Clint Eastwood (part One)

American actor, director, musician, and producer Clint Eastwood  was born 31 May 1930 at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, He has a younger sister, Jeanne Bernhardt He is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry. Eastwood is descended from Mayflower passenger William Bradford, and through this line is the 12th generation born in North America.His family relocated three times during the 1930s as his father changed occupations. After Settling in Piedmont, California, the Eastwoods lived in an affluent area of the town, had a swimming pool, belonged to a country club, and each parent drove their own car. Eastwood’s father was a manufacturing executive at Georgia-Pacificfor most of his working life.As Clint and Jeanne grew older, Ruth took a clerical job at IBM.

Between 1945 & 1946/Eastwood attended Piedmont Middle School, but was expelled for writing an obscene suggestion to a school official on the athletic field scoreboard and burning an effigy on the school lawn He transferred to Oakland Technical High School . After leaving schoolbEastwood held a number of odd jobs, including lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, and golf caddy. Eastwood said that he tried to enroll at Seattle University in 1951,but instead was drafted into the United States Army and was discharged in February 1953.

Eastwood got his break when Universal-International’s camera crew was shooting in Fort Ord when an enterprising assistant spotted Eastwood and invited him to meet the director, Although the key figure may have been Chuck Hill, who was stationed in Fort Ord and had contacts in Hollywood. While in Los Angeles, Hill  managed to sneak Eastwood into a Universal studio, where he introduced him to cameraman Irving Glassberg. Glassberg arranged for an audition under Arthur Lubin, who, suggested that he attend drama classes and arranged for Eastwood’s initial contract in April 1954. After many rejections he was eventually given a minor role by director Jack Arnold in Revenge of the Creature (1955), a sequel to the recently released Creature from the Black Lagoon.  1954, Eastwood worked for three weeks on Arthur Lubin’s Lady Godiva of Coventry. In 1955, he portrayed “Jonesy”, a sailor in Francis in the Navy and appeared uncredited in another Jack Arnold film, Tarantula, as a squadron pilot. In 1955, Eastwood appeared in the film Never Say Goodbye and as a ranch hand in the film Law Man, also known as Star in the Dust. He also appeared, on Allen in Movieland, starring comedian Steve Allen, actor Tony Curtis, and swing musician Benny Goodman. 

Eastwood joined the Marsh Agency, and Lubin landed him his biggest roles to date in The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) and Escapade in Japan . Eastwood switched to the Kumin-Olenick Agency in 1956 and Mitchell Gertz in 1957. He landed small roles in 1956 as a temperamental army officer in the Reader’s Digest series, and as a motorcycle gang member on a Highway Patrol episode. In 1957, Eastwood played a cadet in West Point series and a suicidal gold prospector on Death Valley Days.In 1958, he played a Navy lieutenant in a segment of Navy Log and in 1959  appeared as Red Hardigan on Maverick opposite James Garner. Eastwood had a small part as an aviator in Lafayette Escadrille and  portrayed an ex-renegade of the Confederacy in Ambush at Cimarron Pass. Eastwood was cast as Rowdy Yates in the CBS hour-long western series Rawhide, The Rawhide years (1959–65) were some of the most grueling of Eastwood’s career, often filming six days a week for an average of 12 hours a day, By late 1963, Rawhide was beginning to decline and was canceled in the middle of the 1965–66 season.

In 1963, Eastwood’s Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made western called A Fistful of Dollars (1964), filmed in a remote region of Spain by a relatively unknown director, Sergio Leone. Eastwood name was suggested to Leone and Eastwood was instrumental in creating the Man with No Name character’s distinctive visual style. Fistful of Dollars proved a landmark in the development of spaghetti Westerns with Leone depicting a more lawless and desolate world than traditional westerns, and challenging American stereotypes of a western hero with a morally ambiguous antihero. The film’s success made Eastwood a major star in Italy and he was rehired to star in For a Few Dollars More (1965), the second of the trilogy.  In  1966, Eastwood met producer Dino De Laurentiis in New York City and agreed to star in a non-Western five-part anthology production, The Witches opposite De Laurentiis’s wife, Silvana Mangano.’ In 1966 Eastwood began work on the classic spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, again playing the mysterious Man with No Name. Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portraying the Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. The storyline involved the search for a cache of Confederate gold buried in a cemetery.  The Dollars trilogy were released over the course of 1967 and turned Eastwood into a major film star 

However All three received poor reviews.Eastwood then signed to star in the American western Hang ‘Em High (1968) alongside Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Dennis Hopper, Ed Begley, Alan Hale Jr., Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, and James MacArthur, playing a man who takes up a marshal’s badge and seeks revenge as a lawman after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead. Hang ‘Em High was widely praised by critics. Eastwood’s advisor Irving Leonard helped establish Eastwood’s own production company, Malpaso Productions, named after Malpaso Creek on Eastwood’s property in Monterey County, California. Eastwood was also working on Coogan’s Bluff (1968), about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (Don Stroud) through New York City. 

Jennings Lang introduced Eastwood to Don Siegel, a Universal contract director who later became Eastwood’s close friend, forming a partnership that would last more than ten years and produce five films. Coogan’s Bluff used music composed by Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, who scored several Eastwood films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Dirty Harry films.Next Eastwood appeared  Alongside Richard Burton in the war epic Where Eagles Dare (1968),about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the Alps. Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career, Paint Your Wagon  in which Eastwood and Lee Marvin play gold miners who buy a Mormon settler’s less favored wife (Jean Seberg) at an auction. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. In 1970 Eastwood starred with Shirley MacLaine in the western Two Mules for Sister Sara directed by Don Siegel. The film follows an American mercenary, who becomes mixed up with a prostitute disguised as a nun, and ends up helping a group of Juarista rebels during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Eastwood then starred as one of a group of Americans who steals a fortune in gold from the Nazis, in the World War II film Kelly’s Heroes with Donald Sutherland and Telly Savalas.

