why did great britain want to colonize singapore and burma

Conflict began between Myanmar and the British when the Konbaung Dynasty decided to expand into Arakan in the state of Assam, close to the British possessions in India. This close contact led to the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), which the British won with the aid of the Siamese. Myanmar was forced to cede Assam and other northern provinces.[7] In 1852, the Second Anglo-Burmese War was provoked by the British who sought the teak forests in Lower Burma as well as a port between Calcutta and Singapore. The British were victorious in this war, and as a result desired access to the teak, oil and rubies of northern Myanmar. This prompted the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885. The British government justified their actions by claiming that the last independent king of Myanmar, Thibaw Min, was a tyrant and that he was conspiring to give France more influence in the country. Thus, in 1885, after three wars gaining various parts of the country, the British finally occupied all the area of present-day Myanmar, making the territory a Province of British India.[6]

British rule in Burma

Rangoon (1853â€“1948)

British rule in Burma, also known as British Burma, lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese wars through the creation of Burma as a Province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence. Various portions of Burmese territories, including Arakan, Tenasserim were annexed by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War; Lower Burma was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The annexed territories were designated the minor province (a Chief Commissionership), British Burma, of British India in 1862.[1]

After the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885, Upper Burma was annexed, and the following year, the province of Burma in British India was created, becoming a major province (a Lieutenant-Governorship) in 1897.[1] This arrangement lasted until 1937, when Burma began to be administered separately by the Burma Office under the Secretary of State for India and Burma. British rule was disrupted during the Japanese occupation of much of the country during the Second World War. Burma achieved independence from British rule on 4 January 1948.

Burma is sometimes referred to as "the Scottish Colony", due to the heavy role played by Scotsmen in colonising and running the country, one of the most notable being Sir James Scott, and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company.

The province of Burma, after 1885 was administered as follows:

The "Frontier Areas", also known as the "Excluded Areas" or the "Scheduled Areas", compose the majority of states within Burma today. They were administered separately by the British with a Burma Frontier Service, and later united with Burma proper to form Myanmar's geographic composition today. The Frontier Areas were inhabited by ethnic minorities such as the Chin, the Shan, the Kachin and the Karenni.

By 1931 Burma had 8 divisions, split into a number of districts.[2]

The First Anglo-Burmese War arose from friction between Arakan in western Burma and British-held Chittagong to the north. After Burma's defeat of the Kingdom of Arakan in 1784â€“1785, in 1823, Burmese forces again crossed the frontier and the British responded with a large seaborne expedition that took Rangoon without a fight in 1824. In Danuphyu, south of Ava, the Burmese general Maha Bandula was killed and his armies routed. The 1826 Treaty of Yandabo formally ended the First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and the most expensive war in British India history. Fifteen thousand European and Indian soldiers died, together with an unknown number of Burmese army and civilian casualties.[3] The campaign cost the British five million pounds sterling to 13 million pounds sterling (roughly 18.5 billion to 48 billion in 2006 US dollars)[4] that led to a severe economic crisis in British India in 1833.[5]

After 25 years of peace, the British and Burmese fighting started afresh, and lasted until the British occupied all of Lower Burma.

King Mindon tried to readjust to the thrust of imperialism. He enacted administrative reforms and made Burma more receptive to foreign interests. But the British effected the Third Anglo-Burmese War, which lasted less than two weeks during November 1885.

British troops entered Mandalay on 28 November 1885 and Burma was attached to the British Empire on 1 January 1886.

Burmese armed resistance continued sporadically for several years, and the British commander had to coerce the High Court of Justice to continue to function. The British decided to annexe all of Upper Burma as a colony, and to make the whole country a province of the British India, within the Indian Empire. The new colony of Upper Burma was attached to the Burma Province on 26 February 1886. Rangoon, having been the capital of British Lower Burma, became the capital of the province.

Because of its location, with trade routes between China and India passing straight through the country, Burma was kept wealthy through constant trade, although self-sufficient agriculture was still the basis of the economy. With the Indian merchants travelling along the coasts and along rivers (especially the Irrawaddy River) through the country, where the majority of Burmese lived, Indian cultural influences filtered into the country and still exist there today. It was also one of the first Southeast Asian countries to receive Buddhism, which went on to become the officially patronised religion.

Before the British conquest and colonisation, the ruling Konbaung Dynasty practised a tightly centralised form of government. The king was the chief executive, with the final say on all matters, but he could not make new laws and could only issue administrative edicts. The country had two codes of law, the Rajathat and Dammathat, and the Hluttaw, the centre of government, was divided into three branches—fiscal, executive, and judicial. In theory the king was in charge of all of the Hluttaw but none of his orders got put into place until the Hluttaw approved them, thus checking his power. Further dividing the country, provinces were ruled by governors who were all appointed by the Hluttaw, and villages were ruled by hereditary headmen who were approved by the king.[6] Burma was in a colony in over 50 years.

Burma was declared a province of India in November 1885 on the orders of the Secretary of State for India, Lord Randolph Churchill,[8] with its capital at Rangoon, a move that ushered in a new period of economic growth. Traditional Burmese society was drastically altered by the demise of the monarchy and the separation of religion and state. Though war officially ended after only a couple of weeks, resistance continued in northern Burma until 1890, with the British finally resorting to a systematic destruction of villages and appointment of new officials to finally halt all guerrilla activity.

Intermarriage between Europeans and Burmese gave birth to an indigenous Eurasian community known as the Anglo-Burmese who would come to dominate the colonial society, hovering above the Burmese but below the British. The economic nature of society also changed dramatically. After the opening of the Suez Canal, the demand for Burmese rice grew and vast tracts of land were opened up for cultivation. However, to prepare the new land for cultivation, farmers borrowed money from Indian moneylenders called chettiars at high interest rates and were often foreclosed on and evicted losing land and livestock.

Most of the jobs also went to indentured Indian labourers, and whole villages became outlawed as they resorted to 'dacoity' (armed robbery). While the Burmese economy grew, most of the power and wealth remained in the hands of several British firms and migrants from India. The civil service was largely staffed by Anglo-Burmese and Indians, and the ethnic Burmese were excluded almost entirely from military service, which was staffed primarily with Indians, Anglo-Burmese, Karens and other Burmese minority groups. A British General Hospital Burmah was set up in Rangoon, under the direction in early 1887 of Surg. Patrick O'Sullivan. Though the country prospered, the Burmese people largely failed to reap the rewards. (See George Orwell's novel Burmese Days for a fictional account of the British in Burma.)

After Britain took over Burma, they maintained the sending of tribute to China, putting themselves in a lower status than in their previous relations.[9] It was agreed in the Burmah convention in 1886, that China would recognise Britain's occupation of Upper Burmah while Britain continued the Burmese payment of tribute every ten years to Beijing.[10]

The British controlled their new province through direct rule, making many changes to the previous governmental structure. The monarchy was abolished, King Thibaw sent into exile, and church and state separated. This was particularly harmful because the Buddhist monks were so dependent on the sponsorship of the monarchy. At the same time, the monarchy was given legitimacy by the Buddhist organisation, and the "church" gave the public the opportunity to understand national politics to a greater degree.[6]

Another way in which the British controlled their new colony directly was through their implementation of a secular education system. The colonial Government of India, which was given control of the new colony, founded secular schools teaching in both English and Burmese, while also encouraging Christian missionaries to visit and found schools. In both of these types of schools, Buddhism and traditional Burmese culture were frowned upon in an attempt to rid the Burmese people of a cultural unity separate from the British.[6]

To control the country on the village level, the British implemented a "strategic hamlet" strategy in which they burned villages and uprooted families who had supplied villages with their headmen, sending them to lower Burma. Once these troublesome or unloyal Burmese were forced out, the British replaced them with strangers they approved of. If the British considered any Burmese to be criminals, they would act as both judge and jury, giving the Burmese no chance to a fair trial.[6]

The traditional Burmese economy was one of redistribution with the prices of the most important commodities set by the state. Trade itself was not as important as self-sufficient agriculture, but the country's position on major trade routes from India to China, meant that it did gain a fair amount of money from foreign trade passing through. With the arrival of the British, the Burmese economy became tied to global market forces and was forced to become a part of the colonial export economy.[6]

The British immediately began exploiting the rich soil of the land around the Irrawaddy delta and cleared away the dense mangrove forests. Rice, which was in high demand in Europe, especially after the building of the Suez Canal in 1869, was the main crop grown in and exported out of Myanmar. To increase the production of rice, many Burmese migrated from the northern heartland to the delta, shifting the population concentration, and changing the basis of wealth and power.[6]

To prepare land for cultivation, farmers had to borrow capital from Indian moneylenders at high interest rates as the British banks wouldn't grant mortgages. Instead, the Indian moneylenders gave the mortgage loans out, but foreclosed them quickly as the rice prices and land costs soared. At the same time, thousands of Indian labourers migrated to Burma and, because of their willingness to work for less money, quickly displaced the Burmese farmers, who instead began to take part in crime, giving themselves a bad reputation.[6]

With this quickly growing economy, came industrialisation to a certain degree, with a railway being built throughout the valley of the Irrawaddy, and hundreds of steamboats travelling along it. All of these mechanisms of transportation were owned by the British, however, and this meant that the Burmese had to pay higher rates to transport their goods to market(source?). Thus, although the balance of trade was supposed to be in favour of Burma, the society was changed so fundamentally that many people did not gain from the rapidly growing economy.[6]

When the British began their imperial occupation of Burma, the colony was immediately thrown into a world of exportation in which they had not ever been exposed to before colonisation by the British. This massive move towards foreign trade hurt the Burmese economy initially because suddenly a large amount of their resources was being exported for Britain's benefit, thereby taking with it a lot of the resources needed by the Burmese natives to continue living their lives as they had before colonisation. An account by a British official describing the conditions of the Burmese people's livelihoods in 1941 describes the Burmese hardships as they must quickly adapt to foreign trade:

“Foreign landlordism and the operations of foreign moneylenders had led to an increasing exportation of a considerable proportion of the country’s resources and to the progressive impoverishment of the agriculturist and of the country as a whole…. The peasant had grown factually poorer and unemployment had increased….The collapse of the Burmese social system led to a decay of the social conscience which, in the circumstances of poverty and unemployment caused a great increase in crime.”[11]

By the turn of the century, a nationalist movement began to take shape in the form of Young Men's Buddhist Associations (YMBA), modelled after the YMCA, as religious associations were allowed by the colonial authorities. They were later superseded by the General Council of Burmese Associations (GCBA) which was linked with Wunthanu athin or National Associations that sprang up in villages throughout Burma Proper.[12] Between 1900 and 1911 the "Irish Buddhist" U Dhammaloka publicly challenged Christianity and imperial power, leading to two trials for sedition.

