1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year that started on a Friday (link will display full calendar). In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 1999th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 999th year of the 2nd millennium; and the 99th year of the 20th century. It was also the 10th and last year of the 1990s.

The year 1999 was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations.

Events of 1999

January

(1999/2002)]]

January 1 – Euro is established.

January 4 – Gunmen open fire on Shia Muslims worshiping in a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 16 and injuring 25.

January 20 – The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafes.

January 21 – In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4.3 tons) of cocaine aboard, headed for Houston, Texas.

January 25 – A 6.1 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.

February

– polar view.]] February 2 – Hugo Chávez becomes President of Venezuela. February 4 – Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by NYC police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.

February 7 – King Hussein of Jordan dies from cancer, and his son Abdullah II inherits the throne.

February 10 – Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least 10.

February 11 – Pluto moves along its eccentric orbit further from the Sun than Neptune. It had been nearer than Neptune since 1979, and will become again in 2231.

February 16 – In Uzbekistan, an apparent assassination attempt against President Islom Karimov takes place at government headquarters.

February 16 – Across Europe, Kurdish rebels take over embassies and hold hostages after Turkey arrests one of their rebel leaders.

February 21 – The Albertinkatu shootings in Helsinki, Finland: Three men are killed and 1 wounded at a shooting range.

February 22 – Moderate Iraqi Shiite cleric Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr is assassinated.

February 23 – Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.

February 23 – White supremacist John William King is found guilty of kidnapping and killing African American James Byrd Jr. by dragging him behind a truck for 2 miles (3 km).

February 23 – An avalanche destroys the village of Galtür, Austria, killing 31.

February 24 – LaGrand Case: The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery that led to a death. Karl's brother Walter is executed a week later, in spite of Germany's legal action in the International Court of Justice to attempt to save him.

February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

March

March 1 – One of 4 bombs detonated in Lusaka, Zambia, destroys the Angolan Embassy.

March 1 – Rwandan Hutu rebels kill and dismember 8 foreign tourists at the Buhoma homestead, Uganda.

March 1 – The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines comes into force.

March 2 – The brand new Mandalay Bay hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas.

March 3 – Walter LaGrand is executed in the gas chamber in Arizona.

March 4 – In a military court, United States Marine Corps Captain Richard J. Ashby is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps, when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.

March 12 – Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO.

March 15 – In Brussels, Belgium, the Santer Commission resigns over allegations of corruption.

March 21 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

March 21 – The 71st Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California with Shakespeare in Love winning Best Picture.

March 23 – Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.

March 24 – NATO launches air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which refused to sign a peace treaty. This marks the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.

March 24 – Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.

March 25 – Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined for California to the town of Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.

March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.

March 26 – A Michigan jury finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.

March 27 – Kosovo War: A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk is shot down by Serbian forces.

March 29 – For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark, at 10,006.78.

April

April 1 – Nunavut, an Inuit homeland, is created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory.

April 5 – Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over to Scottish authorities for eventual trial in the Netherlands. The United Nations suspends sanctions against Libya.

April 5 – In Laramie, Wyoming, Russell Henderson pleads guilty to kidnapping and felony murder, in order to avoid a possible death penalty conviction for the apparent hate crime killing of Matthew Shepard.

April 7 – Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Serbian forces to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.

April 7 – A bomb explodes at the Valley of the Fallen Church in Spain; GRAPO claims responsibility.

April 8 Bill Gates personal fortune exceeds $100 Billion dollars, due to the increased value of Microsoft stock.

April 9 – Ibrahim Baré Maînassara, president of Niger, is assassinated.

April 13 – Tercentenary celebrations of the creation of the Sikh Khalsa are held.

April 17 – A nail bomb explodes in the middle of a busy market in Brixton, South London.

April 20 – Columbine High School massacre: Two Littleton, Colorado teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, open fire on their teachers and classmates, killing 12 students and 1 teacher, and then themselves.

April 25 – The term of Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman as the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia ends.

April 26 – Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al-Haj, Sultan of Selangor, becomes the 11th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

April 26 – British T.V presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.

April 30 – Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total members to 10.

April 30 – A third nail bomb (see April 17) explodes in the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, Soho, London, killing a pregnant woman and two friends and injuring 70 others, including her husband. This is part of a hate campaign against ethnic minorities and gay people by David Copeland.

May

May 2 – Norman J. Sirnic and Karen Sirnic are murdered by serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz in Weimar, Texas.

May 3 – 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado slams into Moore, Oklahoma, killing 38 people (the strongest tornado ever recorded in world history).

May 3 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time, at 11,014.70.

May 5 – Microsoft releases Windows 98 (Second Edition) (from 1998).

May 6 – Elections are held in Scotland and Wales for the new Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales.

May 7 – A jury finds The Jenny Jones Show and Warner Bros. liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure, after the show deceived Jonathan Schmitz into appearing on a secret same-sex crush episode.

May 7 – Kosovo War: In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 3 Chinese embassy workers are killed and 20 wounded, when a NATO aircraft mistakenly bombs the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

May 7 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.

May 8 – Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Military College of South Carolina.

May 12 – David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.

May 13 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is elected President of Italy.

May 17 – Ehud Barak is elected prime minister of Israel.

May 19 – is released in theaters. It becomes the highest grossing Star Wars film.

May 26 – The Indian Air Force launches an attack on intruding Pakistan Army troops and mujahadeen militants in Kashmir.

May 26 – The first Welsh Assembly in over 600 years opens in Cardiff.

May 26 – Manchester United wins the UEFA Champions League at the Nou Camp stadium, Barcelona, beating Bayern Munich.

May 27 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.

May 28 – Swedish police officers Robert Karlström and Olov Borén are wounded by three bank robbers armed with automatic weapons, and later executed with their own service pistols in Malexander.

May 28 – After 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo de Vinci’s The Last Supper is placed back on display in Milan, Italy.

May 29 – Cathy O'Dowd, a South African mountaineer, becomes the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides.

May 29 – Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Nigerian Fourth Republic is established with Olusegun Obasanjo as president.

May 30 – Travel Midland Metro enters public service.

June

G3]]

June 1 – Napster, a revolutionary music downloading service, debuts.

June 1 American Airlines Flight 1420 overruns the runway in Little Rock, Arkansas killing 11 people.

June 2 – After decades of fighting off outside technological influences like television, the King of Bhutan allows television transmissions to commence in the Kingdom for the first time, coinciding with the King's Silver Jubilee (see Bhutan Broadcasting Service).

June 5 – The Islamic Salvation Army, the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front, agrees in principle to disband in Algeria.

June 6 – In Brazil, 345 prisoners escape from Putim prison through the front gate.

June 8 – The government of Colombia announces it will include the estimated value of the country's illegal drug crops, exceeding half a billion US dollars, in its gross national product.

June 9 – Kosovo War: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and NATO sign a peace treaty.

June 10 – Kosovo War: NATO suspends its air strikes after Slobodan Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.

June 12 – Kosovo War – Operation Joint Guardian/Operation Agricola begins: NATO-led United Nations peacekeeping forces KFOR enter the province of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

June 12 – Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.

June 14 – Thabo Mbeki is elected President of South Africa.

June 18 – The J18 international anti-globalization protests are organized in dozens of cities around the world, some of which lead to riots.

June 19 – Turin, Italy is awarded the 2006 Winter Olympics.

July

's Lunar Prospector]]

1 July – The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.

July 2 – Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a 3-day killing spree targeting racial and ethnic minorities in Illinois and Indiana.

July 5 – U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell is bludgeoned in his sleep at Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldiers; he dies the next day from his injuries.

July 7 – In Rome, Hicham El Guerrouj runs the fastest mile ever recorded, at 3:43.13.

July 8 – A major flash flood in Las Vegas swamps hundreds of cars, smashes mobile homes and kills 2 people.

July 10- USA soccer player Brandi Chastain scores the game winning penalty kick against China in the FIFA Women's World Cup.

July 11 – India recaptures Kargil, forcing the Pakistan Army to retreat. India announces victory, ending the 2-month conflict.

July 16 – Off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, a plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashes, killing him and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette.

July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.

July 20 – Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China under Jiang Zemin.

July 22 – The first version of MSN Messenger is released by Microsoft.

July 23 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo.

July 23 – Mohammed VI of Morocco becomes king upon the death of his father Hassan II.

July 23–25 – The Woodstock 99 festival is held in New York.

July 25 – Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.

July 26 – The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000.

July 27 – Twenty-one people die in a canyoning disaster near Interlaken, Switzerland.

July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the lunar surface.

August

August 7 – Hundreds of Chechen guerrillas invade the Russian republic of Dagestan, triggering a short war.

August 8 – The first Callatis Festival, the largest music & culture festival in Romania, is held.

August 9 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.

August 10 – Buford O. Furrow, Jr. wounds 5 and kills 1 during the August 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting.

August 10 – The Atlantique Incident occurs as an intruding Pakistan Navy plane is shot down in India. The incident sparks tensions between the 2 nations, coming just a month after the end of the Kargil War.

August 11 – A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.

August 11 – Salt Lake City tornado: A very rare F2 tornado strikes Salt Lake City, killing 1.

August 17 – 1999 İzmit earthquake: A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes İzmit and levels much of northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000. This is the first of a long series of unrelated but frequent earthquakes throughout the world during the years 1999 and 2000.

August 19 – In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.

August 22 – Mandarin Airlines Flight 642 crashes in Hong Kong.

August 22 – GPS Week Numbers Reset to 0

August 31 – Apple Computer releases the Power Macintosh G4.

September

September 7 – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits Athens, killing 143 and injuring more than 2,000.

September 7 – Viacom and CBS merge.

September 8 – The first of a series of Russian apartment bombings occurs. Subsequent bombings occur on September 13 and 16, while a bombing on September 22 fails.

September 12 – Under international pressure to allow an international peacekeeping force, Indonesian president BJ Habibie announced on 12 September that he would do so.

September 14 – Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga join the United Nations.

September 21 – The 921 earthquake, also known as the Jiji earthquake,(magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale) kills about 2,400 people in Taiwan.

October

October – NASA loses one of its probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter.

October 1 – Pudong International Airport opens in Shanghai, China, taking over all international flights to Hongqiao.

during tests]]

October 5 – Thirty-one people die in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, west of London, England.

October 10 – Elections are held in Portugal.

