ambulance to the Palestinian Najar hospital, arriving at the emergency room at 5:05 pm, still alive but in critical condition. At 5:20 pm she

masks:
Rachel
Rachel
Rachel
Corrie
Rachel Corrie
Corrie
Corrie
Rachel Corrie
Corrie
Corrie
Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 was declared dead. The events surrounding <mask>'s death are disputed. Fellow ISM activists said that the soldier operating the bulldozer deliberately ran <mask> over while she was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the home of local pharmacist Samir Nasrallah. They said she was between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah's home, in which ISM activists had spent the night several times. Israeli eyewitnesses maintain that the death was accidental because the bulldozer operator was unable to see <mask> due to the vehicle's obstructed view.Furthermore, Israeli witnesses maintain that <mask> was not defending a house from being demolished and was instead inhibiting a military operation to find contraband weapons and smuggling tunnels in Gaza. An IDF officer testified in court that on that day they were only clearing vegetation and rubble from houses that were previously demolished, and that no new houses were slated for demolition. The major points of dispute are whether the bulldozer operator saw <mask> and whether her injuries were caused by being crushed under the blade or by the mound of debris the bulldozer was pushing. An IDF spokesman has acknowledged that Israeli army regulations normally require that the operators of the armored personnel carriers (APCs) that accompany bulldozers are responsible for directing the operators towards their targets because the Caterpillar D9 bulldozers have a restricted field of vision with several blind spots. ISM accounts
ISM activist Richard Purssell testified, "[t]hey began demolishing one house. We gathered around and called out to them and went into the house, so they backed out. During

masks: Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

texts:
 the entire time they knew who we were and what we were doing, because they didn't shoot at us.We stood in their way and shouted. There were about eight of us in an area about 70 square meters. Suddenly, we saw they turned to a house they had started to demolish before, and I saw <mask> standing in the way of the front bulldozer." Human-rights activists and Palestinians say that the demolitions had also been accompanied by gunfire from Israeli snipers. The director of Rafah's hospital, Dr. Ali Moussa said that 240 Palestinians, including 78 children, had been killed since the Al-Aqsa Intifada began in 2001: "Every night there is shooting at houses in which children are sleeping, without any attacks from Palestinians." The United Nations said that 582 Rafah homes were demolished and 721 damaged, with 5,305 people made homeless. An ISM activist using the name "Richard", saying he had witnessed <mask>'s death, told Haaretz:

There's no way he didn't see her, since she was practically looking into the cabin.At one stage, he turned around toward the building. The bulldozer kept moving, and she slipped and fell off the plow. But the bulldozer kept moving, the shovel above her. I guess it was about 10 or 15 meters that it dragged her and for some reason didn't stop. We shouted like crazy to the operator through loudspeakers that he should stop, but he just kept going and didn't lift the shovel. Then it stopped and backed up. We ran to <mask>.She was still breathing. Eyewitness and ISM member Tom Dale, commenting on the 2012 verdict said: "Whatever one thinks about the visibility from a D9 bulldozer, it is inconceivable that at some point the driver did not see

masks: Rachel Corrie Rachel


title: Rachel Corrie

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 her, given the distance from which he approached, while she stood, unmoving, in front of it. As I told the court, just before she was crushed, <mask> briefly stood on top of the rolling mound of earth which had gathered in front of the bulldozer: her head was above the level of the blade, and just a few meters from the driver." Joe Carr, an American ISM activist who used the assumed name of Joseph Smith during his time in Gaza, gave the following account in an affidavit recorded and published by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR):

Still wearing her fluorescent jacket, she knelt down at least 15 meters in front of the bulldozer, and began waving her arms and shouting, just as activists had successfully done dozens of times that day.... When it got so close that it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of rubble being pushed by the bulldozer.... Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer's blade, and the bulldozer operator and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, the operator continued forward, which caused her to fall back, out of view of the driver.He continued forward, and she tried to scoot back, but was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer. We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted; one activist with the megaphone. But the bulldozer operator continued forward, until <mask> was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer. On March 18, 2003, two days after <mask>'s death, Joe (Smith) Carr was interviewed by British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan for a documentary, The Killing Zone, which aired in June 2003. He stated, "It was either a really gross

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title: Rachel Corrie

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 mistake or a really brutal murder." According to The Seattle Times, "Smith, who witnessed Sunday's incident, said it began when <mask> sat down in front of the bulldozer. He said the operator scooped her up with a pile of earth, dumped her on the ground and ran over her twice."However, "Smith" later acknowledged that after <mask> fell down the dirt pile, the bulldozer operator could well have lost sight of <mask>. Israeli accounts
The bulldozer operator was interviewed on Israeli TV and insisted he had no idea she was in front of him:
You can't hear, you can't see well. You can go over something and you'll never know. I scooped up some earth, I couldn't see anything. I pushed the earth, and I didn't see her at all. Maybe she was hiding in there. The IDF produced a video about <mask>'s death that includes footage taken from inside the cockpit of a D9.The video makes a "credible case", wrote Joshua Hammer in Mother Jones, that "the operators, peering out through narrow, double-glazed, bulletproof windows, their view obscured behind pistons and the giant scooper, might not have seen <mask> kneeling in front of them". In April 2011, during the trial of the civil suit brought by <mask>'s parents, an IDF officer testified that <mask> and other activists had spent hours trying to block the bulldozers under his command. He went on to say that it was a war zone "where Palestinian militants used abandoned homes as firing positions and exploited foreign activists for cover". He shouted over a megaphone for the activists to leave, tried to use tear gas to disperse them and moved his troops several times. "To my regret, after the eighth time, (<mask>) hid behind an

masks: Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie Corrie


title: Rachel Corrie

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 earth embankment. The D9 operator didn't see her. She thought he saw her," he said.An infantry major later testified that the activists were endangering troops and had ignored numerous warnings to leave the area. The judge in the <mask> case asserted that between September 2000 and the date of <mask>'s death, Israeli forces in the area had been subjected to 1,400 attacks involving gunfire, 150 involving explosive devices, 200 involving anti-tank rockets, and 6,000 involving hand grenades or mortar fire. Autopsy
Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon promised President Bush a "thorough, credible, and transparent investigation". Later, Capt. Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli army, called <mask>'s death a "regrettable accident" and said that she and the other ISM activists were "a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger—the Palestinians, themselves and our forces—by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone". An autopsy was conducted on March 24 at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv by Chief Pathologist Yehuda Hiss. The final report was not released publicly, but in their report on the matter Human Rights Watch says a copy was provided to them by <mask>, with a translation supplied by the U.S. Department of State.In the report they quote Hiss as concluding, "Her death was caused by pressure on the chest (mechanical asphyxiation) with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae of the dorsal spinal column and scapulas, and tear wounds in the right lung with hemorrhaging of the pleural cavities." Military investigation
The Israeli army's report [seen by The Guardian], said:

On June 26, 2003, The

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title: Rachel Corrie

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 Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that <mask> had not been run over and that the operator had not seen her:
The driver at no point saw or heard <mask>. She was standing behind debris which obstructed the view of the driver and the driver had a very limited field of vision due to the protective cage he was working in.... The driver and his commanders were interrogated extensively over a long period of time with the use of polygraph tests and video evidence. They had no knowledge that she was standing in the path of the tractor. An autopsy of <mask>'s body revealed that the cause of death was from falling debris and not from the tractor physically rolling over her. It was a tragic accident that never should have happened.The classified IDF report made no mention of the pathologist's conclusion. Howard Blume told that IDF stated:

[a bulldozer with 2 crews] was engaged in "routine terrain leveling and debris clearing", not building demolition. Quoting from the IDF report, <mask> died "as a result of injuries sustained when earth and debris accidentally fell on her.... Ms. <mask> was not run over by the bulldozer," he added, IDF also claimed she was possibly "in a blindspot for the bulldozer operators and "behind an earth mound", so they did not see that she was in harm's way. In later IDF operations, the house was damaged (a hole was knocked in a wall) and was later destroyed. By that time, the Nasrallah family had moved into a different house. It was reported in 2006 that the house that <mask> was trying to protect was rebuilt with funds raised by The Rebuilding Alliance. A spokesman for the IDF told the Guardian that, while

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 it did not accept responsibility for <mask>'s death, it intended to change its operational procedures to avoid similar incidents in the future.The level of command of similar operations would be raised, said the spokesman, and civilians in the area would be dispersed or arrested before operations began. Observers will be deployed and CCTV cameras will be installed on the bulldozers to compensate for blind spots, which may have contributed to <mask>'s death. The IDF gave copies of the report, titled "The Death of <mask>", to members of the U.S. Congress in April 2003, and <mask>'s family released the document to the media in June 2003, according to the Gannett News Service. In March 2004 the family said that the entire report had not been released, and that only they and two American staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had been allowed to view it. The family said they were allowed to look at the report in the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest in San Francisco. The ISM rejected the Israeli report, stating that it contradicted their members' eyewitness reports and that the investigation had not been credible and transparent. Reactions

<mask>'s death sparked controversy and led to international media coverage.<mask>'s parents reaction
<mask>'s father, <mask> has said "I know there's stuff you can't see out of the double glass windows." But he has denied that as a valid excuse, saying "you're responsible for knowing what's in front of your blade... It's a no brainer that this was gross negligence". He added that "they had three months to figure out how to deal with the activists that were there." Political reactions
In March 2003,

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 U.S. Representative Brian Baird introduced a resolution in the U.S. Congress calling on the U.S. government to "undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation" into <mask>'s death. The House of Representatives took no action on the resolution. The <mask> family joined Representative Baird in calling for a U.S. investigation.Yasser Arafat, the first President of the Palestinian Authority, offered his condolences and gave the "blessings of the Palestinian people" to <mask>, promising to name a street in Gaza after her. According to <mask>, Arafat told <mask> that <mask> "is your daughter but she is also the daughter of all Palestinians. She is ours too now." On March 21, 2003, the U.S. Green Party called for an investigation of the "murder of American Peace Activist <mask> by Israeli Forces". In August 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro stated that the Israeli investigation was not satisfactory, and was not as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been. Shapiro said further that the government of the United States is unsatisfied with the IDF's closure of its official investigation into <mask>'s death.Human rights organizations
Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry, with Christine Bustany, their advocacy director for the Middle East, saying, "U.S.-made bulldozers have been 'weaponized' and their transfer to Israel must be suspended." In 2005, Human Rights Watch published a report raising questions about the impartiality and professionalism of the IDF investigation. Some of the problems that the report mentioned were the investigators' lack of preparation, the "hostile," "inappropriate," and "mostly

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 accusatory" questions they asked witnesses, the failure to ask witnesses to draw maps or to identify locations of events on maps, and their lack of interest in reconciling soldiers' testimonies with those of other eyewitnesses. NGO Monitor, an Israeli group, strongly criticized other NGOs and said the verdict reflects all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident. Its president, Gerald Steinberg said, "<mask>'s death was entirely unnecessary, and the leaders of the ISM bear much culpability for her death." Shurat HaDin, an organization representing Israeli victims of terrorism, said that the <mask> Family should sue the Palestinian Authority and ISM over their daughter's death. A Catholic Worker house was named in her honor in Des Moines, Iowa.Media

The Observer suggested that because <mask> was American her death attracted more attention than the deaths of Palestinians under similar circumstances: "On the night of <mask>'s death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90. A total of 220 people have died in Rafah since the beginning of the intifada. Palestinians know the death of one American receives more attention than the killing of hundreds of Muslims." In 2006, Haaretz political columnist Bradley Burston said that <mask>'s death was accidental but that "incidental killing is no less tragic than intentional killing"; Burston criticized both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides for their excessive rhetoric:

Of all of the tragedies and casualties of the intifada, in which more than 4,000 people were killed over five years, the case of <mask> still stands apart, the subject