A new generation of Burmese leaders arose in the early twentieth century from amongst the educated classes that were permitted to go to London to study law. They came away from this experience with the belief that the Burmese situation could be improved through reform. Progressive constitutional reform in the early 1920s led to a legislature with limited powers, a university and more autonomy for Burma within the administration of India. Efforts were also undertaken to increase the representation of Burmese in the civil service. Some people began to feel that the rate of change was not fast enough and the reforms not expansive enough.

In 1920 the first university students' strike in history[citation needed] broke out in protest against the new University Act which the students believed would only benefit the elite and perpetuate colonial rule. 'National Schools' sprang up across the country in protest against the colonial education system, and the strike came to be commemorated as 'National Day'.[12] There were further strikes and anti-tax protests in the later 1920s led by the Wunthanu athins. Prominent among the political activists were Buddhist monks (hpongyi), such as U Ottama and U Seinda in the Arakan who subsequently led an armed rebellion against the British and later the nationalist government after independence, and U Wisara, the first martyr of the movement to die after a protracted hunger strike in prison.[12]

In December 1930, a local tax protest by Saya San in Tharrawaddy quickly grew into first a regional and then a national insurrection against the government. Lasting for two years, the Galon rebellion, named after the mythical bird Garuda – enemy of the Nagas i.e. the British – emblazoned on the pennants the rebels carried, required thousands of British troops to suppress along with promises of further political reform. The eventual trial of Saya San, who was executed, allowed several future national leaders, including Dr Ba Maw and U Saw, who participated in his defence, to rise to prominence.[12]

May 1930 saw the founding of the Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) whose members called themselves Thakin (an ironic name as thakin means "master" in the Burmese language – rather like the Indian'sahib' – proclaiming that they were the true masters of the country entitled to the term usurped by the colonial masters).[12] The second university students strike in 1936 was triggered by the expulsion of Aung San and Ko Nu, leaders of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU), for refusing to reveal the name of the author who had written an article in their university magazine, making a scathing attack on one of the senior university officials. It spread to Mandalay leading to the formation of the All Burma Students Union (ABSU). Aung San and Nu subsequently joined the Thakin movement progressing from student to national politics.[12]

The British separated Burma Province from British India in 1937[13] and granted the colony a new constitution calling for a fully elected assembly, with many powers given to the Burmese, but this proved to be a divisive issue as some Burmese felt that this was a ploy to exclude them from any further Indian reforms. Ba Maw served as the first prime minister of Burma, but he was forced out by U Saw in 1939, who served as prime minister from 1940 until he was arrested on 19 January 1942 by the British for communicating with the Japanese.

A wave of strikes and protests that started from the oilfields of central Burma in 1938 became a general strike with far-reaching consequences. In Rangoon student protesters, after successfully picketing the Secretariat, the seat of the colonial government, were charged by the British mounted police wielding batons and killing a Rangoon University student called Aung Kyaw. In Mandalay, the police shot into a crowd of protesters led by Buddhist monks killing 17 people. The movement became known as Htaung thoun ya byei ayeidawbon (the '1300 Revolution' named after the Burmese calendar year),[12] and 20 December, the day the first martyr Aung Kyaw fell, commemorated by students as 'Bo Aung Kyaw Day'.[14]

The Empire of Japan invaded Burma in 1942; this continued through 1943, when the State of Burma was proclaimed in Rangoon. Japan never succeeded in fully conquering all of the colony, however, and insurgent activity was pervasive, though not as much of an issue as it was in other former colonies. By 1945, British-led troops, mainly from the British Indian Army, had regained control over most of the colony.

The surrender of the Japanese brought a military administration to Burma. British administration sought to try Aung San and other members of BIA for treason and collaboration with the Japanese.[15] Lord Mountbatten realised that a trial was an impossibility considering Aung San's popular appeal.[12] After the war ended, the British Governor, Colonel Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, returned. The restored government established a political programme that focused on physical reconstruction of the country and delayed discussion of independence. The AFPFL opposed the government leading to political instability in the country. A rift had also developed in the AFPFL between the Communists and Aung San together with the Socialists over strategy, which led to Than Tun being forced to resign as general secretary in July 1946 and the expulsion of the CPB from the AFPFL the following October.[12]

Dorman-Smith was replaced by Major-General Sir Hubert Rance as the new Governor, and almost immediately after his appointment the Rangoon Police went on strike. The strike, starting in September 1946, then spread from the police to government employees and came close to becoming a general strike. Rance calmed the situation by meeting with Aung San and convincing him to join the Governor's Executive Council along with other members of the AFPFL.[12] The new executive council, which now had increased credibility in the country, began negotiations for Burmese independence, which were concluded successfully in London as the Aung San-Attlee Agreement on 27 January 1947.[12]

The agreement left parts of the communist and conservative branches of the AFPFL dissatisfied, sending the Red Flag Communists led by Thakin Soe underground and the conservatives into opposition. Aung San also succeeded in concluding an agreement with ethnic minorities for a unified Burma at the Panglong Conference on 12 February, celebrated since as 'Union Day'.[12][16] Shortly after, rebellion broke out in the Arakan led by the veteran monk U Seinda, and it began to spread to other districts.[12] The popularity of the AFPFL, now dominated by Aung San and the Socialists, was eventually confirmed when it won an overwhelming victory in the April 1947 constituent assembly elections.[12]

Then a momentous event stunned the nation on 19 July 1947. U Saw, a conservative pre-war Prime Minister of Burma, engineered the assassination of Aung San and several members of his cabinet including his eldest brother Ba Win, the father of today's National League for Democracy exile-government leader Dr Sein Win, while meeting in the Secretariat.[12][17] Since then 19 July has been commemorated since as Martyrs' Day in Burma. Thakin Nu, the Socialist leader, was now asked to form a new cabinet, and he presided over Burmese independence on 4 January 1948. Anti-British popular sentiment was so strong at the time that Burma opted not to join the Commonwealth of Nations, unlike India.[12]


what is the another name of western ghats

Western Ghats (also known as Sahyadri, meaning The Benevolent Mountains) is a mountain range that runs parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, located entirely in India. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight "hottest hot-spots" of biological diversity in the world.[1][2] It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India.[3] The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain, called Konkan, along the Arabian Sea. A total of thirty-nine properties including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests were designated as world heritage sites - twenty in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, five in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra.[4][5]

Western Ghats

The range starts near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, south of the Tapti river, and runs approximately 1,600 km (990 mi) through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu ending at Swamithoppe, near Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. These hills cover 160,000 km2 (62,000 sq mi) and form the catchment area for complex riverine drainage systems that drain almost 40% of India. The Western Ghats block southwest monsoon winds from reaching the Deccan Plateau.[6] The average elevation is around 1,200 m (3,900 ft).[7]

The area is one of the world's ten "Hottest biodiversity hotspots" and has over 7,402 species of flowering plants, 1,814 species of non-flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species, 179 amphibian species, 6,000 insects species and 290 freshwater fish species; it is likely that many undiscovered species live in the Western Ghats. At least 325 globally threatened species occur in the Western Ghats.[8][9][10]

The Western Ghats are the mountainous faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau. Geologic evidence indicates that they were formed during the break-up of the supercontinent of Gondwana some 150 million years ago. Geophysical evidence indicates that the west coast of India came into being somewhere around 100 to 80 mya after it broke away from Madagascar. After the break-up, the western coast of India would have appeared as an abrupt cliff some 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in elevation.[11] Basalt is the predominant rock found in the hills reaching a thickness of 3 km (2 mi). Other rock types found are charnockites, granite gneiss, khondalites, leptynites, metamorphic gneisses with detached occurrences of crystalline limestone, iron ore, dolerites and anorthosites. Residual laterite and bauxite ores are also found in the southern hills.

The Western Ghats extend from the Satpura Range in the north, stretching from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu. It traverses south past the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. Major gaps in the range are the Goa Gap, between the Maharashtra and Karnataka sections, and the Palghat Gap on the Tamil Nadu and Kerala border between the Nilgiri Hills and the Anaimalai Hills. The mountains intercept the rain-bearing westerly monsoon winds, and are consequently an area of high rainfall, particularly on their western side. The dense forests also contribute to the precipitation of the area by acting as a substrate for condensation of moist rising orographic winds from the sea, and releasing much of the moisture back into the air via transpiration, allowing it to later condense and fall again as rain.

The northern portion of the narrow coastal plain between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea is known as the Konkan, the central portion is called Kanara and the southern portion is called Malabar. The foothill region east of the Ghats in Maharashtra is known as Desh, while the eastern foothills of the central Karnataka state is known as Malenadu.[12] The range is known as Sahyadri in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The Western Ghats meets the Eastern Ghats at Nilgiris in northwestern Tamil Nadu. Nilgiris connects Biligiriranga Hills in southeastern Karnataka with the Shevaroys and Tirumala hills. South of the Palghat Gap are the Anamala Hills, located in western Tamil Nadu and Kerala with smaller ranges further south, including the Cardamom Hills, then Aryankavu pass, Aralvaimozhi pass near Kanyakumari. In the southern part of the range is Anamudi (2,695 metres (8,842Â ft)), the highest peak in Western Ghats.

