what story is the movie strangers based on

The Strangers  is a 2008 American slasher film written and directed by Bryan Bertino. Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are expecting a relaxing weekend at a family vacation home, but their stay turns out to be anything but peaceful as three masked torturers leave Kristen and James struggling for survival. Writer-director Bertino was inspired by real-life events: the Manson family Tate murders, a multiple homicide; the Keddie Cabin Murders, that occurred in California in 1981; and a series of break-ins that occurred in his own neighborhood as a child. Made on a budget of $9 million, the film was shot on location in rural South Carolina in the fall of 2006.

The Strangers (2008 film)

Originally slated for a theatrical release in November 2007, it was postponed before a theatrical release on May 30, 2008. It grossed $82 million at the box office worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, with some praising its atmosphere and tension, and others criticizing its script and characters. Contemporary film scholars have interpreted it as a criticism of the perceived safety of pastoral life, as well as an exploration of stranger-on-stranger violence. A sequel, titled The Strangers: Prey at Night, was released ten years later on March 9, 2018.

James Hoyt and his girlfriend Kristen McKay arrive at James' remote childhood summer home, tired and irritable after a long evening at a friend's wedding reception. At the wedding, James proposed to Kristen and she refused. James calls his friend Mike and asks him to pick him up in the morning. Shortly after 4 a.m., there is a loud knock at the door. A young blonde woman, whose face is hiding in the shadows, asks for Tamara. When told that she is at the wrong house, she leaves with the casual caveat that she will, "see you later".

Due to the tension between them, James leaves to go for a drive and purchase a pack of cigarettes for Kristen; before he departs, he starts a fire in the hearth. Shortly after he leaves, Kristen realizes the chimney flue is closed, and attempts to open it; while she does this, smoke emanating from the fire triggers a smoke alarm. Kristen attempts to disarm the smoke alarm when she is startled by another knock at the door; she drops the alarm on the floor and retreats to the bedroom, unnerved. She calls James' cellphone from the landline, but their call is cut short. She returns to the kitchen, where, unbeknownst to her, a man in a sack mask watches her from an adjacent hallway.

In the living room, Kristen notices the smoke alarm she left on the floor is now sitting on a chair, and realizes someone else has been in the house. Upon going to retrieve her cell phone from the wall charger, she finds it is missing, and begins to panic. When she hears a noise from the backyard, she arms herself with a knife, and opens the curtains to find the man in the mask, staring at her. She stumbles into the hallway, and watches as the front door unlatches. When she goes to push the door closed, she sees the blonde woman outside, now in a dollface mask. After locking the door, Kristen hides in the bedroom and hears the strangers outside banging violently against the walls of the house.

The noise eventually stops and James returns to the home. After she explains what has happened, he goes outside to the car to get his phone, whereupon he finds the car ransacked and sees Dollface watching him from afar. The couple attempt to leave in James' car but another woman in a Pin-up mask rear-ends them with a pickup truck, forcing them to flee. Back inside the house, Kristen and James find a shotgun and wait for the intruders in a bedroom. One of the strangers enters and puts a country record on the turntable, filling the house with music.

Mike arrives and realizes something is wrong after seeing the smashed car in the driveway. He enters the house, and James, mistaking him for one of the strangers, shoots him dead. Devastated, James remembers an old radio transmitter in the backyard shed. He leaves and encounters Pin-up searching the backyard with a flashlight. When James tries to shoot her, the Man in the Mask knocks him unconscious, discharging the gun in the process. Kristen hears the shot, and runs to the shed. She finds the radio, but Pin-up smashes it with a axe. Kristen rushes back to the house, where she encounters Dollface, who taunts her. She tries to leave but is incapacitated by the Man in the Mask.

James and Kristen awaken at dawn, and find themselves tied to chairs all dressed up in the living room with the masked strangers standing before them. Kristen asks them why they are doing this, to which Dollface replies, "Because you were home." The strangers then unmask themselves to the couple offscreen, and take turns stabbing the couple in the stomach and chest before leaving the home. As they drive away in the pickup truck, they ride past two young boys on bicycles distributing religious tracts door-to-door. Dollface gets out of the truck and asks if she can have one of their tract cards. One of the boys ask her if she's a sinner. Dollface she replies, "Sometimes." The boy gives her one and the strangers drive away, as Pin-up Girl states, "It'll be easier next time." As the boys walk their bikes, they see a heart shaped glass hole on another truck in front of the house. The two boys come upon the house and discover the chaotic scene with a messy house, including blood on the walls and the floor, a gun sitting on the kitchen counter, an empty wedding ring box, a bloody knife, red rose petals on the floor, chairs and tables tipped over, the record player still playing but no songs or music, and the bloodied bodies of Kristen, James, and Mike inside. One of the boys approaches Kristen's body and attempt to touch it. As he reaches out to her, he is startled by Kristen when she wakes up, grabs, his hand, and screams at him. At this scene, it reveals that Kristen is still alive but still horrified of what happened.

Film scholar Kevin Wetmore noted the film's portrayal of violence as a reflection of its contemporary culture, writing: "Death is a random act in post-9/11 horror—the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the cliché goes. Unlike in eighties slasher horror, for example, where engaging in negative behavior such as drinking, doing drugs, having premarital sex are often forerunners to being killed by the killer(s); [here], death is random and unrelated to one's behavior."[4]

In The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies, Mike Mayo noted the film's "grim realism," writing that the main characters "could have wandered out of a gloomy Ingmar Bergman film," ultimately branding the film as an example of "naturalistic domestic horror" akin to Michael Haneke's Funny Games.[5]

The film has also been noted by scholar Philip Simpson as highlighting "the divide between the underprivileged and privileged classes," as well as for its inversion of commonly-held beliefs about violence in urban areas and pastoral ethics: "The Strangers, as many horror films do ... undermines the conventional notion of rural society as a simpler, crime-free place. One might call the narrative sensibility informing The Strangers 'pastoral paranoia', in that danger lurks among the rough folk of the country rather than the suburbs and cities. Of course, it may be that provincial violence is a result of contamination, or in other words that the kind of stranger-upon-stranger violence typically associated with urban life metastasizes to the rural, a phenomenon noted by Louis Wirth."[6]

In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film (2014), scholar Tony Williams notes the film's setting within a 1970s-era home as representative of an "American tradition of violence that is random and without any coherent explanation." Additionally, Williams reads the three masked assailants as metaphors for the "repressed and unresolved tensions affecting the couple inside the house."[7]

Bryan Bertino, on his inspiration for the film.[8]

Writer-director Bryan Bertino wrote the screenplay which was originally titled The Faces;[9] it was the third screenplay he had ever written.[10] Bertino had a particular interest in the horror genre, noting how one can connect to an audience by scaring them, and would state in subsequent interviews that he grew up watching horror films.[10] In particular, he stated he was significantly inspired by thriller films of the 1970s while writing the screenplay,[9] and envisioned a film that "put the audience in the world of the victims."[10]

According to production notes[9] and subsequent interviews,[10] the film was inspired by true events from Bertino's childhood: Bertino explains:[11]

As a kid, I lived in a house on a street in the middle of nowhere. One night, while our parents were out, somebody knocked on the front door and my little sister answered it. At the door were some people asking for somebody who didn't live there. We later found out that these people were knocking on doors on the area and, if no one was home, breaking into the houses.[9]

In interviews, Bertino stated he was "very impressed" with some of the theories circulating on the Internet about the "true events" the movie is allegedly based on, but said that his main inspiration was the true crime book Helter Skelter about the  Manson Family murders;[12] some journalists speculated that the film was also inspired by the unsolved Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981 that occurred in a small vacation community in California's Sierra Nevada.[13][14] The film's premise has been compared by some film critics to the French horror film Them, released two years earlier, which also features a couple terrorized by strangers in their remote home.[15]

Bertino entered the screenplay for The Strangers into a screenwriting contest, after which he sold its directorial rights to Universal Pictures.[10]