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 of intense world interest and fierce debate.... Part of it starts with us. "They had no business being there" is no excuse for what the Pentagon long ago christened collateral damage. We've learned much. But we're still not there.We should have saved <mask>'s life that day, either by sending out a spotter or delaying the bulldozer's work. Right now, somewhere in the West Bank, there's an eight-year-old whose life could be saved next week, if we've managed to learn the lesson and are resourceful enough to know how to apply it. American journalist Charlie Wolf referred to <mask> as "scum" on his show on British radio station talkSPORT. Media regulator Ofcom ruled that this  "seriously ill-judged" remark was in breach of the "Generally Accepted Standards" of Broadcasting. Criticism of <mask>'s actions
Tom Gross, in an article called "The Forgotten Rachels", discusses six other women named <mask> who were Jewish victims of Palestinian terrorism in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their deaths, he wrote, received little if any coverage outside Israel. Gross went on to argue that "partly because of the efforts of <mask>'s fellow activists in the ISM, the Israeli army was unable to stop the flow of weapons through the tunnels.... Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children ... in southern Israel".The article prompted a National Review editorial arguing "<mask>'s death was unfortunate, but more unfortunate is a Western media and cultural establishment that lionizes 'martyrs' for illiberal causes while ignoring the victims those causes create." Explaining the Israeli court's ruling, judge Oded Gershon said <mask>'s death was "the result of an accident she

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 brought upon herself." <mask> was in a closed military area, with entry forbidden to civilians. The area was the site of daily gunfire by snipers, missile fire and IED explosions. The United States government had issued a travel warning against American citizens visiting the Gaza Strip. "She did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done," the judge ruled. Role of the International Solidarity Movement
George Rishmawi, director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the ISM's main purpose is to "increase international awareness of Palestinian suffering through the involvement of foreign activists".He stated: "When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore ... [b]ut if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice." Joseph Smith (aka Joseph Carr) stated that "'We knew there was a risk ... but we also knew it never happened in the two years that we (the ISM) have been working here. I knew we take lots of precautions so that it doesn't happen, that if it did happen it would have to be an intentional act by a soldier, in which case it would bring a lot of publicity and significance to the cause.'" Activities of <mask>'s parents

Since their daughter's death, <mask>'s parents, Cindy and Craig, have spent time trying to "promote peace and raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians", and continue what they believe to be her work. The Corries have worked to set up the "Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice" and launched projects in memory of their daughter.


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 They have also advanced investigation into the incident and asked the U.S. Congress and various courts for redress. <mask>'s parents have visited the region several times since their daughter's death and have twice visited Gaza.Following their daughter's death, they visited Gaza and Israel, seeing the place where she died, and meeting ISM members and Palestinians whom she had known. They also visited Ramallah in the West Bank, where Arafat met them and presented them with a plaque in memory of their daughter. On March 28, 2008, they addressed a demonstration in Ramallah at which <mask> said: "This village has become a symbol of nonviolent resistance. I call for solidarity with the people of Palestine in resisting the conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation to prevent the establishment of their state." The Nasrallahs, whose home <mask> allegedly believed she was preventing from destruction, toured with the Corries across the United States in June 2005. The aim of the trip was, with the cooperation of the Rebuilding Alliance, to raise funds to rebuild the Nasrallah home and other homes destroyed in Rafah. In January 2011, <mask>'s parents visited the MV Mavi Marmara in Turkey, together with the head of the IHH Bülent Yıldırım.<mask> called dead Mavi Marmara activists "martyrs" and compared them to her daughter. Subsequent events

Lawsuits

In the United States
<mask>'s family and several Palestinians filed a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc. in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington alleging liability for <mask>'s death. The suit alleged Caterpillar supplied the bulldozers to the Israelis despite having notice

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 they would be used to further "a policy plaintiffs contend violates international law". The case was dismissed by a Federal judge in November 2005 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, citing, among other things, the political question doctrine. The judge found, alternatively, that the plaintiffs' claims failed on the merits. The <mask> family appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In September 2007 the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on the political question grounds and thus did not rule on the merits of the suit.The Court found that as the bulldozers were paid for by the U.S. Government as part of its aid to Israel, the Judicial Branch could not rule on the merits of the case without ruling on whether or not the government's financing of such bulldozers was appropriate and that this was a matter not entrusted to the Judicial Branch. In Israel
In 2010, <mask>'s parents, represented by Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, filed a lawsuit against the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Defense Ministry in the Haifa District Court, seeking US$324,000 in compensation. The case began in Haifa on March 10, 2010. Judge Oded Gershon presided over the case. On October 21, 2010, the bulldozer driver who had run over <mask> testified for four hours, and was cross-examined by the Corries' attorney. At the request of state prosecutors, who argued that his life could be imperiled if he was publicly identified, the driver was hidden behind a screen and visible to only the judge and attorneys. A request by the <mask> family that they also be allowed to see the driver was turned down by the judge.The driver was identified only by his


title: Rachel Corrie

texts: initials, "YB", and a gag order was imposed on identifying details, although it was disclosed in court that he was a 38-year old Russian immigrant who had arrived in Israel at age 23, and was working for a food processing company at the time. The driver denied having seen her before hitting her. In addition, four experts, including an expert on the behalf of the <mask> family testified during the trial, and concluded that the bulldozer driver could not see <mask>. Four ISM witnesses testified during the case. However, the Palestinian physician from Gaza who had examined <mask>'s wounds on the scene was unable to testify after Israel refused him an entry visa and rejected an application for him to testify by video link. The court ruled against <mask>'s family on August 28, 2012. In a 62-page verdict, Judge Oded Gershon ruled that <mask>'s death was an accident for which she was responsible, and absolved the IDF of any wrongdoing.The judge ruled that the bulldozer driver and his commander had a very limited field of vision and could not possibly have seen her. According to the judge "The mission of the IDF force on the day of the incident was solely to clear the ground.... The mission did not include, in any way, the demolition of homes." The court invoked the principle of the combatant activities exception, as the IDF was attacked in the same area where <mask> was killed a few hours earlier; that <mask> could have avoided the danger and that defendants were not at fault as there was neither intent nor negligence involved in her death. The judge said that the IDF did not violate <mask>'s right to life because Corrie had placed herself in a dangerous


title: Rachel Corrie

texts: situation, that Israel's investigation was appropriate and did not contain mistakes, and also criticized the U.S. government for failing to send a diplomatic representative to observe <mask>'s autopsy. Gershon said: "I rule unequivocally that the claim that the deceased was intentionally hit by the bulldozer is totally baseless. This was an extremely unfortunate accident.I reached the conclusion that there was no negligence on the part of the bulldozer driver. I reject the suit. There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages. She [<mask>] did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done. She consciously put herself in harm's way." Furthermore, Gershon pointed to three different entry bans, and also pointed out that the Philadelphi route was effectively a war zone and was formally declared a closed military zone when <mask> died. Gershon also noted that the United States had issued an Israel travel advisory warning to avoid Gaza and the West Bank.In addition, Gershon said that the ISM "abuses the human rights discourse to blur its actions which are de facto violence" and specialized in disrupting IDF activity, which "included an army of activists serving as 'human shields' for terrorists wanted by Israeli security forces, financial and logistical aid to Palestinians including terrorists and their families, and disruption of the sealing of suicide bombers' houses". The <mask> family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, said they were "now studying our options", in regards to a possible appeal. While rejecting the <mask> family's claims to damages, the judge also waived the <mask> family's court costs. Haifa District