October 12 – Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and install ISI director Ziauddin Butt in his place. Senior Army generals refuse to accept the dismissal. Musharraf, who is out of the country, attempts to return in a commercial airliner. Sharif orders the Karachi airport to not allow the plane to land. The generals lead a coup d'état, ousting Sharif's administration and taking over the airport. The plane lands with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf takes control of the government.

October 12 – World population reaches 6 billion people, as the 6 billionth person (according to the UN) is born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

October 13 – The United States Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

October 15 – A National Geographic Society press conference reveals the fossil of Archaeoraptor (which is later found to be a forgery).

October 27 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliament Chairman Karen Demirchyan, and 6 other members.

October 31 – EgyptAir Flight 990, travelling from New York City to Cairo, crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on board. When the pilot leaves the cockpit, the co-pilot causes the Boeing 767 to enter a steep dive, resulting in impact with the Atlantic Ocean.

October 31 – Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Church leaders sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation.

November

November 6 – Australians defeat a referendum proposing the replacement of The Queen and The Governor General with a President to make Australia a republic.

November 9 – TAESA Flight 725, covering the route Tijuana–Guadalajara–Uruapan–Mexico City, crashes a few minutes after takeoff from Uruapan International Airport, killing 18 people on board. This event causes the bankruptcy of the Mexican airline a few months later.

November 12 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes Duzce and northwestern Turkey, killing 845 and injuring 4,948.

November 18 – The Aggie Bonfire collapses in College Station, TX, killing 12.

November 19 – Mikhail Gorbachev proposes that the UN create an International Men's Day, which is now commemorated every year on this same date.

November 19 – Every digit in this date is an odd number (19/11/1999). This hitherto common event will not happen again until the year 3111.

November 20 – The People's Republic of China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.

November 26 – An earthquake and tsunami strike Vanuatu.

November 27 – The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government, with leader Helen Clark becoming the second female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history.

November 30 – The ExxonMobil Corporation merger is completed, forming the largest company in the world.

December

opens in London.]]

December 3 – After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 nautical miles (5486 km), Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone, when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

December 3 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander, moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

December 18 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform, carrying 5 Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

December 20 – The sovereignty of Macau is transferred from the Portuguese Republic to the People's Republic of China after 422 years of Portuguese rule.

December 22 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a Boeing 747-200F crashes shortly after take-off from London Stansted Airport due to pilot error. All 4 crew members were killed.

December 31 – The U.S. turns over complete administration of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian Government, as stipulated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of 1977.

December 31 – Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

Births

August 28 – Prince Nikolai of Denmark

Deaths

January

January 11 – Fabrizio de André, Italian singer and songwriter (b. 1940)

January 11 – Brian Moore, Irish-born writer (b. 1921)

January 14 – Jerzy Grotowski, Polish theatre director (b. 1933)

January 21 – Susan Strasberg, American actress (b. 1938)

January 22 – Graham Staines, Australian missionary (b. 1941)

January 25 – Robert Shaw, American conductor (b. 1916)

January 28 – Markey Robinson, Irish painter (b. 1918)

January 31 – Norm Zauchin, American baseball player (b. 1929)

February

February 1 – Paul Mellon, American philanthropist (b. 1907)

February 1 – Barış Manço, Turkish singer and television personality (b. 1943)

February 5 – Wassily Leontief, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)

February 6 – Jimmy Roberts, American singer (b. 1924)

February 6 – Don Dunstan, Australian politician (b. 1926)

February 7 – King Hussein of Jordan (b. 1935)

February 8 – Iris Murdoch, Irish author (b. 1919)

February 14 – John Ehrlichman, American Watergate scandal figure (b. 1925)

February 15 – Henry Way Kendall, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1926)

February 15 – Big L, American rapper (b. 1974)

February 17 – Sunshine Parker, American actor (b. 1927)

February 18 – Noam Pitlik, American actor and director (b. 1932)

February 20 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (b. 1971)

February 20 – Gene Siskel, American film critic (b. 1946)

February 21 – Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)

February 22 – William Bronk, American poet (b. 1918)

February 24 – Andre Dubus, American short-story writer (b. 1936)

February 24 – Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (b. 1903)

February 24 – Frank Leslie Walcott, Barbadian labour leader (b. 1916)

February 25 – Glenn Seaborg, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)

February 26 – José Quintero, Panamanian director (b. 1924)

February 28 – Bill Talbert, American tennis player (b. 1918)

March

March 1 – Ann Corio, American dancer and actress (b. 1914)

March 2 – Dusty Springfield, English singer (b. 1939)

March 3 – Gerhard Herzberg, German-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)

March 4 – Harry Blackmun, American judge (b. 1908)

March 4 – Del Close, American actor, writer, and teacher (b. 1934)

March 5 – Richard Kiley, American actor (b. 1922)

March 7 – Sidney Gottlieb, American Central Intelligence Agency official (b. 1918)

March 7 – Stanley Kubrick, American film director and producer (b. 1928)

March 8 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player (b. 1914)

March 12 – Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist (b. 1916)

March 13 – Garson Kanin, American playwright and screenwriter (b. 1912)

March 17 – Ernest Gold, Austrian-born composer (b. 1921)

March 18 – Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer (b. 1914)

March 29 – Joe Williams, American singer (b. 1918)

March 31 – Yuri Knorozov, Russian linguist and epigrapher (b. 1922)

April

April 3 – Lionel Bart, English composer (b. 1930)

April 4 – Faith Domergue, American actress (b. 1924)

April 10 – Jean Vander Pyl, American television actress (b. 1919)

April 12 – Boxcar Willie, American country music singer (b. 1931)

April 14 – Ellen Corby, American actress (b. 1911)

April 14 – Anthony Newley, English actor, singer and songwriter (b. 1931)

April 20 – Rick Rude, American professional wrestler (b. 1958)

April 20 – Señor Wences, Spanish ventriloquist (b. 1896)

April 25 – Lord Killanin, Irish journalist and Olympic official (b. 1914)

April 25 – Herman Miller, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1919)

April 27 – Al Hirt, American trumpeter and bandleader (b. 1922)

April 27 – Cyril Washbrook, English cricketer (b. 1914)

April 28 – Rory Calhoun, American television and film actor (b. 1922)

April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1921)

April 30 – Sir Alf Ramsey, English football manager (b. 1920)

May

May 2 – Oliver Reed, English actor (b. 1938)

May 8 – Sir Dirk Bogarde, English actor (b. 1921)

May 8 – Dana Plato, American actress (b. 1963)

May 10 – Shel Silverstein, American author and poet (b. 1930)

May 10 – Sir Eric Willis, Australian politician, former Premier of New South Wales (b. 1922)

May 12 – Saul Steinberg, Romanian-born cartoonist (b. 1914)

May 13 – Gene Sarazen, American golfer (b. 1902)

May 17 – Henry Jones, American actor (b. 1912)

May 18 – Betty Robinson, American athlete (b. 1911)

May 23 – Owen Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1965)

May 26 – Paul Sacher, Swiss conductor (b. 1906)

June

June 5 – Mel Torme, American singer (b. 1925)

June 6 – Anne Haddy, Australian actress (b. 1930)

June 9 – Maurice Journeau, French composer (b. 1898)

June 11 – DeForest Kelley, American actor (b. 1920)

June 16 – Screaming Lord Sutch, English politician (b. 1940)

June 27 – Jorgos Papadopoulos, military ruler of Greece (b. 1919)

June 29 – Allan Carr, American producer (b. 1937)

July

July 1 – Edward Dmytryk, Canadian-American film director (b. 1908)

July 1 – Guy Mitchell, American singer (b. 1927)

July 1 – Sylvia Sidney, American actress (b. 1910)

July 2 – Mario Puzo, American author (b. 1920)

July 6 – Carl Gunter Jr, American politician (b. 1938)

July 6 – Joaquin Rodrigo, Spanish composer (b. 1901)

July 8 – Charles Conrad, American astronaut (b. 1930)

July 11 – Helen Forrest, American jazz singer (b. 1917)

July 16 – John F. Kennedy, Jr., American actor and son of John F. Kennedy (b. 1960)

July 20 – Sandra Gould, American actress (b. 1916)

July 23 – King Hassan II of Morocco (b. 1929)

July 26 – Trygve Haavelmo, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)

July 29 – Anita Carter, American singer (b. 1933)

July 29 – Rajendra Kumar, Indian film actor, producer and director (b. 1929)

August

August 1 – Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Bengali writer (b. 1897)

August 3 – Leroy Vinnegar, American musician (b. 1928)

August 4 – Victor Mature, American actor (b. 1913)

August 14 – Lane Kirkland, American union leader (b. 1922)

August 23 – Norman Wexler, American screenwriter (b. 1926)

August 23 – James White, Irish writer (b. 1928)

August 24 – Mary Jane Croft, American actress (b. 1916)

September

September 5 – Allen Funt, American television personality (b. 1914)

September 6 – Lagumot Harris, Nauruan politician and former President (b. 1938)

September 9 – Ruth Roman, American actress (b. 1922)

September 10 – Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor (b. 1927)

September 12 – Allen Stack, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1928)

September 14 – Charles Crichton, English film director (b. 1910)

September 20 – Raisa Gorbachyova, Soviet first lady (b. 1932)

September 22 – George C. Scott, American actor (b. 1927)

September 23 – Ivan Goff, Australian screenwriter (b. 1910)

October

October 6 – Amália Rodrigues, Portuguese Fado legend (b. 1920)

October 6 – Gorilla Monsoon, American professional wrestler and announcer (b. 1937)

October 7 – Helen Vinson, American actress (b. 1907)

October 8 – John McLendon, American basketball coach (b. 1915)

October 9 – Akhtar Hameed Khan, Pakistani pioneer in microcredit and microfinance (b. 1914)

October 9 – Milt Jackson, American musician (b. 1923)

October 11 – Rafi' Daham Al-Tikriti, Director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (b. 1937)

October 12 – Wilt Chamberlain, American basketball player (b. 1936)

October 14 – Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania (b. 1922)

October 19 – Harry Bannink, Dutch composer and musician (b. 1929)

October 19 – James C. Murray, American politician (b. 1917)

October 20 – Jack Lynch, Prime Minister of Ireland (b. 1917)

October 21 – Lars Bo, Danish artist and writer (b. 1924)

October 21 – John Bromwich, Australian tennis player (b. 1918)

October 24 – John Chafee, American politician (b. 1922)