When casting the two leading actors in the film, Bertino sought Liv Tyler for the role of Kristen.[9] Tyler, who had not worked for several years after the birth of her son, accepted the part after being impressed by the script, which she read while on a flight from Japan to Los Angeles:[16] "I especially liked Bryan's way of saying a lot, but not saying everything. Often in movies, it's all spelled out for you, and the dialogue is very explanatory. But Bryan doesn't write like that; he writes how normal people communicateâ€”with questions lingering. I knew it would be interesting to act that."[9] Canadian actor Scott Speedman was cast as James. Speedman was also impressed by the script, stating that "the audience actually gets time to breathe with the characters before things get scary as hell. That got me interested from the first pages".[9]

In casting the three masked intruders, Bertino chose Australian fashion model Gemma Ward for the part of Dollface, feeling she had the exact "look" he had imagined; Ward was officially cast in the film in September 2006.[17] In preparing for the role, Ward read Vincent Bugioisi's Helter Skelter for inspiration.[18] Kip Weeks was then chosen as the Man in the Mask, and television actress Laura Margolis, who found the script to be a real "page turner", was cast in the part of Pin-Up Girl.[9] In retrospect, Bertino said he chose the three actors based on their abilities to convey their characters in spite of the fact that their faces remain unseen onscreen.[10]

Bertino had not initially planned on directing The Strangers, and had been disconnected from the project after selling directorial rights to Universal Pictures.[10] Both Justin Lin[10] and Mark Romanek were attached to direct, but eventually backed out.[19] Approximately two years after Bertino had sold the screenplay, Universal passed the project onto its subsidiary, Rogue Pictures, who approached Bertino to direct the project, despite his lack of experience.[10][20]

On a $9 million budget, filming for The Strangers began on October 10, 2006, and finished in early 2007. It was shot on location roughly 10 miles outside of Florence, South Carolina, and the 2,000-square-foot (190Â m2) house interior was constructed by a set crew.[21] Though the film takes place in 2005, the house itself was deliberately constructed with an architecture reminiscent of 1970s ranch houses and dressed in furnishings applicable to the era.[9] Bertino based the house on the types of homes common where he had grown up in rural Texas.[10] The property was located on the outskirts of Timmonsville, South Carolina. Despite weather complications, the film was largely shot in chronological order.[9]

During production, it was reported that Liv Tyler came down with tonsillitis due to the extensive screaming the role required her to do.[9] Tyler would later recall it being the most difficult film she had ever worked on, "both physically and emotionally."[16] According to Laura Margolis, who played the Pin-Up Girl, Tyler also specifically requested that she not see her mask prior to filming: "I got strict instructions not to let Liv see me in my mask before we shot," Margolis recalled. "The first scene that I shot was stalking [her] outside of the barn. I had been told that she really wanted to be scared. She didnâ€™t want to have to fake it, and so it was my responsibility to really scare her. So we shot that scene, I ran at her, she started actually screaming, and then she kicked me away."[22]

The masks featured in the film were chosen by Bertino, who wanted them to appear as though the killers "could have picked them up at any store."[10]

Film editor Kevin Greutert was hired to edit the film; at the time, he recently finished editing Saw III.[23] Several changes were made to the film during post-production, primarily regarding the conclusion: In the screenplay and the original footage shot, the three masked strangers reveal their faces on camera.[23] After the sequence in which Kristen and James are stabbed, the strangers wander around the house, cleaning up parts of the crime scene before dressing into Kristen and James's clothes.[23] Following test screenings, it was decided by the producers that the strangers' faces should remain unseen to the audience, which required the sequences following the stabbing to be excised.[23]

A musical score, consisting of 19 pieces composed by score producer tomandandy, was released on May 27, 2008, and was distributed by Lakeshore Records.[24] The album was received with generally positive reviews by critics. "It's a creepy score for what appears to be a movie that will make you jump as well as make sure that the doors are locked at night," writes reviewer Jeff Swindoll.[25] "This is an impressive score and adds a tremendous chill-factor to the film," says Zach Freeman of Blogger News, grading it with an A.[26]

All tracks written by tomandandy.

The producers originally planned for a summer release in July 2007,[27] which was eventually postponed to November 2007; however, this date was postponed as well.[28] The producers instead opted for a summer release, and The Strangers had its theatrical debut in United States and Canada on May 30, 2008. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $21 million in 2,467 theaters, ranking #3 at the box office and averaging $8,514 per theater.[3] The overall box office return was successful,[29] earning $82.4 million worldwide.[3]

In late July 2007, Bertino, Tyler and Speedman attended San Diego's annual Comic-Con event to promote the film; all three were present for a questions-and-answers panel session, as well as a screening of the film's official teaser trailer;[30] this trailer was released on the internet several weeks later. It was not until March 2008 that a full-length trailer for the film was released, which can be found on Apple's QuickTime trailer gallery.[31] The trailer originally began running in theaters attached to Rogue Pictures' sci-fi film Doomsday in March 2008,[32] and television advertisements began airing on networks in early-mid April 2008 to promote the film's May release.

Two one-sheet posters for the film were released in August 2007, one showing the three masked Strangers,[33] and the other displaying a wounded Liv Tyler.[34] In April 2008, roughly two months before the film's official theatrical debut, the final, official one-sheet for the film was released,[35] featuring Liv Tyler standing in a darkened kitchen with a masked man looming behind her in the shadows.

The Strangers was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on October 21, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature rated and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated edition running approximately two minutes longer. Bonus materials include two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette. The DVD was released in the UK on December 26, 2008.[36] The film was available on Universal VOD (Video on Demand) from November 19, 2008, through March 31, 2009.[37] In commemoration of the film's 10th anniversary, a two-disc collector's edition Blu-ray by Scream Factory was released on March 6, 2018, featuring a 2K video transfer, as well as a combination of new and archival cast and crew interviews.[38]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 45%, based on 153 reviews, and an average rating of 4.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Strangers provides a few scares, but offers little else to distinguish itself from other slasher films."[39] Metacritic reported an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[40] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "Bâ€“" on an A+ to F scale.[41]

Unfavorable reviews included Roger Ebert's of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, saying: "The movie deserves more stars for its bottom-line craft, but all the craft in the world can't redeem its story."[42] Bob Mondello of NPR said the film was "A sadistic, unmotivated home-invasion flick."[43] Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that "No one is getting at anything in The Strangers, except the cheapest, ugliest kind of sadistic titillation."[44] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News compared the film to 2007's Vacancy - a comparison which does "Strangers" no favors. Vacancy director Nimród Antal gave us a pair of heroes who fought like hell to survive, becoming closer and stronger in the effort. Bertino's undeveloped protagonists are colossally stupid and frustratingly passive."[45] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post panned the film, calling it "a fraud from start to finish."[46] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, said the film "uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile," but admitted that "it does it well, with more than usual skill."[47] Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe said of the director, "Bertino has the pretensions of an artist and the indelicacy of a hack. He tries to get under our skin with a pile driver."[48] Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger opined of the film, "Unfolding with an almost startling lack of self-awareness, young filmmaker Bryan Bertino's debut is such a careful, straight-faced knockoff of '70s exploitation films that it plays like a parody."[49]

Among the positive reviews, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said The Strangers is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain[s] its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror."[50] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect."[51] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying that, "This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count."[52] Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club said that "as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier."[53]

Additional positive feedback for the film came from Joblo.com reviewer Berge Garabedian, who praised director Bertino for "building the tension nicely, with lots of silences, creepy voices, jump scares, use of songs and a sharp eye behind the camera, as well as plenty of Steadicam give it all more of a voyeuristic feel."[54] Empire Magazine remarked on the film's retro-style, saying, "Like much recent horror, from the homages of the Grindhouse gang through flat multiplex remakes of drive-in classics, The Strangers looks to the '70s.", and ultimately branded the film as "an effective, scary emotional work-out."[55] Slant Magazine's Nick Schager listed The Strangers as the 9th best film of 2008.[56]

In 2009, the film was ranked #13 on "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments" television piece,[57] and in a 2018 retrospective, Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly deemed the film a "modern-day slasher classic."[22]