title: Rachel Corrie

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 Court spokeswoman Nitzan Eyal said that her family could appeal the ruling. The amount sought was a symbolic US$1 and legal costs. Her mother reacted to the verdict in saying: "I am hurt. We are, of course, deeply saddened and deeply troubled by what we heard today from Judge Oded Gershon."<mask>'s sister, <mask> Simpson, stated that she believed "without a doubt" that the driver had seen her as he approached, and stated that she hoped he would one day "have the courage" to tell the truth. The right wing political party Yisrael Beitenu issued a statement that called the verdict "vindication after vilification". Former UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories Richard Falk said of the verdict that it was "a sad outcome, above all for the <mask> family that had initiated the case back in 2005, but also for the rule of law and the hope that an Israeli court would place limits on the violence of the state, particularly in relation to innocents and unarmed civilians in an occupied territory". Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter of the Carter Center said that the "court's decision confirms a climate of impunity, which facilitates Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territory". The verdict of the Haifa District Court was appealed to the Supreme Court of Israel on May 21, 2014. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal and upheld the District Court's verdict regarding the circumstances of <mask>'s death, which cleared the IDF from wrongdoing. Memorial events

Immediately after her death, posters and graffiti praising <mask> were posted in Rafah, with one graffiti tag reading, "<mask> was an American

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 citizen with Palestinian blood."According to the ISM's official publications, the day after <mask> died, about thirty American and European ISM activists with 300 Palestinians began protests during the public memorial service over the spot where she was fatally injured in Rafah. Gordon Murray, an ISM activist who attended the memorial, states that the IDF sent a representative to the event who intimidated the mourners into dispersing, allegedly using non-lethal weapons. In 2008, <mask>'s parents commemorated the fifth anniversary of her death at an event held in the West Bank town of Nablus. About 150 Palestinians and foreigners joined them to dedicate a memorial to <mask> on one of the city's streets. In 2011, Iran named a street in Tehran after <mask>. Artistic tributes

In 2004, Alaska composer Philip Munger wrote a cantata about <mask> called The Skies are Weeping, which was scheduled to premiere on April 27 at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where Munger teaches. After objections to the upcoming performance were received, including from members of the Jewish community, a forum was held co-chaired by Munger and a local rabbi who claimed the work "romanticized terrorism".After the forum "disintegrate[d]", Munger announced, "I cannot subject 16 students ... to any possibility of physical harm or to the type of character assassination some of us are already undergoing. Performance of The Skies are Weeping at this time and place is withdrawn for the safety of the student performers." Munger later related that he had received threatening e-mails whose content he considered was "[just] short of what you'd take to the troopers", and that some of his


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 students had received similar communications. The cantata was eventually performed at the Hackney Empire theatre in London, premiering on November 1, 2005. In early 2005, My Name is <mask>, a play composed from <mask>'s journals and emails from Gaza and compiled by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katharine Viner, in a production directed by Rickman, was presented in London and later revived in October 2005. The play was to be transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop, but when it was postponed indefinitely, the British producers denounced the decision as censorship and withdrew the show. It finally opened Off-Broadway on October 15, 2006, for an initial run of 48 performances.In the same year, My Name is <mask>rrie was shown at the Pleasance theatre as part of the Edinburgh (Fringe) Festival. The play has also been published as a paperback, and performed in ten countries, including Israel. Singer Billy Bragg recounted <mask>'s death in the song "The Lonesome Death of <mask>rrie", composed to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". After being originally released as a free digital download, it was included on the album Fight Songs in 2011. Irish folk music/world music group Kíla included the instrumental "<mask> Corrie" on their 2015 album Suas Síos. In 2003, Pittsburgh singer Mike Stout wrote and composed a song about <mask>, which was included with other anti-war songs in his album "War and Resistance". Also in 2003, David Rovics wrote the song The Death of <mask>, included in the album "return".Documentaries
In 2003, British Channel 4 and The Observer reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez made a documentary

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 that was aired June 2003 on Channel 4 titled The Killing Zone, about ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip. Jordan said: "There has been a lot of interest in Britain and around the world about what happened to <mask>, I find it highly disappointing that no serious American investigative journalist has taken <mask>'s story seriously or questioned or challenged the Israeli Army version of events." In 2005, the BBC produced a 60 minute documentary titled When Killing is Easy aka Shooting the Messenger, Why are foreigners suddenly under fire in Israel?, described as "a meticulous examination of" the shooting to death of James Miller, who was shot while filming in an Israeli war zone in May 2003; the shooting of British photography student Thomas Hurndall in April 2003, and the death of <mask> in March 2003. The documentary claims that the attacks were not "random acts of violence", but rather "represent a culture of killing with impunity which is sanctioned by the higher echelons of the Israeli army." In 2005 Yahya Barakat, who lectures on TV production, cinematography, and filmmaking at al-Quds University, filmed a documentary in Arabic with English subtitles, named <mask> – An American Conscience. In 2009, a documentary film titled <mask> is produced by Morocco born, French-Israeli director Simone Bitton detailing the death of <mask> from "an Israeli point of view". Its first North American public screening was at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.MV <mask>rrie

On March 30, 2010, an 1800-tonne vessel was bought at auction in Dundalk, Ireland, for €70,000 by the Free Gaza Movement. It was outfitted for use in a voyage to Gaza, named in honour of <mask> and