October 25 – Payne Stewart, American golfer (b. 1957)

October 26 – Rex Gildo, German singer (b. 1939)

October 26 – Hoyt Axton, American actor and singer-songwriter (b. 1938)

October 26 – Abraham Polonsky, American screenwriter and director (b. 1910)

October 27 – Frank De Vol, American composer (b. 1911)

October 27 – Robert Mills, American physicist (b. 1927)

October 31 – Greg Moore, Canadian race car driver (b. 1975)

November

November 1 – Theodore Hall, American physicist and spy (b. 1925)

November 3 – Ian Bannen, Scottish actor (b. 1928)

November 9 – Mabel King, American actress (b. 1932)

November 11 – Mary Kay Bergman, American actress (b. 1961)

November 15 – Gene Levitt, American television writer, producer, and director (b. 1920)

November 16 – Daniel Nathans, American microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1928)

November 18 – Paul Bowles, American novelist (b. 1910)

November 18 – Horst P. Horst, German-American photographer (b. 1906)

November 18 – Doug Sahm, American musician (b. 1941)

November 21 – Quentin Crisp, English writer (b. 1908)

November 29 – Gene Rayburn, American television personality (b. 1917)

November 29 – Iwamoto Kaoru, Japanese professional Go player (b. 1902)

November 30 – Charlie Byrd, American Jazz musician and classical guitarist (b. 1925)

December

December 2 – Joey Adams, American comedian (b. 1911)

December 3 – Scatman John, American musician (b. 1942)

December 3 – Jarl Wahlström, Salvation Army general (b. 1918)

December 3 – Madeline Kahn, American actress (b. 1942)

December 4 – Rose Bird, American judge (b. 1936)

December 8 – Péter Kuczka, Hungarian author (b. 1923)

December 10 – Rick Danko, Canadian musician (b. 1943)

December 11 – Franjo Tuđman, President of Croatia (b. 1922)

December 12 – Paul Cadmus, American artist (b. 1904)

December 12 – Joseph Heller, American novelist (b. 1923)

December 17 – Rex Allen, American actor, singer, and songwriter (b. 1920)

December 17 – Grover Washington, Jr., American saxophonist (b. 1943)

December 18 – Robert Bresson, French filmmaker (b. 1901)

December 19 – Desmond Llewelyn, Welsh actor (b. 1914)

December 19 – Robert Dougall, British newsreader (b. 1913)

December 20 – Irving Rapper, American film director (b. 1898)

December 20 – Hank Snow, Canadian musician (b. 1914)

December 23 – John P. Davies, American diplomat (b. 1908)

December 24 – Tito Guízar, Mexican singer and film actor (b. 1908)

December 26 – Curtis Mayfield, American musician and composer (b. 1942)

December 27 – Leonard Goldenson, American television executive (b. 1905)

December 28 – Clayton Moore, American actor (b. 1914)

December 31 – Elliot Richardson, American Attorney General under Richard Nixon (b. 1920)

Templeton Prize

Ian Barbour

Nobel Prizes

Physics – Gerardus 't Hooft, Martinus J.G. Veltman

Chemistry – Ahmed H. Zewail

Physiology or Medicine – Günter Blobel

Literature – Günter Grass

Peace – Médecins Sans Frontières

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel – Robert Mundell

Fictional

The year 1999 in fiction and popular culture:

Computer/video games:

* (Castlevania series, 2003): is finally able to defeat Dracula for good and seal away his Castle.

* Chrono Trigger (1995): The apocalyptic Day of Lavos takes place on April 24th

* (1990) is set on December 24, 1999.

* (2000): The first stage takes place in 1999. The remainder of the game is set in 2000.

* Smash TV (1990) is set in 1999.

* all game takes place on the last days of 1999.

Film:

* Released after 1999 and set in the historical year:

** Blood Diamond (2006)

** Alpha Dog (2006)

* Released in 1999 and stated to take place in that year:

** Entrapment (1999): The film takes place during the week leading up to December 31.

** End of Days (1999): The film involves Satan's plot to conquer the earth on New Year's Eve of '99

** The Matrix (1999): The year within the Matrix is said to be 1999.

** Fight Club (1999) The year within Fight Club is said to be 1999, just before the beginning of the Millennium.

* Released before 1999 and set in the "future" year:

** Strange Days (1995): The film takes place leading up to New Year's Eve, 1999.

** (1994)

** Until the End of the World (1991)

** Class of 1999 (1990)

** Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974)

** Destroy All Monsters (1968)

** (1968): The first scenes of the future take place in the year 1999.

Music:

* Prince's 1982 song "1999" is about "party like it's 1999."

* The Megadeth song "Set the World Afire", from their album So Far, So Good... So What!, contains the line "Distorted figures walk the earth, it's 1999". The song, which is a protest song against nuclear weapons, was written in 1987, implying that the Earth could be nearly completely devastated by nuclear weapons in 12 years without any action taken against them.

Television:

* Futurama: The series' protagonist, Fry, is accidentally cryogenicly frozen on December 31 1999.

* Dragon Ball Z ("Transformed at Last," October 18, 1999): Goku transforms into a Super Saiyan for the first time in the United States; aired on Toonami, a now-defunct block on Cartoon Network.

* (1975–1977): A huge explosion sends the Moon hurtling out of Earth's orbit on September 13 (a Friday in the series, but not in reality).

* The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982–1983): A huge spaceship appears high above Earth and crashes into an island in the Pacific, triggering a world war.

* Three Super Sentai series — Choujin Sentai Jetman (1991–1992), Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (1995–1996), and Kyuukyuu Sentai GoGo-V (1999–2000) — take place in 1999.

* Hunter x Hunter (TV Anime Series) (1999–2001) Gon Freecs, a young boy, is aiming to become a Hunter to search for his father. He meets some new friends during the Exam, and the struggles he must face on his quest will be beyond anything he's ever imagined.

* In Kamen Rider Kabuto (2006–2007), 1999 is the year in which a meteor struck the city of shibuya and also spawned the Worm, an alien race that forms the main antagonist in the series. In the movie based on the show, the meteor was much bigger and also dried up the oceans, resulting in a post-apocalyptic world

* Family Guy the episode Da Boom is set on the 31st of December 1999

* In the TV series of Quantum Leap (1988–1993) project Quantum Leap is said to be launched in New Mexico, 1999.

See also

1999 in film

20th century

References

External links

Name	Steve Jobs
Caption	Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010
Birth name	Steven Paul Jobs
Birth date	February 24, 1955
Nationality	American
Occupation	Chairman and CEO, Apple Inc.
Alma mater	Reed College (dropped out in 1972)
Salary	US$1
Networth	$6.1 billion (2010)
Religion	Buddhism
Spouse	Laurene Powell (1991–present)
Children	4
Signature	Steve Jobs signature.svg

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 movie Toy Story as an executive producer.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which led to the creation of the Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1984, He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney company in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of Disney's Board of Directors.

Jobs' history in business has contributed much to the symbolic image of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in over 230 awarded patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages.

Early years

Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) of Mountain View, California, who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, who they named Patti. Jobs' biological parents – Abdulfattah Jandali, a Syrian Muslim graduate student who later became a political science professor, and Joanne Simpson, an American graduate student – later married, giving birth to and raising Jobs' biological sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy, while sleeping on the floor in friends' rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later stated, "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts." During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life". He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.

Career

Beginnings of Apple Computer

at the fifth conference (D5) in 2007.]]

In 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, with later funding from a then-semi-retired Intel product-marketing manager and engineer A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled "1984." At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium." The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 – following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs – Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division.

NeXT Computer

Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced; however, it was largely dismissed by industry as cost-prohibitive. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).

The NeXTcube was described by Jobs as an "interpersonal" computer, which he believed was the next step after "personal" computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve many of the problems that "personal" computing had come up against.

During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT's e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his "interpersonal" philosophy. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail.

Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by such things as the NeXTcube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.

Pixar and Disney

In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.

The new company, which was originally based at Lucasfilm's Kerner Studios in San Rafael, California, but has since relocated to Emeryville, California, was initially intended to be a high-end graphics hardware developer. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute.

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next ten plus years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company would produce the box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.

In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock. Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.

Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee.

Return to Apple

, San Francisco, January 11, 2005.]]

In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. He soon became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March 1998, to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately terminated a number of projects such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs' summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company." Jobs also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines.

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title 'iCEO.'

In recent years, the company has branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. In 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, which also included the features of an iPod and, with its own mobile browser, revolutionized the mobile browsing scene. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that "real artists ship", by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design.

Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple's own World Wide Developers Conferences.

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker.

Business life

Wealth

As of October 2009, Jobs owned 5.426 million shares of Apple, most of which was granted in 2003 when Jobs was given 10 million shares. He also owned 138 million shares of Disney, which he received in exchange for Disney's acquisition of Pixar. Forbes estimated his net wealth at $5.1 billion in 2009, making him the 43rd wealthiest American. Jobs has been criticized for his lack of public philanthropy despite his wealth, particularly in recent years as other billionaires (such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) have pledged significant portions of their fortunes to charity. As of 2006, Jobs had not appeared on national tallies of charitable donations totaling $1 million or more, as compiled by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy. Although he may well have donated significant sums anonymously, some have doubted this assumption, given Jobs' equally poor track record on corporate philanthropy; after resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs as a temporary cost-cutting measure until profitability improved. Despite the company's record-breaking profits and $40 billion cash on hand, Jobs has not reinstated a philanthropic division at Apple.

Stock options backdating issue

In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30, which allegedly should have been $21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. This indicated backdating. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs might have faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Apple claimed that the options were originally granted at a special board meeting that may never have taken place. Furthermore, the investigation is focusing on false dating of the options resulting in a retroactive $20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006, found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003. On July 1, 2008, a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.

Management style

Much has been made of Jobs' aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs." Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz's The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and , by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.

Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France," alluding to Jobs' compelling and larger-than-life persona.

Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:

Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.

In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, . In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."

Personal life

Jobs married Laurene Powell, on March 18, 1991. Presiding over the wedding was the Zen Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogowa. The couple have a son, Reed Paul Jobs, and two other children. Jobs also has a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan. She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 frontman Bono. Jobs had never moved in.

In 1984, Jobs purchased a , 14 bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California, also known as Jackling House. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for almost ten years. According to reports, he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. Since the early 1990s, Jobs has lived in a house in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood of Palo Alto. President Clinton dined with Jobs and 14 Silicon Valley CEOs there August 7, 1996.