In August 2008, Rogue Pictures confirmed that a sequel was in the works,[58] with Brian Bertino co-writing the screenplay with Ben Ketai.[59] The project was originally slated to enter principal photography in 2009,[59] during which time it was tentatively titled The Strangers: Part II.[60] Directors Laurent Briet and Marcel Langenegger were considered to direct, but landed eventually to Johannes Roberts.[61] After a troubled development period,[61] filming on the sequel began May 30, 2017.[62] Later titled The Strangers: Prey at Night, the film was released on March 9, 2018.[63]


why was townsville founded where it is today

The Burdekin River's seasonal flooding made the establishment of a seaport north of the river essential to the nascent inland cattle industry.[10] John Melton Black of Woodstock Station, an employee of Sydney entrepreneur and businessman Robert Towns, dispatched Andrew Ball, Mark Watt Reid and a detachment of 8 troopers of the Native Police to search for a suitable site.[9] Ball's party reached the Ross Creek in April 1864Â and established a camp below the rocky spur of Melton Hill, near the present Customs House on The Strand.[9] Edward Kennedy, a member of the surveying party, recalls the native police chasing local tribesmen into the ocean and 'pumping lead' at them. On the return journey to Port Denison, the group 'dispersed' another aboriginal clan, rounding up fifteen women 'who remained at the scene of combat' and abducted them back to the barracks. No mention is made of the fate of any children.[11] The first party of settlers, led by W. A. Ross, arrived at Cleveland Bay from Woodstock Station on 5 November of that year. In 1866 Robert Towns visited for three days, his first and only visit. He agreed to provide ongoing financial assistance to the new settlement and Townsville was named in his honour.[9]

Townsville

Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. It is in the dry tropics region of Queensland, adjacent to the central section of the Great Barrier Reef.[4] Townsville is Australia's largest urban centre north of the Sunshine Coast, with a 2015 population estimate of 180,333.[1] Considered the unofficial capital of North Queensland by locals, Townsville hosts a significant number of governmental, community and major business administrative offices for the northern half of the state.[5]

Popular attractions include "The Strand", a long tropical beach and garden strip; Riverway, a riverfront parkland attraction located on the banks of Ross River; Reef HQ, a large tropical aquarium holding many of the Great Barrier Reef's native flora and fauna; the Museum of Tropical Queensland, built around a display of relics from the sunken British warship HMSÂ Pandora; Castle Hill or as it was originally known Cootharinga, the most prominent landmark of the area and a popular fitness destination; The Townsville Sports Reserve; and Magnetic Island, a large neighbouring island, the vast majority of which is national park.

Such indigenous groups as the Wulgurukaba, Bindal, Girrugubba, Warakamai and Nawagi, among others, originally inhabited the Townsville area.[6][7] The Wulgurukaba claim to be the traditional owner of the Townsville city area; the Bindal had a claim struck out by the Federal Court of Australia in 2005.[8]

James Cook visited the Townsville region on his first voyage to Australia in 1770, but did not actually land there. Cook named nearby Cape Cleveland, Cleveland Bay and Magnetic(al) Island.[9] In 1819, Captain Phillip Parker King and botanist Alan Cunningham were the first Europeans to record a local landing.[9] In 1846, James Morrill was shipwrecked from the Peruvian, living in the Townsville area among the Bindal people for 17Â years before being found by white men and returned to Brisbane.[9]

Townsville was declared a municipality in February 1866, with John Melton Black elected as its first Mayor.[9] Townsville developed rapidly as the major port and service centre for the Cape River, Gilbert, Ravenswood, Etheridge and Charters Towers goldfields.[10] Regional pastoral and sugar industries also expanded and flourished. Townsville's population was 4,000 people in 1882 and grew to 13,000 by 1891.[9]

In 1901 Lord Hopetoun made a goodwill tour of northern Australia and accepted an invitation to officially open Townsville's town hall, occasioning the first ever vice-regal ceremonial unfurling of the Australian national flag.[10] With Brisbane, in 1902 Townsville was proclaimed a City under the Local Authorities Act.[12]

The foundation stone of the Townsville Cenotaph was laid in Strand Park on 19 July 1923.[13] It was unveiled on 25 April 1924 (ANZAC Day) by the Queensland Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan.[14][15]

The rural land surrounding the city was initially managed by the Thuringowa Road Board, which eventually became the Shire of Thuringowa. The shire ceded land several times to support Townsville's expansion.[16] In 1986 the Shire became incorporated as a city, governed by the Thuringowa City Council. The cities of Townsville and Thuringowa were amalgamated into the "new" Townsville City Council in March 2008, as part of the Queensland state government's reform program.[16]

In 1896, Japan established its first Australian consulate in Townsville, primarily to serve some 4,000Â Japanese workers who migrated to work in the sugar cane, turtle, trochus, beche de mer and pearling industries.[17][18] With the introduction of the White Australia policy, the demand for Japanese workers decreased, causing the consulate to finally close in 1908.[18]

During the Second World War, the city was host to more than 50,000[citation needed] American and Australian troops and air crew, and it became a major staging point for battles in the South West Pacific. A large United States Armed Forces contingent supported the war effort from seven airfields and other bases around the city and in the region. The first bombing raid on Rabaul, in Papua New Guinea, on 23 February 1942Â was carried out by six B-17s based near Townsville.[citation needed]

Some of the units based in Townsville were:

In July 1942, three small Japanese air raids were conducted against Townsville, which was by then the most important air base in Australia.[20] Several 500-pound (230-kilogram) bombs were dropped in the harbour, near the Garbutt airfield and at Oonoonba, where bomb craters are still clearly visible.[21] No lives were lost and structural damage was minimal, as the Japanese missed their intended target of the railway and destroyed a palm tree. Although the Japanese aircraft were intercepted on two of the three raids, no Japanese planes were shot down.[22]

On Christmas Eve 1971, Tropical Cyclone Althea, a category 4 cyclone, battered the city and Magnetic Island, causing considerable damage.

Two very significant hotels on Flinders Street were lost. Buchanan's Hotel was regarded by architectural historians as Australia's most significant building in the Filigree style was lost to fire in 1982 and the Alexandra Hotel to demolition in the 1970s.[citation needed]

Eddie Mabo, who later became famous for his involvement in overturning the legal fiction of terra nullius, worked as a gardener at James Cook University in the 1970s and 1980s. It was here he first learned of the implications of the terra nullius doctrine and decided to take on the Australian government.[23] The James Cook University Douglas campus library is now named after him.[24]

In October 2000, a Solomon Islands Peace Agreement was negotiated in Townsville.[25]

Inner city high-density development has also created population growth and gentrification of the central business district (CBD). One significant contributor to CBD development was the construction of a new rail passenger terminal and moving the railway workshops,[26] releasing prime real estate which formerly belonged to Queensland Rail for the development of residential units, retail projects and a new performing arts centre.[27] The skyline of Townsville's central business district has undergone dramatic changes over the last few years, with a number of new highrise buildings, both commercial and residential, constructed.[28]

In the short term, much of the urban expansion will continue to the west and the north, in the former City of Thuringowa. The most significant of these is North Shore Estate, a new A$1Â billion 5,000-lot housing estate, located close to the Bruce Highway, just north of the Bohle River.[29] Medium term expansion of Townsville will be focused on two major urban developments anticipated to start soon. Elliot Springs, a satellite city to the south of Townsville, is expected to be home to 26,000 people by 2057.[30] Additionally, the Queensland Government announced it will be offering 270 hectares (670 acres) of State-owned land (the former abattoir reserve), just south of the Bohle River, for future urban expansion.[31]

Townsville lies approximately 1,350 kilometres (840 mi) north of Brisbane, and 350 kilometres (220 mi) south of Cairns. It lies on the shores of Cleveland Bay, protected to some degree from the predominantly south-east weather. Cleveland Bay is mostly shallow inshore, with several large beaches and continually shifting sand bars. Magnetic Island lies 8 kilometres (5 mi) offshore, to the north of the city centre.

The Ross River flows through the city. Three weirs, fish stocking and dredging of the river in these reaches has resulted in a deep, stable and clean waterway used for many recreational activities such as waterskiing, fishing and rowing. Thirty kilometres from the mouth (at the junction of Five Head Creek) is the Ross River Dam, the major water storage for the urban areas.

The historic waterfront on Ross Creek, site of the original wharves and port facilities, has some old buildings mixed with the later modern skyline. However, the central city is dominated by the mass of red granite called Castle Hill, 286 metres (938 ft) high.[32] There is a lookout at the summit giving panoramic views of the city and its suburbs, including Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. There are a number of parks scattered throughout the city, including three botanical gardens — Anderson Park, Queens Gardens and The Palmetum.