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 launched May 12, 2010. It sailed to join a flotilla intended to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The flotilla was intercepted; however, the MV <mask>rrie had not reached the other ships and continued towards Gaza by itself. Israeli navy officers addressed the ship as "Linda"—the vessel's name before it was renamed for <mask>. The ship was intercepted by the Israeli navy on Saturday, June 5, 2010, 23 miles off the coast, and diverted to the port of Ashdod. There the cargo was to be inspected and sent over land to Gaza.Symbolic gravestone in Iran
On the twelfth anniversary of <mask>'s death, a symbolic gravestone with her name was installed in the Tehran cemetery to honor her by the Commemoration of Martyrs of movement of the Islamic World's Staff. Near her symbolic gravestone are twelve other symbolic gravestones. Bibliography
 Let Me Stand Alone, collected writings and memoirs of <mask> published in January 2008 by W. W. Norton & Company,
 <mask>, Rachel. "Letter from Palestine". Voices of a People's History of the United States. Ed. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.New York: Seven Stories Press. pp. 609–610. See also

 ISM casualties in Palestine and Israel
 Iain Hook – British UNRWA project manager shot and killed by IDF during a battle in Jenin, November 22, 2002. James Miller – British film-maker shot and killed by the IDF in Gaza, May 2, 2003. Vittorio Arrigoni – Italian ISM volunteer abducted and murdered in Gaza by a Salafist militant group. Kayla Mueller – American activist and aid worker abducted by ISIS and later killed.Pippa Bacca – Italian peace activist raped and murdered in Turkey. List of peace activists

References

Further

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<mask> (8 January 1920 – October 1997) was a British painter interested mainly in animal and wildlife subjects, but who also produced portraits and paintings of military scenes. His largest work was a mural for the Manor House at Port Lympne Zoo. Early life
<mask>' father, <mask>, was an army officer serving in World War I and later Ireland, where he married and <mask> was born in Cork. He rose to bandmaster in the Kings own Yorkshire Light Infantry, but eventually left the army and became a trombone player for the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow (1923–27). The family moved to Hastings on medical advice that a southern climate would improve <mask>'s tuberculosis. Swimming was advised to help his condition, following the example of Johnny Weissmuller, who has also suffered from tuberculosis. <mask> became a proficient swimmer to the point of being selected in 1939 for the 1940 Olympic team for 100 m freestyle, but the onset of war caused the event to be cancelled.He had a youthful interest in wildlife and bird watching and became an expert beach fisherman. He was educated at Hastings Grammar School from 1931 to 1937. He then attended Hastings College of Art, run by Philip Cole and Percy Badham. Cole objected to the use of erasers, and <mask> retained the habit of never using one throughout his career. Badham was an able watercolourist, and this also influenced <mask> in his preference for using watercolours and gouache. <mask> won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art, but this was also prevented by the outbreak of war. Military career
<mask> joined the  114th Field Regiment of the Territorial Army in 1938, on the advice of his father that war was inevitable, against the wishes of his mother.In 1939, the unit trained with guns taken from Hastings Museum, but shortly received modern equipment. <mask> volunteered to become an airforce pilot and was trained initially at Scarborough Initial Training Wing, then Perth Elementary Flying School, using Tiger Moth and Miles Magister aircraft. He was part of the first group to be sent

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 to the USA for fighter training under the Empire Air Training Plan, training with Airacobras, Lockheed Lightnings, Tomahawks and Kittyhawks at Lakeland, Florida. In 1942 <mask> crashed a tomahawk, initially surviving uninjured, but receiving a severe head injury when he was dropped out of the wreck during rescue. He was sent to Canada where he received further training as a bomb aimer and navigator before becoming a navigation instructor with rank of flight lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air force at Trenton, Ontario, when he was pronounced permanently unfit to fly. In 1943 he was recalled to the army in England, and sent temporarily to Watford. He was chosen amongst other soldiers to take part in the film The Way Ahead directed by Carol Reed.After the war, Reed offered <mask> more acting work, which he declined. He was posted to India, underwent jungle training at Deolali before serving temporarily at various places in India and Pakistan, with rank of Gunner. He requested transfer to Burma where he served as a sergeant in 1944 at the Arakan Front, where he was employed to scout and make drawings of enemy positions. He received a bullet wound to his right hand, which became close to requiring amputation. After hostilities ceased and while the army stayed in India, he produced a number of murals in various buildings (hospitals and the palace of the Maharajah of Mysore). In 1946 he was demobilised having won six campaign medals. In later life he painted scenes of guns used in the Gulf War, the Arakan campaign and scenes from the Battle of the Somme where both his and his wife's father had served.Later life
In 1946, he was demobbed and returned to Sussex. There he met his wife Mavis and was married in 1946 at St Mary Magdalen Church in Hastings. From 1946-1948 he completed his Fine Arts degree, before attending Brighton Arts College in 1949 to obtain a teaching diploma. He began teaching at Maidstone Secondary Modern school for one year, before obtaining a post at Hastings Central School. In 1955 he illustrated a book about Canada,

masks: Roberts Roberts


title: Arthur Spencer Roberts

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 'Smoke over Sikanska by J.S. Gowland. This encouraged him to move to British Columbia in Canada.He first took a post to teach art history at Vancouver university, but then found work as a commercial artist for the Hudson's Bay Company in Vancouver where he prepared advertising illustrations of items ranging from Lingerie to artworks. In 1957 he was recalled to England by the British army because of the Suez Crisis, but this was over before he returned to military life. He spent a year preparing work for an exhibition and completed paintings from sketches made in Canada. These paintings began to sell, but he took a teaching job at the Downs school, Bexhill. The couple initially lived in St Leonards-on-Sea, but purchased a house on a cliff top at Fairlight where they remained for five years. In 1965 <mask> decided to sell the house, purchase a caravan, and move to the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Privations of life in the wilderness and a desire for company eventually led to another return to Sussex and the purchase of a house in Rye, together with a return to part-time teaching.The availability for purchase of a dilapidated coastguard cottage allowed both a return to beachside living at Fairlight and an opportunity to pay off the mortgage, allowing <mask> to work full-time as an artist. Interest in his works increased, with exhibitions in London and an increasing number of visitors to his home. Further exhibitions followed at the Armand Hammer galleries in New York City. After returning from one such visit, the couple discovered that their home had moved dramatically closer to the cliff edge following ongoing rock slides. They decided to move again, this time to a former boathouse once used to plan the construction of the Royal Military Canal. Exhibitions of his paintings in America were successful and were followed by others in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Japan. References