Western Ghats has many peaks that rise above 2,000 meters with Anamudi(2,695 m (8,842 ft)) being the highest peak.

The Western Ghats form one of the four watersheds of India, feeding the perennial rivers of India. The major river systems originating in the Western Ghats include Godavari, Kaveri, Krishna, Thamiraparani and Tungabhadra. Majority of streams draining the Western Ghats join these rivers and carry large volume of water during the monsoon months. These rivers flow to the east due to the gradient of the land and drain out into the Bay of Bengal. Major tributaries include Kali, Bhadra, Bhavani, Bhima, Malaprabha, Ghataprabha, Hemavathi and Kabini. Periyar, Bharathappuzha, Netravati, Sharavathi, Mandovi and Zuari rivers flow westwards towards the Western Ghats, draining into the Arabian Sea and are fast-moving, owing to the steeper gradient.

The rivers have been dammed for hydroelectric and irrigation purposes with major reservoirs spread across the states. The reservoirs are important for their commercial and sport fisheries of rainbow trout, mahseer and common carp.[13] There are about 50 major dams along the length of the Western Ghats.[14] Most notable of these projects are the Koyna in Maharashtra, Linganmakki and Sivasamudram in Karnataka, Mettur and Pykara in Tamil Nadu, Parambikulam and Idukki in Kerala[12][15][16]

During the monsoon season, numerous streams fed by incessant rain drain off the mountain sides leading to numerous waterfalls. Major waterfalls include Dudhsagar, Unchalli, Sathodi, Magod, Hogenakkal, Jog, Kunchikal, Sivasamudram, Meenmutty Falls[disambiguation needed], Athirappilly Falls. Talakaveri is the source of the river Kaveri and the Kuduremukha range is the source of the Tungabhadra. Western Ghats have several man-made lakes and reservoirs with major lakes at Ooty (34 hectares (84 acres)) in Nilgiris, Kodaikanal (26 hectares (64 acres)) and Berijam in Palani Hills, Pookode lake, Devikulam (6 hectares (15 acres)) and Letchmi (2 hectares (4.9 acres)) in Kerala.

Climate in the Western Ghats varies with altitudinal gradation and distance from the equator. The climate is humid and tropical in the lower reaches tempered by the proximity to the sea. Elevations of 1,500 m (4,921 ft) and above in the north and 2,000 m (6,562 ft) and above in the south have a more temperate climate. Average annual temperature is around 15 °C (59 °F). In some parts frost is common, and temperatures touch the freezing point during the winter months. Mean temperature range from 20 °C (68 °F) in the south to 24 °C (75 °F) in the north. It has also been observed that the coldest periods in the South Western Ghats coincide with the wettest.[17]

During the monsoon season between June and September, the unbroken Western Ghats chain acts as a barrier to the moisture laden clouds. The heavy, eastward-moving rain-bearing clouds are forced to rise and in the process deposit most of their rain on the windward side. Rainfall in this region averages 300 centimetres (120 in) to 400 centimetres (160 in) with localised extremes touching 900 centimetres (350 in). The eastern region of the Western Ghats which lie in the rain shadow, receive far less rainfall of about 100 centimetres (39 in) resulting in an average rainfall of 250 centimetres (98 in) across regions. The total amount of rain does not depend on the spread of the area with areas in northern Maharashtra receiving heavy rainfall followed by long dry spells, while regions closer to the equator receive less annual rainfall and have rain spells lasting several months in a year.[17]

The Western Ghats are home to four tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregions â€“ the North Western Ghats moist deciduous forests, North Western Ghats montane rain forests, South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests, and South Western Ghats montane rain forests. The northern portion of the range is generally drier than the southern portion, and at lower elevations makes up the North Western Ghats moist deciduous forests ecoregion, with mostly deciduous forests made up predominantly of teak. Above 1,000 meters elevation are the cooler and wetter North Western Ghats montane rain forests, whose evergreen forests are characterised by trees of family Lauraceae.

The evergreen forests in Wayanad mark the transition zone between the northern and southern ecologic regions of the Western Ghats. The southern ecologic regions are generally wetter and more species-rich. At lower elevations are the South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests, with Cullenia the characteristic tree genus, accompanied by teak, dipterocarps, and other trees. The moist forests transition to the drier South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests, which lie in its rain shadow to the east. Above 1,000 meters are the South Western Ghats montane rain forests, also cooler and wetter than the surrounding lowland forests, and dominated by evergreen trees, although some montane grasslands and stunted forests can be found at the highest elevations. The South Western Ghats montane rain forests are the most species-rich ecologic region in peninsular India; eighty percent of the flowering plant species of the entire Western Ghats range are found in this ecologic region.

Historically the Western Ghats were well-covered in dense forests that provided wild foods and natural habitats for native tribal people. Its inaccessibility made it difficult for people from the plains to cultivate the land and build settlements. After the arrival of the British in the area, large swathes of territory were cleared for agricultural plantations and timber. The forest in the Western Ghats has been severely fragmented due to human activities, especially clear felling for tea, coffee, and teak plantations during 1860 to 1950. Species that are rare, endemic and habitat specialists are more adversely affected and tend to be lost faster than other species. Complex and species rich habitats like the tropical rainforest are much more adversely affected than other habitats.[18]

The area is ecologically sensitive to development and was declared an ecological hotspot in 1988 through the efforts of ecologist Norman Myers. The area covers five percent of India's land with 27% of all species of higher plants in India (4,000 of 15,000 species) are found here and 1,800 of these are endemic to the region. The range is home to at least 84 amphibian species, 16 bird species, seven mammals, and 1,600 flowering plants which are not found elsewhere in the world. The Government of India established many protected areas including 2 biosphere reserves, 13 National parks to restrict human access, several wildlife sanctuaries to protect specific endangered species and many Reserve Forests, which are all managed by the forest departments of their respective state to preserve some of the ecoregions still undeveloped. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve comprising 5,500 square kilometres (2,100 sq mi) of the evergreen forests of Nagarahole and deciduous forests of Bandipur in Karnataka, adjoining regions of Wayanad-Mukurthi in Kerala and Mudumalai National Park-Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu forms the largest contiguous protected area in the Western Ghats.[19] Silent Valley in Kerala is among the last tracts of virgin tropical evergreen forest in India.[20][21]

In August 2011, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) designated the entire Western Ghats as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) and assigned three levels of Ecological Sensitivity to its different regions.[22] The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil, was a committee appointed by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to assess the biodiversity and environmental issues of the Western Ghats.[23] Gadgil Committee and its successor Kasturirangan Committee recommended suggestions to protect the Western Ghats. Gadgil report was criticized as being too environment-friendly and Kasturirangan report was labelled as being anti-environmental.[24][25][26]

In 2006, India applied to the UNESCO MAB for the Western Ghats to be listed as a protected World Heritage Site.[27] In 2012, the following places are declared as World Heritage Sites:[28][29]

The Western Ghats are home to thousands of animal species including at least 325 globally threatened species.[30]

There are at least 139 mammal species. Of the 16 endemic mammals, 13 are threatened and amongst the 32 threatened species include the critically endangered Malabar large-spotted civet, the endangered lion-tailed macaque, Nilgiri tahr, Bengal tiger and Indian elephants, the vulnerable Indian leopard, Nilgiri langur and gaur.[31][32][33]

These hill ranges serve as important wildlife corridors and forms an important part of Project Elephant and Project Tiger reserves. The largest population of tigers outside the Sundarbans is in the Western Ghats where there are seven populations with an estimated population size of 336 to 487 individuals occupying 21,435 km2 (8,276 sq mi) forest in three major landscape units spread across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.[34] The Western Ghats eco-region has the largest Indian elephant population in the wild with an estimated 11,000 individuals across eight distinct populations.[35][36] The endemic Nilgiri tahr which was on the brink of extinction has recovered and has an estimated 3,122 individuals in the wild.[37] The Critically Endangered endemic Malabar large-spotted civet is estimated to number fewer than 250 mature individuals, with no sub-population greater than 50 individuals.[38] About 3500 lion-tailed macaques live scattered over several areas in the Western Ghats.[39]

Western Ghats has the largest tiger population outside Sunderbans

Endangered Lion-tailed macaque is endemic to Western Ghats

Western Ghats region has the largest Indian elephant population in India

Only 100 individuals of Nilgiri tahr were left in 2001 but has recovered to 3,300 by 2010

The endemic Nilgiri langur is endangered

The major population of snake family Uropeltidae of the reptile class is restricted to the region.[40] The region has significant population of vulnerable Mugger crocodiles.[41]

The amphibians of the Western Ghats are diverse and unique, with more than 80% of the 179 amphibian species being endemic to the rainforests of the mountains.[42] The endangered purple frog was discovered in 2003.[43] Four new species of frogs belonging to the genera Rhacophorus, Polypedates, Philautus and Bufo were described from the Western Ghats in 2005.[44] The region is also home to many caecilian species.

Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) was discovered in 2003

Malabar gliding frog is endemic to Western Ghats

Pipe snakes are found only in South India and Sri Lanka

Denison's barb is threatened from habitat loss and is now bred in captivity

As of 2004[update], 288 freshwater fish species are listed for the Western Ghats, including 35 also known from brackish or marine water.[10] Several new species have been described from the region since then (e.g., Dario urops and S. sharavathiensis).[45][46] There are 118 endemic species, including 12 genera entirely restricted to the Western Ghats (Betadevario, Dayella, Horabagrus, Horalabiosa, Hypselobarbus, Indoreonectes, Lepidopygopsis, Longischistura, Mesonoemacheilus, Parapsilorhynchus, Rohtee and Travancoria).[47]

There is a higher fish richness in the southern part of the Western Ghats than in the northern,[47] and the highest is in the Chalakudy River, which alone holds 98 species.[48] Other rivers with high species numbers include the Periyar, Bharatapuzha, Pamba and Chaliyar, as well as upstream tributaries of the Kaveri, Pambar, Bhavani and Krishna rivers.[47] The most species rich families are the Cyprinids (72 species), hillstream loaches (34 species; including stone loaches, now regarded a separate family), Bagrid catfishes (19 species) and Sisorid catfishes (12 species).[10][47][48] The region is home to several brilliantly colored ornamental fishes like Denison's (or red line torpedo) barb,[49] several species of Dawkinsia barbs, zebra loach, Horabagrus catfish, dwarf pufferfish and dwarf Malabar pufferfish.[50] The rivers are also home to Osteobrama bakeri, and larger species such as the Malabar snakehead and Malabar mahseer.[51][52] A few are adapted to an underground life, including some Monopterus swampeels,[53] and the catfish Horaglanis and Kryptoglanis.[54]

According to the IUCN, 97 freshwater fish species from the Western Ghats were considered threatened in 2011, including 12 critically endangered, 54 endangered and 31 vulnerable.[47] All but one (Tor khudree) of these are endemic to the Western Ghats. An additional 26 species from the region are considered data deficient (their status is unclear at present). The primary threats are from habitat loss, but also from overexploitation and introduced species.[47]

There are at least 508 bird species. Most of Karnataka's five hundred species of birds are from the Western Ghats region.[55][56] There are at least 16 species of birds endemic to the Western Ghats including the endangered rufous-breasted laughingthrush, the vulnerable Nilgiri wood-pigeon, white-bellied shortwing and broad-tailed grassbird, the near threatened grey-breasted laughingthrush, black-and-rufous flycatcher, Nilgiri flycatcher, and Nilgiri pipit, and the least concern Malabar (blue-winged) parakeet, Malabar grey hornbill, white-bellied treepie, grey-headed bulbul, rufous babbler, Wynaad laughingthrush, white-bellied blue-flycatcher and the crimson-backed sunbird.[57]

Nilgiri wood-pigeon

Malabar (blue-winged) parakeet

White-bellied treepie

There are roughly 6,000 insect species.[58] Of 334 Western Ghats butterfly species, 316 species have been reported from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.[59] The Western Ghats is home to 174 species of odonates (107 dragonflies and 67 damselflies), including 69 endemics.[47] Most of the endemic odonate are closely associated with rivers and streams, while the non-endemics typically are generalists.[47] There are several species of leeches found all along the Western Ghats.[60]

The Malabar tree nymph is endemic to the Western Ghats

Tamil Lacewings are found only in South Asia

The Western Ghats has 67 species of damselflies

The endemic land snail Indrella ampulla

Phallus indusiatus found in the Western Ghats

Seasonal rainfall patterns of the Western Ghats necessitate a period of dormancy for its land snails, resulting in their high abundance and diversity including at least 258 species of gastropods from 57 genera and 24 families.[61] A total of 77 species of freshwater molluscs (52 gastropods and 25 bivalves) have been recorded from the Western Ghats, but the actual number is likely higher.[47] This include 28 endemics. Among the threatened freshwater molluscs are the mussels Pseudomulleria dalyi, which is a Gondwanan relict, and the snail Cremnoconchus, which is restricted to the spray zone of waterfalls.[47] According to the IUCN, 4 species of freshwater molluscs are considered endangered and 3 are vulnerable. An additional 19 species are considered data deficient.[47]

Of the 7,402 species of flowering plants occurring in the Western Ghats, 5,588 species are native or indigenous and 376 are exotics naturalised and 1,438 species are cultivated or planted as ornamentals. Among the indigenous species, 2,253 species are endemic to India and of them, 1,273 species are exclusively confined to the Western Ghats. Apart from 593 confirmed subspecies and varieties; 66 species, 5 subspecies and 14 varieties of doubtful occurrence are also reported and therefore amounting 8,080 taxa of flowering plants.[62]


who wrote the book a history of british india

The History of British India is a history of the British Raj by the 19th century British historian and imperial political theorist James Mill.

The History of British India

This History went into many editions and during the 19th century became the standard reference work on its subject among British imperialists.[1]

James Mill began his History of British India in 1806, expecting it to take him about three years, but its completion proved to take instead twelve years, with three substantial volumes at last being published early in 1817.[1] The work was immediately successful among British imperialists and secured for Mill for the first time a degree of prosperity. It led, with the support of David Ricardo and Joseph Hume, to Mill's appointment in 1819 in United Kingdom as assistant (later chief) examiner of correspondence at the imperial East India Company at an annual salary of £800. By 1836, when he died, this income had become £2,000.[1]

Mill's biographer Bruce Mazlish takes a practical view of Mill's purpose in beginning the History, stating

By 1802, unable to find a parish and disillusioned with a religious career, he "emigrated" to England. There he quickly obtained a position as editor and writer, married, and began to raise a family. To secure his position, he began to write a great work, The History of British India, in 1806, the same year as his first-born, John Stuart, arrived on the scene... James finally finished The History of British India, and on the basis of it secured the post of an examiner at the imperial East India Company, rising to the top in a few years.[2]

The History of British India purports to be a study of India in which James set out to attack the history, character, religion, literature, arts, and laws of India, also making claims about the influence of the Indian climate.[3] He also aimed to locate the attacks on India within a wider theoretical framework.[4]

The book begins with a preface in which Mill tries to make a virtue of having never visited India and of knowing none of its native languages.[5] To him, these are guarantees of his objectivity, and he boldly claims â€“

A duly qualified man can obtain more knowledge of India in one year in his closet in England than he could obtain during the course of the longest life, by the use of his eyes and ears in India.[4]

However, Mill goes on in this preface to say that his work is a "critical, or judging history", encompassing singularly harsh attacks on Hindu customs and a "backward" culture which he claims to be notable only for superstition, ignorance, and the mistreatment of women.[1] Mill was particularly notable for his brutal attack on the sati, which he took as evidence of the "savagery and particular brutishness" of Indian culture.[6] His work was influential in the eventual ban of the sati in 1823.

From the historical perspective, Mill tells the story of the English and, later, British acquisition of wide territories in India, severely criticising those involved in these conquests and in the later administration of the conquered territories, as well as illuminating the harmful effects of commercial monopolies such as that of the imperial East India Company.[3] As a philosopher, Mill applies political theory to the description of the civilisations of India. His interest is in institutions, ideas, and historical processes, while his work is relatively lacking in human interest, in that he does not seek to paint memorable portraits of Robert Clive, Warren Hastings, and the other leading players in the history of British India, nor of its famous battles.[1] Indeed, the History has been called "...a work of Benthamite 'philosophical history' from which the reader is supposed to draw lessons about human nature, reason and religion".[7]

Despite the fact that Mill had never been to India, his work had a profound effect on the British imperial system of governing the country, as did his later official connection with India.[3]

The Orientalist Horace Hayman Wilson edited later editions and extended the history to 1835 with a continuation entitled The History of British India from 1805 to 1835. He also added notes to Mill's work, based on his own knowledge of India and its languages. The History of British India is still in print.[3][8]

In his introduction to Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill's The History of British India and Orientalism, Javed Majeed argues against "colonialist discourse" approaches to Mill's History,[9] while in his forthcoming James Mill and the Despotism of Philosophy (2009), David McInerney considers how Mill's History of British India relates to Enlightenment historiography, and especially William Robertson's Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge the Ancients had of India. He argues that Mill first published his theory of government in The History of British India, and that in the work Mill's use of history is not rationalist but entails an empirical conception of how historical records relate to the improvement of government.[10]

According to Thomas Trautmann, "James Mill's highly influential History of British India (1817) – most particularly the long essay 'Of the Hindus' comprising ten chapters – is the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism".[11] In the chapter titled General Reflections in "Of the Hindus", Mill wrote "under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy".[12] According to Mill, "the same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indifference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venality" were the conspicuous characteristics of both the Hindoos and the Muslims. The Muslims, however, were perfuse, when possessed of wealth, and devoted to pleasure; the Hindoos almost always penurious and ascetic; and "in truth, the Hindoo like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave". Furthermore, similar to the Chinese, the Hindoos were "dissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society". Both the Chinese and the Hindoos were "disposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves". Both were "cowardly and unfeeling". Both were "in the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others". And, above all, both were "in physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses".[13]


who sang where are you now my love

"Where Are You Now (My Love)" is a 1965 song written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent, and recorded in December 1964 by Trent.[1] The single gave Trent her only No. 1 hit when it reached the top of the UK Singles Chart for one week in May 1965.[2] The song was featured in the popular television series It's Dark Outside.[3]

Where Are You Now (My Love)

"Where Are You Now" was Hatch and Trent's first composition together, and one of many hits they would have as a song writing partnership. Although Trent released two follow-up singles, these were only minor hits in the UK.[1] The song was written and recorded in just four days after Hatch was asked by Granada TV to produce a song for the female lead in the programme to be seen on screen playing to herself. The lyrics were written by Trent in December 1964 (around Christmas), and she recorded the song in December 1964 just before she headed off to South Africa on a three-month tour. When the song first hit the screen, people contacted TV Times to ask where they could get it and the rush was on to get it into the shops. The song went to number 1 in May 1965 and, according to some UK Charts, it knocked The Beatles's "Ticket to Ride" off the number one spot.[2]

A duet with Hatch, "The Two of Us", later achieved success on the Australian chart.


what was the purpose of operation noble eagle

Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) is the United States and Canadian military operation related to homeland security and support to federal, state, and local agencies. The operation began 14 September 2001, in response to the September 11 attacks.[1]

Operation Noble Eagle

Operation Noble Eagle began with the mobilization of thousands of National Guard and reserve personnel to perform security missions on military installations, airports and other potential targets such as bridges, power plants, and port facilities. These reservists were called to active duty under a mobilization authority known as a partial mobilization (10 USC 12302). In a time of national emergency declared by the President, partial mobilization authorizes the President to order members of the ready reserve to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 consecutive months. Additionally, in 2001 and 2002, thousands of members of the national guard were activated at the order of their respective governors to provide additional security at airports. They were called up under Title 32 of the U.S. Code, which means they were under state control, but with federal pay and benefits.[1] The Royal Canadian Air Force assisted in providing defense of the northern border of the United States. The United States Army's 759th Military Police Battalion, 144th Military Police Company and the 177th Military Police Brigade were assigned the task of protecting the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol, along with other Army National Guard units that were tasked with augmenting the Air Force's air defense perimeter around the National Capital Region.