Townsville is characterised as a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification Aw). Owing to a quirk of geographical location, Townsville's winter rainfall in particular is not as high as elsewhere in the eastern coastal tropics of Queensland, such as Cairns.[33] The winter months are dominated by southeast trade winds and mostly fine weather. Further north the coastline runs north/south and the trade winds are lifted to produce rainfall right through the year. Townsville, however, lies on a section of coastline that turns east/west, so the lifting effect is not present. As a result, winter months are dominated by blue skies, warm days and cool nights, although at times significant rainfall may occur.[33]

Kenneth Wade Robinson summarised the climate as follows:

The sunshine attracts many tourists; but the high temperatures, bright sunshine, lack of moisture in the winter, and the prospect of flooding in the summer have a profound effect on all aspects of life and landscape. Special techniques are required for successful farming, sub-tropical crops are important items of production, pastures grow only in summer, and transport may be dislocated when it is needed most. Since the onset of white settlement, pastoralists and farmers of the North-East Coastlands Region have faced problems for which there are no answers in the agriculture practices of temperate lands.[34]

The average annual rainfall is 1,143 millimetres (45.00 in) on an average 91 rain days, most of which falls during the six-month "wet season" from November to April. Because of the "hit or miss" nature of tropical lows and thunderstorms, and the powerful influence of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, variation from year to year is almost uniquely large for so wet a climate, being comparable only to a few cities in the Brazilian Nordeste (e.g. Fortaleza).[35] Since records at various urban locations started in 1871 twelve-month rainfalls in Townsville have ranged from a mere 217.9 millimetres (8.58 in) between December 1901 and November 1902 at the peak of the Federation Drought, to as much as 2,956.2 millimetres (116.39 in) between March 1990 and February 1991. On average, the driest year in ten can expect only half the mean rainfall, compared to around 64 percent in Brisbane, 68 percent in Sydney, and 72 percent in Darwin.

Rainfall also varies considerably within the metropolitan area; it typically ranges from 1,136 millimetres (44.7 in) at central Townsville City to 853 millimetres (33.6 in) at Woodstock, a southwestern suburb. The wettest 24 hours on record was 11 January 1998, with 548.8 millimetres (21.61 in) falling mostly in a 12-hour period after dark, which has since been dubbed the "Night of Noah" by Townsville residents.[36]

December is the warmest month of the year with daily mean maximum and minimum temperatures being 31.5 °C (88.7 °F) and 24.1 °C (75.4 °F)[3] respectively. July is the coolest month with daily mean maximum and minimum temperatures being 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) and 13.7 °C (56.7 °F).[3] Townsville experiences an annual mean of 8.5 hours of sunshine per day, averaging 120.8 clear days per year.[33]

Like most of North Queensland, Townsville is susceptible to tropical cyclones. They usually occur between December and April, forming mainly out in the Coral Sea, and usually tracking west to the coast. Notable cyclones to affect the Townsville Region have been: Cyclone Yasi (2011), Cyclone Tessi (2000), Cyclone Sid (1998, in particular damaging The Strand), Cyclone Joy (1990), Cyclone Althea (1971), Cyclone Leonta (1903) and Cyclone Sigma (1896).

Townsville and Thuringowa experienced major flooding in January 1998 due to Cyclone Sid.

Townsville has offices of many State and Federal Government agencies, such as Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office.

Townsville is governed by a City Council, comprising an independently elected Mayor and 10 Councillors who each represent a separate division within the local government area.[37] Following local government reform undertaken by the Government of Queensland prior to the March 2008 elections, the previous entities of NQ Water, The City of Townsville and the City of Thuringowa were amalgamated.

The Mayor of Townsville is Jenny Hill, a member of the Labor Party. Hill was elected in April 2012, replacing the retiring Les Tyrell and defeating main opposing candidate Dale Last.[38][39] Tyrell was the immediate past Mayor for 17 years of the former local government authority, the City of Thuringowa. The previous Mayor of Townsville for 19 years was Tony Mooney (Australian Labor Party). Hill faced a largely hostile chamber in her first term, with 'Townsville First' candidates winning the majority of divisions.[38] When local government elections were held in March 2016, Jenny Hill was re-elected as Mayor of Townsville[40] while all ten of her Team Jenny Hill candidates (which included two sitting councillors) won in their respective divisions.

In the unicameral Queensland Parliament five electorates cover the Townsville Region:

The majority of the population of Townsville is represented in the Australian House of Representatives by Cathy O'Toole of the Australian Labor Party, first elected as the member for the Division of Herbert at the 2016 federal election. Historically a swinging seat, it is only held by a small margin. Some of the suburbs on the southern fringe of the urban area are part of the Division of Dawson and are represented by George Christensen, representing the Liberal National Party. Christensen is based in Mackay, about 400 kilometres (250 mi) south of Townsville, but he has a part-time office in Wulguru. Some of the northern suburbs of Townsville, known collectively as the "Northern Beaches", are included in the Division of Kennedy which is represented by Bob Katter (Katter's Australian Party), who is based in Mount Isa about 900 kilometres (560 mi) west of Townsville.

Ian Macdonald (Liberal National Party), who is one of twelve Senators elected by Queensland to the Australian Senate, is based in Townsville.

Economic growth in the region was "not restricted to heavy industry growth attributed to the resources boom under the Howard Government, [as] the region's tourism growth also outstripped neighbouring regions."[41]

In 2004, there were 11,762 businesses in Townsville and 4,610 in Thuringowa.[43] There were still "lots of well-paying job opportunities" in the city itself come mid-2008, when the number of unemployed had risen (nationally) by 100,000 workers, including "considerable employment requirements" in the trades (280 job vacancies), engineering (117), administration (100), sales (97) and hospitality (90).[44] Townsville hosted the head office of $4Â billion financial advice company Storm Financial, until its collapse in early 2009.[45]

The city also has its own manufacturing and processing industries. Townsville is the only city globally to refine three different base metals — zinc, copper and nickel — and it is currently in strong contention for an aluminium refinery.[46][47] Nickel ore is imported from Indonesia, the Philippines and New Caledonia and processed at the Yabulu Nickel refinery, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of the port. Zinc ore is transported by rail from the Cannington Mine, south of Cloncurry, for smelting at the Sun Metals refinery south of Townsville. Copper concentrate from the smelter at Mount Isa is also railed to Townsville for further refining at the copper refinery at Stuart.[citation needed]

Townsville has several large public assets as a result of its relative position and population. These include the largest campus of the oldest university in northern Queensland, James Cook University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science headquarters, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the large Army base at Lavarack Barracks and RAAF Base Townsville.

The city has suffered as a result of the Australian mining downturn with the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealing an estimated unemployment rate of 12.4% in March 2016.[48]

Townsville has a younger population than the Australian and Queensland averages.[49] The city has traditionally experienced a high turnover of people, with the army base and government services bringing in many short to medium term workers. The region has also become popular with mine workers on fly in/fly out contracts. In 2005–06, the Townsville Statistical District grew at just over 3 per cent and was the fifth-fastest-growing district or division in Australia.[50] Between 2000 and 2005 the annual average population growth in Townsville was 2.5%, compared with 2.2% for Queensland overall.[43] However, growth has slowed in more recent years with population growth over the 2014–15 period being 1%, compared with the state average of 1.2%.[51]

There are over 60 private and State schools of primary and secondary education within the Townsville area. Townsville Grammar School is the oldest co-educational school on the Australian mainland.[53] The Townsville State High School opened on 7 June 1924. [54]

James Cook University (JCU) is a public university based in Townsville. Established in 1970, the main campus is located in the suburb of Douglas.[55] JCU was the second university in Queensland and the first in North Queensland. The University has a strong and internationally recognised expertise in marine & tropical biology.[56] The JCU Medical School was established in 1999 and is linked with the adjacent tertiary-level Townsville Hospital. The Veterinary Sciences undergraduate facility is the newest in Australia.[57]

CQUniversity first established a presence in Townsville in 2014 with the opening of a Distance Education Study Centre in the CBD.[58] The University quickly felt the demand for a face-to-face teaching presence in Townsville and has since opened a purpose built campus in the city offering many on-campus courses including Nursing, Paramedic Science, Business and Psychology as well as supporting growing numbers of online students. [59]

The city is home to the Pimlico and Aitkenvale campuses of TAFE Queensland North[60] — a Technical and Further Education College, a campus of Queensland Agricultural Training Colleges, and Tec-NQ.[61]

The Australian Festival of Chamber Music is an international chamber music festival held over ten days each July in Townsville.[62] The festival has been running since 1991, and attracts many acclaimed international and Australian musicians. Townsville also has its own orchestra, the Barrier Reef Orchestra, which presents concerts throughout North Queensland. The Townsville Entertainment Centre, seating more than 5,000 people, is host to many national and international music shows, as well as sporting and trade shows.