20th-century English painters
English male painters
1920 births
1997 deaths
People educated at Hastings Grammar School
People from Fairlight, East


title: Alan Parker

texts:
Sir <mask>  (14 February 1944 – 31 July 2020) was an English filmmaker. His early career, beginning in his late teens, was spent as a copywriter and director of television advertisements. After about ten years of filming adverts, many of which won awards for creativity, he began screenwriting and directing films. <mask> was known for using a wide range of filmmaking styles and working in differing genres. He directed musicals, including Bugsy Malone (1976), Fame (1980), Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982), The Commitments (1991) and Evita (1996); true-story dramas, including Midnight Express (1978), Mississippi Burning (1988), Come See the Paradise (1990) and Angela's Ashes (1999); family dramas, including Shoot the Moon (1982), and horrors and thrillers including Angel Heart (1987) and The Life of David Gale (2003). His films won nineteen BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globes and six Academy Awards. His film Birdy was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the Top Ten Films of 1984, and won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.<mask> was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the British film industry and knighted in 2002. He was active in both British cinema and American cinema, along with being a founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain and lecturing at various film schools. In 2000 he received the Royal Photographic Society Lumière Award for major achievement in cinematography, video or animation. In 2013 he received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the highest honour the British Film Academy can give a filmmaker. <mask> donated his personal archive to the British Film Institute's National Archive in 2015. Early years
<mask> was born into a working-class family in Islington, North London, the son of Elsie Ellen, a dressmaker, and William Leslie <mask>, a house painter. He grew up on a council estate of Islington, which always made it easy for him to remain "almost defiantly working-class in attitudes" said the British novelist and screenwriter Ray

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title: Alan Parker

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 Connolly.<mask> said that although he had his share of fun growing up, he always felt he was studying for his secondary school exams, while his friends were out having a good time. He had an "ordinary background" with no aspirations to become a film director, nor did anyone in his family have any desire to be involved in the film industry. The closest he ever came, he said, to anything related to films was learning photography, a hobby inspired by his uncles: "That early introduction to photography is something I remember." <mask> attended Dame Alice Owen's School, concentrating on science in his last year. He left school when he was eighteen to work in the advertising field, hoping that the advertising industry might be a good way to meet girls. Career

1962–1975: Early work and breakthrough
His first job was office boy in the post room of an advertising agency. But more than anything, he said, he wanted to write, and would write essays and ads when he got home after work.His colleagues also encouraged him to write, which soon led him to a position as a copywriter in the company. <mask> took jobs with different agencies over the next few years, having by then become proficient as a copywriter. One such agency was Collett Dickenson Pearce in London, where he first met the future producers David Puttnam and <mask>, both of whom would later produce many of his films. <mask> credited Puttnam with inspiring him and talking him into writing his first film script, Melody (1971). By 1968, <mask> had moved from copywriting to successfully directing numerous television advertisements. In 1970, he joined <mask> to establish a company to make advertisements. That company eventually became one of Britain's best commercial production houses, winning nearly every major national and international award open to it.Among their award-winning adverts were the UK Cinzano vermouth advertisement (starring Joan Collins and Leonard Rossiter), and a Heineken advert which used one hundred actors. <mask> credited his years writing and directing adverts for his

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Alan Marshall
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title: Alan Parker

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 later success as a film director: After writing the screenplay for the Waris Hussein film Melody in 1971, <mask> shot his first fictional film titled No Hard Feelings in 1973, for which he wrote the script. The film is a bleak love story set against the Blitz in London during the Second World War, when the Luftwaffe bombed the city for 57 consecutive nights. <mask> was born during one of those bombing raids, and said "the baby in that [film] could well have been me". With no feature film directing experience, he could not find financial backing, and decided to risk using his own money and funds from mortgaging his house to cover the cost. The film impressed the BBC, which bought the film and showed it on television a few years later, in 1976. The BBC producer Mark Shivas had, in the interim, also contracted <mask> to direct The Evacuees (1975), a Second World War story written by Jack Rosenthal which was shown as a Play for Today.The work was based on true events which involved the evacuation of school children from central Manchester for protection. The Evacuees won a BAFTA for best TV drama and also an Emmy for best International Drama. <mask> next wrote and directed his first feature film, Bugsy Malone (1976), a parody of early American gangster films and American musicals, but with only child actors. <mask>'s desire in making the film was to entertain both children and adults with a unique concept and style of film:

The film received eight British Academy Award nominations and five Awards, including two BAFTAs for Jodie Foster. 1978–1990: Subsequent success
<mask> next directed Midnight Express (1978), based on a true account by Billy Hayes, about his incarceration and escape from a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of the country. <mask> made the film in order to do something radically different from Bugsy Malone, which would broaden his style of filmmaking. The script was written by Oliver Stone in his first screenplay, and won Stone his first Academy Award.The music was composed by Giorgio Moroder, who was also

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title: Alan Parker

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 awarded his first Oscar for the film. Midnight Express established <mask> as a "front rank director", as both he and the film were Oscar nominated. The success of that film also gave him the freedom from then on to direct films of his own choosing. <mask> then directed Fame (1980), which follows the lives of eight students through their years at the New York City's High School of Performing Arts. It was a huge box-office success and led to a television spin-off series of the same name. <mask> stated that after doing a serious drama like Midnight Express, he wanted to do a film with music, but very different from typical musicals of the past:

The actress Irene Cara recalls that "the nice thing about the way <mask> works with everyone is that he allowed us to really feel like classmates." However, <mask> was refused permission to use the actual school portrayed in the film, the High School for the Performing Arts, because of the notoriety he achieved from his previous film, Midnight Express.The head of the school district told him, "Mr. <mask>, we can't risk you doing for New York high school the same thing you did for Turkish prisons." <mask>'s next film was Shoot the Moon (1982), the story of a marital break-up that takes place in Northern California. <mask> calls it "the first grown-up film that I'd done". He again chose to direct a subject distinctly different from his previous film, explaining, "I really try to do different work. I think that by doing different work each time, it keeps you creatively fresher." He described the theme of the film being about "two people who can't live together but who also can't let go of one another. A story of fading love, senseless rage, and the inevitable bewildering betrayal in the eyes of the children."Its stars, Albert Finney and Diane Keaton, received Golden Globe nominations for their performances. The film also had a personal significance for <mask>, who said he was forced to examine his own marriage: "It was a painful film to make for me because there were echoes of my own life in it. It