Eastwood and Siegel’s next film was, The Beguiled  a tale of a wounded Union soldier, held captive by the sexually repressed matron (played by Geraldine Page) of a Southern girls’ school. In 1971 Irving Leonard andEastwood discussed the idea of Malpaso producing Play Misty for Me, this concerns a jazz disc jockey named Dave (Eastwood), who has a casual affair with Evelyn (Jessica Walter), a listener who had been calling the radio station repeatedly at night, asking him to play her favorite song – Erroll Garner’s “Misty”. When Dave ends their relationship, the unhinged Evelyn becomes a murderous stalker. Walter was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Actress Award (Drama), for her performance in the film. Eastwoods next film Dirty Harry was released in 1971, it concerns a hard-edged San Francisco police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. Following Sean Connery’s announcement that he would not play James Bond again, Eastwood was offered the role but turned it down. Eastwood next starred in the loner Western Joe Kidd (1972), based on a character inspired by Reies Lopez Tijerina, who stormed a courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico.

Eastwood’s first western as director was High Plains Drifter in which he also starred. This concerns a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) who arrives in a brooding Western town where the people hire him to protect them against three soon-to-be-released felons. Eastwood next turned his attention towards Breezy (1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met actress Sondra Locke Who went on to play major roles in six of his films over the next ten years and become an important figure in his life.nNext, Eastwood reprised his role as Callahan in Magnum Force (1973), a sequel to Dirty Harry, about a group of rogue young officers (among them David Soul, Robert Urich, and Tim Matheson) in the San Francisco Police Department who systematically exterminate the city’s worst criminals. Eastwood then teamed up with Jeff Bridges and George Kennedy in the buddy action caper Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), a road movie about a veteran bank robber Thunderbolt (Eastwood) and a young con man drifter, Lightfoot (Bridges) who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 

Eastwood’s next film The Eiger Sanction (1975) was based on Trevanian’s critically acclaimed spy novelof the same name. Eastwood plays Jonathan Hemlock in a role originally intended for Paul Newman, an assassin turned college art professor who decides to return to his former profession for one last “sanction” in return for a rare Pissarro painting but must climb the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland under perilous conditions. Eastwood’s next film was the widely acclaimed The Outlaw Josey Wales(1976), was a western inspired by Asa Carter’s 1972 novel of the same name, it concerns a a pro-Confederate guerrilla named Josey Wales (Eastwood whose family are murdered by Union Soldiers and refuses to surrender his arms after the American Civil War then finds himself chased across the old southwest by a group of enforcers. It also stars Sondra Locke and Chief Dan George.

Eastwood was then offered the role of Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Coppola’sApocalypse Now, but declined. He also refused the part of a platoon leader in Ted Post’s Vietnam Warfilm, Go Tell the Spartans and instead decided to make a third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer (1976). The film had Callahan partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay area group resembling the Symbionese Liberation Army. Next Eastwood directed and starred in The Gauntlet (1977) opposite Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and Mara Corday, portraying a down-and-out cop assigned to escort a prostitute from Las Vegas to Phoenix to testify against the mob. Eastwood’s next film was Every Which Way but Loose (1978), in which he portrays Philo Beddoe, a trucker and brawler who roams the American West searching for a lost love (Locke) accompanied by his best friend, Orville Boggs (played by Geoffrey Lewis) and an orangutan called Clyde. In 1979 Eastwood starred in Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the last of his films directed by Siegel. It was based on the true story of Frank Lee Morris who, along with John and Clarence Anglin, escaped from the notorious Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1962. IN 1980 Eastwood directed and played the title role in Bronco Billy alongside Locke, Scatman Crothers, and Sam Bottoms.

Part two

the sequel to Every Which Way but Loose, Any Which Way You Can was Released in 1980. Next in 1982 Eastwood directed and starred in Honkytonk Man  based on the eponymous Clancy Carlile’s depression-era novel. In which Eastwood portrays a struggling western singer Red Stovall who suffers from tuberculosis, but is given an opportunity to make it big at the Grand Ole Opry accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son Kyle) to Nashville, Tennessee. Eastwood also directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed Firefox Based on a 1977 novel written by Craig Thomas in 1983 Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact. The line “Go ahead, make my day” has been cited as one of cinema’s immortal lines. In 1984 Eastwood starring opposite Geneviève Bujold in the provocative thrillerTightrope. Set in New Orleans Eastwood played a divorced cop drawn into his target’s tortured psychology and fascination for sadomasochism. Eastwood next starred in the crime comedy City Heat(also 1984) alongside Burt Reynolds, a film about an ex-cop turned private eye and his former police lieutenant partner who get mixed up with gangsters in the Prohibition era of the 1930s. Then Eastwood made his only foray into TV direction with the Amazing Stories episode Vanessa in the Garden (1985), which starred Harvey Keitel and Locke as a married couple. This was his first collaboration with Steven Spielberg, who later co-produced Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. In 1985 Clint Eastwood directed and Starred in another Western in Pale Rider, based on the classic western Shane It follows a preacher descending from the mists of the Sierras to side with the miners during the California Gold Rush of 1850. The title is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of the pale horse is Death, and shows similarities to Eastwood’s western High Plains Drifter(1973). In 1986 Eastwood co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama Heartbreak Ridge this concerns the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. He portrayed a United States Marine CorpsGunnery Sergeant veteran of the Korean War and Vietnam War who realizes he is nearing the end of his military service. In 1988 Eastwood starred in The Dead Pool, the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series. It co-starred Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, and a young Jim Carrey who plays Johnny Squares, a drug-addled rock star and the first of the victims on a list of celebrities drawn up by horror film director Peter Swan (Neeson) who are deemed most likely to die, the so-called “Dead Pool”. The list is stolen by an obsessed fan who, in mimicking his favorite director, makes his way through the list killing off celebrities, of which Dirty Harry is also included. Next Eastwood capitalised on his interest in jazz by directing Bird (1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie “Bird” Parker. For which Eastwood received two Golden Globes , the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his lifelong contribution, and the Best Director award.