He allowed the mansion to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.

He usually wears a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 991 sneakers. He is a pescetarian.

His choice of car is a silver 2006 Mercedes SL 55 AMG, which has no licence plates. That is, according to Jobs, because they always got stolen.

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes." On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:

Health concerns

In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. During Jobs' absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company. together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health. In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he "looked fine"; following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs' 2008 WWDC keynote address; Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and that he was taking antibiotics, while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure. During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Steve Jobs' health by insisting that it was a "private matter." Others, however, opined that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs' hands-on approach to running his company. The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer."

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's untimely death.) Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it, intensifying rumors concerning Jobs' health. Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 Let's Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; at a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110 / 70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company's final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs' health. In a statement given on January 5, 2009 on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for several months. On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought" and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who had previously acted as CEO in Jobs' 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions." Jobs' prognosis was "excellent". and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (aka the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.

On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine.

On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

In August 2009, Jobs was selected the most admired entrepreneur among teenagers on a survey by Junior Achievement.

On November 5, 2009, Jobs was named the CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine.

In November 2009 Jobs was ranked #57 on Forbes: The World's Most Powerful People.

In December 2010, the Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010, ending its essay by stating, "In his autobiography, John Sculley, the former PepsiCo executive who once ran Apple, said this of the ambitions of the man he had pushed out: 'Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High-tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.' How wrong can you be".

In popular culture

Jobs was prominently featured in three films about the history of the personal computing industry:

Triumph of the Nerds — a 1996 three-part documentary for PBS, about the rise of the home computer/personal computer.

Nerds 2.0.1 — a 1998 three-part documentary for PBS, (and sequel to Triumph of the Nerds) which chronicles the development of the Internet.

Pirates of Silicon Valley — a 1999 docudrama which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft. He was portrayed by Noah Wyle.

Jobs has also been frequently parodied: Mad Magazine — a feature called Calvin and Jobs, a parody of Calvin and Hobbes, starring Steve in the role of Hobbes and his attempts to explain to Calvin his job.

Jobs was also parodied in "Mypods and Boomsticks", a 2008 The Simpsons episode which features an adventure into the 'world' of Mapple, MyPods, and "Steve Mobbs".

30 Rock parodied Jobs's keynote presentation style, turtleneck and all in the episode "Cutbacks". Jobs was also parodied on Mad TV and Saturday Night Live.

See also

Apple Inc.

Pixar

The organization of the artist

Notes

References

Bantam Doubleday Dell. ISBN 0-385-48684-7. Chapter 28

External links

"Thirty Years of Innovation at Apple: Jobs on the Job". Time. 2007.

Steve Jobs' executive profile at Apple.

YouTube video of first Jobs' Macworld keynote in 1997, when he returned to Apple, where he announced partnership with Microsoft.

Jobs’s commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005 (YouTube video).

"Thoughts on Music" by Steve Jobs, February 6, 2007.

"Thoughts on Flash" by Steve Jobs, April, 2010.

Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs A 48 minute video on Steve Jobs by Bloomberg

Articles

Anecdotes from Steve Jobs' early days in Apple as reported by Andy Hertzfeld. Folklore.org.

Interviews

 — April 20, 1995.

Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview, Rolling Stone – December 3, 2003.

The Seed of Apple's Innovation, BusinessWeek — October 12, 2004.

How Big Can Apple Get?, Fortune — February 21, 2005.

, Newsweek — October 15, 2006.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (video and transcript of on stage interview), All Things D – May 30, 2007.

Videotaped Deposition of Steven P. Jobs in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission  – March 18, 2008

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:American billionaires Category:American Buddhists Category:American chief executives Category:American vegetarians Category:Businesspeople in software Category:Businesspeople from California Category:Computer designers Category:Computer pioneers Category:Directors of Apple Inc. Category:Disney people Category:Internet pioneers Category:National Medal of Technology recipients Category:NeXT Category:Organ transplant recipients Category:Pancreatic cancer survivors Category:People from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:Reed College alumni Category:American people of Syrian descent Category:American people of Arab descent Category:American adoptees Category:1955 births Category:Living people

Name	Noah Wyle
Caption	at the 1995 Emmy Awards
Birth date	June 04, 1971
Birth place	Hollywood, California, U.S.
Birth name	Noah Strausser Speer Wyle
Years active	1985–present
Occupation	Actor
Spouse	Tracy Warbin (2000-present) (separated) 2 children

Noah Strausser Speer Wyle (; born June 4, 1971) is an American film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as Dr. John Carter in the TV drama ER. He has also played Steve Jobs in the 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley and Flynn Carsen in The Librarian franchise. Wyle was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People magazine in 2001.

Early life

Wyle, the middle one of three children, was born in Hollywood, California, the son of Marjorie (née Speer), a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer. Wyle's parents divorced in the late 1970s and his mother later married James C. Katz, a film restorationist with three children of his own from a previous marriage. Wyle's paternal grandparents, Edith and Frank Wyle, founded the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum. Edith Wyle was an expressionist painter who also created The Egg and The Eye, an innovative café and shop on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, which soon became the preferred hangout for artists, travelers and dreamers. Wyle was raised in a Reform Jewish home.

Education

Wyle was educated at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, and graduated with the class of 1989. Wyle participated in a theater arts program at Northwestern University after his junior year of high school and appeared in high school plays even winning an award for a play he wrote. After graduation, he studied with acting teacher Larry Moss while living in a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard.

Career

Wyle was first seen in the Paul Bartel film Lust in the Dust (a western exploitation/parody which starred Tab Hunter, Lainie Kazan and Divine) as an extra in the local gang running the small town of Chile' Verde.

His later parts were a mini-series and featuring in the movie Crooked Hearts (1991) in 1990. In 1993 he worked in another feature, There Goes My Baby. After appearing in several local plays in Los Angeles, he was cast in the box-office hit A Few Good Men, in which he played a Marine jeep driver who testified in court. He also appeared in the feature Swing Kids as a leader in the Hitler Youth, and in the independent movie The Myth of Fingerprints with Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner and Julianne Moore. Additionally, he starred as Lancelot opposite Sheryl Lee in the Television movie Guinevere. Recently, Wyle starred in the original film, with Sonya Walger and in its sequel opposite Gabrielle Anwar and in the third part of the series alongside Stana Katic. His other work has included a critically-acclaimed turn as Steve Jobs in the Emmy nominated Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999). He has also appeared in several feature films including: White Oleander opposite Renée Zellweger, Enough opposite Jennifer Lopez, the independent feature Donnie Darko, as the President's interpreter in the 2000 live-television production of Fail Safe, and in the independent film, The Californians.

Wyle’s big break came when he was given the pilot script for ER and was cast as medical student John Carter.

Wyle was the only major cast member of ER to have been with the show since its inception (1994) when he left after its eleventh season (2005). His performances on the show earned him Emmy Award nominations in each of its first five seasons. As part of an ensemble he was nominated several times for the Screen Actors Guild Award, he was recognized with three Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and won the 2001 TV Guide Award for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Wyle left the series at the end of the eleventh season, although he returned in guest appearances for a four-episode arc during the twelfth season. He stated that he left because he wanted to spend more time with his family and friends and to make room for the upcoming generation. However, in 2009, Wyle returned to ER during its 15th and final season for five episodes, including the series finale.

Along with his film and TV career, Wyle has also appeared on stage appearing in a 1995 Los Angeles stage production of The 24th Day with Peter Berg. With The Blank Theatre Company, he performed in The Who, and more recently in Lobster Alice, with Nicholas Brendon, where he played the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. For his work as one of the producers of The Wild Party at the Blank Theare, he won an NAACP Theatre Award. Wyle has also produced Missouri Waltz at the theatre. In the year 2000 Wyle was also featured in the U.S. Got Milk? advertising campaign.

According to the Guinness World Records 2005 Special 50th Anniversary Edition, Wyle became the holder of a "Highest paid TV drama actor per episode" record during the 2003/04 season, earning approximately $400,000 per episode. While on ER, Wyle's estimated salary was $9 million a year . Wyle has also appeared in the most episodes of ER, 255, 4 more than Laura Innes.*

Wyle is the lead in TNT's new sci-fi series from Steven Spielberg titled Falling Skies. Wyle will play the leader of a group of soldiers and civilians that battle against an alien force, according to the network.

Personal life

Wyle dated several women, including actress Samantha Mathis. While filming The Myth of Fingerprints in 1996, he met make-up artist Tracy Warbin. After proposing to her on Valentine's Day in 1999, they married on May 6, 2000. Together, they have a son (Owen Strausser Speer Wyle [born November 9, 2002]) and a daughter Auden Wyle (born October 15, 2005). Warbin's pregnancy with Auden was announced on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Wyle bought Bo Derek's ranch in Santa Ynez Valley, California, in June 1999, for approximately $2.5 million. They listed their Los Feliz (Los Angeles) home at close to $4.4 million. The traditional-style house was designed by architect Paul Williams, was built in 1934 and has a theater, a detached guest house-office and a landscaped yard with city views, a pool, a koi pond, a patio and a fire pit.

Wyle and Warbin, his wife of almost 10 years, separated in late October 2009, according to People magazine. The couple live in separate residences, and both see their two children daily.

Interests

In 1999, Wyle made an appearance during the beginning of Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote presentation, initially pretending to be Jobs. When the audience caught on, Jobs himself appeared and began to banter with Wyle. It was a practical joke by Jobs and Wyle in light of the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Wyle devotes much of his free time to the international non-profit organization Doctors of the World and to his work as a member of the Human Rights Watch Council. Wyle also serves as the voluntary artistic producer of the Blank Theatre Company in Hollywood, which stages annual young playwrights festival and whose alumni include Ed Asner, Sarah Michelle Gellar, D. B. Sweeney, James Kerwin, Amber Benson, Megan Henning, Travis Schuldt, Warren Davis, Grant Show, and Nicholas Brendon. He also recently acquired Second Stage Theater (Los Angeles) in Hollywood, where the company has mounted numerous successful productions.

Wyle was the spokesperson for The Cover the Uninsured campaign in 2004, which had as Honorary Co-Chairs former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. The Cover the Uninsured Week is annually held in the United States of America and focuses attention on the nearly 44 million Americans who go without health care coverage. The campaign includes several events among different communities, health and enrollment fairs, press conferences and business seminars all over the U.S. Additionally, Wyle is also a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights, having started a farm intended as sanctuary for abused and rescued animals. Wyle has also become a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, dedicated to protecting and conserving wildlife for future generations.