masks: Parker Parker Parker Alan Parker Parker Parker Parker Parker


title: Alan Parker

texts: was about a breakup of a marriage, and the children in the story were quite close to my own children in age. Shoot the Moon was very, very close to my own life." He spent days with the writer Bo Goldman on developing a realistic story, and states that his marriage became "infinitely stronger as a result of the film". Also in 1982 <mask> directed, Roger Waters written and with graphics by the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, film version of the Pink Floyd conceptual rock opera,  "Pink Floyd - The Wall" starring Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof as the fictive rocker "Pink" was released. <mask> later described the filming as "one of the most miserable experiences of my creative life."<mask> directed Birdy (1984), starring Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. It recounts the story of two school friends who have returned from the Vietnam war but were both psychologically and physically injured. <mask> called it a "wonderful story" after having read the book by William Wharton. However, because of the nature of the story, he had no idea how to make it into a movie: "I didn't know if you could take the poetry of the book and make it cinematic poetry, or if an audience would actually want it." The film became a critical success. Richard Schickel says that <mask> had "transcended realism ... [and] achieved his personal best", while Derek Malcolm considers Birdy to be <mask>'s "most mature and perhaps his best movie". The message of the film, writes critic Quentin Falk, is "joyously life-affirming", which he notes is common to much of <mask>'s work.He adds that <mask>'s films manage to achieve a blend of "strong story and elegant frame", a style which he says typically eludes other directors who rely too much on the purely visual. With Mississippi Burning (1988), <mask> received his second Oscar nomination for Best Director. The film is based on a true story about the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, and stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. Hackman was nominated for Best Actor, while the film was nominated for five other Oscars, including

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title: Alan Parker

texts:
 Best Picture. It won for Best Cinematography. 1991–2003: Later works
In 1991 <mask> directed The Commitments, a comedy about working class Dubliners who form a soul band. The film was an international success and led to a successful sound track album.To find a cast <mask> visited most of the estimated 1,200 different bands then playing throughout Dublin. He met with over 3,000 different band members. Rather than pick known actors, <mask> says he chose young musicians, most of whom had no acting experience, in order to remain "truthful to the story". "I cast everybody to be very close to the character that they play in the film. They're not really playing outside of who they are as people." <mask> says he wanted to make the film because he could relate to the hardships in the lives of young Dubliners, having come from a similar working-class background in north London. The film critic David Thomson observes that with The Commitments, <mask> "showed an unusual fondness for people, place, and music.It was as close as <mask> has come to optimism." <mask> said that it was the "most enjoyable film" he ever made. Evita (1996), was another musical, starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's score originated from the earlier musical. <mask> remembers Madonna's strong desire to play the role of Evita, that "as far as she was concerned, no one could play Evita as well as she could, and she said that she would sing, dance and act her heart out, ... and that's exactly what she did". Evita was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Song, which was sung by Madonna. <mask>'s next film was Angela's Ashes (1999), a drama based on the real-life experiences of the Irish-American teacher, Frank McCourt, and his childhood.His family was forced to move from the United States back to Ireland because of financial difficulties, which led to the family's problems caused by his father's alcoholism. Colm Meaney, who acted in The Commitments, noticed the dramatic shift in theme and style of


title: Alan Parker

texts:
 <mask>'s films. He said "it's the variety of his work that sort of staggers me. He can go from Evita to Angela's Ashes. He adds that "when <mask> starts a project, it's going to be something very interesting and completely out of left field". <mask> explained that doing a story like Angela's Ashes was simply his "reaction against a big film" like Evita. He said that he tried to avoid the "obvious movies", saying "You want the film to stay with people afterwards ...It just seems to me that the greatest crime is to make just another movie." <mask> said it is important to carefully choose which films to write and direct:

Therefore, when <mask> visited film schools and spoke to young filmmakers, he told them that the new film technology available for making films and telling a story is less important than conveying a message: "If you haven't got something to say, I don't think you should be a filmmaker". The British film critic Geoff Andrew described <mask> as a "natural storyteller" who got his message across using "dramatic lighting, vivid characterisation, scenes of violent conflict regularly interrupting sequences of expository dialogue, and an abiding sympathy for the underdog (he is a born liberal with a keen sense of injustice)". <mask> produced and directed The Life of David Gale (2003), a crime thriller, starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. It tells the story of an advocate for the abolition of capital punishment who finds himself on death row after having been convicted of murdering a fellow activist. The film received generally poor reviews. Roger Ebert did not like the film, calling the story "silly", although he said the acting was "splendidly done".Personal life
<mask> was married twice; first to Annie Inglis from 1966 until their divorce in 1992, and then to producer Lisa Moran, to whom he was married until his death. He had five children, including screenwriter <mask>. <mask> died in London on 31 July 2020 at age 76, following a lengthy illness. Honours and awards
<mask> was nominated for eight BAFTA awards, three Golden

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 Globes and two Oscars. He was a founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain and lectured at film schools around the world. In 1985, the British Academy awarded him the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema. <mask> was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1995 Birthday Honours and Knight Bachelor in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to the film industry.In 1999 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of Great Britain. He became chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute (BFI) in 1998 and in 1999 was appointed the first chairman of the newly formed UK Film Council. In 2005 <mask> received an honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sunderland of which his long-time associate Lord Puttnam is chancellor. In 2004 he was the Chairman of the Jury at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival. In 2013 he was awarded the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award "in recognition of outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image", which is the highest honour the British Academy can bestow. The British Film Institute (BFI) produced a tribute to <mask> in September and October 2015 with an event titled "Focus on Sir <mask>" which included multiple screenings of his films and an on-stage interview of <mask> by producer David Puttnam. The event coincided and marked the donation his entire working archive to the BFI National Archive.Filmography

References

External links

1944 births
2020 deaths
BAFTA fellows
BAFTA Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award
Best Director BAFTA Award winners
Best Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Filmmakers who won the Best Film BAFTA Award
English male screenwriters
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Copywriters
English film directors
Television commercial directors
English film producers
English screenwriters
Knights Bachelor
Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
People educated at Dame Alice Owen's School
People from Islington (district)
Film