Jim Carrey appeared with Eastwood again in the comedy Pink Cadillac. This concerns a bounty hunter and a group of white supremacists chasing an innocent woman (Bernadette Peters) who tries to outrun everyone in her husband’s prized pink Cadillac. In 1990 Eastwood directed and starred in White Hunter Black Heart an adaptation of Peter Viertel’s roman à clef, about John Huston and the making of the classic film The African Queen. Next Eastwood directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in The Rookie, a buddy cop action film. In 1992 Eastwood directed and starred in the Western Unforgiven (1992), as an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor for Eastwood and Best Original Screenplay for David Webb Peoples), and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. In 1993 Eastwood played Frank Horrigan, a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent haunted by his failure to save John F. Kennedy’s life,

in the Secret Service thriller In the Line of Fire alongside John Malkovich and Rene Russo. Eastwood also directed and co-starred alongside Kevin Costner in A Perfect World . Set in the 1960s, Eastwood plays a Texas Ranger in pursuit of an escaped convict (Costner) who travels with a young boy (T.J. Lowther). During the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and e was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awardsin 1995. His next film appearance was in a cameo role as himself in the children’s film Casper. He then starred opposite Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County . Based on the novel by Robert James Waller, the film relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic who, while photographing historic covered bridges in Iowa, meets and has an affair with an Italian-born farm wife, Francesca (Streep). The film won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. Streep was also nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In 1997 Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller Absolute Power As a veteran thief who witnesses the Secret Service cover-up of a murder. Eastwood also directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, based on the novel by John Berendt and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. In 1999 Eastwood directed and starred in True Crime as a journalist and recovering alcoholic, named Steve Everett, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (played by Isaiah Washington). Next Eastwood directed and starred in Space Cowboys (2000) alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as one of a group of veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite. In 2002 Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller Blood Work which was loosely based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Michael Connelly. In 2003 Eastwood directed and scored the crime drama Mystic River starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins which  won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins, Eastwood was also named Best Director of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics. In 2004 Eastwood directed Million Dollar Baby. A boxing drama which won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Hilary Swank) and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). He also received a nomination for Best Actor, as well as a Grammy nomination for his score,and won a Golden Globe for Best Director, which was presented to him by daughter Kathryn, who was Miss Golden Globe at the 2005 ceremony. In 2006 Eastwood directed two films about World War II’s Battle of Iwo Jima;, Flags of Our Fathers, which focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and  Letters from Iwo Jima, which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. Both films received praise from critics and garnered several nominations at the 79th Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay for Letters from Iwo Jima. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards Eastwood received nominations for Best Director in both films. Letters from Iwo Jima won the award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2008 Eastwood directed Changeling this is based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realize he is an impostor. The film received nominations for Best Original Score at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, Best Direction at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards and Eastwood was voted director of the year from the London Film Critics’ Circle. Eastwood also directed, produced and appeared in the film Gran TorinoAs an aged and cynical man who is willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose. Eastwood’s 30th film as director was Invictus (2009), a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Matt Damon as rugby team captain François Pienaar, and Grant L. Roberts as Ruben Kruger. In 2010 Eastwood-directed the film  Hereafter(2010), 

starring Matt Damon as a psychic. Eastwood also served as executive producer for a Turner Classic Movies (TCM) documentary about jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way(also 2010), to commemorate Brubeck’s 90th birthday. In 2011Eastwood directed J. Edgar a biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. In 2012 Eastwood starred in the baseball drama Trouble with the Curve as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. In 2014 Eastwood next directed Jersey Boys a musical biography based on the Tony Award-winning musical which relates the story of The Four Seasons. Eastwood also directed American Sniper  Adapted from Chris Kyle’s eponymous memoir. Eastwood’s next film, Sully, starred Tom Hanksas Chesley Sullenberger, an Airline pilot who successfully landed the US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in an emergency landing.Next Eastwood directed the biographical thriller The 15:17 to Paris Featuring non-professional actors Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos playing themselves as they stop the 2015 Thalys train attack. in 2018 Eastwood starred in and directed The Mule, portraying an elderly drug smuggler named Earl Stone. Next Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in Cry Macho, an adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same name. Filming of what is rumoured to be Eastwood’s final film Juror no.2 was delayed by  The 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike . It is a thriller starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, and Kiefer Sutherland.

Tintoretto

Italian Renaissance artist Tintoretto sadly Died May 31, 1594. He was born 29 September 1518 in Venice. His real name was Jacopo Comin, and he became a notable exponent of theRenaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Fuioso. His work is characterized by its musculr figures, dramatic gestures, and bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light typical of the Venetian School. In his youth, Tintoretto was also known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua against the imperial troops in a “Robust” way, during the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–1516). Tintoretto was the eldest of 21 children. His father, Giovanni, was a dyer, or tintore; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, little dyer, or dyer’s boy, which is anglicized as Tintoret.

The family originated from Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of theRepublic of Venice. In childhood Jacopo, a born painter, began daubing on the dyer’s walls; his father, noticing his talent took him to the studio of Titian to see how far he could be trained as an artist. Tintoretto had only been ten days in the studio when Titian sent him home once and for all, Titian mayhave judged that young Jacopo, although he might become a painter, would never be properly a pupil.From this time forward the two always remained upon distant terms, Tintoretto being indeed a professed and ardent admirer of Titian, but never a friend, and Titian and his adherents turning the cold shoulder to him. His noble conception of art and his high personal ambition were evidenced in the inscription which he placed over his studio Il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano (“Michelangelo’s design and Titian’s color”).