In 2009, Noah Wyle became a spokesperson for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), claiming that polar bears are "hanging on by a thread" and "may be extinct in our children's lifetime, due to the effects of climate change."

Filmography

{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |- bgcolor="#B0C4DE" align="center" ! Year ! Film ! Role ! Other notes |- | 1991 | Crooked Hearts | Ask | |- | 1992 | A Few Good Men | Cpl. Jeffrey Barnes | |- | 1993 | Swing Kids | Emil Lutz | |- | 1994 | ER | Dr. John Carter | Regular role (1994–2005; 2006, 2009) |- |rowspan="2"| 1994 | There Goes My Baby | Michael Finnegan | |- |Guinevere | Lancelot | (TV Movie) |- |1995 |Friends | as one of the doctors | |- | 1997 | The Myth of Fingerprints | Warren | |- | 1999 | Pirates of Silicon Valley | Steve Jobs | (TV Movie) |- | 2000 | Fail Safe | Buck | (TV Movie) |- |rowspan="2"| 2001 | Scenes of the Crime | Seth | |- | Donnie Darko | Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff | |- |rowspan="2"| 2002 | White Oleander | Mark Richards | |- | Enough | Robbie | |- | 2004 | | Flynn Carsen | (TV Movie) |- | 2005 | The Californians | Gavin Ransom | |- | 2006 | | Flynn Carsen | (TV Movie) |- |rowspan="3"| 2008 | W. | Donald Evans | |- | Nothing But the Truth | Avril Aaronson | |- | | Flynn Carsen | (TV Movie) |- | 2009 | An American Affair | Mike Stafford | |- |}

References

External links

Category:1971 births Category:Actors from California Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American television actors Category:American vegetarians Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:Northwestern University alumni Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Ventura County, California Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Animal rights advocates

Name	Kenneth Wheeler
Image name	|thumb|center
Nickname	Sultan of Symmetry
Birth date	August 23, 1965
Birth place	Fresno, California, United States
Height	5'9"
Weight	(In Season) 210-225 lbs.(106 kg) (Off-Season) 265-275 lbs. (122 kg)
Firstproshow	IFBB World Amateur Championships
Firstproshowyear	1990
Bestwin	IFBB Arnold Classic Champion
Bestwinyear	1993, 1997, 1998, and 2000
Predecessor	Vince Taylor
Successor	Kevin Levrone (1994) Ronnie Coleman (2001)
Yesorretiredyear	Retired 2001

Kenneth Wheeler (born August 23, 1965, Fresno, California, United States), better known as Flex Wheeler, is a former American IFBB professional bodybuilder.

Biography

Wheeler began training as a teenager, initially with martial arts in mind. However his natural development persuaded him to pursue bodybuilding. Despite this he is on record as regarding himself as a "martial artist first, a bodybuilder second." (1) It also accounts for his remarkable flexibility in a physique so large. Even so, he has been described by Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the greatest bodybuilders he ever saw.

After a short career as a police officer, Wheeler focused full time on becoming a professional bodybuilder, taking the nickname 'Flex'. He competed for the first time in 1983 but it was not until 1989 that he secured a first-place trophy at the NPC Mr California Championships. Since then, he has placed second at the 1993 Mr. Olympia, narrowly missing a win (something he was to repeat in 1998 and 1999). He is a 5 time Ironman Pro winner, 4 time Arnold Classic winner, and has enjoyed victories in the France Grand Prix, South Beach Pro Invitational, Night of Champions and Hungarian Grand Prix.

While Wheeler had the reputation of being arrogant and over-confident, especially on stage. He attributed these faults to a need to compensate for his natural introversion as a child and young man. (2)

In 1994 he was involved in a near-fatal car accident that could have left him with lifelong paralysis. He started from scratch again, returning with remarkable speed to bodybuilding's top tier.

In 1999 Wheeler discovered that he had Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a form of kidney disease. Despite press speculation as to the cause of the failure, Wheeler pointed out that the condition is hereditary, not self-inflicted. Wheeler announced his retirement from competitive bodybuilding in 2000, but continued to compete until 2002. He received a kidney transplant in 2003.

Since retirement Wheeler has focused again on martial arts, his specialism being Kemp-Kwon-Do, a variant of Kempo and Tae Kwon Do. He participated in a demonstration fight at the 2005 Arnold Classic.

In 2007, Flex was interviewed by freelance journalist Rod Labbe for Ironman Magazine's LEGENDS OF BODYBUILDING series. Entitled "Yesterday and Today," it covers his extensive career and reveals how people can conquer adversity and triumph against incredible odds.

Flex currently serves in an executive position as the Director of Media and Public Relations for the Sports Nutrition Company All American EFX, based out of Bakersfield, California. Additionally, he manages their sponsored athletes and can be seen in numerous advertisements for the company.

Competitive stats

Height: 5'9"

Off Season Weight: Around 250-260 lbs.

Competition Weight: Around 210-220 lbs.

Competitive history

1985 AAU Teen Mr America 1st (MT)

1989 NPC California Championships 1st (LHW)

1989 NPC Nationals 5th (LHW)

1990 NPC Junior Nationals 2nd (HW)

1991 NPC Nationals 2nd (HW)

1991 NPC USA Championship 2nd (HW)

1992 NPC USA Championships 1st (HW and Overall)

1993 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 1st

1993 IFBB Arnold Classic 1st

1993 IFBB Mr. Olympia 2nd

1995 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 1st

1995 IFBB Arnold Classic 2nd

1995 IFBB South Beach Pro 1st

1995 IFBB Mr. Olympia 8th

1995 IFBB Grand Prix Spain 5th

1996 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 1st

1996 IFBB Arnold Classic 2nd

1996 IFBB Night of Champions 1st

1996 IFBB Canada Pro Classic 2nd

1996 IFBB Florida Cup Pro 1st

1996 IFBB Mr. Olympia 4th

1997 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 1st

1997 IFBB Arnold Classic 1st

1997 IFBB San Jose Pro 1st

1998 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 1st

1998 IFBB Arnold Classic 1st

1998 IFBB Mr Olympia 2nd

1999 IFBB Grand Prix England - 2nd

1999 IFBB Joe Weider's Pro World 2nd

1999 IFBB Mr. Olympia 2nd

2000 IFBB Mr. Olympia 3rd

2000 IFBB Hungarian Grand Prix 1st

2000 IFBB Arnold Classic 1st

2000 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 2nd

2002 IFBB Mr. Olympia 7th

2003 IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational 3rd

See also

List of male professional bodybuilders

List of female professional bodybuilders

External links

teamflexwheeler.com Official site

Flex Wheeler Martial Arts Illustrated Magazine Interview

bodybuilders.com Flex Wheeler profile

Flex Wheeler Gallery

Muscle: The Myostatin Connection as seen in Flex Wheeler

allamericanefx.com Official company site

References

Category:1965 births Category:African American bodybuilders Category:American bodybuilders Category:American taekwondo practitioners Category:Living people Category:Organ transplant recipients Category:People from Fresno, California Category:Professional bodybuilders

Name	Britney Spears
Years active	1992–present
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Britney Jean Spears
Born	December 02, 1981McComb, Mississippi,
Genre	Pop, dance-pop
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, record producer, author, fashion designer, video director
Instrument	Vocals, piano
Label	Jive
Associated acts	The New Mickey Mouse Club
Url

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999. During her first decade within the music industry, she became a prominent figure in mainstream popular music and popular culture, followed by a much-publicized personal life. Her first two albums established her as a pop icon and broke sales records, while title tracks "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again" became international number-one hits. Spears was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s.

In 2001, she released her third studio album Britney and expanded her brand, playing the starring role in the film Crossroads. She assumed creative control of her fourth studio album, In the Zone released in 2003, which yielded chart-topping singles "Me Against the Music", "Toxic" and "Everytime". After the release of two compilation albums, Spears experienced personal struggles and her career went under hiatus. Her fifth studio album, Blackout, was released in 2007 and despite receiving little promotion, it spawned hits "Gimme More" and "Piece of Me". In 2008, her erratic behaviour and hospitalizations caused her to be placed in a conservatorship. The same year, her sixth studio album Circus was released, with the global chart-topping lead single "Womanizer". After embarking on The Circus Starring Britney Spears, she released greatest hits The Singles Collection, which featured U.S. and Canadian number-one single "3".

Spears has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists in the history of contemporary music. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the eighth top-selling female artist in the United States, with 32 million certified albums. Spears is also recognized as the best-selling female artist of the first decade of the 21st century, as well as the fifth overall. She was ranked the 8th Artist of the 2000–10 decade by Billboard. In June 2010, Spears was ranked sixth on Forbes list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world; she is also ranked as the third most powerful musician in the world.

Biography

1981–97: Early life and career beginnings

Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2, 1981, the second child of Lynne Irene (née Bridges) and James Parnell Spears. She is of English heritage through her maternal grandmother, who was born in London, and of distant Maltese descent. Her siblings are Bryan James and Jamie Lynn. At age three, she started to attend dance lessons in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, and was selected to perform a solo at the annual recital. During her childhood, she also attended gymnastics and voice lessons, and won many state-level competitions and children's talent shows. Spears made her local stage debut at age five, singing "What Child Is This?" at her kindergarten graduation. She said about her ambition as a child, "I was in my own world, [...] I found out what I'm supposed to do at an early age". In December 1992, she was finally cast in The Mickey Mouse Club, but returned to Kentwood after the show was cancelled. She enrolled at Parklane Academy in nearby McComb, Mississippi. Although she made friends with most of her classmates, she compared the school to "the opening scene in Clueless with all the cliques. [...] I was so bored. I was the point guard on the basketball team. I had my boyfriend, and I went to homecoming and Christmas formal. But I wanted more."