United States civilian and military leaders are beginning[needs update] to regard the costly air defense operation above North American cities as a permanent defense requirement demanding significant attention from NORAD. The current focus is on improving command and control of the homeland air defense mission.[2]

The United States Department of Defense provided F-15 Eagles[3] and F-16 Fighting Falcons to this operation, and the Canadian Forces provided CF-18s.[4] The US Army National Guard provided short range air defense systems (AVENGER/MANPADS) to provide close range air defense protection under the control of the US Air Force JADOC (joint air defense operations center) and CONR.

The Joint Air Defense Operations Center Suite (JADOC) Suite is an integrated USAF connectivity center used in point defense of the National Capital Region. The Suite provides capability for tactical C2 execution for the Joint Task Force/Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JTF/JFACC) under the Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) mission as part of the National Capital Region-Integrated Air Defense System (NCR-IADS - National Capital Region Integrated Air Defense Systems). It is currently fielded and operational. It was developed in response to an urgent need request for enhanced air defense of the NCR per SECDEF direction through a joint rapid acquisition cell. The architecture consists of an air surveillance fusion system and the C2 connectivity center, which includes a Link 16 capable terminal and Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) capability.

The NCR-IAD's warning equipment include visual warning lasers, flare cannons, FAA radars, military radar systems, advanced electro-optical sensors (Enhanced Regional Situation Awareness), and regular cameras. Its "engagement assets" include the Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) for long-range air defense; SLAMRAMMs — Surface Launched Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile batteries mounted on Humvees — for protection close-in; Sentinel phased array warning radar, which detects smaller targets at a range of 75 miles; and the Army's AVENGER system for threats closer to the ground or closer to the center of the protected area. Stinger missiles situated around D.C. require humans to aim them and confirm targeting.

As the Canadian geographical component of NORAD, CANR provides airspace surveillance and control, and directs all air sovereignty activities for the Canadian NORAD Region. CANR and its assigned Air Force assets throughout the country ensure air safety and security against potential air threats and have supported special events such as the G-8 Summit and the visits of foreign dignitaries.[5]

The Canadian NORAD Region (CANR) flew Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) air defense protection missions in the Windsor, Ontario/Detroit, Michigan area on 5 February 2006, in support of Super Bowl XL at Ford Field. These types of missions had become more common at organized entertainment such as the Super Bowl.[5]


when does civ vi rise and fall release

Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Rise and Fall is the first official expansion pack for the turn-based strategy video game Civilization VI. It was released on February 8, 2018, in North America. The expansion adds new features, civilizations, and leaders.[2]

Civilization VI: Rise and Fall

The focus of the Rise and Fall expansion is to add mechanics that emulate the potential for civilization's rise then collapse due to a number of factors. The player will be challenged in how they deal with these turns in their civilization.[3]

The expansion introduces global eras, triggered when any of the competing civilizations reaches the required milestones. All civilizations are evaluated for their Era Score at this point based on various advancement goals, including achieving certain Historic Moments such as circumnavigating the globe for the first time.[4] The Era Score is used to determine if the civilization moves into a Golden Age (by exceeding a threshold) or a Dark Age (by failing to meet a different threshold), or otherwise proceeds into the next Era without these effects. In a Golden Age, populations of cities are more loyal to their leader, improving their production. On the other hand, populations in Dark Ages will be less loyal. If the player is able to bring their civilization out of a Dark Age by the time of the next global era shift, they can gain rewards such as new government-related edicts. Furthermore, if the player can bring their Dark Age to a Golden Age by the era shift, they enter a Heroic Age which grants several boosts to one's civilization well beyond a Golden Age. Regardless of which Age, players select a Dedication to try to follow for that Age, which earns additional points towards the Era Score by following through on the Dedication.[4] Firaxis wants players to have risk-and-reward play for challenging themselves through a Dark Age.[3]

Cities will include a Loyalty rating, which is affected by Golden or Dark Ages. Loyalty in cities is boosted by keeping the population happy, government edicts proper, and nearby cities loyal. However, loyalty can be lost by other government edicts, unhappiness, and the presence of nearby opposing cities. If a city's loyalty drops to zero, it becomes a Free City, no longer controlled by the player, and can be taken by any civilization through military or through exerting its own loyalty by nearby cities to convert it to their civilization.[3] This means of using Loyalty to take over Free Cities can also be used to take over the existing neutral city-states, though these lose their bonuses when they are converted.[3] To support Loyalty, players can create and assign a Governor to a city through the civics tree.[4] Governors specialize in one of seven areas, like military or economy, and provide boosts to Loyalty and other city functions if the city focuses on those tasks. Governors can be advanced in tiers to provide more powerful bonuses, but the player has a limited pool of upgrade points to spend towards this across all Governors, making them decide whether to have one or two powerful Governors among several weak ones, or a spread-out mid-tier set of Governors.[3]

Civilizations can form alliances with other civilizations based on specific goals, such as a scientific alliance to share research, or an economic alliance to specialize in trade routes. Alliances can become more powerful over time.[3] The expansion introduces Emergencies which are triggered by specific events, such as a civilization using a nuclear weapon, or a civilization starting a holy war by taking over a city of a civilization with a different religion. Each civilization may become involved in the Emergency, depending on the condition: in the case of a nuclear weapon, all other civilizations may be allied against the one that used it, while in the religious case, the situation will have the civilizations with one religion type facing against those with the other religion. Each side in these Emergency then has a list of short-term goals to accomplish to attempt to be victorious in the situation. The first side to complete their goals gains rewards that last for the remainder of the game.[3]

New units and city improvements will be added to support these features, as well as a new District type, Government. A civilization can only have one Government district, but government-based improvements placed there will have a significant boost to Loyalty and other benefits of that improvement. The expansion will also add new civilizations.[3]

Firaxis' goal with Rise and Fall was to explore the rise and fall of civilizations and make the effects, be them beneficial or detrimental, more pronounced in the overall game, according to the expansion's producer Andrew Frederiksen. He said, "[what] we're trying to capture here is the ups and downs, sort of riding the waves through history that is so paramount when you look back at our own world."[3] Whenever possible, the new mechanics were integrated with the game's existing systems rather than built as a new system atop those.[3]

The expansion included a number of new nations and leaders. One of these was the First Nation of Cree, led in-game by Chief Poundmaker, who led the nation in the 19th century. On the announcement for the expansion, current Cree Headman Milton Tootoosis criticized the inclusion in the game, stating that they were not approached by Firaxis or 2K Games, and that the inclusion "perpetuates this myth that First Nations had similar values that the colonial culture has, and that is one of conquering other peoples and accessing their land. That is totally not in concert with our traditional ways and world view."[5] Tootoosis did comment favorably that the promotional material that suggests Poundmaker attempted to bridge peace between the First Nations and settlers, putting the leader in a good light.[5]

The game was well-received by critics with 80 weighted average on Metacritic.[6]


who plays the new riggs in lethal weapon

Clayne Crawford (born April 20, 1978)[1] is an American actor. He is best known for portraying the role of Martin Riggs on the Fox action comedy-drama television series Lethal Weapon (2016–2018), and for being fired from that role in the show’s third season. He also portrayed Teddy Talbot on the critically acclaimed Sundance drama Rectify (2013–2016).

Clayne Crawford

Crawford had supporting roles in the films A Walk to Remember (2002) and Swimfan (2002). He also appeared in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) and  The Great Raid (2005). He also played in some small independent films that were not widely distributed.

Born Joseph "Joey" Crawford in Clay, Alabama, he is the son of Brian and Lennie Crawford.[2] By high school, he was on the football and wrestling teams,[2] and graduated from Hewitt-Trussville High School.[3]

In 1996, he drove to Los Angeles to seek work as an actor.[2] He often worked in construction to support himself while appearing in small theaters. In 2000, he changed his name professionally from Joey to Clayne, a combination to honor an ancestor ("Clan") and his hometown (Clay, Alabama).[2]

He had a recurring role in the first season of Jericho as Mitchell "Mitch" Cafferty. In 2008, he appeared on Life in the episode "Evil... and His Brother Ziggy". Crawford was the protagonist in the 2010 straight-to-DVD prequel to Smokin' Aces, Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball.

In 2010, he had a recurring role in the eighth season of 24 as Kevin Wade, a young, mysterious man.[2] He also appeared in the first and second season of the A&E series The Glades.

Crawford played the role of Ted "Teddy" Talbot, Jr. in the first SundanceTV original series, Rectify, which was aired for four seasons from 2013 to 2016. The series, exploring a man who is released from prison after 19 years on death row after DNA evidence appears to support his innocence, also looks at the effects on his family and town. It received critical praise and won a Peabody Award in 2014, also receiving notice for its treatment of issues in criminal justice.[4][5]

Crawford played the role of Cade LaSalle, older brother to Christopher LaSalle on NCIS: New Orleans.