He also studied from models of Michelangelo’s Dawn, Noon, Twilight and Night, and became expert in modelling in wax and clay method. The models were sometimes taken from dead subjects dissected or studied in anatomy schools; some were draped, others nude, and Tintoretto was to suspend them in a wooden or cardboard box, with an aperture for a candle. Now and afterwards he very frequently worked by night as well as by day. Tintoretto also helped the young painter Andrea Schiavone, in wall-paintings; . The two earliest mural paintings of Tintoretto are said to have been Belshazzar’s Feast and a Cavalry Fight. . The first work of his to attract some considerable notice was a portrait-group of himself and his brother playing a guitar. Another of Tintoretto’s early pictures is in the church of the Carmine in Venice, thePresentation of Jesus in the Temple. In the S. Benedetto is the painting Annunciation and Christ with the Woman of Samaria. Tintoretto also painted four subjects from Genesis For the Scuola della Trinity (the scuole or schools of Venice were more in the nature of hospitals or charitable foundations than of educational institutions). Two of these, now in the Venetian Academy, are Adam and Eve and the Death of Abel.

The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land was one of a series of three paintings by Tintoretto, depicting the legend of St Helena And The Holy Cross. The Embarkation of St Helena was acquired by the V&A in 1865. Its sister paintings, The Discovery Of The True Cross and St Helen Testing The True Cross, are held in galleries in the USA.Towards 1546 Tintoretto painted three of his best known works – the Worship of the Golden Calf, thePresentation of the Virgin in the Temple, and the Last Judgment for the church of the Madonna dell’Orto, and settled down in a house by the church overlooking the Fondamenta de Mori, which is still standing. In 1548 he was commissioned for four pictures in the Scuola di S. Marco: the Finding of the body of St Mark, the St Mark’s Body Brought to Venice, St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck and the Miracle of the Slave. (these three are in Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice). Having painted these He was financially secure and was able to marry Faustina de Vescovi , daughter of a Venetian nobleman who was the guardian grande of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, who bore him several children. Between 1565 and 1567, and again from 1575 to 1588, Tintoretto produced a large number of paintings for the walls and ceilings of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco .

In 1560 five painters, including Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese, were invited to send in trial-designs for the centre-piece in the smaller hall named Sala dell’Albergo, In 1565 he resumed work at the scuola, painting the magnificent Crucifixion, In 1576 he presented another centre-piece—that for the ceiling of the great hall, representing the Plague of Serpents; and completed this ceiling with pictures of the Paschal Feast and Moses striking the Rock . Next Tintoretto paintedthe entire scuola and of the adjacent church of San Rocco. In total the scuola and church contain fifty-two memorable paintings, such as Adam and Eve, the Visitation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Agony in the Garden, Christ before Pilate, Christ carrying His Cross, the Assumption of the Virgin. Tintoretto also did numerous paintings in the Doge’s Palace; including a portrait of the doge, Girolamo Priuli, the Excommunication of Frederick Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III, the Victory of Lepanto and The Deliverance of Arsenoe. Sadly though most were destroyed by a fire.

With help from Paolo Veronese, his colleague at the Sala dell Anticollegio, Tintoretto painted four masterpieces – Bacchus, with Ariadne crowned by Venus, the Three Graces and Mercury. He also painted, Minerva discarding Mars, the Forge of Vulcan, Queen of the Sea , theEspousal of St Catherine to Jesus , St George and St Nicholas, with St Margaret and St Jerome and St Andrew and nine large compositions, chiefly battle-pieces including the Capture of Zara from the Hungarians in 1346 amid a Hurricane of Missiles and arguably the crowning production of Tintoretto’s life, “Paradise” which is reputed to be the largest painting ever done upon canvas. A fter the completion of the Paradise Tintoretto rested for a while, and he never undertook any other work of importance. In 1592 he became a member of the Scuola dei Mercanti. In 1594, he developed severe stomach pains, and a fever, that prevented him from sleeping and eating much and was buried in the church of the Madonna dell’Orto by the side of his favorite daughter Marietta, who had died in 1590 at the age of thirty. Tradition suggests that as she lay in her final repose, her heart-stricken father had painted her final portrait.

Darryl McDaniels RUN DMC

Musician Darryl Mc Daniels was born 31 May 1964. Run–D.M.C. were an American hip hop group from Hollis, Queens, New York, founded in 1981 by Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell. The group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture. Run–D.M.C. was one of the most well-known hip hop acts in the 1980s who, along with LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy signified the advent of the new school of hip hop music. They were the first group in the genre to have a gold album (Run–D.M.C., 1984) and be nominated for a Grammy Award. They were the first to earn a platinum record (King of Rock, 1985), the first to earn a multiplatinum certification (Raising Hell, 1986) the first to have videos on MTV, the first to appear on American Bandstand and the cover of Rolling Stone.

The group was among the first to highlight the importance of the MC and DJ relationship. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked them number 48 in their list of the greatest musical artists of all time. In 2007, Run–D.M.C. was named “The Greatest Hip Hop Group of All Time” by MTV.com and “Greatest Hip Hop Artist of All Time” by VH1. On April 4, 2009, rapper Eminem inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In doing so, Run–D.M.C. became only the second hip hop group in history to be inducted, after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The initials “D.M.C.” are widely accepted to refer to Darryl McDaniels’ initials. In the 1985 album King of Rock’s title track, McDaniels says the initials have two meanings: “Devastating Mic Control” and “D for never dirty, MC for mostly clean.” He also makes a third reference “The ‘D’s for Doing it all of the time, the ‘M’s for the rhymes that all are Mine, The ‘C’s for Cool – cool as can be.”

Karl Bartos, Fritz Hilpert (Kraftwerk)

Karl Bartos, the German singer-songwriter and keyboard player with influential pioneering German Electro/techno musicians Kaftwerk and Electronic and Fritz Hilpert, The drummer with Kraftwerk were born 31 May 1952 and 31 May 1956 repectively. Kraftwerk (meaning power plant or power station) originated from Düsseldorf, Germany and were formed by Florian Schneider (flutes, synthesizers, violin) and Ralf Hütter (organ, synthesizers) who met as students at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf in the late 1960s, participating in the German experimental music and art scene of the time, which the Melody Maker jokingly dubbed “krautrock”. They joined a quintet known as Organisation, which released one album, Tone Float in 1969, Schneider became interested in synthesizers and decided to acquire one in 1970. While visiting an exhibition in their hometown about visual artists Gilbert and George, they saw “two men wearing suits and ties, claiming to bring art into everyday life. The same year, Hütter and Schneider start bringing everyday life into art and form Kraftwerk”.