In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided he wanted to pitch her to record labels, therefore she needed a professional demo. He sent Spears an unused song from Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio with a sound engineer. Spears travelled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, arguing audiences wanted pop bands such as The Backstreet Boys and The Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany." Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R; Jeff Fenster stated about Spears's audition that "It's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal. [...] For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'— is extremely important. And Britney had that." After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger more adult contemporary" but felt alright with her label's appointment of producers, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me." She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz PoP and Rami, among others. Her debut album, ...Baby One More Time, was released on January 1999. It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America after a month. Worldwide, the album topped the charts in fifteen countries and sold over ten million copies in a year. It became the biggest selling album ever by a teenage artist. "...Baby One More Time" later received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The title track also topped the singles chart for two weeks in the United Kingdom, and became the fastest-selling single ever by a female artist, shipping over 460,000 copies. It would later become the 25th most successful song of all time in British chart history. Spears is also the youngest female artist to have a million seller in the country. "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was released as the third single from the album. It became a top-ten hit worldwide and propelled ...Baby One More Time to sell 26 million copies. The April 1999 cover of Rolling Stone featured Spears laying on her bed, clad with a bra, shorts and an open top. The American Family Association (AFA) referred to the shoot as "a disturbing mix of childhood innocence and adult sexuality" and called to "God-loving Americans to boycott stores selling Britney's albums." Spears responded to the outcry commenting, "What's the big deal? I have strong morals. [...] I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine. And I was tired of being compared to Debbie Gibson and all of this bubblegum pop all the time." Shortly before, Spears had announced publicly she would remain a virgin until marriage. but generated some controversy due to her racy outfits. An extension of the tour, titled Crazy 2k, followed in March 2000. Spears premiered songs from her upcoming second album during the show. The album sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone said that "the great thing about Oops! – under the cheese surface, Britney's demand for satisfaction is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock & roll tradition." The album's lead single, "Oops!... I Did It Again", peaked at the top of the charts in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and many other European nations. The album as well as the title track received Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively. The same year, Spears embarked on the Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour, which grossed $40.5 million; she also released her first book, Britney Spears' Heart-to-Heart, co-written with her mother. On September 7, 2000, Spears performed at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Halfway through the performance, she ripped of her black suit to reveal a sequined flesh-colored bodysuit, followed by heavy dance routine. It is noted by critics as the moment that Spears showed signs of becoming a more provocative performer. Amidst media speculation, Spears confirmed she was dating 'N Sync member Justin Timberlake. The album debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 and reached top five positions in Australia, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe and sold over 12 million copies worldwide. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called Britney "the record where she strives to deepen her persona, making it more adult while still recognizably Britney. [...] It does sound like the work of a star who has now found and refined her voice, resulting in her best record yet." The album was honored with two Grammy nominations—Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Overprotected"— and was listed in 2008 as one of Entertainment Weekly's "100 Best Albums from the Past 25 Years". The album's first single, "I'm a Slave 4 U", became a top-ten hit worldwide. Spears's performance of the single at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards featured a caged tiger and a large albino python draped over her shoulders. It was harshly received by animal rights organization PETA, who claimed the animals were mistreated and scrapped plans for an anti-fur billboard that was to feature Spears. The tour grossed $43.7 million, becoming the second highest grossing tour of 2002 by a female artist, behind Cher's . Her career success was highlighted by Forbes in 2002, as Spears was ranked the world's most powerful celebrity. Spears also landed her first starring role in Crossroads, released in February 2002. Although the film was largely panned, most critics actually praised Spears's acting. Crossroads, which had a $11 million budget, went on to gross over $57 million worldwide. In July 2002, Spears announced she would take a six month break from her career; however, she went back into the studio in October to record her new album. Spears's relationship with Justin Timberlake ended after three years. In December 2002, Timberlake released the song "Cry Me a River" as the second single from his solo debut album. The music video featured a Spears look-alike and fueled the rumors that she had been unfaithful to him. As a response, Spears wrote the ballad "Everytime" with her backing vocalist and friend Annet Artani. The same year, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst confirmed that he was in a relationship with Spears, only to deny it later. In a 2009 interview, he explained that "I just guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." Spears opened the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards with Christina Aguilera, performing "Like a Virgin". Halfway through they were joined by Madonna, with whom they both kissed. The incident was highly publicized. NPR listed the album as one of "The 50 Most Important Recording of the Decade", adding that "the decade's history of impeccably crafted pop is written on her body of work." In the Zone sold over 609,000 copies in the United States and debuted at the top of the charts, making Spears the first female artist in the SoundScan era to have her first four studio albums to debut at number one. In the Zone sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The album produced the hit singles: "Me Against the Music", a collaboration with Madonna; "Toxic"—which won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording; "Everytime" and "Outrageous". She began The Onyx Hotel Tour in support of In the Zone in March 2004. On June 8, 2004, Spears fell and injured her left knee during the music video shoot for "Outrageous". She was taken immediately to a local hospital, where doctors performed an MRI scan and found floating cartilage. The following day, Spears underwent arthroscopic surgery. She was forced to remain six weeks with a thigh brace, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation, which caused The Onyx Hotel Tour to be canceled. During 2004, Spears became involved in the Kabbalah Centre through her friendship with Madonna. In July 2004, she announced her engagement to American dancer Kevin Federline, who she had met three months before. The romance received intense attention from the media, since Federline had recently broken up with actress Shar Jackson, who was still pregnant with their second child at the time. Shortly after, she released her first fragrance with Elizabeth Arden, Curious, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume. , her first greatest hits compilation album, was released in November 2004. Spears's cover version of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" was released as the lead single from the album, reaching the top of the charts in Finland, Ireland, Italy and Norway. The second single, "Do Somethin'", was a top ten hit in Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries of mainland Europe. Worldwide, Greatest Hits: My Prerogative sold over 5 million copies. In late 2004, Spears went on KIIS-FM radio in Los Angeles, CA to play a new demo titled "Mona Lisa." The demo was to be the first single from an upcoming album called the "Original Doll." However, Spears' label later cancelled the album for unknown reasons. Spears gave birth to her first child, Sean Preston Federline, on September 14, 2005.

In November 2005, she released her first remix compilation, , which consists of eleven remixes. In February 2006, pictures surfaced of Spears driving with her son Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat. Child advocates were horrified by the photos of her holding the wheel with one hand and Sean with the other. Spears claimed that the situation happened because of a frightening encounter with paparazzi, and that it was a mistake on her part. She publicly announced she no longer studied Kabbalah in June 2006, explaining, "my baby is my religion." On November 7, 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline, citing irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was finalized in July 2007, when the couple reached a global settlement and agreed to share joint custody of their children. Spears's aunt Sandra Bridges Covington, with whom she had been very close, died of ovarian cancer in January. On February 16, 2007, Spears stayed in a drug rehabilitation facility in Antigua for less than a day. The following night, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a hair salon in Tarzana, California. She admitted herself to other treatment facilities during the following weeks. After completing a month-long program at Promises, she wrote on her website, "I truly hit rock bottom. Till this day I don't think that it was alcohol or depression. [...] was like a bad kid running around with ADD." Spears lost physical custody of her children to Federline on October 1, 2007. The reasons of the court ruling were not revealed to the public.

Her fifth studio album, Blackout, was released in October 2007. It debuted at the top of charts in Canada and Ireland, number two in the U.S. Billboard 200,—held off from the top spot by Eagles's Long Road out of Eden— France, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom and the top ten in Australia, Korea, New Zealand and many European nations. In the United States, Spears became the only female artist to have her first five studio albums debut at the two top slots of the chart. Blackout sold over 3.1 million copies worldwide. Peter Robinson of The Observer said that "Britney has delivered the best album of her career, raising the bar for modern pop music with an incendiary mix of Timbaland's Shock Value and her own back catalogue." Dennis Lim of Blender commented, "Spears’s fifth studio album is her most consistent, a seamlessly entertaining collection of bright, brash electropop." Blackout won Album of the Year at MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 and was listed as the fifth Best Pop Album of the Decade by The Times. Spears performed the lead single "Gimme More" at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance was panned by many critics. David Willis of BBC stated her performance would "go down in the history books as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards". Despite the backlash, the single rocketed to worldwide success, peaking at number one in Canada and the top ten in almost every country it charted. The second single "Piece of Me" reached the top of the charts in Ireland and reached the top five in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The third single "Break the Ice" was released the following year and had moderate success due to Spears not being able to promote it properly. In December 2007, Spears began a relationship with paparazzi Adnan Ghalib.

2008–10: Conservatorship, Circus, and The Circus Starring Britney Spears

and her 27th birthday party.]] On January 3, 2008, Spears refused to relinquish custody of her sons to Federline's representatives. She was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, after police that arrived at her house noted she appeared to be under the influence of an illicit substance. The following day, Spears's visitation rights were suspended at an emergency court hearing, and Federline was given sole physical and legal custody of the children. On January 31, 2008, Spears was committed to the psychiatric ward of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and put on 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold. The court placed her under temporary conservatorship of her father James Spears and attorney Andrew Wallet, giving them complete control of her assets. The following month, she guest-starred on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Ten Sessions" as receptionist Abby. She received positive reviews for her performance, as well as bringing the series highest ratings ever. In July 2008, Spears regained some visitation rights after coming to an agreement with Federline and his counsel. On September 7, 2008, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a pre-taped comedy sketch with Jonah Hill and an introduction speech. She won Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Video Of The Year for "Piece of Me".

A 60-minute introspective documentary, , was produced to chronicle Spears' return to the recording industry. Directed by Phil Griffin, For the Record was entirely shot in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and New York City during the third quarter of 2008. Main shooting began on September 5, 2008, two days before Spears' appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards. For the Record was broadcast on MTV on November 30, 2008 to 3.7 million viewers.

Her sixth studio album Circus, was released in December 2008. It received positive reviews from critics; according to the music review aggregation of Metacritic, it garnered an average score of 64/100. Circus debuted at number one in Canada, Czech Republic and the United States, and inside the top in many European nations. In the United States, Spears became the youngest female artist to have five albums debut at number one, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. She also became the only act in the Soundscan era to have four albums debut with 500,000 or more copies sold. and has sold 4 million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Womanizer", became her first number one in the Billboard Hot 100 since "...Baby One More Time" and topped the charts in countries such as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden. It was also nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Dance Recording. In January 2009, Spears and her father James obtained a restraining order against her former manager Sam Lufti, ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib and attorney Jon Eardley—all of whom, court documents claim, had been conspiring to gain control of Spears's affairs. The restraining order forbids Lutfi and Ghalib from contacting Spears or coming within 250 yards of her, her property or family members. Spears embarked on The Circus Starring Britney Spears in March 2009. With a gross of U.S. $131.8 million, it became the fifth highest grossing tour of the year.