Crawford portrayed Martin Riggs in the pilot for the Fox Television Lethal Weapon reboot, which was later picked up as a series.[6][7][8] On 8 May 2018 it was announced that Crawford had been fired from Lethal Weapon over unspecified abusive behavior on the set,[9][10] with Seann William Scott replacing Crawford as a new character named Wesley Cole.[10]

2016 TV Critics' Choice Awards â€“ Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Nominated) [11]


when did the first spider man movie come out

Spider-Man premiered in the Philippines on April 30, 2002 and had its general release in the United States on May 3, 2002. It became a critical and financial success: it was the first film to reach $100 million in a single weekend, and became the most successful film based on a comic book. With $821.7 million worldwide, it was 2002's third-highest-grossing film and became the seventh-highest-grossing film of all time. The film competed at the 75th Academy Awards ceremony for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. The film is credited for redefining the modern superhero genre, as well as the summer blockbuster,[3][4][5][6] and due to its success it was followed by two sequels, Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).

Spider-Man (2002 film)

Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and the first film in the Spider-Man trilogy. The film stars Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, a high school student living in New York City, who turns to crimefighting as Spider-Man after developing spider-like super powers. Spider-Man also stars Kirsten Dunst as Peter's love interest Mary Jane Watson, Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, the secret identity of his foe Green Goblin, Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson as Aunt May and Uncle Ben, James Franco as Peter's best friend Harry Osborn, and J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Daily Bugle.

After progress on the film stalled for nearly 25 years, it was licensed for a worldwide release by Columbia Pictures in 1999 after it acquired options from MGM on all previous scripts developed by Cannon Films, Carolco and New Cannon. Exercising its option on just two elements from the multi-script acquisition (a different screenplay was written by James Cameron, Ted Newsom, John Brancato, Barney Cohen and Joseph Goldman), Sony hired David Koepp to create a working screenplay (credited as Cameron's), and Koepp received sole credit in final billing. Directors Roland Emmerich, Ang Lee, Chris Columbus, Jan de Bont, M. Night Shyamalan, Tony Scott and David Fincher were considered to direct the project before Raimi was hired as director in 2000. The Koepp script was rewritten by Scott Rosenberg during pre-production and received a dialogue polish from Alvin Sargent during production. Filming took place in Los Angeles and New York City from January 8 to June 30, 2001.

High-school senior Peter Parker lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and is a school outcast. On a school field trip, he visits a genetics laboratory with his friend Harry Osborn and love interest Mary Jane Watson. There, Peter is bitten by a genetically engineered "super spider." Shortly after arriving home, he becomes unconscious. Meanwhile, Harry's father, scientist Norman Osborn, owner of Oscorp, is trying to secure an important military contract. He experiments on himself with an unstable performance-enhancing chemical. After absorbing the chemical, he goes insane and kills his assistant.

The next morning, Peter finds that he is no longer near-sighted, and his body has metamorphosized into a more muscular physique. At school, he finds that his hands can produce webs, and his quickened reflexes let him avoid injury during a confrontation with Flash Thompson. Peter discovers he has developed superhuman speed, strength, the ability to stick to surfaces, and a heightened ability to sense danger.

Brushing off Ben's advice that "with great power comes great responsibility", Peter thinks of impressing Mary Jane with a car. He enters an underground fighting tournament and wins his first match, but the promoter cheats him out of his money. When a thief suddenly raids the promoter's office, Peter allows him to escape. Moments later, he discovers that Ben was carjacked, and killed. Peter pursues and confronts the carjacker, only to realize it was the thief he let escape. After Peter disarms him, the carjacker flees but dies in the process. Meanwhile, a crazed Norman interrupts a military experiment by Oscorp's corporate rival and kills several scientists and the military's General Slocum.

Upon graduating, Peter begins using his abilities to fight injustice, donning a costume and the persona of Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson, a newspaper company headmaster hires Peter as a freelance photographer since he is the only person providing clear images of Spider-Man.

Norman, upon learning Oscorp's board members plan to force him out and sell the company, assassinates them at the World Unity Fair. Jameson quickly dubs the mysterious killer the Green Goblin. Norman offers Peter a place at his side, but Peter refuses. They fight, and Peter is wounded. At Thanksgiving dinner, May invites Mary Jane, Harry, and Norman. During the dinner, Norman sees the wound and realizes Peter's identity. Shortly after he leaves, Norman attacks, and hospitalizes May.

Mary Jane admits she is infatuated with Spider-Man, who has rescued her on numerous occasions, and asks Peter whether Spider-Man ever asked about her. Harry, who is dating Mary Jane, arrives and presumes she has feelings for Peter after seeing them hold hands. Devastated, Harry tells his father that Peter loves Mary Jane, unintentionally revealing Spider-Man's biggest weakness.

Norman holds Mary Jane and a Roosevelt Island Tram car full of children hostage alongside the Queensboro Bridge. He forces Peter to choose whom he wants to save and drops Mary Jane and the children. Peter saves both Mary Jane and the tram car, while Norman is pelted by civilians who side with Spider-Man. Norman then grabs Peter and throws him into an abandoned building where Peter is brutally beaten by him. When Norman boasts about how he will later kill Mary Jane, an enraged Peter overpowers Norman.

Norman reveals himself to Peter, who stops attacking. He begs for forgiveness, but at the same time controls his glider to impale his foe. Sensing the attack, Peter dodges, and the glider impales Norman. As he dies, Norman begs Peter not to tell Harry of Norman's identity. Peter takes Norman's body back to his house. Harry arrives to find a costumed Peter standing over his father's body. He seizes a gun, intent on shooting Peter, but Peter escapes and hides Norman's equipment.

At Norman's funeral, Harry swears vengeance toward Spider-Man, whom he deems responsible for his father's death, and asserts that Peter is all the family he has left. Mary Jane confesses to Peter that she is in love with him. Peter, however, feels that he must protect her from the unwanted attention of his enemies. He hides his true feelings and tells Mary Jane that they can only be friends. As Peter leaves the funeral, he recalls Ben's words and accepts his new responsibility as Spider-Man.

I felt like I was an outsider. I think what happened to me made me develop this street sense of watching people and working out what made them tick, wondering whether I could trust them or not. I went to a lot of schools along the coast in California, made few friends and stayed with aunts, uncles and grandparents while my folks tried to make ends meet. It was tough. We had no money.

Bruce Campbell, a long-time colleague of director Sam Raimi, has a cameo as the announcer at the wrestling ring Peter takes part in. Years later, Jeffrey Henderson, who worked on the storyboards for the cancelled Spider-Man 4 movie, released information regarding which villains would appear within the movie. One of those included Bruce Campbell's character's progression into Quentin Beck / Mysterio.[22][23] Ted Raimi, Sam Raimi's actor brother, plays a small role as editor's assistant Hoffman. Sam Raimi himself appeared off-screen, throwing popcorn at Peter as he enters the arena to wrestle Bonesaw McGraw.[24] Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee also has a cameo, in which he asks Peter, "Hey kid, would you like a pair of these glasses? They're the kind they wore in X-Men." The scene was cut, and Lee only briefly appears in the film to grab a young girl from falling debris during the battle between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin in Times Square. R&B/soul singer Macy Gray appears as herself. One of the stunt performers in the film is actor Johnny Tri Nguyen.[9] Robert Kerman, best known for his performances in pornographic and exploitation films, has a bit part as a tugboat captain. Lucy Lawless makes a cameo as a punk rock girl. It was also intended for Hugh Jackman to make an appearance in the film as Logan / Wolverine, reprising the role from 2000's X-Men, but a dispute between Sony and 20th Century Fox over the characters' film rights prevented it from happening.[25] The novelization of Spider-Man identifies Liz Allan as the character portrayed by Sally Livingstone.

In April 1999, although Sony Pictures optioned from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer all preceding script versions of a Spider-Man film, it only exercised the options on "the Cameron material," which contractually included a multi-author screenplay and a forty-five page "scriptment" credited only to James Cameron. The studio announced they were not hiring Cameron himself to direct the film nor would they be using his script.[26] The studio lined up Roland Emmerich, Tony Scott, Chris Columbus, Ang Lee, David Fincher, Jan de Bont and M. Night Shyamalan as potential directors. Fincher did not want to depict the origin story, pitching the film as being based on The Night Gwen Stacy Died storyline, but the studio disagreed.[13] Sam Raimi was attached to direct in January 2000,[27] for a summer 2001 release.[28] He had been a fan of the comic book during his youth, and his passion for Spider-Man earned him the job.[29]

Cameron's work became the basis of David Koepp's first draft screenplay, often word for word.[30] Cameron's versions of the Marvel villains Electro and Sandman remained the antagonists. Koepp's rewrite substituted the Green Goblin as the main antagonist and added Doctor Octopus as the secondary antagonist.[31] Raimi felt the Green Goblin and the surrogate father-son theme between Norman Osborn and Peter Parker would be more interesting, thus, he dropped Doctor Octopus from the film.[32] In June, Columbia hired Scott Rosenberg to rewrite Koepp's material. Remaining a constant in all the rewrites was the "organic webshooter" idea from the Cameron "scriptment".[33] Raimi felt he would stretch the audience's suspension of disbelief too far to have Peter invent mechanical webshooters.[10]

Rosenberg removed Doctor Octopus and created several new action sequences.[34] Raimi felt adding a third origin story would make the film too complex. Sequences removed from the final film had Spider-Man protecting Fargas, the wheelchair-using Oscorp executive, from the Goblin, and Spider-Man defusing a hostage situation on a train.[13] As production neared, producer Laura Ziskin hired her husband, award-winning writer Alvin Sargent, to polish the dialogue, primarily between Peter and Mary Jane.[35] Columbia gave the Writers Guild of America a list of four writers as contributors to the final "Spider-Man" script: Rosenberg, Sargent and James Cameron, all three of whom voluntarily relinquished credit to the fourth, David Koepp.[30]