Early Kraftwerk line-ups from 1970 to 1974 as Hütter and Schneider worked with around a half-dozen other musicians including guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger, who left to form Neu! The only constant figure in these line-ups was Schneider, whose main instrument at the time was the flute; at times he also played the violin and guitar, all processed through a varied array of electronic devices. Hütter, who left the band for eight months, played synthesizer and keyboards (including Farfisa organ and electric piano).

Their first three albums were free-form experimental rock without the pop hooks or the more disciplined song structure of later work. Kraftwerk, released in 1970, and Kraftwerk 2, released in 1972, were mostly exploratory musical improvisations played on a variety of traditional instruments including guitar, bass, drums, organ, flute, and violin. Post-production modifications to these recordings were used to distort the sound of the instruments, particularly audio-tape manipulation and multiple dubbings of one instrument on the same track. Both albums are purely instrumental. Live performances from 1972 to 1973 were made as a duo, using a simple beat-box-type electronic drum machine, with preset rhythms taken from an electric organ. In1973, Wolfgang Flür joined the group for rehearsals, and the unit performed as a trio on the television show Aspekte for German television network ZDF.

With Ralf und Florian, released in 1973, Kraftwerk began to move closer to its now classic sound, relying more heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. Although almost entirely instrumental, the album marks Kraftwerk’s first use of the vocoder, which would in time become one of its musical signatures. Kraftwerk’s futuristic and robotic sound was influenced by the ‘adrenalized insurgency’ of Detroit artists of the late ’60s such as MC5 and the Stooges. The input, expertise, and influence of producer and engineer Konrad “Conny” Plank was influential in the early years of Kraftwerk. Plank worked with many other German electronic acts including members of Can, Neu!, Cluster, and Harmonia. As a result of his work with Kraftwerk, Plank’s studio near Cologne became one of the most sought-after studios in the late 1970s. Plank coproduced the first four Kraftwerk albums.

The album Autobahn was released in 1974 saw Kraftwerk moving away from the sound of its first three albums. Hütter and Schneider had invested in newer technology such as the Minimoog and the EMS Synthi AKS, helping give Kraftwerk a newer, “disciplined” sound. Autobahn would also be the last album that Conny Plank would engineer. Following the success of Autobahn Hütter and Schneider invested in updating their studio, thus lessening their reliance on outside producers. The painter and graphic artist Emil Schult became a regular collaborator, designing artwork, cowriting lyrics, and accompanying the group on tour.

kraftwerk toured in 1975, this new, stable, live line-up in the form of a quartet. Hütter and Schneider continued playing keyboard synthesizers such as the Minimoog and ARP Odyssey. They also started singing live for the first time, Schneider processing his voice with a vocoder live. Wolfgang Flür and new recruit Karl Bartos performed on self-built electronic percussion instruments. Bartos also used a Deagan vibraphone on stage. In 1976, Kraftwerk toured in support of the Radio-Activity album. David Bowie was among the fans of the record and invited the band to support him on his Station to Station tour, an offer the group declined. Despite some innovations in touring, Kraftwerk took a break from live performances after the Radio-Activity tour of 1976 and began recording Trans-Europe Express (German: Trans-Europa Express) at the Kling Klang Studio using the The signature Kraftwerk sound which combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western Classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic instrumentation with simplified lyrics sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. In May 1978 Kraftwerk released The Man-Machine (German: Die Mensch-Maschine), The black, white and red album cover was inspired by Russian artist El Lissitzky and the Suprematism movement.

In May 1981 Kraftwerk released the album Computer World (German: Computerwelt) featuring the song “Computer Love” Some of the electronic vocals on Computer World were generated using a Texas Instruments language translator. Kraftwerk began using more vocals and sequencing equipment for both percussion and music. In 1982 Kraftwerk rleased the album Techno Pop featuring the song “Tour de France”, which was used in the 1984 film Breakin’, Sadly During the recording of “Tour de France”, Ralf Hütter was involved in a serious cycling accident. He suffered head injuries and remained in a coma for several days. During 1983 Wolfgang Flür was beginning to spend less time in the studio. Since the band began using sequencers his role as a drummer was Diminishing. After his final work on the 1986 album Electric Café (a.k.a. Techno Pop) he left the band in 1987 and was replaced by Fritz Hilpert. In 1990 the band played a few secret shows in Italy. Karl Bartos left the band shortly afterwards. The next proper tour was in 1991, for the album The Mix. Hütter and Schneider wished to continue the synth-pop quartet style of presentation, and recruited Fernando Abrantes as a replacement for Bartos, however Abrantes left the band shortly after. 1997 Kraftwerk appeared at the dance festival Tribal Gathering held in England. In 1998, the group toured the US, Japan, Brazil and Argentina.

In 1999 the single “Tour de France” was reissued And The single “Expo 2000” was alsoreleased in 1999. This was later remixed and re-released as “Expo Remix” in 2000. In 2003 the band released Tour de France Soundtracks, its first album of new material since 1986’s Electric Café. Kraftwerk also embarked on the extensive Minimum-Maximum world tour, using four customised Sony VAIO laptop computers,They also obtained a new set of transparent video panels to replace its four large projection screens. This greatly streamlined the running of all of the group’s sequencing, sound-generating, and visual-display software. r, replacing manual playing with interactive control of sequencing equipment. Hütter retained the most manual performance, still playing musical lines by hand on a controller keyboard and singing live vocals and having a repeating ostinato. Schneider’s live vocoding had been replaced by software-controlled speech-synthesis techniques. In November, Kraftwerk at the MTV European Music Awards in Edinburgh, Scotland, performing “Aerodynamik”. In 2003 Kraftwerk released a box set entitled 12345678 (subtitled The Catalogue) featuring remastered editions of the group’s eight core studio albums, from Autobahn to Tour de France Soundtracks.