She released her second greatest hits album, The Singles Collection in November 2009. "3" became her third number one single in the US, and was the first song to debut at the top of the charts in three years. Later that month, she released an application for iPhone and iPod Touch titled "It's Britney!". In May 2010, Spears's representatives confirmed she was dating her agent Jason Trawick, and that they had decided to end their professional relationship to focus on their personal relationship. Spears designed a limited edition clothing line for Candie's. It was released on stores in July 2010. On September 28, 2010, she made a cameo appearance on a Spears-themed tribute episode of American TV show Glee, titled "Britney/Brittany". Spears approved of the episode, although her appearances received mixed reviews from critics. The episode drew Glee's second largest audience, as well as the show's highest ratings ever.

2010–present: Upcoming seventh album

In March 2010, it was confirmed by Jive Records that Spears had begun recording her seventh studio album. Max Martin and Dr. Luke are set to be the executive producers. Luke stated that he wanted the sound to "get harder" in different ways "and maybe a little more deep into electronic – grimier." On December 2, 2010, Spears announced via her Twitter account that the album will be released in March 2011. The lead single "Hold It Against Me" was premiered on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on January 10, 2011... It was released as a Digital Download exclusively to the iTunes store on January 11, 2011.

Musical style and performance

]] Following her debut, Spears was credited with leading the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s. The Daily Yomiuri reported that "[m]usic critics have hailed her as the most gifted teenage pop idol for many years, but Spears has set her sights a little higher-she is aiming for the level of superstardom that has been achieved by Madonna and Janet Jackson." Rolling Stone wrote: "Britney Spears carries on the classic archetype of the rock & roll teen queen, the dungaree doll, the angel baby who just has to make a scene." Rami Yacoub who co-produced Spears's debut album with lyricist Max Martin, commented, "I know from Denniz Pop and Max's previous productions, when we do songs, there's kind of a nasal thing. With N' Sync and the Backstreet Boys, we had to push for that mid-nasal voice. When Britney did that, she got this kind of raspy, sexy voice." Following the release of her debut album, Chuck Taylor of Billboard observed, "Spears has become a consummate performer, with snappy dance moves, a clearly real-albeit young-and funkdified voice ... "(You Drive Me) Crazy", her third single ... demonstrates Spears's own development, proving that the 17-year-old is finding her own vocal personality after so many months of steadfast practice." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic referred to her music as a "blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry." Spears later commented, "With ...Baby One More Time, I didn't get to show my voice off. The songs were great, but they weren't very challenging".

Oops!...I Did It Again and subsequent albums saw Spears working with several contemporary R&B; producers, leading to "a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga." Her third studio album, Britney derived from the teen pop niche, "[r]hythmically and melodically ... sharper, tougher than what came before. What used to be unabashedly frothy has some disco grit, underpinned by Spears' spunky self-determination that helps sell hooks that are already catchier, by and large, than those that populated her previous two albums." Guy Blackman of The Age wrote that while few would care to listen to an entire Spears album, "[t]he thing about Spears, though, is that her biggest songs, no matter how committee-created or impossibly polished, have always been convincing because of her delivery, her commitment and her presence. For her mostly teenage fans, Spears expresses perfectly the conflicting urges of adolescence, the tension between chastity and sexual experience, between hedonism and responsibility, between confidence and vulnerability."

Spears possesses the vocal range of a contralto. Her vocal ability has also been criticized, often drawing unfavorable comparison to her pop rival, Christina Aguilera Critic Allan Raible derides her overdependence in Circus on digital effects and the robotic effect it creates. "She’s never been a strong vocalist..." writes Raible, "Could she handle these songs with stripped down arrangements and no vocal effects? More importantly, would anyone want to hear her attempt such a performance? Does it matter? No. The focus is still image over substance." Her image and persona are also often contrasted to Christina Aguilera. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly observed "Christina Aguilera may flash skin and belly button, but in her music and manner, she's too eager not to offend — she's a good girl pretending to be bad. Spears, however, comes across as a bad girl acting good ... Spears' artificial-sweetener voice is much less interesting than the settings, yet that blandness is actually a relief compared with Aguilera's numbing vocal gymnastics. In contrast, Allmusic comments: "Like her peer Christina Aguilera, Britney equates maturity with transparent sexuality and the pounding sounds of nightclubs ... Where Christina comes across like a natural-born skank, Britney is the girl next door cutting loose at college, drinking and smoking and dancing and sexing just a little too recklessly, since this is the first time she can indulge herself. Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine notes, "The disparity between Aguilera and Spears can't be measured solely by the timbre and octave range of their voices ... [Aguilera's] popularity has never reached the fever pitch of Britney's.

Like other dance-oriented pop stars, it has been widely reported that Spears lip-syncs in concert. Author Gary Giddins wrote in his book Natural selection: Gary Giddins on comedy, film, music, and books (2006) that "among many other performers accused of moving their lips while a machine does the labor are Britney Spears, Luciano Pavarotti, Shania Twain, Beyoncé, and Madonna." Rashod D. Ollison of The Baltimore Sun observes: "Many pop stars ... feel they have no choice but to seek vocal enhancement. Since the advent of MTV and other video music channels, pop audiences have been fed elaborate videos thick with jaw-dropping effects, awesome choreography, fabulous clothes, marvelous bodies. And the same level of perfection is expected to extend beyond the video set to the concert stage. So if Britney Spears, Janet Jackson or Madonna sounds shrill and flat without a backing track, fans won't pay up to $300 for a concert ticket." Giddins adds, "it was reported Britney Spears fans prefer her to lip-sync—despite her denials of doing so (contradicted by her own director)—because they expect flawless digitalization when they pay serious money for a concert." Noting on the prevalence of lip-syncing, Los Angeles Daily News reported "in the context of a Britney Spears concert, does it really matter? Like a Vegas revue show, you don't go to hear the music, you go for the somewhat-ridiculous spectacle of it all". Similarly, Aline Mendelsohn of the Orlando Sentinel remarked: "Let's get one thing straight: A Britney Spears concert is not about the music ... you have to remember that it's about the sight, not the sound." Critic Glenn Gamboa comments her concert tours are "like her life—a massive money-making venture designed to play up her talents and distract from her shortcomings with a mix of techno-tinged sex appeal and disco-flavored flash. And, like her life, it is, more or less, a success.

Influences

Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Janet Jackson, in terms of vocals, choreography and stage presence, citing both as influences in her work. She has also named Michael Jackson as a source of inspiration." According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was, you know." In the 2002 book Madonnastyle by Carol Clerk, she is quoted saying: "I have been a huge fan of Madonna since I was a little girl. She's the person that I've really looked up to. I would really, really like to be a legend like Madonna."

Many critics have argued that Spears should not be considered in the same league of talent as Jackson or Madonna. Journalists Erika Montalvo and Jackie Sheppard of the Rocky Mountain Collegian observed "[s]ome may argue that Spears is not only a good recording artist but also an important cultural icon." Joan Anderman of the Boston Globe remarked that "[t]hirteen costume changes in 90 minutes won't bless her with Madonna's intelligence or cultural barometer. An army of cutting-edge R&B; producers won't supply her with Janet Jackson's sense of humor or sincere smile ... Britney's heroes aren't great singers. But they're real singers. Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records, so processed is her voice by digital pitch-shifters and synthesizers."

Reporter Ed Bumgardner commented her transition from teen pop start to adult sex symbol with her third studio album Britney "takes its cues from two other successful performers—Madonna and Janet Jackson—both of whom she brazenly rips off and both of whom, like Spears, are passable singers, at best." Critic Shane Harrison wrote: "From the minimalist thump and "Nasty" feel of "I'm a Slave 4 U" to the scattered quotes in "Boys", [Britney] feels like [Spears's] attempt at 'Control'." The biographers also report "[s]ome observers of popular culture, however, feel that the comparisons between the two artist are meaningless and fail to recognize Madonna's unique contribution: Madonna was never 'just another pop star' whereas Britney can more easily be seen as a standard manufactured pop act." She is listed by the Guinness World Records as having the "Best-selling album by a teenage solo artist" for her debut album ...Baby One More Time which sold over thirteen million copies in the United States. Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "She's also marked for being the best-selling teenage artist. Before she turned 20 in 2001, Spears sold more than 37 million albums worldwide".

Barbara Ellen of The Observer has reported: "Spears is famously one of the 'oldest' teenagers pop has ever produced, almost middle aged in terms of focus and determination. Many 19-year-olds haven't even started working by that age, whereas Britney, a former Mouseketeer, was that most unusual and volatile of American phenomena — a child with a full-time career. While other little girls were putting posters on their walls, Britney was wanting to be the poster on the wall. Whereas other children develop at their own pace, Britney was developing at a pace set by the ferociously competitive American entertainment industry". 'Britney Spears' has been Yahoo!'s most popular search term for the last four consecutive years, seven times in total. Spears was named as Most Searched Person in the Guinness World Records book edition 2007 and 2009. Spears has also become a major influence among many new artists, including Kristinia DeBarge, Lady Gaga, Little Boots, Selena Gomez & The Scene, Pixie Lott and Miley Cyrus who has cited Spears as one of her biggest inspirations and has also referenced Spears in her hit song "Party in the U.S.A.".

Bebo Norman wrote a song about Spears, called "Britney", which was released as a single. Boy band Busted also wrote a song about Spears called "Britney", which was on their debut album. She is also mentioned in P!nk's song "Don't Let Me Get Me". Richard Cheese called Britney Spears "a remarkable recording artist" and also went on to say that she was "versatile" and what the industry calls an "artist". People magazine and MTV reported that October 1, 2008, the Bronx's John Philip Sousa Middle School, named their music studio in honor of Britney Spears. Spears herself was present during the ceremony and donated $10,000 to the school's music program.

Discography

...Baby One More Time (1999)

Oops!... I Did It Again (2000)

Britney (2001)

In the Zone (2003)

Blackout (2007)

Circus (2008)

Awards and nominations

See also

Britney Spears filmography

Britney Spears products

List of Britney Spears tours

List of Britney Spears songs

List of best-selling music artists

List of best selling music artists in the United States

List of honorific titles in popular music

Notes

References

Further reading

Dennis, Steve (2009). Britney: Inside the Dream. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0007317516.

Peters, Beth (1999). True Brit: The Story of Singing Sensation Britney Spears. Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0345436870.

Spears, Britney (2000). Britney Spears's Heart to Heart. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0609807019.