With Spider-Man cast, filming was set to begin the following November in New York City and on Sony soundstages. The film was set for release a year later,[8] but when the film was postponed to be released on May 3, 2002,[36] filming officially began on January 8, 2001[35] in Culver City, California. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, certain sequences were re-filmed, and images of the Twin Towers were digitally erased from the film.[37][38] Sony's Stage 29 was used for Peter's Forest Hills home, and Stage 27 was used for the wrestling sequence where Peter takes on Bonesaw McGraw (Randy Savage). Stage 27 was also used for the complex Times Square sequence where Spider-Man and the Goblin battle for the first time, where a three-story set with a breakaway balcony piece was built. The scene also required shooting in Downey, California.[39] On March 6,[40] forty-five-year-old construction worker Tim Holcombe was killed when a forklift modified as a construction crane crashed into a construction basket that he was in. The following court case led to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health to fine Sony $58,805.[41]

In Los Angeles, locations included the Natural History Museum (for the Columbia University lab where Peter is bitten and receives his powers), the Pacific Electricity Building (the Daily Bugle offices) and Greystone Mansion (for the interiors of Norman Osborn's home). In April, 4 of the Spider-Man costumes were stolen, and Sony put up a $25,000 reward for their return.[42] They were recovered after 18 months and a former movie studio security guard and an accomplice were arrested.[43] Production moved to New York City for two weeks, taking in locations such as the Queensboro Bridge, the exteriors of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and the New York Public Library, and a rooftop garden in the Rockefeller Center.[39] The crew returned to Los Angeles where production and filming ended in June. The Flatiron Building was used for the Daily Bugle.[35]

Before settling on the look used in the film, the original mask created for the Green Goblin in the film was an animatronic mask created by Amalgamated Dynamics, which would have completely covered Willem Dafoe's face, looking more like skin; none of his features would have been seen.[44]

Although it wound up being faithful to the comics, many designs were made for Spider-Man's costumes: one concept costume designer James Acheson became fond of was the idea of having a red emblem over a black costume. Another, which would eventually lead to the final product, featured an enlarged logo on the chest and red stripes going down the sides of the legs.[13] To create Spider-Man's costume, Maguire was fitted for the skintight suit, being covered with layers of substance to create the suit's shape.[45] It was designed as a single piece, including the mask. A hard shell was worn underneath the mask to make the shape of the head look better and to keep the mask tight while keeping the wearer comfortable.  For scenes where he would take his mask off, there was an alternate suit where the mask was a separate piece. The webbing, which accented the costume, was cut by computer. The mask eye lenses were designed to have a mirror look.[46]

Visual effects supervisor John Dykstra was hired to produce the film's visual effects in May 2000.[47] He convinced Raimi to make many of the stunts computer-generated, as they would have been physically impossible. Raimi had used more traditional special effects in his previous films and learned a lot about using computers during production.[29] Raimi worked hard to plan all the sequences of Spider-Man swinging from buildings, which he described as, "ballet in the sky." The complexity of such sequences meant the budget rose from an initially planned $70 million to around $100 million.[9] Shots were made more complicated because of the main characters' individual color schemes, so Spider-Man and the Green Goblin had to be shot separately for effects shots: Spider-Man was shot in front of a greenscreen, while the Green Goblin was shot against bluescreen. Shooting them together would have resulted in one character being erased from a shot.[13]

Dykstra said the biggest difficulty of creating Spider-Man was that as the character was masked, it immediately lost a lot of characterization. Without the context of eyes or mouth, a lot of body language had to be put in so that there would be emotional content. Raimi wanted to convey the essence of Spider-Man as being, "the transition that occurs between him being a young man going through puberty and being a superhero." Dykstra said his crew of animators had never reached such a level of sophistication to give subtle hints of still making Spider-Man feel like a human being.[48] When two studio executives were shown shots of the computer generated character, they believed it was actually Maguire performing stunts.[13] In addition, Dykstra's crew had to composite areas of New York City and replaced every car in shots with digital models. Raimi did not want it to feel entirely like animation, so none of the shots were 100% computer-generated.[49]

After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Sony recalled teaser posters which showed a close-up of Spider-Man's face with the New York skyline (including, prominently, the World Trade Center towers) reflected in his eyes. The film's original teaser trailer, released in 2001 and shown before Atlantis: The Lost Empire, American Pie 2, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Planet of the Apes, and Jurassic Park III, featured a mini-film plot involving a group of bank robbers escaping in a Eurocopter AS355 Twin Squirrel helicopter, which gets caught from behind and propelled backward into what at first appears to be a net, then is shown to be a gigantic spider web spun between the World Trade Center towers. According to Sony, the trailer did not contain any actual footage from the film itself and is consequently one of the most popular "Special Shoot" trailers since Terminator 2: Judgment Day.[50] The trailer and poster were pulled after the events of the attacks, but can be found on the internet on websites such as YouTube.[51]

Before the film's British theatrical release in June 2002, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) gave the film a "12" certificate. Due to Spider-Man's popularity with younger children, this prompted much controversy. The BBFC defended its decision, arguing that the film could have been given a "15". Despite this, North Norfolk and Breckland District Councils, in East Anglia, changed it to a "PG", and Tameside council, Manchester, denoted it a "PG-12". The U.S. rated it "PG-13"[52] for "stylized violence and action". In late August, the BBFC relaxed its policy to "12A", leading Sony to re-release the film.[53][54]

Spider-Man became the first film to pass the $100 million mark in a single weekend, even when adjusting for inflation, with its $114,844,116[55] mark establishing a new opening weekend record.[56][57] The gross surpassed the previous record holder's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone $90 million opening; on this, Rick Lyman of The New York Times wrote, "while industry executives had expected a strong opening for the film because there was little competition in the marketplace and prerelease polling indicated intense interest from all age groups, no one predicted that Spider-Man would surpass the Harry Potter record."[57]

The film also set a record for crossing the $100 million milestone in 3 days, at the time being the fastest any film had reached the mark.[58] This opening weekend haul had an average of $31,769 per theater, which at time, Box Office Mojo reported as being "the highest per theater average ever for an ultra-wide release."[56] The film's three-day record was surpassed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest four years later.[59] The $114.8 million opening weekend was the highest at the North America box office film for a non-sequel, until it was surpassed eight years later by Alice in Wonderland.[60]

With the release in the United States and Canada on May 3, 2002 on 7,500 screens at 3,615 theaters,[57] the film earned $39,406,872 on its opening day, averaging $10,901 per theater.[61] This was the highest opening day at the time until it was surpassed by its sequel Spider-Man 2's $40.4 million haul in 2004.[62] Spider-Man also set an all-time record for the highest earnings in a single day with $43,622,264 on its second day of release,[56][61] a record later surpassed by Shrek 2 in 2004.[63] On the Sunday during its opening weekend, the film earned an additional $31,814,980,[61] the highest gross a film took in on a Sunday, at the time.[56]

The film stayed at the top position in its second weekend, dropping only 38% and grossing another $71,417,527,[64] while averaging $19,755.89 per theater. At the time, this was the highest-grossing second weekend of any film.[64] During its second weekend, the film crossed the $200 million mark on its ninth day of release, also a record at the time.[64] At the end of its second weekend, the film brought in a 10-day total of $223,040,031.[64]

The film dropped to the second position in its third weekend, behind Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, but still made $45,036,912, dropping only 37%, averaging $12,458 per theater, and bringing the 17-day tally to $285,573,668.[65] Its third weekend haul set the record for highest-grossing third weekend, which was first surpassed by Avatar (2009).[66] It stayed at the second position in its fourth weekend, grossing $35,814,844 over the four-day Memorial Day frame, dropping only 21% while expanding to 3,876 theaters, averaging $9,240 over four days, and bringing the 25-day gross to $333,641,492.[67] In the box office, Spider-Man became 2002's highest-grossing film with $403,706,375 in the U.S. and Canada, defeating The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.[68]

Spider-Man currently ranks as the 28th-highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada, not adjusted for inflation. The film also grossed $418,002,176 from its international markets, bringing its worldwide total to $821,708,551,[69] making it 2002's third-highest-grossing film behind The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the 58th-highest-grossing film of all time, worldwide.[70] The film sold an estimated 69,484,700 tickets in the US.[69] Spider-Man was the highest-grossing superhero origin film, a record it held for 15 years until it was surpassed by Wonder Woman (2017).[71] It is the eighth-highest-grossing superhero film, as well as eighth-highest-grossing comic book adaptation in general.[72][73]

International markets which generated grosses in excess of $10 million include Australia ($16.9 million), Brazil ($17.4 million), France, Algeria, Monaco, Morocco and Tunisia ($32.9 million), Germany ($30.7 million), Italy ($20.8 million), Japan ($56.2 million), Mexico ($31.2 million), South Korea ($16.98 million), Spain ($23.7 million), and the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($45.8 million).[74]

Spider-Man became the highest-grossing superhero film of all time at the time of its release, both domestically and worldwide. Its domestic gross was eventually topped by The Dark Knight (2008). Its worldwide gross was first surpassed by Spider-Man 3 (2007).