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title: George M. Cohan

texts:
<mask> (July 3, 1878November 5, 1942) was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and theatrical producer. <mask> began his career as a child, performing with his parents and sister in a vaudeville act known as "The Four Cohans". Beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, he wrote, composed, produced, and appeared in more than three dozen Broadway musicals. <mask> wrote more than 50 shows and published more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including the standards "Over There", "Give My Regards to Broadway", "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag". As a composer, he was one of the early members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He displayed remarkable theatrical longevity, appearing in films until the 1930s and continuing to perform as a headline artist until 1940. Known in the decade before World War I as "the man who owned Broadway", he is considered the father of American musical comedy.His life and music were depicted in the Oscar-winning film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the 1968 musical George M! A statue of <mask> in Times Square, New York City commemorates his contributions to American musical theatre. Early life

<mask> was born in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, to Irish Catholic parents. A baptismal certificate from St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (which gave the wrong first name for his mother) indicated that <mask> was born on July 3, but he and his family always insisted that he had been "born on the Fourth of July!" His parents were

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title: George M. Cohan

texts: traveling vaudeville performers, and he joined them on stage while still an infant, first as a prop, learning to dance and sing soon after he could walk and talk. Cohan started as a child performer at age 8, first on the violin and then as a dancer. He was the fourth member of the family vaudeville act called The Four Cohans, which included his father Jeremiah "Jere" (Keohane<mask> (1848–1917), mother Helen "Nellie" Costigan <mask> (1854–1928) and sister Josephine "Josie" <mask> Niblo (1876–1916).In 1890, he toured as the star of a show called Peck's Bad Boy and then joined the family act. The Four Cohans mostly toured together from 1890 to 1901. <mask> and his sister made their Broadway debuts in 1893 in a sketch called The Lively Bootblack. Temperamental in his early years, he later learned to control his frustrations. During these years, he originated his famous curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you." As a child, <mask> and his family toured most of the year and spent summer vacations from the vaudeville circuit at his grandmother's home in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, where he befriended baseball player <mask>. The family generally gave a performance at the town hall there each summer, and Cohan had a chance to gain some more normal childhood experiences, like riding his bike and playing sandlot baseball.His memories of those happy summers inspired his 1907 musical 50 Miles from Boston, which is set in North Brookfield and contains one of his most famous songs, "Harrigan". As

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title: George M. Cohan

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 he matured through his teens, he used the quiet summers there to write. When he returned to the town in the cast of Ah, Wilderness! in 1934, he told a reporter "I've knocked around everywhere, but there's no place like North Brookfield." Career

Early career

<mask> began writing original skits (over 150 of them) and songs for the family act in both vaudeville and minstrel shows while in his teens. Soon he was writing professionally, selling his first songs to a national publisher in 1893. In 1901 he wrote, directed and produced his first Broadway musical, The Governor's Son, for The Four Cohans.His first big Broadway hit in 1904 was the show Little Johnny Jones, which introduced his tunes "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy". <mask> became one of the leading Tin Pan Alley songwriters, publishing upwards of 300 original songs noted for their catchy melodies and clever lyrics. His major hit songs included "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," "Mary Is a Grand Old Name," "The Warmest Baby in the Bunch," "Life's a Funny Proposition After All," "I Want To Hear a Yankee Doodle Tune," "You Won't Do Any Business if You Haven't Got a Band," "The Small Town Gal," "I'm Mighty Glad I'm Living, That's All," "That Haunting Melody," "Always Leave Them Laughing When You Say Goodbye", and America's most popular World War I song "Over There", recorded by Nora Bayes and by Enrico Caruso, and others. The latter song reached such currency among troops and shipyard workers that a ship was named "Costigan" after <mask>'s

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title: George M. Cohan

texts:
 grandfather, Dennis Costigan. During the christening, "Over There" was played. From 1904 to 1920, <mask> created and produced over 50 musicals, plays and revues on Broadway together with his friend Sam H. Harris, including Give My Regards to Broadway and the successful Going Up in 1917, which became a smash hit in London the following year. His shows ran simultaneously in as many as five theatres.One of <mask>'s most innovative plays was a dramatization of the mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate in 1913, which baffled some audiences and critics but became a hit. <mask> further adapted it as a film in 1917, and it was adapted for film six more times, as well as for TV and radio. He dropped out of acting for some years after his 1919 dispute with Actors' Equity Association. In 1925, he published his autobiography Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There. Later career

<mask> appeared in 1930 in The Song and Dance Man, a revival of his tribute to vaudeville and his father. In 1932, he starred in a dual role as a cold, corrupt politician and his charming, idealistic campaign double in the Hollywood musical film The Phantom President. The film co-starred Claudette Colbert and Jimmy Durante, with songs by Rodgers and Hart, and was released by Paramount Pictures.He appeared in some earlier silent films but he disliked Hollywood production methods and only made one other sound film, Gambling (1934), based on his own 1929 play and shot in New York City. A critic called Gambling a "stodgy adaptation of a definitely dated play directed in

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title: George M. Cohan

texts:
 obsolete theatrical technique". It is considered a lost film. <mask> earned acclaim as a serious actor in Eugene O'Neill's only comedy Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and in the role of a song-and-dance President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Rodgers and Hart's musical I'd Rather Be Right (1937). The same year, he reunited with Harris to produce a play titled Fulton of Oak Falls, starring <mask>. His final play, The Return of the Vagabond (1940), featured a young Celeste Holm in the cast.In 1940, Judy Garland played the title role in a film version of his 1922 musical Little Nellie Kelly. <mask>'s mystery play Seven Keys to Baldpate was first filmed in 1916 and has been remade seven times, most recently as House of the Long Shadows (1983), starring Vincent Price. In 1942, a musical biopic of <mask>, Yankee Doodle Dandy, was released, and James Cagney's performance in the title role earned the Best Actor Academy Award. The film was privately screened for <mask> as he battled the last stages of abdominal cancer, and he commented on Cagney's performance: "My God, what an act to follow!" <mask>'s 1920 play The Meanest Man in the World was filmed in 1943 with Jack Benny. Legacy
Although <mask> mainly is remembered for his songs, he became an early pioneer in the development of the "book musical", using his engaging libretti to bridge the gaps between drama and music. More than three decades before Agnes de <mask> choreographed Oklahoma!, Cohan used dance not merely as razzle-dazzle, but to advance the plot.<mask>'s main characters were "average Joes and Janes" who

masks: Cohan Cohan Cohan Cohan Cohan Cohan Cohan Mille Cohan