Scott, Kieran (2001). I was a Mouseketeer!. Disney Press. ISBN 978-0786844708.

Stevens, Amanda (2001). Britney Spears: the illustrated story. Billboard Books. ISBN 978-0823078677.

Smith, Sean (2006). Britney The Unauthorized Biography of Britney Spears. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 978-0330440776.

External links

Category:1981 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Actors from Louisiana Category:American child singers Category:American dance musicians Category:American dancers Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American music video directors Category:American pop singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:Baptists from the United States Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Innosense members Category:Jive Records artists Category:Living people Category:Mouseketeers Category:Musicians from Louisiana Category:Parklane Academy alumni Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Kentwood, Louisiana Category:Sony BMG artists Category:World Music Awards winners Category:American people of Maltese descent

Name	Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
Background	group_or_band
Alias	B.O.N.E. Enterprise
Origin	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Genre	Midwest hip hop, gangsta rap, melodic hip hop, hip hop soul
Years active	1991–present
Label	Ruthless, BTNH Worldwide,Full Surface, Geffen
Associated acts	Eazy-E, Bone Brothers, Mo Thugs Family, II Tru, Twista, Poetic Hustla'z, DJ U-Neek, 2Pac, Biggie
Current members	Krayzie BoneLayzie BoneWish BoneFlesh-n-BoneBizzy Bone
Url	www.bonethugsnharmony.com

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony is a hip hop music group, formed in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., in 1991. It consists of rappers Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone, Flesh-n-Bone, Layzie Bone, and Bizzy Bone. Rapper Eazy-E of the group N.W.A signed Bone Thugs-n-Harmony to Ruthless Records in 1994, when Bone Thugs debuted with EP Creepin on ah Come Up. That EP included the hit single "Thuggish Ruggish Bone."

In 1995, the group released its second album, E. 1999 Eternal, which included hits "1st of tha Month" and "Tha Crossroads." A tribute to the recently deceased Eazy-E, "Tha Crossroads," won a Grammy award in 1997. The Art of War, the group's third album, was also released in 1997.

Bone Thugs released two more albums that did not generate as much hype: BTNHResurrection (2000) and Thug World Order (2002). The group went on hiatus and returned in 2007 with Strength & Loyalty, this time released by Swizz Beatz's label Full Surface Records. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony officially returned with their new album , released in 2010 by their own record label, BTNH Worldwide, with distribution by Warner Bros.

Early years

Formed in 1991, the group consisted of only four members: Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone and Wish Bone, and the group was originally called B.O.N.E Enterprise. Their first album, Faces of Death, was recorded in 1993. With new member and Layzie's brother, Flesh-n-Bone who was a member of the Crips, added the same year, the group renamed itself Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. In November 1993, the group auditioned backstage for rapper Eazy-E, who was performing in Cleveland with his father. After a second audition, Eazy-E signed the group to his label Ruthless Records.

Ruthless Records

Creepin on ah Come Up

Released in June 1994, the EP Creepin on ah Come Up, was Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's debut with Ruthless. Peaking at #12 on the Billboard 200 album chart and #2 on the Top R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart, it included the hit singles "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" and "Foe tha Love of $", the second of which featured a verse by Eazy-E. "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #2 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart, and "Foe tha Love of $" peaked at #41 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the Rap Tracks.

E. 1999 Eternal

In 1995, the group's second album E. 1999 Eternal was released. It included the singles "1st of tha Month", which peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the Hot Rap Tracks, and "Tha Crossroads", which reached #1 on the Hot 100 and Hot Rap Tracks charts. The album name originated from Eazy-E's album, Eternal E, naming it after Eazy-E's album was just another way of showing respect and tribute to the rapper that helped make them big. In the same year, Flesh-n-Bone would become the first member of the group to release a debut album entitled T.H.U.G.S.

The Art of War

In 1997, the group released the double-disc set The Art of War. The single "Look into My Eyes" appeared on the soundtrack of the film Batman & Robin. It peaked at #4 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart. Pleading guilty, Flesh-n-Bone was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Bizzy Bone abstained from promoting BTNHResurrection because he felt that Ruthless Records owed him money. He dropped a million-dollar lawsuit he filed against Sony Music and Loud Records in exchange for a termination of his Sony contract. Three members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony released solo albums in 2001: Bizzy Bone with The Gift, Layzie Bone with Thug by Nature, and Krayzie Bone with Thug on da Line.

Thug World Order

In 2002, the group released Thug World Order. The album debuted at #12 on the Billboard 200,

After Ruthless

Thug Stories

Thug Stories, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's sixth album, was recorded on Koch Records and released on September 19, 2006. It marked the first time Bone Thugs-n-Harmony recorded as a trio. Thug Stories sold 38,000 in its first week and peaked at #25 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Independent Album Chart.

Strength & Loyalty

Originally to be called The Bone Thugs Story, Strength & Loyalty was released on May 8, 2007. Being their first major album after an absence of nearly five years, the album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on iTunes and the Billboard Urban Music charts. The album contains guest appearances by Mariah Carey, The Game, will.i.am, Akon, Twista, Bow Wow, Yolanda Adams, and Felecia.

Producers on the album included Swizz Beatz, Akon, Pretty Boy & Bradd Young, DJ Toomp, Jermaine Dupri, will.i.am, and others. The executive producer of the album was Swizz Beatz. The first single was "I Tried", which was their first top 10 hit in 10 years, having peaked at number 6 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The second single was "Lil Love", which failed to reach the success of their first single. The album has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

T.H.U.G.S.

T.H.U.G.S. is an album featuring previously unreleased, largely remixed Bone Thugs-n-Harmony songs that didn't make the final cut of BTNHResurrection and Thug World Order albums. It was released on November 13, 2007 by their former record label, Ruthless Records. The sole single off the album was "Young Thugs", which was accompanied by a newly-filmed music video featuring Krayzie, Layzie, Bizzy and Wish.

I Tried (The Bone Thugs Movie)

Bone has also released a movie titled I Tried(directed by Rich Newey), which was originally named "What If..." The topic of the movie is how different the lives of Krayzie, Layzie and Wish would have been if they had never met Eazy-E. The movie was released in stores on September 25 of 2007. It has since become a platinum selling DVD.

Reunion

In November 2007, Layzie Bone confirmed that he had completed the Bone Brothers III album with Bizzy Bone, spurring speculation of a full Bone reunion. In a video interview, Krayzie Bone stated that they all wanted to reunite but that record label issues may prevent an official reunion. Bizzy Bone had attended a Bone Thugs performance during the time and he and the three then-standing members had a "good conversation".

After nearly a decade of incarceration, Flesh-n-Bone was released from prison on July 13, 2008. In an interview, Bizzy confirmed his return to the group, after them all getting together by the time of Flesh's release.

Uni5: The World's Enemy

video. A third single, "Meet Me in the Sky", was released on March 22. Uni-5: The World's Enemy was released on May 4, 2010.

E.1999 Eternal Tour and New Record Deal

In the fall of 2010, the group went on their E.1999 Eternal Tour, a 36-city tour performing songs from their 1995 album E 1999 Eternal with a live band (without Bizzy). Bone will spend the rest of 2010 recording a new CD for a soon-to-be-disclosed new label deal, writing a book, and developing a film project based on their unique story.

Style and technique

Bone's style and technique can be described as melodic, rapid-fire and aggressive. Their flow is often interwoven at a high-speed, melodic pace or slow, harmonic pace. They also tend to ride the beat that they're rapping over. Sometimes there are very few choruses separating their verses from one another. In the beginning, circa Faces of Death, Bone used a pseudo-Jamaican patois delivery with their trademark style, though they rarely do this now. Bone's subject matter has both spiritual and occult undertones (e.g., "Hell Sent", "Intro", "Mr. Ouija", "Mr. Ouija 2" and "Da Introduction"). At first, their subject matter was almost always exclusively about violence and smoking marijuana. Today, however, their subject matter includes other topics such as urban socio-political issues, their old friend and mentor Eazy-E and religion. Besides minor changes to subject matter and sound, their lyrical style, elocution, and overall methodology remain intact.

Discography

1991: Faces of Death

1994: Creepin on ah Come Up

1995: E. 1999 Eternal

1997: The Art of War

2000: BTNHResurrection

2002: Thug World Order

2006: Thug Stories

2007: Strength & Loyalty

2010:

Awards

References

14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5NFX1CG6z4 (Studio Session of Bizzy Bone unreleased album with Papillon Bandana Destination Ailleurs with Layzie Bone on this project) 15. http://www.amazon.com/Destination-ailleurs-Explicit/dp/B003V9AOHG/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&qid;=1294076131&sr;=8-29

External links

Official website

Official Myspace page

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony's ArtistDirect page

Exclusive Interview in Complex magazine

I Tried Movie

Category:Musical groups from Cleveland, Ohio Category:American hip hop groups Category:Hip hop singers Category:Culture of Cleveland, Ohio Category:Musical groups from Ohio Category:Grammy Award winners Category:E1 Music artists Category:1990s music groups Category:Ruthless Records artists Category:Interscope Records artists Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio

Name	Binary Finary
Background	group_or_band
Birth name	Matt Laws and Stuart Matheson
Origin	United Kingdom
Genre	Epic trance
Years active	1997–present
Url	http://www.binary-finary.com

Binary Finary are a British trance act comprising Matt Laws and Stuart Matheson. They are best known for the dance hit single "1998", especially for the Paul Van Dyk and Gouryella remixes, which charted in many countries. The song was remixed numerous times under the title of the year the remix was produced ("1999" and "2000" etc.), many of which were popular. In the UK, "1998" reached a peak position of #24 in the UK Singles Chart whereas "1999" just missed the Top 10, stalling at #11. This album is available only for download.

Binary Finary are also featured in a Shiny Toy Guns song, When Did This Storm Begin?

On New Years Eve 2009/2010 at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, they launched the 'Binary Finary LIVE' show, using original material and re-makes of classic dance tracks.

On 26th April 2010, Binary Finary re-released a '2010' remix package of their track '1998' through Armada Music.

References

External links

Official Binary Finary website

Official Facebook site

Official Binary Finary Twitter site

Official Binary Finary Myspace site

TranceSound interview, June 2010

TranceSound interview, December 2006

Category:British trance music groups Category:British electronic music groups Category:1990s music groups Category:Electronic music duos Category:Armada Music artists