The region has many renowned festivals, many which celebrate the international heritage of many that call North Queensland home. The Annual Greek and Italian Festivals are popular with the locals and tourists alike. The Townsville South hotel and restaurant strip hosts an annual Palmer Street Jazz Festival, as does nearby Magnetic Island (The Great Tropical Jazz Party). The Stable on the Strand is celebrated each Christmas.

The Townsville Civic Theatre is North Queensland's premier cultural facility. Since its opening in 1978, the Theatre has been a centre of entertainment and performing arts, providing an environment to further develop the performing arts in Townsville and the North. The Full Throttle Theatre Company is a professional theatre company based in Townsville. Full Throttle showcases the talents of local actors, designers, directors and playwrights. It presents four major shows a year.[63]

The Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is the public art gallery of Townsville.[64] Located on the eastern end of Flinders Mall, the Gallery focuses on artwork relevant to North Queensland and the Tropics. Every second September the gallery presents sculpture artworks and art festival called Strand Ephemera, exhibited over the two kilometre beachfront strip.[65]

The Townsville City Council and Townsville Intercultural Centre annually organises Cultural Fest in mid August. The festival has been held in various locations across the city over its history, and is currently held on the grounds of James Cook University. The Cultural Fest showcases the cultural diversity of the city and dance, food, and music from different ethnic groups in the region.

The city has several museums. The Maritime Museum of Townsville, also known as the Townsville Maritime Museum, is located as part of the Port of Townsville. Its features include HMAS Townsville, the SS Yongala, and lenses from current and former lighthouses.[66][67] The Museum of Tropical Queensland (abbreviated MTQ) is a museum of natural history, archaeology and history. In addition to housing artifacts from the wrecks, the museum administers the shipwreck sites for the HMS Pandora and the SS Yongala.[68]

The city has many restaurants, concentrated on Palmer Street in South Townsville, Flinders Street and to a lesser extent along the Strand. The city also has a vibrant pub and night-club scene, many of them located in Flinders Street East.

Townsville is the stunning setting for the state-of-the-art futuristic city in the 2015 novel, 'A Tango with the Dragon.'

Townsville is the media centre for North Queensland, with four commercial and five narrowcast radio stations, North Queensland ABC radio station, three commercial television stations, one regional daily newspaper and one community weekly newspaper (both owned by News Ltd). There are no local Sunday papers although The Sunday Mail (Qld) — based in Brisbane — does have a North Queensland edition. Media distributed on the World Wide Web include the Townsville Bulletin.

Townsville hosts several sporting teams that participate in national competitions. These include the North Queensland Cowboys (National Rugby League), and the Townsville Fire (Women's National Basketball League) who play at the Townsville RSL Stadium. The city also formerly hosted the Townsville Crocodiles, (National Basketball League) who played out of the Townsville Entertainment Centre, known as The Swamp during Crocs home games.

1300SMILES Stadium is the home ground for the Cowboys.[69] Built in 1995 the stadium has a capacity of 30,302.[69] 1300SMILES Stadium was an official venue the 2003 Rugby Union World Cup, with three matches played in Townsville. Townsville hosted the popular Japanese national rugby union team.. Tony Ireland Stadium, in the suburb of Thuringowa, has an international standard cricket and AFL stadium.

Townsville also hosts two Touch Football associations. The Townsville/Castle Hill Touch Association (TCHTA) conducts competitions annually at its grounds at Queens Park, Townsville.[70] Thuringowa Touch Association (TTA) also conducts competitions at Greenwood Park, Kirwan.[71][72] Both competitions have produced a host of regional, state and national representative players and officials.

Townsville and its surrounding suburbs host a number of junior and senior rugby league sides in the successful Townsville District Rugby League, including A-grade sides: Bindal Sharks, Brothers Townsville, University Saints and Centrals ASA Tigers. The junior league has produced a number of Australian internationals such as Gorden Tallis and Gene Miles.

Townsville and District Rugby Union run a successful Winter Junior and Senior Rugby Union competition including teams from Ingham, Charters Towers and Ayr. Townsville has produced a number of Wallabies in past including Peter Grigg and Sam Scott-Young.

AFL Townsville operate a regional Australian rules football league in the region. Jake Spencer is the first local player to play in the AFL.[73]

Several Australian Test and ODI cricketers have come out of Townsville including fast bowler Mitchell Johnson, Andrew Symonds and James Hopes. In 2012 Townsville hosted under 19 cricket World Cup preliminary matches, semi finals and the final featuring Australia and India.

The Townsville Street Circuit is located in Reid Park in Townsville. Each July since 2009, it hosts the Townsville 400 for the Supercars Championship.

Townsville also has a go cart track and motocross track, Townsville had a 1/4-mile dragstrip, but it closed its gates on 25 August 2012 due to urban development.

Rowing occurs at Townsville & JCU Rowing Club and Riverway Rowing Club. Both clubs cater to competitive masters, social, learn to row and school-based rowing programs. In 2009 the Townsville & JCU club won its first Queensland Club Premiership and in 2010 Riverway club claimed theirs.[74]

Townsville has 3 Tennis Clubs. The Western Suburbs Tennis Club Inc, Tennis Townsville Inc and Kalynda Chase Tennis Centre. Each year Tennis Townsville host the NQ Open Championships and Western Suburbs Tennis Club host the Townsville Open. These tournaments see Australian and international players competing for up to $10,000 prize money and the opportunity to improve their Australian Tennis Ranking.

The Townsville Hospital is a 580-bed university teaching hospital in the suburb of Douglas.[75] The Townsville Hospital was formally located in North Ward whose main building serves an example of the Streamline Moderne style of architecture. It is co-located with the James Cook University School of Medicine. The hospital caters for the city of Townsville, as well as people in the north as far as Thursday Island and Papua New Guinea, west to Mount Isa and south to Sarina. During the year 2010, the hospital admitted 54,941 patients, and had 60,676 presentations to the emergency department. The hospital is also the major tertiary maternity centre, with 2,308 babies delivered in 2010.[75]

The Townsville Hospital is undergoing a $437Â million redevelopment as of 2011, delivering an additional 100 beds, a four-storey expanded Emergency Department, expanded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and expansion of oncology services.[76] The Emergency Department will be the largest in Queensland.

There are four other public health campuses in Townsville: the Kirwan Health Campus,[77] the Magnetic Island Health Service Centre,[78] the North Ward Health Campus[79] and the Townsville Hospital Dentist, located in North Ward.

In addition there are two private hospitals in Townsville, the Mater Hospital and the Mater Women's and Children's Hospital.

Townsville is the intersection point of the A1 (Bruce Highway), and the A6 (Flinders Highway) National Highways. The Townsville Ring Road, planned to become part of the re-routed A1 route bypass, circumnavigates the city.

Townsville has a public transport system contracted to Sunbus Townsville, which provides regular services between many parts of the city. Public transport is also available from the CBD to Bushland Beach.[80] Regular ferry and vehicular barge services operate to Magnetic Island and Palm Island.[81][82]

The Tilt Train service connects Townsville railway station to Brisbane in the south and Cairns in the north. Townsville is a major destination and generator of rail freight services. The North Coast railway line, operated by Queensland Rail, meets the Western line in the city's south.[83] Container operations are also common and the products of the local nickel and copper refineries, as well as minerals from the western line (Mount Isa), are transported to the port via trains. The Port of Townsville has bulk handling facilities for importing cement, nickel ore and fuel, and for exporting sugar and products from North Queensland's mines.[84] The port has three sugar-storage sheds, with the newest being the largest under-cover storage area in Australia.[85]

The city is served by Townsville International Airport.[86] The Airport handles direct domestic flights to Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, as well as direct regional flights to destinations such as Cairns, Mount Isa, Rockhampton and Mackay.[87] Airlines currently servicing the airport include Qantas, Virgin Australia, Jetstar, Tigerair Australia, Regional Express, Qantaslink, Airnorth and Skytrans. In 2015, Jetstar began regular international flights from Townsville to Denpasar, Bali.