In June 2005 the band released their first-ever official live album, Minimum-Maximum, compiled from the shows during the band’s tour of spring 2004. The album contained reworked tracks from existing studio albums. This included a track titled “Planet of Visions” that was a reworking of “Expo 2000”. In support of this release, Kraftwerk made another quick sweep around the Balkans with dates in Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, and Greece. In December, the Minimum-Maximum DVD was released. During 2006, the band performed at festivals in Norway, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Belgium, and Germany. In 2008 the group played shows in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Denver, and were a coheadliner at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This was their second appearance at the festival since 2004. Further shows were performed in Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore

The touring quartet consisted of Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, and video technician Stefan Pfaffe, who became an official member in 2008. Original member Florian Schneider was absent from the lineup. Hütter stated that he was working on other projects. However later on Kraftwerk officially confirmed Florian Schneider’s departure from the band. Kraftwerk’s headline set at Global Gathering in Melbourne, Australia, was cancelled due to a Fritz Hilpert heart problem.

In 2009, Kraftwerk performed concerts with special 3D background graphics in Wolfsburg, Germany; Manchester, UK; and Randers, Denmark. During the Manchester concert (part of the 2009 Manchester International Festival) four members of the GB cycling squad (Jason Kenny, Ed Clancy, Jamie Staff and Geraint Thomas) rode around the Velodrome while the band performed “Tour de France”. The group also played Bestival 2009 on the Isle of Wight. Kraftwerk also released The Catalogue box set It is a 12″ album-sized box set containing all eight remastered CDs in cardboard slipcases, as well as LP-sized booklets of photographs and artwork for each individual album. Ralf Hütter has also suggested that a second boxed set of their first three experimental albums—Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk 2 and Ralf and Florian—could be on its way, containing more artwork, extra contemporary drawings, graphics, and photographs to go with each album ” Kraftwerk also released an iOS app called Kraftwerk Kling Klang Machine. The Lenbach House in Munich exhibited some Kraftwerk 3-D pieces in Autumn 2011. Kraftwerk performed three concerts to open the exhibit. In 2012 Kraftwerk played at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. The Museum of Modern Art of New York also organized an exhibit titled Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 where the band performed their studio discography from Autobahn to Tour de France whichlater toured to the Tate Gallery as well as to K21 in Düsseldorf. Kraftwerk performed at the No Nukes 2012 Festival in Tokyo, Japan. Kraftwerk also performed at Way Out West in Gothenburg. A limited edition version of the Catalogue box set was released during the retrospective, restricted to 2000 sets. Kraftwerk also performed Catalogue in Düsseldorf and at London’s Tate Modern. Kraftwerk tickets were priced at £60 in London, but fans compared that to the $20 ticket price for tickets at New York’s MoMA in 2012, which caused consternation.

Kraftwerk also performed the eight albums of The Catalogue in Sydney, And In July, they performed at the 47th Montreux Jazz Festival and performed 3-D concerts at T in the Park – in Balado, Kinross, Scotland, Latitude Festival in Suffolk, and The Longitude Festival in Dublin. In 2013 the band played four concerts, at Evoluon (a former technology museum of Philips Electronics, now a conference center)in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The venue was selected by Ralf Hütter, for its retro-futuristic UFO-like architecture. Bespoke visuals of the building, with the saucer section descending from space, were displayed during the rendition of Spacelab. In 2014, Kraftwerk performed their four-night, 3D Catalogue tour at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, NYC’s United Palace Theatre, the Cirkus in Stockholm, Sweden and the music festival Summer Sonic in Tokyo, Japan. In 2014 the 3D Catalogue live set was played At the Fondation Louis-Vuitton in Paris, France and the iconic Paradiso concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Upon being told that the Tour de France would be starting that year in the nearby Dutch city of Utrecht Ralf Hütter, , decided that Kraftwerk would perform during the “Grand Depart”. Kraftwerk also played three concerts in TivoliVredenburg performing “Tour de France Soundtracks” and visited the start of the Tour in-between. In 2017, Kraftwerk released 3-D The Catalogue, a live album and video documenting performances of all eight albums in The Catalogue which is available in multiple formats, the most extensive of which being a 4-disc Blu-ray set with a 236-page hardback book. sadly Florian Schneider, the pioneering co founder of Kraftwerk died 21 April 2020 at the age of 73.

John Bonham (Led Zeppelin)

Best remembered as the drummer of Led Zeppelin, who are widely considered to be one of the most successful, innovative and influential rock groups in the history of music The late great Jon Bonham was born 31st May 1948. Led Zeppelin were formed in 1968 after former Yardbirds Guitarist Jimmy Page recruited vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and John Paul Jones. The name Led Zeppelin stemmed from an old joke by Keith Moon and John Entwistle, of “The Who”, and Page stuck with that name to use for his new band. The name was subsequently changed to “Led Zeppelin”, to avoid a mispronunciation of “leed Zeppelin.”