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 89% based on 236 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Not only does Spider-Man provide a good dose of web-swinging fun, it also has a heart, thanks to the combined charms of director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire."[75] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[76] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "Aâ€“" on an A+ to F scale.[77]

The casting, mainly Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe, is often cited as one of the film's high points. Eric Harrison, of the Houston Chronicle, was initially skeptical of the casting of Maguire, but, after seeing the film, he stated, "within seconds, however, it becomes difficult to imagine anyone else in the role."[78] USA Today critic Mike Clark believed the casting rivaled that of Christopher Reeve as 1978's Superman.[79] Owen Gleiberman, of Entertainment Weekly, had mixed feelings about the casting, particularly Tobey Maguire. "Maguire, winning as he is, never quite gets the chance to bring the two sides of Spidey—the boy and the man, the romantic and the avenger—together."[80] The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt thought, "the filmmakers' imaginations work in overdrive from the clever design of the cobwebby opening credits and Spider-Man and M.J.'s upside down kiss—after one of his many rescues of her—to a finale that leaves character relationships open ended for future adventures."[81]

Conversely, LA Weekly's Manohla Dargis wrote, "It isn't that Spider-Man is inherently unsuited for live-action translation; it's just that he's not particularly interesting or, well, animated."[82] Giving it 2.5/4 stars, Roger Ebert felt the film lacked a decent action element; "Consider the scene where Spider-Man is given a cruel choice between saving Mary Jane or a cable car full of school kids. He tries to save both, so that everyone dangles from webbing that seems about to pull loose. The visuals here could have given an impression of the enormous weights and tensions involved, but instead the scene seems more like a bloodless storyboard of the idea."[83] Stylistically, there was heavy criticism of the Green Goblin's costume, which led IGN's Richard George to comment years later, "We're not saying the comic book costume is exactly thrilling, but the Goblin armor (the helmet in particular) from Spider-Man is almost comically bad... Not only is it not frightening, it prohibits expression."[84]

Entertainment Weekly put "the kiss in Spider-Man" on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "There's a fine line between romantic and corny. And the rain-soaked smooch between Spider-Man and Mary Jane from 2002 tap-dances right on that line. The reason it works? Even if she suspects he's Peter Parker, she doesn't try to find out. And that's sexy."[85] Empire magazine ranked Spider-Man 437 in its 500 Greatest Movies of All Time list the following year.[citation needed]

The film won several awards ranging from Teen Choice Awards to the Saturn Awards, and was also nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects and Best Sound (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell and Ed Novick), but lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Chicago, respectively.[86][87] While only Danny Elfman brought home a Saturn Award, Raimi, Maguire, and Dunst were all nominated for their respective positions. It also took home the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Motion Picture."[87] The film was nominated for Favorite Movie at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, but lost to Austin Powers in Goldmember.

In January 2003, Sony revealed that a sequel to Spider-Man was in development, and would be produced and directed by Sam Raimi. On March 15, 2003, a trailer revealed that the film, Spider-Man 2, would be released in June 30, 2004. Spider-Man 3, the second sequel to Spider-Man and the final film in the series to be directed by Raimi, was released on May 4, 2007. Spider-Man: The New Animated Series was an alternate sequel to the film unrelated to the events of the later Spider-Man 2 and 3.[102]

Spider-Man was released to DVD on November 1 2002. A Blu-Ray release was followed on July 5 2011.[103] Spider-Man was also included in the Spider-Man Legacy Collection, which includes 5 Spider-Man films in a 4K UHD Blu-Ray collection, which was released on October 17 2017.[104]

The film's American television rights (Fox, TBS/TNT) were sold for $60 million.[105] Related gross toy sales were $109 million.[105] Its American DVD revenue as of July 2004 stands at $338.8 million.[105] Its American VHS revenue as of July 2004 is $89.2 million.[105]


who is the pig voice in toy story

John Dezso Ratzenberger (born April 6, 1947)[1] is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known as Cliff Clavin in Cheers. He is also known for his extensive vocal work in Pixar Animation Studios' films, notably Hamm in the Toy Story franchise and Mack in the Cars franchise.

John Ratzenberger

Ratzenberger was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Bertha Veronica (nÃ©e Grochowski), who worked for Remington Arms, and Dezso Alexander Ratzenberger, a Texaco truck driver.[2][3] His father was of Austrian and Hungarian descent, and his mother was of Polish ancestry.[4] He attended St. Ann's School in Bridgeport and Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.[1] In 1969, Ratzenberger was a tractor operator at the Woodstock Festival.[5] He moved to London in 1971 and stayed there for 10 years.[1]

Ratzenberger was a house framer[6] living in London when he began his career in the performing arts.[1] Through the 1970s, he performed with Ray Hassett as the comedic theatrical duo Sal’s Meat Market, which toured across the UK.[7] Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer as The Outer Limits and in The Comic Strip were heavily influenced by Sal’s Meat Market.[8] His first role was a patron in The Ritz (1976). Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Ratzenberger appeared in various minor roles in major feature films, including Firefox; A Bridge Too Far, as Lieutenant James Megellas; Superman, as a missile controller; Superman II, as the NASA control man; Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as Major Bren Derlin; Motel Hell as a drummer; Outland as a doomed mine worker named Tarlow; and Gandhi, playing an American lieutenant.

Ratzenberger is well known for playing mail carrier Cliff Clavin on the sitcom Cheers. He had read for the part of Norm Peterson, but after the audition, he sensed that they were not going to give him the part. Sensing an opportunity, he asked if they had written a bar know-it-all, which the producers decided was a great idea.[9] Ratzenberger also came up with the idea for Cliff's trademark white socks, which he wore as a tribute to French comedian Jacques Tati.[10] Cliff became known for his outlandish stories of plausible half-truths, uninteresting trivia, and misinformation, and in general for being a pretentious blowhard. Cliff and Norm, the primary customer characters, became iconic bar buddies. Ratzenberger provided the voice for an animated version of Cliff on The Simpsons sixth-season episode "Fear of Flying".

When Paramount Television licensed the look of the Cheers bar to the Host International subsidiary of Host Marriott Services for use in airports in the U.S. and New Zealand, the group also created animatronic barflies. They were called "Hank" and "Bob"; Ratzenberger and George Wendt claimed Hank and Bob resembled them, and in January 1993, sued Host for using their likenesses without permission.[11] The case languished in court for eight years before all sides settled in 2001.[12]

Ratzenberger has had a voice part in all of Pixar's feature films made to date, ranging from main characters to characters who appear in only one scene.[13] His roles include:

Ratzenberger's tenure at Pixar was parodied during the end credits of Cars, where his character, Mack, watches car-themed versions of Pixar films (Toy Car Story, Monster Trucks, Inc., and A Bug's Life). Mack notes that all the characters Ratzenberger has played were excellent until he realizes that they are performed by the same actor, at which point he remarks, "They're just using the same actor over and over," and asks "What kind of cut-rate production is this?!"

His favorite of his Pixar characters was P.T. Flea, because "in real life, I always get a kick out of those kinds of characters, people who just go into a rage for [no] explicable reason. He was always on edge. His blood pressure was always way over the top, and everything that he did was done in a panicked state. So it was a lot of fun to play him."[6] Although technically not Pixar films, Ratzenberger also voiced Harland the jet tug in DisneyToon Studios' Planes (2013)[14][15] and a mustached plane named Brodi in its sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014).[16]

During season six of Last Comic Standing, Ratzenberger was a talent scout with his former Cheers co-star George Wendt.

On March 2, 2007, he replaced Vincent Pastore (who had quit after one week of training) on the fourth season of the American version of Dancing with the Stars.[17] He was partnered with professional ballroom dancer Edyta Sliwinska, who had been Pastore's partner; the two were the sixth couple to be eliminated from the show.

On December 3, 2009, Ratzenberger appeared on an episode of American Chopper to help promote awareness of the Iraq Star Foundation.

On June 26, 2011, Ratzenberger was asked by NASCAR to give the shouting command for the 2011 Toyota Save-Mart 350 at Sonoma. Ratzenberger accepted and gave the "Gentlemen, start your engines" command.

On April 23, 2015, Ratzenberger appeared as a guest judge on the 14th season of Hell's Kitchen for an alcohol challenge, in nod to his appearances on Cheers.

Ratzenberger developed a packaging-alternatives product made from biodegradable and non-toxic recycled paper as a safe alternative to styrofoam "peanuts" and plastic bubble wrap. This product was manufactured by his company Eco-Pak Industries, which he later sold.[21]

Ratzenberger co-authored We've Got it Made in America: A Common Man's Salute to an Uncommon Country (ISBNÂ 1-931722-84-6), published in 2006.

He also co-founded the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation,[22] dedicated to raising awareness among young people of skilled trades and engineering disciplines.[23]

In 2010, Ratzenberger became affiliated with and now represents the Center for America (formerly the Foundation for Fair Civil Justice) to further develop his work and increase awareness about the skilled worker shortage facing the United States and the changes needed to positively impact and increase the number of skilled workers.[24] He joined as a Board Member in 2010.[24] CFA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to "educate, motivate, and empower the American people to understand they have the greatest stake in removing obstacles to a fair civil justice system, innovation, entrepreneurism, and job creation."[25] CFA creates multi-media educational programs, publications, and website features that reach millions of Americans through radio, television, and the internet."[25]

In 2016, Ratzenberger launched thegiftbox.com,[26] an e-commerce website that allows customers to subscribe to a variety of monthly boxes.

Ratzenberger has two children, James John born in 1987, and Nina Kathrine born in 1989, both from a 19-year marriage to Georgia Stiny that ended in divorce in 2004.

After dating for nearly four years, Ratzenberger married Julie Blichfeldt (then 46 years old) on November 6, 2012.[27] Both Ratzenberger and Blichfeldt were described as "avid outdoors enthusiasts, philanthropists, and activists".[27]

Ratzenberger, a Republican, said he considered running for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2012.[28]

During the 2008 presidential race, Ratzenberger campaigned for John McCain, appearing with former Cheers co-star Kelsey Grammer at several Republican party events.[29][30] He also has been outspoken in opposition of the 2010 health care reform bill, referring to it as socialism.[31] He endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012.[32] He appeared on Your World with Neil Cavuto to support Donald Trump's candidacy during the 2016 presidential race, shortly after Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee.[33]

On January 17, 2010, he appeared and endorsed Scott Brown for the United States Senate at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ratzenberger campaigned for Republican Josh Mandel of Ohio for the State Treasurer position during the 2010 election and on January 10, 2011, served as master of ceremonies for Mandel's swearing into office.

In response to the 2012 Aurora shooting, he said "Hollywood has to, at some point, admit that what they produce does affect the minds of people.... If you just want to shock 'em... society will pay the price for that at some point."[10]