The Australian Army maintains a very strong presence in the north of Australia and this is evident by the basing of the Army's 3rd Brigade at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville.[88] The 3rd Brigade is a light infantry brigade. The brigade consists of three light infantry battalions — the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment (1, 2 and 3 RAR) — and a cavalry contingent — the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. It also has integral Artillery, Engineer, Aviation Reconnaissance and Combat Service Support units. It is a high-readiness brigade that has been deployed frequently at very short notice on combat operations outside mainland Australia. These include Somalia, Rwanda, Namibia, East Timor, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition to the 3rd Brigade, a number of other major units are based in Townsville. These include the 5th Aviation Regiment,[89] equipped with MRH-90 and Chinook helicopters, co-located at the RAAF Base in Garbutt and the 10th Force Support Battalion based at Ross Island.[90] 10 FSB is a force logistics unit that provides back up logistic support to deployed units. The battalion provides specialist transport (including amphibious) and supply support. Along with this there is also the 11th Combat Service Support Battalion and the 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment.

The Army also maintains an Army Reserve brigade in Townsville designated the 11th Brigade. This formation is similar in structure to the 3rd Brigade but comprises reserve soldiers only. There is also two active cadet units, 130 ACU located within Heatley Secondary College and 15 ACU located on Lavarack Barracks as of 2010, previously located at Ignatius Park College.[91]

As with the Army, the Royal Australian Air Force also maintains a presence in Townsville. RAAF Base Townsville, which is located in the suburb of Garbutt, houses the Beech KingAir 350 aircraft from No. 38 Squadron RAAF. This unit operated the venerable DHC-4 Caribou aircraft until late 2009; however, it has re-equipped in the short term while protracted analysis for a more appropriate Battlefield Transport and Utility aircraft continues. This detachment provides support to the Army units in Townsville. The base is also a high readiness Defence asset and is prepared to accept the full range of RAAF aircraft types as well as other international aircraft including the huge C-17 Globemaster III and the Ukrainian Antonov transport aircraft.[92]

Townsville is also the staging point for the movement of personnel and materials to the remote parts of Northern Australia and many overseas locations.[93] The Australian Navy's two Canberra-class landing helicopter dock ships visit Townsville frequently to exercise with the 3rd Brigade and other troops and formations from the area and deploy them when tasked.


who played dr burke in grey's anatomy

Isaiah Washington IV (born August 3, 1963) is an American actor.  A veteran of several Spike Lee films, Washington is best known for his role as Dr. Preston Burke on the ABC medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy from 2005 until 2007, and again in 2014. From 2014 to 2018, Washington portrayed Thelonious Jaha on The CW's science fiction television series The 100.

Isaiah Washington

Washington was born in Houston, Texas where his parents were residents in the Houston Heights community.  His parents moved to Missouri City, Texas around 1980, where he was one of the first graduates from Willowridge High School, Houston, in 1981.  Washington revealed in an interview with Star Jones that his father, after whom he was named, was murdered when he was 13 years old.  Washington went on to serve in the United States Air Force and attended Howard University.

In 2005, Washington originated the role of gifted cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Preston Burke on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy.  His portrayal earned him two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award. He was paired onscreen with Sandra Oh, who plays intern Cristina Yang. Washington had originally auditioned for the role of Derek Shepherd, which ultimately went to Patrick Dempsey. Burke had originally been described as a nebbishy, stout forty-something man. For his portrayal of Burke, Isaiah was honored by TV Guide as one of "TV's Sexiest Men" in June 2006, and was named one of TV's sexiest doctors in June 2008 on TV Guide's television channel. Prior to the TV Guide honor, Isaiah was named as one of People's "50 Beautiful People" in May 2006. On March 6, 2014, ABC announced that Washington would be returning to the show in a guest appearance as Burke. He returned in season 10, which served as part of a farewell storyline for Sandra Oh's character, Cristina Yang. The characters had been previously engaged to be married.[1]

In the show's third season, Washington became a central figure in a widely reported backstage controversy. In October 2006, rumors surfaced that Washington had insulted co-star T. R. Knight with a homophobic slur. Shortly after the details of the argument became public, Knight publicly disclosed that he was gay.  The situation seemed somewhat resolved when Washington issued a statement, apologizing for his "unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set".[2]

The controversy later resurfaced when the cast appeared at the Golden Globes in January 2007. While being interviewed on the red carpet prior to the awards, Washington joked, "I love gay. I wanted to be gay. Please let me be gay".[3] After the show won Best Drama, Washington, in response to press queries as to any conflicts backstage, said, "No, I did not call T.R. a faggot".[4] However, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Knight said that "everybody heard him".

After being rebuked by his studio, Touchstone Television (now ABC Studios), Washington issued a statement apologizing at length for using the epithet in an argument with Patrick Dempsey.  On January 30, 2007, a source told People magazine that Washington was scheduled to return to the Grey's Anatomy set as early as that Thursday for the first time since entering "executive counseling" after making the comments at the Golden Globes.

However, on June 7, 2007, ABC announced it had decided not to renew Washington's contract, and that he would be dropped from the show. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," Washington said in a statement released by his publicist (borrowing the famous line from Network).  In another report, Washington stated he was planning to "spend the summer pursuing charity work in Sierra Leone, work on an independent film and avoid worrying about the show".[5] Washington, in late June 2007, began asserting that racism within the media was a factor in his firing from the series.[6] On July 2, 2007, Washington appeared on Larry King Live on CNN, to present his side of the controversy. According to Washington, he never used the "F Word" in reference to Knight, but rather told Dempsey to stop treating him like a "F-word" during an argument "provoked" by Dempsey, who, he felt, was treating him like a "B-word", a "P-word", and the "F-word", which Washington said conveyed "somebody who is being weak and afraid to fight back". He also disputed the accusations made by Knight, who he claimed was misrepresenting himself out of disappointment over his character.[7]

In July 2007, NBC decided to cast Washington as a guest star in a story arc in its new series Bionic Woman. NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman noted his eagerness to work with Washington, saying it would be "like A-Rod leaving the Yankees in midseason".  However, Bionic Woman was cancelled after only eight episodes due to low ratings. Washington himself said that his dismissal from Grey's Anatomy was an unfortunate misunderstanding that he was eager to move past.  By the beginning of the next season of Grey's Anatomy, Washington's character "Burke" had left the show following the end of the season finale.

In January 2014, in an interview with I Am Entertainment magazine, Washington spoke about life after Grey's Anatomy and he stated, "I don't worry about whether or not the stories I tell will destroy my acting career because, you can't take away something that doesn't exist. They killed the actor (in me) on June 7, 2007."[8]

Washington played the role of Chancellor Jaha in The 100, an American post-apocalyptic drama television series that began airing on The CW Television Network in spring 2014.  The series is based on a book of the same name by Kass Morgan, and developed by Jason Rothenberg. Washington's character was killed in the second episode of the show's fifth season, "Red Queen".

Washington also starred in the film Blue Caprice, which was inspired by the Beltway sniper attacks during which two men, John Muhammed (played by Washington) and Lee Malvo (Tequan Richmond), conducted a siege of terror on the Washington, D.C. area. The film was released in theaters on September 13, 2013.[9]

Washington married Jenisa Marie Garland on February 14, 1996.  The couple have three children.  Washington has written a book called A Man from Another Land, which chronicles Washington's early life, his TV and film career, and his search to find his roots after going through a DNA test that showed his ancestors came from Sierra Leone in West Africa.  Since learning about his history, Washington has traveled to Sierra Leone, donated medical supplies to a hospital there, and built a school.[10][11] He has also been invested with a chieftaincy title of the Mende people in appreciation for his work in the country, taking the regnal name of Gandobay Manga I.