Led Zeppelin were formed following the retirement of Yardbirds, guitarist Jimmy Page who formed another band and recruited Robert Plant, who in turn suggested Bonham. Page’s choices for drummer included Procol Harum’s B.J. Wilson, and session drummers Clem Cattini and Aynsley Dunbar. Ginger Baker was also rumoured to be on Page’s list. However, on seeing Bonham drum for Tim Rose at a club in Hampstead, north London, in July 1968, Page and manager Peter Grant were convinced he was perfect for the project, first known as the New Yardbirds and later as Led Zeppelin. Bonham was reluctant. Plant sent eight telegrams to Bonham’s pub, the “Three Men in a Boat”, in Bloxwich, which were followed by 40 telegrams from Grant. Bonham was also receiving offers from Joe Cocker and Chris Farlowe but he accepted Grant’s offer. He recalled, “I decided I liked their music better than Cocker’s or Farlowe’s.” During Led Zeppelin’s first tour of the United States in December 1968, Bonham became friends with Vanilla Fudge’s drummer, Carmine Appice. Appice introduced him to Ludwig drums, which he then used for the rest of his career. Bonham used the longest and heaviest sticks, which he called “trees.” His hard hitting was evident on many Led Zeppelin songs, including “Immigrant Song” (Led Zeppelin III), “When the Levee Breaks”, “Kashmir” (Physical Graffiti), “The Ocean” (Houses of the Holy), and “Achilles Last Stand” (Presence). Page let Bonham use a double bass drum in an early demo of “Communication Breakdown” but scratched the track because of Bonham’s “over-use” of it. The studio recording of “Misty Mountain Hop” captures his dynamics, similarly exhibited on “No Quarter”. On cuts from later albums, Bonham handled funk and Latin-influenced drumming. Songs like “Royal Orleans” and “Fool in the Rain” are examples, respectively displaying a New Orleans shuffle and a samba.

His drum solo, first entitled “Pat’s Delight,” later “Moby Dick”, often lasted 30 minutes. He used bare hands for different sounds. Bonham’s sequence for the film The Song Remains the Same featured him in a drag race at Santa Pod Raceway to the sound of his solo, “Moby Dick”. In Led Zeppelin tours after 1969, Bonham included congas, orchestral timpani and a symphonic gong. He is credited by the Dallas Times Herald with the first concert use of electronic timpani drum synthesisers during “Kashmir” in Dallas, Texas, in 1977.

Jimmy Page had a very specific idea in mind as to what he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, and wanted to add acoustic textures. Zeppelin’s sound became a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done back in the 1960′s. Led Zeppelin’s sound has since become a prototype for countless rock bands ever since, and was one of the major driving forces behind the rock sound of the 1970′s. Led Zeppelin released relatively few singles, preferring their albums to be viewed as indivisible, whole listening experiences, helping to promote the concept of album-orientated rock.

During Led Zeppelin’s first tour of the United States in December 1968, Bonham became friends with Vanilla Fudge’s drummer, Carmine Appice. Appice introduced him to Ludwig drums, which he then used for the rest of his career. Bonham used the longest and heaviest sticks, which he called “trees.” His hard hitting was evident on many Led Zeppelin songs, including “Immigrant Song” (Led Zeppelin III), “When the Levee Breaks” (Led Zeppelin IV / Zoso.svg), “Kashmir” (Physical Graffiti), “The Ocean” (Houses of the Holy), and “Achilles Last Stand” (Presence). Page let Bonham use a double bass drum in an early demo of “Communication Breakdown” but scratched the track because of Bonham’s “over-use” of it. The studio recording of “Misty Mountain Hop” captures his dynamics, similarly exhibited on “No Quarter”. On cuts from later albums, Bonham handled funk and Latin-influenced drumming. Songs like “Royal Orleans” and “Fool in the Rain” are examples, respectively displaying a New Orleans shuffle and a samba.

Their first two albums, with their heavy, guitar-driven blues rock sound, led to Led Zeppelin being regularly cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal and hard rock, even though the band’s individualistic style drew from varied sources and transcends any single music genre. Their next two albums incorporated wider musical influences, particularly from folk music; the tracks “Stairway to Heaven“, and “Kashmir” are among the most popular and influential works in rock music, and cemented the status of the group as “superstars”.Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham,

Bonham has been described by AllMusic as one of the most important, well-known, and influential drummers in rock. Adam Budofsky, managing editor of Modern Drummer, writes: “If the king of rock ‘n’ roll was Elvis Presley, then the king of rock drumming was certainly John Bonham.”According to the Los Angeles Times, even after all these years, Bonham still ranks as the best drummer of all time, mentioning that “[his] beat still bangs like a mofo…Nobody else has brought quite that balance of muscle, groove and showmanship. ” The surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited to play Live Aid in 1985 and employed two drummers, Phil Collins and Tony Thompson, to take his place.

Throughout their career, Led Zeppelin collected many honours and awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Among the band’s awards are an American Music Award in 2005, and the Polar Music Prize in 2006. Led Zeppelin were the recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and four of their recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. They have been awarded five Diamond albums, as well as fourteen Multi-Platinum albums, four Platinum albums and one Gold album in the United States, while in the UK they have five Multi-Platinum albums, six Platinum albums, one Gold album and four Silver albums.Jimmy Page was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of his charity work in 2005 and Robert Plant was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to popular music in 2009. The band are ranked number one on VH1′s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and Classic Rock’s “50 Best Live Acts of All Time”. They were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for “Outstanding Contribution to British Music” in 1977, as well as a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 42nd Annual Ivor Novello awards ceremony in 1997. The band were honoured with the “Best Live Act” prize for their one-off reunion at MOJO Awards 2008, where they were described as the “greatest rock and roll band of all time”.

In 2007, Stylus magazine rated Bonham number one of 50 great rock drummers,as did Gigwise.com in 2008, and a Rolling Stone conducted a reader’s poll where he “led the list by a significant margin” in 2011, and ranked him as the greatest drummer of all time in a list of 100 Greatest Drummers of all time. Bonham was ranked no. 1 on Classic Rock’s 2005 list of 50 Greatest Drummers in Rock, and Modern Drummer describes him as “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer in history.” In September 2008, Bonham topped the Blabbermouth.net’s list of “Rockers fans want brought back to life”, ahead of Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury. Rhythm magazine voted him the greatest drummer ever, topping a readers’ poll to determine the “50 greatest drummers of all time” in October 2009. At the end of the BBC Two series I’m in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band! on 5 June 2010, Bonham was named best drummer of all time. AllMusic also described him as one of the most important, well-known, and influential drummers in rock.