Washington has endorsed Jill Stein for President of the United States.[12]

Washington is of African descent.  A genealogical DNA test conducted by African Ancestry, Inc. revealed that Washington's maternal ancestry can be traced to what is now Sierra Leone, and that he has an ancestral link to the Mende and Temne peoples there.  In May 2006 he visited Sierra Leone, and received a warm welcome.  He travelled to Sierra Leone in May 2006 marking the beginning of his charity work and was granted Sierra Leonean citizenship, making him the first African American to be granted full citizenship based on DNA.[13]

His paternal ancestry links him to the Mbundu people, an ethnic group in Angola.[14][15]

Screen Actors Guild Awards


who developed the technique of using machine tools to produce interchangeable parts

Evidence of the use of interchangeable parts can be traced back over two thousand years to Carthage in the First Punic War. Carthaginian ships had standardized, interchangeable parts that even came with assembly instructions akin to "tab a into slot b" marked on them.[3]

Interchangeable parts

Interchangeable parts are parts (components) that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting (such as filing). This interchangeability allows easy assembly of new devices, and easier repair of existing devices, while minimizing both the time and skill required of the person doing the assembly or repair.

The concept of interchangeability was crucial to the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and has become an important element of some modern manufacturing but is missing from other important industries.

Interchangeability of parts was achieved by combining a number of innovations and improvements in machining operations and the invention of several machine tools, such as the slide rest lathe, screw-cutting lathe, turret lathe, milling machine and metal planer. Additional innovations included jigs for guiding the machine tools, fixtures for holding the workpiece in the proper position, and blocks and gauges to check the accuracy of the finished parts.[1] Electrification allowed individual machine tools to be powered by electric motors, eliminating line shaft drives from steam engines or water power and allowing higher speeds, making modern large scale manufacturing possible.[2] Modern machine tools often have numerical control (NC) which evolved into CNC (computerized numeric control) when microprocessors became available.

Methods for industrial production of interchangeable parts in the United States were first developed in the nineteenth century. The term American system of manufacturing was sometimes applied to them at the time, in distinction from earlier methods. Within a few decades such methods were in use in various countries, so American system is now a term of historical reference rather than current industrial nomenclature.

In East Asia during the Warring States period and later the Qin Dynasty, bronze crossbow triggers and locking mechanisms were mass-produced and made to be interchangeable.

In the late 18th century, French General Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval promoted standardized weapons in what became known as the SystÃ¨me Gribeauval after it was issued as a royal order in 1765. (Its focus at the time was artillery more than muskets or handguns.) One of the accomplishments of the system was that solid cast cannons were bored to precise tolerances, which allowed the walls to be thinner than cannons poured with hollow cores. However, because cores were often off center, the wall thickness determined the size of the bore. Standardized boring allowed cannon to be shorter without sacrificing accuracy and range because of the tighter fit of the shells. It also allowed standardization of the shells.[1]

Before the 18th century, devices such as guns were made one at a time by gunsmiths in a unique manner. If one single component of a firearm needed a replacement, the entire firearm either had to be sent to an expert gunsmith for custom repairs, or discarded and replaced by another firearm. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the idea of replacing these methods with a system of interchangeable manufacture was gradually developed.[4][5] The development took decades and involved many people.[4][5]

Gribeauval provided patronage to Honoré Blanc, who attempted to implement the Système Gribeauval at the musket level. By around 1778, Honoré Blanc began producing some of the first firearms with interchangeable flint locks, although they were carefully made by craftsmen. Blanc demonstrated in front of a committee of scientists that his muskets could be fitted with flint locks picked at random from a pile of parts.[1]

Muskets with interchangeable locks caught the attention of Thomas Jefferson through the efforts of HonorÃ© Blanc when Jefferson was Ambassador to France in 1785. Jefferson tried to persuade Blanc to move to America, but was not successful, so he wrote to the American Secretary of War with the idea, and when he returned to the USA he worked to fund its development. President George Washington approved of the idea, and by 1798 a contract was issued to Eli Whitney for 12,000 muskets built under the new system.[6]

Louis de Tousard, who fled the French Revolution, joined the U.S. Corp of Artillerists in 1795 and wrote an influential artillerist's manual that stressed the importance of standardization.[1]

Numerous inventors began to try to implement the principle Blanc had described. The development of the machine tools and manufacturing practices required would be a great expense to the U.S. Ordnance Department, and for some years while trying to achieve interchangeabililty, the firearms produced cost more to manufacture. By 1853, there was evidence that interchangeable parts, then perfected by the Federal Armories, led to savings. The Ordnance Department freely shared the techniques used with outside suppliers.[1]

In the US, Eli Whitney saw the potential benefit of developing "interchangeable parts" for the firearms of the United States military. In July 1801 he built ten guns, all containing the same exact parts and mechanisms, then disassembled them before the United States Congress. He placed the parts in a mixed pile and, with help, reassembled all of the firearms right in front of Congress, much like Blanc had done some years before.[7]

The Congress was captivated and ordered a standard for all United States equipment. The use of interchangeable parts removed the problems of earlier eras concerning the difficulty or impossibility of producing new parts for old equipment. If one firearm part failed, another could be ordered, and the firearm would not have to be discarded. The catch was that Whitney's guns were costly and handmade by skilled workmen.

Charles Fitch credited Whitney with successfully executing a firearms contract with interchangeable parts using the American System,[4] but historians Merritt Roe Smith and Robert B. Gordon have since determined that Whitney never actually achieved interchangeable parts manufacturing. His family's arms company, however, did so after his death.

Mass production using interchangeable parts was first achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel in cooperation with Henry Maudslay and Simon Goodrich, under the management of (and with contributions by) Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, the Inspector General of Naval Works at Portsmouth Block Mills, Portsmouth Dockyard, Hampshire, England. At the time, the Napoleonic War was at its height, and the Royal Navy was in a state of expansion that required 100,000 pulley blocks to be manufactured a year. Bentham had already achieved remarkable efficiency at the docks by introducing power-driven machinery and reorganising the dockyard system.

Marc Brunel, a pioneering engineer, and Maudslay, a founding father of machine tool technology who had developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800 which standardized screw thread sizes for the first time,[8] collaborated on plans to manufacture block-making machinery; the proposal was submitted to the Admiralty who agreed to commission his services. By 1805, the dockyard had been fully updated with the revolutionary, purpose-built machinery at a time when products were still built individually with different components. A total of 45 machines were required to perform 22 processes on the blocks, which could be made in three different sizes. The machines were almost entirely made of metal thus improving their accuracy and durability. The machines would make markings and indentations on the blocks to ensure alignment throughout the process. One of the many advantages of this new method was the increase in labour productivity due to the less labour-intensive requirements of managing the machinery. Richard Beamish, assistant to Brunel's son and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, wrote:

So that ten men, by the aid of this machinery, can accomplish with uniformity, celerity and ease, what formerly required the uncertain labour of one hundred and ten.

By 1808, annual production had reached 130,000 blocks and some of the equipment was still in operation as late as the mid-twentieth century.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

The very first mass production using interchangeable parts in America was Terry's 1806 Porter Contract, which called for the production of 4000 clocks in three years [19]. During this contract, Terry crafted four-thousand wooden gear tall case movements, at a time when the annual average was about a dozen [20]. Unlike Eli Whitney, Terry manufactured his products without government funding. Terry saw the potential of clocks becoming a household object. With the use of a milling machine, Terry was able to mass produce clock wheels and plates a few dozen at the same time. Jigs and templates were used to make uniform pinions, so that all parts could be assembled using an Assembly Line [21].

The crucial step toward interchangeability in metal parts was taken by Simeon North, working only a few miles from Eli Terry. North created one of the world's first true milling machines to do metal shaping that had been done by hand with a file. Diana Muir believes that North's milling machine was online around 1816.[22] Muir, Merritt Roe Smith, and Robert B. Gordon all agree that before 1832 both Simeon North and John Hall were able to mass-produce complex machines with moving parts (guns) using a system that entailed the use of rough-forged parts, with a milling machine that milled the parts to near-correct size, and that were then "filed to gage by hand with the aid of filing jigs."[23]

Historians differ over the question of whether Hall or North made the crucial improvement. Merrit Roe Smith believes that it was done by Hall.[24][25] Muir demonstrates the close personal ties and professional alliances between Simeon North and neighboring mechanics mass-producing wooden clocks to argue that the process for manufacturing guns with interchangeable parts was most probably devised by North in emulation of the successful methods used in mass-producing clocks.[22] It may not be possible to resolve the question with absolute certainty unless documents now unknown should surface in the future.