World no tobacco day

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed annually on May 31. It is intended to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption around the globe, to provide assistance for those trying to quit and draw attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects, which currently lead to nearly 6 million deaths each year worldwide, including 600,000 of which are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) created World No Tobacco Day in 1987. Many governments, public health organizations, smokers, growers, and the tobacco industry have either been resistant or supportive

WNTD is one of eight official global public health campaigns marked by the WHO, along with World Health Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Immunization Week, World Tuberculosis Day, World Malaria Day, World Hepatitis Day, and World AIDS Day. It began In 1987, after the WHO’s World Health Assembly passed a Resolution calling for April 7, 1988 to be “a world no-smoking day”. The objective of the day was to urge tobacco users worldwide to abstain from using tobacco products for 24 hours. In 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed by the World Health Assembly, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on May 31. Since then, the WHO has supported World No Tobacco Day every year, linking each year to a different tobacco-related theme.

In 1998, the WHO established the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI), to focus international resources and attention on the global health issue of tobacco, to provides assistance for creating global public health policy, to encourage mobilization between societies, and support the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) a global public health treaty adopted in 2003 as an agreement to implement policies that work towards tobacco cessation.

Each year, the WHO selects a theme for the day to create a global message for WNTD which becomes the central component of the WHO’s tobacco-related agenda for the following year. In 2008, the WHO called for a worldwide ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. The theme of that year’ was ″Tobacco-free youth″;, this initiative was especially meant to target advertising efforts aimed at youth. According to the WHO, the tobacco industry replaces older quitting or dying smokers with younger consumers. Because of this, marketing strategies are used to attract youth such as movies, the Internet, billboards, and magazines. Studies have shown that the more youth are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely they are to smoke. In 2015, WNTD highlighted the health risks associated with tobacco use and advocated for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption, including ending the illicit trade of tobacco products. In 2017, WNTD focussed on tobacco as “a threat to development.” to demonstrate the threats that the tobacco industry poses to sustainable development, including the health and economic well-being of citizens in all countries.

In many of its WNTD themes and related publicity-materials, the WHO emphasizes the idea of “truth.” Theme titles such as “Tobacco kills, don’t be duped” (2000) and “Tobacco: deadly in any form or disguise” (2006) indicate a WHO belief that individuals may be misled or confused about the true nature of tobacco; the rationale for the 2000 and 2008 WNTD themes identify the marketing strategies and “illusions” created by the tobacco industry as a primary source of this confusion. The WHO’s WNTD materials present an alternate understanding of the “facts” as seen from a global public health perspective. WNTD publicity materials provide an “official” interpretation of the most up-to-date tobacco-related research and statistics and provide a common ground from which to formulate anti-tobacco arguments around the world.

Since 1988 the WHO has presented one or more awards to organizations or individuals who have made exceptional contributions to reducing tobacco consumption. World No Tobacco Day Awards are given to individuals from six different world regions (Africa, Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, South-East Asia, and Western Pacific), and Director-General Special Awards and Recognition Certificates are given to individuals from any region.

Groups around the world — from local clubs to city councils to national governments, are encouraged by the WHO to organize events each year to help communities celebrate World No Tobacco Day in their own way at the local level. Past events have included letter writing campaigns to government officials and local newspapers, marches, public debates, local and national publicity campaigns, anti-tobacco activist meetings, educational programming, and public art. Many governments also use WNTD as the start date for implementing new smoking bans and tobacco control efforts. The day has also been used as a springboard for discussing the current and future state of a country as it relates to tobacco—for example in India which, with 275 million tobacco users, has one of the highest levels of tobacco consumption in the world.

However For some, WNTD is seen as a challenge to individual freedom of choice or even a culturally acceptable form of discrimination. From ignoring WNTD, to participating in protests or acts of defiance, to bookending the day with extra rounds of pro-tobacco advertisements and events, smokers, tobacco growers, and the tobacco industry have found ways to make their opinions of the day heard. There has been no sustained or widespread effort to organize counter-WNTD events on the part of smokers. However, some small groups, particularly in the United States, have created local pro-smoking events. For example, the Oregon Commentator, an independent conservative journal of opinion published at the University of Oregon, hosted a “Great American Smoke-in” on campus as a counter to the locally more widespread Great American Smokeout: “In response to the ever-increasing vilification of smokers on campus, the Oregon Commentator presents the Great American Smoke-in as an opportunity for students to join together and enjoy the pleasures of fine tobacco products. Similarly, “Americans for Freedom of Choice”, a group in Honolulu, Hawaii, organized “World Defiance Day” in response to WNTD and Hawaii’s statewide ban on smoking in restaurants. The tobacco industry has funded state initiatives that provide resources to help smokers quit smoking as per the Master Settlement Agreement regulated by the U.S. government. operates a website that acts as a guide for those who choose to quit smoking.WNTD is one of eight official global public health campaigns marked by the WHO, along with World Health Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Immunization Week, World Tuberculosis Day, World Malaria Day, World Hepatitis Day, and World AIDS Day

Since 31 May 1987 the WHO has supported World No Tobacco Day every year, linking each year to a different tobacco-related theme. In 1998, the WHO established the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI), an attempt to focus international resources and attention on the global health issue of tobacco. The initiative provides assistance for creating global public health policy, encourages mobilization between societies, and supports the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The WHO FCTC is a global public health treaty adopted in 2003 by countries around the globe as an agreement to implement policies that work towards tobacco cessation. In 2008, on the eve of the World No Tobacco Day, the WHO called for a worldwide ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. The theme for 2008 was ″Tobacco-free youth″; this initiative was especially meant to target advertising efforts aimed at youth. According to the WHO, the tobacco industry must replace older quitting or dying smokers with younger consumers. Because of this, marketing strategies are commonly observed in places that will attract youth such as movies, the Internet, billboards, and magazines. Studies have shown that the more youth are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely they are to smoke.

More International and National events happening 31 May

• Save Your Hearing Day
• National Macaroon Day
• Necrotising Fasciitis Awareness Day
• Speak in Complete Sentences Day