Skilled engineers and machinists, many with armory experience, spread interchangeable manufacturing techniques to other American industries including clockmakers and sewing machine manufacturers Wilcox and Gibbs and Wheeler and Wilson, who used interchangeable parts before 1860.[1][26] Late to adopt the interchangeable system were Singer Corporation sewing machine (1870s), reaper manufacturer McCormick Harvesting Machine Company (1870sâ€“1880s)[1] and several large steam engine manufacturers such as Corliss (mid-1880s)[27] as well as locomotive makers. Typewriters followed some years later. Then large scale production of bicycles in the 1880s began to use the interchangeable system.[1]

During these decades, true interchangeability grew from a scarce and difficult achievement into an everyday capability throughout the manufacturing industries.[28] In the 1950s and 1960s, historians of technology broadened the world's understanding of the history of the development. Few people outside that academic discipline knew much about the topic until as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, when the academic knowledge began finding wider audiences. As recently as the 1960s, when Alfred P. Sloan published his famous memoir and management treatise, My Years with General Motors, even the longtime president and chair of the largest manufacturing enterprise that had ever existed knew very little about the history of the development, other than to say that

[Henry M. Leland was], I believe, one of those mainly responsible for bringing the technique of interchangeable parts into automobile manufacturing. [â€¦] It has been called to my attention that Eli Whitney, long before, had started the development of interchangeable parts in connection with the manufacture of guns, a fact which suggests a line of descent from Whitney to Leland to the automobile industry.[29]

One of the better-known books on the subject, which was first published in 1984 and has enjoyed a readership beyond academia, has been David A. Hounshell's From the American System to Mass Production, 1800â€“1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States.[28]

The principle of interchangeable parts flourished and developed throughout the 19th century, and led to mass production in many industries. It was based on the use of templates and other jigs and fixtures, applied by semi-skilled labor using machine tools to augment (and later largely replace) the traditional hand tools. Throughout this century there was much development work to be done in creating gauges, measuring tools (such as calipers and micrometers), standards (such as those for screw threads), and processes (such as scientific management), but the principle of interchangeability remained constant. With the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, interchangeable parts became ubiquitous elements of manufacturing.

Interchangeability relies on parts' dimensions falling within the tolerance range. The most common mode of assembly is to design and manufacture such that, as long as each part that reaches assembly is within tolerance, the mating of parts can be totally random. This has value for all the reasons already discussed earlier.

There is another mode of assembly, called "selective assembly", which gives up some of the randomness capability in trade-off for other value. There are two main areas of application that benefit economically from selective assembly: when tolerance ranges are so tight that they cannot quite be held reliably (making the total randomness unavailable); and when tolerance ranges can be reliably held, but the fit and finish of the final assembly is being maximized by voluntarily giving up some of the randomness (which makes it available but not ideally desirable). In either case the principle of selective assembly is the same: parts are selected for mating, rather than being mated at random. As the parts are inspected, they are graded out into separate bins based on what end of the range they fall in (or violate). Falling within the high or low end of a range is usually called being heavy or light; violating the high or low end of a range is usually called being oversize or undersize. Examples are given below.

French and Vierck[30] provide a one-paragraph description of selective assembly that aptly summarizes the concept.

One might ask, if parts must be selected for mating, then what makes selective assembly any different from the oldest craft methods? But there is in fact a significant difference. Selective assembly merely grades the parts into several ranges; within each range, there is still random interchangeability. This is quite different from the older method of fitting by a craftsman, where each mated set of parts is specifically filed to fit each part with a specific, unique counterpart.

In contexts where the application requires extremely tight (narrow) tolerance ranges, the requirement may push slightly past the limit of the ability of the machining and other processes (stamping, rolling, bending, etc.) to stay within the range. In such cases, selective assembly is used to compensate for a lack of total interchangeability among the parts. Thus, for a pin that must have a sliding fit in its hole (free but not sloppy), the dimension may be spec'd as 12.00 +0 −0.01 mm for the pin, and 12.00 +.01 −0 for the hole. Pins that came out oversize (say a pin at 12.003mm diameter) are not necessarily scrap, but they can only be mated with counterparts that also came out oversize (say a hole at 12.013mm). The same is then true for matching undersize parts with undersize counterparts. Inherent in this example is that for this product's application, the 12 mm dimension does not require extreme accuracy, but the desired fit between the parts does require good precision (see the article on accuracy and precision). This allows the makers to "cheat a little" on total interchangeability in order to get more value out of the manufacturing effort by reducing the rejection rate (scrap rate). This is a sound engineering decision as long as the application and context support it. For example, for machines for which there is no intention for any future field service of a parts-replacing nature (but rather only simple replacement of the whole unit), this makes good economic sense. It lowers the unit cost of the products, and it does not impede future service work.

An example of a product that might benefit from this approach could be a car transmission where there is no expectation that the field service person will repair the old transmission; instead, he will simply swap in a new one. Therefore, total interchangeability was not absolutely required for the assemblies inside the transmissions. It would have been specified anyway, simply on general principle, except for a certain shaft that required precision so high as to cause great annoyance and high scrap rates in the grinding area, but for which only decent accuracy was required, as long as the fit with its hole was good in every case. Money could be saved by saving many shafts from the scrap bin.

Examples like the one above are not as common in real commerce as they conceivably could be, mostly because of separation of concerns, where each part of a complex system is expected to give performance that does not make any limiting assumptions about other parts of the system. In the car transmission example, the separation of concerns is that individual firms and customers accept no lack of freedom or options from others in the supply chain. For example, in the car buyer's view, the car manufacturer is "not within its rights" to assume that no field-service mechanic will ever repair the old transmission instead of replacing it. The customer expects that that decision will be preserved for him to make later, at the repair shop, based on which option is less expensive for him at that time (figuring that replacing one shaft is cheaper than replacing a whole transmission). This logic is not always valid in reality; it might have been better for the customer's total ownership cost to pay a lower initial price for the car (especially if the transmission service is covered under the standard warranty for 10 years, and the buyer intends to replace the car before then anyway) than to pay a higher initial price for the car but preserve the option of total interchangeability of every last nut, bolt, and shaft throughout the car (when it is not going to be taken advantage of anyway). But commerce is generally too chaotically multivariate for this logic to prevail, so total interchangeability ends up being specified and achieved even when it adds expense that was "needless" from a holistic view of the commercial system. But this may be avoided to the extent that customers experience the overall value (which their minds can detect and appreciate) without having to understand its logical analysis. Thus buyers of an amazingly affordable car (surprisingly low initial price) will probably never complain that the transmission was not field-serviceable as long as they themselves never had to pay for transmission service in the lifespan of their ownership. This analysis can be important for the manufacturer to understand (even if it is lost on the customer), because he can carve for himself a competitive advantage in the marketplace if he can accurately predict where to "cut corners" in ways that the customer will never have to pay for. Thus he could give himself lower transmission unit cost. However, he must be sure when he does so that the transmissions he's using are reliable, because their replacement, being covered under a long warranty, will be at his expense.

The other main area of application for selective assembly is in contexts where total interchangeability is in fact achieved, but the "fit and finish" of the final products can be enhanced by minimizing the dimensional mismatch between mating parts. Consider another application similar to the one above with the 12 mm pin. But say that in this example, not only is the precision important (to produce the desired fit), but the accuracy is also important (because the 12 mm pin must interact with something else that will have to be accurately sized at 12 mm). Some of the implications of this example are that the rejection rate cannot be lowered; all parts must fall within tolerance range or be scrapped. So there are no savings to be had from salvaging oversize or undersize parts from scrap, then. However, there is still one bit of value to be had from selective assembly: having all the mated pairs have as close to identical sliding fit as possible (as opposed to some tighter fits and some looser fits—all sliding, but with varying resistance).

An example of a product that might benefit from this approach could be a toolroom-grade machine tool, where not only is the accuracy highly important but also the fit and finish.